{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_78025/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_78025","id":"gutenberg_78025","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78025","summary":null,"tags":["American literature -- History and criticism","Philosophy, American","United States -- Civilization","United States -- Intellectual life","United States -- Politics and government","United States -- Religion"],"text":"Main Currents in\n American Thought\n\n AN INTERPRETATION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE\n FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO 1920\n\n\n _Vernon Louis Parrington_\n\n\n VOLUME ONE \u2022 1620-1800\n The Colonial Mind\n\n VOLUME TWO \u2022 1800-1860\n The Romantic Revolution in America\n\n VOLUME THREE \u2022 1860-1920\n The Beginnings of Critical Realism\n in America\n\n\n HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1927, 1930, BY\n HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.\n\n _All rights reserved, including\n the right to reproduce this book\n or portions thereof in any form._\n\n\n PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n TO THE MEMORY\n OF\n J. ALLEN SMITH\n\n SCHOLAR TEACHER DEMOCRAT GENTLEMAN\n\n _Omnium Amicus erat\n qui\n Justiciam ament._\n\n\n\n\nForeword\n\n\nIt is with a certain feeling of temerity that I offer the present\nstudy of a field of American letters which has been pretty largely\nneglected. That feeling springs from no sense of the slightness of the\nmaterials treated of, or their remoteness from present-day interests.\nTo one who has dwelt for any length of time amidst the polemics of\ncolonial debate, a conviction of the greatness of the issues and the\nintellectual honesty and masculine vigor of the disputants, comes\nhome with compelling force. The subjects with which they dealt are\nold-fashioned only in manner and dress; at heart they were much the\nsame themes with which we are engaged, and with which our children\nwill be engaged after us. The feeling springs rather from a sense\nof the complexity and many-sidedness of the materials, with their\nramifications into theology and politics and economics, and with\nbackgrounds that conduct to remote origins in European systems of\nthought; and it is quickened by the realization that the interpretation\nhere offered, runs in many points counter to that frequently given.\nThe point of view from which I have endeavored to evaluate the\nmaterials, is liberal rather than conservative, Jeffersonian rather\nthan Federalistic; and very likely in my search I have found what I\nwent forth to find, as others have discovered what they were seeking.\nUnfortunately the _mens aequa et clara_ is the rarest of attributes,\nand dead partisanships have a disconcerting way of coming to life\nagain in the pages of their historians. That the vigorous passions and\nprejudices of the times I have dealt with may have found an echo in my\njudgments is, perhaps, to be expected; whether they have distorted my\ninterpretation and vitiated my analysis is not for me to determine.\n\nOf the present volume portions of Book One have already appeared\nin a much abbreviated form in the _Cambridge History of American\nLiterature_, and certain passages of Book Three have appeared in\n_Selections from the Connecticut Wits_, of the _American Authors\nSeries_; and I am indebted to the courtesy of G. P. Putnam\u2019s Sons and\nof Harcourt, Brace and Company for the privilege of reprinting them\nhere. My obligations to many students are too great to be adequately\nacknowledged in a few words; they appear at large in the footnotes. I\nfind myself especially indebted to the critical historians who for the\npast score of years have been working with such fruitful results in the\nRevolutionary and Constitutional periods of our development. Without\nthe assistance of their searching investigations the difficulties\nin the way of understanding those complex times would have proved\ninsuperable. To the sane and acute scholarship of my friend and\ncolleague, Prof. Edward McMahon, and to the generous counsel and\nencouragement of the late Prof. J. Allen Smith, I am under particular\nobligations; but in those instances in which I may unwittingly have\ngone astray, the fault is mine. In a study dealing with so long a\nperiod of time and with such diverse and difficult fields, I can\nscarcely hope to have escaped the many traps laid for the unwary.\nPerhaps I should add that the seeming neglect, in the present volume,\nof southern backgrounds, has resulted from the desire to postpone the\ndetailed consideration of the mind of the South to a later volume.\n\n V. L. P.\n\n_Seattle, January 1, 1926_\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction [to Volume One: The Colonial Mind]\n\n\nI have undertaken to give some account of the genesis and development\nin American letters of certain germinal ideas that have come to be\nreckoned traditionally American--how they came into being here, how\nthey were opposed, and what influence they have exerted in determining\nthe form and scope of our characteristic ideals and institutions. In\npursuing such a task, I have chosen to follow the broad path of our\npolitical, economic, and social development, rather than the narrower\nbelletristic; and the main divisions of the study have been fixed by\nforces that are anterior to literary schools and movements, creating\nthe body of ideas from which literary culture eventually springs. The\npresent volume carries the account from early beginnings in Puritan\nNew England to the triumph of Jefferson and back-country agrarianism.\nVolume II concerns itself with the creative influence in America of\nFrench romantic theories, the rise of capitalism, and the transition\nfrom an agricultural to an industrial order; and Volume III will\nconcern itself with the beginnings of dissatisfaction with the regnant\nmiddle class, and the several movements of criticism inspired by its\nreputed shortcomings.\n\nSuch a study will necessarily deal much with intellectual backgrounds,\nand especially with those diverse systems of European thought that\nfrom generation to generation have domesticated themselves in\nAmerica, and through cross-fertilization with native aspirations and\nindigenous growths, have resulted in a body of ideals that we reckon\ndefinitively American. In broad outline those germinal contributions\nwere the bequests successively of English Independency, of French\nromantic theory, of the industrial revolution and _laissez faire_,\nof nineteenth-century science, and of Continental theories of\ncollectivism. Transplanted to American soil, these vigorous seedlings\nfrom old-world nurseries took root and flourished in such spots as\nproved congenial, stimulating American thought, suggesting programs\nfor fresh Utopian ventures, providing an intellectual sanction for new\nexperiments in government. Profoundly liberalizing in their influence,\nthey gave impulse and form to our native idealisms, and contributed\nlargely to the outcome of our social experience. The child of two\ncontinents, America can be explained in its significant traits by\nneither alone.\n\nIn the present volume, I have examined with some care the bequests of\nseventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe to the colonial settlements,\nand in particular the transplanting to America of old-world\nliberalisms. In the main those liberalisms derived from two primary\nsources, English Independency and French romantic theory, supplemented\nby certain contributions from English Whiggery. From the first came\nthe revolutionary doctrine of natural rights, clarified by a notable\nsuccession of thinkers from Roger Williams to John Locke, a doctrine\nthat destroyed the philosophical sanction of divine right, substituted\nfor the traditional absolutism the conception of a democratic church in\na democratic state, and found exemplification in the commonwealths of\nRhode Island and Connecticut. But unfortunately the liberal doctrine\nof natural rights was entangled in New England with an absolutist\ntheology that conceived of human nature as inherently evil, that\npostulated a divine sovereignty absolute and arbitrary, and projected\ncaste divisions into eternity--a body of dogmas that it needed two\nhundred years\u2019 experience in America to disintegrate. From this clash\nbetween a liberal political philosophy and a reactionary theology,\nbetween English Independency and English Presbyterianism, sprang the\nbroad features of the struggle that largely determined the course of\ndevelopment in early New England, with which Book One is concerned.\n\nBook Two deals with new beginnings from the raw materials of European\nimmigrants, in other colonies than New England, who came hither singly\nand unorganized, and took immediate imprint from the new environment,\ncreating during the eighteenth century the great body of yeomanry that\nwas to determine in large measure the fate of America for a hundred\nyears or more. It was to these scattered and undistinguished colonials\nthat French romantic theory was brought by a group of intellectuals\nin the later years of the century, a philosophy so congenial to a\ndecentralized society that it seemed to provide an authoritative\nsanction for the clarifying ideals of a republican order, based on the\nprinciple of local home rule, toward which colonial experience was\ndriving. Exploring the equalitarian premises of the doctrine of natural\nrights, it amplified the emerging democratic theory by substituting\nfor the Puritan conception of human nature as vicious, the conception\nof human nature as potentially excellent and capable of indefinite\ndevelopment. It asserted that the present evils of society are the\nconsequence of vicious institutions rather than of depraved human\nnature; and that as free men and equals it is the right and duty of\ncitizens to re-create social and political institutions to the end that\nthey shall further social justice, encouraging the good in men rather\nthan perverting them to evil. Romantic theory went further and provided\na new economics and a new sociology. Since the great desideratum is\nman in a state of nature, it follows, according to the Physiocratic\nschool, that the farmer is the ideal citizen, and agriculture the\ncommon and single source of wealth; and that in consequence the state\nshould hold the tillers of the soil in special regard, shaping the\npublic policy with a primary view to their interests. And since social\ncustom is anterior to statutory laws, since the individual precedes\nthe state, government must be circumscribed in its powers and scope by\ncommon agreement, and held strictly to its sole concern, the care of\nthe social well-being. The political state, rightly conceived, must\nbe reckoned no other than a great public-service corporation, with\ngovernment as its responsible agent.\n\nBut while French romantic theory was spreading widely through the\nbackwoods of America, providing an intellectual justification for\nthe native agrarianism, another philosophy, derived from English\nliberalism of the later eighteenth century, was taking possession of\nthe commercial towns. Realistic and material rather than romantic and\nUtopian, it was implicitly hostile to all the major premises and ideals\nof the French school. It conceived of human nature neither as good nor\nbad, but as acquisitive; and it proposed to erect a new social and\npolitical philosophy in accordance with the needs of a capitalistic\norder. It was concerned with exploitation and the rights of trade,\nrather than with justice and the rights of man. Its aspirations were\nexpressed in the principle of _laissez faire_, and in elaborating this\ncardinal doctrine it reduced the citizen to the narrow dimensions of\nthe economic man, concerned only with buying in the cheapest market\nand selling in the dearest. It would reduce the political state to the\nr\u00f4le of policeman, to keep the peace. With humanitarian and social\ninterests, the state must not intermeddle--such functions lie outside\nits legitimate sphere. An expression of the aspirations of trading and\nspeculating classes, it professed to believe that economic law--by\nwhich term it glorified the spontaneous play of the acquisitive\ninstinct--was competent to regulate men in society, and that if freedom\nof trade were achieved, all lesser and secondary freedoms would follow.\n\nIn the light of such over-seas bequests to the American venture, the\nchoice of materials for the present volume is predetermined. The\nline of liberalism in colonial America runs through Roger Williams,\nBenjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. The first transported to\nthe new world the plentiful liberalisms of a great movement and a\ngreat century; the second gathered up the sum of native liberalisms\nthat had emerged spontaneously from a decentralized society; and the\nthird enriched these native liberalisms with borrowings from the late\nseventeenth-century natural-rights school and from French romantic\ntheory, engrafting them upon the vigorous American stock. Over against\nthese protagonists of liberalism must be set the complementary figures\nof John Cotton, Jonathan Edwards, and Alexander Hamilton, men whose\ngrandiose dreams envisaged different ends for America and who followed\ndifferent paths. The Carolinian Seeker and the Jacobean theocrat,\nthe colonial democrat and the colonial Calvinist, the Physiocratic\nrepublican and the capitalistic financier, embody in concrete form the\ndiverse tendencies of primitive America; and around these major figures\nlesser ones will group themselves, parties to the great struggle of\nthose early years, the eventual outcome of which was the rejection of\nthe principles of monarchy and aristocracy, and the venturing upon an\nexperiment in republicanism continental in scope.\n\nThat our colonial literature seems to many readers meager and\nuninteresting, that it is commonly squeezed into the skimpiest of\nchapters in our handbooks of American literature, is due, I think, to\nan exaggerated regard for esthetic values. Our literary historians\nhave labored under too heavy a handicap of the genteel tradition--to\nborrow Professor Santayana\u2019s happy phrase--to enter sympathetically\ninto a world of masculine intellects and material struggles. They have\nsought daintier fare than polemics, and in consequence mediocre verse\nhas obscured political speculation, and poetasters have shouldered\naside vigorous creative thinkers. The colonial period is meager\nand lean only to those whose \u201cdisedged appetites\u201d find no savor in\nold-fashioned beef and puddings. The seventeenth century in America\nas well as in England was a _saeculum theologicum_, and the eighteenth\ncentury was a _saeculum politicum_. No other path leads so directly\nand intimately into the heart of those old days as the thorny path\nof their theological and political controversies; and if one will\nresolutely pick his way amongst the thorns, he will have his reward\nin coming close to the men who debated earnestly over the plans and\nspecifications of the Utopia that was to be erected in the free spaces\nof America, and who however wanting they may have been in the lesser\narts, were no mean architects and craftsmen for the business at hand.\nThe foundations of a later America were laid in vigorous polemics, and\nthe rough stone was plentifully mortared with idealism. To enter once\nmore into the spirit of those fine old idealisms, and to learn that the\npromise of the future has lain always in the keeping of liberal minds\nthat were never discouraged from their dreams, is scarcely a profitless\nundertaking, nor without meaning to those who like Merlin pursue the\nlight of their hopes where it flickers above the treacherous marshlands.\n\n\n\n\n Contents [Volume One]\n\n\n Introduction: The theme stated; part played by European\n intellectual movements; influence in colonial America of old-world\n liberalisms--English Independency, French romantic theory; incoming\n of a diverse philosophy--English _laissez faire_; significance of\n theology and politics in colonial America iii\n\n\n Book I: Liberalism and Puritanism\n\n New England a product of old-world custom and institutions,\n modified by new-world environment. Emergence of two classes:\n yeomanry, gentry; and two ideals: Puritan and Yankee 3\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Puritan Heritage--1620-1660\n\n I. English Backgrounds\n\n I. Carolinian liberalism an attempt to create a new social system\n to replace the feudal, resulting in the doctrine of natural\n rights, democracy, and equalitarianism. The result of changing\n economics. Puritanism primarily middle-class. Types of church\n polity--monarchical, aristocratic, democratic. Separatism the left\n wing of Puritanism 5\n\n II. Diverse theologies of Luther and Calvin. Reactionary nature of\n Calvinism: established in absolutism--universality of moral law,\n determinism, reprobation--denial of natural rights 11\n\n II. The Transplanting of Ideas\n\n I. The settlement of New England came in the middle period of the\n Puritan movement. Pilgrim and Puritan 16\n\n II. The Puritan Presbyterian: Social station--aristocratic, yet\n with middle-class ambitions. Hostility to ideal of Separatism.\n Sanctions of the oligarchy, of the theocracy. A Utopian venture 17\n\n III. Certain Mistakes: The Plymouth covenant-principle--stages in\n the nullification of the Separatist principle: the fellowship of\n the churches; statutes erecting a state church; the climax reached\n in the Cambridge Platform. The adoption of a freehold tenure of\n land. Webster\u2019s interpretation 22\n\n III. The Chief Stewards of Theocracy\n\n I. Master John Cotton--Priest: Representative of priestly\n stewardship. Scholar and intellectual. Doctrine of an ethical\n aristocracy and carnal liberty. A scripturist, seeking to check\n the drift towards democracy. His _Model of Moses his Judicials_.\n Rejection of natural rights, of hereditary aristocracy. _The\n Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared._ Debate with Roger\n Williams--freedom to follow the law of God 27\n\n II. John Winthrop--Magistrate: Lay representative of theocracy. A\n cultivated gentleman. Reasons for removal. Influence of the Bible.\n His leadership; conception of magistracy ennobled by Puritanism.\n Implied absolutism--political philosophy. Struggle with the\n deputies; distrust of democracy. Absolute authority of law--the\n Little Speech. Liberty to the good, just, and honest.\n Consequences 38\n\n IV. The Contributions of Independency\n\n I. The clash between Presbyterianism and Independency--the right\n of individual freedom. Liberal leaders--Hooker, Williams. Two\n commonwealths--Connecticut, Rhode Island 51\n\n II. Thomas Hooker--Puritan Liberal: A moderate. Sprung from low\n social origins. As a preacher in England; removal to Hartford.\n Democratic order of the commonwealth due to Hooker. His _Survey of\n the Summe of Church Discipline_ 53\n\n III. Roger Williams--Seeker: Embodiment of radical Independency,\n and forerunner of later generations. A provocative figure. Stages\n in his intellectual development. A mystic and Christian democrat,\n concerned with a new social order. His political theory: the\n compact theory and theocratic absolutism; conception of the\n state--of government; the compact a constitution, government an\n agent, and the end the common well-being. Theory of toleration. A\n great political thinker. The constitution of Rhode Island 62\n\n V. Other Dreamers in Israel\n\n I. Nathaniel Ward--Elizabethan Puritan: A Puritan wit and belated\n Euphuist. The _Simple Cobler of Aggawam_--a mingling of satire and\n politics. A constitutionalist, pleading for a written compact to\n delimit prerogative and popular rights. His body of law 76\n\n II. John Eliot--A Theocratic Utopia: _The Christian Commonwealth_.\n Ordered to be suppressed. His plan of a Christian state. A rigid\n social order 81\n\n\n Part II\n\n The Twilight of the Oligarchy--1660-1720\n\n The spread of provincialism and the consequences. Formalism in the\n church; superstition. The psychology of the Salem outbreak. The\n muddling of the oligarchy and the end 85\n\n I. Samuel Sewall--Yankee--First representative of the new order.\n The Sewall of tradition; the real Sewall: middle-class, governed\n by a prudential morality. Uncreative, conservative, conventional.\n The other side--generous, kindly, the first embodiment of village\n friendliness 88\n\n II. The Mather Dynasty\n\n I. Difficulties involved in attempting an estimate. Certain Harvard\n contributions 98\n\n II. Increase Mather: An arch conservative, bred by a conservative\n environment. His sympathy for the Genevan system; attempts\n to strengthen discipline; steps in his Presbyterianizing.\n Intolerant--his biographer quoted. Unread in political\n theory--dictatorial. As agent at the English court. His bitterness.\n Not a great Puritan--compared with Samuel Hopkins. His _Illustrious\n Providences_--not scientific. The last of the New England\n Presbyterians 99\n\n III. Cotton Mather: Victim of a provincial environment. Subject\n for a psychologist. His egoism; his quarrels. The _Diary_. His\n venture into politics. A natural Tory. His writings: _Wonders of\n the Invisible World_; the _Magnalia_. The futility of his dream 106\n\n III. Stirrings of Liberalism\n\n I. John Wise--Village Democrat: Before Dudley; at Quebec.\n Character--a liberal. His _Vindication of the New England\n Churches_--based on the doctrine of natural rights. Defense\n of democratic Congregationalism against the movement to\n Presbyterianize. Comment of Cotton Mather. His contribution to the\n paper-money controversy. His later influence 118\n\n II. Social Drifts: Economic forces--a chasm opening between old\n England and New England. The village and Toryism: Joseph Dudley\n and the carters. First newspapers: _News-Letter_; _New-England\n Courant_; _New-England Weekly Journal_ 125\n\n\n Book II: The Colonial Mind\n\n The middle eighteenth century undistinguished, yet it created the\n individualism that was the source of a new democratic psychology 131\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Mind in the Making--1720-1763\n\n I. Colonial Backgrounds\n\n I. New Stock: Economic motive of immigration. The Scotch-Irish\n influx; indented servants--the Germans; diary of John Harrower 133\n\n II. The frontier--Lubberland: _Journal_ of Madam Knight--frontier\n leveling, poverty. _History of the Dividing Line_, Col. William\n Byrd--the backcountry, lubberland, impatient of law 137\n\n III. The frontier--Land of Promise: _Letters_ of Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur: A\n French Physiocrat; his travels in America; first interpretation\n of the influence of the frontier in economic terms--_Ubi panis\n ibi patria_; a new type; influence of the middle settlements,\n the frontier. _More Letters_: Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur the Loyalist--dislike of\n American Whiggery 140\n\n II. The Anachronism of Jonathan Edwards\n\n I. Backgrounds: Decay of Calvinism; beginnings of rationalism. A\n free environment and the dogmas of total depravity and election.\n The major question of determinism 148\n\n II. Edwards a Puritan mystic. Sought to establish theology\n in philosophy. Idealistic philosophy. Desire to magnify\n God--interpreted in terms of will. Defended threatened dogmas. _On\n the Freedom of the Will_--the triumph of the theologian. _Narrative\n of the Surprizing Works of God_ and the psychology of conversion.\n The Great Awakening. Father of later Congregationalism. The tragedy\n of his position 152\n\n III. Benjamin Franklin--Our First Ambassador--A Democrat in an\n aristocratic world. A free soul; product of environment. Compared\n with Defoe. His rise. Enters politics. Agent in England. Corruption\n of English politics. A sociologist; our first economist. Economic\n theories: _A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a\n Paper Currency._ Labor the measure of value. Accepted Physiocratic\n views: _laissez faire_, agrarianism. Distrust of industrialism.\n _Principles of Trade._ Political views: imperial federation,\n Whiggery. In the Constitutional Convention--a unicameral system. A\n child of the eighteenth century 164\n\n\n Part II\n\n The Awakening of the American Mind--1763-1783\n\n I. Imperial Sovereignty and Home Rule\n\n I. Background Facts: Causes of the Revolution obscure. Home rule\n and imperial centralization. Native liberalism. Three areas and\n three diverse interests. The imperial problem. Grievances of\n merchants, planters, yeomanry 179\n\n II. Argument and Propaganda: American case based on the British\n Constitution; on natural rights. Theories of representation,\n English and colonial. Powers of Parliament. Natural rights and\n Locke--reasons for his appeal 186\n\n III. Certain Social Consequences: Emergence of republicanism.\n Attitude of upper class. Expulsion of Loyalists. Influence on\n American culture. Rise of middle class; political centralization 190\n\n II. The Mind of the American Tory\n\n I. Thomas Hutchinson--Royal Governor: The House of Hutchinson.\n Character and intellectual attainments. Insincerity of the Tory\n philosophy. Situation on his accession to the governorship.\n Prerogative and democracy. Proposals for remodeling Massachusetts\n government. The Town Meeting. Affair of the letters. The problem of\n sovereignty. Government by ministerial instructions. Comment on his\n enemies. His failure 194\n\n II. Daniel Leonard--Tory Lawyer: Character. _Massachusettensis._ A\n follower of Hobbes--the leviathan state. The sin of rebellion and\n the law of treason. Groundlessness of American sedition--the virus\n of republicanism. On the right of revolution 207\n\n III. Jonathan Boucher--Tory Priest: Character. _A View of the\n Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution._ Influence\n of Filmer\u2019s _Patriarcha_. Doctrine of obedience. Evil effects of\n republicanism. Government a divine institution--the patriarchal\n nature of kingship. An extreme Tory 214\n\n III. John Dickinson--The Mind of the American Whig--A\n moderate--spokesman of the colonial Whigs. Essence of Whiggery--the\n rule of property. His social position; conception of political\n stewardship. A constitutional lawyer. Accepted parliamentary\n sovereignty, right to regulate trade. Taxation and Whiggery--a tax\n and an imposition. Not a republican. His _Two Letters on the Tea\n Tax_. In the Constitutional Convention. _Letters of Fabius._ His\n views old-fashioned 219\n\n IV. Samuel Adams--The Mind of the American Democrat--An agitator\n and practical politician. Member of the opposition. Advocate\n of home rule. Understood the ways of Tory government. Master\n of political theory. Three lines of argument: natural rights,\n constitutional rights, the charter compact. Influence of Locke, of\n Coke. Reliance on public opinion. Use of publicity, organization,\n town meetings. Newspaper articles. Motive of attacks on royal\n officials. Faith in the people. A democrat. The cost in reputation 233\n\n V. Literary Echoes\n\n I. The Whig Satirists\n\n 1. John Trumbull: A lover of _belles lettres_ drawn into the\n strife. _M\u2019Fingal._ The note of humor. A potential intellectual;\n a moderate liberal. An echo of Connecticut opinion 248\n\n 2. Francis Hopkinson, Esq.: The state of Philadelphia culture.\n A dilettante. A potential Tory turned Whig. _The New Roof;\n Objections to the Proposed Plan of a Federal Government._\n A Federalist 252\n\n II. The Tory Satirists\n\n 1. Jonathan Odell: A bitter nature. His satires--an embodiment\n of class prejudice. _The American Times._ Estimate of Whig\n leaders 255\n\n 2. Samuel Peters: His curious ambition. His _History\n of Connecticut_. Explanation of the cause of the\n Revolution--ministerial neglect. The cure--establishment of a\n colonial aristocracy 259\n\n\n Book III: Liberalism and the Constitution\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Agrarian Defeat--1783-1787\n\n I. Agrarianism and Capitalism\n\n I. Background of Ideas--English and French contributions. The\n struggle between political realists and humanitarian liberals.\n Influence of English middle class. Puritan ethics of work and\n capitalism. Attitude towards current liberalisms--the state.\n Influence of Harrington, Locke, Adam Smith. The new individualism.\n Rousseau and French humanitarianism--decentralization and the\n paternalistic state. Reasons why English influence prevailed 267\n\n II. The Political Situation: Party alignments. Weakness of\n agrarians. The composite group of Federalists. Odium attaching\n to democracy--confused with Populism. Shays\u2019s Rebellion.\n Reaction from natural rights to economic realism. The return to\n seventeenth-century republicanism 273\n\n II. The Great Debate--Inadequate theory of republicanism. Earlier\n English liberalism undemocratic. Democratic theory undeveloped.\n First debate: republicanism and the majority rule--Madison\u2019s view;\n the Whig doctrine of property rule. Second debate: opposition\n to checks on majority will. _The Federalist_--its repute, the\n augmented state, theory of faction, economic basis of government.\n _Letters_ of R. H. Lee--analysis of economic conditions, the\n Constitution undemocratic. Emergence of parties 279\n\n III. Political Thinkers--The English Group\n\n I. Alexander Hamilton--The Leviathan State: Representative of\n conservative interests. A master of finance, administrator rather\n than thinker. Inadequate intellectual equipment. A political\n realist: men are swayed by self-interest; the rule of the strong.\n Undemocratic. The doctrine of _vox justiciae_. His plan of\n government--the fallacy of his argument. As a statesman: necessity\n of allying the wealthy with government: position on funding,\n taxation, the tariff, the industrial revolution. Statesman of the\n rising capitalism 292\n\n II. John Adams--Realist: Compared with Dr. Johnson--apostle of\n common sense. Shift from earlier position. Intellectual qualities.\n His early constitutionalism--a federated British empire. _A\n Defense of the Constitution of Government_, and _Discourses on\n Davila_. Opposition aroused by latter. His political philosophy:\n theory of human nature, doctrine of rivalry, the class struggle,\n natural aristocracy. Foolishness of French doctrines of equality\n and fraternity. Faction the weakness of democracy--the end anarchy\n or absolutism. The fact of property rule. Hence need for system\n of checks and balances. Sources of his philosophy--Harrington.\n Hostility to Hamilton. A notable political thinker 307\n\n\n Part II\n\n Political Democracy Gets under Way--1787-1800\n\n I. The Impact of the French Revolution--Stirred party passions\n afresh. Popularized democracy in America and provided a body of\n philosophy: doctrines of the majority will, expediency, local\n self-government. Later party divisions. Democratic clubs. The\n _odium theologicum_. Paine\u2019s _Rights of Man_ and J. Q. Adams\u2019s\n _Publicola_. The shift of positions 321\n\n II. Political Thinkers--The French Group\n\n I. Tom Paine--Republican Pamphleteer: An internationalist. Odium\n attaching to his name. A social inefficient. _Common Sense_--appeal\n to expediency; attack on monarchy and the British Constitution.\n Political philosophy: doctrine of continuous compact, of the _res\n publica_. _The Rights of Man_--a reply to Burke\u2019s theory of civil\n contract and the expediency of aristocratic rule. The business\n of the revolution. _Agrarian Justice_: civilization and poverty;\n relation to Babeuf; theory of unearned increment; a tax proposal.\n _Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance_--an attack on\n funding. A pacifist. Sources of his philosophy. His position in\n contemporary American opinion 327\n\n II. Thomas Jefferson--Agrarian Democrat: Position. His\n inconsistencies due to a slowly clarifying philosophy. An\n intellectual, holding to American experience. Chief doctrines:\n the social compact, the _res publica_, the diminished state--a\n philosophy of decentralization. Belief in the excellence of an\n agrarian economy--a Physiocrat; fear of cities and industrialism.\n Suspicious of appeal to past experience: the evils of the past\n due to leviathan state; consolidation would repeat those evils\n in America. Excellence of home rule; the majority will. Fear of\n judicial encroachment, the Common Law. Class rule serves class\n interests. Faith in the common people. The industrial revolution\n and a new centralization 342\n\n III. The War of Belles Lettres\n\n I. The Federalist Group 357\n\n 1. The Hartford Wits: Arch conservatives. Sources of Connecticut\n Federalism--Calvinism and business. The Connecticut fear of\n democracy. Members of the group. Theodore Dwight. Timothy\n Dwight--his contemporary reputation, likeness to Increase Mather,\n a clerical Federalist. His literary work 357\n\n 2. _The Anarchiad_: Political writings of the Wits. Character of\n Lemuel Hopkins. The theme of the work--an attack on populism and\n democracy 363\n\n II. The French Group 367\n\n 1. Philip Freneau--Poet of Two Revolutions: A revolutionary\n volunteer--effect on his reputation. A radical advocate of all\n liberal movements. Effect on his poetic career. Spirit of his\n satire--attack on England. His desire to strip colonial loyalties\n from the American. Influence on Freneau of the French Revolution.\n _The National Gazette_--a leader of anti-Federalism. The\n consequences. His growing reputation 368\n\n 2. Joel Barlow--Jacobin: Early career: his experience abroad and\n his adoption of Jacobin views. Cost to his reputation. _Advice\n to the Privileged Orders_: the doctrine of _res publica_; social\n responsibility for the individual. _Letter to the National\n Convention of France_, and the machinery of a democratic state.\n _The Columbiad_--a republican poem 382\n\n 3. Hugh Henry Brackenridge--Free-Lance Democrat: An independent\n critic of the shortcomings of democracy. _Modern Chivalry_--a\n frontier book, a satire of current manners. Democracy must not be\n sacrificed to selfish individualism--the folly of the political\n climber and of the electorate. A notable book 390\n\n Conclusion 397\n\n Bibliography 399\n\n Index 405\n\n\n\n\nBook One \u2022 Liberalism and Puritanism\n\n\nCommon report has long made out Puritan New England to have been the\nnative seat and germinal source of such ideals and institutions as\nhave come to be regarded as traditionally American. Any critical study\nof the American mind, therefore, may conveniently seek its beginnings\nin the colonies clustered about Massachusetts Bay, and will inquire\ninto the causes of the pronounced singularity of temper and purpose\nthat marked off the New England settlements from those to the south,\ncreating a distinctive New England character, and disciplining it for\nlater conquests that were to set a stamp on American life. The course\nof its somewhat singular development would seem from the first to have\nbeen determined by an interweaving of idealism and economics--by the\nsubstantial body of thought and customs and institutions brought from\nthe old home, slowly modified by new ways of life developing under the\nsilent pressure of a freer environment. Of these new ways, the first in\ncreative influence was probably the freehold tenure of landholdings,\nput in effect at the beginning and retained unmodified for generations;\nand the second was the development of a mercantile spirit that resulted\nfrom the sterility of the Massachusetts soil, which encouraged the\nambitious to seek wealth in more profitable ways than tilling barren\nacres. From these sources emerged the two chief classes of New England:\nthe yeomanry, a body of democratic freeholders who constituted the\nrank and file of the people, and the gentry, a group of capable\nmerchants who dominated the commonwealth from early days to the\nrise of industrialism. And it was the interweaving of the aims and\npurposes of these acquisitive yeomen and gentry--harmonious for the\nmost part on the surface, yet driving in different directions--with\nthe ideal of a theocracy and the inhibitions of Puritan dogma, that\nconstitutes the pattern of life to be dealt with here. The Puritan\nand the Yankee were the two halves of the New England whole, and to\noverlook or underestimate the contributions of either to the common\nlife is grossly to misinterpret the spirit and character of primitive\nNew England. The Puritan was a contribution of the old world, created\nby the rugged idealism of the English Reformation; the Yankee was a\nproduct of native conditions, created by a practical economics.\n\n\n\n\nPart One: The Puritan Heritage \u2022 1620-1660\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 English Backgrounds\n\n\nI\n\nThe body of thought brought to America by the immigrant Puritans, and\nwhich gave a special cast to the New England mind, may be summed in\na phrase as Carolinian liberalism. It was the confused bequest of a\nhundred years of English idealism, struggling with the knotty problems\nof a complex society in transition from the old static feudal order to\nthe modern capitalistic; and it took a particular form and received a\nnarrow ideology from the current ecclesiastical disputes concerning the\nnature and governance of the true church. It was exclusively a product\nof the Reformation, unleavened by the spirit of the Renaissance. But\nthough English Puritanism was wholly theological in its immediate\norigins, it gathered about it in the century and a half of its militant\ncareer all the forces of unrest fermenting in England. Economics and\npolitics joined hands with theology; the center of gravity of the total\nmovement tended to sink lower in the social scale; and in the end all\nEngland was involved in the great struggle.\n\nIn its deeper purpose Puritanism was a frank challenge of the\ntraditional social solidarity of English institutional life by an\nemergent individualism, and far-reaching social readjustments followed\ninevitably in its train. If the evolution of modern society is\nconceived of as falling into two broad phases, the disintegration of a\ncorporate feudal order into unregimented individual members of society,\nand the struggles of those free individuals to regroup themselves\nin new social commonwealths, the historical significance of English\nPuritanism may perhaps become clear: it was one of the disruptive\nforces that disintegrated the traditional solidarity of church and\nstate by creating a revolutionary philosophy of individual rights that\npurposed to free the individual, both as Christian and subject, from\nsubjection to a fixed corporate status. The sixteenth century had\nannounced the great doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and\nthe seventeenth century was engaged in adapting the forms of social\nand political institutions to that revolutionary principle. It was\nconcerned to discover a new system of social organization that should\nadjust equitably the rights of the individual to the needs of the\npolitical state and to society. To that end the whole theory of the\norigin and functions of the political state must come in for review,\nand a new conception of the rights of the individual subject-citizen\nmust be evolved.\n\nThis is the sufficient explanation of the close interweaving of\ntheology and politics that marked the broadening movement of English\nPuritanism. Unless one keeps in mind the social forces that found it\nconvenient to array themselves in Puritan garb, the clear meaning of it\nall will be lost in the fogs of Biblical disputation, and some of the\nablest men the English race has ever bred will be reduced to crabbed\ntheologians involved in tenuous subtleties and disputing endlessly over\nabsurd dogmas. But tenacious disputants though they certainly were,\npursuing their subtleties into the last refuge and cranny of logic,\nthose Puritan dogmatists were very far from being vain practitioners of\neccentricity. It is the manner and dress and not the matter of their\nargument that is strange; and if we will resolutely translate the old\nphrases into modern equivalents, if we will put aside the theology and\nfasten attention on the politics and the economics of the struggle, we\nshall have less difficulty in discovering that the new principle for\nwhich those old Puritans were groping was the later familiar doctrine\nof natural rights; and the final end and outcome of their concern\nfor a more equitable relation of the individual to society, was the\nprinciple of a democratic commonwealth, established in the conception\nof political equalitarianism. Here are liberalisms in plenty to reward\nthe search for the inner core of Puritanism. There was gunpowder packed\naway in Luther\u2019s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and the\nexplosion that resulted made tremendous breaches in the walls of a\nseemingly impregnable feudalism. An intellectual like Roger Williams,\nwho had thought his way resolutely to the logical outcome of the\nreforming principles, could not fail to be reckoned a firebrand by his\ngeneration. The doctrine of \u201cthorough\u201d was dangerously revolutionary.\n\nIf the economics of England had not been in a state of flux during the\ncentury following the accession of Elizabeth, the Puritan movement\nwould not have moved forward by successive stages to the explosion\nof the Civil War. But because, as later in France, a rising economic\norder was restive under the restrictions of an outworn order, the\nPuritan protest found capable allies at hand, and supported by the\nmoney and arms of the commercial interests, it passed under the control\nof the latter and set about the great business of making England over\nin accordance with the new plans and specifications. On the whole\nit is no mistake to regard the Puritan revolution as primarily a\nrebellion of the capable middle class, whose growing trade interests\ndemanded a larger measure of freedom than a paternal king and a landed\naristocracy were willing to grant; and its significant contributions\nto the modern world were the two systems it did so much to further:\nthe system of capitalism and the system of parliamentary government.\nFrom the Puritan conception of the stewardship of talents came a new\nethic of work that provided a sanction for middle-class exploitation,\nby supplanting the medieval principle of production for consumption\nwith the capitalistic principle of production for profit; and from the\nconception of the dignity of the individual came the sanction for the\nself-pride of the merchant that sustained him in his encounters with a\ndomineering aristocracy. A prosperous merchant who accounted himself\na son of God and who was persuaded that he was fighting for a freer\nEngland was no mean foe to be awed by the rustlings of a Cavalier. The\nLondon burgesses were the backbone of Puritanism in the days before the\nmovement passed into the extremer form of Independency and was taken\nover by the sectarian radicals; and the Presbyterian middle-phase of\nPuritanism spread widely amongst the middle class throughout central\nand southern England. But in unloosing the traditional social bonds\nPuritanism awakened aspirations that in the end proved hostile to the\nmiddle-class program. It created bitter partisan divisions; it set the\nsocial underling and the aristocrat apart from the middle-class core,\nand created those major political parties that have since carried on\nthe parliamentary struggle. Inevitably it sharpened class alignments,\nand the reactions of those alignments vitally affected the development\nof New England. The struggles in Massachusetts can scarcely be\nunderstood unless they are set against the greater struggles then going\nforward in England.\n\nThe three parties that emerged from the theological disputes, Anglican,\nPresbyterian, and Independent, followed, in the main, broad social\ncleavages and corresponded roughly to the later political divisions\nof Tory, Whig, and Democrat. The first stoutly upheld the absolutist\nprinciple in church and state. It stood for Bishop and King. Numbering\nprobably a large majority of the English people, and led by the\nhereditary masters of England, it was dominated by the feudal spirit of\ncorporate unity. It believed that social order, the loyal subjection\nof subject to ruler, was possible only through a coalescence of\nchurch and state. The subject-citizen was born into the one as he\nwas born into the other, and owed allegiance both to his spiritual\nand temporal overlords. Authority, whether in church or state, was\nof divine origin, and Bishop and King were the Lord\u2019s anointed,\nanswerable for their stewardship only to God. The second party was\na compromise between aristocracy and democracy. It substituted the\nprinciple of elective stewardship for divine right. Rejecting the\nabsolutism of the hierarchy, it turned to the system newly brought\nover from Geneva, a system that retained the principle of a state\nchurch, but which yielded control of the parish to the eldership, a\nselect body of the best and wisest chosen by the laity, with final\nauthority in doctrine and discipline vested in the synod. It drew its\nsupport largely from the London burgesses, but with a considerable\nfollowing of country gentlemen. As the party developed it tended to\nmerge with the nascent capitalism, restricted the doctrine of natural\nrights to property rights, and prepared the way for the later Whiggery\nof Pitt, or capitalistic imperialism. The third party was more or\nless consciously democratic in spirit and purpose, the expression of\nthe newly-awakened aspirations of the social underling. Numbers of\nrebellious individualists appeared who wanted to be ruled neither by\nbishop nor elder, but who preferred to club with the like-minded and\nset up an independent church on a local, self-governing basis. They\ntook literally the command of Paul, \u201cCome out from among them, and\nbe ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.\u201d\nThat only was the true church, they asserted, which withdrew from all\ncommunion with sinners and rejected the authority of a sinful state;\nand so they called themselves Separatists.\n\nSeparatism, quite evidently, was the extreme left wing of the total\nPuritan movement, concerned to explore all the logical deductions\nfrom the revolutionary premise of the Reformation. It was the final\nexpression of the disintegrating gospel of individualism implicit\nin the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Its unworldly\nsincerity was as uncompromising as its unworldly scripturism. Not\nfinding sanction for them in the Bible, it rejected the established\necclesiastical authorities, and laid rude hands on the garments of\nMother Church. Counsels of social expediency were accounted as dust in\nthe balance against the explicit commandment of the Lord to separate\nfrom the sins of the world; and clinging to the text of the Scripture\nthe Separatist was led straight to the conception of a Christian\ndemocracy. If the true church was a Congregation of the Saints, and\nif the Saints were equal in the sight of God, why should not the\nprinciple of equality prevail in the rule of the congregation? And\nif it were a brotherhood in Christ, owning allegiance to the King\nof Kings, by what Scriptural right did profane authorities exercise\ncontrol over the tender consciences of the brethren? The autonomy\nof the congregation was a fruitful conception, certain to appeal to\nvigorous natures; and out of the loins of Separatism came a numerous\nand often ungainly progeny that greatly scandalized the conservative\nCarolinian: Anabaptist, Digger, Fifth-Monarchy man, Quaker, Seeker,\nCongregationalist--to name only a few--each following his particular\npath to his divinely sanctioned Utopia, regardless of social ties,\ndenying the worth of social conformity. Imperious individualists, the\nSeparatists were certain to prove an offense to all respectable folk,\nwho demanded in the name of common sense that they be put down.\n\nIt was the doctrines of Separatism, quite as much as the principle\nof the independency of the congregation, that aroused the fierce\nantagonism of Presbyterians equally with Anglicans. In the main those\ndoctrines did not derive from John Calvin; they go back rather to\nWittenberg than to Geneva, to the principles of Luther and certain\nGerman sects. The Anabaptist and the Digger, clearly, were of German\ndescent and of somewhat ancient lineage, offspring of late medieval\ncommunism and other primitive enthusiasms. The Quaker was a mystic,\nsprung from the New Testament, who denied the Scriptural validity of\na Hebraized Calvinism and a hireling priesthood, and accepted the\nHoly Spirit as the sole guide to his feet. The Seeker, on the other\nhand, who may perhaps be regarded as the completest expression of\nPuritan radicalism, was an open-minded questioner who professed to\nhave found no satisfactory answer to his inquiry concerning the nature\nof the true church, and was awaiting further light. The Seekers were\nindividuals rather than a sect, few in numbers yet greatly influential,\nmen like Roger Williams, Sir Harry Vane, Cromwell, and perhaps Milton,\noutstanding figures of a great age, who embodied the final results of\nPuritan idealism before it was submerged by the Restoration.\n\nDuring the long years of rule by divine right under the first Stuarts,\nthe Anglicans held the Puritan unrest in strict control. Nevertheless a\nhundred years of debate and changing economic conditions had rendered\nthe attempt to erect in England a counterpart of the French centralized\nstate, no better than an anachronism. The Presbyterian opposition\ngrew rapidly in numbers and prestige, and the early years of the Long\nParliament marked the culmination of Presbyterian power. The bishops\nwere overthrown and the elders were in a fair way to seize control of\nEngland. But unfortunately for Presbyterian hopes, the radical sects\nthrown up out of the war clashed with the moderates and finally broke\nwith them; whereupon followed the \u201croot and branch\u201d revolution that\nhad been long preparing. The left-wing Independents secured control of\nthe army and set about the work of erecting a government that should\nbe a real commonwealth of free citizens. The voice of the underling,\nfor the first time in English history, was listened to in the national\ncouncils, for the excellent reason that his sword was drawn to enforce\nhis demands. But they were too small a minority to leaven the sodden\nmass of a people long subject to absolutist rule. The psychology of\ncustom was against them. They could strike down their armed enemies in\nthe field, but they could not liberate the minds of men unfit to be\nfree. Militant Puritanism was overthrown and its idealisms became the\njest of every drunken tapster in London. But fortunately, not before\nits political principles, long obscured by theology, were sufficiently\nclarified to be laid open to the common understanding of Englishmen.\nOut of the debates around the camp fires of the army had come a new\nphilosophy that rested on the principle that the individual, both\nas Christian and citizen, derives from nature certain inalienable\nrights which every church and every state is bound to respect. This\nfar-reaching doctrine of natural rights, to the formulation of which\nmany thinkers had contributed and which received later its classic\nform from the pen of Locke, was the suggestive contribution of\nPuritanism to political theory, with the aid of which later liberals\nwere to carry forward the struggle.\n\n\nII\n\nThe far-reaching liberalisms implicit in the rejection of a\nhierarchical organization of the church were to discover no allies in\nthe major premises of the system of theology accepted generally by the\nEnglish Puritans, and by them transported to New England. Calvinism\nwas no friend of equalitarianism. It was rooted too deeply in the Old\nTestament for that, was too rigidly aristocratic. It saw too little\ngood in human nature to trust the multitude of the unregenerate;\nand this lack of faith was to entail grave consequences upon the\ndevelopment of New England. That the immigrant Puritans brought\nin their intellectual luggage the system of Calvin rather than of\nLuther must be reckoned a misfortune, out of which flowed many of the\nbickerings and much of the intolerance that left a stain on the pages\nof early New England history.\n\nTwo divergent systems of theology, it will be remembered, were\nspreading through northern Europe during the years of the Reformation,\nsystems that inevitably differentiated in consequence of certain\nvariations of emphasis in the teachings of Luther and Calvin. Both\nthinkers accepted the adequacy of the Scriptures to all temporal needs,\nbut Luther was at once more mystical and more practical than Calvin,\nderiving his inspiration chiefly from the New Testament, discovering\nthe creative source of the Christian life in the spiritual union\nof the soul with Christ, and inclining to tolerance of differences\nof opinion amongst believers; whereas Calvin was ardently Hebraic,\nexalting righteousness above love, seeking the law in the Old\nTestament and laying emphasis on an authoritarian system. The one\nwas implicitly individualistic, the other hierarchical in creative\ninfluence. The teachings of Luther, erected on the major principle\nof justification by faith, conducted straight to political liberty,\nand he refused to compromise or turn away from pursuing the direct\npath. If one accepts the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers,\none can scarcely refrain from following Luther in his conception of\nChristian liberty. If the mystical union of the soul with Christ has\nsuperseded all lesser loyalties by a higher and more sacred, the\nenjoyment of spiritual freedom must be reckoned the inalienable right\nof every child of God. Neither the political state nor the official\nhierarchy can justly coerce the individual conscience. \u201cOne thing and\none thing only,\u201d said Luther in his _Treatise on Christian Liberty_,\n\u201cis necessary for Christian life, righteousness and liberty.\u201d And\nfrom this he deduced the conclusion that \u201cneither pope nor bishop nor\nany other man has the right to impose a single syllable of law upon a\nChristian man without his consent; and if he does, it is done in the\nspirit of tyranny.\u201d[1] Clearly, this is the spirit of uncompromising\nindividualism that would eventually espouse the principle of democracy\nin church and state; and it was their native sympathy with such\nliberalism that led the radical Separatists to turn more naturally to\nLuther than to Calvin. Many of the differences that set Roger Williams\nso greatly apart from the New England brethren must be traced to the\nLutheran origins of his thinking.\n\nThere was scant room in the rigid system of John Calvin for such\nChristian liberty. The Genevan thinker was a logician rather than\na philosopher, a rigorous system-maker and dogmatist who knotted\nevery argument and tied every strand securely into its fellow, till\nthere was no escape from the net unless one broke through the mesh.\nTo the formalist who demanded an exact system, and to the timid\nwho feared free speculation, the logical consistency of Calvinism\nmade irresistible appeal; and this perhaps suffices to explain its\nextraordinary hold on the rank and file of middle-class English\nPresbyterians. More original minds might break with it--men like\nRichard Hooker and Roger Williams and Vane and Milton--but academic\nthinkers and schoolmen, men whom the free spaces of thought frightened\nand who felt safe only behind secure fences, theologians like John\nCotton and his fellows, made a virtue of necessity and fell to\ndeclaiming on the excellence of those chains wherewith they were bound.\nHow narrow and cold was their prison they seem never to have realized;\nbut that fact only aggravated the misfortunes that New England was to\nsuffer from the spiritual guidance of such teachers. In seeking for\nan explanation of the unhappy union of a reactionary theology and a\nrevolutionary political theory, Harriet Beecher Stowe suggested in\n_Poganuc People_ that the Puritan immigrants were the children of two\ndifferent centuries; that from the sixteenth century they got their\ntheology, and from the seventeenth their politics, with the result that\nan older absolutist dogma snuggled down side by side in their minds\nwith a later democratic conception of the state and society. In England\nthe potential hostility between Calvinist dogma and individual freedom\nwas perceived by the more liberal Separatists, but in America it was\nnot till the rise of the Revolutionary disputes of the next century\nthat Calvinism was discovered to be the foe of democratic liberalism\nand was finally rejected. It is a fruitful suggestion, and in its major\ncontention that the liberalisms implicit in the Puritan revolution were\nill served by a reactionary theology, it is certainly in harmony with\nthe facts.\n\nThat Calvinism in its primary assumptions was a composite of oriental\ndespotism and sixteenth-century monarchism, modified by the medieval\nconception of a city-state, is clear enough today to anyone who will\ntake the trouble to translate dogma into political terms. In recasting\nthe framework of the old theology, Calvin accepted as a sovereign\nconception the idea of God as arbitrary and absolute will--an august\n_Rex regum_ whose authority is universal and unconditioned; and this\nconception he invested with Hebraic borrowings from the Old Testament.\nThe principle of absolutism, indeed, he could scarcely have escaped.\nIt came down to him through the Roman Empire and the Roman Church,\nfrom the ancient oriental despotisms, and it was interwoven with all\nthe institutions and social forms against which the Reformation was\na protest. But unhappily, instead of questioning the principle, he\nprovided a new sanction for it and broadened its sway, by investing\nit with divine authority and erecting upon it a whole cosmology. That\nthe ancient Hebrew thinkers, in seeking to give concrete form to their\nspeculations on the nature of Jehovah, should have made use of the\npolitical ideas of primitive Israel, that they should have used all\nthe wealth of oriental imagery in describing the regal attributes of\ntheir God, was inevitable. They knew only oriental potentates, and so\nJehovah became a greater Ptolemy, with Cherubim and Seraphim, Angels\nand Principalities and Powers, duly ranked about the heavenly throne.\nSo saturated with monarchical and caste ideas is the Old Testament,\nthat it is almost impossible today to put the old phrasing out of mind,\nand we talk as naturally of the Kingdom of God as did the men of that\nolder world who knew no other political phraseology. Calvin rejected\nthe individualism of Luther and followed in the footsteps of older\nthinkers like Duns Scotus. The monarchical principle was everywhere\ngaining ground in Europe. He had a lawyer\u2019s love of law, and law\nreposed in the absolute will of the prince. Hebraize this fact, erect a\ncosmology upon it, and we have the vital principle of Calvinism.\n\nFrom this cosmic absolutism, that conceived of God as the stable Will\nsustaining the universe, binding together what otherwise would fly\nasunder, two important corollaries were derived: the universality of\nthe moral law, and the necessity of divine judgment. From the former\nflowed that curious association of God\u2019s will with natural causes which\ninduced Cotton Mather, when suffering from toothache, to inquire what\nsin he had committed with his teeth, and which left no free spaces\nor non-moral impulses in the lives of men. From the latter flowed\nthe doctrine of theological determinism. If time is embedded in the\neternity of God\u2019s mind, if to Him past and future are here and now,\nforeknowledge is an inevitable divine attribute, and predestination is\nonly a finite way of expressing God\u2019s understanding of how human fate\nworks itself out. Ally this doctrine of determinism with the Biblical\naccount of the fall of man, and the doctrine of the elect becomes the\ntheological complement of the class prejudices of the times. Bred up in\nthe current aristocratic contempt for the sodden mass of the people,\nCalvinist theologians easily came to regard them as stupid, sensual,\nveritable children of Adam, born to sin and heirs of damnation. Only\nthe elect shall be saved. That there was a remnant in Israel whom God\nhad chosen, Isaiah had long before pointed out; and the doctrine of\nthe remnant was confirmed for Calvinism by the sinful herd whose daily\nactions testified to their lost estate.\n\nAccording to such a theology, the individual clearly is in no\neffective sense a free soul. There is no room for the conception of\nhuman perfectibility. The heritage of natural freedom was long since\ncast away by the common forefather; and because of the pre-natal sin\nwhich this act entailed on all mankind, the natural man is shut away\neternally from communion with God. He is no better than an oriental\nserf at the mercy of a Sovereign Will that is implacable, inscrutable,\nthe ruler of a universe predetermined in all its parts and members\nfrom the foundation of the earth. Except for the saving grace of divine\nelection, which no human righteousness can purchase, all must go down\nto the everlasting damnation that awaits the sons of Adam. In the eyes\nof such a philosophy it is sheer impertinence to talk of the dignity\nand worth of the individual soul. Men are no other than the worms of\nthe dust. The boon of eternal life is not included in God\u2019s enumeration\nof natural rights; it is a special grant from the Lord of the universe\nwho is pleased to smile on whom he is pleased to smile. In the hard\nwords of Paul, \u201cTherefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and\nwhom he will he hardeneth.\u201d And those on whom he hath had mercy are his\nSaints, and they are gathered into his church, as the free city-states\nhad risen out of the muck of medieval despotism. They are the stewards\nof his righteousness and are called to the great work of rulership on\nearth that God\u2019s will may be done and righteousness may prevail over\niniquity.\n\nIt was an ambitious program, and so long as the Presbyterian party\nmaintained its ascendency in England it endeavored to thrust its\nCalvinism down every throat, no matter how unwelcome; but with the\npassing of power from its hands, and the growth of a common-sense\nspirit of toleration, Calvinistic dogma lost its authority and the\nminds of Englishmen turned to more humane philosophies. In New England,\non the other hand, by virtue of a rigid suppression of free inquiry,\nCalvinism long lingered out a harsh existence, grotesque and illiberal\nto the last. In banishing the Antinomians and Separatists and Quakers,\nthe Massachusetts magistrates cast out the spirit of liberalism from\nthe household of the Saints.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[1] See \u201cThe Babylonian Captivity,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, p. 233\n(Philadelphia, 1915).\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Transplanting of Ideas\n\n\nI\n\nThe Great Migration, it will be remembered, fell in the time of the\nLaudean reaction, when the Presbyterian Utopia seemed remote and the\nhopes of the Puritan dreamers were fallen low. The Boston leaders\nquitted England ten years before Charles summoned the Long Parliament,\nand twelve before the royal standard was unfurled at Nottingham.\nThe armed struggle for supremacy was far below the horizon, and the\noutlandish philosophies that later sectaries were to propagate so\ndiligently were as yet little known in the land. The generous grain\nof liberal thought was still in the milk, its fruitful doctrines\nunripened. The immigrant gentlemen who came to Massachusetts Bay were\nPuritan Anglicans who professed a hearty love for the mother church and\nwere no friends to the principle of Separatism. They were potential\nPresbyterians who rejected alike the Arminianism of Laud and the\nautocracy of the bishops. It is reasonable to suppose that as strict\nCalvinists, trained in the ordinances as well as in the doctrine of\nthe French theologian, they came hither with the conscious purpose of\nsetting up the complete Genevan discipline in the new world. If such\nwas their plan--and certainly before their coming over they seem not to\nhave entertained any thoughts of Separatism--it received a check from\nthe Plymouth influence and the Puritan experiment was turned aside from\nthe path of its natural development.\n\nIt was a somewhat curious misadventure that was to entail unforeseen\nconsequences. Except in matters of doctrine Pilgrim and Puritan\nconsorted ill together. Their social antecedents were as unlike as\ntheir views on political and religious institutions. The intellectual\nleaders of Plymouth--whatever may be said of the London adventurers who\njoined the Holland group--had been nurtured in Elizabethan radicalism.\nThey were Brownist-Separatists of plebeian origins, who had arrived\nat their conception of the true church from a close study of Biblical\ntexts, with perhaps some admixture of Anabaptist influence, nearly\na generation before the Stuarts came with their divine-right theory.\nDuring their years on the continent they lived remote from the current\nof events in England, and under the guidance of the tolerant Robinson\nthey had been disciplined in the theory and practice of primitive\nCongregationalism. On their removal to America they brought with them\na consciously democratic church order, that met their simple needs and\nhad taken shape from the experience of daily life. This democratic\nmodel of church government was spontaneously supplemented by the\nplantation covenant of civil government drawn up aboard ship, which\nwas to serve as the organic law of the new commonwealth. Two cardinal\nprinciples--which at bottom were one--thus found their way to New\nEngland in the _Mayflower_: the principle of a democratic church and\nthe principle of a democratic state. When ten years later the Boston\nleaders were faced with the problem of erecting a social order, they\naccepted the Plymouth model of Congregationalism, but rejected the\nplantation covenant. They saw no need for the latter as they were\nalready provided with an organic law. The charter which Winthrop was\ninsistent upon bringing with them out of England was asserted to be the\nconstitution of the commonwealth and, meticulously interpreted, was to\ndetermine largely the form and scope of the new political state. It was\nconstrued to grant a legal sanction to government; but as the charter\nof a Carolinian trading company it quite naturally restricted authority\nto the managing heads, and granted powers to its directors that were\nuseful in managing trade ventures but might easily become intolerable\nif interpreted as the organic law of a commonwealth. With such\nenlargement of powers the directors of the corporation would constitute\na political oligarchy. There was a striking difference, certainly,\nbetween the covenant of Plymouth and the charter-constitution of\nMassachusetts Bay, and a political philosopher could readily enough\nhave foreseen the course that events would take in the Puritan\ncommonwealth, given the men and the ideals in control.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Puritan Presbyterian\n\nTo make clear what was involved in the attempt to adapt the Plymouth\nmodel of church government to the charter commonwealth, it is necessary\nto consider somewhat particularly the body of prejudice and principle\nbrought to the new world aboard the _Lady Arbella_, as the Puritan\ncontribution to New England. The capable leaders who created the early\ninstitutions of Massachusetts Bay colony were Jacobean Englishmen of\nmiddle station, halfway between the aristocrat and the burgess, with\ncertain salient characteristics of both. Fashioned by a caste society,\nthey transported to the little commonwealth an abundant heritage of\nclass prejudice. They aspired to be reckoned gentlemen and to live in\nthe new world as they had lived in the old, in a half feudal state,\nsurrounded by many servants and with numerous dependents. They honored\nrank, were sticklers for precedence, respected class distinctions,\ndemanded the hereditary rights of the gentry. They had been bred up\nin a static order where gentlemen ruled and the people obeyed, and\nthey could not think in terms of the Plymouth plantation covenant,\nsubscribed by all heads of families. To the modern reader of his\njournal there is something almost childish in Winthrop\u2019s insistence\non public deference to his official position and his grief when the\nhalberd-bearers refused to provide the usual formality to his little\nprogresses. But if they aspired to be rated as gentlemen, there\nwas much also of the burgess nature in them. They were potential\ncapitalists, eager to accumulate ample landholdings, keen to drive a\nbargain, given to trade and with as sharp an eye to the main chance as\nany London merchant. The community of goods that marked the early days\nof Plymouth they disliked so greatly as to account it almost sinful. In\nthe infancy of the settlement they entered upon an active mercantile\nlife, building their ships for the West Indian trade, joining in the\nfisheries off the Newfoundland coast, venturing far in pursuit of gain.\nActive, capable men, excellent administrators rather than speculative\nthinkers, stewards of the public interests as well as their own, they\nwould take it ill to have their matured plans interfered with by\nbusybodies and incompetents. Their own counsel sufficed them and they\nwanted no help from outsiders.\n\nEndow such men with religious zeal; let them regard themselves as\nparticular repositories of righteousness; give them a free hand to work\nout their program unhampered by rival policies; provide them with a\nhandbook elaborated in complete detail by a master system-maker; and\nthe result was certain. Their Utopia must be a close-knit church-state,\nwith authority reserved to the aristocracy of Christian talent. It\nis needless to inquire whether a definite conception of a theocracy\nwas in their minds before their coming over; some such order was\nclearly implicit in their religious fervor, their Hebraic theology,\ntheir Genevan discipline, their aristocratic prejudices. They might\nnominally accept the Plymouth model of church-government, but they\nwould meddle with democracy in church and state no more than necessity\ncompelled. Circumstances, as well as their own promptings, would\ncounsel quite an opposite course. They were engaged in a difficult and\nperilous undertaking, begirt by wilderness enemies, and fearful of\nhostile interference by the home authorities. If the venture were to\nsurvive, a drift towards centralization of power was as natural as it\nwas inevitable. The common security would not suffer any dispersion of\nforces or domestic bickerings over authority. Dissatisfied members must\nbe held in subjection and dangerous swarmings from the mother-hive must\nbe prevented. The principle of Separatism was too disruptive to insure\ncohesive solidarity; the parts must be welded into a protective whole;\nand for such business what ideal was more efficient than a theocracy\nwith Jehovah substituted for King Charles--not openly and seditiously,\nbut quietly, in the hearts of the people. The historian need not\nwander far in search of the origin of the theocratic principle; it\nis to be found in the self-interest of the lay and clerical leaders.\nAmbitious men could not have devised a fitter means to weld together\nthe two groups of magistrates and ministers, and endow their charter\nprerogatives with divine sanction. The Stuarts were bunglers at the\nbusiness in comparison with Winthrop and Cotton. But if they worked the\nmetal to such shape as they chose we must not forget that it had been\nwell heated in the smithy of John Calvin. Overlook that fact and the\ntheocracy becomes incredible.\n\nThere are perhaps sufficient grounds to assume that some plan of\nminority control was worked out before the migration took place. The\npreliminary discussions in England had been long and the terms of\nthe charter were carefully seen to. By its provisions the right of\nfranchise rested with the freemen of the corporation, in number about\na hundred and ten. Of the total body of freemen it was known that\nonly a small group would undertake the venture; probably fewer than\na score came over with the emigrants, and through removals and death\nthe number was speedily reduced to about a dozen. This handful of\nfreemen constituted the court, and chose the governor, deputy governor,\nand the assistants or magistrates. These latter were to number\neighteen according to the charter provision; but with more offices\nthan eligible candidates, the number was necessarily reduced, and six\nassistants with the governor came to be reckoned a quorum of the court\nwith sovereign powers.[2] It was a patriarchal undertaking, and to\nCarolinian gentlemen there was nothing unusual or unjust in a handful\nof leaders exercising plenary powers over the lives and fortunes of two\nthousand members of the commonwealth. If the charter could not have\nbeen construed as granting such powers, it is reasonable to assume\nthat they would not have entered upon the business. The lay leaders\nwere practical men. They had ventured their estates in the hope of\nbettering their condition, both spiritual and material, and with their\npersonal fortunes at stake they were in no mind to intrust the fate of\nthe undertaking to other hands than their own. They loved power quite\nas much as did the ungodly, and accounting themselves God\u2019s stewards\nthey reckoned it sin not to use it in his name. As Puritans they would\nnot keep a weather eye on the majority will. God did not speak in the\nScriptures through majority votes; his chosen were a minority, the\nremnant in Israel.\n\nA further sanction was at hand. If these Hebraized Englishmen created\na close corporation and ruled magisterially, if the order in the new\nchurch-state was inquisitorial and stern, it was in strict conformity\nwith the teachings and example of Calvin. Men deeply read in the\n_Institutes_, familiar with the Genevan Ordinances and the practices\nof the Consistory, were not likely to discover in them any lessons\nin democratic toleration. Righteousness may be fearfully relentless,\nand John Calvin had been a tyrant on principle. Iron-willed and\nmasterful, he had risen to power in the turbulent city-state of Geneva\nin sixteenth-century fashion. A few splotches of blood on the white\ngarments of the Church did not greatly trouble him. He was never\nsqueamish about ways and means of furthering the Lord\u2019s work. He\nviolated the right of refuge to bring to the stake the pantheistic\nUnitarian Servetus, and he thanked God when the bungling of the\nexecutioner prolonged the sufferings of certain others of his victims.\nThe Genevan discipline was rigorous, and the clerical inquisitors were\nmore relentless than the lay. The tyrannies that have been freely\ncharged upon the New England oligarchy are easily explained in the\nlight of the Calvinistic Ordinances. There were no whippings or\nbanishments or hangings in early Pennsylvania where Quaker and Lutheran\ndwelt together in peace if not in fellowship. But they were New\nTestament men and not out of the Old, like the Saints in Massachusetts\nBay. They worshiped a God of love rather than a God of wrath.\n\nGranted the conception on which the theocratic experiment went forward,\nnamely, that Jehovah was the sole lawgiver and the Bible the sufficient\nstatute-book; granted also that these priests and magistrates were\nstewards of God\u2019s will; and the centralization of power in the\ncommonwealth becomes invested with a higher sanction than the terms\nof the charter. It was an oligarchy of Christian grace. The minister\nwas the trained and consecrated interpreter of the divine law, and\nthe magistrate was its trained and consecrated administrator; and\nboth were chosen by free election of the Saints. If unfortunately the\nSaints were few and the sinners many, was not that a special reason for\nsafeguarding the Ark of the Covenant from the touch of profane hands?\nHence all legislative experiments by annually elected deputies, no\nmatter how exactly those experiments might fall in with the wishes of\nthe majority, were sternly frowned upon or skillfully nullified. Not\nonly were such popular enactments, it was held, too often prompted by\nthe carnal desires of the natural man, but they were no better than an\ninsult to God, as implying the insufficiency of the Scriptures to every\ntemporal need. Unregenerate and sinful men must have no share in God\u2019s\nwork. The Saints must not have their hands tied by majority votes. This\nexplains, quite as much as mere love of power, the persistent hostility\nof the leaders to every democratic tendency. Such institutions as grew\nup spontaneously out of the necessities of the situation, were sharply\nhedged about by restrictions. The town meeting, which was extra-legal\nunder the charter, was safeguarded by limiting the right of voting\nto freemen, except in a few trivial matters; and the more popular\ndeputies, who inclined to become self-willed, were forced to accept the\nprinciple of magisterial veto on their actions. When a law was passed,\nit was purposely left vague as to penalties, in order to give a free\nhand to the judges to punish as they wished; and it was not till 1641,\nafter much insistence from the representatives of the people, that\nWard\u2019s Body of Liberties was finally adopted.\n\nLater critics of Puritanism discover in the theocratic experiment of\nMassachusetts Bay a preposterous attempt to turn back the pages of\nhistory, and refashion Englishmen after an ungainly Hebraic pattern.\nBut to the leaders of that experiment it seemed rather a Utopian\nventure to create in the new world a nobler social order than elsewhere\nexisted. Whether such a society was either possible or desirable, has\nlong since become only an academic question; what is more suggestive\nis the fact that in spite of some bitterness on the part of a small\nminority, the stewardship of an oligarchy remained the accepted\nprinciple of government in Massachusetts Bay until the vacating of the\ncharter in 1684. That it lingered out so long a life is a testimony to\nthe skillful opportunism of the leaders. They early adopted a strategic\npolicy which the British ministry foolishly refused to adopt a hundred\nyears later; they cautiously undermined any potential disaffection by\nadmitting the wealthiest and most influential to the rights of freemen,\nthus allying the ambitious and capable members of society with the\nruling group, and laying the foundations of a provincial aristocracy,\nwhich in the course of time would secularize the government and\nsubstitute an economic for a theocratic basis of authority. The loss of\nthe charter only hastened what in the nature of things must have come\nabout eventually.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Certain Mistakes\n\nSkillful as were the theocratic rulers and logical as was their\ncourse, it seems plain in the light of later developments that they\nfell into certain grave mistakes at the very beginning of their work\nthat were to hamper them seriously in after days. Those mistakes\nwere the adoption of the covenant-principle of church organization\nborrowed from Plymouth, that started the new churches on the road\nto Congregationalism, and the granting of the land in fee-simple\nto non-freemen, that was to create an independent yeomanry. Of the\ntwo the second was far graver, for it threw the economics of the\ndeveloping commonwealth on the side of local home rule and provided a\nsubstantial foundation for the erection of a democratic opposition to\nthe oligarchy. If the plantation system of Virginia, or the Patroon\nsystem of New York, had been adopted, the covenanted church would\nnaturally have followed the path of Genevan Presbyterianism in harmony\nwith the desires of the leaders, and the democratic opposition both in\nchurch and state must have been starved into submission. But with the\nsystem of small holdings and the development of a vigorous yeomanry,\nthe eventual development of Congregationalism into a federated group\nof self-governing churches, was predetermined more rigidly than by any\nlogic of John Calvin. The defeat of the Presbyterian program of the\ntheocrats was implicit in a decentralized land system.\n\nThe decision of the Salem church in 1629 to adopt the Plymouth model,\nand the acceptance of that decision by later churches in Massachusetts\nBay, has been abundantly commented upon, but the significance of it\nhas been somewhat inadequately explored.[3] Very likely it was a deep\nhatred of episcopal rule that opened the mind of Endicott and his\nfellows to the reasoning of Dr. Fuller of Plymouth, and persuaded them\nto take this first step towards Separatism; nevertheless as disciples\nof Calvin, desirous of establishing a Bible commonwealth, they must\nsoon discover that a system centrifugal in tendency and decentralizing\nin spirit, unless closely restrained, was certain to lead them far\nfrom the Canaan of their hopes. Separatism was the negation of a\nstate church, and the rule of the congregation was the negation of an\nofficial creed and ecclesiastical unity. If Congregationalism were\nsuffered to develop its democratic potentialities, the leaders must\neventually find themselves in like position with Laud, with schismatics\ndisturbing the orthodox harmony and rending the church from within. The\nauthorities early began to feel, what the Anglican Lechford pointed out\nin 1641, that the system was dangerously democratic, and the principle\nof centralizing conformity was set to work. The spirit of Calvin\u2019s\nConsistory was invoked. Under the guise of brotherly counsel, or church\nfellowship, the principle of consociation was developed, a principle\nthat opened a convenient door to official coercion. Brotherly counsel\nthat comes armed with the weapon of excommunication, that points its\nargument with the threat of banishment or hanging, is certainly not\nthe pure spirit of Christian fellowship that Congregational historians\nhave chosen to see in the principle of consociation. The most ardent\napologist has hard work in discovering the democratic principle of\nCongregationalism in the theocratic application of the methods of\nthe Genevan Consistory. The early churches of the theocracy were\nPresbyterian in spirit and rule, in spite of the official promulgation\nof the covenant-principle in the Cambridge Platform. Certainly real\nSeparatists like Roger Williams, who suffered from too much brotherly\ncounsel and did not want a Christian fellowship imposed by magistrates,\nwere under no illusions in regard to the coercive spirit that lay\nbehind the principle of consociation.\n\nMore open and above board were the successive statutes that effectively\nnullified the principle of Separatism by erecting an official state\nchurch. The law of 1631, restricting the franchise to church members,\nand the law of 1635, making attendance at church compulsory on\nall, were followed in 1636 by a law requiring the approval of the\nmagistrates and elders before a new church could be set up, and in\n1638 by the institution of a system of state support for the ministry.\nThe principle of the covenant was being pretty effectively whittled\naway. Equally Presbyterian was the movement for the establishment of\na definitive state creed. In consequence of the Antinomian schism\neffected by the eloquent tongue of Mistress Anne Hutchinson, the\nfirst general synod was convened at Newtown in 1637, which sat for\nfour and twenty days and drew up a list of eighty-two heretical\nopinions, \u201csome blasphemous, others erroneous, and all unsafe,\u201d\ntogether with \u201cnine unwholesome expressions,\u201d which were alleged to be\ndisturbing the peace of the community. Whereupon the synod broke up,\nthe members congratulating themselves \u201cthat matters had been carried\non so peaceably and concluded so comfortably in all love.\u201d How much\nChristian love was awakened by such brotherly counsels in the heart of\nMistress Hutchinson, who was banished and later slain by the Indians,\nis not revealed, but her sin was made of record as a warning to other\nschismatics. It was this: \u201cHe hath let me distinguish between the voice\nof my beloved and the voice of Moses,\u201d which being interpreted, meant\nan appeal from the Old Testament to the New, from Mosaic authority to\nthe inner light.\n\nWith the promulgation of the Cambridge Platform by the synod of\n1646-47, and the acceptance of the Westminster Confession of Faith,\nthe work of creating the organism and creed of an authoritative\nstate-church was completed. According to Williston Walker, the\nCambridge Platform \u201cpictures with great clearness the abiding\nprinciples of Congregationalism\u201d--the covenant origin of the local\nchurch, the autonomy of the congregation, the sole authority of the\nBible, and the fellowship of the churches.[4] But it needs the sharp\neyes of an apologetic historian to discover the spirit of democratic\nCongregationalism in a discipline that sanctions the power of the state\nto intervene in ecclesiastical matters and requires the magistrate to\nenforce uniformity in creed and worship. \u201cIdolatry, Blasphemy, Heresy,\nVenting corrupt and pernicious opinions, are to be restrayned and\npunished by civil authority,\u201d the Platform states. \u201cIf any church one\nor more shall grow schismaticall, rending it self from the communion\nof other churches, or shall walke incorrigibly or obstinately in\nany corrupt way of their own, contrary to the rule of the word; in\nsuch case, the Magistrate is to put forth his coercive power, as the\nmatter shall require.\u201d If such be Congregationalism, how greatly have\nthe later churches departed from the primitive faith! To the layman,\nwanting in insight, it would seem rather to be stark Calvinism, that\nreveals how completely the coercive spirit of the Ordinances and\nConsistory of the French theologian had come to dominate the theocratic\nmind of New England. The reluctant adoption of the Cambridge Platform\nby the suspicious deputies was the grim prelude to Baptist whippings\nand Quaker baitings, and the setting-in of the dark days of militant\nintolerance. \u201cYourselves pretend liberty of conscience,\u201d wrote Roger\nWilliams in 1670, \u201cbut alas! it is but self, the great god self, only\nto yourselves.\u201d[5]\n\nBut while the covenant principle was thus being effectively whittled\naway by the theocratic leaders, another principle, likewise of Plymouth\norigin, was silently working to the overthrow of the theocratic power.\nFollowing the example of the Pilgrims the several towns apportioned\ntheir lands in fee to their members; and if so acute a political\nthinker as Daniel Webster is to be trusted, it was from the creative\ninfluence of freehold tenure that the political institutions of New\nEngland became later democratized. As a disciple of James Harrington,\naccepting the doctrine of economic determinism as it had been\nelaborated in the _Oceana_, Webster traced the spontaneous rise of\nrepublicanism in New England to the wide diffusion of property; and\nin the light of his economic interpretation the harsh intolerance of\nthe Cambridge Platform is seen to be only the aberration of a passing\nbigotry. In his anniversary speech at Plymouth he said:\n\n Their situation demanded a parceling out and division of the\n lands, and it may be fairly said, that this necessary act _fixed\n the future frame and form of their government_. The character of\n their political institutions was determined by the fundamental\n laws respecting property.... The property was all freehold ...\n alienation of the land was every way facilitated, even to the\n subjecting of it to every species of debt. The establishment of\n public registries, and the simplicity of our forms of conveyance,\n have greatly facilitated the change of real estate from one\n proprietor to another. The consequence of all these causes has\n been, a great subdivision of the soil, and a great equality of\n condition; the true basis, most certainly, of a popular government.\n \u201cIf the people,\u201d says Harrington, \u201chold three parts in four of the\n territory, it is plain there can neither be any single person nor\n nobility able to dispute the government with them; in this case,\n therefore, _except force be interposed_, they govern themselves.\u201d[6]\n\nWith such a clue it is easier to understand how the liberalisms\nimplicit in Plymouth Congregationalism--its theory of compact in\nchurch and state--should find support from an independent yeomanry\nand eventually rise against the oligarchical rule. The new world\nwould ultimately throw off the old-world repressions and explore the\nreaches of those generous idealisms that were the bequest of English\nSeparatism. The fathers were engaged in an impossible undertaking.\nSanctuaries were close at hand for all dissenters from the theocracy,\nin Connecticut for the Congregationalists, in Rhode Island for the\nSeparatists, along the Maine frontier for the rebellious individualist.\nSeated securely in these regions beyond the reach of the Massachusetts\nmagistrates, the diverse liberalisms that were being stifled by the\noligarchy prospered and brought forth after their kind. Differentiation\nin the provinces was the natural counterpart of coercive conformity\nat the capital; and from very early days New England divided into\nthree diverse groups journeying to their Utopias by different roads.\nMassachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, were variant\nanswers to the question of what might be expected to result from the\ndomestication in a free environment of the inchoate idealisms of\nEnglish Puritanism. How they differentiated themselves from the norm,\nand why, will perhaps become clearer from an examination of the diverse\nphilosophies of their intellectual leaders.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[2] See James Truslow Adams, _The Founding of New England_, Chapter VI.\n\n[3] See Williston Walker, _A History of the Congregational Churches in\nthe United States_, Chapter IV.\n\n[4] _Ibid._, p. 162.\n\n[5] _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 133.\n\n[6] _Works_, Vol. I, pp. 35-36.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 The Chief Stewards of Theocracy\n\n\nI \u2022 Master John Cotton \u2022 Priest\n\nThe most authoritative representative in New England of the ideal of\npriestly stewardship was the excellent John Cotton, first teacher to\nthe church at Boston. While pastor of the church of St. Botolph, in\nold Boston, he had dreamed of a Utopia of the Saints, unharassed by\ntyrannous prelates; and while sweetening his mouth with a morsel of\nCalvin, as he was fond of doing, no doubt he turned over in his mind\nthe plans and specifications of that Utopia. \u201cWhen God wrappes us in\nhis ordinances,\u201d he said in his sermon to Winthrop\u2019s company on the eve\nof its departure from England, \u201cand warmes us with the life and power\nof them as with wings, there is the land of Promise.\u201d Left behind by\nthe departing brethren, he lingered for a while in an England that was\nevery day becoming colder for such as dreamed of other Canaans than\nLaud\u2019s, until urged by many invitations, at the age of forty-six he\nfollowed overseas to devote his remaining life to the great work being\ndone there. For more than a score of years he labored faithfully, and\nthe New England which the emigrant generation bequeathed to its sons\nbore upon it the marks of John Cotton\u2019s shaping hand more clearly than\nthose of any other minister.\n\nIt is not easy today to judge fairly the life and work of John Cotton.\nNo adequate biography has been written, and his dreams and aspirations\nlie forgotten in the grave of lost causes and forsaken faiths. But\nto the Boston freemen of his own day, Master John Cotton was a very\ngreat man. Of excellent family and sound university training, he was\nboth a notable theologian and a courteous gentleman. \u201cTwelve hours in\na day he commonly studied, and would call that a _scholar\u2019s_ day,\u201d\nhis grandson reported of him. From the hour when he entered Trinity\nCollege, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen, to his death in 1652,\nhe was a bookman, and in sheer bulk of acquisition probably no man\nof his time outdid him. In Cotton Mather\u2019s judgment he was \u201ca most\n_universal scholar_, and a _living system_ of the liberal arts, and a\n_walking library_.\u201d His intellectual equipment was so highly regarded\nthat many excellent persons \u201cbelieved that God would not suffer Mr.\nCotton to err\u201d; and that \u201cif ever there be any considerable blow given\nto the Devil\u2019s kingdom,\u201d Master Cotton was the man for the business.\nNo other New England champion was so renowned for \u201cbeating out the\ntruth in controversie\u201d; and when he turned to the work of answering\nRoger Williams, the latter exclaimed: \u201cI rejoice it hath pleased [God]\nto appoint so able, and excellent, and conscionable an Instrument to\nbolt the Truth to the bran.\u201d But though he was bred in Elizabethan\ndays and entered college in the year when Shakespeare\u2019s _Henry IV_\nand Jonson\u2019s _Every Man in his Humour_ first appeared on the stage,\nthere is no touch of Renaissance splendor in his crabbed style and\nascetic reasoning. That was early washed out of him by the rising\ntide of Hebraism which was slowly submerging the England of poets and\nplaywrights.\n\nBut however much he loved cloistered scholarship, the immediate source\nof his great influence was the spoken rather than the written word.\nBy the universal testimony of his generation he was \u201ca soul-melting\npreacher,\u201d whose reasoned eloquence swayed congregations trained to\nsolid argumentative discourse. When he ascended the pulpit on Sundays\nand lecture days, he spoke as a prophet in Israel; and on occasions\nof public ceremonial, or when dissensions arose touching the polity\nof church or state, he was summoned by the magistrates to convince\nwith his logic and persuade with his eloquence. The strong-minded Anne\nHutchinson was but one of many who chose exile in New England rather\nthan lose the edification of Mr. Cotton\u2019s preaching. Good men were\ndrawn to him by his sweetness of temper, and evil men were overawed\nby his venerable aspect. He seems to have been an altogether lovable\nperson, with white hair framing a face that must have been nobly\nchiseled, gentle-voiced, courteous, tactful, by nature \u201ca tolerant man\u201d\nwho placidly bore with a dissentient and gladly discovered a friend in\nan antagonist. If his quiet yielding before opposition suggests that he\nmay have been given to opportunism, or his fondness for intellectual\nsubtleties drew from his grandson the comment \u201ca most excellent\ncasuist,\u201d we must not too hastily conclude that he served the cause of\ntruth less devotedly than the cause of party.\n\nFor a score of years before his coming over, his position in the\nrising Puritan party had been honorable. Few among the dissenting\nministers were better known, none more esteemed. He had shone as an\nintellectual light at the university, he had long been pastor of one of\nthe loveliest churches in England, he counted among his friends some of\nthe ablest contemporary Englishmen. To Cromwell he was one \u201cwhom I love\nand honour in the Lord\u201d; to Lord Say and Sele, to the Earl of Warwick,\nthe Earl of Lincoln, and a notable company of Puritan gentlemen, he\nwas a trusted friend and lieutenant; to thousands of the substantial\nburgesses who were drawing together to form the new Puritan-Whig party,\nhe was \u201ca fixed and conscionable light.\u201d That such a leader should\nhave been received with thanksgiving by the Boston congregation was to\nbe expected; that he should have taken high place at once among the\nmembers of the Massachusetts oligarchy was equally to be expected.\nThenceforth his busy career was no more than a reflection of the\nambitions of the theocracy.\n\nUnfortunately his daily contact with narrow-minded and intolerant men\ngave an unhappy bias to his later career. Cotton seems to have been\nsomething of a Puritan intellectual, with an open-minded curiosity that\nmade him receptive to new ideas and tempted him to play with doctrines\nthat were intolerable to his bigoted associates. It was possibly this\nnative sympathy with free speculation that drew him into the camp of\nMistress Hutchinson with her doctrine of the inner light. When the\nschism became serious, dividing the commonwealth into warring camps,\nCotton seems to have become frightened and broke with the Boston\nAntinomians. In this matter he came near to being a shuffler. The\nHutchinson trial with its resulting banishments was the turning point\nof his career in America as it was a crisis in the history of early\nNew England. He was not a man to persecute and harry, nor was he one\nto stand in isolated opposition to associates whom he respected, and\nhe allowed himself to be coerced by narrower-minded men like Endicott\nand Dudley. After 1637 the better nature of John Cotton was submerged\nby the rising intolerance, and \u201cthe most tolerant, as he was the ablest\nof the Massachusetts divines,\u201d was brought so low as to defend the\nmeanest and crudest acts of the oligarchy. He descended to disgraceful\ncasuistry in defense of the first whippings of the Quakers, and he\nurged the death penalty upon King Philip\u2019s son and the enslavement of\nthe remnant of Philip\u2019s tribe, against the plea of John Eliot that \u201cto\nsell soules for mony seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize.\u201d The sins\nof the oligarchy rest in large measure on the head of John Cotton, and\nthe judgment of the most recent historian of New England must stand:\n\n With a broader mind and wider vision than any of the other clergy\n of the colony, he had not the courage to stand alone, beyond a\n certain point, against their unanimity in intolerance. The higher\n promptings of his nature were crushed by the united voice of the\n priesthood, as Winthrop\u2019s had been so short a time before, and the\n noblest of the colony\u2019s leaders, lay and clerical, from that time\n tended to sink to the lower level of their fellows.[7]\n\nAn apologist--and whoever has felt the charm of John Cotton\u2019s\npersonality easily becomes an apologist--will perhaps find some grounds\nof excuse for his later conduct. He was in an unhappy position. He\nwas ill at ease in his mind, and his frequent tacking in the face of\nadverse winds was characteristic of the intellectual who sees all\nsides of a question. He heartily approved of the theocratic ends that\nhis associates were seeking, and his influential position made him\nthe defender of acts which his better nature must have disapproved.\nThe historian, however, will seek a more adequate explanation in the\nroots of his environment. The idealism of John Cotton was the fruit of\nhis training, and his theocratic dreams were conditioned by the facts\nthat he was both a Calvinist and a Carolinian gentleman. The fusion\nof these two influences resulted in the unique political theory of an\nethical aristocracy, consecrated to moral stewardship in the state. A\nlifelong student of Calvin\u2019s _Institutes_, he found there a system of\nsocial organization that responded to every demand of the theologian\nand the aristocrat. The very texture and pattern of Cotton\u2019s political\nphilosophy is exemplified in such a passage as this, over which he must\nhave brooded much:\n\n When these three forms of government of which philosophers treat,\n are considered in themselves, I, for my part, am far from denying\n that the form which greatly surpasses the other is aristocracy,\n either pure or modified by popular government; not indeed in\n itself, but because it very rarely happens that kings so rule\n themselves as never to dissent from what is just and right, or\n are possessed of so much acuteness and prudence as always to see\n correctly. Owing therefore to the vices or defects of men, it is\n safer and more tolerable when several bear rule, that they may thus\n mutually assist, instruct, and admonish each other, and should\n any he disposed to go too far, the others are censors and masters\n to curb his excess. This has already been proved by experience,\n and confirmed also by the authority of the Lord himself, when he\n established an aristocracy bordering on popular government among\n the Israelites, keeping them under that as the best form, until He\n exhibited an image of the Messiah in David.[8]\n\nAs a Carolinian gentleman, this was as far as Cotton would go on\nthe path of liberalism. The elders were responsible to God for the\nspiritual well-being of the people, and the state must aid and not\nhinder them in their leadership. The doctrine of unlimited popular\nsovereignty was for him no other than a thistle in the garden of the\nLord. The desire for liberty he regarded as the sinful prompting of\nthe natural man, a denial of the righteous authority of God\u2019s chosen\nrulers. If democracy were indeed the best form of government, was it\nnot strange that divine wisdom should have failed to discover the\nfact? In the history of the chosen people nowhere does God approve\nthe democratic as the best form, but the theocratic; was He now to be\nset right by sinful men who courted popularity by appealing to the\nselfishness of depraved hearts? To the scripturist the logic of his\nargument was convincing:\n\n It is better that the commonwealth be fashioned to the setting\n forth of God\u2019s house, which is his church: than to accommodate the\n church frame to the civill state. Democracy, I do not conceyve\n that ever God did ordeyne as a fit government eyther for church or\n commonwealth. If the people be governors, who shall be governed?\n As for monarchy, and aristocracy, they are both of them clearely\n approoved, and directed in scripture, yet so as referreth the\n soveraigntie to himselfe, and setteth up Theocracy in both, as the\n best forme of government in the commonwealth, as well as in the\n church.[9]\n\nIf John Cotton, like other Carolinian gentlemen, was a confirmed\naristocrat, he was at the same time a social revolutionary, who would\nsubstitute an aristocracy of the Saints for the landed aristocracy, and\nrefashion society upon ethical rather than economic lines. At what time\nthe ideal of a Presbyterian Bible commonwealth took shape in his mind,\nit is impossible to determine; but it was a natural outcome of his most\ncherished beliefs. A devout scripturist, he accepted the Bible as a\nrule of universal application, perfect and final. The sufficiency of\nthe Scriptures to all social needs was axiomatic with him; \u201cthe more\nany law smells of man the more unprofitable,\u201d he asserted in his draft\nof laws offered for acceptance by the commonwealth; and at another\ntime he exclaimed, \u201c_Scripturae plenitudinem adoro._\u201d He chose exile\nrather than yield to what he regarded as the unscriptural practices of\nLaud, and now that he was come to a new land where a fresh beginning\nwas to be made, was it not his Christian duty to \u201cendeavour after\na _theocracy_, as near as might be, to that which was the glory of\nIsrael, the \u2018peculiar people\u2019\u201d? The old Common Law must be superseded\nby the Mosaic dispensation; the citizen of the commonwealth must become\nthe subject of Jehovah; the sovereignty of temporal authorities must\nserve the higher sovereignty of God.\n\nHolding to such views the duty devolving upon him was plain: to assist\nthe magistrates in checking the dangerous drift towards a democratic\norganization of church and state, which the new environment encouraged;\nand to defend the theocratic ideal against all critics. The first he\nsought to accomplish by creating a more perfect theocratic machinery.\nAs we catch glimpses of him moving tactfully back and forth through\nthe brisk little scenes, he seems always to have a finger in some\nmagisterial affair. Three months after his arrival in Boston he\npreached a sermon, the purport of which Winthrop noted in his _Journal_:\n\n After much deliberation and serious advice the Lord directed the\n teacher Mr. Cotton, to make clear by the scripture, that the\n minister\u2019s maintenance, as well as all other charges of the church,\n should be defrayed out of a stock, or treasury, which was to be\n raised out of the weekly contribution: which accordingly was agreed\n upon.[10]\n\nIn his first election sermon, preached in the May following, he joined\nissue with the democratic spirit of the deputies, by supporting a\nprinciple which was flagrantly oligarchical:\n\n That a magistrate ought not to be turned into the condition of a\n private man without just cause, & to be publicly convict, no more\n than the magistrates may turn a private man out of his freehold,\n etc., without like public trial, etc.[11]\n\nUnrebuffed by the rejection of this curious doctrine of the freehold\ntenure of magistrates, Cotton made a more ambitious attempt to\ntheocratize the state, when at the October court of 1636, in response\nto the persistent pressure for a fundamental law, he presented his code\nfor adoption by the commonwealth, the scriptural origin of which is\nrevealed in the title, \u201cModel of Moses his Judicials.\u201d Cotton Mather\ntells of this venture in constitution making, in the following glowing\nbut inaccurate words:\n\n On Mr. Cotton\u2019s arrival he found the whole country in a perplexed\n & a divided state, as to their _civill constitution_.... It was\n then requested of Mr. _Cotton_ that he would, from the laws\n wherewith God governed his ancient people, form an _abstract_ of\n such as were of a moral and a lasting equity; which he performed\n as acceptably as judiciously. But inasmuch as very much of an\n _Athenian democracy_ was in the mould of the government, by the\n royal charter.... Mr. Cotton effectually recommended it unto them\n that none should be _electors_, nor _elected_ therein, except such\n as were _visible subjects_ of our Lord Jesus Christ, personally\n _confederated_ in our churches. In these, and many other ways, he\n propounded unto them an endeavour after a theocracy, as near as\n might be, to that which was the glory of Israel, the \u201cpeculiar\n people.\u201d[12]\n\nCotton\u2019s code was rejected in favor of one, somewhat less Hebraic,\nprepared by Nathaniel Ward, but he continued to be the chief guide\nand mentor to the magistrates in political as well as theological\nmatters, and his theocratic philosophy determined in large measure the\npolicy of the oligarchy. To found an Hebraic state in which political\nrights should be subordinate to religious conformity, in which the\nmagistrates should be chosen from a narrow group, with authority beyond\nthe reach of the popular will, and with the ministers serving as court\nof last resort to interpret the divine law to the citizen-subjects of\nJehovah--this was the great ambition of John Cotton; and the untiring\nzeal and learned scriptural authority which he dedicated to that\nambition justify us in regarding him as the greatest of the New England\ntheocrats. In the categories of the Puritan philosophy of ethical\nstewardship there was no recognition of the profane doctrine of natural\nrights. Freedom was the prerogative of righteousness; the well-being of\nsociety required that the sinner should remain subject to the Saint.\nNowhere does he lay down this principle more unmistakably than in an\nimportant state paper:\n\n Now if it be a divine truth, that none are to be trusted with\n public permanent authority but godly men, who are fit materials\n for church membership, then from the same grounds it will appear,\n that none are so fit to be trusted with the liberties of the\n commonwealth as church members. For, the liberties of this\n commonwealth are such, as require men of faithful integrity to God\n and the state, to preserve the same.... Now ... these liberties are\n such as carry along much power with them, either to establish or\n subvert the commonwealth, and therewith the church, which power, if\n it be committed to men according to their godliness ... then, in\n case worldly men should prove the major part, as soon they might\n do, they would readily set over us magistrates like themselves,\n such as might ... turn the edge of all authority and laws against\n the church and the members thereof, the maintenance of whose\n peace is the chief end which God aimed at in the institution of\n magistracy.[13]\n\nThis, quite evidently, is the negation of democracy, and it has been\nfreely charged against his reputation by later critics. But in fairness\nit must be added, that it is equally the negation of the principle of\nhereditary aristocracy; and to reject the latter was a severer test of\nhis integrity than to deny the former. He wanted neither a democracy\nnor an aristocracy to control the church-state. \u201cHereditary honors\nboth nature and scripture doth acknowledge,\u201d he argued cautiously in\nreply to \u201cCertain Proposals made by Lord Say, Lord Brooke, and other\nPersons of quality, as conditions of their removing to New-England.\u201d\n\u201cTwo distinct ranks we willingly acknowledge ... the one of them called\nPrinces, or Nobles, or Elders (amongst whom gentlemen have their\nplace), the other the people.\u201d To the former he willingly accorded the\nright of rulership so long as they were of approved godliness, faithful\nto their stewardship. But \u201cif God should not delight to furnish some of\ntheir posterity with gifts fit for magistracy, we should expose them\nrather to reproach and prejudice, and the commonwealth with them, than\nexalt them to honor, if we should call them forth, when God doth not,\nto public authority.\u201d It must be set down in John Cotton\u2019s accounts\nthat he discouraged the transplanting of English aristocracy to the\nsoil of Massachusetts.\n\nThere remains to consider how he conducted himself in another weighty\nmatter that was laid upon his shoulders--the defense of the New England\npolity against old-world critics. Congregationalism had been somewhat\ncaustically handled by the English Presbyterians, as smacking both of\ndemocracy and Separatism; and John Cotton was called to justify to them\nthe apparent innovations. His most notable work in this field was his\ncelebrated volume, _The Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared_,\na treatise crammed, in the language of a contemporary admirer, with\n\u201cmost practical Soul-searching, Soul-saving, and Soul-solacing\nDivinitie\u201d; \u201cnot Magisterially laid down, but friendly debated by\nScripture, and argumentatively disputed out to the utmost inch of\nGround.\u201d Into the subtleties of this learned work we need not enter;\nits main thesis alone need detain us, and that thesis was an implied\ndenial of the democratic tendencies of the \u201cNew England way.\u201d Cotton\nwas greatly concerned over the charge of Joseph Baillie, a vigorous\nScotch Presbyterian, that Congregationalism was only a different form\nof lower-class Brownism, \u201ca native branch of Anabaptism\u201d; and that\nin resting ecclesiastical sovereignty upon \u201cthe particular, visible\nChurch of the Congregation,\u201d it was Separatist in principle as well as\nin practice. The charge was true, but John Cotton was too thoroughly\na Jacobean gentleman to concede it; dishonor would come upon the New\nEngland churches, he believed, if it were conceded. So he was driven\nto casuistry: \u201cNo marvall, if Independents take it ill to bee called\nBrownists.... He separated from Churches and Saints: we, onely from\nthe world, and that which is of the world\u201d; and then to a categorical\ndenial, \u201cfor New England there is no such church of the Separation at\nall that I know of.\u201d[14] From this it was a natural step to a downright\nrejection of the democratic principle of Congregationalism:\n\n Neither is it the Scope of my whole Book, to give the people a\n share in the Government of the Church.... Nay, further, there be\n that blame the Book for the other Extreme, That it placeth the\n Government of the Church not at all in the hands of the People, but\n of the Presbyterie.[15]\n\nThe same note of disingenuous casuistry runs through his well-known\ncontroversy with Roger Williams over the question of toleration. In\nseeking to parry the thrust that the Saints, after quitting England\nto escape persecution, had themselves turned persecutors, he argued:\n\u201cThere is a vast difference between men\u2019s inventions and God\u2019s\ninstitutions; we fled from men\u2019s inventions, to which we else should\nhave been compelled; we compel none to men\u2019s inventions.\u201d From which\nit followed, that \u201cif the worship be lawful in itself, the magistrate\ncompelling him to come to it, compelleth him not to sin, but the\nsin is in his own will that needs to be compelled to a Christian\nduty.\u201d[16] The brethren of Massachusetts were not singular in believing\nthat they were very near to God and privy to His will; nor were the\ndissenters to their policy singular in their skepticism concerning\nsuch infallibility; and when skepticism blows its cold breath upon it,\nthe logic of John Cotton turns to ashes. Not freedom to follow the\nways of sin, but freedom to follow the law of God as he expounded that\nlaw--such was Cotton\u2019s restriction upon the \u201cnatural liberties\u201d of the\nsubject of Jehovah. Let there be freedom of conscience if it be under\nno error, but not otherwise; for if freedom be permitted to sinful\nerror, how shall the will of God and John Cotton prevail upon earth?\n\nAfter the battle has been fought and lost it is easy to see the\nstrategic mistakes; but it is not so easy to keep one\u2019s head in the\nthick of the struggle. As John Cotton looked overseas at the social\nrevolution then threatening to submerge, not only Presbyterianism, but\nthe very social order in which he had been nurtured; as he considered\nthe logical implications of the strange, heretical doctrines that\nwere bandied about in pamphlet and sermon, he was put almost in a\npanic. The solid foundations of church and state were threatened by\nmischievous men, not only in England but in the new Canaan which had\ncost so much in prayer and sacrifice; should he keep silent while, in\nthe name of toleration, the gunpowder was being put in place for the\nwork of destruction? Even today we can feel the anxious concern of John\nCotton\u2019s mind in such a vibrant passage as this:\n\n I confesse we ... have cause to admire, and adore the wisdome, and\n dreadfull Justice of God herein, That seeing Mr. _Williams_ hath\n been now as a branch cut off from the Church of _Salem_ these many\n yeares, he should bring forth no spirituall good fruit: and that\n in such a season, when the Spirit of Error is let loose to deceive\n so many thousand soules of our English Nation: So that now their\n hearts are become as Tinder, ready to catch and kindle at every\n sparke of false light. Even so, O Father, because thy good pleasure\n is such, to let loose this Spirit of Error in the mouth of this\n Backslider, in the very houre and power of darknesse: for these are\n the dayes of vengeance: when the Antinomians deny the whole law;\n the Anti-sabbatarians deny the Morality of the fourth Commandement;\n the Papists deny the Negative part of the second Commandement.\n It is a wofull opportunitie that God hath left Mr. _Williams_\n to, now to step in.... For, take away (as Mr. _Williams_ doth)\n all instituted worship of God, as Churches, Pastors, Teachers,\n Elders, Deacons, Members, Publick Ministery of the Word, Covenant,\n Seales of the Covenant (Baptisme, and the Lords Supper), the\n Censures of the Church, and the like, what is then left of all the\n institutions, and Ordinances of God, which the Lord established\n in the second Commandement, against the Institutions, Images and\n Inventions of men in his worship.[17]\n\nHow easy it is for good men, in presence of the new and strange, to\ndraw back in timid reaction; and failing to understand, or fearing for\ntheir prestige, to charge upon the new and strange a host of evils\nthat exist only in their panic imaginations! In this great matter of\ntoleration of conscience, it is quite clear today that the eyes of the\ntroubled theocrat, \u201cso _piercing_ and _heavenly_ (in other and precious\nTruths of God)\u201d--as Roger Williams acknowledged--were for the moment\nsadly \u201cover-clouded and bloud-shotten.\u201d For this the age was more to\nblame than the man. It was no fault of John Cotton\u2019s that he was the\nchild of a generation reared under the shadow of absolutism, fearful\nof underling aggression, unable to comprehend the excellence inhering\nin the democratic faith. He reasoned according to his light; and if\nhe rather too easily persuaded himself that the light which shined to\nhim was the single divine light, he proved himself thereby an orthodox\nPuritan if not a catholic thinker. It is a pity that the priest in his\nlater years overcame the intellectual, nevertheless the epitaph carved\non his headstone does no violence to truth:\n\n JOHANNES COTTONUS\n _Cujus Ultima Laus est,\n Quod fuerit inter Nov-Anglos Primus._\n\nTo have been accounted by his fellows first among the notable company\nof Puritan emigrants was no slight testimony to the sterling qualities\nof Master John Cotton.\n\n\nII \u2022 John Winthrop \u2022 Magistrate\n\nIf John Cotton embodied the ideal and polity of the theocratic\nministry, John Winthrop represented the ideal and polity of the\ntheocratic magistracy. Rulership in the new church-state, while\nnominally the function of lay officers, in reality was quite as much\necclesiastical as political. The civil authorities were chosen by a\nnarrow body of orthodox electors with a single view to theocratic ends.\nTo the traditional conception of magistracy, in which the gentlemen\nof the Migration had been reared, was now added a special function,\nthe care of the church, \u201cthe maintenance of whose peace,\u201d John Cotton\nasserted, \u201cis the chief end which God aimed at in the institution\nof magistracy.\u201d The career of John Winthrop in Massachusetts must\nbe judged, therefore, from this twofold point of view. He was not\nexclusively, or chiefly, a civil governor, but a magistrate-elder; and\nhis political conduct was determined by this dual character of his\noffice. Unless one keeps in mind the theocratic framework of the early\nMassachusetts commonwealth, one cannot understand the limitations of\nhis authority, or judge his conduct intelligently.\n\nJohn Winthrop was a skillful executive upon whose shoulders largely\nrested the success or failure of the undertaking during the difficult\nearly years. But he was very much more than that; he was a Puritan\nsteward of temporal affairs, who accepted his stewardship as a\nsacred duty lying upon his conscience. A cultivated gentleman,\n\u201cbrowghte Up amonge boockes & learned men,\u201d with a tender and\nsympathetic nature--inclining overmuch to mildness, as he confessed\napologetically--by every right he belongs with that notable group\nof Puritans, with Eliot and Vane and Hutchinson and Milton, in whom\nthe moral earnestness of Hebraism was tempered to humaner issues by\na generous culture. There was in him not a little fruitful sap of\nElizabethan poetry to quicken his thought, lifting him out of the\npetty world of Jacobean lawyer and landed gentleman, and opening his\neyes to a vision of the future significance of the great venture to\nwhich he dedicated his later years. Grave and dignified, he looks\nout at us from his portrait with a certain stoic calm not untouched\nwith sadness, as if this life had proved a serious business, filled\nwith responsibilities and weighty matters, and darkened by sorrow and\ndisappointment. The pagan _joie de vivre_ of Elizabethan times is gone,\nand in its stead is a serious intelligence that must grapple with\nrealities and shape them to its will.\n\nHe had lived amply in England before his removal, with much that was\nfeudal lingering in the habits of his patriarchal household; and in\nthe little village of Boston he kept twenty male servants, some of\nthem heads of families. A decay of fortune had come upon him during\nhis last years on the family estate, and the hope of recouping his\nlosses may have been an additional reason for venturing to remove to\nthe new world. In his _Considerations for J. W._ he explains that \u201che\ncannot live in the same place and calling (as before) and so, if he\nshould refuse this opportunity, _that talent which God hath bestowed\nupon him for publick service were like to be buried_.\u201d Something to the\nsame purpose is suggested in another passage, which touches upon the\neconomic disturbances of the time, with the attendant extravagance and\nostentation of the new rich:\n\n This Land growes weary of her Inhabitants.... We are growne to\n that height of Intemperance in all excesse of Riott, as noe man\u2019s\n estate allmost will suffice to keepe saile with his \u00e6qualls.... The\n fountains of Learning & Religion are soe corrupted as--men straine\n at knatts & swallowe camells, use all severity for mainetaynance of\n cappes & other accomplyments, but suffer all ruffianlike fashions &\n disorder to passe uncontrolled.[18]\n\nWriting to his wife Margaret in 1629, he gave expression to\napprehensions that were very likely quickened by his own failure to\nkeep pace with his neighbors:\n\n My dear wife, I am veryly persuaded, God will bringe some heavye\n Affliction upon this lande & that speedylye.... The Lorde hath\n admonished, threatened, corrected, & astonished us, yet we growe\n worse & worse, so as his Spirit will not always strive with us, we\n must needs give way to his furye at last.[19]\n\nBut material considerations alone scarcely suffice to explain the\nmotives of one who wrote: \u201cIt were happy for many if their parents\nhad left them only such a legacy as our modern spirit of poetry\nmakes his motto, _Ut nec habeant, nec careant, nec curent._\u201d Such\nconsolation--that the Christian should possess nothing, desire nothing,\ntrouble about nothing--may have been only the refuge of the stoic\nfrom the impending loss of material possessions; but the conscious\ndiscipline in ascetic Hebraism which was to change the Jacobean\ngentleman into a militant Puritan had already created a temper to\nwhich such stoic abnegation must appeal. Winthrop\u2019s diary, running\nfrom his fourteenth to his thirty-second year, is a homely record\nin self-discipline, not unlike Bunyan\u2019s _Grace Abounding_. It is\nintrospective and tediously moralizing, but it reveals how long and\narduous was the training before he felt confident that he was \u201cimproved\nin all the points of experimental Godliness.\u201d\n\nBut Winthrop was the child of a great age before he was born into\nthe fellowship of the Saints; and when we come upon the natural man\nbeneath the theological wrappings, we discover a many-sided, rich and\nsympathetic human nature. He had gone to school to the English Bible,\nand the noble Hebrew poetry stirred the poetic imagination that was\nhis Elizabethan birthright. Like so many of his fellow Puritans he\ndelighted in the Book of Canticles, and the rich oriental imagery\nflowed easily from his pen. In one of his last letters before he\nquitted the old home, he took leave of a friend in these words:\n\n It is time to conclude, but I know not how to leave you, yet since\n I must, I will put my beloved into his arms, who loves him best, &\n is a faithful keeper of all that is committed to him. Now, Thou,\n the hope of Israel, and the sure help of all that come to thee,\n knit the hearts of thy servants to thyself in faith and purity.\n Draw us with the sweetness of thine odours, that we may run after\n thee--Allure us, and speak kindly to thy servants, that thou mayest\n possess us as thine own, in the kindness of youth, and the love\n of marriage--Seal us up, by that holy spirit of promise, that we\n may not fear to trust in thee--Carry us into thy garden, that we\n may eat and be filled with those pleasures, which the world knows\n not--Let us hear that sweet voice of thine, my love, my dove, my\n undefiled--Spread thy skirt over us, and cover our deformity--Make\n us sick with thy love--Let us sleep in thine arms, and awake in thy\n kingdom--The souls of thy servants, thus united to thee, make us\n one in the bonds of brotherly affection--let not distance weaken\n it, nor time waste it, nor changes dissolve it, nor self-love\n eat it out; but when all means of other communion shall fail,\n let us delight to pray for each other: and so let thy unworthy\n servant prosper in the love of his friends, as he truly loves thy\n good servants ... and wishes true happiness to them and to all\n theirs--Amen.[20]\n\nWhen his heart was touched Winthrop\u2019s tenderness flowed out in a wealth\nof affectionate sympathy, that lends a rich and lovely cadence to his\nEnglish prose. To a sister who had suffered the loss of her husband, he\nwrote:\n\n Go on cheerfully (my good sister), let experience add more\n confidence still to your patience. Peace shall come. There will\n be a bed to rest in, large and easy enough for you both. It is\n preparing in the lodging appointed for you in your Father\u2019s house.\n He that vouchsafed to wipe the sweat from his disciple\u2019s feet,\n will not disdain to wipe the tears from those tender affectionate\n eyes. Because you have been one of his mourners in the house of\n tribulation, you shall drink of the cup of joy, and be clothed with\n the garment of gladness, in the kingdom of his glory. The former\n things, and evil, will soon be passed; but the good to come shall\n neither end nor change.[21]\n\nAt another time, writing to his son of the death of his father, Adam\nWinthrop, he said:\n\n He hath finished his course; and is gathered to his people in\n peace, as the ripe corn into the barn. He thought long for the day\n of his dissolution and welcomed it most gladly. Thus is he gone\n before; and we must go after in our time: This advantage he hath\n of us--he shall not see the evil which we may meet with ere we go\n hence. Happy those who stand in good terms with God and their own\n conscience: they shall not fear evil tidings; and in all changes\n they shall be the same.[22]\n\nA lovable man was John Winthrop, richly endowed and admirably\ndisciplined, gracious in manner, persuasive in speech, generous in\naction--in all England there could scarcely have been found a leader\nbetter equipped for the work in hand, when at the age of forty-three\nhe became head of the emigrant church-state, which by reason of its\ncharter and the removal of the corporation to New England, was become\neffectively an independent commonwealth, free to shape its domestic\npolity as seemed best. During the score of years that remained to him,\nhe was the guiding spirit of the Massachusetts settlements, impressing\nhis will upon others by sheer force of character. It was inevitable\nthat in so strange and unprecedented an experiment, undertaken in\nan environment so unfamiliar, serious and often bitter divisions\nwould arise touching the fundamental principles of government. In\nthe frequent discussions Winthrop bore a leading part; he marshaled\nhis arguments with the skill of a lawyer; he separated the broad\nprinciple from the special circumstance; and in the end he usually\ncarried the assent of his fellow counselors to his proposals. His\nsocial and political philosophy, in consequence, greatly influenced\nthe development of Massachusetts Bay during the early years when its\ninstitutions and polity were taking shape, and throws much light on the\nspirit and purpose of that development.\n\nWinthrop\u2019s political bias was unconsciously shaped by his experience,\nof which the determining fact was the principle and practice of\nJacobean magistracy. As an English squire he had long served as\nmagistrate, and this experience he brought to New England as a legacy\nfrom an autocratic past. In that old world the magistrate exercised\na patriarchal police power well-nigh absolute, sanctioned by ancient\ncustom, upheld by the church, and acquiesced in by subjects well\ntrained in subordination. Transported to New England and adapted to\ntheocratic ends, the principle of magistracy was both augmented in\npower and ennobled in conception. To the police power over things\ntemporal was added a police power over things spiritual. In the\nBible commonwealth the legislative function was regarded as of minor\nimportance. The law being already set down in the Scriptures, the chief\nauthority in the commonwealth naturally rested with the magistrates who\nwere responsible for its strict fulfillment. As stewards intrusted with\na divine stewardship, they exercised absolute legislative and judicial\npowers; in their councils the ministers were summoned to participate,\nbut no others. It was the duty of the magistrates to debate and\ndetermine, and the duty of the people to obey.\n\nTo a modern this is no other than sheer absolutism, but it was deeply\nembedded in Calvinistic theory and practice, and was justified by the\nPuritan principle of special talents. God calls to the post of duty\nthose best fitted to serve. As a devout follower of Calvin, Winthrop\nmust have often pondered upon the passages in the _Institutes_ which\nset forth the nature of magistracy and the duties of the magistrate,\nand in particular this: \u201cIf they remember that they are the vicegerents\nof God, it behooves them to watch with all care, diligence, and\nindustry, that they may exhibit a kind of image of the Divine\nProvidence, guardianship, goodness, benevolence, and justice.\u201d[23]\nTo a devout Jacobean like Winthrop, this patriarchal conception of\nstewardship would appear as a noble ideal, worthy of a Christian. The\npotential absolutism implied would scarcely trouble one who had grown\nup in a society where absolute authority was interwoven with everyday\nlife. The Christian magistrate was still a magistrate, but with the\ngreat difference that his hands must be kept clean and his conscience\nclear. This nobler spirit of Calvinistic stewardship is revealed in\nWinthrop\u2019s _Modell of Christian Charity_, written on shipboard during\nthe voyage out. A sense of profound responsibility devolving upon the\nleaders imparts dignity to the thought: they must bear and forbear,\nknitting themselves together in a common purpose, and seeing that \u201cthe\ncare of the public\u201d should \u201coversway all private interests.\u201d And this\n\u201ccare of the public,\u201d remained in theory if not always in practice, the\nguiding principle of Winthrop\u2019s official activities.\n\nThe bearing of this doctrine of magistracy upon the early movement of\ndemocracy in Massachusetts is not far to seek. If magistracy was a duty\nlaid upon those of fit talents, they would serve God ill who should\nturn a willing ear to popular protests against magisterial policy. On\nthis point Winthrop was adamant. He would have no meddling on the part\nof those who had not been called. When it was attempted to bring him\nto account before the congregation for an unpopular judicial decision,\nhe denied the competency of the congregation in such matters, and then\nas he often did in cases of doubt, he made a \u201clittle book\u201d in which he\nelaborated the thesis, \u201cThat a Church hath not Power to call any Civill\nMagistrate to give Account of his Juditiall proceedings in any Court\nof Civill Justice: and what the Church may doe in such Causes.\u201d[24]\nThe shoemaker should stick to his last, Winthrop believed, and he\nwould suffer no interference by the congregation with his duties as\nmagistrate. On another occasion when difficulties had arisen in certain\nnegotiations with the Connecticut settlements, he noted in his journal:\n\n These and the like miscarriages in point of correspondency were\n conceived to arise from these two errors in their government: 1.\n They chose divers _scores_ men, who had no learning nor judgment\n which might fit them for those affairs, though otherwise men holy\n and religious. 2. By occasion hereof, the main burden for managing\n of state business fell upon one or other of their ministers, (as\n the phrase and style of these letters will clearly discover),\n who, though they were men of singular wisdom and godliness, yet\n stepping out of their course, their actions wanted that blessing\n which otherwise might have been expected.[25]\n\nThe political philosophy which underlay Winthrop\u2019s theory and practice\nof magistracy, was a Puritan modification of the commonly accepted\nEnglish theory of a \u201cmixt aristocratie.\u201d He had been trained in the\nlaw but was little given to speculative thought. There is evidence\nthat he read somewhat in the fast accumulating political literature\nof the times, but little indication that his reading modified his\ntheory or influenced his conduct. He was an administrator rather than\na philosopher, and from the fragmentary records that have survived\nit is difficult to piece together a consistent political theory. As\na magistrate under the dominance of the English Common Law, he seems\nto have accepted the constitutional theory of Coke, who sought to\ninterpose the customary and ancient law of the land between the growing\nabsolutism of the Crown, and the increasing importunity of the Commons,\nwith sovereignty inhering in the judiciary. As a Puritan, however, he\nsuperimposed the law of Moses on the law of the land, and by ignoring\nthe King on the one hand, and denying power to the representatives of\nthe people on the other, he created the framework of a magisterial\ntheocracy.\n\nThe two chief sources to which we must turn for his political views,\nin addition to his letters and journals, are: _A Replye to the Answ:\nMade to the Discourse about the Neg: Vote_, and _Arbitrary Governmt\nDescribed: & the Governmt of the Massachusetts Vindicated from\nthat Aspersion_, both of which have been preserved in the form of\nheads of argument.[26] The principle that underlies these skeleton\narguments is the theory of a state held static by exact constitutional\narrangements. King and people represent the great supplementary\nfunctions of constitutional government, sovereignty and liberty; both\nare necessary in a well ordered society, and neither may encroach\nupon the other. This Winthrop regarded as the vital principle of the\nEnglish constitution, which had been embodied in the government of\nMassachusetts.\n\n The Government of the Massachusetts consists of Magistrates &\n Freemen: in the one is placed the Auth\u2019ye, in the other the Lib\u2019tye\n of the Com: W: either hath power to Acte, both alone, & both\n togither, yet by a distinct power, the one of Lib\u2019tye, the other of\n Auth\u2019ye: the Freemen Acte alone in all occurrences out of Court: &\n both Acte togither in the Gen\u2019ll Court: yet all limited by certaine\n Rules, bothe in the greater & smaller affaires: so as the Governm\u2019t\n is Regular in a mixt Aristocratie, & no wayes Arbitrary.[27]\n\nIn settled times and places this nice balance between sovereignty and\nliberty is maintained by use and wont; but in periods of disturbance,\nsuch as then existed in England, and in new experiments, such as marked\nthe setting up of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, there was certain\nto be much pulling and straining between these antagonistic principles;\nand his refusal to accept this fact, and his stubborn insistence on\ntransferring to New England the old English static order, brought on\nWinthrop\u2019s head many of the difficulties that greatly troubled his\nadministration. Both in the old world and the new, the principle of\nliberty was encroaching on feudal authority. With the rise of the\nmiddle class, many Englishmen, and particularly the colonial New\nEnglanders, were fast outgrowing the old paternalisms, and coming to\nregard them as no other than tyranny. The freemen of the Massachusetts\ntowns were restive under the strict rule of the magistrate-elders, and\na growing party of democratic deputies was eager to try its hand at\ngovernment. All such democratic pretensions Winthrop held in contempt,\nalthough he was at pains to deny the arbitrary nature of magisterial\nrule.\n\n Some of the deputies had seriously conceived, that the magistrates\n affected an arbitrary government.... For prevention whereof they\n judged it not unlawful to use even _extrema remedia_, as if _salus\n populi_ had been now the transcendent rule to walk by, and that\n magistracy must be no other, in effect, than a ministerial office,\n and all authority, both legislative, consultative, and judicial,\n must be exercised by the people in their body representative.[28]\n\nIf government were regular it could not be arbitrary--this was\nWinthrop\u2019s brief reply to the deputies. In his arguments he\ndeliberately avoided the difficult question of sovereignty; in part,\nno doubt, because of the delicate situation resulting from fear of\nroyal interference, but chiefly because he was unwilling to bring into\njeopardy the unlimited powers of magistracy. That he denied sovereignty\nto the people is abundantly clear from his actions, as well as from\nspecific comment. By the law of the corporation, namely, the written\nterms of the charter, authority was vested in a limited body of\nfreemen; and he saw no reason in expediency or otherwise to extend that\nauthority. Thus he argued, \u201cit is well proved & concluded by a late\nJuditious writer, in a booke newly come over, intituled an Answ: to Dr\nFerne, that thoughe all Lawes, that are sup\u2019structive, may be altered\nby the representative bodye of the Com:w: yet they have not power to\nalter anythinge w\u2019ch is fundamental.\u201d[29] What delimitations were to be\ndrawn between \u201csuperstructive\u201d and \u201cfundamental,\u201d he was not careful\nto make clear; but it is certain that he regarded as fundamental not\nonly the charter terms and the British constitution but the will of\nGod. Doubtful as this last may seem to students of political science,\nand difficult to determine, it was neither doubtful nor difficult to\nWinthrop and his fellow magistrates and ministers. The Mosaic law was\nspecific. Back of the citizen-legislator was the subject of Jehovah,\nand he was politically free only to do the will of God. There must be\ndivine sanction for all human law; lacking such sanction all majority\nvotes and legislative enactments were null and void. Sovereignty\ninheres finally in God, and it is by his fundamental law that all\nsuperstructive laws and institutions must be judged.\n\nIn theocratic philosophy, therefore, the magistrate became no other\nthan God\u2019s vicegerent, with authority beyond popular limitation or\ncontrol. No English squire presumed to exercise the magisterial\npowers which Winthrop and his associates quietly usurped. Among\nother innovations they early claimed the right of veto on the acts\nof the deputies, and in reply to the dissatisfaction voiced at such\narbitrary encroachment, Winthrop argued that the magisterial veto was\nno infringement on the liberties of the people, but was a means to\n\u201cpreserve them, if by any occasion they should be in danger: I cannot\nliken it better to anythinge than the brake of a windmill: w\u2019ch hathe\nno power, to move the runninge worke: but it is of speciall use, to\nstoppe any violent motion, w\u2019ch in some extraordinary tempest might\nendanger the wholl fabricke.\u201d[30] The convenient weapon of divine\nsanction Winthrop did not scruple to use at need. Thus when a petition\nwas presented for the repeal of a law which arbitrarily decreased the\nnumber of deputies, he denied the lawfulness of the procedure:\n\n When the people have chosen men to be their rulers, now to combine\n together ... in a public petition to have an order repealed ...\n savors of resisting an ordinance of God. For the people, having\n deputed others, have no right to make or alter laws themselves, but\n are to be subject.[31]\n\nThe old English right of petition, in short, was not a right in\ntheocratic Massachusetts, and any unauthorized joining together of\ncitizens for political purposes was a conspiracy against the will of\nGod. The practical result of this doctrine of magisterial vicegerency\nwas that a small group of freemen set up an unlimited oligarchy over\nsome four or five thousand of their fellow Englishmen, even going so\nfar as to advance the novel doctrine of a freehold tenure of power.\n\nWinthrop\u2019s extreme jealousy of popular power cannot be explained\naway by the doctrine of stewardship. Hooker of Hartford had no such\ndistrust of the people, but he was not a gentleman, like Winthrop,\nand had not grown up with an aristocratic contempt for democracy.\nThe preposterousness of democratic aspiration was a stock jest among\nEnglish gentlemen, and in seeking to refute the arguments of the\ndeputies for greater popular power Winthrop did little more than give a\nHebraic twist to his aristocratic prejudices:\n\n Where the chief Ordinary power & administration thereof is in\n the people, there is a Democratie ... the Deputies are the\n Democraticall p\u2019te of o\u2019r Governm\u2019t. Now if we should change\n from a mixt Aristocratie to a meere Democratie: first we should\n have no warr\u2019nt in scripture for it: there was no such Governm\u2019t\n in Israell. 2: we should heerby voluntaryly abase o\u2019rselves, &\n deprive o\u2019rselves of that dignitye, w\u2019ch the providence of God\n hath putt upon us: w\u2019ch is a manifest breach of the 5th Com\u2019t: for\n a Democratie is, among most Civill nations accounted the meanest\n & worst of all formes of Governm\u2019t: & therefore in writers, it is\n branded w\u2019th Reproachfull Epithets as Bellua multor\u016b capit\u016b, a\n monster, &c: & Historyes doe recorde, that it hath been allwayes of\n least continuance & fullest of trouble.[32]\n\nIn an often quoted letter to Thomas Hooker, then engaged in erecting\na democratic commonwealth in Connecticut, Winthrop diplomatically\nmoderated his terms and put the aristocratic doctrine in more\nattractive form. \u201cI expostulated about the unwarrantableness &\nunsafeness of referring all matter of counsel or judicature to the body\nof the people, _quia_ the best is always the least, & of that best part\nthe wiser part is always the lesser.\u201d[33] But he must have agreed\nheartily with another English gentleman, who writing to Winthrop under\ndate of July 9, 1640, remarked pithily:\n\n I say agayne noe wise man shoud be soe folish as to live whear\n every man is master, & masters must not correct theyr servants:\n Where wise men propound & fooles determine, as it was sayde of the\n citties of Greece.[34]\n\nAs the responsible steward of God\u2019s plan for New England, Winthrop\nwould not flatter the people by pretending to the doctrine of _vox\npopuli, vox dei_. The multitude he regarded as factious, overswayed\nby expediency and self-interest, incapable of governing wisely. Law,\nby its nature, was ethical, the expression of God\u2019s absolute and just\nwill; and this law, the magistrates were called of God to enforce.\n\nFrom this conception of the absolute nature of law, came the famous\ndiscussion of liberty and authority, known as the \u201clittle speech,\u201d\nwhich is the most highly praised of Winthrop\u2019s utterances. In a certain\npolice-court matter that had loosed the class prejudices of all\nparties, he had held against the popular feeling, and was impeached\nbefore the general court. Upon his acquittal he rose and addressed the\ncourt in words which he afterwards set down in his journal. No other\nepisode in his varied career reveals so well the admirable poise of the\nman--the dignity, the self-control, the fair-mindedness, despite an\nattack that hurt him to the quick.\n\n For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake\n in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, natural (I\n mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first\n is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as\n he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he\n lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is\n incompatible and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure\n the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and\n maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time\n to be worse than brute beasts: _omnes sumus licentia deteriores_.\n This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which\n all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue\n it. The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal; and it may\n also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and\n man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions\n amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object\n of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty\n to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are\n to stand for, with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of\n your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this, is not authority,\n but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained and exercised\n in a subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty\n wherewith Christ hath made us free.... On the other side, ye know\n who they are that complain of this yoke and say, let us break their\n bands, etc., we will not have this man to rule over us. Even so,\n brethren, it will be between you and your magistrates. If you stand\n for your natural corrupt liberties, and will do what is good in\n your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of authority,\n but will murmur, and oppose, and be always striving to shake off\n that yoke; and if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and\n lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then will you quietly\n and cheerfully submit unto that authority which is set over you, in\n all the administrations of it, for your good. Wherein, if we fail\n at any time, we hope we shall be willing (by God\u2019s assistance) to\n hearken to good advice from any of you, or in any other way of God;\n so shall your liberties be preserved, in upholding the honor and\n power of authority amongst you.[35]\n\nThe doctrine of aristocratic stewardship has never been more skillfully\npresented. It is John Cotton\u2019s reply to Roger Williams, translated into\npolitical terms; the philosophy of natural rights whittled down to a\ncovenant between God and man. It rests on the assumption of an absolute\nlaw, superior to expediency. But may not honest men disagree as to what\nconstitutes the good, just, and honest? and may not godly authority\nimperceptibly slide over into plain tyranny? Although the Saints may\nhave professed themselves satisfied with Winthrop\u2019s doctrine, the pages\nof early Massachusetts history bear ample record of the dissatisfaction\nof the sinners. Most of the difficulties experienced by Winthrop in his\nadministration of the commonwealth had their root in this assumption\nof arbitrary power, the immediate outcome of which was a spontaneous\ndevelopment of incipient democracy. How far such an assumption of\ndivine custodianship may lead a generous man from the path of justice,\nappears in his summing up of the case against Mistress Anne Hutchinson,\nwho because she insisted upon her own interpretation of the good, just,\nand honest, was adjudged \u201cA woman not only difficult in her opinions,\nbut also of an intemperate spirit.\u201d \u201cThe ground work of her revelations\nis the immediate revelation of the spirit, and not by the ministry of\nthe Lord ... and this hath been the ground of all these tumults and\ntroubles; and I would that those were all cut off that trouble us.\u201d The\nkernel of the offense for which Mistress Hutchinson was banished, is\nthen laid bare: \u201cWe see not that any should have authority to set up\nany other exercise beside what authority hath already set up.\u201d[36]\n\nIn this arbitrary judgment of Winthrop\u2019s--the natural fruit of the tree\nof theocratic stewardship--the \u201clittle speech\u201d discovers its suitable\ncommentary. Urged on by his bigoted associates, the kind-hearted\ngovernor descended to their level, and began the unhappy business of\nplaying the tyrant under pretense of scourging God\u2019s enemies. The\nlords-brethren served notice upon all dissenters that henceforth there\nmust be no dissent in New England. The admirable courage of Mistress\nHutchinson availed no more against the magisterial interpretation\nof the good, just, and honest, than the boldness of Roger Williams\nbefore her; or later, the zeal of the Baptists who were sent away by\nEndicott; or later still, the piety of the Quakers, who were whipped\nat the cart-tail and hanged, men and women both. The policy of the\npolitical stewardship of the best and wisest never had fuller trial,\nwith abler or more conscientious agents, than in Massachusetts Bay; and\nits failure was complete. Such progress as Massachusetts made towards\nfreedom and tolerance was gained in the teeth of theocratic opposition;\nNew England democracy owes no debt to her godly magistrates.\n\nBred up in a half-feudal world, the leaders of the Migration remained\npatriarchal in their social philosophy, unable to adapt old prejudices\nto new conditions. Human motives are curiously mixed, human actions\nrarely consistent; and if the shortcomings of John Winthrop show\nblacker by contrast with the excellence of the ideal which he\nprofessed, the fault must be charged against his time and associates\nand not against his manly, generous nature. Most English gentlemen of\nhis day were steeped in a sodden Toryism, yet he earnestly desired to\nbe a faithful steward of church and state. If as a gentleman he held\nfirmly to the privilege of rulership, as a Christian he endeavored\nto rule honorably and in the fear of the Lord. If he followed the\nbeaten path and tried to shape the great experiment by the traditional\nprinciples of his class; if his zeal at times led him into indisputable\ntyrannies; it was because he was led away from the light, not because\nhe sought selfish ends. Godliness has its own special temptations, and\nit would be ungenerous to bear ill-will against so lovable a man.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[7] James Truslow Adams, _The Founding of New England_, p. 170.\n\n[8] _Institutes_, Book IV, Chapter XX, Paragraph 8.\n\n[9] \u201cLetter to Lord Say and Sele,\u201d in Hutchinson, _History of\nMassachusetts Bay Colony_, Vol. I, p. 497.\n\n[10] Vol. I, p. 116.\n\n[11] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 125.\n\n[12] _Magnalia_, Vol. I, p. 265. Compare with this Cotton\u2019s own words:\n\u201cThe law, which your Lordship instanceth (in that none shall be chosen\nto magistracy amongst us, but a church member) was made and enacted\nbefore I came into the country; but I have hitherto wanted sufficient\nlight to plead against it\u201d (Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts Bay\nColony_, Vol. I, p. 498).\n\n[13] Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts Bay Colony_, Vol. I,\nAppendix 2.\n\n[14] See _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. II, p. 203.\n\n[15] _Ibid._, Part II, p. 15.\n\n[16] See Hutchinson, _Papers_, Vol. II, pp. 131 ff.; quoted in Adams,\n_Founding of New England_, p. 261.\n\n[17] \u201cMaster John Cottons Answer to Master Roger Williams,\u201d in\n_Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. II, pp. 22-23.\n\n[18] _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_, Vol. I, p. 310.\n\n[19] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 296.\n\n[20] _Life and Letters_, Vol. I, pp. 397-398.\n\n[21] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 288.\n\n[22] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 179.\n\n[23] Book IV, Chapter XX, Paragraph 6.\n\n[24] The heads of argument are given in _Life and Letters_, Vol. II,\npp. 211-214.\n\n[25] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 236.\n\n[26] Both are given in the appendix to Vol. II of the _Life and\nLetters_.\n\n[27] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 454.\n\n[28] _Journal_, Vol. II, p. 240.\n\n[29] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 438.\n\n[30] _Discourse about the Neg: Vote, Life and Letters_, Vol. II, p. 434.\n\n[31] _Journal._\n\n[32] _Life and Letters_, Vol. II, p. 430.\n\n[33] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 237.\n\n[34] _Letter of Lord Say and Sele_, in _ibid._, Vol. II, p. 426.\n\n[35] _History of New England_, Vol. II, pp. 279-282.\n\n[36] Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts Bay Colony_, Vol. II, pp.\n482-520.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 The Contributions of Independency\n\n\nI\n\nOther ideals than those of Winthrop and Cotton, fruitful or feculent\naccording to the special bias of whoever judges them, came out of\nEngland in the teeming days of the Puritan revolution to agitate\nthe little settlements. A Hebraized theocracy could not satisfy the\naspirations of advanced English liberals who were exploring all the\navenues to freedom, and who, now that the old feudal bonds were\nloosening, were projecting a more generous basis for the reorganization\nof society. The democratic elements were beginning to make their voices\nheard in England; the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers was\nbearing fruit in the minds of obscure Independents; and the eventual\noutcome would be the shouldering aside of a snug Presbyterian order,\nand the clarification of a program for a democratic commonwealth. In\nthose excellent words commonweal and commonwealth--words much on men\u2019s\ntongues in the creative later years of the Puritan revolution--was\nfittingly summed up the political ideal of Independency. English\nliberalism had come to believe that social conformity, established in\nthe practice of coercion, with its monarchical state and hierarchical\nchurch, must give way to an order founded in good will, that conceived\nof the political state as a public-service corporation, concerned\nsolely with the _res publica_, or public thing, careful of the\nwell-being of all, allowing special rights or grants to none. The\nstate, it was coming to be argued freely, rightly understood, was\nno other than society organized to further the great end of the\ncommonweal; no longer must it remain a private preserve for gentlemen\nto hunt over.\n\nBut before that should come about a great battle must be fought, in\nNew England as well as in old England. The principle of individual\nfreedom must first be established securely in the public mind, and\nto that business the party of Independents devoted its energies. In\nthe theory and practice of Independency two fundamental rights were\nimplied: the right of the individual to determine his own belief,\nuncoerced by external authority; and the right to join freely with his\nfellows in the institutional expression and spread of such belief.\nIn order to realize the first, it was a necessary preliminary to\nestablish the right of free inquiry on a firm constitutional basis--the\nprinciple that the state shall safeguard the citizen in the exercise\nof such right, and not hinder or thwart him; and in order to realize\nthe second, it was necessary to establish in social practice a much\nmore fiercely disputed principle, namely, the right to proselytize,\nto spread one\u2019s views freely, to endeavor to make them prevail over\ncontrary views. Certainly neither right would be freely granted; they\nmust be won in the teeth of supposedly divine sanctions to conformity.\nHowever intimately the two are related, it is over the second that the\nlong fierce battle has been waged in modern history. Liberalism faces\nno severer test than in its attitude towards the right of unpopular\nminority propaganda. The broad principle of toleration of differences,\nso vital to a democratic society, searches out and lays bare every\ninsincerity of liberal professions. The will to power is so universal\nin appeal, it is so quick to attack every threatening nonconformity,\nthat no other social right has traveled so arduous a road, or lags so\nfar in the rear of the liberal advance. The principle of religious\ntoleration that was involved in the movement of Independency was the\necclesiastical form of a struggle, which, shifting later to the field\nof politics and then to economics, is still raging about us. The long\nbattle is still far from being won. In few countries today do more than\na small minority regard the principle of toleration otherwise than as a\nsocial luxury to be indulged in only when times are settled.\n\nIt was in the nature of things that a clash should soon come in\nMassachusetts Bay. There Independency would certainly be looked\nupon as no better than a weed from the devil\u2019s wilderness, and in\nthe name of God and the theocracy it would be trampled under foot.\nLiberalism and the Cambridge Platform would no more mix than oil and\nwater. But the more immediate and narrower question of religious\ntoleration was only incidental to the broader divergencies that lay\nin antagonistic principles of church and state, and that brought on\nthe clash. A general engagement was preparing between the principles\nof Presbyterianism and Independency, and the real issue at stake\nwas the future form of society in New England--whether it was to be\naristocratic or democratic. The free environment was a strong stimulus\nto idealists who looked upon the new field as a heaven-sent opportunity\nfor their own special Utopias to take root, and who would bitterly\nresent any intrusion by a rival. Commonwealth building is a great\nadventure, and the Independents with their carefully elaborated plans\nwould not sit quietly by and permit the Saints to pre\u00ebmpt the land for\ntheir inhospitable theocracy without a struggle. In such a contest the\nmore liberal party was fortunate in its leaders. Thomas Hooker and\nRoger Williams were men of creative ability, of inflexible purpose,\nof fine idealism, the ablest amongst the entire group of Puritan\nimmigrants, in whom the great principles of Independency found worthy\nstewards; and the long struggle they carried on, each in his own way,\nwith the theocratic leaders of Massachusetts was to affect profoundly\nthe later development of New England. In the end the Presbyterianism\nof Boston was to surrender to the Congregationalism of Hartford. From\nConnecticut and Rhode Island, it must be recalled, rather than from the\nBay colony, came those democratic principles and institutions that were\nto spread widely in later years, and create the New England that after\ngenerations have liked to remember.\n\n\nII \u2022 Thomas Hooker \u2022 Puritan Liberal\n\nAmong the Englishmen who came to Massachusetts were some to whom the\n\u201cNew England way\u201d seemed to promise a democratic organization of\nthe church, and who looked with disapproval upon the Presbyterizing\npolicy of the oligarchy. Of this number the congregations of Newtown,\nDorchester, and Watertown were noteworthy for the quiet determination\nwith which they seceded from the theocratic commonwealth, and set\nup for themselves in the Connecticut wilderness. Their leaders were\nliberals who believed that everything should be done decently and\nin order, but who were determined that the outcome of such decent\norderliness should be a free church in a free state; and so while Roger\nWilliams was engaged in erecting the democracy of Rhode Island, Thomas\nHooker was as busily engaged in erecting the democracy of Hartford.\n\nConcerning the \u201cgrave and judicious Hooker\u201d surprisingly little is\nknown, in spite of the important work that he did and the influence\nthat he wielded during a masterful life. He was evidently a man\nregardless of fame, who took small pains to publish his virtues for the\nedification of posterity; what record he left behind bears evidence of\nbeing the expression of a man to whom desire for celebrity was nothing\nin comparison with the needs of his Master\u2019s work. Unlike his fellow\nministers he was not much given to making books. The works that bore\nthe name of Thomas Hooker on the title-page were put through the press\nusually by other hands than his, and were taken from shorthand notes.\nHis great contribution, _A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline_,\npublished anonymously and in an imperfect form, was written against\nhis will in consequence of his having been drafted for the service\nby his fellow ministers. In removing from Newtown he cut himself off\nfrom the group of diarists who diligently recorded the happenings of\nthe day, and so failed of being portrayed and praised by divers busy\npens. Lacking exacter information, we are forced to rely mainly upon\nsuch hearsay reports as have come down to us, pieced out by Puritan\ntradition; and these reports make Thomas Hooker to have been a strong\nand resourceful man, a better democrat than his fellow ministers, the\nfather of New England Congregationalism as it later came to be when the\nPresbyterianizing tendency was checked--a practical leader who rejected\nequally the reactionary theocracy of John Cotton, and the leveling\nradicalism of Roger Williams.\n\nFor the pronounced democratic sympathies of this \u201clight of the western\nchurches\u201d--a sympathy quite unusual in his day and world--some grounds\nwill be discovered in his commonplace origin. Unlike John Cotton, who\nhad a \u201cdescent from honourable progenitors,\u201d Hooker was sprung from\na plain yeoman family that had made no stir in the world. His native\nhamlet, Marfield in Leicestershire, numbered no more than six houses,\ntucked away in a secluded countryside. His schooling was got by the\naid of scholarships: at Market-Bosworth and later at Cambridge, where\nhe entered as sizar, which meant among other things that he was waiter\non tables in the Hall. When he was settled in a forty-pound living\nat Esher, in Surrey, he married a \u201cwaiting-woman\u201d to the wife of his\npatron; and when he died, after a laborious life spent in the cause\nof righteousness, he left an estate appraised at 846 pounds, 15\nshillings, exclusive of his books, more than half of which modest sum\nwas represented by the Hartford homestead.[37] Which scanty information\nis sufficient to tell us that Thomas Hooker was a simple man in worldly\nambitions as well as in origin, not given to climbing or feathering his\nown nest, with none of the great associates or aristocratic ties of\nWinthrop and Ward and Cotton, a churchman more inclined to the ways of\nIndependency than to Presbyterianism.\n\nIn his professional work he was rather the pastor than the teacher,\ncaring more for experimental religion than for theological disputation.\nHe was an embodiment of the moral fervor of the Reformation that\nprotested against the scandal of \u201cdumb priests.\u201d He seems to have been\nthe most stimulating preacher of early New England, and it was as a\nlecturer that he had made a name for himself before he was driven from\nhis English charge by Laud. The lecturer was a characteristic Puritan\ninnovation, much hated by the Anglicans. Translated into a modern\nequivalent, it meant an agitator who used the pulpit to spread the\nnew gospel of free judgment in religious matters, and other gospels\ndispleasing to absolutism. That such men were not liked by Charles\nand his Archbishop goes without saying; they were \u201cthe people\u2019s\ncreatures\u201d--a certain Tory churchman complained to the King--and \u201cblew\nthe bellows of their sedition.\u201d Such being the case it seemed but\ncommon prudence to muzzle them, and as early as 1622 James laid down\nan orthodox program, forbidding any of lesser rank than \u201ca bishop or\ndean [to] presume to preach in any popular auditory on the deep points\nof predestination, election, reprobation, or of the universality,\nefficacy, irresistibility of God\u2019s grace,\u201d and restricting Sunday\nafternoon sermons to such innocuous themes as the \u201cCatechism, Creed,\nor Ten Commandments.\u201d[38] It was an endeavor to stop men\u2019s thinking by\nputting the crown of martyrdom on the lovers of truth. To forbid the\nPuritan to talk of such things, to shut up the Word of God from him,\nwas to blow the bellows of his sedition indeed.\n\nThat Thomas Hooker was not a man to be muzzled must have been clear\nto all who knew his stubborn English will. In his homely vigor he was\nnot unlike Hugh Latimer, direct and vigorous in speech and action,\nnot easily turned aside from the path of duty, possessing much of\nthe old bishop\u2019s courage in dealing with great men and their follies.\nHe knew a fool and a tyrant in high places, and was bold to call them\nby their true names. \u201cHe was a person,\u201d said Cotton Mather, \u201cwho\nwhile doing his Master\u2019s work, would put a king in his pocket.\u201d He\nwas the more dangerous because he had put his own temper under strict\ngovernance--\u201cFor though he were a man of cholerick disposition, and had\na mighty vigour and fervour of spirit ... yet he had ordinarily as much\ngovernment of his choler as a man has of a mastiff dog in a chain; he\n\u2018could let out his dog, and pull in his dog, as he pleased.\u2019\u201d\n\nSo ardent a temperament, joined to remarkable powers of oratory, gave\nto Thomas Hooker very unusual popular influence, some measure of which\nis revealed in a letter of a certain sycophant of the court party, who\nwrote to Laud\u2019s tool, Chancellor Duck, under date of May 20, 1629, as\nfollows:\n\n All men\u2019s eares are now filled with ye obstreperous clamours of his\n followers against my Lord ... as a man endeavouring to suppress\n good preaching and advance Popery. All would be here very calme\n and quiet if he [Hooker] might depart.... If he be suspended its\n the resolution of his friends and himselfe to settle his abode in\n Essex, and maintenance is promised him in plentifull manner for\n the fruition of his private conference, which hath already more\n impeached the peace of our church than his publique ministry. His\n genius will still haunte all the pulpits in ye country, where any\n of his scholers may be admitted to preach.... There be divers\n young ministers about us ... that spend their time in conference\n with him; and return home and preach what he hath brewed.... Our\n people\u2019s pallats grow so out of tast yt noe food contents them\n but of Mr. Hooker\u2019s dressing. I have lived in Essex to see many\n changes, and have seene the people idolizing many new ministers\n and lecturers, but this man surpasses them all for learning and\n some other considerable partes and ... gains more and far greater\n followers than all before him.... If my Lord tender his owne future\n peace ... let him connive at Mr. Hooker\u2019s departure.[39]\n\nClearly the England of Laud with its pursuivants and tattling tongues\nof \u201cdumb ministers\u201d--who might well be jealous of his eloquence--was no\nfit place for the activities of Thomas Hooker. Even though he should\nbe suspended, he would still be reckoned dangerous to prerogative with\nhis private conferences and his following of young ministers. So he\nwas driven overseas into Holland, whence after a few years\u2019 experience\nwith the Archbishop\u2019s spies, and dislike of the Presbyterian system\nthere practiced, he set forth for America where he arrived on the same\nboat with John Cotton and Samuel Stone, and was inducted as pastor of\nthe church at Newtown which had been awaiting his coming over. Shortly\nthereafter began the open dissatisfaction of the Cambridge congregation\nwith the policy of the oligarchy, which resulted three years later in\nthe removal of Hooker and his church to Hartford. The causes of this\nremoval--an event that profoundly agitated the colony--have been much\ndiscussed, but they have never been cleared of what may have been\nan intentional vagueness. Possibly, as Hubbard suggests, there were\njealousies between Hooker and Cotton, Winthrop, and Haynes, which it\nwould have been unseemly to expose in open court;[40] but the likelier\nexplanation would seem to lie in the incompatibility of political\nviews, which at bottom was a division on the question of aristocracy or\ndemocracy in church and state. The Cambridge men seem to have disliked\nthe oligarchic rule of the magistrates; they doubtless sympathized with\nthe popular party and may have encouraged the counter aggressions of\nthe deputies, whose assertiveness fills so much space in Winthrop\u2019s\njournal and betokens his concern. It is likely that there was more\ndissatisfaction than got into journals, either private or official;\nand it is equally likely that Thomas Hooker was a prime force in\nquickening the democratic unrest. \u201cAfter Mr. Hooker\u2019s coming over,\u201d\nsaid Hubbard in an often quoted passage, \u201cit was observed that many of\nthe freemen grew to be very jealous of their liberties.\u201d Nevertheless,\nHooker was not a contentious person, to spread a clamor through the\ncommonwealth and endanger the success of the plantation. He believed\nthat \u201cTime, Place, Outward Decency and Comelinesse\u201d were desirable in\nthe management of public affairs; and so instead of descending to sharp\ndispute with men whom he respected and loved even though he disagreed\nwith them in political views, he chose to remove quietly out of their\njurisdiction, making as little cause for embroilment as possible.\n\nAfter all, the most illuminating commentary upon the causes of\nthe removal is the spirit of the institutions set up in the new\nsettlement. While we need not go so far as to assert, with the\nhistorians of Connecticut, that \u201cthe birthplace of American democracy\nis Hartford,\u201d we must recognize in the Fundamental Orders adopted by\nthe General Assembly, January 14, 1639, a plan of popular government\nso broadly democratic as to entitle it to be called \u201cthe first written\nconstitution of modern democracy.\u201d[41] Concerning the important part\nplayed by Hooker in this work there can be no doubt. His influence\nwas commanding, and the sneer of old Samuel Peters--\u201cHooker reigned\ntwelve years high-priest over Hertford\u201d--scarcely overstates the\nfact. And this great influence was thrown persistently in favor of\ndemocratic procedure in church and state. He definitely rejected the\nBoston practice of magisterial autocracy. In opposition to Winthrop,\nwho asserted, \u201cWhatsoever sentence the magistrate gives, the judgment\nis the Lord\u2019s, though he do it not by any rule prescribed by civil\nauthority,\u201d Hooker argued:\n\n That in the matter which is referred to the judge, the sentence\n should lie in his breast, or be left to his discretion, according\n to which he should go, I am afraid it is a course which wants both\n safety and warrant. I must confess, I ever looked at it as a way\n which leads directly to tyranny, and so to confusion, and must\n plainly profess, if it was in my liberty, I should choose neither\n to live nor leave my posterity under such a government.[42]\n\nAt another time, replying to Winthrop\u2019s justification of oligarchic\nrule on the ground that \u201cthe best part is always the least, and of that\nbest part the wiser is always the lesser,\u201d Hooker frankly rested his\ncase for democracy on the good sense of the people as a whole:\n\n It is also a truth that counsel should be sought from counsellors;\n but the question yet is, who should those be. Reserving smaller\n matters which fall in occasionally in common course, to a lower\n counsel, in matters of greater importance which concerns the common\n good, a general counsel chosen by all, I conceive, under favour,\n most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of the whole.[43]\n\nBefore the General Court, on May 31, 1638, eight months before the\nFundamental Orders were adopted, Hooker preached a remarkable sermon\non popular sovereignty. Taking for his text Deut. 1:13--the passage\non which John Eliot later erected his fantastic Utopia--he elaborated\nthe thesis that \u201cthe foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in\nthe free consent of the people,\u201d and therefore that \u201cthe choice of\npublic magistrates belongs unto the people by God\u2019s own allowance,\u201d\nand \u201cthey who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it\nis in their power also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power\nand place unto which they call them.\u201d[44] This was Hooker\u2019s reply to\nthe oligarchic policy of the Bay in limiting the number of freemen\nin order to maintain the supremacy of the magistrates; and it throws\nlight on the comment written out of England in the spring of 1636,\nto John Wilson, that \u201cthere is great division of judgment in matters\nof religion amongst good ministers & people which moved Mr. Hoker\nto remove\u201d; and that \u201cyou are so strict in admission of members to\nyour church, that more than halfe are out of your church in all your\ncongregations, & that Mr. Hoker befor he went away preached against\nyt (as one reports who hard him).\u201d[45] In the new commonwealth there\nwas neither a property qualification nor a religious test limiting the\nright of franchise; the admission of freemen was reckoned a political\nmatter and left to the several township democracies. The reaction\nagainst the oligarchic policy of Massachusetts Bay carried far.\n\nIf we had Hooker\u2019s sermon in full we should know much more about\nhis political theory; yet even from the meager and tantalizing\nnotes that have been preserved, we can deduce fairly certainly the\nmajor principles of his philosophy. Three creative ideas seem to\nhave determined his thinking: the compact theory of the state, the\ndoctrine of popular sovereignty, and the conception of the state as a\npublic-service corporation, strictly responsible to the will of the\nmajority--ideas that Roger Williams elaborated in detail and during\nmany years of service reduced to a working system in the commonwealth\nof Rhode Island. That Hooker should have grasped so firmly the\nessentials of the new democratic theory will surprise no one who is\nacquainted with the political speculations of English Independency.\nThey were all implicit in the new theory of church and state that such\nthinkers as Williams and Vane and Milton were clarifying, and since the\ndays of Robert Browne they had been familiar in one form or another\nto the young Puritan radicals at the universities. The compact idea,\nwhich held in solution the doctrine of natural rights, had established\nitself firmly in New England with the coming of the Pilgrims. The\nMayflower compact and the church covenant provided the basis for the\nsocial organization of Plymouth; and the covenant idea had taken so\nstrong a hold on the popular mind of Massachusetts Bay that the astute\nleaders of the oligarchy were quick to see the advantage of investing\nthe charter, in the popular imagination, with the sanctity of the\ncompact idea; and by a subtle process of idealizing, they transmuted\nthe charter of a trading company into a fundamental organic law, that\nwas reckoned an adequate written constitution to safeguard the rights\nof the people. It was a clever political move, but it seems not to have\nsatisfied Thomas Hooker, who was too liberal in his views to accept the\nshadow for the substance. As a left-wing Independent he would have a\nreal compact, and a popular fundamental law to safeguard the liberties\nof the people; and he saw to it that the new commonwealth was broadly\nbased on the common will, rather than narrowly on the rule of the\ngentry. The democratic order of Connecticut was English Independency\ntransplanted to the new world.\n\nTo Hooker New England Congregationalism owes as great a debt as\ndoes New England democracy. The last great work he undertook was a\ndefense of the New England way against the criticism of the English\nPresbyterians. He was to prove a powerful advocate, for not only was\nhe intellectually equipped to write a knotty book in answer to other\nknotty books, but unlike Cotton and Davenport and Mather, he was\nwholly in sympathy with Congregationalism, and had no mind to conceal\nor equivocate concerning its democratic tendencies. He would write\nno apology, but a frank and vigorous defense. His church polity, as\nelaborated in his _Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline_, is\nprofessedly Hebraic. \u201cEcclesiastical Policy,\u201d he asserts baldly, \u201cis\na skill of ordering the affairs of Christ\u2019s house, according to the\npattern of his word,\u201d and he then proceeds to postulate the principle\nof absolutism by accepting a divine sovereign will. But this divine\nsovereignty was a blow struck at all temporal absolutisms, for it spoke\nthrough no vicegerent of pope, bishop, presbytery or magistrate, but\nonly through the voice of the individual subject. It is the priesthood\nof all believers. \u201cThe _Supreme_ and _Monarchicall_ power resides onely\nin our Saviour, can onely be given and attributed to him, and to none\nother.\u201d There remained, then, the difficult business of determining\nhow the sovereign will of Christ is to be wrought on earth, and into\nthis Hooker delved with such convincing thoroughness that, in his own\nwords, \u201cno man that hath supped on Logick, hath a forehead to gainsay\u201d\nhis conclusions. He was bold in innovation--\u201ca cause is not the lesse\ntrue, because of late discovered\u201d; but after quieting \u201cthe stomachs of\nsuch, whose expectations are not answered in any opinion, unless it\nbe moldy with age,\u201d he proceeds to explain the true nature of church\norganization thus:\n\n But whether all Ecclesiasticall power be impaled, impropriated,\n and rightly taken in to the Presbytery alone: Or that the people\n of the Particular Churches should come in for a share, according\n to their places and proportions; This is left as the subject of\n the inquiry of this age, and that which occasions great thought of\n heart of all hands: Great thoughts of hearts in the Presbytery, as\n being very loth to part with that so chief privilege, and of which\n they have taken possession so many years. Great Thoughts of heart\n amongst the Churches, how they may clear their right, and claim\n it in such pious sobriety and moderation, as becomes the Saints:\n being unwilling to loose their cause and comfort, meerly upon a\n _nihil dicit_: or forever to be deprived of so precious a legacy,\n as they conceive this is, though it hath been withheld from them,\n by the tyranny of the Pope, and prescription of times. Nor can they\n conceive it lesse, then a heedlesse betraying of their speciall\n liberties, and not selling but casting away their inheritance, and\n right, by a careless silence, when the course of providence, as\n the juncture of times now present themselves, allows them a writt\n _Ad melius inquirendum_.... These are the times when people shall\n be fitted for such priviledges, fit I say to obtain them, and fit\n to use them.... And whereas it hath been charged upon the people,\n that through their ignorance and unskilfulnesse, they are not able\n to wield such priviledges, and therefore not fit to share in any\n such power, The Lord hath promised: To take away the vail from all\n faces in the mountain, the _weak_ shall be as David, and David as\n an Angel of God.[46]\n\n The church of Visible Saints confederating together to walk in the\n fellowship of the faith ... is _Totum essentiale_.... Election\n of the People rightly ordered by the rule of Christ, gives the\n essentials to an Officer, or leaves the impression of a true\n outward Call, and so an Office-power upon a Pastor ... _there is a\n communicating of Power_ by Voluntary Subjection when, though there\n be _no Office-power, formaliter_ in the people, yet they willingly\n yeelding themselves to be ruled by another, desiring and calling of\n him to take that rule; he accepting of what they yeeld, possessing\n that right which they put upon him, by free consent; _hence\n ariseth_ this Relation and authority of Office-rule.[47]\n\nIt is crabbed prose, not altogether worthy of a man who kept the\nthorns crackling under the pot when he stood face to face with his\ncongregation, and though we may feel inclined to accept the challenge\nof a certain old Puritan, and \u201clay a _caveat_ against the author\u2019s\nsweet and solid handling\u201d of his matter, we shall be little inclined\nto lay a _caveat_ against his doctrine. Here is no casuistry like John\nCotton\u2019s, denying Congregationalism while ostensibly defending it; but\na frank acceptance of the supreme power of the people. \u201cThe Lord hath\npromised to take away the veil from all faces\u201d--in this faith Thomas\nHooker walked all his days, and what he could himself do to remove\nthe veil from the faces of the common people, he did heartily as unto\nthe Lord, thereby proving his right to be remembered among the early\nstewards of our American democracy.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Roger Williams \u2022 Seeker\n\nThe gods, it would seem, were pleased to have their jest with Roger\nWilliams by sending him to earth before his time. In manner and speech\na seventeenth-century Puritan controversialist, in intellectual\ninterests he was contemporary with successive generations of prophets\nfrom his own days to ours. His hospitable mind anticipated a surprising\nnumber of the idealisms of the future. As a transcendental mystic he\nwas a forerunner of Emerson and the Concord school, discovering an\nindwelling God of love in a world of material things; as a speculative\nSeeker he was a forerunner of Channing and the Unitarians, discovering\nthe hope of a more liberal society in the practice of the open mind;\nas a political philosopher he was a forerunner of Paine and the French\nromantic school, discovering the end of government in concern for the\n_res publica_, and the cohesive social tie in the principle of good\nwill. Democrat and Christian, the generation to which he belongs is not\nyet born, and all his life he remained a stranger amongst men. Things\nnatural and right to John Cotton were no better than anachronisms to\nhim. He lived and dreamed in a future he was not to see, impatient\nto bring to men a heaven they were unready for. And because they\nwere unready they could not understand the grounds of his hope, and\nnot understanding they were puzzled and angry and cast him out to\ndream his dreams in the wilderness. There was abundant reason for his\nbanishment. A child of light, he came bringing not peace but the sword.\nA humane and liberal spirit, he was groping for a social order more\ngenerous than any theocracy--that should satisfy the aspirations of\nmen for a catholic fellowship, greater than sect or church, village or\nnation, embracing all races and creeds, bringing together the sundered\nsocieties of men in a common spirit of good will.\n\nRoger Williams was the most provocative figure thrown upon the\nMassachusetts shores by the upheaval in England, the one original\nthinker amongst a number of capable social architects. An intellectual\nbarometer, fluctuating with every change in the rising storm of\nrevolution, he came transporting hither the new and disturbant\ndoctrines of the Leveler, loosing wild foxes with fire-brands to ravage\nthe snug fields of the Presbyterian Utopia. He was the \u201c_first rebel_\nagainst the divine _church-order_ established in the wilderness,\u201d as\nCotton Mather rightly reported. But he was very much more than that;\nhe was a rebel against all the stupidities that interposed a barrier\nbetwixt men and the fellowship of their dreams. Those who found such\nstupidities serviceable to their ends, naturally disliked Roger\nWilliams and believed they were serving God by undoing his work. There\nis a na\u00efve passage in the _Magnalia_ that suggests how incomprehensible\nto the theocratic mind was this stormy petrel that came out of England\nto flutter and clamor about Boston and Salem, until he was driven forth\nto find such resting place as he might, there to bring forth after his\nkind.\n\n In the year 1654, a certain windmill in the Low Countries, whirling\n round with extraordinary violence, by reason of a violent storm\n then blowing, the stone at length by its rapid motion became so\n intensely hot as to fire the mill, from whence the flames, being\n dispersed by the high winds, did set a whole Town on fire. But I\n can tell my reader that, above twenty years before this, there was\n a whole country in America like to be set on fire by the rapid\n motion of a Windmill in the head of one particular man.[48]\n\nAnd John Cotton, worsted in his bout with his brilliant antagonist,\nand perhaps frightened at the latter\u2019s free speculation, found\nsuch satisfaction as he could in epithets. Roger Williams was an\n\u201cevill-worker\u201d; his \u201chead runneth round\u201d; \u201cit would weary a sober\nminde to pursue such windy fancies,\u201d such \u201coffensive and disturbant\ndoctrines\u201d; when \u201ca man is delivered up to Satan ... no marvell if he\ncast forth fire-brands, and arrows, and mortall-things\u201d; \u201cit is such a\ntranscendent light, as putteth out all the lights in the world besides.\u201d\n\nThe open facts of Roger Williams\u2019 life are known to everybody. Born\nin the year 1603,[49] he became a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of the great Coke, was\neducated at Cambridge, and destined for the law, but forsook it for the\nministry. He was well advanced in his studies and coming to conclusions\nthat must have disturbed his conservative friends, at the time of the\nGreat Migration. Beginning as an Anglican, then turning Separatist,\nthen Baptist, and finally Seeker,[50] he is perhaps more adequately\ndescribed as a Puritan intellectual who became a Christian freethinker,\nmore concerned with social commonwealths than with theological dogmas.\nHe passed rapidly through successive phases of current thought\nto end as a Leveler. Before quitting England he had embraced the\nprinciple of Separatism, and on his first coming over he refused the\nteachership of the Boston church--the position given to Cotton two\nyears later--because it had not broken wholly with Anglicanism. He went\nto the more liberal Salem, where his inconvenient questioning of land\ntitles and his views on the charter brought him into conflict with the\nBoston authorities. Refusing to be silenced he was banished and made\nhis way to Rhode Island--\u201csorely tossed for one fourteen weeks, in a\nbitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean\u201d--there to\nfound a commonwealth on democratic principles.\n\nYet how inadequately do such meager facts reveal the deeper sources\nof his militancy! He lived in the realm of ideas, of inquiry and\ndiscussion; and his actions were creatively determined by principles\nthe bases of which he examined with critical insight. Instead of being\na weather vane, blown about by every wind of doctrine, he was an\nadventurous pioneer, surveying the new fields of thought laid open\nby the Reformation, and marking out the several spheres of church and\nstate in the ordering of a true commonwealth. He was the incarnation of\nProtestant individualism, seeking new social ties to take the place of\nthose that were loosening; and as a child of a great age of political\nspeculation his religion issued in political theory rather than in\ntheological dogma. Like other Separatist-Levelers he had penetrated\nto the foundations of the New Testament and had taken to heart the\nrevolutionary ideals that underlie its teachings. It was the spirit of\nlove that served as teacher to him; love that exalted the meanest to\nequality with the highest in the divine republic of Jesus, and gave\nan exalted sanction to the conception of a Christian commonwealth. He\nregarded his fellow men literally as the children of God and brothers\nin Christ; and from this primary conception of the fatherhood of God\nand the brotherhood of man, he deduced his political philosophy. Like\nChanning two hundred years later, he sought to adjust his social\nprogram to the determining fact that human worth knows neither Jew nor\nGentile, rank nor caste; and following the example of his Master he\nwent forth into a hostile world, seeking to make it over.\n\nWith this spirit of Christian fellowship, warm and human and lovable,\nrepudiating all coercion, there was joined an eager mysticism--a\nyearning for intimate personal union with Christ as symbolized in the\nparable of the vine and the branches, a union as close as that of the\nbride and her husband. Running through his writings is a recurrent echo\nof the Hebrew love-song that Puritan thought suffused with a glowing\nmysticism: \u201cI am my beloved\u2019s and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among\nthe lilies.... I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets,\nand in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth.\u201d But when he\nwent out into the broad ways of Carolinian England, seeking the rose of\nSharon and the lily of the valley, he discovered only abominations. The\nlover was tempted by false kisses; the Golden Image was set up in the\nhigh places, and the voice of authority commanded to bow down to it.\nAnd so as a Christian mystic Roger Williams became a Separatist, and\nset his mind upon the new world as a land where the lover might dwell\nwith his bride. Yet upon his arrival there he found the churches still\n\u201cimplicitly National,\u201d and \u201cyet asleep in respect of abundant ignorance\nand negligence, and consequently grosse abominations and pollutions of\nWorship, in which the choicest servants of God, and most faithfull\nWitnesses of many truths have lived in more or lesse, yea in maine and\nfundamental points, ever since the Apostasie.\u201d Which \u201cabominations and\npollutions of Worship,\u201d he now proposed to sweep away altogether.[51]\nIt was not an easy program, nor one entered upon lightly. Better\nthan most, Roger Williams understood how closely interwoven were the\nthreads of church and state. Separatism, with its necessary corollary\nof toleration, could not be unraveled from Carolinian society without\nloosening the whole social fabric. It was a political question even\nmore than ecclesiastical; and it could justify itself only in the\nlight of a total political philosophy. No other man in New England\ncomprehended so fully the difficulties involved in the problem, as\nRoger Williams, or examined them so thoroughly; and out of his long\nspeculations emerged a theory of the commonwealth that must be reckoned\nthe richest contribution of Puritanism to American political thought.\n\nThe just renown of Roger Williams has too long been obscured by\necclesiastical historians, who in emphasizing his defense of the\nprinciple of toleration have overlooked the fact that religious\ntoleration was only a necessary deduction from the major principles\nof his political theory, and that he was concerned with matters far\nmore fundamental than the negative virtue of non-interference in the\ndomain of individual faith. He was primarily a political philosopher\nrather than a theologian--one of the acutest and most searching of\nhis generation of Englishmen, the teacher of Vane and Cromwell and\nMilton, a forerunner of Locke and the natural-rights school, one of the\nnotable democratic thinkers that the English race has produced. Much\nof his life was devoted to the problem of discovering a new basis for\nsocial reorganization, and his intellectual progress was marked by an\nabundant wreckage of obsolete theory and hoary fiction that strewed\nhis path. He was a social innovator on principle, and he left no system\nunchallenged; each must justify itself in reason and expediency or be\nput aside. Broadly the development of his thought falls into three\nstages: the substitution of the compact theory of the state for the\ndivine-right theory; the rejection of the suppositious compact of the\nearlier school and the fictitious abstract state--still postulated by\nmany thinkers--and the substitution of a realistic conception of the\npolitical state as the sovereign repository of the social will, and\nthe government--or agent of the state--as the practical instrument of\nsociety to effect its desired ends; and finally, the difficult problem\nof creating the necessary machinery of a democratic commonwealth, as\nthe exigencies of the Rhode Island experiment required. Throughout, the\ninspiration of his thinking was social rather than narrowly political\nor theological, and the creative source would seem to have been the\nmiddle ages with their fruitful principle of men in a given society\nenrolling themselves voluntarily as members of bodies corporate,\nfinding in such corporate ties a sufficient and all-embracing social\nbond.[52]\n\nIn his substitution of the compact theory for divine right, Williams\nwas brought face to face with the fundamental assumption of the\nMassachusetts theocracy, based on numerous passages of Scripture,\nthat the political state is established and sanctioned by the God\nof the Hebrews--an assumption that was freely used to justify the\nengrossing of authority by the magistracy. As a theologian he\ncritically examined the Scriptural authorities, and while conceding\nthe divine source of government in general, he was careful to cut\naway all autocratic deductions from the Pauline assertion that \u201cthe\npowers that be are ordained of God.\u201d \u201cGovernment and order in families,\ntowns, etc., is an ordinance of the Most High, Rom. 13, for the peace\nand good of mankind\u201d[53] he admitted; but he agreed with Richard\nHooker in discovering this order of government to be no other than\nnatural law. The state is divine in origin because it is natural,\nand what is natural is of God. The Hebraic commonwealth had been\nestablished immediately in an ordinance of Jehovah, but Christ and\nhis disciples regarded the state and God as distinct authorities,\nnot to be confused--\u201cRender, therefore, unto Caesar the things which\nare Caesar\u2019s; and unto God the things that are God\u2019s.\u201d The conclusion\nat which he arrived, then, from the merging of divine ordinances and\nnatural law, was expressed in a doctrine that sets apart the individual\ncitizen in all his spiritual and intellectual rights, from the subject\nof the commonwealth, and provides the basis for his principle of\ntoleration. \u201cA Civill Government is an ordinance of God, to conserve\nthe Civill peace of the people, so farre as concerns their Bodies and\nGoods,\u201d and no farther.[54] From this position he never retreated.\n\n Every lawful Magistrate whether succeeding or elective, is not only\n the Minister of God, but the Minister or servant of the people\n also (what people or nation soever they be all the world over),\n and that Minister or Magistrate goes beyond his commission who\n intermeddles with that which cannot be given him in commission from\n the people....[55]\n\nHaving thus reduced the divine-right field within narrow limits and\ntranslated it into an abstraction, he pre\u00ebmpts all the ground of\npractical politics for his compact theory. In accord with a long line\nof liberal thinkers running back through Richard Hooker to Augustine\nand the earlier Roman school, he accepted the major deductions from the\ncompact theory of the state: that government is a man-made institution,\nthat it rests on consent, and that it is founded on the assumed\nequality of the subjects. He had only to translate these abstractions\ninto concrete terms, and apply them realistically, to create a new and\nvital theory. The covenant idea of church organization had long been\nfamiliar to Separatists. To this the Pilgrims had added the Mayflower\ncompact and Thomas Hooker had drawn up the Connecticut compact.\nGovernment resting on consent and authorized by written agreement was\nthen no untried novelty when Roger Williams began his long speculations\non the nature and functions of the political state. With Hobbes he\ntraced the origin of the state to social necessity. The condition of\nnature is a condition of anarchy--a war of all against all; and for\nmutual protection the state takes its rise. \u201cThe World otherwise would\nbe like a sea, wherein Men, like Fishes, would hunt and devoure each\nother, and the greater devour the lesse.\u201d[56] But unlike the fiction\nassumed by Hobbes and Locke, this was no suppositious contract between\nruler and ruled in prehistoric times, but present and actual, entered\ninto between the several members of a free community for their common\ngovernance; nor on the other hand, like Burke\u2019s irrevocable compact,\nwas it an unyielding constitution or fundamental law; but flexible,\nresponsive to changing conditions, continually modified to meet present\nneeds. It is no other than a mutual agreement, arrived at frankly by\ndiscussion and compromise, to live together in a political union,\norganizing the life of the commonwealth in accordance with nature,\nreason, justice, and expediency.\n\nFrom this conception of the flexible nature of compact law came the\nsharp delimitation between state and government that he was at pains\nto make clear, and that constitutes a significant phase of his theory.\nHaving rejected in his thinking the fictitious abstract state, the\nrepository of an equally fictitious abstract sovereignty, he located\nsovereignty in the total body of citizens embraced within the community\nconsciousness, acting in a political capacity. The state is society\norganized, government is the state functioning--it is the political\nmachinery devised by the sovereign people to effect definite ends. And\nsince the single end and purpose for which the body of citizens erect\nthe state is the furtherance of the communal well-being, the government\nbecomes a convenient instrument to serve the common weal, responsible\nto the sovereign people and strictly limited by the terms of the social\nagreement. \u201cThe Sovereign power of all civill Authority,\u201d he asserted,\n\u201cis founded in the consent of the People that every Commonwealth hath\nradically and fundamentally. The very Common-weales, Bodies of People\n... have fundamentally in themselves the Root of Power, to set up what\nGovernment and Governors they shall agree upon.\u201d[57] Since governments\nare but \u201cDerivatives and Agents immediately derived and employed as\neyes and hands and instruments,\u201d the state or sovereign people can\nmake their \u201cown severall Lawes and Agreements ... according to their\nseverall Natures, Dispositions and Constitutions, and their Common\npeace and wellfare.\u201d[58] Final appeal is to \u201cthe Bar of the People or\nCommonweal, where all may personally meet, as in some Commonweales of\nsmall number, or in greater by their Representatives\u201d--a system that\nsuits with the \u201cNature, Conditions and circumstances of the People,\u201d\naccording to the \u201cCircumstances of time and place.\u201d[59] In a well-known\npassage he puts the matter more compactly, thus:\n\n From this _Grant_ I infer ... that the _Soveraigne, originall_, and\n _foundation of civill power_ lies in the _People_.... And if so,\n that a People may erect and establish what _forme_ of _Government_\n seemes to them most meete for their _civill condition_: It is\n evident that such _Governments_ as are by them erected and\n established, have no more _power_, nor for no longer time, then the\n _civill power_ or people consenting and agreeing shall betrust them\n with. This is cleere not only in _Reason_, but in the experience\n of all _commonweales_, where the people are not deprived of their\n naturall freedom by the power of Tyrants.[60]\n\nThe state, then, is society working consciously through experience and\nreason, to secure for the individual citizen the largest measure of\nfreedom and well-being. It is armed with a potential power of coercion,\nbut only to secure justice. In such a state government can subsist only\nby making proselytes to sound reason, by compromise and arbitration,\nand not by force. But if sovereignty inheres in the majority will, what\nsecurities remain for individual and minority rights? What fields lie\napart from the inquisition of the majority, and by what agencies shall\nthe engrossing of power be thwarted? The replies to such questions, so\nfundamental to every democratic program, he discovers in a variety of\nprinciples; to the former in an adaptation of the spirit of medieval\nsociety that restricted political functions by social usage, and to the\nlatter by the application of local home rule, the initiative and the\nreferendum, and the recall. In the large field he ascribes to social\ncustom, he was a follower of Luther and a forerunner of French romantic\nthinkers. His creative conception was an adaptation of the medieval\ntheory of the corporation, or group of persons voluntarily joining for\nspecific purposes under the law; and this idea he applies to the vexed\nquestion of the relation of church and state. The legal status of the\nchurch, he argued, is identical with that of a trading company; it is a\ncorporate body with corporate rights, and the several members enjoy all\nthe freedoms and privileges that inhere in them by law and nature in\ntheir civil capacity. The character of its membership and the content\nof its creed are of no different concern to the civil magistrates than\nthose of any other corporation. \u201cThe state religion of the world,\u201d\nhe asserted, \u201cis a Politic invention of men to maintain the civil\nstate.\u201d[61] Elaborated at greater length, his thesis is this:\n\n The _Church_ or company of _worshippers_ (whether true or false)\n is like unto a ... _Corporation, Society_, or _Company_ ... in\n _London_; which Companies may hold their _Courts_, keep their\n _Records_, hold _disputations_; and in matters concerning their\n _Societie_, may dissent, divide, breake into _Schismes_ and\n _Factions_, sue and implead each other at the _Law_, yea wholly\n breake up and dissolve into pieces and nothing, and yet the\n _peace_ of the _Citie_ not be in the least measure impaired or\n disturbed; because the _essence_ or being of the _Citie_, and so\n the _well-being_ and _peace_ thereof is essentially distinct from\n those particular _Societies_: the _Citie-Courts, Citie-Lawes,\n Citie-punishments_ distinct from theirs. The _Citie_ was before\n them, and stands absolute and intire, when such a _Corporation_ or\n _Societie_ is taken down.[62]\n\nHaving thus effectively secularized the church on its institutional\nside, he laid down twelve theses, of which these reach to the heart of\nthe matter:\n\n (1) _God_ requireth not an _uniformity_ of _Religion_ to be\n _inacted_ and _inforced_ in any _civill state_; which inforced\n _uniformity_ (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of\n _civill Warre, ravishing_ of _conscience, persecution_ of _Christ\n Jesus_ in his servants, and of the _hypocrisie_ and destruction\n of millions of souls. (2) It is the will and command of _God_,\n that ... a _permission_ of the most _Paganish, Jewish, Turkish_,\n or _Antichristian consciences_ and _worships_, bee granted to\n _all_ men in all _Nations_ and _Countries_: and they are onely\n to bee _fought_ against with that _Sword_ which is onely (in\n _Soule matters_) _able_ to _conquer_, to wit, the _Sword_ of\n _Gods Spirit_, the _Word_ of _God_. (3) True _civility_ and\n _Christianity_ may both flourish in a _state_ or _Kingdome_,\n notwithstanding the _permission_ of divers and contrary\n _consciences_, either of _Jew_ or _Gentile_.[63]\n\nAbhorrent as such doctrine was to the Massachusetts theocrats, Roger\nWilliams did not cease to press it home to their minds and consciences.\n\u201cI know and am persuaded,\u201d he wrote Winthrop on July 21, 1637, \u201cthat\nyour misguidings are great and lamentable, and the further you pass\nin your way, the further you wander, and the end of one vexation will\nbe but the beginning of another, till conscience be permitted (though\nerroneous) to be free amongst you.\u201d[64] It was not toleration in the\nnarrow sense of benevolent non-interference by an authority that\nrefrained from exercising its reserved right, that Roger Williams was\ninterested in; it was rather religious liberty as a fundamental right,\nthat had never been surrendered to the civil power, that lay beyond its\njurisdiction and was in no way answerable to it, that he upheld in his\ngreat work _The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience_;\nand the long dispute with John Cotton was, in its deeper significance,\na dispute between two schools of political theory and two experiments\nin commonwealth building. In that notable debate aristocracy and\ndemocracy joined issues, and the vital question of the rights and\nliberties of the individual citizen in the political state for the\nfirst time was critically examined in America.\n\nFrom the foregoing analysis of his political theory it should be\nclear that Roger Williams was a confirmed individualist who carried\nto its logical conclusion the Reformation principle of the right of\nprivate inquiry. Only Vane and Milton of his generation of Englishmen\nwent so far along that path. He had seen the liberalisms involved\nin Luther\u2019s premises submerged by the rising nationalism which\nambitious princes found useful for selfish ends; and he had seen the\npolicy of the Massachusetts magistrates driving boldly in the same\ndirection. That Rhode Island should not repeat the old unhappy mistake\nof coercive absolutism, was a matter therefore of vital concern to\nhim. A great experiment in democracy was to be tried, and to that\nexperiment he devoted his life. Into the form and structure of the new\ncommonwealth went the best thought of English Independency. It was\nfounded on the principles of \u201cliberty and equality, both in land and\ngovernment,\u201d[65] and established in the sovereignty of the people.\nThat government should not engross its powers, the compact entered\ninto provided for frequent elections, a single-chambered legislature,\njoint and individual initiative of laws, compulsory referendum, the\nright of recall of all laws including the constitution, and appeal\nto arbitration. A rigid constitution, augmenting in authority with\nage and veneration, Roger Williams feared as acutely as did Paine\nor Jefferson. To vest sovereignty in the courts through the right\nof review and interpretation was repugnant to his whole political\ntheory. The fundamental law could be interpreted only by the power\nthat created it originally, namely, the sovereign people acting in\na political capacity. Within the larger framework of the state the\nseveral towns retained the right of home rule in local matters. They\nwere corporations, erected like the church in the spirit of medieval\ncorporate law, competent to rule themselves, yet not infringing\non the sovereignty that granted them their powers. In short, to\nadapt the words of a modern student, the state of Rhode Island as\nerected by Roger Williams in accordance with the principles of his\npolitical philosophy, was \u201cnothing so much as a great public-service\ncorporation.\u201d[66] Or, as another student has put it, \u201cIf democracy ...\nin its ultimate meaning be held to imply not only a government in which\nthe preponderant share of power resides in the hands of the people, but\na society based on the principles of political and religious freedom,\nRhode Island beyond any other of the American Colonies is entitled to\nbe called democratic.\u201d[67]\n\nIt was a hazardous experiment to undertake in an age when the ark\nof the democratic covenant found few places of refuge. Its friends\nwere only a handful and its enemies many and powerful, and had it not\nbeen for a group of defenders in Parliament, the Rhode Island venture\nwould have been brought to a speedy end. English Independency saved\nfor America what English Presbyterianism would have destroyed. To Sir\nHarry Vane Rhode Island owes a debt of gratitude second only to that\ndue Roger Williams. But though its godly neighbors were not permitted\nto destroy Rhode Island, they were free to slander and spread evil\nreports, and so thoroughly did they do their work that for upwards of\ntwo hundred years the little commonwealth was commonly spoken of in\nsuch terms as Rogues Island and the State of Confusion; not indeed,\ntill it left off following agrarian and Populistic gods, till it had\nceased to be democratic, did it become wholly respectable. It was not\nso much the reputed turbulence of Rhode Island that was disapproved by\nthe Boston magistrates; but rather the disturbing example of a colony\nat their very doors, which, in denying the right of the godly to police\nsociety, gave encouragement to evil-disposed persons in their own sober\ncommonwealth. Every democracy, they believed, was so notoriously mad\nand lawless--as both sacred and profane authorities had sufficiently\ndemonstrated--that the Boston oligarchy never forgave Parliament\nfor refusing them permission to establish a mandatory over their\nself-willed neighbors.\n\nIt was to prevent such meddling that Roger Williams had been at pains\nto secure a Parliamentary charter; and he saw to it that the charter\nterms should not restrict the democratic liberties. His faith in the\nsobriety and good sense of the people of Rhode Island was never shaken.\nIn spite of many difficulties that grew out of the sharp individualism\nof vigorous characters, the colony proved to be a good place to dwell\nfor those who were content to share the common rights and privileges.\nIn a letter to Vane, written in 1654, the founder apologizes for some\nof the things reported of them, but the apology does not detract from\nthe just pride with which he contemplated the solid achievements of the\nRhode Island experiment:\n\n Possibly a sweet cup hath rendered many of us wanton. We have long\n drunk of the cup of as great liberties as any people we can hear of\n under the whole heaven. We have not only been long free (together\n with all New England) from the iron yolk of wolfish bishops, and\n their popish ceremonies ... but we have sitten quiet and dry from\n the streams of blood spilt by that war in our native Country. We\n have not felt the new chains of Presbyterian tyrants, nor in this\n colony have we been consumed with the over-zealous fire of the\n (so called) godly christian magistrates. Sir, we have not known\n what an excise means; we have almost forgotten what tithes are,\n yea, or taxes either, to church or commonwealth. We could name\n other special privileges, ingredients of our sweet cup, which your\n great wisdom knows to be very powerful (except more than ordinary\n watchfulness) to render the best of men wanton and forgetful.[68]\n\nEngland gave her best when she sent us Roger Williams. A great thinker\nand a bold innovator, the repository of the generous liberalisms of\na vigorous age, he brought with him the fine wheat of long years of\nEnglish tillage to sow in the American wilderness. How much America\nowes to him is perhaps, after all the intervening years, not adequately\nrealized; the shadow of Massachusetts Bay still too much obscures\nthe large proportions of one who was certainly the most generous,\nmost open-minded, most lovable, of the Puritan emigrants--the truest\nChristian amongst many who sincerely desired to be Christian. He\nbelieved in men and in their native justice, and he spent his life\nfreely in the cause of humanity. Neither race nor creed sundered\nhim from his fellows; the Indian was his brother equally with the\nEnglishman. He was a Leveler because he was convinced that society\nwith its caste institutions dealt unjustly with the common man; he was\na democrat because he believed that the end and object of the political\nstate was the common well-being; he was an iconoclast because he was\nconvinced that the time had come when a new social order must be\nerected on the decay of the old. \u201c_Liberavi animam meam_,\u201d he said with\njust pride; \u201cI have not hid within my _breast_ my _souls_ belief.\u201d \u201cIt\nwas more than forty years after his exile that he lived here,\u201d wrote\nCotton Mather, \u201cand in many thinges acquitted himself so laudably, that\nmany juditious persons judged him to have the root of the matter in\nhim, during the long winter of this retirement.\u201d Since those words were\nwritten increasing numbers of \u201cjuditious persons\u201d have come to agree\nwith the reluctant judgment of Cotton Mather, and are verily persuaded\nthat Master Roger Williams \u201chad the root of the matter in him.\u201d In his\nown day he was accounted an enemy of society, and the commonwealth\nof Massachusetts has never rescinded the decree of banishment issued\nagainst him; yet like so many unshackled thinkers, he was a seeker\nafter a better order, friend to a nobler and more humane society.\nIf he transported to America the democratic aspirations of English\nIndependency, it is perhaps well to recall the price that was exacted\nof him for his service:\n\n Let the reader fancy him in 1640, a man of thirty-four, of bold and\n stout jaws, but with the richest and softest eyes, gazing out over\n the Bay of his dwelling, a spiritual Crusoe, the excommunicated\n even of Hugh Peters, and the most extreme and outcast soul in all\n America.[69]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[37] See Walker, _Thomas Hooker, Preacher, Founder, Democrat_.\n\n[38] _Ibid._, pp. 40-44.\n\n[39] _Ibid._, pp. 45-46.\n\n[40] The testimony of Roger Williams seems to imply as much: \u201cMr.\nHaynes, Governor of Connecticut, though he pronounced sentence of my\nlong banishment against me, at Cambridge, then Newtown, yet said to me\n... \u2018I think, Mr. Williams, I must now confess to you, that the most\nwise God hath provided and cut out this part of His world for a refuge\nand receptacle for all sorts of consciences. I am now under a cloud,\nand my brother Hooker, with the Bay, as you have been, we have removed\nfrom them thus far, and yet they are not satisfied.\u2019\u201d (_Letter to Major\nMason_ [1670], in _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 133 ff.)\n\n[41] Borgeaud, _The Rise of Modern Democracy_, p. 123.\n\n[42] Quoted in J. T. Adams, _The Founding of New England_, p. 194.\n\n[43] Walker, _Thomas Hooker, etc._, p. 122.\n\n[44] _Ibid._, p. 125.\n\n[45] _Ibid._, p. 88.\n\n[46] _Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline_, Introduction.\n\n[47] _Ibid._, Part II, pp. 66, 72.\n\n[48] _Magnalia_, Vol. II, p. 495.\n\n[49] For the date, see _Rhode Island Historical Society_, Vol. VIII, p.\n156; _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 599.\n\n[50] The Seekers were thus described by a contemporary English pen:\n\u201cMany have wrangled so long about the Church that at last they have\nquite lost it, and go under the name of _Expecters_ and _Seekers_,\nand do deny that there is any Church, or any true minister, or any\nordinances; some of them affirm the Church to be in the wilderness, and\nthey are seeking for it there; others say that it is in the smoke of\nthe Temple, and that they are groping for it there--where I leave them\npraying to God.\u201d (Paget, _Heresiography_; quoted in Masson, _Life of\nMilton_, Vol. III, p. 153.)\n\n[51] The Biblical authority for Separatism Williams found in\nboth general and specific injunctions. The former, in the second\ncommandment, in the third chapter of Daniel, in the seventeenth and\neighteenth chapters of Revelation--the \u201cwine of her fornication\u201d being\nthe ceremonial and ordinances of the English church--and in the Song\nof Solomon. The latter were: Revelation, 18:4: \u201cAnd I heard another\nvoice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not\npartakers of her sins....\u201d; Isaiah, 53:11: \u201cDepart ye, depart ye, go ye\nout from thence, touch not the unclean thing; go ye out in the midst of\nher; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord\u201d; II Corinthians,\n6:17: \u201cWherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith\nthe Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.\u201d On\nthese texts he based his argument with Cotton for the total separation\nof the New England churches. (See _Narragansett Club Publications_,\nVol. I, p. 300.)\n\n[52] For much of the material made use of here, I am indebted to _The\nPolitical Theory of Roger Williams_, a dissertation by Dr. James E.\nErnst of the University of Washington.\n\n[53] \u201cLetter to the Town Clerk of Providence,\u201d in _Narragansett Club\nPublications_, Vol. VI, p. 401.\n\n[54] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent,\u201d in _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol.\nIII, p. 349.\n\n[55] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloody,\u201d in _Narragansett Club\nPublications_, Vol. IV, p. 187.\n\n[56] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent,\u201d in _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol.\nIII, p. 398.\n\n[57] See _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. III, pp. 214, 355, 366.\n\n[58] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloody,\u201d in _ibid._, Vol. IV, p. 487.\n\n[59] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent,\u201d in _ibid._, Vol. III, p. 248.\n\n[60] _Ibid._, Vol. III, p. 248.\n\n[61] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent Yet More Bloody,\u201d in _ibid._, Vol. IV, p. 222.\n\n[62] \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent,\u201d in _ibid._, Vol. III, p. 76.\n\n[63] Preface to \u201cThe Bloudy Tenent,\u201d in _ibid._, Vol. III, p. 3.\n\n[64] _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 51.\n\n[65] \u201cLetter to the Town of Providence,\u201d in _Narragansett Club\nPublications_, Vol. VI, p. 263.\n\n[66] Duguit, _Law in the Modern State_, p. 51.\n\n[67] Gooch, _History of Democratic Ideas_, p. 80.\n\n[68] _Narragansett Club Publications_, Vol. VI, p. 268.\n\n[69] Masson, _Life of Milton_, Vol. II, p. 563.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V \u2022 Other Dreamers in Israel\n\n\nI \u2022 Nathaniel Ward \u2022 Elizabethan Puritan\n\nThe most caustic pen of early New England was wielded by the\nlawyer-minister and wit, Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, author of the\ncrotchety little book, _The Simple Cobler of Aggawam_, and chief\ncompiler of the celebrated _Body of Liberties_. He is a strange figure\nto encounter in the raw little settlements. To come into his presence\nis to feel oneself carried back to an earlier age, when the courtly\nwits were weaving their silken terms into gorgeous tapestries. Born\nabout the year 1578, he was only five years younger than Ben Jonson.\nHighly educated and intimate with the best society of England and the\ncontinent, he was well advanced in middle life when he set foot in the\nnew world, and in his late sixties when he wrote _The Simple Cobler_.\nFar more strikingly than any of his emigrant brethren he belonged in\ntaste and temperament to the later Elizabethan world, which lingered on\ninto the reigns of James and Charles, zealously cultivating its quaint\ngarden of letters, playing with inkhorn terms, and easing its cares\nwith clever conceits. Faithful disciple of Calvin though he was, he\nwas something of a courtier as well, with a rich sap of intelligence,\nwhich, fermented by much thought and travel in many lands, made him the\nraciest of wits, and doubtless the most delightful of companions over\na respectable Puritan bottle. \u201cI have only Two comforts to Live upon,\u201d\nIncrease Mather reported him as saying. \u201cThe one is in the Perfections\nof Christ; The other is in The Imperfections of all Christians.\u201d\n\n_The Simple Cobler of Aggawam_ is certainly the brightest bit of\nRenaissance English penned in America--an Elizabethan clipped garden\nset down in a wilderness of theology. It deserves to be far better\nknown than it is, not only for its \u201cconvenient condiments\u201d of speech\nthat will tickle the palate of an epicure, but for its quaint\nexposition of the muddled state of England in the year 1645. Like a\nbelated Euphuist, Nathaniel Ward delighted in fantastic words.\n\n If I affect termes [he confessed, by way of apology] it is my\n feeblenesse; my friends that know me, thinke I doe not: I confesse,\n I see I have here and there taken a few finish stitches, which may\n haply please a few Velvet eares; but I cannot now well pull them\n out, unlesse I should seame-rend all. It seems it is a fashion\n with you to sugar your papers with Carnation phrases, and spangle\n your speeches with new quodled words.... I honour them with my\n heart, that can expresse more than ordinary matter in ordinary\n words; it is a pleasing eloquence; them more, that study wisely\n and soberly to inhance their native language.... Affected termes\n are unaffecting things to solid hearers; yet I hold him prudent,\n that in these fastidious times, will helpe disedged appetites\n with convenient condiments, and bangled ears, with pretty quicke\n pluckes.[70]\n\nThe casual reader is chiefly impressed by the quaint satire of the\nbook, with its caustic comment on women\u2019s fashions--the \u201cfoole-fangles\u201d\nof \u201cnugiperous Gentledames,\u201d who \u201ctransclout\u201d themselves into \u201cgant\nbar-geese, ill-shapen-shotten-shell-fish\u201d; and it is such bits that\nare commonly picked out for reprinting in the anthologies. But the\nreal significance of the work lies elsewhere. _The Simple Cobler_ is\nan old man\u2019s plea for accommodation of differences. It is bitter with\nintolerance of toleration; it is torn between an old loyalty to King\nCharles whom Ward knew and loved--\u201cmy long Idolatry towards you,\u201d as\nhe confesses sadly--and a new loyalty to Parliament; and it is sobered\nby a strong concern over the desperate condition of England, which\nrequired looking to speedily, he believed, if the realm were not to be\ntorn past all mending. On both sides there was abundant \u201cmisprision\nof Treason,\u201d which properly considered, he held to be no other than\na \u201cmisprision of Reason\u201d; and it was in the hope of summoning reason\nback to the national councils that the Cobbler offered his humble\nsuggestions for the consideration of Englishmen.\n\nWard had been a lawyer before he turned to the ministry, and he seems\nto have impressed himself upon his fellow emigrants chiefly as a\n\u201csubtile statesman.\u201d In his own way he was a political philosopher,\nlittle given like Roger Williams to exploring theory and examining\nprinciples, but applying rather a shrewd common sense to the problems\nof the times. He was convinced that old ways no longer sufficed; that\nprerogative and liberty could not much longer strain and pull against\neach other without rending the whole fabric of the commonwealth;\nand the kernel of the book lies in a new theory of constitutional\ngovernment for England which he offers as a convenient way out of the\ndifficulties. Ward recognized that new interests were challenging the\nlong sway of King and Tories; and as the antagonisms of rival interests\nstrengthened, the insufficiency of the traditional use and wont to\nmaintain a due balance of power was daily becoming more apparent. Hence\nhad resulted confusion, and out of the confusion, civil war. From\nthese patent facts Ward had convinced himself that there must be an\noverhauling of the fundamental law of England: the twilight zones must\nbe explored and charted; the several rights and privileges of King,\nLords, and Commons, must be sharply delimited; and thus every party in\nthe government be brought to understand the exact bounds of its sphere.\nNeither King nor Commons would then encroach upon the other, and royal\nprerogative and popular will no longer dwell at sword\u2019s point with each\nother. What was needed, in short, was a written constitution, carefully\narrived at by common consent, the terms of which should be just to all.\nHitherto God \u201chath taken order, that ill prerogatives, gotten by the\nSword, should in time be fetched home by the Dagger, if nothing else\nwill doe it: Yet I trust there is both day and means to intervent this\nbargaine.\u201d\n\nTo preserve a just balance between rival interests in the state, and\nto hold all parties to their responsibility to God, were then the two\nproblems to which Nathaniel Ward addressed himself, and the manner\nand terms of his argument are sufficiently revealed in the following\npassages:\n\n Authority must have power to make and keep people honest; People,\n honesty to obey Authority; both a Joynt-Councell to keep both safe.\n Morall Lawes, Royall Prerogatives, Popular Liberties, are not of\n Mans making or giving, but Gods: Man is but to measure them out\n by Gods Rule: which if mans wisdome cannot reach, Mans experience\n must mend: And these Essentialls, must not be Ephorized or Tribuned\n by one or a few Mens discretion, but lineally sanctioned by\n Supreame Councels. In _pro-re-nascent_ occurrences, which cannot be\n foreseen; Diets, Parliaments, Senates, or accountable Commissions,\n must have power to consult and execute against intersilient dangers\n and flagitious crimes prohibited by the light of Nature: yet it\n were good if States would let People know so much beforehand, by\n some safe woven _manifesto_, that grosse Delinquents may tell no\n tales of Anchors and Buoyes, nor palliate their presumptions with\n pretense of ignorance. I know no difference in these Essentialls,\n between Monarchies, Aristocracies, or Democracies.... And in all,\n the best Standard to measure Prerogatives, is the Ploughstaffe; to\n measure Liberties, the Scepter: if the tearms were a little altered\n into Loyall Prerogatives and Royall Liberties, then we should be\n sure to have Royall Kings and Loyall Subjects....\n\n He is a good King that undoes not his Subjects by any one of his\n unlimited Prerogatives: and they are a good People, that undoe not\n their Prince, by any one of their unbounded Liberties, be they the\n very least. I am sure either may, and I am sure neither would be\n trusted, how good soever. Stories tell us in effect, though not in\n termes, that over-risen Kings, have been the next evills to the\n world, unto fallen Angels; and that over-franchised people, are\n devills with smooth snaffles in their mouthes. A King that lives\n by Law, lives by love: and he that lives above Law, shall live\n under hatred doe what he can. Slavery and knavery goe as seldome\n asunder, as Tyranny and Cruelty. I have a long while thought it\n very possible, in a time of Peace ... for disert Statesmen, to\n cut an exquisite thred between Kings Prerogatives, and Subjects\n Liberties of all sorts, so as _Caesar_ might have his due, and\n People their share, without such sharpe disputes. Good Casuists\n would case it, and case it, part it, and part it; now it, and then\n it, punctually.[71]\n\nNathaniel Ward was no democrat like Hooker and therefore no\nCongregationalist. \u201cI am neither Presbyterian, nor plebsbyterian, but\nan Interpendent,\u201d he said of himself. But his \u201cInterpendency\u201d would\nseem to have been only an individualistic form of Presbyterianism. For\nthe radical Sectaries who were rising out of the turmoil of revolution,\nhe had the contempt of a thoroughbred Jacobean gentleman; and for their\nnewfangled notion of religious toleration and their fetish of popular\nliberties--founded and nourished he believed in sentimentalism--he\nwould substitute the solid reality of absolute truth, the faithful\nfriend and coadjutor of which he professed himself to be. \u201cJustice and\nEquity were before time, and will be after it\u201d; and he regarded it as\nfolly to try to circumvent them. He would have no great altering of\nthe fundamental arrangements of society, such as Independents like\nRoger Williams were seeking. The solidarity of church and state was an\nanciently accepted principle, far safer to trust in, he believed, than\nthe vagaries of unhistorical sects.\n\n Experience will teach Churches and Christians, that it is farre\n better to live in a State united, though a little Corrupt, then\n in a State, whereof some Part is incorrupt, and all the rest\n divided.... The Scripture saith, there is nothing makes free but\n Truth, and Truth saith, there is no Truth but One.... He that is\n willing to tolerate any Religion, or discrepant way of Religion,\n besides his own, unlesse it be in matters meerly indifferent,\n either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it.... He that is\n willing to tolerate any unsound opinion, that his own may also be\n tolerated, though never so sound, will for a need hang Gods Bible\n at the Devils girdle.[72]\n\nAs an honest Christian and a loyal subject he would honor both the\ndivine and temporal authorities; nevertheless, in order that the\nlaw of God and the law of the land might be known of all and march\ntogether, he would have the exact terms of the constitution written\nout by \u201cdisert statesmen\u201d in time of peace, and published broadly, in\nMassachusetts as well as in England. And so when he was commissioned to\ndraw up a body of liberties for the new commonwealth, he found the task\ncongenial. As a lawyer he seems to have been concerned at the non-legal\nmethods of the magistrates in dispensing judgment, so repugnant to the\nspirit of the Common Law; and in the election sermon of 1641, that he\nwas invited to preach, he \u201cadvanced several things that savored more of\nliberty, than some of the magistrates were prepared to approve.\u201d[73]\nBut it was the lawyer protesting against court methods that spoke\nout, not the liberal concerned with broader liberties. In a letter\nto Winthrop, December 22, 1639, dealing with the body of laws, he\nquestioned, \u201cWhether it will not be of ill consequence to send the\nCourt business to the common consideration of the Freemen,\u201d adding:\n\n I fear it will too much exauctorate the power of that Court to\n prostrate matters in that manner, I suspect both Commonwealth and\n Churches have discended to lowe already. I see the spirits of the\n people runne high, and what they gett they hould. They may not be\n denyed their proper and lawfull liberties, but a question whether\n it be of God to interest the inferiour sort in that which should be\n reserved _inter optimates penes quos est sancire leges_ [_i.e._ to\n the aristocracy with whom rests the power to establish the law].[74]\n\nThe celebrated _Body of Liberties_ was presented three years after _The\nSimple Cobler_ was written, and in spite of his frankly aristocratic\nbias, Nathaniel Ward did a real service to Massachusetts by\nincorporating into the law of the commonwealth many of the old English\nsafeguards of person and property, in some instances advancing beyond\ncurrent English practice. Yet true to his Hebraic leanings, and in\nharmony with the spirit of the theocracy, he added certain brutalities\ndrawn from the Mosaic code that were soon to drop away.\n\nThere is something refreshing in the extraordinary frankness of this\nold Puritan of the days of Elizabeth. He was no demagogue, but a stout\nupholder of authority, who accepted the rule of caste and the law of an\neye for an eye. The militant severity of his judgments, and the caustic\nwit of his comments, suggest somewhat startlingly how long and bitter\nwould be the struggle in New England before the spirit of liberalism\nshould find wide acceptance there. Gentlemen of the immigrant\ngeneration were set in their ways, and none more inflexibly than\nNathaniel Ward. He was too old to adjust himself to new conditions, a\nfact which he recognized by returning to England to die, leaving behind\nas a warning certain pithy quatrains of which this is one:\n\n The upper world shall Rule,\n While Stars will run their race:\n The nether world obey\n While People keep their place.\n\n\nII \u2022 John Eliot \u2022 A Theocratic Utopia\n\nAt the session of the General Court holden at Boston, May 22, 1661, it\nwas ordered:\n\n This Court taking notice of a booke entituled Christian\n Commonwealth, written ... by Mr. John Eliot of Roxbury in New\n England, which ... is justly offensive and in speciall relating\n to kingly Gouvernment in England, the which the said Mr. Eliot\n hath also freely and fully acknowledged to this Court. It is\n therefore ordered by this Court and the Authority thereof, that the\n said Booke be totally suppressed and the Authors acknowledgement\n recorded; and that all persons whatsoever in this jurisdiction\n that have any of the said Bookes in theire Custody shall on theire\n perrills within fowerteene dayes after publication hereof either\n cancel or deface or deliver them unto the next Magistrate or to the\n Secretary, whereby all farther divulment and improovement of the\n said offensive Booke may be prevented.[75]\n\nThe little book over which such a pother was made by the New England\nmagistrates in the days when they were under the censorious eye of the\nnewly restored Stuart government was the single venture in the field\nof political speculation by the excellent John Eliot, apostle to the\nIndians. It was a slender volume, written about 1650, although not\nprinted till 1659; but within the narrow compass of twenty-one pages\nthis dreamer in Israel has sketched the outlines of an ideal Christian\ncommonwealth. It was a day and a world of idealists, and so John Eliot\npaused in the midst of his missionary labors to fashion a brick for the\nbuilding of that temple which the Puritans of the Protectorate were\ndreaming of. The idols had been broken by the hammer of Cromwell; the\nmalevolent powers of this world were brought low; it remained now only\nfor the people of God to enter into a solemn covenant to establish a\ncommonwealth after the true divine model. That no mistake should be\nmade in so important a matter, John Eliot was moved to send out of the\nAmerican wilderness the plan of a Christian Utopia, sanctioned by the\nMosaic example and buttressed at every point by chapter and verse,\nwhich he offered to the godly Puritans of England as a suitable guide\nto their feet.\n\nNaked theocracy is nowhere else so uncompromisingly delineated as in\nthe pages of _The Christian Commonwealth_. At the basis of Eliot\u2019s\npolitical speculations were the two germinal conceptions which animated\nhis theocratic brethren generally: the conception that Christ is King\nof Kings before whom all earthly authority must bow, and the conception\nthat the Scripture alone reveals the law of God. So long as the Stuarts\nwere ruling at St. James\u2019s speculative theocrats found it expedient\nto gloss their principles with nice distinctions between temporal and\nspiritual overlords; but with monarchy overthrown, they came out boldly\nand urged the English people to put away all profane institutions.\n\u201c_Scripturae plentitudinem adoro_,\u201d John Cotton had exclaimed; and to\nthe same purpose John Eliot laid down the thesis:\n\n There is undoubtedly a forme of civil Government instituted by God\n himself in the holy Scriptures; whereby any Nation may enjoy all\n the ends and effects of Government in the best manner, were they\n but perswaded to make trial of it. We should derogate from the\n sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures, if we should deny it.\n\n The prayers, the expectation, and faith of the Saints in the\n Prophecies and Promises of holy Scripture, are daily sounding in\n the ears of the Lord, for the downfall of Anti-christ, and with\n him all humane Powers, Polities, Dominions, and Governments; and\n in the room thereof, we wait for the coming of the Kingdom of the\n Lord Jesus, who by his Divine Wisdom, Power, Government and Laws,\n given us ... in the holy Scriptures, will reign over all the\n Nations of the earth in his due time: I mean the Lord Jesus will\n bring down all people, to be ruled by the Institutions, Laws, and\n Directions of the Word of God, not only in Church-Government and\n Administrations, but also in the Government and Administration of\n all affairs in the Common wealth. And then Christ reigneth, when\n all things among men, are done by the direction of the word of his\n mouth: his Kingdom is then come amongst us, when his will is done\n on earth, as it is done in heaven, where no Humane or Angelical\n Policy or Wisdom doth guide anything, but all is done by Divine\n direction (Ps. 103:20); and so it shall be on earth, when and where\n Christ reigneth.\n\n Much is spoken of the rightful Heir of the Crown of England, and\n of the unjustice of casting out the right Heir; but Christ is the\n onely right Heir of the Crown of England (Ps. 2:8) and of all other\n Nations also (Rev. 11:15).\n\n That which the Lord now calleth England to attend is not to search\n humane Politics and Platformes of Government, contrived by the\n wisdom of man; but as the Lord hath carried on their works for\n them, so they ought to go unto the Lord, and enquire at the Word of\n his mouth, what Platforme of Government he hath therein commanded\n and prescribed.\n\nFrom his Scriptural premises Eliot deduced a system of government that\nis altogether remarkable, not only for its rejection of the Separatist\ntheory of natural rights, but for its na\u00efve simplicity. Since the\nlaw has been declared once for all, perfect and final, there is no\nneed for a legislative branch of government; and since Christ is sole\nruler and king, there is no place for a profane head of the state;\nit remains only for the Christian theorist to provide a competent\nmagisterial system to hear causes and adjudicate differences. Society\nis concerned wholly with duties and not at all with rights; government,\ntherefore, begins and ends with the magistrate. In order to secure a\nsuitable magistracy, Eliot proposed to divide society into groups of\ntens, fifties, hundreds and thousands, each of which should choose its\nrulers, who in turn should choose their representatives to the higher\ncouncils; and so there was evolved an ascending series of magistrates\nuntil the supreme council of the nation was reached, the decisions of\nwhich should be final.\n\n The duties of all the Rulers of the civil part of the Kingdom of\n Christ, are as followeth: ... to govern the people in the orderly\n and seasonable practice of all the Commanders of God, in actions\n liable to Political observations whether of piety and love to God,\n or of justice and love to man with peace.\n\nFar removed as _The Christian Commonwealth_ was from the\ndemocratic political theory of the Army radicals, or the practical\nconstitutionalism of Nathaniel Ward, it was the logical culmination\nof all theocratic programs. The ideal of social unity, of relentless\nconformity, according to which the rebel is a social outcast to be\nsilenced at any cost, dominates this godly Utopia as mercilessly as\nit dominated the policy of Laud. In setting up King Jesus for King\nCharles, there was to be no easing of the yoke upon rebellious spirits;\nand in binding society upon the letter of the Scripture there was to\nbe no consideration for the aspirations of the unregenerate. It is not\npleasant to consider what the Saints would have made of New England if\ntheir will had prevailed. Curious as this little work is--testifying\nrather to the sincerity of Eliot\u2019s Hebraism than to his political\nintelligence or his knowledge of men--it is characteristic of the\nidealist who consecrated his life to the Indian mission. How little\ndisturbed he was by the perversities and limitations of everyday fact,\nis revealed in the policy which he laid down for his Indian converts:\n\n And this Vow I did solemnly make unto the Lord concerning them;\n that they being a people without any forme of Government and now\n to chuse; I would endeavour with all my might, to bring them to\n embrace such Government, both civil and Ecclesiastical, as the Lord\n hath commanded in the holy Scriptures; and to deduce all their\n Lawes from the holy Scriptures, that so they may be the Lord\u2019s\n people, ruled by him alone in all things.\n\nWhich vow, considering the state of the Indian tribes to whom it was to\napply, may serve to throw light upon the reason for the scant success\nof the Saints in their dealings with the red-men.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[70] _The Simple Cobler_, edition of 1843, pp. 89-90.\n\n[71] _Ibid._, pp. 54-55.\n\n[72] _Ibid._, pp. 8, 10.\n\n[73] _Ibid._, Introduction.\n\n[74] Dean, _Memoir of the Rev. Nathaniel Ward_, pp. 56-57.\n\n[75] _Massachusetts Historical Society Publications_, Vol. IX, Third\nSeries, p. 128.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: the Twilight of the Oligarchy \u2022 1660-1720\n\n\nIt is not pleasant to linger in the drab later years of a century that\nin its prime had known able men and accomplished notable things. A\nworld that accepted Michael Wigglesworth for its poet, and accounted\nCotton Mather its most distinguished man of letters, had certainly\nbackslidden in the ways of culture. The final harvest of the theocracy\nmust be reckoned somewhat scanty. English Independency had been the\nrobust and rebellious child of a great age; New England Puritanism\nwas the stunted offspring of a petty environment. With the passing\nof the emigrant generation, a narrow provincialism settled upon\nthe commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay. Not a single notable book\nappeared; scarcely a single generous figure emerged from the primitive\nbackground. A thin soil and the law of Moses created a capable but\nungainly race, prosaic and niggardly. Their very speech lost much of\nthe native English beauty that had come down from medieval times.\nThe clean and expressive idiom that Bunyan caught from the lips of\nEnglish villagers, with its echoes of a more spontaneous life before\nthe Puritan middle class had substituted asceticism for beauty, grew\nthinner and more meager, its bright homespun dyes subdued to a dun\nbutternut. The town records which in the first years had been set\ndown in dignified and adequate phrase became increasingly crabbed and\nilliterate, laboriously composed by plain men to whom spelling had\nbecome a lost art. The horizons of life in New England were contracting\nto a narrow round of chores and sermons. \u201cWhen I first saw the Lieut.\nGovernor,\u201d Sewall remarked of Stoughton, \u201cHe was Carting Ears of Corn\nfrom the Uper Barn.\u201d The picture suggests the pastoral note, but it\nsuggests much else as well.\n\nAgainst this incursion of the provincial the church was the single\nforce to be counted on to do battle. The ministers did their best,\nbut it needed abler men than were available to counteract the growing\nformalism of the times. They might lament that their admonitions fell\non unheeding ears, that they preached in vain to a \u201csermon-proof,\ngospel-glutted generation\u201d; but the blame must attach in part to the\nformalism of their appeals. The straw was over-threshed. The common\nprovincialism infected the pulpit as well as the pew, and the creative\nvigor of the ministry steadily declined. The ground was being prepared\nfor superstition and bigotry. As the belief spread through the New\nEngland villages that the end of the world would fall on the end of the\ncentury, men\u2019s thoughts naturally ran much on the demonology that is a\nlogical consequence of the Hebraic dualism, and the most intelligent\nsaw no reason to doubt that \u201cthe Evening Wolves will be much abroad,\nwhen we are near the Evening of the World.\u201d The psychology was being\nprepared for the witch-mania of Salem, and Cotton Mather was only\nechoing the common belief when he cried, \u201cAn Army of Devils is horribly\nbroke in upon the place which is the _Centre_, and after a sort, the\nFirst-born of our _English Settlements_.\u201d[76] In this matter, as in so\nmany others, the ministers were no better than their congregations;\nthey were blind leaders of the blind, and they lent their sanction to\nthe intolerance of the mass judgment. In an environment so stifling,\nwith every unfamiliar idea likely to be seized upon as evidence of the\ndevil\u2019s wiles, there was no room for free speculation. A generation\nunder the terror of witchcraft was given over to stark reaction.\nThe Salem outbreak was the logical outcome of the long policy of\nrepression, that had hanged Quakers and destroyed independent thought,\nin its attempt to imprison the natural man in a strait-jacket of\nPuritan righteousness. Emotions long repressed sometimes find sinister\noutlets, and the witchcraft madness was only a dramatic aftermath of a\ngeneration of repressions and inhibitions.[77]\n\nIt was during these unhappy years that power finally slipped from\nthe hands of the oligarchy. With the charter gone, a Royal Governor\npresiding over the Council, and a property qualification instead of a\nreligious test for suffrage, the old order was broken past mending.\nThe members of the oligarchy still hoped against hope, and under the\ngovernorship of Phips they made heroic attempts to bolster up the\ncause; but the Quebec expedition was so badly muddled as to bring\nthe commonwealth to the verge of ruin, and the Governor and Council\nwrote to England that God had \u201cspit in our faces.\u201d[78] Whether or\nnot that was a correct analysis of the divine reaction to the Quebec\nfiasco is of no importance today; a good many New Englanders, it would\nseem, doubted it, and under the pressure of high taxes, a depreciated\ncurrency and a great debt, they made their dissatisfaction heard at the\nroyal court. When the English government at last \u201cresolved to settle\nthe Countrey,\u201d the end of the oligarchy was come. The cautious amongst\nthem were for throwing the whole responsibility on the Lord: \u201cthe\nfoundations being gone, what can the righteous do?\u201d argued Judge Sewall\nwith shrewd worldly-wisdom. But the ministers would make no compromise\nwith Baal. The tongues of false prophets might seduce the people, but\nthey stood for the old order, fighting a losing fight with righteous\nzeal. On June 1, 1702, Sewall noted in his diary that he had \u201cmuch\nadoe to persuade Mr. Willard to dine with me,\u201d the pastor being in a\nsulk because the civil representatives had taken precedence over the\nministers in the procession for proclaiming Queen Anne. But in the end\neven \u201cgood Mr. Willard\u201d was forced to acknowledge that his loyalty was\ngiven to a lost cause.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[76] _Wonders of the Invisible World_, p. 14.\n\n[77] See Lucien Price, \u201cWitchcraft, Then and Now,\u201d in _The Nation_,\nVol. CXV, No. 2987.\n\n[78] J. T. Adams, _The Founding of New England_, p. 442.\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 Samuel Sewall \u2022 Yankee\n\n\nBy good fortune an intimate record of daily life in old New England\nhas been preserved in abundant detail. The diary of Samuel Sewall\nnot only narrates the homely activities of Boston in the evening of\nthe theocracy, _antiquis moribus, prisca fide_, but it unconsciously\nreveals the transformation of the English Puritan into the New England\nYankee. The sober Boston citizens who on the Sabbath droned Windsor and\nYork tunes, and took notes of long sermons, on week-days plied their\ngospel of thrift with notable success. They loved the meetinghouse as\ntheir fathers had loved it, but they were the sons and grandsons of\ntradesmen, and true to their English instincts they set about erecting\na provincial mercantile society, dominated by the ideals of the little\ncapitalist. Of this rising world of mercantilism, Samuel Sewall was a\nworthy representative. A Puritan magistrate and village capitalist, he\nmade full use of his opportunities to worship God, to thrive and to\nrise. As the older ideal of theocratic stewardship is revealed in the\ncareer of John Winthrop, the newer practice of incipient capitalism is\nrevealed in the life of Samuel Sewall.\n\nThe _Diary_ is a fascinating book, with its petty gossip interwoven\nwith matters of public concern, and its brisk activities set in a\nblack border of innumerable funerals: the one among all the books\nof the time that is still quick with life after these two hundred\nyears and more. In its meager entries we can trace the change that\nwas coming to Massachusetts in the transition from a theocracy to a\nroyal colony; and we can feel the strong emotions which that change\naroused. The dry facts of history take on flesh and blood; forgotten\nnames become living men walking the streets of Boston or arguing in\nthe Council Chamber; Samuel Sewall himself becomes more real to us\nthan our own contemporaries. He was the veritable embodiment of his\nserious, prudential Massachusetts, reflecting its changing fortunes\nwith painstaking fidelity. In that petty world of conventional piety\nand shrewd self-interest, the kind-hearted Judge bustled about, a\nsermon in one hand to soothe the doubts of the troubled, and a bit\nof chocolate in the other to comfort the bedridden--as honest and\nfriendly and prosaic a soul as Massachusetts ever bred. If one wishes\nto understand the first native New England generation, one cannot do\nbetter than linger over the daily jottings of this lawyer-tradesman,\nwho knew his Calvin far better than his Coke, and who while busily\nadding new acres to his holdings strove to keep the younger generation\nuncontaminated by wigs and revels and other godless things, by the\nsweet ravishment of the psalms, in the singing of which the voice of\nthe Judge was lifted up with pathetic earnestness.\n\nFor many years after his death fame dealt more than generously with\nSamuel Sewall. The prosperity that came to him during his earthly\npilgrimage long provided for his memory, and made of him a greater\nfigure than either nature or good fortune created. Who does not know\nWhittier\u2019s tribute?\n\n Stately and slow, with thoughtful air,\n His black cap hiding his whitened hair,\n Walks the Judge of the Great Assise,\n Samuel Sewall, the good and wise.\n His face with lines of firmness wrought,\n He wears the look of a man unbought,\n Who swears to his hurt and changes not;\n Yet touched and softened nevertheless\n With the grace of Christian gentleness;\n The face that a child would climb to kiss;\n True and tender and brave and just,\n That man might honor and woman trust.\n\nAnd a hundred and forty-eight years after the cold January day when\nall that was mortal of him was \u201chonorably Inter\u2019d\u201d in the Sewall tomb\nwhither so many of his family had gone before,[79] a brilliant student\nof early American letters gave fresh currency to the stately Sewall of\ntradition. \u201cHe was a man built, every way, after a large pattern. By\nhis great wealth, his great offices, his learning, his strong sense,\nhis wit, his warm human sympathy, his fearlessness, his magnanimity, he\nwas a visible potentate among men in those days.\u201d[80]\n\nThat was before the diary was published and the lay figure of\ntradition vanished in presence of the real man. We know Samuel Sewall\nnow and see him as he was. That he was a great man it is impossible to\nmake out; but that he was a small man by no means follows. Behind the\nformal trappings of magistrate and councilor, we discover a capable,\nmiddle-class soul, honest, simple-hearted, serving himself yet not\nunmindful of his fellow townsmen, an excellent neighbor and citizen,\nto whom the strongest appeal of life was the economic. Like those\nkindred spirits, Defoe and Franklin, the dominant inspiration of his\nlife was prudential, as befitted the descendant of generations of\ntradesmen. \u201cMr. Henry Sewall, my great Grandfather,\u201d wrote the Judge in\nold age, \u201cwas a Linen Draper in the City of Coventry in Great Britain.\nHe acquired a great Estate, was a prudent Man, and was more than once\nchosen Mayor of the City.\u201d[81] In turning Puritan the English burgess\ndid not change his nature, and Samuel Sewall was true to his breeding\nin fashioning his life upon that of his great grandfather. To acquire\nwealth and honors, to occupy a dignified position among his fellows,\nwas the dominant ambition of his life. With excellent thrift he fixed\nhis young affections upon the only child of a wealthy merchant, the\nrichest heiress in the colony; no penniless \u201cwaiting-woman,\u201d for\nSamuel Sewall, such as had contented the unworldly Thomas Hooker. He\nunderstood how desirable it is to put money in one\u2019s purse; so he made\na great alliance and proved himself a shrewd husbandman as well as a\nkind husband.[82] From commerce and land speculation and money lending\nand the perquisites of many offices, he accumulated steadily until his\nwealth entitled him to be regarded as one of the first citizens of\nMassachusetts. He did not forget his prudence even in his generosities,\nbut set down carefully in his diary what his benefactions cost, that\nthere might be no mistake when he came to make his reckoning with the\nLord. He knew his rights and upheld them stoutly; and in the petty\nquarrels and litigations in which he found himself involved, he stuck\nto the letter of the law and usually won his point. He did not misuse\nhis official position to feather his own nest, but what might be got\nlegally from public office he took care to get.\n\nWith abundant wealth the path of preferment was easy to him. From\nhis election to the privileges of a freeman in 1678, at the age of\ntwenty-six, to the end of a long life, he was continuously engaged\nin public affairs. He sought office and was not backward in pushing\nhis claims upon a desirable post;[83] and by careful attention to\nbusiness rather than by exceptional parts, he rose to a place of\nvery great influence in the commonwealth. Like a competent man of\naffairs, he was prompt in meeting engagements--\u201cam, I think, the most\nconstant attender of Councils,\u201d he remarked of himself approvingly.\nHe carried out to the letter the early advice given him: \u201cMr. Reyner\n... Advised me not to keep overmuch within, but goe among men, and\nthat thereby I should advantage myself.\u201d[84] Capable, industrious,\npublic-spirited, he led a busy and useful life that justified more than\ncommonly the responsibilities which came to him. His qualities might\nbe middle-class, but they were sterling and worthy of honor. It was a\nfortunate star that led him out of Tory England, where he would never\nhave been more than a prosperous tradesman, to the new world where\nkindred spirits were erecting a commonwealth after his own heart.[85]\n\nNevertheless with all his excellent qualities Samuel Sewall was not\na great or original nature. The evidence is convincing that he was a\ncapable executive and administrator rather than a creative thinker\nor forceful leader; a Puritan embodiment of Defoe\u2019s merchant ideal;\nan example of the man who rises to civic honors by simple business\nvirtues. He was at home in the narrow round of routine, but for bold\nspeculation he reveals the incapacity of the practical soul. His\nintellectual interests were few; his ready curiosity was that of the\nuncreative mind, concerning itself with persons and happenings rather\nthan with ideas. To say that Sewall possessed either an economic\nor political philosophy would be too generous an interpretation of\nhis opinions. The views which he upheld vigorously were little more\nthan prejudices. Of the several economic questions which engaged\nthe attention of the Council during his years of service, the most\ninsistent was the question of issuing bills of credit to supplement\nthe scanty currency. There was the usual class alignment, the wealthy\nopposing the issues, and the poor generally favoring them. The\nposition of Sewall was clear. He vigorously opposed every issue, from\nthe conviction that the only honest money was hard money, even going\nso far as to prefer barter to bills.[86] Nowhere does he reveal any\nintelligent grasp of the economics of the problem, nor was he aware\nthat his judgment might have been influenced by his private interests\nas a money lender.\n\nIn his political views he was equally unconcerned with broad\nprinciples. He seems to have been wholly unread in political theory,\nand like his fellow magistrates he never examined fundamentals. He\naccepted without question the right of the godly to police society, and\nhe would have no meddling with affairs of state by tavern and fireside\npoliticians. As a member of the oligarchy he naturally approved\noligarchic rule. Although he would turn to the democracy for support\nagainst the Lords of Trade, when the latter were moving to overturn\nthe theocracy, he put no trust in the political wisdom of the common\npeople. He was as magisterial as John Winthrop in his belief in the\nprinciple of the stewardship of the elders. Stability of government\nwas the prime essential; there must be no criticism of government by\nprivate individuals or by newspapers. On an occasion when Dudley\u2019s\nadministration had been sharply attacked in a London paper, a copy of\nwhich had been brought over and talked about, there was a great pother\nin Council. Although Sewall was not willing to defend Dudley, he was\ntroubled.\n\n At last the Council voted, it tended to the disturbance of\n the Government. Lt. Govr. and Council order\u2019d me to Reprimand\n Mr. Dummer.... I told him how intolerable it was for privat\n persons to print Reflections and Censures on the highest Acts of\n Government.... Twas ill done of them who printed it in London, and\n twas ill done by them that carried it on here.[87]\n\nHis characteristic attitude then comes out in the phrase: \u201cI said\n... I was for upholding Government whether in or out of it.\u201d Samuel\nSewall was no rebel against authority. But if he was firm in support\nof the _de facto_ government, he was insistent that it should be\nhonest. He protested to Governor Dudley against padding the muster\npay-rolls[88] and he dissented strongly against introducing the current\nEnglish practice of buying commissions in the army.[89] The scandalous\ncorruption of English politics must not be permitted to sully the\ngovernment of Massachusetts.\n\nSewall enjoyed in his lifetime the repute of a scholar. He was Latinist\nenough to justify his Harvard degree of Master of Arts; he read a\ngood deal, and wrote and published books. But he seems to have cared\nnothing for pure literature, and was unacquainted with the English\nclassics. His intellectual interest was in things either occult or\ninconsequential. Biblical prophecy was his favorite study, and his\nmost ambitious work, _Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica_, essayed to\nprove that America was to be the final \u201crendezvous of Gog and Magog.\u201d\nAlthough long a magistrate and judge of the highest court, he was not\na lawyer. He received no preliminary training in the law, and there\nare few indications in the _Diary_ that he read the literature of\nthe profession. His indifference seems to have given concern to his\nfriends, for on January 13, 1696, four years after he had been chosen\njudge, he noted:\n\n When were there at first, Mr. Danforth bad me look on the\n Cupboard\u2019s head for a book; I told him I saw there a Law-book,\n Wingate on the Common Law. He said he would lend it me, I should\n speak to Amsden to call for it; and if he died, he would give it\n me. Again when took leave after prayer, He said he lent me that\n Book not to wrap up but to read, and if misliked it, should tell\n him of it.[90]\n\nPrimitive New England did not take kindly to lawyers, and in\nadministering a patriarchal justice by rule of thumb, Sewall was like\nother New England magistrates. Neither did it take kindly to the spirit\nof free speculation, and in his potterings over occultisms he was\nconfessing the sterility of intellectual interests.\n\nIf the kind-hearted Judge lacked capacity for bold and liberal thought,\nhe lacked capacity as well for emotional fervor. He was quite without\nimagination. Despite his honest concern for his soul, and his sincere\ndesire for the advancement of God\u2019s kingdom in New England, Sewall did\nnot possess a deeply religious nature. In his religious life he was\nthe same prudent, plodding soul, that stowed away in his strong-box\ndeeds to ample possessions during his pilgrimage through this vale of\ntears. The natural man was strong in his two hundred and odd pounds\nof flesh, and the religious mysticism that lurked in the heart of\nprimitive Puritanism found no response in his phlegmatic soul. He was\nno Seeker, like Roger Williams, to be driven by a passionate fervor\nalong untried paths; nor was he a philosopher, like John Wise, to\nconcern himself with broad ecclesiastical principles. Instead, there\nis more than a hint of the tradesman\u2019s conception of religion--one has\nonly to understand the profitableness of salvation to be led to invest\nin it. His religion must be orthodox; no untried methods or gambler\u2019s\nchances; a good business man will scrutinize title-deeds with due care,\nand the title-deeds to salvation are of the first importance. How\ncharacteristic are the following entries in the diary:\n\n Sabbath, March 2d. I Pray\u2019d in the Family, that might have an\n interest in God, Signed, Sealed and Delivered, and that all that\n tended to make it sure, might be perfected.\n\n Febr. 6. [1718] This morning ... I had a sweet and very affectionat\n Meditation Concerning the Lord Jesus; Nothing was to be objected\n against his Person, Parentage, Relations, Estate, House, Home!\n Why did I not resolutely, presently close with Him! And I cry\u2019d\n mightily to God that He would help me so to doe!\n\n 23. 5. [1721] Mr. Prince preaches the Lecture, from Gen. 22. 18\n ... A very seasonable Discourse. One Fly was discovered in his\n Ointment: He asserted that the 1000. years Rev. 20. stood for Three\n Hundred and Sixty Thousand years; taking every day of the 1000.\n years for a year: as 365. days i.e. years. _Apage has nugas!_\n [\u201cAway with this nonsense!\u201d][91]\n\nNo higher criticism for Samuel Sewall. If we quibble over the plain\nwords of Scripture, how shall we be certain of the terms of the\ncontract?\n\nA man so cautious by nature, and with so large a stake in the existing\norder, could not fail to be a conservative, content with a world that\njustified itself by the prosperity which it brought him, and which\nit would bring to others, he doubted not, if they governed their\nconduct with equal prudence. He desired no innovations in church or\nstate; established forms answered his needs and filled the measure of\nhis ideal. The existing system was approved by all the respectable\npeople of the community; there was everything to gain in upholding\nit, and likelihood of loss in suffering power to pass into the hands\nof a royal governor or of the ignorant poor. And so, determined by\ncomplex motives, by habit, by class ties, by economic interest, and\nby honest liking, Samuel Sewall went with the stream of conventional\northodoxy, strong for the old theocratic principles, seeing no need\nfor readjustments to meet changing conditions. The true principles of\nchurch and state had been laid down by the fathers, to which the common\nacceptance by the best people gave final sanction.\n\nIt is characteristic of the prosperous bourgeoisie, and the old Judge\nwalked the streets of Boston, or sat in his pew, or took his place\non the bench, as stubborn and unimaginative a conservative as any of\nhis fellows. If his persistent opposition to change, whether in the\nmatter of wigs, or Christmas keeping, or creed, or politics, was due\nin part to a phlegmatic love of use and wont, it was prompted also by\nan instinctive fear of innovation. The world doubtless is imperfect,\nbut it answers to God\u2019s will and we understand its ways and can draw\nour contracts with open eyes. Whereas change, however desirable it may\nseem theoretically, entails too many disturbing uncertainties. Very\nlikely it was this subconscious concern for his material interests\nthat so often made the simple-minded Judge an unintelligent opponent\nof all popular movements looking to a freer and more liberal society.\nWhen his native kindliness was touched he spoke out frankly. His\nanti-slavery tract (_The Selling of Joseph_), slight in extent and\nsomewhat overpraised by historians, was not only much in advance of\nhis time, but it contains one sentence that should not be forgotten,\n\u201cThere is no proportion between twenty pieces of silver and liberty.\u201d\nEqually significant was his stand against capital punishment for\ncounterfeiting.[92] Such acts as the following must also be set down to\nhis credit: \u201cI essay\u2019d June 22 [1716], to prevent Indians and Negros\nbeing Rated with Horses and Hogs; but could not prevail.\u201d[93] His\nnative sense of justice was as strong as his kindliness. Who does not\nknow of his confession in regard to the witchcraft persecutions--an\nact that set all Boston tongues wagging. When he was convinced that he\nhad made a grievous and sorrowful mistake, he rose in the congregation\nwhile the minister read his public acknowledgment of that mistake,\nand his repentance for his share in the unhappy business. Thereafter\nin commemoration he kept an annual day of prayer and fasting. We can\nforgive him much for that honest and manly act.\n\nTo the end of his life Sewall refused to go forward with the changing\ntimes, and his voluntary assumption of the office of _praefectura\nmorum_ laid him under a heavy responsibility to see that the primitive\nways were upheld. He was magisterial in rebuke and few transgressors\nof the strict New England code escaped a censure. One would like to\nhave James Franklin\u2019s private opinion of the sharp-eyed old Judge. To\nFranklin and other members of the Hell-fire Club--young fellows keenly\ninterested in domesticating the new wit literature in homespun Boston,\nopenly skeptical, inclining to Arianism and even to deism--he must\nhave seemed a prosy old reactionary, upholding a decadent orthodoxy\nand an obsolete social order. No doubt many a sharp jibe was aimed at\nhis back, for there were many to whom the older ways began to seem\npreposterous. It may very well have been that those who committed a\ncertain prank which Sewall records may have had him in mind.\n\n Aug. 3. [1717] ... \u2019Tis sad it should be so, but a virulent Libel\n was starch\u2019d on the Three Doors of the Meeting House, containing\n the following Words:\n\n TO ALL TRUE-HEARTED CHRISTIANS\n\n Good people, within this House, this very day,\n A Canting Crew will meet to fast, and pray.\n Just as a miser fasts with greedy mind to spare;\n So the glutton fasts, to eat a greater share.\n But the sower-headed Presbyterians fast to seem more holy,\n And their Canting Ministers to punish sinfull foley.[94]\n\nHappily there is another and pleasanter side to the character of Samuel\nSewall, and one that looked forward to the future instead of backward\nto the past. Despite the harshness of the Puritan creed and the bigotry\nof Puritan rule, the fields and meadows of New England, that sent a\nbreath of the countryside through the crooked streets of Boston, were\na wholesome influence in the lives of men and women. Magistrate and\nmoney-lender though he was, Samuel Sewall was a countryman and farmer\nalso, a judge of milch cows and fat porkers as well as criminals, a\nlover of robins and flowers and fruitful orchards, one who sat his\nhorse well, and when on circuit often drew up at a rail-fence to\ndiscuss the crops with some gossipy farmer. Above all, a lover of\nmen, the most neighborly soul in the world, mingling freely with all\nclasses, and although quite properly proud of a visit from the Governor\nor other great person, never above chatting with the carpenter, or\ndoing a kindness to an old nurse. It was the friendly heart of the man\nthat prompted so many little errands of helpfulness; and if sermons and\ntracts and good advice flowed from him like a spring freshet, if he was\nmagisterial in petty rebuke, such little oddities of the man and the\ntime did not detract from his sympathy or lessen his helpfulness. Men\nstood in awe of Cotton Mather, and children must have run from him, but\nneither awe nor fear threw their shadow across Sewall\u2019s path. We can\nmake too much of the countless funerals that dot his pages, with their\nthrifty reckoning of gloves and scarfs and rings that were the queer\nperquisites of pallbearers. It was not an unwholesome world despite the\nsmell of mortality that exudes from the old records, or the terrors of\nlittle children smitten with the fear of hell; and the homely round of\nSamuel Sewall\u2019s activities was very far from unwholesome.\n\nIt was his neighborliness that made him so representative of the\nleveling tendencies of a provincial village life--an easy comradeship\nwith men of all conditions, unknown to the rigid class divisions\nof the old world. Going one day to visit the Jews\u2019 burial place at\nMile-End, while on a visit to London, he invited the sexton to a pot\nof beer and a quiet chat, remarking in friendly fashion, \u201cwisht might\nmeet in Heaven: He answered, and drink a Glass of Beer together,\nwhich we were then doing.\u201d[95] His English friends would scarcely\nhave understood that homely little scene, so natural to the colonial.\nSewall is the first Yankee who reveals the native kindliness of the New\nEngland village. He was zealous to do good and to deal generously with\nothers, because he had been generously dealt by. Growing more human\nwith the ripening years, yet instinctively conservative, stubbornly\nintent on managing his own affairs in his own way and by his own\nagents, provincial to the core and strong in local pride, he reveals\nthe special bent of the New England character, as it unconsciously\ndifferentiated itself from its English original. Not American as yet\nlike Franklin, and no longer wholly English like Winthrop, far from\ndemocratic and yet no Tory, he was the progenitor of a practical race\nthat was to spread the gospel of economic individualism across the\ncontinent.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[79] Two of his three wives and eleven of his fourteen children he had\nburied.\n\n[80] Tyler, _History of American Literature during the Colonial\nPeriod_, Chapter XIII, Part IV.\n\n[81] _Diary_, in _Massachusetts Historical Society Collections_, Fifth\nSeries, Vol. I, p. xi.\n\n[82] Compare his haggling over the terms of settlement upon a later\nproposed marriage; see _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 205.\n\n[83] See _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 168.\n\n[84] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 32.\n\n[85] The following is part of an obituary notice by his son:\n\nIn 1684, He was chosen a Magistrate of the _Massachusetts_ Colony....\nIn 1692, He was appointed by King William and Queen Mary in their\nRoyal Charter, one of the first Council for their Majesties in this\nProvince, into which He was annually chosen and sat till 1725, when\nHe resign\u2019d his Election, having outlived all the others nominated in\nthat Fundamental Constitution. In 1692 He was made one of the Judges,\nand in 1718, Chief Justice of our Superior Courts of Judicature thro\u2019\nthe Province, in which He sat till 1728, when his Infirmities growing\non Him, He resign\u2019d that Place also. In 1715, He was made Judge of\nProbates for this County of _Suffolk_, and continued in that Office\ntill 1728, when He laid it down; it being the last Publick Post wherein\nHe served and honoured his Country. _Diary_, Vol. III, pp. 409-410.\nIn addition to the above, he was at times an overseer of Harvard\nCollege, censor of the press, and captain of the Ancient and Honourable\nArtillery Company; a frequent moderator of Boston town meeting, member\nof innumerable committees on church, parish and commonwealth matters,\nand adviser at large to whoever was in difficulties.\n\n[86] See _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 366; Vol. III, pp. 87 and 345.\n\n[87] _Diary_, Vol. III, pp. 84-85.\n\n[88] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 228.\n\n[89] _Ibid._, p. 214.\n\n[90] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 419.\n\n[91] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 312; Vol. III, p. 165; Vol. III, pp. 281-282.\n\n[92] See _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 277.\n\n[93] _Ibid._, p. 87.\n\n[94] _Diary_, Vol. III, pp. 116-117. Note the use of the word\nPresbyterian in these lines.\n\n[95] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 301.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Mather Dynasty\n\n\nI\n\nFor one who is not a loving student of the unamiable bickerings that\nclutter the records of early New England, and who does not read them\nby the gentle light of filial loyalty, it would seem presumptuous to\nventure into the thorny fields tilled by the Mathers. He is certain to\nget well scratched, and not at all certain to return with any fruit\ngathered. The rancors of dead partisanships beset him on every side,\nand the gossip of old wives\u2019 tales fills his ears. He will encounter\nmany a slanderous hearsay, and the authentic documents to which he\nwould naturally turn are often inaccessible, and always inhospitable.\nThe countless tracts, for the most part inconsequential, that issued\nin an unbroken stream from the tireless Mather pens, consuming all the\nitalics in the printer\u2019s case, constitute a veritable _cheval-de-frise_\nto protect their authors\u2019 literary reputations from any Philistine\nattack; and behind that bristling barricade they have long bidden\ndefiance to casual invasion. Only a siege can reduce their stronghold\nand bring them forth into the clear light of day.\n\nTwo generations of Harvard scholarship have essayed the undertaking,\nbut there is still wanting the detached critic who will set the\nMathers against an adequate historical background, and appraise them\nobjectively in relation to their times. The Harvard contributions are\nexcellent in their way, but a consciousness of dealing with Harvard\nworthies would seem to have laid the writers under certain inhibitions.\nExposition too easily slides into apologetics. The latest study[96] is\na somewhat meticulous defense. It is an extraordinarily painstaking\ndocument, that has added to our knowledge of Increase Mather\u2019s life and\nwork, but it was unhappily conceived in the dark of the moon, a season\ncongenial to strange quirks of fancy. Some tangle it has cleared away,\nbut fresh obstacles have been added by the intrusion of a thesis to be\ndefended. In consequence, the interpretation of motives is colored by\nspecial pleading, and the very necessary inquiry into the sources of\nthose virulent antagonisms that sprang up full-armed in the minister\u2019s\nevery footprint is put aside as ungermane to a biography. It is an\nunfortunate assumption for it puts aside much that is crucial. The\nrehabilitation becomes too easy and complete. It proves too much. It\nwould have us believe that in spite of all the smoke that gathered\nabout Increase Mather\u2019s militant pilgrimage through life, there was\nnever any fire of his kindling; that in spite of all the puddles\nthrough which the priestly politician splashed to reach his ends, no\nspot or stain ever smutched his gown. The contention may be sound, but\nit puts credulity to the strain, and unless one has something of a\nMather stomach for marvels, one is likely to indulge in the luxury of\ndoubt.\n\n\nII\n\nThe Mathers were a singularly provocative family, capable, ambitious,\ncertain to have a finger in every pie baking in the theocratic oven.\nFrom the emigrant Richard with the great voice, chief architect of the\nCambridge Platform, to the provincial Cotton, the family combativeness\nand love of publicity put their marks on New England history. Of the\nthree generations, certainly Increase Mather was the most generously\nendowed with capacity for leadership; an able man, practical and\nassertive, liking to be in the forefront of affairs, not wanting his\nlight hidden under a bushel. An arch-conservative, he justified his\nways to his conscience by the excellence of the heritage he strove\nto conserve. A formalist, he satisfied his intellectual curiosity by\nextolling the sufficiency of the creed of the fathers. He closed the\nwindows of his mind against the winds of new doctrine, and bounded\nthe fields of speculative inquiry by orthodox fences. He was of the\nsuccession of John Cotton rather than Thomas Hooker, a priestly\ntheocrat, though never a shuffler like Cotton, less troubled by free\ninquiry, less by the intellectual. All his life he was inhibited\nfrom bold speculation by his personal loyalties and interests. As\na beneficiary of things as they were, certain to lose in prestige\nand power with any relaxing of the theocracy, it would be asking\ntoo much of human nature to expect him to question the sufficiency\nof the established system of which he was the most distinguished\nrepresentative. Not to have approved it would have been to repudiate\nhis habitual way of thinking, his deepest prejudices, his strongest\nconvictions. He had been molded and shaped by the theocracy; it was\nthe very marrow of his bones; as well demand that pig iron turn molten\nagain after it comes from the matrix. The ore of which he was fashioned\nwas excellent, but once molded it was rigid; there would be no return\nto fluidity. And so determined by every impact of environment, by every\nappeal of loyalty, and by a very natural ambition, Increase Mather\nbecame a stout upholder of the traditional order, a staunch old Puritan\nTory of the theocratic line. How could any promptings of liberalism\nfind nourishment in such a mind?[97] Why should one expect to find in\nthe works of such a man the seeds of new systems of thought or more\ngenerous institutions? He was the outstanding figure of the theocracy\nin the days of its overthrow, but intellectually he was not worthy to\nunloose the shoe-strings of Roger Williams.\n\nIn his professional capacity, Increase Mather was the priest rather\nthan the theologian, a pastor of the flock, an expounder of the\ncreed, rather than a seeker after new light. As a minister his mind\nwas circumscribed by the thinking of John Calvin. He learned nothing\nfrom Luther, and was bitterly hostile to those phases of Independency\nthat embodied the more generous Lutheran principles. No man was by\ntemperament better fitted to embrace the coercive spirit of the Genevan\ndiscipline. Strong-willed and ascetic, he discovered in discipline\nthe chief end for which the children of Adam are created. A profound\nadmirer of the close-knit Genevan system, he was a Presbyterian in\nspirit, a man after Calvin\u2019s own heart, who clung to the old coercions\nin an age that was seeking to throw them off. If he counseled\ninnovation it was in the way of strengthening ministerial authority,\nnever in the way of liberalizing either creed or practice. It was the\nCongregationalism of the Cambridge Platform, and not that of early\nPlymouth, that he upheld; and to strengthen that order he turned\nearnestly to the practical work of Presbyterianizing. He was the prime\nmover in summoning the synod of 1679-80, requested by the Court to\nconsider amongst other things what \u201cmay appeare necessary for the\npreventing schismes, haeresies, prophaneness, & the establishment of\nthe churches in one faith & order of the gospell,\u201d[98] and the chief\nsuggestions of the body, of which he was the conspicuous leader, were\na return to a stricter discipline, and a strengthening of the passage\nin the Savoy Confession of faith--adopted by the synod--by borrowings\nfrom the Westminster Confession, which \u201cmore positively set forth the\nauthority of the state in doctrinal questions.\u201d[99]\n\nIn 1691, while in London, Mather had been active in the work of uniting\nthe Presbyterian and Congregational churches of England, under articles\nthat would seem to have been more Presbyterian than Congregational;\nand in 1705, following the curiously spiteful controversy over the\nBrattle Street Church he joined vigorously in the proposed work of\nrejuvenating the New England system by engrafting further shoots\nfrom the Presbyterian stock. One of these grafts from the London,\nagreement--the principle of licensing ministerial candidates by the\nassociation of ministers, thereby effectively preventing the intrusion\nof undesired members--established itself on the Congregational system;\nbut another--the principle of associational control of the several\nchurches--was blighted by the attack of John Wise.[100] What this\ndesired consolidation of power in the hands of the ministers implied,\nis suggested by the terms of the Cambridge Platform, which asserted\nthat \u201cthe work & duty of the people is expressed in the phrase of\nobeying their Elders,\u201d and that they may not \u201cspeak in church, before\nthey have leave from the elders: nor continue so doing, when they\nrequire silence, nor may they oppose nor contradict the judgment or\nsentence of the Elders, without sufficient & weighty cause.\u201d[101]\nRecalling that the elders of a church had been reduced in number to the\nsingle minister, one may perhaps venture to suggest that a man ardently\nworking to strengthen the hands of the ministerial oligarchy by further\nPresbyterianizing was no friend to Separatist-Congregationalism, nor\none in whom the spirit of humility would work any lessening of the\nauthority of the Lord\u2019s stewards.[102]\n\nIn his conception of toleration Mather followed naturally in the\nfootsteps of John Cotton. He would tolerate all views that were not\nin error, but his criteria of truth were so far from catholic as to\nlead him into constant and vehement attack upon other sects. As a\nresponsible leader he was careful to clothe his attacks with generous\nprofessions; but he never stepped forward to uphold the right of\nfree thought, or to dissuade his brethren from heresy-baiting. His\nbiographer is greatly impressed by the minister\u2019s professions, and\ntakes them at somewhat more than face value, forgetting the ancient\nsaying that by the fruits of men\u2019s lives they shall be known. Casuistry\nis useful for purposes of defense, and a skillful apologist can explain\naway much; but the spirit of toleration revealed in the following\npassages was certainly no child of liberalism:\n\n The \u201cAnabaptists\u201d had given trouble in New England. They had\n installed as minister a man excommunicated from the Congregational\n church, and, when their meeting-house was closed to them, they\n persisted in assembling publicly before its barred doors rather\n than worship unmolested in a private house. To Mather these were\n attacks upon the true faith, and manifest disturbances of the\n civil peace. Naturally there is some acidity in his strictures\n on the \u201cblasted Error\u201d of \u201cAntipedobaptism.\u201d... He denounces\n Baptists roundly enough, points to their kinship with the turbulent\n Anabaptists in Europe, and writes: \u201cAre they not generally of a bad\n Spirit? Bitter enemies to the Lords most eminent Servants? yea,\n to the faithfull Ambassadors, spitting the cruel venome of Asps\n against them.\u201d\n\nHe then concludes: \u201cNor is the modern reader likely to disagree\u201d\nwith the apology by President Oakes, who wrote in an introduction to\nMather\u2019s screed:\n\n It is sufficiently known to those that know the Author, that he is\n none of the Ishmaels of the times, that have their hand against\n every man and love to be taking a Dog by the Ears ... or to be\n dabling in the waters of strife.... They that know his Doctrine\n and manner of life, cannot but know that the life of his Spirit\n is in the things of practical Divinity, and the great Design of\n his ministry is to promote the power and practice of piety in the\n greatest instances.... I dare undertake ... his design ... is not\n to traduce ... those that are otherwise minded, or expose them to\n severities & sufferings on the bare account of their opinion.[103]\n\nFrom these curious passages the unsympathetic realist is likely to draw\nthe conclusions that the spirit of mutual admiration came to early\nbirth in New England, and that it makes a vast difference whose ox\nis gored. Something of the same casuistry is employed to explain away\nIncrease Mather\u2019s unhappy part in the witchcraft mess.[104] The whole\nmatter is involved and rendered difficult by guilty consciences and the\nneed to save reputations, and perhaps the facts are not to be got at;\nyet it is only another instance to show how quickly candor flies out\nat the window when a Mather comes in at the door. One may make much or\nlittle of the son\u2019s statement that Increase grew more tolerant in his\nlater years; it would seem at best to have been only the difference\nbetween black and dark gray. A dominating man does not take kindly to\ndifferences of counsel. Increase Mather was a stout upholder of the law\nand order in the shaping of which he had a hand, but he looked with no\nfriendly eye on the architects of a different order; and the bitterness\nof his later years was the natural consequence of a strong, proud,\nambitious man, thwarted in his dearest projects.\n\nIf he contributed nothing to a more liberal theology or church\norganization, it is idle to expect him to have contributed to political\nspeculation. As a leader of the theocracy he meddled much in practical\npolitics, but it would seem that he was quite unread in the political\nphilosophers and wholly ignorant of major principles. The great English\nliberals of Commonwealth times and later left him untouched. He bought\nand read many books, but almost none of a political nature.[105]\nHobbes, Harrington, Sidney, Milton, Filmer, Locke, were as much out\nof his intellectual ken as were the speculations of Roger Williams.\nInterest in political theory had ceased in Massachusetts with the\nbanishment of the great Independent, and the principles of liberal\nthinkers like Harrington and Milton would have awakened little sympathy\nin so stalwart a theocrat as Increase Mather. He was a practical\nman, an administrator and mentor, a stern _castigator morum_ to the\ncommonwealth, and as a college president he had been trained in a\nschool little notable for its sympathetic consideration of the views\nof subordinates. He got on ill with his Harvard tutors, and one of the\nunseemliest squabbles of his later years grew out of the bitterness\nsowed between a \u201cstrong\u201d administrator and his teaching staff.[106] A\nman accounted less pious, concerned with ends more patently worldly,\nmight well be reckoned dictatorial and domineering; but Puritan\nrighteousness, perhaps, is not to be judged by profane standards, nor\nthe same severity of judgment applied to politicians laboring in the\ntheocratic vineyard, that is applied to the common breed.\n\nPerhaps the happiest years of Increase Mather\u2019s arduous life were those\nspent in London as agent of the theocratic party to secure such terms\nas he could for the settlement of New England. It was a congenial task\nand a congenial field. His love of diplomacy and his fondness for\nEngland were both gratified. He mingled there on terms of equality with\nthe intellectual leaders of English Nonconformity, and matched his wit\nwith men high in station. He proved himself a skillful manager, but\nthe threads were too tangled for any Puritan diplomat to smoothe out,\nand he fell short of his hopes. The terms of the charter as finally\ndrafted satisfied few of the Boston theocrats, and his nomination of\nSir William Phipps for Governor was certainly ill-judged. Sir William\nhad been converted to the true faith by Increase himself and was\nreckoned by him a chosen vessel of the Lord; but he turned out to be no\nbetter than a cracked pot, and with the coming of Dudley the political\ninfluence of Increase Mather was finally broken. He was maneuvered\nout of his position as president of Harvard and later suffered the\nmortification of seeing the post fall into the hands of Leverett, the\nold tutor now become an influential politician, with whom he had been\nbitterly at outs. \u201cDoubtless there is not any government in the world,\u201d\nhe wrote, \u201cthat has been laid under greater obligations by a greater\nman than this government has been by me. Nevertheless I have received\nmore discouragement in the work of the Lord, by those in government,\nthan by all the men in the world besides. Let not my children put too\nmuch confidence in men.\u201d[107] It is not pleasant to be ousted from\none\u2019s position by politicians, and if one is certain that the slight\nintended for the servant falls on the Master, it is scarcely to be\nborne. If waves of black pessimism swept over him in those unhappy\nlater years when his ambitions were hopelessly frustrated, there was\nprovocation enough. He had outlived his age and the ablest of the\nnative-born theocrats had become a byword and a mocking amongst the\nprofane of Boston.\n\nNot a great man, as the world reckons greatness, Increase Mather\nmay scarcely be accounted a great Puritan. As a theologian he was\nwanting in speculative vigor, and as a pastor he was wanting in\nself-denying love. It is not necessary to set him over against Roger\nWilliams or Jonathan Edwards or William Ellery Channing, to reveal his\nintellectual and spiritual shortcomings. One has only to place him\nbeside so rugged and honest a Puritan as Samuel Hopkins, who in true\nChristian humility, utterly regardless of his own fame, gave his life\nto theology and the care of the poor and the outcast, to realize how\nconventional a soul was Increase Mather, how incurious intellectually,\nhow ambitious and self-seeking. Men loved Samuel Hopkins even though\nthey might vigorously reject his doctrine, as they loved Roger Williams\nand Ellery Channing; but few seem to have loved Increase Mather. One\nmight respect his abilities, but he was too austerely forbidding to\nlike, too overbearing to awaken the spirit of good will. Ideas in\nthe abstract held no interest for him. His biographer has happily\nrecalled Mather\u2019s forgotten interest in scientific inquiry, and for\nthis slight relief from the intolerable drab of his life-story one\nmay be grateful. Yet one must not build too high on an insubstantial\nfoundation. In the England that Mather loved, and toward which\nhe was strongly drawn--hoping that opportunity would offer for a\npulpit there--pottering over natural philosophy had become a mark\nof distinction, and a man so envious of repute would have wished to\napprove himself to those whom he admired. Though he lived in Boston he\nwould not have it thought that he was provincial.\n\nOf the miscellaneous literary output that flowed from his pen in\nan abundant stream, little need be said. It is of concern only to\nminute historians of the local. That he was master of an excellent\nprose style, clear and straightforward, is sufficiently evident; if\nhis matter had been so good, his legitimate fame would have been far\ngreater. The work on which his reputation largely rests is _An Essay\nfor the Recording of Illustrious Providences_, printed at Boston and\nLondon in 1684, and twice reissued in the nineteenth century under the\ntitle _Remarkable Providences_. It is an amusing book of old wives\u2019\ntales, not singular at all for the times, but characteristic rather;\nan expression of the na\u00efvet\u00e9 that crops out in Winthrop\u2019s _History\nof New England_, and other writings of the emigrant generation, but\nnow become a fashion amongst the lesser lights of the Royal Academy\nand English Nonconformists. It suited to a nicety the Mather love\nof marvels, and Increase constituted himself a generous repository\nof all the chimney-corner tales of the countryside. To call such a\nbook \u201ca scientific and historical recording of phenomena observed\nin New England,\u201d as his biographer has done, is to gall the back\nof a thesis with hard riding.[108] In one chapter only does Mather\nsuggest the spirit of scientific inquiry; four out of the twelve deal\nwith witchcraft and kindred topics; and the rest are made up of such\ninstances of divine providence as great fish jumping out of the sea\ninto the boats of starving sailors adrift, of the freaks played by\nlightning and tornadoes, and of God\u2019s punishments on wicked Quakers.\nAt the time it was a harmless enough book, but in the light of after\ndevelopments it was scarcely so harmless. The emphasis laid upon\nwitchcraft was an unfortunate, if unconsidered, influence in preparing\nthe psychology of New England for the Salem outbreak, and the minister\nlater reaped a bitter harvest from it.\n\n\u201cNot many years ago,\u201d he wrote in the preface to _Illustrious\nProvidences_, \u201cI _lost_ (and that\u2019s an afflictive _loss_ indeed!)\nseveral moneths from study by sickness. Let every God-fearing reader\njoyn with me in prayer, that I may be enabled to redeem the time,\nand (in all ways wherein I am capable) to serve my generation.\u201d That\nIncrease Mather sincerely desired to serve his generation according to\nhis lights, none may deny. His labors were appalling, his reputation\nwas great, and when he died the light of the old churches went out.\nThe spirit of Presbyterianism went to its grave in New England, and\nnot till a hundred years later did the new light--which was no other\nthan primitive English Independency--shine out in the life and work of\nWilliam Ellery Channing. After two centuries Unitarianism recovered\nfor the Massachusetts churches the spirit of early Separatism that had\nbeen lost since the days of the Cambridge Platform. Channing finally\nuprooted the vine that Increase Mather had so laboriously tended.\n\n\nIII\n\nOf the unpopularity that gathered about the name of Mather after the\nfall of the theocracy, the larger portion fell to the lot of the son,\nthe eccentricities of whose character made him peculiarly vulnerable to\nattack. In his youth the spoiled child of Boston, in middle life he was\npetulant and irritable, inclined to sulk when his will was crossed.\nIn the career of no other New England Puritan is the inquisitorial\npettiness of the Genevan system of theology and discipline revealed\nso disagreeably. The heroic qualities of an earlier age had atrophied\nin an atmosphere of formalism, and Boston Calvinism of the year 1690\nhad become a grotesque caricature of a system that in its vigor had\ndefied the power of Rome and laid kingdoms at its feet. Embodied in\nCotton Mather it was garrulous, meddlesome, scolding, an echo of dead\nvoices, a shadow of forgotten realities. The common provincialism had\nlaid its blight upon it. The horizons of the New England imagination\ngrew narrow, and Puritan anthropomorphism unconsciously reduced the\nGod of the Hebrew prophets to the compass of a village priest, clothed\nin stock and gown, and endowed with the intellect of a parish beadle.\nIn the egocentric universe wherein Cotton Mather lived and labored\nthe cosmos had shrunk to the narrow bounds of a Puritan commonwealth,\nwhereof Boston was the capital and the prosperity of the North Church\nthe special and particular object of divine concern. The mind of\nIncrease Mather had been enlarged by contact with English life; the\nmind of the son was dwarfed by a village world.\n\nCotton Mather is an attractive subject for the psychoanalyst. Intensely\nemotional, high-strung and nervous, he was oversexed and overwrought,\nsubject to ecstatic exaltations and, especially during his celibate\nyears, given to seeing visions. In the carefully edited _Diary_ which\nhe left for the edification of his natural and spiritual children, at\nthe beginning of his twenty-third year, is an apologetic entry--\u201c_Cum\nRelego, Scripsisse Pudet!_\u201d--that Professor Wendell has put into\nEnglish thus:\n\n A strange and memorable thing. After outpourings of prayer, with\n the utmost fervor and fasting, there appeared an Angel, whose face\n shone like the noonday sun. His features were as those of a man,\n and beardless; his head was encircled by a splendid tiara; on his\n shoulders were wings; his garments were white and shining; his robe\n reached to his ankles; and about his loins was a belt not unlike\n the girdles of the peoples of the East. And this Angel said that he\n was sent by the Lord Jesus to bear a clear answer to the prayers of\n a certain youth, and to bear back his words in reply. Many things\n this Angel said which it is not fit should be set down here. But\n among other things not to be forgotten he declared that the fate of\n this youth should be to find full expression for what in him was\n best; ... And in particular this Angel spoke of the influence his\n branches should have, and of the books this youth should write and\n publish, not only in America but in Europe. And he added certain\n special prophecies of the great works this youth should do for\n the Church of Christ in the revolutions that are now at hand.\n Lord Jesus! What is the meaning of this marvel? From the wiles of\n the Devil, I beseech thee, deliver and defend Thy most unworthy\n servant.[109]\n\nThe passage throws a good deal of light on the psychology of Cotton\nMather. Such visions were clearly the result of abnormal stimuli,\nacting on a neurotic temperament. From both sides of his family he\ninherited a tense nervous system that was aggravated by precocity and\nan unnatural regimen. The inevitable result was a hothouse plant of\nPuritan forcing. His religious exaltation flowered from the root of\negoism. His vanity was cosmic. He esteemed himself a beacon set on\na hill, a divine torch which the very hand of God had lighted. The\nsuccess or failure of God\u2019s plan for New England, he believed, rested\non his shoulders; and with such heavy responsibilities devolved upon\nhim he was driven, hot-haste, by the prick of urgency. The king\u2019s\nbusiness requireth haste. The work of the Lord cannot wait upon\nsluggards. \u201cO then _To work_ as fast as you can,\u201d he wrote in _The\nMagnalia_, \u201cand of soul-work and church-work as much as ever you can.\nSay to all _Hindrances_ ... \u2018You\u2019ll excuse me if I ask you to be short\nwith me, for my work is great and my time is but little.\u2019\u201d And so with\nan amazing activity that was little short of neurosis, he gave himself\nover to the great business of managing the affairs of New England in\naccordance with God\u2019s will.\n\nIn undertaking so difficult a job, he frequently came into conflict\nwith other interpreters of God\u2019s plan for New England, and partisan\nvenom gathered about him wherever he passed. Tact was never a Mather\nvirtue, and Cotton made two enemies to his father\u2019s one. His quarrels\ntrod on each other\u2019s heels, and a downright vindictiveness breathes\nthrough his private records of them. He railed at whoever disagreed\nwith him, and imputed silly or malignant motives. The pages of his\ndiary are filled with epithets that he flung privately at his enemies;\none marvels that so many in the little town of Boston could be singled\nout as \u201cstrangely and fiercely possessed of the Devil.\u201d Robert Calef,\nwhose _More Wonders of the Invisible World_ was an inconvenient reply\nto his _Wonders of the Invisible World_, was set down as \u201ca very\nwicked sort of a Sadducee in this Town, raking together a crue of\nLibels ... an abominable Bundle of Lies, written on purpose, with a\nQuil under a special Energy and Management of Satan, to damnify my\nprecious Opportunities of Glorifying my Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d[110] When\nan anti-Mather group of Cambridge men set up the Brattle Street Church,\nand invited Benjamin Colman, who had received Presbyterian ordination\nin England, by way of reply to the Mather group, to become their\npastor, Cotton wrote in his diary:\n\n A Company of Head-strong Men in the Town, the cheef of whom, are\n full of malignity to the Holy Waye of our Churches, have built in\n this Town, another Meeting-house. To delude many better-meaning Men\n in their own Company, and the Churches in the Neighbourhood, they\n past a Vote ... that they would not vary from the Practice of these\n Churches, except in one little Particular.... But a young Man, born\n and bred here, and hence gone for England, is now returned hither,\n at their Invitation, equip\u2019d with an _Ordination_, to qualify him,\n for all that is intended.\n\nOn his \u201creturning and arriving here, these fallacious People\u201d gave\nthemselves over, in short, to \u201cTheir violent and impetuous Lusts,\nto carry on the Apostasy,\u201d and Cotton Mather prayed God to make\nhim an instrument to defeat the \u201cDesigns that Satan may have in\nthe Enterprise.\u201d[111] Similar passages of extravagant abuse of men\nso wicked as to disagree with him flowed from his pen in copious\nabundance. Although he constantly prayed that his daily life might\nbe \u201ca trembling walk with God,\u201d he was clearly a difficult fellow to\nget on with; and in the opinion of many he was justly described by a\ncontemporary, as a \u201cmalecontent priest,\u201d consumed with an \u201cHereditary\nrancour\u201d that made him \u201ceverlastingly opposite\u201d to every will but his\nown.\n\nThe diary of Cotton Mather is a treasure-trove to the abnormal\npsychologist. The thing would be inconceivable if the record were not\nin print. What a crooked and diseased mind lay back of those eyes that\nwere forever spying out occasions to magnify self! He grovels in proud\nself-abasement. He distorts the most obvious reality. His mind is\nclogged with the strangest miscellany of truth and marvel. He labors\nto acquire the possessions of a scholar, but he listens to old wives\u2019\ntales with greedy avidity. In all his mental processes the solidest\nfact falls into fantastic perspective. He was earnest to do good, he\nlabored to put into effect hundreds of \u201cGood devices,\u201d but he walked\nalways in his own shadow. His egoism blots out charity and even the\ndivine mercy. Consider his account of an \u201cexecution sermon\u201d preached\nto a nameless girl condemned for killing her natural child, and the\nlight it throws on both minister and congregation:\n\n The Execution of the miserable Malefactor, was ordered for to have\n been the last Week, upon the Lecture of another. I wondred then\n what would become of my _Particular_ Faith, of her condition being\n so ordered in the Providence of God, that it should furnish me,\n with a _special Opportunity_ to glorify Him. While I was entirely\n resigning to the wisdome of Heaven all such Matters, the Judges,\n wholly without my seeking, altered and allow\u2019d her Execution to\n fall on the Day of _my Lecture_. The _General Court_ then sitting,\n ordered the Lecture to bee held in a larger and a stronger House,\n than that _old_ one, where \u2019tis usually kept. For my own part, I\n was weak, and faint, and spent; but I humbly gave myself up to the\n _Spirit_ of my Heavenly Lord and Hee assured mee, that Hee would\n send His good Angel to strengthen mee. The greatest Assembly, ever\n in this Countrey preach\u2019d unto, was now come together; It may bee\n four or five thousand Souls. I could not gett unto the _Pulpit_,\n but by climbing over _Pues_ and _Heads_: and there the Spirit of my\n dearest Lord came upon mee. I preached with a more than ordinary\n Assistance, and enlarged, and uttered the most awakening Things,\n for near two hours together. My Strength and Voice failed not; but\n when it was near failing, a silent Look to Heaven strangely renew\u2019d\n it. In the whole I found Prayer answered and Hope exceeded, and\n Faith encouraged, and the Lord using _mee_, the vilest in all that\n great Assembly, to glorify Him. Oh! what shall I render to the\n Lord![112]\n\nStraightway thereafter, he rendered the Lord another characteristic\nservice. No sooner was the girl hanged--for whose safekeeping no good\nangel seems to have been available after the minister had bespoken\nhis--than he hastened to the printer to arrange for printing the\nsermon, and \u201cannexed thereunto, an History of Criminals executed in\nthis Land, and effectually, an Account of their dying Speeches, and\nof my own Discourses with them in their last Hours.... I entitled the\nBook, +PILLARS OF SALT+.\u201d Clearly this was the time to peddle his\nwares, when all Boston was talking of the great event; and with a\nnose for publicity as keen as Defoe\u2019s, he flung together a jumble of\nmaterial, and trusted to its timeliness to sell. Some such origin, no\ndoubt, accounts for a good many of the small library of titles that\nbore his name, an output that seems to have justified the angelic\nprophecy of \u201cthe books this youth should write and publish.\u201d With a\nvery lust for printer\u2019s ink, he padded his bibliography like a college\nprofessor seeking promotion; but in spite of all the prayers poured\nout in behalf of them, they would seem for the most part to have been\nlittle more than tuppenny tracts, stuffed with a sodden morality, that\nnot even an angel could make literature of.\n\nHolding so strong a conviction of apostleship, Cotton Mather would\ncertainly play the politician, and quite as certainly blunder and go\nwrong. Far more than his father he was a bookman, who believed that\nall knowledge was shut up between pigskin covers. He was as lacking in\nworldly wisdom as a child, and in his ecstatic contemplation of the\nmarvels wrought by God in primitive New England he never discovered\nthat that older world had passed away. Another age was rising, with\nother ideals than ecclesiastical, which the three thousand books in his\nlibrary told him nothing about. He was an anachronism in his own day.\nLiving in an earlier age, when the hierarchy was in its prime, he would\nhave been carried far on the tide of theocratic prestige; a generation\nlater, when lay-power had definitely superseded clerical, he would have\ntaken his place as a stout defender of Tory ways. But at the moment\nwhen a critical realignment of parties was under way in Massachusetts;\nwhen the villagers were becoming democratized and the gentry toryized;\nwhen even the clergy were dividing--Cotton Mather was a general without\nan army. He was a primitive Puritan in a Boston that was fast becoming\nYankee, and his love for the theocracy grew stronger with every defeat.\n\nThe judgment of after times finds little in his political activities\nto approve and much to condemn. After all allowances are made the fact\nremains that he was a leader of reaction; and no protestations can\nobscure the motive of personal ambition. His own prestige was involved\nwith that of the theocracy. It was due to the traditional authority\nof the ministry that he enjoyed the distinction of being a \u201cPerson,\nwhom the Eye and the Talk of the People is very much upon,\u201d and any\nlessening of that authority would hurt him cruelly in his vanity. This\nremains the sufficient explanation of his varied political activities\nin the course of which he trimmed his sails to different winds. He\nfirst essayed a frontal attack on the secular power, but suffering a\npersonal slight, he shifted and struck in the dark at an exposed flank;\nand finally, receiving only further mortification, he made overtures of\npeace and found his way back to the tables of the great. It was against\nthe administration of the wily and unscrupulous Dudley that he waged\nhis bitterest warfare. Failing to make headway by open hostility, he\nseized upon a current trade scandal, poured out his grievances in an\nanonymous pamphlet sent to London to be published, and awaited the\nresult. It was a slashing attack, done in the tone of a lover of the\nancient rights and privileges of New England, and it must have cut\nDudley to the quick. A quotation or two will suffice to reveal the\nnature of the charges:\n\n But, when the President [Dudley] was pleased, out of an Active\n and Passive Principle, to tell our Countreymen, in open Council,\n _That the People in_ New-England _were all Slaves; and that the_\n only _Difference between Them and Slaves, was their not being_\n Bought _and Sold: And that they must not think the Privileges_ of\n Englishmen _would follow them to the end of the World_. I say,\n when the People heard this, they lookt upon themselves in a manner\n Lost....\n\n All the People here are Bought and Sold, betwixt the Governour and\n his son Paul....\n\n This is the _Third Time_ that he has been Trusted with Power from\n the _Crown_ in _America_, and he has constantly Abus\u2019d it, to the\n Dishonour of the Government, and almost Ruin of the People he was\n sent to Govern.[113]\n\nThere was enough truth in the charges to make them serious, but the\nspleen was quite too evident. The author was at once discovered and\nCotton Mather suffered a vigorous counter-attack that damaged a\nreputation already undermined. Perhaps even worse was the social slight\nput upon him by those in government. What it cost him to be left out of\nthe invitations of the great he reveals in the _Diary_:\n\n 2 _d._ 7m. [September] Friday. [1709] The other Ministers of the\n Neighbourhood, are this Day feasting with our wicked Governour;\n I have, by my provoking Plainness and Freedom, in telling this\n _Ahab_ of his wickedness, procured myself to be left out of his\n Invitations. I rejoiced in my Liberty from the Temptations, with\n which they were encumbred, while they were _eating of his Dainties_\n and durst not reprove him. And, considering the Power and Malice of\n my Enemies, I thought it proper of me, to be this day Fasting, in\n Secret, before the Lord.\n\nTen years later there is a different story to tell. The minister has\nleft the opposition bench and gone over to the government. A note in\nSewall\u2019s diary tells the tale:\n\n March, 12. [1718/19] Dr. Cotton Mather prays again [in Council],\n Preaches the Lecture from Prov. 29: 18. no Vision. [_Where there is\n no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is\n he._] The Govr., Lt. Govr., Mr. Dudley, Mr. Belcher press\u2019d hard\n that there might be an order of the Govr. and Council to print it.\n Col. Tailor, Clark, Davenport, Sewall and others opposed it. For\n my part, the Dr. spake so much of his visions of Convulsion and\n Mutiny, mentioning our being a dependent Government, and the Danger\n of Parliamentary Resentments: that I was afraid the printing of it\n might be an Invitation to the Parliament to take away our Charter.\n Govr. would have it put to the vote: but when he saw how hardly it\n went, caused the Secretary to break off in the midst.[114]\n\nHere is a party alignment that tells its own story, and it needs\nno very lively imagination to fill out the meager note and re\u00ebnact\nthe little drama. The minister, eager to make overtures of peace,\nfalls into the Tory note, talks about mob-rule and the sinfulness\nof popular unrest, calls upon authority to maintain law and order,\nand hints at the expediency of preserving due colonial subservience\nin view of possible resentments on the part of certain great men in\nEngland. Sewall, as a \u201ctrue New-England man,\u201d squirms somewhat under\nthe implications, but the little group of Tories are loud in praise.\nSuch a sermon, from so eminent a servant of God, would aid wonderfully\nin strengthening the spirit of loyalty to the crown, and it must be\nprinted and circulated amongst the people. But the opposition proved\ntoo spirited, and the manuscript was not dispatched to the printer, no\ndoubt to Cotton Mather\u2019s chagrin.\n\nIt was easy for so reactionary a nature to slide over into the Tory.\nThere was not a grain of liberalism in his make-up. His antipathy to\nall popular movements was deep-rooted, for he knew no other political\nphilosophy than that of the obsolete theocracy in which he had grown\nup. He was a bourgeois soul who loved respectability and was jealous\nof his social position; no fraternizing with the poor and outcast for\nhim, no profitless excursions into the realms of Utopian justice.\nThough he might play to popular prejudices to serve his political ends,\nhe had scant regard for popular rights. The highest privilege of the\nNew England people, he believed, was the privilege of being ruled by\nthe godly. His real attitude towards the plain people is revealed in a\nnote by his son, that refers to the days following the overturn of the\nAndros government:\n\n Upon Discoursing with him of the Affairs he has told me that he\n always pressed _Peace_ and _Love_ and _Submission_ unto a legal\n Government, tho\u2019 he suffered from some tumultuous People, by doing\n so; and upon the whole, has asserted unto me his _Innocency_ and\n freedom from all known Iniquity in that time, but declared his\n Resolution, from the View he had of the fickle Humors of the\n Populace, that he would chuse to be concern\u2019d with them as little\n as possible for the future.[115]\n\nAs he grew older and the shadow of failure fell across his life,\nhis bitterness towards a people that had rejected his admonitions\nis revealed on many a page of his diary. It was a \u201csilly people,\u201d a\n\u201cfoolish people,\u201d \u201cinsignificant lice\u201d--\u201cThe cursed clamour of a people\nstrangely and fiercely possessed of the Devil\u201d--\u201cMy aged father laies\nto heart the withdrawal of a vain, proud, foolish people from him in\nhis age\u201d--\u201cIt is the Hour of ... Darkness on this Despicable Town.\u201d\nHe could not easily forgive those who had wounded his love of power\nand lust of adulation, and he was too aloof from the daily life of\nmen to understand the political and social movements of the times,\ntoo self-centered to understand his fellow villagers. He possessed\nnone of the sympathetic friendliness that made Samuel Sewall a natural\nconfidant to every one in trouble. He loved the people when they\nhonored and obeyed him, but when they hearkened to other counsels he\nwould fall to scolding like a fishwife. Doubtless he was sincere in\nthinking he would gladly die to save his people from their sins, but he\nhad no mind to neighbor with them or humor their wicked love of power.\nHe immured himself so closely within the walls of the old theocratic\ntemple that he never took the trouble to examine the groundsills, and\nwhen the rotten timbers gave way and the structure came tumbling about\nhis ears, he was caught unprepared and went down in its ruins.\n\nHappily most of the printed output of Cotton Mather has fallen\ninto the oblivion it deserved. It is barren of ideas, and marred\nby pedantic mannerisms that submerge the frequent felicities of\nphrase--old-fashioned on the day it came from the press. \u201cIn his\n_Style_, indeed,\u201d wrote his friend Thomas Prince, \u201che was something\nsingular, and not so agreeable to the Gust of the Age. But like his\n_manner of speaking_, it was very _emphatical_.\u201d Yet he possessed\nvery considerable gifts and under happier circumstances he might have\nhad a notable literary career; but he was the victim of a provincial\nenvironment. He was the most widely read man of his generation in\nAmerica, and one of the few who followed sympathetically the current\nscientific movement in England. Like old Increase he dabbled in\nscience; he was proud of his membership in the Royal Society, to which\nhe forwarded his characteristic _Curiosa Americana_--a hodgepodge of\nthose marvels in which his generation delighted. It was from an English\nsource that he got the idea of inoculation for smallpox, which he urged\nupon Boston so insistently that a war of scurrilous pamphlets broke\nout. He made use of the method in his own family, incurring thereby\nmuch stupid abuse and at least one attack of violence. It was an\nintelligent and courageous experiment, that is not to be forgotten in\ncasting up the accounts of Cotton Mather.\n\nOf his major works two only call for brief consideration: the\ncelebrated _Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The Ecclesiastical History\nof New England_; and the less known _Wonders of the Invisible World_.\nThe latter is suggestive for the light it throws on the psychology of\nthe witchcraft mania. The fantastic devil-fear, which bit so deeply\ninto the imagination of Puritan New England, has already been commented\non. In that common seventeenth-century delusion, Cotton Mather not only\nran with the mob, but he came near to outdistancing the most credulous.\nHis speech and writings dripped with devil-talk. The grotesqueries that\nmarked the current marvel-tales crop out nakedly in his writings. \u201cI\nhave set myself,\u201d he wrote in the _Diary_, \u201cto countermine the whole\n_Plot_ of the Devil, against New-England, in every branch of it, as far\nas one of my _darkness_ can comprehend such a _Work_ of Darkness.\u201d His\nconviction of the malignant activities of Satan was so vivid, that in\ndelivering a carefully prepared sermon on the _Wiles of the Divil_, he\nwas fain, he tells us, to pause and lift up his eyes and cry \u201cunto the\nLord Jesus Christ, that he would rate off Satan,\u201d who \u201call the Time of\nmy Prayer before the Lecture\u201d had \u201chorribly buffeted me\u201d--by indicting\non the fasting priest certain qualms of the stomach. How tremendous he\nconceived to be the battle over a human soul, he describes thus:\n\n The _Wilderness_ through which we are passing to the Promised Land\n is all over fill\u2019d with Fiery flying serpents. But, blessed be\n God, none of them have hitherto so fastned upon us as to confound\n us utterly! All our way to Heaven lies by _Dens of Lions_ and the\n _Mounts of Leopards_; there are incredible Droves of Devils in\n our way.... We are poor travellers in a world which is as well the\n Devil\u2019s Field, as the Devil\u2019s _Gaol_; a world in which every Nook\n whereof, the Devil is encamped with _Bands of Robbers_ to pester\n all that have their Faces looking Zionward.[116]\n\nIn the light of Mather\u2019s logic, \u201cThat there is a _Devil_, is a thing\nDoubted by none but such as are under the influence of the Devil,\u201d and\n\u201cGod indeed has the _Devil_ in a _Chain_, but has horribly lengthened\nout the Chain,\u201d his private comment on the work--\u201cthat reviled\nbook\u201d--becomes comprehensible.\n\nThe _Magnalia_ is a far more important work, the repository of a vast\nmiscellany of information concerning early New England that his pious\nzeal saved from oblivion. It is the _magnum opus_ of the Massachusetts\ntheocracy, the best and sincerest work that Cotton Mather did. The\ntheme with which it deals, and about which he accumulates marvels and\nspecial providences together with historical facts, was the thing\nwhich next to his own fame lay nearest his heart--the glory of that\ntheocracy which men whom he accounted foolish and wicked were seeking\nto destroy. The purpose of the book has nowhere been better stated than\nby Professor Wendell:\n\n Its true motive was to excite so enthusiastic a sympathy with the\n ideals of the Puritan fathers that, whatever fate might befall\n the civil government, their ancestral seminary of learning should\n remain true to its colours.... The time was come, Cotton Mather\n thought, when the history of these three generations might be\n critically examined; if this examination should result in showing\n that there had lived in New England an unprecedented proportion\n of men and women and children whose earthly existence had given\n signs that they were among the elect, then his book might go far to\n prove that the pristine policy of New England had been especially\n favoured of the Lord. For surely the Lord would choose His elect\n most eagerly in places where life was conducted most according to\n His will.[117]\n\nWhen old Increase was near the end of his many years, a friend wrote\nto ask if he were still in the land of the living. \u201cNo, Tell him I\nam going to it,\u201d he said to his son; \u201cthis Poor World is the land of\nthe Dying.\u201d The bitter words were sober truth. The New England of the\ndreams of Increase and Cotton Mather was sick to death from morbid\nintrospection and ascetic inhibitions; no lancet or purge known to\nthe Puritan pharmacopeia could save it. Though father and son walked\nthe streets of Boston at noonday, they were only twilight figures,\ncommuning with ghosts, building with shadows. They were not unlike\na certain mad woman that Sewall tells of, who went crying about the\ntown, \u201cMy child is dead within me.\u201d The child of Cotton Mather\u2019s hopes\nhad long been dead within him, only he could not bring himself to\nacknowledge it. The fruit of the vine planted by the fathers was still\nsweet to him, and when other men complained of its bitterness, and fell\nto gathering from other vines, he could only rail at their perversity.\nHe would not believe that the grapes were indeed bitter and the vine\nblighted; that the old vineyard must be re-plowed and planted to fresh\nstock. All his life he had set marvels above realities and in the end\nhis wonder-working providence failed him. Prayers could not bring back\na dead past; passionate conjurations could not strike the living waters\nfrom the cold granite of Puritan formalism. A New England flagellant,\na Puritan Brother of the Cross, he sought comfort in fasts and vigils\nand spiritual castigations, and--it is pleasant to learn--in ways far\nmore natural and wholesome. Incredible as it may seem, the following\nrecord is authentic, and it falls like a shaft of warm sunshine across\nthe path of the morbid priest: \u201cAugt, 15. [1716].... Now about Dr.\nC. Mather Fishing in Spy-pond, falls into the Water, the boat being\nticklish, but receives no hurt.\u201d[118] The restless minister who had\nfished overmuch in troubled waters, sometimes, it would appear,\nventured for perch in Spy Pond.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[96] Kenneth B. Murdock, _Increase Mather_, 1925.\n\n[97] Compare Murdock, _Increase Mather_, pp. 394-395.\n\n[98] Quoted in W. Walker, _A History of Congregational Churches, etc._,\np. 187.\n\n[99] _Ibid._, p. 190. His biographer has overlooked the significance of\nthis. See Murdock, _Increase Mather_, p. 151.\n\n[100] His biographer has somewhat slurred his account of the\n\u201cProposals.\u201d See p. 282. But his justification is worth noting: \u201cIf the\noriginal brand of Puritan piety was worth saving, and Mather believed\nit was, an oligarchic church government was the only means of securing\nit in an age when men were inclined to change their religious ideas as\nthey changed their thought on other affairs.\u201d\n\n[101] W. Walker, _A History of the Congregational Churches, etc._, p.\n205.\n\n[102] Compare Murdock, _Increase Mather_, pp. 361-363.\n\n[103] Murdock, _Increase Mather_, pp. 138-139.\n\n[104] See pp. 294-295, where he seeks unsuccessfully to refute the\nposition taken by J. T. Adams.\n\n[105] See Murdock, _Increase Mather_, pp. 125-127.\n\n[106] \u201cThe Brattle-Street Church Controversy,\u201d for which see _ibid._,\npp. 258 ff.\n\n[107] _Ibid._, pp. 373-4, note.\n\n[108] _Ibid._, p. 170.\n\n[109] _Cotton Mather, Puritan Priest_, p. 64.\n\n[110] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 271.\n\n[111] _Ibid._, pp. 325-326.\n\n[112] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 279.\n\n[113] _A Memorial of the Present Deplorable State of New-England ...\nby the Male-Administration of their Present Governour, Joseph Dudley,\nEsq., and his Son Paul_, London, 1707, in _Massachusetts Historical\nSociety Collections_, Fifth Series, Vol. VI.\n\n[114] Vol. II, p. 214.\n\n[115] Wendell, _Cotton Mather, etc._, p. 82.\n\n[116] _Wonders of the Invisible World_, p. 63.\n\n[117] _Literary History of America_, pp. 48-49.\n\n[118] Sewall, _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 98.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Stirrings of Liberalism\n\n\nI \u2022 John Wise \u2022 Village Democrat\n\nIn the days when Sir Edmund Andros was seeking to fasten upon\nMassachusetts Bay the principles and practice of Stuart prerogative,\nan event occurred that greatly stirred New England. Taxes having\nbeen arbitrarily assessed in Council, the several towns were bidden\nappoint commissioners to collect them. When the order reached Ipswich,\nJohn Wise, minister of the second church, gathered the chief members\nof his flock together, and it was agreed by them to choose no such\ncommissioner at the town meeting--\u201cWe have a good God, and a good\nking, and shall do well to stand for our privileges,\u201d the minister\nis reported to have argued. Soon thereafter John Wise was summoned\nbefore a star-chamber court on the charge of sedition. Upon his plea of\ncolonial privilege, the president of the court, Dudley, is said to have\nretorted, \u201cYou shall have no more privileges left you than not to be\nsold for slaves.\u201d \u201cDo you believe,\u201d demanded Andros, \u201cJoe and Tom may\ntell the King what money he may have?\u201d \u201cDo not think,\u201d put in another\njudge, \u201cthe laws of England follow you to the ends of the earth.\u201d\nThereupon with five others, John Wise was thrown into Boston jail,\nwhere he lay one and twenty days, and whence he was released only after\npayment of fifty pounds, giving bond in a thousand pounds for good\nbehavior, and suffering suspension from the ministry. \u201cThe evidence in\nthe case,\u201d he remarked afterward, \u201cas to the substance of it, was that\nwe too boldly endeavored to persuade ourselves we were Englishmen, and\nunder privileges.\u201d[119] The year following, Andros having been driven\nout, John Wise brought suit against Dudley for having denied him a writ\nof _habeas corpus_.[120]\n\nTwo years later Wise served as chaplain in the ill-managed Quebec\nexpedition under Sir William Phipps. He bore himself well both in\ncouncil and on the field; went ashore with the storming party; and if\nhe had succeeded in his efforts to instil some of his own force into\nthe leaders, the grand exploit might not have dwindled to such an\nunhappy ending. In a long account which he sent to Increase Mather,\nthen in London, he did not mince matters, or attempt to throw on\nthe Lord\u2019s shoulders blame that belonged elsewhere, but charged the\nfiasco to the cowardice of Major Walley, in command of the assaulting\ntroops.[121] Clearly the Ipswich minister was a fighting as well as a\npraying parson, whom Cromwell would have delighted in.\n\nPosterity has been too negligent of John Wise hitherto. Although\npossessed of the keenest mind and most trenchant pen of his generation\nof New Englanders, he was uninfected by the itch of publicity that\nattacked so many of his fellow ministers, and so failed to challenge\nthe attention of later times. Called to serve in an outlying portion\nof the Master\u2019s vineyard he discovered little opportunity there and\nless inclination to magnify his own importance. He was too honest to\npersuade himself that God\u2019s fame was bound up with his own, and he\nwas never forward to push his claims to priority in righteousness.\nNevertheless what little we know of him is to his credit. An\nindependent man, powerful of body, vigorous of intellect, direct and\noutspoken in debate, he seems to have understood the plain people whom\nhe served, and he sympathized heartily with the democratic ideals then\ntaking form in the New England villages. Such liberalism as emerged\nfrom the simplicity of village life found intelligent response in\nhis sympathies, and he dedicated his keen mind and wide reading to\nthe business of providing it with a philosophical justification.\nSome explanation of his democratic leanings may be discovered in\nhis antecedents. His father was a self-made man who had come over\nto Roxbury as an indented servant--most menial of stations in that\naristocratic old Boston world. He must have been of sound and rugged\nstock, for in addition to a magnificent physique he endowed his son\nwith manly independence and democratic self-respect, which stood the\nlatter in good stead when, after having made his way through Harvard\nCollege, he came to speak for the people against the tax program of\nAndros, the reactionary ambitions of the Presbyterians, and the schemes\nof the hard-money men. In John Wise, Cotton Mather was to encounter an\nantagonist who was more than a match for him.\n\nWith the final overthrow of the theocracy and the lessening of the\npolitical power of the clergy, a critical period in the development\nof the church was reached, and with it a renewal of the old conflict\nbetween the Presbyterian and Congregational principles. In the year\n1705, under the leadership of the Mathers, the Presbyterian party,\nwhich numbered among its adherents most of the ministers of the\nlarger churches, put forth a series of \u201cProposals,\u201d looking to a\ncloser union of the churches, and greater control of the separate\ncongregations by the ministerial association. This was a challenge to\nthe Congregationalists which John Wise could not overlook. The question\ntouched the fundamentals of church organization, and when by way of\npreparation he turned to examine critically the work of the fathers, he\nfound in it quite another meaning than Cotton Mather found. It was as a\nliberal that he went back to the past, seeking to recover the original\nCongregational principle, which, since the conservative triumph in\nthe Cambridge Platform of 1648, had been obscured. When he was quite\nready, he published in 1710, his _Churches Quarrel Espoused_, reissued\nfive years later; and in 1717, his _Vindication of the Government of\nthe New England Churches_, reissued together with the earlier work in\n1772, and again in 1860. The two works were a democratic counterblast\nto the Presbyterian propaganda, and they stirred the mind of New\nEngland profoundly. What Edwards did later for the doctrinal side of\nCongregationalism, John Wise did for the institutional. His exposition\nof the Congregational principle was so luminous and convincing\nthat it soon came to be regarded as authoritative, and more than a\nhundred years after the _Vindication_ appeared the Chief Justice of\nMassachusetts cited it in support of a judicial decision.\n\nThe significance of John Wise in the history of democratic America\nlies in the fact that he followed \u201can unbeaten path,\u201d justifying the\nprinciple of Congregationalism by analogy from civil polity. Seemingly\nalone amongst the New England clergy of his day, he had grounded\nhimself in political theory; and the doctrine upon which he erected\nhis argument was the theory of natural rights, derived from a study of\nPufendorf\u2019s _De Jure Naturae et Gentium_, published in 1672. Locke and\nthe other writers of the English natural-rights school he seems not to\nhave been acquainted with; but Pufendorf he had read closely, and he\ndischarged the new theory against his opponents with telling effect.\nThis was the first effective reply in America to the old theocratic\nsneer that if the democratic form of government were indeed divinely\nsanctioned, was it not strange that God had overlooked it in providing\na government for his chosen people? Wise was the first New England\nminister to break with the literal Hebraism of the old school; like\nRoger Williams he was willing to make use of profane philosophies,\nbasing his argument upon an appeal to history, a method which baffled\nthe narrow Hebraists, putting them in a quandary.\n\nAfter examining the three regular forms of civil government, and\nshowing how each is related to \u201cthe many ennobling immunities\u201d of the\nsubject, Wise turned to the real business in hand, which was to inquire\n\u201cwhether any of the aforesaid species of regular, unmixed governments,\ncan with any good show of reason be predicable of the church of Christ\non earth\u201d; whether the monarchical form as exhibited in papacy and\nepiscopacy, the aristocratic form as exhibited in Presbyterianism, or\nthe democratic form as exhibited in Congregationalism, is nearest the\ndivine model as revealed in Scripture and the law of nature?\n\nThe gross inadequacy of the monarchical principle appears to him so\ncertain that he concludes his argument with the comment \u201cthat God and\nwise nature were never propitious to the birth of this monster.\u201d The\ninadequacy of the aristocratic principle seems to him equally clear.\nThe principle of stewardship, ideal though it may appear in theory, did\nnot seem to work in practice, and he put his finger shrewdly upon the\nweakness of oligarchical rule in Massachusetts. Government by a \u201cselect\ncompany of choice persons\u201d might be justified, if--\n\n we could be assured they would make the Scripture, and not their\n private will the rule of their personal and ministerial actions;\n ... but considering how great an interest is embarked, and how\n frail a bottom we trust, though we should rely upon the best of\n men, especially if we remember what is in the hearts of good\n men (namely, much ignorance, abundance of small ends, many times\n cloaked with a high pretense in religion; pride skulking and often\n breeding revenge upon a small affront, and blown up by a pretended\n zeal, yet really and truly by nothing more divine than interest\n or ill nature), and also considering how very uncertain we are\n of the real goodness of those we esteem good men ... and ... how\n Christianity, by the aforesaid principle, had been peeled, robbed\n and spoiled already, it cannot consist with the light of nature to\n venture again upon such perils, especially if we can find a safer\n way home.... In a word an aristocracy is a dangerous constitution\n in the church of Christ.[122]\n\nThis \u201csafer way home,\u201d as he then proceeded to point out, lay in\nfollowing the broad path of democracy:\n\n But to abbreviate, it seems most agreeable with the light of\n nature, that if there be any of the regular forms of government\n settled in the church of God, it must needs be ... a democracy.\n This is the form of government which the light of nature does\n highly value, and often directs to as most agreeable to the just\n and natural prerogatives of human beings.... It is certainly a\n great truth, namely, that man\u2019s original liberty after it is\n resigned ... ought to be cherished in all wise governments; or\n otherwise a man in making himself a subject, he alters himself\n from a freeman into a slave, which to do is repugnant to the law\n of nature. Also the natural equality of men amongst men must be\n duly favoured; in that government was never established by God or\n nature, to give one man a prerogative to insult over another....\n Honor all men. The end of all good government is to cultivate\n humanity, and promote the happiness of all, and the good of every\n man in his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, etc., without\n injury or abuse to any.[123]\n\nFrom which he concludes that--\n\n ... a democracy in church or state, is a very honorable and\n regular government according to the dictates of right reason, And,\n therefore ... That these churches of New England, in their ancient\n constitution of church order, it being a democracy, are manifestly\n justified and defended by the law and light of nature.[124]\n\nA vigorous thinker was John Wise, with a shrewd knowledge of men and\ntheir selfishness. He would rule himself, well or ill, and would have\nothers do likewise. Stewards in church and state, he would have none\nof. \u201cBrethren,\u201d he exclaimed, \u201cye have been called unto liberty,\ntherefore Hold your hold brethren!... pull up well upon the oars, you\nhave a rich cargo, and I hope we shall escape shipwreck ... daylight\nand good piloting will secure all.\u201d[125] \u201cThere is strong and sharp\nreasoning\u201d in his pages, more solid meat in his two volumes than in\nall Cotton Mather\u2019s muddled effusions. Like a good Englishman and a\ngood Yankee he hated arbitrary power as he hated the devil. \u201cThe very\nname of an arbitrary government is ready to put an Englishman\u2019s blood\ninto a fermentation; but when it comes and shakes its whip over their\nears, and tells them it is their master, it makes them stark mad.\u201d[126]\n\nNaturally so vigorous an advocate of democracy in the church was\ndisliked by the gentlemen whose ambitions he thwarted. Such plebeian\nviews were incomprehensible to Cotton Mather. When _The Churches\nQuarrel Espoused_ was reprinted in 1713, prefaced with a commendatory\nletter signed by two well-known clergymen, the latter wrote to a friend:\n\n ... A furious Man, called John Wise,[127] of whom, I could wish\n he had, _Cor bonum_, while we are all sensible, he wants, _Caput\n bene regulatum_, has lately published a foolish Libel, against\n some of us, for presbyterianizing too much in our Care to repair\n some Deficiencies in our Churches. And some of our People, who are\n not only tenacious of their Liberties, but also more suspicious\n than they have cause to be of a Design in their pastors to make\n abridgments of them; they are too much led into Temptation, by\n such Invectives. But the Impression is not so great as our grand\n Adversary doubtless hoped for.[128]\n\nTwo years later, when the _Vindication_ was published, the sulky\ntheocrat noted in his diary:\n\n 25 [May. 1717] G[ood] D[evice]. Should not I take into\n Consideration what may be done for the Service of the Ministry and\n Religion and the Churches, throughout the Land, that the Poison of\n Wise\u2019s cursed Libel may have an Antidote?[129]\n\nCotton Mather was unable to discover an antidote, and the poison of\nWise\u2019s democratic philosophy was to prove of surprising vitality. As\nlate as 1772, when his two works were reprinted on subscription, no\nfewer than 1133 copies were taken. That the argument of Wise was not\nwithout influence in the struggle then developing seems reasonable; but\nthat it greatly influenced the thinking of the revolutionary leaders,\nas Professor Tyler supposes, is scarcely probable. The argument from\nnatural rights was well known in 1772, and it was to Locke and not\nto Wise that men like Samuel Adams turned for help. Nevertheless, in\ndenying to him wide influence in the later period we are neither\ndetracting from the honor that is rightly his as the first colonial to\njustify village democracy by an appeal to political philosophy, nor\nlessening the repute in which he should be held by Americans as the\nearly defender of local self-rule.\n\nThe instinctive sympathy of John Wise with the plain people among whom\nhe lived led him to stand with them in another matter that touched the\ninterests of the farming class. The currency question had thrust its\nprovocative demands into political councils, and sharply divided the\nelectorate. City men like Samuel Sewall were jealous to maintain the\nEnglish metallic currency, partly through custom and partly because its\nscarcity augmented its value; whereas the plain people of Ipswich, like\nso many country people, no doubt were impressed with the desirability\nof a land-script currency. Into this mighty controversy entered John\nWise, who in the year 1721, under the pen name of _Amicus Patriae_,\nis reputed to have been the author of a book entitled, _A Word of\nComfort to a Melancholy Country. Or the Bank of Credit ... fairly\ndefended by a Discovery of the Great Benefit, accruing by it to the\nwhole Province, etc. Humbly dedicated to the Merchants in Boston._ It\nwas \u201ca well-managed and witty plea for paper money and \u2018inflation.\u2019\u201d\nWith the economics of the problem that he was delving into, we are not\nconcerned; many heads have wrestled with it since; we are concerned\nrather to point out that the democratic John Wise was on the same side\nwith the democratic Franklin, in espousing paper currency.\n\nAfter all, the significant thing that emerges from the life and work\nof John Wise, is the unerring directness with which he seized upon the\ncore of primitive Congregationalism, and the breadth and vigor with\nwhich he defended it. After a spirited contest lasting three-quarters\nof a century, theocratic Puritanism yielded to ecclesiastical\ndemocracy. For two generations it had remained doubtful which way the\nchurch would incline. Dominated by gentlemen, it was warped towards\nPresbyterianism; but interpreted by commoners, it leaned towards\nCongregationalism. The son of a plebeian. Wise inclined to sympathize\nwith the spirit of radical Separatism, bred of the democratic\naspirations of Jacobean underlings; and this radical Separatism he\nfound justified by the new political philosophy, as well as by facts\nof the New England village world. The struggle for ecclesiastical\ndemocracy was a forerunner of the struggle for political democracy\nwhich was to be the business of the next century; and in founding his\necclesiasticism upon the doctrine of natural rights, John Wise was an\nearly witness to the new order of thought.\n\n\nII \u2022 Social Drifts\n\nGreat changes, whether liberal or otherwise as the future might\ndetermine, were to come to Massachusetts from the new order with its\nCharter provision establishing a property qualification for suffrage.\nThe venture in idealism was over and economic determinism reasserted\nits sway. New England was to swing back into the broad current of\nEnglish political development. Following the Revolution of 1688 a new\ntheory of the political state was rising in England--the theory that\nthe state originated in private property and exists primarily for the\nprotection of property; and this conception, thrust upon New England,\nwas to cut sharply across the cleavages of the old order and create\nnew ones. It substituted the dominance of wealth for the stewardship\nof righteousness; the stake-in-society principle for the Mosaic code.\nIt set a premium upon acquisitiveness and subordinated the Puritan to\nthe Yankee. It prepared the way for class alignments which must grow\nsharper with the increase of wealth, and would eventually produce a\nTory group with natural longings for titles and a colonial aristocracy.\nHow powerful this mercantile-Tory element was to become would depend\nupon the counter strength of the rising democratic group, with its\nfreehold tenure of land, its town meeting, its Congregational church,\nand its distrust of aristocratic orders.\n\nFor the present, the world of John Wise was the real New England,\nthrifty, parsimonious, intensely local, driving straight towards a\nhomespun democracy. The older fashioned New Englander, whatever his\nsocial position, did not take kindly to Toryism; and when it made its\nappearance in the train of the royal officials, swaggering somewhat\nand a bit insolent, it seemed to the colonial both alien and wicked.\nEnglish Tory and Puritan Yankee frankly disliked each other; their\nideals were incompatible, their manners unlike. A cloud of suspicion\nsurrounded the English official as he walked the streets of Boston:\nsuspicion of the hated church which he promptly set up, though not much\ngiven to worship; suspicion of his political motives and the overseas\nauthority which he represented. In a vague way the New Englanders\nwere convinced that he constituted a menace to their most cherished\nrights and privileges; that he was secretly bent on undermining the\ntraditional liberties. And the English gentleman, with his casual\nold-world arrogance, unwittingly aggravated the common suspicion.\n\nHow great was the chasm that separated the two worlds is sharply\nrevealed by an episode in the career of Joseph Dudley, son of the\nemigrant, who was made royal governor in 1702. Dudley had lived much in\nEngland, had sat in Parliament, and had imbibed prerogative notions of\ngovernment. He little relished the homely ways of New England and he\nbore himself somewhat haughtily. One December day in 1705, as he was\ndriving along a country road with high snowdrifts on each side, he met\nwith two loads of wood. The chariot coming to a stop, Dudley thrust\nhis head out of the window and bade the carters turn aside and make\nway for him; but they were inclined to argue the matter in view of the\ndrifts. Words were multiplied, and one of the carters cried--to quote\nSewall--\u201cI am as good flesh and blood as you ... you may goe out of the\nway.\u201d In a rage the governor drew his sword and struck at the fellow,\nwho snatched the sword away and broke it. \u201cYou lie, you dog; you lie,\nyou devill!\u201d cried Dudley, beside himself. \u201cSuch words don\u2019t become a\nChristian,\u201d retorted the carter. \u201cA Christian, you dog!\u201d cried Dudley;\n\u201ca Christian, you devill! I was a Christian before you were born!\u201d\nand he snatched the carter\u2019s whip and lashed him roundly. \u201cBeing in a\ngreat passion: threatn\u2019d to send those that affronted him to England.\u201d\nHe arrested both carters and threw them into jail, whence they were\nreleased by the help of Sewall, who took their side though connected\nwith Dudley through marriage. They were of good yeoman families, yet\nthe matter hung on for nearly a year before they were discharged from\ntheir bonds.[130]\n\nVillage New England was becoming surprisingly independent in\nspirit when plain countrymen stood upon their rights against the\nGovernor--\u201cnor did they once in the Govrs ... sight pull of their\nhatts,\u201d as Dudley took pains to inform the Queen\u2019s justices. Three\ngenerations in America were having their effect in the creation of a\nhomespun democracy. \u201cMr. Dudley\u2019s principles, in government, were too\nhigh for the Massachusetts people,\u201d commented a later Tory, whose own\nprinciples were high:\n\n He found it difficult to maintain what appeared to him to be the\n just prerogative of the crown, and at the same time to recover\n and preserve the esteem of the country. The government had been\n so popular [_i.e._ democratic] under the old charter, that the\n exercise of the powers reserved to the crown by the new charter was\n submitted to with reluctance.[131]\n\nIf \u201cthe prejudices against him were great,\u201d some explanation is found\nin a letter written by his son, Attorney-General Paul Dudley, to an\nEnglish friend, which came to the hands of Cotton Mather and was\npublished by him:\n\n I refer you to Mr. -- for an Account of everything, especially\n about the Government, and the Colledge; both which, are Discoursed\n of here, in Chimney Corners, and Private Meetings, as confidently\n as can be.... This Country will never be worth Living in, for\n Lawyers and Gentlemen, till the _Charter_ is _Taken Away_. My\n Father and I sometimes Talk of the Queen\u2019s Establishing a _Court of\n Chancery_ in this Country; I have Writ about it, to Mr. Blathwayt:\n If the Matter should Succeed, you might get some Place worth your\n Return; of which I should be very Glad.[132]\n\nIf New England had grown restive under the theocratic oligarchy, it had\nno intention of being toryized by English placemen.\n\nIt was during these troubled years that a new force made its appearance\nin Massachusetts which Sewall noted: \u201cSept. 25 [1690]. A printed\nsheet entituled publick Occurrences comes out, which gives much\ndistaste because not Licensed....\u201d A week later he added: \u201cPrint of\nthe Governour and Council comes out shewing their disallowance of\nthe Public Occurrences\u201d; and the next day, \u201cMr. Mather writes a very\nsharp letter about it.\u201d This was Increase Mather, who would tolerate\nno such lawlessness of the press, which must be kept as a private\npreserve for the orthodox party. Against the Mather conservatism it\nwas impossible to make headway, and the little sheet did not come to\na second issue. Not till fourteen years later did Sewall set down a\nsimilar note: \u201cApril 24 [1704]. I went to Cambridge.... I gave Mr.\nWillard the first News-Letter that ever was carried over the River. He\nshew\u2019d it to the Fellows.\u201d So began in America, at first unlawfully,\nand then with due propriety, the work of making and publishing\nnewspapers. For seventy-two years thereafter, the _News-Letter_\nwas published continuously, justifying in all its utterances the\nconfidence of Boston conservatism, espousing naturally the Tory side\nin the pre-Revolutionary quarrels, and coming to a sudden end on the\nevacuation of Boston by General Gage.\n\nOn December 14, 1719, the _Boston Gazette_ entered the field as a\ncompetitor for conservative readers, and two years later, August 17,\n1721, the _New England Courant_ appeared, the first organ of the\nopposition. It was edited by James Franklin, who possessed much of the\nFranklin independence, untempered by the prudence of Benjamin; and he\nset himself incautiously to the business of assailing the strait-laced\nauthorities of Boston. He got together a group of brisk young men,\nknown as the Hell-fire Club, who flung their vivacious satires at the\nMathers with such effect as to lead Cotton Mather to undertake the\nfollowing \u201cGood Device\u201d:\n\n Warnings are to be given unto the wicked Printer, and his\n Accomplices, who every week publish a vile Paper to lessen and\n blacken the Ministers of the Town, and render their Ministry\n ineffectual. A Wickedness never parall\u2019d any where upon the Face of\n the Earth.[133]\n\nAlthough his prayers could not convert the wicked journalists, his\nwarnings availed with the magistrates, who took means to put a stop\nto such disrespect. Twice Franklin was arraigned for contempt, and\nonce he spent four weeks in the common jail. By way of counterblast\nto so disreputable a sheet, the _New England Weekly Journal_ appeared\non March 20, 1727, an eminently respectable sheet, edited by Mather\nByles and with such notable contributors as the Reverend Thomas Prince.\nBut with the coming of the _Journal_ with its staff of writers who\nmodeled their style upon the Augustan wits, we are in the mid-current\nof the eighteenth century, that was to enlarge the influence of the\npublic press far beyond what could have been foreseen from its small\nbeginnings. It was to penetrate the inland villages and slowly wear\naway their insularity of temper and outlook, bringing fresh ideas to\nminds that had long stagnated. On the whole it was not a liberal press,\nbut its final effect was profoundly liberalizing.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[119] A similar plea had failed Dr. Church when he offended the\noligarchy twenty years before, who quite as arbitrarily had fined him\nsix hundred pounds.\n\n[120] See the account in Palfrey, _History of Massachusetts_, Vol. II,\nBook XII, p. 327; and in Wise, _Vindication of the Government of the\nNew England Churches, Introduction_. The current Tory interpretation of\nthe common law of sedition was severe. \u201cIn 1679, at the trial of Henry\nCarr [Care], indicted for some passages in a weekly paper, the Lord\nChief Justice Scroggs declared it criminal at Common Law to \u2018write on\nthe subject of government, whether in terms of praise or censure, it is\nnot material; for no man has a right to say anything of government\u2019\u201d\n(_State Trials_, VII, 929; quoted in Schuyler, _The Liberty of the\nPress in the American Colonies, etc._)\n\n[121] See _Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings_, Second\nSeries, Vol. XV, pp. 283-296.\n\n[122] _Vindication_, edition of 1860, pp. 50-53.\n\n[123] _Ibid._, pp. 54-55.\n\n[124] _Ibid._, p. 60.\n\n[125] _The Churches Quarrel Espoused_, p. 116.\n\n[126] _Ibid._, p. 209.\n\n[127] A gratuitous insult, as Wise was well known.\n\n[128] \u201cLetter to Robert Wodrow, September 17, 1715:\u201d _Diary_, in\n_Massachusetts Historical Collections_, Seventh Series, Vol. VIII, p.\n327.\n\n[129] _Ibid._, p. 450.\n\n[130] The account with affidavits is given in Sewall, _Diary_, Vol. II,\npp. 144-147.\n\n[131] Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts Bay Colony_, Vol. II, p.\n148.\n\n[132] Sewall, _Diary_, Vol. II, Introduction, p. 109.\n\n[133] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 663.\n\n\n\n\nBook Two \u2022 The Colonial Mind\n\n\nThe undistinguished years of the early and middle eighteenth century,\nrude and drab in their insularity, were the creative springtime of\ndemocratic America--plebeian years that sowed what after times were\nto reap. The forgotten men and women of those silent decades wrote\nlittle, debated little, very likely thought little; they were plain\nworkmen with whom ideas counted for less than the day\u2019s work. The stir\nof achievement filled the land, daily penetrating farther into the\nbackwoods and bringing new farmlands under the plow. The stern demands\nof necessity held men in their grip, narrowing the horizon of their\nminds, and obscuring the vision of their larger accomplishment. Along\nthe Appalachian watershed a vast drama, magnificent in the breadth and\nsweep of its movement, was being enacted by players unconscious of\ntheir parts. Not until long after they had gone to their graves were\nthe broad lines of that drama revealed. Today it is plain that those\nunremembered years were engaged in clearing away encumbrances more\nsignificant than the great oaks and maples of the virgin wilderness:\nthey were uprooting ancient habits of thought, destroying social\ncustoms that had grown old and dignified in class-ridden Europe. A\nnew psychology was being created by the wide spaces that was to be\nenormously significant when it came to self-consciousness. If this\nmiddle eighteenth century wrote little literature, it created and\nspread among a vigorous people something of far greater importance to\nAmerica, the psychology of democratic individualism.\n\nFrom this determining influence--too little recognized by later\ngenerations--the creative outlines of our history have taken shape.\nAmerican ideals and institutions emerged in large part from the silent\nrevolution which during the middle eighteenth century differentiated\nthe American from the transplanted colonial; a change that resulted\nfrom an amalgam of the older English stock with other races, and the\nsubjection of this new product on a great scale to the influence of\ndiffused landholding. From these two major facts of a new race and\na free environment came the social and political philosophy of older\nAmerica, to which we have traditionally applied the term democratic,\nand which unconsciously wove itself into our daily intercourse and ways\nof thinking.\n\n\n\n\nPart One: The Mind in the Making \u2022 1720-1763\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 Colonial Backgrounds\n\n\nI \u2022 New Stock\n\nImmigration in the eighteenth century was almost wholly economic in\nmotive. The reports of free land and free opportunity in America\npenetrated to remote hamlets of Great Britain, and more slowly to\nthe continent, and drew hither a rude influx of the dispossessed and\ndisinherited of Europe. From the hopeless poverty of great masses\nof old-world laborers, increasing numbers sought escape through\nemigration, accepting the hardships and uncertainties of the migration\nin the hope of bettering themselves ultimately. A host of English\nnondescripts--broken men, bond servants, \u201cgaol birds,\u201d the lees and\nsettlings of the old world--came overseas, voluntarily or under\nduress, in numbers running into the hundred thousands, and shared with\nGerman peasants from the Palatine, or Scotch-Irish from Ulster, the\nback-breaking labor of subduing the wilderness. About these unfortunate\nmen and women no romance has gathered; tradition and history have not\nremembered their names or glorified their deeds; yet their blood runs\nin the veins of most Americans today of the older stock, and their\ncontribution to our common heritage was great and lasting.\n\nOf the different racial strains that mingled their blood with the\nearlier English--Irish, Huguenot-French, German, Scotch-Irish--the last\nwas by far the most important. Not since 1630, when the _Lady Arbella_\nand her companion vessels brought the Puritans to Massachusetts Bay,\nhad there been an event so momentous to America as the arrival in 1718\nof some four thousand Scotch-Irish from Ulster, the vanguard of an\narmy which by the time of the Revolution had risen to approximately\ntwo hundred thousand, or more than twelve times the number of English\nwho settled Massachusetts. They were desperately poor; the available\nlands near the coast were already pre\u00ebmpted; so armed with axes, their\nseed potatoes, and the newly invented rifle, they plunged into the\nbackwoods to become our great pioneering race. Scattered thinly through\na long frontier, they constituted the outposts and buffer settlements\nof civilization. A vigorous breed, hardy, assertive, individualistic,\nthrifty, trained in the democracy of the Scottish kirk, they were the\nmaterial out of which later Jacksonian democracy was to be fashioned,\nthe creators of that \u201cwestern type which in politics and industry\nbecame ultimately the American type.\u201d[134]\n\nNext to the Scotch-Irish, who for the most part were free peasants,\nthe most important addition to eighteenth-century America were the\nindented servants. Mostly from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany,\nthey represented all trades and some of the professions. The white\nslavers of the times were well organized and plied a brisk trade with\nsatisfactory profits; and in consequence, a steady stream of indented\nservants poured into America to turn the wheels of colonial industry.\nIn his history of the German redemptioners, Diffenderfer has printed a\nnumber of newspaper advertisements which throw a curious light upon the\ntraffic: here are two:\n\n From the _American Weekly Mercury_, February 18, 1729:\n\n Lately arrived from London, a parcel of very likely English\n servants, men and women, several of the men Tradesmen; to be\n sold reasonable and Time allowed for payment. By Charles Read of\n Philadelphia, or Capt. John Ball, on board his ship, at _Anthony\n Millkinson\u2019s Wharf_.\n\n From the same for May 22, 1729, announcements of two ships:\n\n There is just arrived from Scotland, a parcel of choice _Scotch\n Servants_; Taylors, Weavers, Shoemakers and ploughmen, some for\n five and others for seven years; Imported by James Coults, etc.\n\n Just arrived from London in the ship _Providence_, Capt. Jonathan\n Clarke, a parcel of very likely _servants_, most Tradesmen, to be\n sold on reasonable Terms.\n\nThe several nationalities were appraised and rated by careful merchants\nand the fittest import seasons considered.[135] The \u201cbest time for\nServants is about the month of May,\u201d one merchant wrote to his agent in\nIreland; and another warned, \u201cIrish servants will be very dull, such\nnumbers have already arrived from Different parts & many more expected,\nthat I believe it will be overdone, especially as several Dutch vessels\nare expected here, which will always command the Market.\u201d[136]\n\nIn the middle colonies, particularly Pennsylvania, the greater number\nof servants came from the Rhine country. Deceived by swindling agents,\nthousands of German peasants, eager to get away from their war-harried\nand plundered homes, sold themselves into servitude to pay their\npassage to America. For the better part of a century these German\nredemptioners thronged the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore, as the\nfollowing news items testify:\n\n From _Der Hoch Deutsche Pennsylvanische Bericht_, August 16, 1750:\n\n Six ships with Irish servants have arrived at Philadelphia, and two\n ships with German Newcomers. Some say 18 more on their way here;\n others say 24 and still others 10,000 persons.\n\n From the same, December 16, 1750:\n\n Capt. Hasselwood has arrived from Holland with the latest ship that\n brought Germans. It is the fourteenth that has come laden with\n Germans this year. 4,317 have registered in the Court House....\n Besides these, 1,000 servants and passengers arrived from Ireland\n and England.[137]\n\nOf the human side of this widespread traffic some little idea may\nbe got from the diary of a certain John Harrower, a man of modest\neducation who became an articled schoolmaster to a Virginia family in\nthe year 1774. Following are some entries:\n\n Wednesday, 26th. [January, 1774.] This day I being reduced to\n the last shilling was obliged to engage to go to Virginia for\n four years, as a schoolmaster for Bedd, Board, washing and five\n pounds during the whole time. I have also wrote my wife this day a\n particular Acct of everything that has happened to me since I left\n her until this date....\n\n Munday 31st ... It is surprising to see the No. of good tradesmen\n of all kinds, th\u2019t come on b\u2019d every day ... while the Clerk was\n filling up the Indentures the doctor search\u2019d every serv\u2019t to see\n that they were sound ... seventy-five were Intend [indented] to\n Capt Bowres for four Years....\n\n Munday 7th ... at 4 pm put a servant ashore extreamly bade in a\n fever, and then got under saile for Virginia with seventy Servants\n on board all indented to serve four yeares there at their different\n Occupations....\n\n Munday, May 2nd.... At 2 pm the Capt carried five servts ashore to\n Hampton in order to sell their Indentures, But returned again at\n Midnight with[out] selling any more but one Boat Builder....\n\n Freiday, 6th ... at Hobshole there was five Glasgow ships and an\n English Brigantine lying, at 2 pm we passed by Leedstown on our\n Star board hand where there was a ship from London lying with\n convicts....\n\n Wednesday, 11th.... At 10 A M Both Coopers and the Barber from our\n Mace [mess] went ashore upon tryall. At night one Daniel Turner a\n servt returned onb\u2019d from Liberty so Drunk that he abused the Capt\n and Chief Mate and Boatswan to a verry high degree, which made\n him to be horse whipt, put in Irons and thumb screwed, on houre\n afterward he was unthumbscrewed, taken out of the Irons, but then\n he was hand cuffed, and gagged all night....\n\n Munday, 16th. This day severalls came on b\u2019d to purchase servts\n Indentures and among them there was two soul drivers, they are\n Men who made it their business to go on b\u2019d all ships who have\n in either Servants or Convicts and buy sometimes the whole and\n sometimes a parcell of them as they can agree, and then they drive\n them through the Country like a parcell of Sheep until they can\n sell them to advantage, but all went away without buying any....\n\n Munday, 23rd [May] ... at same time all the rest of the servants\n were ordered ashore to a tent at Fredericksbg and several of their\n indentures were then sold, about 4 pm I was brought to Colonel\n Daingerfield, when we immediately agreed and my Indenture for four\n years was then delivered him and he was to send for me the next\n day.[138]\n\nIn some such fashion, year after year, thousands of immigrants were\ntransported to America, there to mingle their blood with that of the\nearlier comers. They came as social derelicts, were greeted by the\nawaiting \u201csoul-drivers,\u201d found masters, worked and got on, or lost\nheart and slipped away into the tempting backcountry whither so many\nbroken men went in search of refuge. They were a plebeian lot, and they\nendured the common fate of the underling. Very likely they transmitted\nto their children a bitter hostility to the ways of an aristocratic\nsociety, the residuum of old grievances, and this slowly accumulating\nanimus was eventually to count heavily with lower-class colonials in\nfavor of a more democratic order in the new world.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Frontier \u2022 Lubberland\n\nThe frontier, which exercised so creative an influence in shaping\nAmerican character and institutions, was regarded in very different\nlights by the gentleman and the commoner. To the former it was no other\nthan lubberland, the abode of rude leveling, the temptation to gross\nsocial laxity. It drew away servants who were needed, and kept the\nprice of real estate low; and such very different persons as Cotton\nMather and John Dickinson agreed in desiring to stop the constant\ndrain into the backcountry, and keep settlers in the older portions.\nDescriptions of the frontier indited by aristocratic pens convey an\nidea very different from later democratic conceptions, and paint the\nancestors of later Jacksonians in unlovely colors.\n\nAmong the earliest of these records is _The Private Journal kept by\nMadam Knight on a Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704_.\nMadam Knight was a sprightly and intelligent woman, keeper of a dame\u2019s\nschool in Boston, who set down in the journal some of the odd things\nthat came under her sharp eyes on her venturesome trip on horseback.\nAs she drew away from the older settlements, signs of relaxing social\nconvention multiplied with the worsening of the road. Connecticut,\nwhich had always been too democratic to suit the Boston taste, she\nfound \u201ca little too much Independant in their principalls.\u201d It was not\ncareful to uphold proper social distinctions, but inclined to a free\nand easy leveling altogether offensive:\n\n ... They Generally lived very well and comfortable in their\n famelies. But too Indulgent (especially ye farmers) to their\n slaves: suffering too great familiarity from them, permitting ym\n to sit at Table and eat with them (as they say to save time), and\n into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand. They\n told me that there was a farmer lived nere the Town where I lodged\n who had some difference with his slave, concerning something the\n master had promised him and did not punctually perform; wch caused\n some hard words between them; But at length they put the matter to\n Arbitration and Bound themselves to stand to the award of such as\n they named--wch done, the Arbitrators Having heard the Allegations\n of both parties, Order the master to pay 40s to black face, and\n acknowledge his fault. And so the matter ended; the poor master\n very honestly standing to the award.[139]\n\nIn the unsettled country strange figures with rude decivilized ways\nmade their appearance. Here is a description of one such product of the\nwilderness:\n\n I had scarce done thinking, when an Indian-like Animal come to the\n door, on a creature very much like himselfe, in mien and feature,\n as well as Ragged cloathing; and having \u2019litt, makes an Awkerd\n Scratch with his Indian shoo, and a Nodd, sitts on ye block,\n fumbles out his black Junk [salt meat?], dipps it in ye ashes, and\n presents it piping hott to his muscheeto\u2019s (?), and fell to sucking\n like a calf, without speaking, for near a quarter of an hower. At\n length the old man said how do\u2019s Sarah do? who I understood was the\n wretches wife, and Daughter to ye old man.[140]\n\nShe thus describes a squatter\u2019s hut in the backwoods:\n\n This little Hutt was one of the wretchedest I ever saw a habitation\n for human creatures. It was suported with shores enclosed with\n Clapboards, laid on Lengthways, and so much asunder, that the\n Light come throu\u2019 everywhere; the doore tyed on with a cord in ye\n place of hinges; The floor the bear earth; no windows but such\n as the thin covering afforded, nor any furniture but a Bedd with\n a glass Bottle hanging at ye head on\u2019t; an earthan cupp, a small\n pewter bason, A Bord with sticks to stand on, instead of a table,\n and a block or two in ye corner instead of chairs. The family were\n the old man, his wife and two children; all and every part being\n the picture of poverty. Notwithstanding both the Hutt and its\n Inhabitance were very clean and tydee.[141]\n\nAs Madam Knight meditated upon the causes of such poverty, she came to\na characteristic Boston conclusion:\n\n We may Observe here the great necessity and benefitt both of\n Education and Conversation: for these people have as Large a\n portion of mother witt, and sometimes Larger, than those who have\n bin brought up in Citties; but for want of emprovements, Render\n themselves almost Ridiculos, as above.[142]\n\nIt is in the chatty narrative of Colonel William Byrd of Virginia,[143]\nthat we find the earliest detailed description of the fringe of\nsquatter settlements. Colonel Byrd was the first gentleman of Virginia,\na man of old-world education and some literary taste,[144] polished\nmanners, and a vast number of acres of choice land which he had\nacquired and held largely tax-free, by means well understood among\nVirginia gentlemen.[145] Among the several capacities in which he\nserved the commonwealth in return for his many acres, was to act as\na member of a joint commission which in the year 1728 ran a boundary\nline between Virginia and North Carolina. As he sat his horse in the\ncapacity of overseer, he observed many amusing things which he jotted\ndown in his journal.\n\nThe backcountry, it would seem, had already developed the free and\neasy ways of a squatter world, shiftless, lubberly, independent, but\nanimated by hostility towards the aristocratic Old Dominion, from which\nmany of the settlers had come. North Carolina had long been a place of\nrefuge for debtors, criminals, and runaway servants, who used their\nlegs to even the score with a caste system; and Colonel Byrd regarded\nthe lazy crew with amused contempt:\n\n Surely there is no place in the World where the Inhabitants live\n with less Labour than in N Carolina. It approaches nearer to the\n Description of Lubberland than any other, by the great felicity\n of the Climate, the easiness of raising Provisions, and the\n Slothfulness of the People. Indian corn is of so great increase,\n that a little Pains will Subsist a very large Family with Bread,\n and then they may have meat without any Pains at all, by the Help\n of the Low Grounds, and the great Variety of Mast that grows on\n the High-land. The Men, for their parts, just like the Indians,\n impose all the Work upon the poor Women. They make their Wives\n rise out of their Beds early in the Morning, at the same time that\n they lye and Snore, till the Sun has run one third of his course,\n and disperst all the unwholesome Damps. Then, after Stretching and\n Yawning for half an Hour, they light their Pipes, and, under the\n Protection of a cloud of Smoak, venture out into the open Air;\n tho\u2019 if it happens to be never so little cold, they quickly return\n Shivering into the Chimney corner. When the weather is mild, they\n stand leaning with both their arms upon the corn-field fence, and\n gravely consider whether they had best go and take a Small Heat at\n the Hough; but generally find reasons to put off till another time.\n Thus they loiter away their Lives, like Solomon\u2019s Sluggard, with\n their Arms across, and at the Winding up of the Year Scarcely have\n Bread to Eat. To speak the Truth, tis a thorough Aversion to Labor\n that makes People file off to N Carolina, where Plenty and a Warm\n Sun confirm them in their Disposition to Laziness for their whole\n Lives.[146]\n\nOne thing Colonel Byrd noted everywhere: the lazy lubbers wanted\nchiefly to be let alone; they dreaded the possibility of falling within\nthe Virginia line; they were content in their Eden, and had no wish to\nexchange their freedom for the stricter rule of the Old Dominion:\n\n Wherever we passed we constantly found the Borderers laid it to\n Heart if their Land was taken into Virginia; they chose rather\n belong to Carolina, where they pay no Tribute, either to God or\n to Caesar.... Another reason was, that the Government there is\n so Loose, and the Laws so feebly executed, that, like those in\n the Neighbourhood of Sydon formerly, every one does just what\n seems good in his own Eyes.... Besides, there might have been\n some Danger, perhaps, in venturing to be so rigorous, for fear of\n undergoing the Fate of an honest Justice in Corotuck Precinct. This\n bold Magistrate, it seems, taking upon to order a fellow to the\n Stocks, for being disorderly in his Drink, was, for his intemperate\n zeal, carry\u2019d thither himself, and narrowly escap\u2019d being whipp\u2019t\n by the Rabble into the Bargain.[147]\n\n They are rarely guilty of Flattering or making any Court to their\n governours, but treat them with all the Excesses of Freedom and\n Familiarity. They are of Opinion their rulers woul\u2019d be apt to grow\n insolent, if they grew Rich, and for that reason they take care to\n keep them poorer, and more dependent, if possible, than the Saints\n of New England used to do their Governours.[148]\n\nTo the student of colonial politics such glimpses are suggestive.\nThey reveal how early was the popular distrust of magistrates and\ngovernment; and they serve to explain the most striking characteristic\nof Revolutionary political practice--the movement to minimize the\npower of the judiciary and the executive, and magnify the power of\nthe legislature; to keep authority within the control of the local\ndemocracies. \u201cEvery one does just what seems good in his own Eyes\u201d--in\nthis attitude of social _laissez faire_ that throve on a diet of corn\npone and salt pork was the origin of the coonskin democracy of Old\nHickory that was to bring eventual disaster to the plans of gentlemen.\n\n\nIII \u2022 The Frontier \u2022 Land of Promise\n\nQuite another picture of the frontier was likely to be painted by\nthe eighteenth-century democrat. In the well-known _Letters_ of\nCr\u00e8vec\u0153ur, and in the recently published _More Letters from an American\nFarmer_,[149] is an analysis of frontier life and its creative\ninfluence upon the emerging American character, far more sympathetic\nand thoughtful than the casual narratives of Madam Knight and Colonel\nByrd. The author was a cultivated Norman-French gentleman, who about\nthe year 1759 or 1760 entered the English colonies from Canada, was\na surveyor for a time near Albany, a resident of Pennsylvania and of\nUlster County in the province of New York, eventually acquired a farm\nof 120 acres in Orange County which he named \u201cPine Hill,\u201d married\nMehetabel Tippet of Yonkers, and became a competent tiller of the soil\nas well as a lover of country life. In disposition he was active and\nenergetic, curious concerning the ways of nature and society. In Canada\nhe had joined the army as lieutenant under Montcalm and was sent on a\nmap-making expedition to the wilderness beyond the Great Lakes, and\ntraveled from Detroit as far south as the Ohio River. After quitting\nCanada following the fall of Quebec, he traveled from Nova Scotia\nthrough the English colonies to the extreme south, and perhaps visited\nBermuda and Jamaica, noting keenly the country and the manners of the\npeople. Perhaps no other man before the Revolution was so intimately\nacquainted with the French and English colonies as a whole, with their\nnear background of frontier and the great wilderness beyond, as this\nFrench American; and it was from long and intimate contact with the\nrealities of colonial life that he wrote those comments that have\npreserved his name to the present.\n\nThe Revolution broke in upon his peaceful life with disastrous\nconsequences. He took no part in the preliminary disputes, and was\nunder grave suspicion by his neighbors in Orange County and by the\nBritish. He was thrown into prison in New York by his Majesty\u2019s\nofficers, where his health was undermined and he was reduced to extreme\nstraits. Finally permitted to sail for Europe without his family, he\nwas shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland, but reached London where\nhe disposed of his manuscripts, and eventually got over to France\nin August, 1781. After the peace he returned to America to find his\nwife dead, his children scattered, and his farmhouse burnt. For a\ntime he was French consul at New York, where he interested himself\nin establishing a packet service between France and America, and\nin the improvement of agricultural methods, amongst other ways by\nthe establishment of botanical gardens. He was a scientific farmer,\nintroducing the system of cover crops into America and endeavoring to\nintroduce potato culture into France. He was a corresponding member of\nthe Acad\u00e9mie des Sciences and the Royal Agricultural Society of Paris,\nand a member of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u2019Agriculture, Sciences, et Arts de Meaux,\nand of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u2019Agriculture de Caen. In 1790 he returned to France\nwhere he died in 1813.\n\nUnderneath the discursive chat of his letters is the firm fabric of\neconomic fact. In the background of his thinking Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur was quite\ndefinitely Physiocratic, in his warm humanitarianism as well as in his\nagrarian bias. As the kindly Frenchman studied the ways of colonial\nsociety and contemplated the future, he asked himself the question,\nwhat was the American as he was perceptibly differentiating from his\nEuropean ancestors? That a new race was emerging in this new country,\nhe was convinced; and that it was not in consequence chiefly of a new\nmixture of blood--although that was not without its influence--he\nlikewise believed. A more potent influence was at work and that\ninfluence was environment. Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur was something of an economic\ndeterminist who sought to explain laws, customs, institutions--the\npattern of the social web--by an inquiry into economic factors. _Mann\nist was er isst._ \u201cMen are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the\nfruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they\ngrow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the\nclimate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we\nprofess, and the mode of our employment.\u201d[150] Transplanted from the\nmeager opportunities of the old world to the rich soil and ample spaces\nof America, the European undergoes a subtle transformation.\n\n The rich stay in Europe, it is only the middling and the poor that\n emigrate. In this great American asylum, the poor of Europe have\n by some means met together, and in consequence of various causes;\n to what purpose should they ask one another, what countrymen they\n are? Alas, two thirds of them had no country. Can a wretch who\n wanders about, who works and starves ... can that man call England\n or any other kingdom his country? A country that had no bread for\n him, whose fields procured him no harvest, who met nothing but\n the frowns of the rich, the severity of the laws, with jails and\n punishments; who owned not a single foot of the extensive surface\n of this planet? No! urged by a variety of motives, here they came.\n Every thing tended to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of\n living, a new social system; here they are become men: in Europe\n they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegetable mould, and\n refreshing showers; they withered and were mowed down by want,\n hunger, and war: but now by the power of transplantation, like all\n other plants, they have taken root and flourished! Formerly they\n were not numbered in any civil list of their country, except in\n those of the poor; here they rank as citizens. By what invisible\n power has this surprizing metamorphosis been performed? By that\n of the laws of their industry ... his country is now that which\n gives him land, bread, protection, and consequence: _Ubi panis ibi\n patria_, is a motto of all emigrants.... Here the rewards of his\n industry follow with equal steps in the progress of his labor; his\n labor is founded on the basis of nature, _self-interest_; can it\n want a stronger allurement?[151]\n\nFrom economic individualism in presence of unexploited natural\nresources, he deduces the natural emergence of a new American\npsychology that differentiates the colonial from the European peasant.\nIf \u201cfrom involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless\nlabor,\u201d the emigrant \u201chas passed to toils of a very different nature,\nrewarded by ample subsistence\u201d; if he has left off being a peasant and\nbecome a free-holder and citizen; will not this man \u201centertain new\nideas, and form new opinions\u201d? He possesses a stake in society; his\nhorizons broaden, his ambitions quicken; this is his country.\n\n An European, when he first arrives, seems limited in his\n intentions, as well as in his views; but he very suddenly alters\n his scale ... he no sooner breathes our air than he forms new\n schemes, and embarks in designs he never would have thought of\n in his own country. There the plenitude of society confines many\n useful ideas, and often extinguishes the most laudable schemes\n which here ripen into maturity.[152]\n\n He begins to feel the effects of a sort of resurrection; hitherto\n he had not lived, but simply vegetated; he now feels himself a\n man, because he is treated as such; the laws of his own country\n had overlooked him in his insignificancy; the laws of this cover\n him with their mantle. Judge what an alteration there must arise\n in the mind and thoughts of this man; he begins to forget his\n former servitude and dependence, his heart involuntarily swells and\n glows; this first swell inspires him with those new thoughts which\n constitute an American.... From nothing to start into being, to\n become a free man, invested with lands, to which every municipal\n blessing is annexed! What a change indeed! It is in consequence of\n that change that he becomes an American.[153]\n\n _He_ is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient\n prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the mode of life\n he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he\n holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of\n our great _Alma Mater_. Here individuals of all nations are melted\n into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day\n cause great changes in the world.[154]\n\nHaving convinced himself that economic relaxation was the creative\nforce in determining American institutions and psychology, he was\nled to examine the working of that force in diverse portions of\nAmerica. It is neither in the older seacoast world, nor along the\nextreme frontier that he discovers his representative America; but\nin the broad stretches of clearings, the vigorous backcountry or\n\u201cmiddle-settlements,\u201d where agriculture was followed soberly and\neffectively. \u201cSome few towns excepted, we are all tillers of the soil,\u201d\nhe pointed out; and it is the farmer of the middle region of New York\nand Pennsylvania, with his broad acres in prosperous cultivation, his\neconomic independence, and his manly vigor, that he most delights to\ndwell upon:\n\n Europe has no such class of men; the early knowledge they acquire,\n the early bargains they make, give them a great degree of sagacity.\n As freemen, they will be litigious; pride and obstinacy are often\n the cause of lawsuits; the nature of our laws and governments\n may be another. As citizens it is easy to imagine, that they\n will carefully read the newspapers, enter into every political\n disquisition, freely blame or censure governors and others. As\n farmers, they will be careful and anxious to get as much as they\n can, because what they get is theirs.... As Christians, religion\n curbs them not in their opinions; the laws inspect our actions;\n our thoughts are left to God. Industry, good living, selfishness,\n litigiousness, country politics, the pride of freemen, religious\n indifference, are their characteristics.[155]\n\nThe thinly settled backwoods with their restless squatter population,\nCr\u00e8vec\u0153ur regards as the rough vanguard of the westward-moving\nsettlements. It is here, he points out, that the forces of leveling\nare strongest, that the last remnants of old-world distinctions and\nprivileges are stript away, that the idea of individual freedom carries\nfurthest, sometimes to social disaster. \u201cHe who would wish to see\nAmerica in its proper light,\u201d he says, \u201cand have a true idea of its\nfeeble beginnings and barbarous rudiments, must visit our extended line\nof frontiers where the last settlers dwell.\u201d\n\n Now we arrive near the great woods, near the last inhabited\n districts; there men seem to be placed ... beyond the reach of\n government, which in some measure leaves them to themselves ...\n as they were driven there by misfortune, necessity of beginnings,\n desire of acquiring large tracts of land, idleness, frequent want\n of economy, ancient debts; the reunion of such people does not\n afford a very pleasing spectacle.... The few magistrates they have,\n are in general little better than the rest; they are often in a\n perfect state of war; that of man against man, sometimes decided by\n blows, sometimes by means of law ... men are wholly left dependent\n upon their native tempers, and on the spur of uncertain industry,\n which often fails when not sanctified by the efficacy of a few\n moral rules. There, remote from the power of example, and check of\n shame, many families exhibit the most hideous parts of our society.\n They are a kind of forlorn hope, preceding by ten or twelve years\n the more respectable army of veterans which come after them. In\n that space, prosperity will polish some, vice and law will drive\n off the rest, who uniting with others like themselves will recede\n still farther; making room for more industrious people, who will\n finish their improvements, convert the loghouse into a convenient\n habitation, and rejoicing that the first heavy labors are finished,\n will change in a few years that hitherto barbarous country into a\n fine, fertile, well regulated district. Such is our progress, such\n is the march of the Europeans toward the interior parts of this\n continent. In all society there are off-casts; this impure part\n serves as our precursors or pioneers.[156]\n\nCr\u00e8vec\u0153ur\u2019s chattiness and bucolic love of nature may easily obscure\nfor the casual reader, the solid economic core of the _Letters_. The\nstory of Andrew, the Hebridean, with its note of idyllic simplicity,\nreads like a tale out of the French romantics; yet in its broad outline\nit is the story of many an immigrant who penetrated to the hospitable\nbackcountry, took land, and prospered. The strong coloring of the\ndescription is only partly French; in part it is a reflection of the\nspontaneous optimism that was working like leaven in colonial society.\nIt is the old-fashioned phrasing rather than the matter that makes the\n_Letters_ seem obsolete to modern readers. Change the wording, soften\nthe bucolic enthusiasm, and the sober American of earlier generations,\nas he observed the arrival of the strong-armed peasant from the north\nof Europe, would have discovered nothing strange in such a sentiment as\nthis:\n\n After a foreigner from any part of Europe is arrived, and become\n a citizen; let him devoutly listen to the voice of our great\n parent, which says to him, \u201cWelcome to my shores, distressed\n European; bless the hour in which thou didst see my verdant fields,\n my fair navigable rivers, and my green mountains!--If thou wilt\n work, I have bread for thee; if thou wilt be honest, sober, and\n industrious, I have greater rewards to bestow on thee--ease and\n independence. I will give thee fields to feed and clothe thee; a\n comfortable fire-side to sit by.... I shall endow thee besides\n with the immunities of a freeman.... Go thou, and work and\n till; thou shalt prosper, provided thou be just, grateful, and\n industrious.\u201d[157]\n\nAndrew the Hebridean is a portrait painted by a Physiocratic\nhumanitarian, but the idealism that would build peace and content\non honest foundations, and would deny them to none, not even the\npoorest if they proved worthy, found frequent justification in the\nprosaic experience of colonial America. If many an immigrant found\n\u201csoul-drivers\u201d awaiting them, many others like Andrew found a more\nhospitable reception.\n\nAcross the peaceful scenes depicted in the _Letters_ soon fell the dark\nshadow of civil war, and Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur\u2019s content was rudely broken in upon.\nAs a French humanitarian he loathed war and all its works, and every\ninstinct and argument counseled him to stand apart from the strife\nthat seemed to him so meaningless. He liked peace and orderly ways and\nhe could not work himself into a passion over the supposed wrongs of\na people who seemed to him blessed above all others on this troubled\nearth. As a philosophical farmer he held the politician in contempt and\nrefused to take seriously abstract theories of statecraft. The citizen\nwho stuck to his plow was happier, he believed, than the citizen who\ntalked noisily of his wrongs, and was eager to overset things. The\nrough leveling of the frontier he had found distasteful, and as he\nwatched the development of the Revolutionary disputes, he seems to have\ndiscovered in the Whig program an irruption of the tumultuous frontier\nleveling that threatened to sweep away the common peace and well-being.\nThe source of the unrest he traced to New England, the feculent\nwellspring of all the hypocrisies; it was inspired, he was convinced,\nby a selfish demagoguery and led by unprincipled mobsters. In so far\nas he held partisan sympathies, they inclined to the Loyalist side.\nHis education in England and his breeding as a gentleman, drew him\ntowards the Loyalist gentry with whom he associated in Orange County,\nand repelled him from the noisy ardor of the plebeian patriots. Yet in\nspirit he stood resolutely aloof, although his sympathies were cruelly\nhurt by the sufferings that fell under his observation. In certain\nletters only recently published (_Sketches of Eighteenth Century\nAmerica_), he narrates the misfortunes that befell innocent men and\nwomen from the bitterness of civil strife,[158] and draws a picture of\nthe lawlessness and greed of patriot committeemen, and the intolerance\nof the mob spirit, that is not pleasant to contemplate.[159]\nBitterness rarely exudes from his pen, but when he considers the ways\nof Whig politicians he now and then indulges in a passage that reveals\nhis loathing of the mercenary spirit that he discovers in the new\npatriotism. In the conclusion of \u201cThe American Belisarius\u201d he gives\nvent to his anger against those who outrage common morality; if it were\nnot for the fact that this is a moral universe, he says ironically:\n\n I\u2019d worship the demon of the times, trample on every law, break\n every duty, neglect every bond, overlook every obligation to which\n no punishment was annexed. I\u2019d set myself calumniating my rich\n neighbors. I\u2019d call all passive, inoffensive men by the name of\n inimical. I\u2019d plunder or detain the entrusted deposits. I\u2019d trade\n on public moneys, though contrary to my oath. Oath! Chaff for good\n Whigs, and only fit to bind a few conscientious Royalists! I\u2019d\n build my new fortune on the depreciation of the money. I\u2019d inform\n against every man who would make any difference betwixt it and\n silver, whilst I, secure from any discovery or suspicion by my good\n name, would privately exchange ten for one. I\u2019d pocket the fines\n of poor militiamen extracted from their heart\u2019s blood. I\u2019d become\n obdurate, merciless, and unjust. I\u2019d grow rich, \u201cfas vel nefas.\u201d\n I\u2019d send others a-fighting, whilst I stayed at home to trade and\n to rule. I\u2019d become a clamorous American, a modern Whig, and offer\n every night incense to the god Arimanes.[160]\n\nA lover of peace and good will, a humanitarian concerned only with\njustice and the common well-being, seeking new ways to enlarge the\nreturns of agriculture, devoid of petty ambition and local prejudice,\na friend of man, Hector St. John de Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur was an embodiment of the\ngenerous spirit of French revolutionary thought, a man whom Jefferson\nwould have liked for a neighbor. His sketchy and discursive writings\nmay not be notable literature, but we could ill spare them from the\nlibrary of eighteenth-century America.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[134] See Commons, _Races and Immigrants in America_, p. 37.\n\n[135] Sometimes the profits were unexpectedly great, as is illustrated\nby the case of a certain George Martin, who contracted with a\nshipmaster to transport himself, his wife, and five children to America\nfor fifty-four pounds. He paid down $16, but died on the passage.\nOn the arrival of the vessel in port, the captain foreclosed on the\ncontract, sold the widow for twenty-two pounds, the three eldest sons\nat thirty pounds each, and the two youngest, who were under five years\nof age, he sold for ten pounds, realizing one hundred and twenty-two\npounds on a debt under fifty-one pounds. (Diffenderfer, _The German\nImmigrants into Pennsylvania_, p. 268).\n\n[136] _Ibid._, p. 229.\n\n[137] _Ibid._, Part II, \u201cThe Redemptioners,\u201d p. 209.\n\n[138] For the entire diary, see _American Historical Review_, Vol. VI,\npp. 65-107.\n\n[139] _The Private Journal, etc._, p. 40.\n\n[140] _Ibid._, pp. 29-30.\n\n[141] _Ibid._, p. 28.\n\n[142] _Ibid._, p. 45.\n\n[143] \u201cThe History of the Dividing Line,\u201d in _The Writings of Colonel\nWilliam Byrd of Westover in Virginia, Esquire_, New York, 1901.\n\n[144] At his death his library contained some four thousand volumes,\n\u201cthe largest private library in the English-speaking colonies,\u201d\naccording to his biographer.\n\n[145] His father died possessed of 26,231 acres. He himself owned at\nhis death \u201cno less than 179,440 acres of the best land in Virginia.\u201d\n\n[146] _Op. cit._, pp. 75-76.\n\n[147] _Ibid._, p. 87.\n\n[148] _Ibid._, p. 81.\n\n[149] Published under the title of _Sketches of Eighteenth Century\nAmerica_ by the Yale University Press, 1925.\n\n[150] _Letters ..._, in edition of 1904, p. 56.\n\n[151] _Ibid._, pp. 52-55.\n\n[152] _Ibid._, p. 76.\n\n[153] _Ibid._, pp. 77, 79.\n\n[154] _Ibid._, pp. 54-55.\n\n[155] _Ibid._, pp. 57-58.\n\n[156] _Ibid._, pp. 58-60.\n\n[157] _Ibid._, pp. 90-91.\n\n[158] See, e. g., \u201cThe Man of Sorrows,\u201d \u201cThe Wyoming Massacre,\u201d \u201cThe\nHistory of Mrs. B.,\u201d \u201cThe Frontier Woman.\u201d\n\n[159] See, e. g., \u201cThe American Belisarius\u201d and \u201cLandscapes.\u201d\n\n[160] _Sketches of Eighteenth Century America_, p. 249.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Anachronism of Jonathan Edwards\n\n\nI\n\nBefore an adequate democratic philosophy could arise in this world of\npragmatic individualism, the traditional system of New England theology\nmust be put away, and a new conception of man and of his duty and\ndestiny in the world must take its place. For the moment Calvinism was\nstrengthened by the coming of the Scotch-Irish who spread the familiar\ndogmas along the frontier, remote from attack by old-world rationalism;\nnevertheless those dogmas carried within them the seeds of slow decay.\nThe world that had created them lay in a forgotten past. The five\npoints of Calvinism, postulated on a God of wrath, were no longer\nliving principles answering to common experience; they were become no\nother than ghosts that walked on the Sabbath to terrify the timid. An\nintellectual _Aufkl\u00e4rung_ was a necessary preliminary to the creation\nof a fruitful social philosophy. Theology must be made to square with\nactuality, or yield control of men\u2019s minds to more stimulating things.\n\nBut unfortunately there was no vigorous attack but only a tedious\ndecay. The old was too deeply entrenched to be routed, and stricken\nwith palsy it lingered out a morose old age. For years New England\nstewed in its petty provincialism, untouched by the brisk debates that\nstirred the old world. No vigorous disputant challenged its orthodoxy.\nIn the year 1726 Cotton Mather wrote, \u201cI cannot learn, That among\nall the Pastors of Two Hundred Churches, there is one Arminian; much\nless an Arian, or a Gentilist.\u201d[161] Nevertheless rationalism was\nin the air, and although it might be excluded from the minister\u2019s\nstudy, it spread its subtle infection through the mass of the people.\nThe backwash of English deism reached the shores of New England, and\nby the decade of the forties a movement of liberalism seems to have\ngot under way. The word Arminian sprinkles more freely the pages of\ncontroversial literature, indicating the nature of the attack being\ndirected against Calvinism. Dogma was face to face with rationalism.\n\nA critical movement had long been developing in England, undermining\nthere the foundations of Calvinism; and in this work members of the\nAnglican clergy had aided. Hooker had been a rationalist and the\ninfluence of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ was thrown in favor of an\nappeal to reason and to history. He rejected a literal Hebraism for\na more philosophical interpretation of the Scripture. \u201cThe Light of\nnaturall understanding, wit and reason, is from God,\u201d he argued; \u201che\nit is which thereby doth illuminate every man entring into the World.\nHe is the Author of all that we think or do by vertue of that light\nwhich himselfe hath given.\u201d[162] Because of this rationalizing tendency\nthe Anglican clergy, before the middle of the seventeenth century, had\npassed from the Calvinistic to the Arminian position. The fundamental\ndogma of Arminianism was the doctrine of the freedom of the will--that\nthe elect of God are not pre-chosen, but a righteous life and good\nworks will bring men into the way of salvation. Destructive of the\nwhole Calvinistic system as such doctrine was--striking at the taproot\nof determinism--Arminianism carried a social significance greater than\nits theological import: it was an expression of the ideal of individual\nresponsibility that emerged from the decay of the feudal system. The\nfirst reformers had asserted the right to individual interpretation\nof the Scriptures; the Arminians threw upon the individual the whole\nresponsibility, bidding him assert his will and achieve his own\nsalvation.\n\nEnglish rationalism was carried further by a notable group of thinkers,\nincluding Milton and Locke, who rapidly passed from Arminianism to\nArianism, and thence to Deism. By the beginning of the eighteenth\ncentury English Presbyterianism, which had clung to Calvinism long\nafter the defection of the Anglicans, was undermined by the growing\nrationalism and finally passed over into Unitarianism. Calvinism had\nlost the battle in the old world and ceased to play an important part\nin the intellectual life of England. In the face of this steady drift\naway from the conception of a divine Will that dwarfed the human will\nand held it fixed in the mesh of the divine purpose, towards the\nconception of the responsibility of the individual and the significance\nof the moral code in the work of salvation, the New England Calvinists\nfound their work cut out for them. A critical spirit was stirring, an\nincipient rationalism was beginning to ask questions; orthodoxy for\nthe first time was on the defensive, and ill equipped for the pending\nbattle.\n\nBut Calvinism had fallen into the clutch of forces greater and more\nrevolutionary than either minister or congregation realized. To preach\nwith convincing force one must appeal to the common experience; dogma\nmust seem to square with the evident facts of life; it must appear\nto be the inevitable and sufficient explanation of the mysteries and\nperplexities that beset men in the world of reality. When it ceases to\nbe a reasonable working hypothesis in the light of common experience,\nit is no longer a controlling influence in men\u2019s lives. And this was\nthe unhappy predicament in which Calvinism now found itself. Take, for\nexample, the doctrine of total depravity. In the corrupt worlds of\nAugustine and John Calvin such a doctrine must have seemed a reasonable\nexplanation of the common brutality; an evil society must spring from\nthe evil heart of man. But in the village world of New England the\ndoctrine had lost its social sanction. When in moments of calm sense\nthese provincial Calvinists asked themselves if the human heart were\nin truth utterly depraved, if they themselves and their neighbors were\nsuch vipers and worms as they professed to be, the conviction must have\ngrown upon them that such professions were untrue. The everyday life of\nthe New England village was animated by rugged virtues--by kindliness\ntoward neighbors and faithfulness to a strict ethical code, rather than\nby hatred to God and man, or brutal wallowing in sin. In short, these\nvillagers knew that they were very far from a bad lot; and when they\npondered on this fact they must have discovered increasing difficulty\nin reconciling Sunday dogma and week-day experience. Although they\nrepeated the familiar creed, the sanction for that creed was gone; it\nwas the voice of dogma that spoke, and not the voice of reason and\nexperience.[163]\n\nSuch is the explanation, as well, of the decay of another of the\ncardinal points of Calvinism--the dogma of special election. In an\naristocratic society it is natural to believe that God has set men\napart in classes; but as the leveling process tended to strip away\nsocial distinctions, the new individualism undermined the older class\npsychology. When the common man has freed himself from political\nabsolutism, he will become dissatisfied with theological absolutism.\nThe right to achieve salvation is a natural corollary to the right to\nwin social distinction; that one\u2019s future status lay wholly beyond the\nreach of one\u2019s will, that it rested in the hands of an arbitrary God\nwho gave or withheld salvation at pleasure, was a conception that ill\naccorded with the nascent ideal of democracy. When that ideal should\nbe sufficiently clarified, the dogma of the elect of God, like the\naristocratic conception of the king\u2019s favorite, would be quietly put\naway in the potter\u2019s field.\n\nAs the century advanced, the growing dissatisfaction with Calvinism\nreceived fresh impetus from the new social philosophy of France. The\nteaching of Rousseau that in a state of nature men were good, that\nthey are still sound at heart, and that the evils of civilization\nhave resulted from a perversion of the social contract, would appeal\nto men whose experience was daily teaching them the falseness of the\ntraditional dogmas; and the ideal of equality would come home with\nspecial meaning to men bred up in villages and on the frontier. Such\ndoctrines were fundamentally hostile to the spirit of Calvinism: not\nonly did Rousseau set the doctrine of human perfectibility over against\nthe dogma of total depravity, but he quickened the passion of revolt\nagainst every form of arbitrary authority, theological as well as\npolitical and social. Although the provincial colonial might not come\nin immediate contact with such speculative philosophy, in the long\nrun he could not escape being influenced by it, and that influence\nwould count against a decadent theology that held men\u2019s minds in its\ntenacious _rigor mortis_.\n\nThe crux of the question, it came finally to be seen by the apologists\nof the old order, lay in the fundamental problem of determinism. Was\nthe will of man effectively free, or was it held in strict subjection\nto the stable will of God? According as the decision went touching\nthis question, would stand or fall the entire metaphysical structure\nof Calvinism. To this problem, therefore, the best minds among the\nministers directed their thought; and the historical position of\nJonathan Edwards, greatest of the defenders of Calvinism, is revealed\nin its true perspective when his labors are studied in the light of\nthis vital question.\n\n\nII\n\nNever had the traditional theology been so sorely in need of a champion\nas at the beginning of the second quarter of the eighteenth century;\nand such a champion God raised up--many devout Calvinists believed--in\nthe person of Jonathan Edwards. Armed at all points--a theologian\nequipped with the keenest dialectics, a metaphysician endowed with a\nbrilliantly speculative mind, a psychologist competent to deal with\nthe subtlest phenomena of the sick soul--here was a man who might be\ncounted on to justify the ancient dogmas to the troubled churches of\nNew England.\n\nThe offspring of four generations of religious enthusiasts, by every\nright of heredity and training the child of Puritanism, Jonathan\nEdwards was the last and greatest of the royal line of Puritan mystics.\nAs a young man he felt himself to be living in the very presence of\nGod; he was conscious of the divine life flowing through and around\nhim, making him one with the Godhood; and he was filled with yearning\nfor personal union with the divine love in Christ. His intellectual and\nspiritual life was molded by a God-consciousness as passionate as that\nof Spinoza; and it is this fact of a lifelong devotion to the God-idea\nthat furnishes the clue to an understanding of his later development.\nNot content that God had marked him for His own, he must build a\nphilosophical universe about the Godhood, justifying his mysticism by\na metaphysical idealism. He must examine critically the foundations of\nhis creed and establish his theology upon philosophy. No obscurity must\nremain unprobed, no link in the chain of reasoning escape challenge:\nhe must base the five points of Calvinism upon a metaphysics that\nshould relate them to a universal system of thought, giving them a\ncosmic as well as a Biblical sanction. It was a great ambition, likely\nto prove too difficult even for the remarkable powers of Edwards; and\nif in pursuit of new arguments for old doctrines, he found himself\ninclosed in a mesh of subtleties, if his theology and metaphysics were\nnever quite reconciled, blame must be laid upon the difficulty of\nthe undertaking rather than on the incapacity of the thinker. To one\ncardinal principle Edwards was faithful--the conception of the majesty\nand sufficiency of God; and this polar idea provides the clue to both\nhis philosophical and theological systems.\n\nYet with this as a guide there is much that remains perplexing. There\nare inconsistencies in his thought as there were in his pastoral\nlife; and we shall understand his position only when we recognize the\ncontrary tendencies which confused him, as the inevitable consequences\nof a system of thought that was at once reactionary and progressive,\nthe outcome of certain latent inconsistencies too antagonistic for any\nthinker to reconcile. As the defender of the traditional theology,\nsetting his face against the developing experience of his generation,\nand as a rigid disciplinarian, reverting to the older Separatist\nconception of a church of the elect, and rejecting the \u201cwhole way\ncovenant\u201d of his grandfather Stoddard, he may perhaps appear in the\nlight of a reactionary. But as the expounder of philosophic idealism\nhe was looking forward to Emerson; and as the advocate of the new\nrevivalistic methods, exalting the experience of conversion as the\ncentral fact of the Christian life, and assisting the forces that were\ndrawing church and state apart, he was a pronounced revolutionist,\nthe schismatic leader of the New Lights and the father of later\nCongregationalism. That Edwards was aware of certain inconsistencies is\nfairly evident; that he was puzzled, hesitated, and stopped halfway in\nhis labors, is evident too, unless we believe, with Mrs. Stowe, that\ncertain of his speculations were too daring to put into print. The\nchains that bound him were too strong to be broken; the contradictions\nthat lay at the root of the Calvinistic system could be eradicated only\nby grubbing up the whole, and for that the time had not yet come.\n\nIn his early years, before his conversion turned him aside from\nhis true path, setting the apologetics of the theologian above the\nspeculations of the philosopher, Edwards gave promise of becoming a\nstrikingly creative thinker. Following the native bent of his genius,\nhe plunged into the study of metaphysics with such fruitful results\nthat it seemed likely that New England Puritanism was at last to\ncome to flower; that the mystical perception of the divine love,\nwhich had steeped the early Puritan thought in emotion and quickened\nit to poetry, was now to create a system of philosophy which, like\ntranscendentalism in the next century, should adequately express the\naspirations of the New England mind. There is no more interesting phase\nin the early history of Edwards than the transition from religious\nmysticism to philosophical idealism. The yearning for the knitting of\nthe soul to Christ, as expressed in the imagery of the Song of Songs,\nburgeoned into a larger idealism that translated the Rose of Sharon and\nthe Lily of the Valley into an all-pervasive spirit of divine life. In\ncertain moods it is the mystic who cries, \u201cMy soul breaketh for the\nlonging it hath; my soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they who watch\nfor the morning.\u201d\n\n He was reading one day the words of Scripture [says Allen,\n paraphrasing Edwards\u2019 diary], \u201cNow unto the King eternal, immortal,\n invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever, Amen,\u201d\n when there came to him for the first time a sort of inward, sweet\n delight in God and divine things. A sense of the divine glory was,\n as it were, diffused through him. He thought how happy he should\n be if he might be rapt up to God in Heaven, swallowed up in him\n forever. He began to have an inward, sweet sense of Christ and the\n work of redemption. The Book of Canticles attracted him as a fit\n expression for his mood. It seemed to him as if he were in a kind\n of vision, alone in the mountains or some solitary wilderness,\n conversing sweetly with Christ and wrapt and swallowed up in\n God.... God\u2019s Excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed\n to appear in everything--in the sun, moon, and stars; in clouds\n and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water and all\n nature, which used greatly to fix my mind.[164]\n\nIn other moods the intellect gains ascendency over the emotions, and it\nis the idealistic metaphysician who speaks. With a searching curiosity\nthat impelled him to ask what lies behind the outward semblance of\nthings, binding them into a coherent whole and imparting to the world\nof experience a compelling unity, he came early to an interpretation\ndistinctly Berkeleyan. From what source he derived it has been much\ndebated and remains unanswered; nevertheless it is clear that it is\nclosely related to his religious mysticism. When he inquired what lies\nback of the outward semblance, what is the thing in itself behind\nattributes and qualities, the existence of which is implicit in our\nperception of time and space, but which cannot be resolved into the\nthings perceived, it was natural that he should have interpreted this\n_Ding an sich_ in terms of God. \u201cMen are wont to content themselves\nby saying merely that it is something; but that something is _He_ in\nwhom all things consist.\u201d[165] The world of sensation thus translates\nitself into a world of ideas; and this world of ideas, the expression\nof the divine mind, is the only reality. The more important of his\nearly generalizations are given by Allen in some extracts from his\nnotes on the \u201cMind\u201d: \u201cBodies have no existence of their own.\u201d \u201cAll\nexistence is mental; the existence of all things is ideal.\u201d \u201cThe brain\nexists only mentally, or in idea.\u201d \u201cInstead of matter being the only\nproper substance, and more substantial than anything else because it is\nhard and solid, yet it is truly nothing at all, strictly and in itself\nconsidered.\u201d \u201cThe universe exists nowhere but in the divine mind.\u201d\n\u201cSpace is necessary, eternal, infinite, and omnipresent. But I had as\ngood speak plain. I have already said as much as that space is God.\u201d\n\u201cAnd indeed the secret lies here,--that which truly is the substance\nof all bodies is the infinitely exact and precise and perfectly stable\nIdea in God\u2019s mind, together with His stable will that the same shall\ngradually be communicated to us, and to other minds, according to\ncertain fixed and exact established methods and laws; or, in somewhat\ndifferent language, the infinitely exact, precise, Divine Idea,\ntogether with the answerable, perfectly exact, precise, and stable\nwill, with respect to correspondent communications to created minds and\neffects on their minds.\u201d[166]\n\nEdwards had come to such conclusions before the normal unfolding\nof his mind was interrupted by his conversion. From the first a\nstrong bias toward theology had tended to warp his interest in the\npurely metaphysical, and with the quickening of an active religious\nexperience, he turned to examine the dogmas which expressed his faith.\nThe call of the churches in distress came to him, and he made ready\nhis logic to do battle with the enemy. Against the twin tendencies\nthat were undermining the foundations of Calvinism--Arminianism with\nits humanistic emphasis and deism with its mechanistic--the deepest\ninstincts of Edwards protested. The profound God-consciousness that\nfilled him was stirred by what seemed an infidel attack upon the\ndivine glory and sufficiency; the mystic and idealist was aroused to\nprotest against a theology that conceived of religion as consisting\nof benevolence toward men rather than in union with God; and\nagainst a philosophy that in constructing a mechanical system was\nde-personalizing God into a vague First Cause, and bowing him politely\nout of the universe. In so great a crisis his duty seemed clear--to\nvindicate, not the ways of God, but God himself to men; to assert the\nglory and sufficiency of God even to the extent of minifying the\ncapacities and potentialities of man.\n\nThe basis of his defense was already provided in his metaphysics, the\nconception of the divine idea existent in God\u2019s mind and expressed\nin His stable will. The needs of his polemics, however, thrust into\nrelief the secondary rather than the primary element in his philosophy,\nexalting the doctrine of the divine will to the obscuring of the divine\nidea. How this came about is sufficiently clear in the light of the\nfact that in explaining the existence of evil, Calvinism fell back on\ndeterminism: the dogma of election could be fitted to the conception of\na precise and stable will of God. The long feud between Arminianism and\nCalvinism resulted from emphasis laid upon different attributes of the\nGodhood. Shall God be interpreted in terms of will or love? If He is\nthe sovereign ruler of the universe, He is also the common father; and\nthat which broadly divides later theological systems from earlier is\nthe shift from the former interpretation to the latter. The strategic\nweakness of Edwards\u2019s position lay in his assumption of the divine\nsovereignty as a cardinal postulate.\n\nBut in adhering to the doctrine of predetermined election by the\nsovereign will of God, Edwards did unconscious violence to the\ninstincts of the mystic, that throughout his earlier speculations--and\nin much of his later, as well--impelled him to glorify the love of God\nthe Father, and the sweetness of spiritual communion with Him. The\npractical necessities of the preacher, called upon to uphold the dogma\nof election in face of growing disbelief, seem to have forced him to\nsuch a position; but once having entered upon the train of speculation\nopened by the question of divine polity involved in \u201cHis having mercy\non whom He will have mercy, while whom He will. He hardeneth,\u201d he came\nsomewhat reluctantly to accept the doctrine of God\u2019s sovereignty as\nthe cardinal principle of his theology, the creative source of his\nthinking. Thereafter he followed a path that led back to an absolutist\npast, rather than forward to a more liberal future. He had broken\nwholly with the social tendencies of his age and world.[167]\n\nThe philosophical conception of divine sovereignty was too abstract\nto concern the New England laity; it was rather against the dependent\ndogmas of election and total depravity that the revolt was rising.\nAnd in defense of these threatened dogmas Edwards put forth his best\nstrength. The crux of the matter, obviously, lay in the difficult\nquestion of the power of will. The entire structure of Calvinistic\ntheology had been erected upon the assumption of determinism; and\nit must stand or fall according as the argument should justify or\nfail to justify that hypothesis. If the human will is effectively\nfree to choose between good and evil, the dogma of the elect must\ngo down with the dogma of predestination; and the teachings of the\nArminians--tending, as they seemed to the Calvinist, to abase the\ncreator in exalting the creature, and minifying the sovereignty of God\nin magnifying the excellence of man--would be in a way to prevail.\nAround this crucial point the battle had long raged, and it was with\nfull realization of the critical nature of the problem that Edwards\nresolved to penetrate to the root of the matter, and by subjecting\nthe question of determinism to exact analysis, rout the enemies of\nCalvinism from the inmost keep of their stronghold. His celebrated work\n_On the Freedom of the Will_, written in 1754, not only was his most\nimportant contribution to theology, but it was the last great defense\nof the conservatism that was stifling the intellectual life of New\nEngland.\n\nThe argument of this knotty book rests on a psychological rather than\na metaphysical basis. Compressed into the briefest terms it runs thus:\nwill is subject to desire, and desire follows what seems to us good;\nhence the determining impulse is to be sought in the impulse to seek\nthe apparent good. The ethical import of such an argument will turn,\nof course, upon the character of the good which the natural man may\nbe expected to desire. To Rousseau with his benevolent interpretation\nof human nature nothing is to be feared from the subjection of will\nto desire. Nor to the younger Edwards, feeling his way along the path\nof transcendentalism, rediscovering the doctrine of the inner light,\nwas such subjection to be feared. In a remarkable sermon published\nin 1734, he had expounded the thesis, \u201cThat there is such a thing\nas a Spiritual and Divine Light, immediately imparted to the Soul\nby God, of a different nature from any that is obtained by natural\nmeans.\u201d[168] The divine splendor which the idealist had seen diffused\nthrough the material world the theologian was now merging with the\nregenerative life of the Holy Spirit which \u201cacts in the mind of a\nsaint as an in-dwelling vital principle.\u201d It is \u201ca kind of emanation\nof God\u2019s beauty, and is related to God as the light is to the sun\u201d;\nit is a new vision by means of which one may \u201csee the beauty and\nloveliness of spiritual things.\u201d In such a reinterpretation of the\nQuaker doctrine--so harshly condemned by the earlier Puritans--Edwards\nentered upon a train of thought that threatened to disrupt the entire\nCalvinistic system. He was at the dividing of the ways; he must abandon\ntranscendentalism or the dogma of total depravity.\n\nInstead he sought refuge in compromise, endeavoring to reconcile what\nwas incompatible. Herein lay the tragedy of Edwards\u2019s intellectual\nlife; the theologian triumphed over the philosopher, circumscribing\nhis powers to ignoble ends. The field of efficiency allotted by the\nlater theologian to this \u201cin-dwelling vital principle,\u201d was no longer\ncoextensive with the universe, but was narrowed to the little world\nof the elect. In the primal state of man, Edwards argued, before the\nsin of Adam had destroyed the harmony between creature and creator,\nthe light which flowed from God as from a sun shone freely upon His\nuniverse, filling its remotest parts with the divine plenitude; but\nwith the fall the harmony was destroyed, the sun was hidden, and only\nstray beams broke through the rifts to shine upon those whom God willed\nthem to shine upon; all else in creation was given over to eternal\ndarkness. And if the natural man, thus cast into sudden darkness \u201cas\nlight ceases in a room when the candle is withdrawn,\u201d is a being whose\nwill is impotent to his salvation, it follows that he will now be\nimpelled as inevitably towards evil as before he was impelled towards\ngood. Every instinct of a nature corrupt and compact of sin, and with\nno wish to exchange darkness for light--having no eyes for the divine\nglory--drives him to a blind and consuming hatred of God. He is become\nas a loathsome \u201cviper, hissing and spitting poison at God,\u201d the\noutcast and pariah of the universe. There is no drawing back from the\nconclusion involved in the argument; the Edwardean logic moves forward\nby regular steps. The punishment meted out to sin is to be measured\nby the excellence of which the sin is a denial. God is of infinite\nexcellence, and denial of His excellence is therefore infinitely sinful\nand merits infinite punishment. As a perfectly just judge God could not\ndecree otherwise; because of the infinite heinousness of his sin, the\nnatural man must receive the doom of eternal damnation.[169]\n\nUnder the rod of such logic--grotesque, abortive, unseasoned by any\nsaving knowledge of human nature--Edwards preached that remarkable\nseries of imprecatory sermons that sank deep into the memory of New\nEngland, and for which it has never forgiven him.[170] Unfortunate\nas those sermons were in darkening the fame of an acute thinker,\ndisastrous as they were in providing a sanction for other men to\nterrify the imaginations of ill-balanced persons, we cannot regret that\nEdwards devoted his logic to an assiduous stoking of the fires of hell.\nThe theology of Calvin lay like a heavy weight upon the soul of New\nEngland, and there could be no surer way to bring it into disrepute,\nthan to thrust into naked relief the brutal grotesqueries of those\ndogmas that professed thus to explain the dark mysteries which lie upon\nthe horizons of life. For a long while yet they were to harass the\nimagination of New England, but the end already could be foreseen. Once\nthe horrors that lay in the background of Calvinism were disclosed to\ncommon view, the system was doomed. It might still wear the semblance\nof life; it might still remain as an evil genius to darken the\nconscience of men and women; but its authoritative appeal was gone. In\nthis necessary work of freeing the spirit of New England, no other\nthinker played so large or so unconscious a part as Jonathan Edwards;\nand it was the notorious minatory sermons--the translation into vivid\nimages of the generalized dogmas--that awakened the popular mind to an\nunderstanding of the conclusions involved in the premises.\n\nWhile Edwards was thus hastening the decay of Calvinism with his lurid\npainting of \u201cthe landscape of hell,\u201d in another phase of his work he\nwas engaged in awakening an interest in religion among the slothful\nchurches. He had long been interested in the phenomena of conversion,\nand as the great revival of the forties, led by Whitefield, spread from\nEngland to the colonies, he joined eagerly in the work. In consequence\nof an earlier revival in his parish of Northampton, his attention had\nbeen drawn to the little understood psychology of the awakening soul,\nand with the detachment of the scientist he set himself to study the\nproblem. The terrors aroused by his minatory sermons provided his\nclinical laboratory with numerous cases of abnormal emotionalism. Day\nafter day he probed and analyzed and compared, until as a result of\nhis close studies in vivisection, he became a specialist in the theory\nof conversion, commanding the eager attention of a generation that had\ncome to look upon this as the central fact of Christian experience.\nIt is not easy today to be sympathetic with this phase of Edwards\u2019s\nwork; it belongs equally with his dogmas to a world of thought that\nis no longer ours. The repulsive records as they are set down in his\n_Narrative of the Surprizing Works of God_, marked by evidence of\npathological states of mind not far removed from insanity, no longer\nseem a testimony to God\u2019s beneficent presence; the spiritual writhings\nwhich this gentle-natured student watched with such fascination,\nappear rather to be cases for the alienist to prescribe for. But to\nEdwards the terrors of a five-year-old girl were not pathological;\nthey were the soul-labors of the spiritual rebirth, the visible signs\nof the supreme miracle of the universe, filling him with wonder and\nawe at God\u2019s infinite mercy; and like a modern psychologist he was\nat enormous pains to chart the successive steps in the miraculous\ntransformation.[171]\n\nOther and greater consequences were to flow from the new revivalism.\nThe Great Awakening was the single movement that stirred the colonial\nheart deeply during three generations. It reveals, among other things,\nthat America was still living in the world of the seventeenth century:\nthat the upper class was not yet rationalized, nor the middle class\ncommercialized. Theology was still of greater popular interest than\npolitics. In its chief phenomena the Great Awakening was a return to an\nearlier age--to those unbalanced enthusiasms of the Puritan upheaval.\nIt was essentially a mass movement. Its use of hypnotic suggestion, its\nlurid terrorism, its outcries and hysterical possessions, reveal like\nthe Ranters of a hundred years before the phenomena of mob psychology,\nand it made appeal to the ill-educated, the isolated, the neurotic, to\nthe many natural victims of hypnotic excitation bred by the monotony\nand austerity of village life. Its after effects were revolutionary,\nfor the quickening of religious emotionalism marked the beginning of\nthe end of Puritan formalism.\n\nThe bitter quarrel among the churches which followed as an aftermath\nwas more than a theological dispute; it was a sign of the breaking\nup of the traditional parish system. The hierarchy had long before\nlost its authority, but in their several parishes the ministers still\nenjoyed patriarchal power. The tragic dismissal of Edwards from his\nparish was an unprecedented revolt against that authority. But greater\nchanges were to follow. After the Great Awakening itinerant preachers\nmade their appearance, who presumed to enter any parish without the\nconsent of the minister, and preach such doctrines as they would. They\nwere non-conforming free lances, hostile to the established church,\nwhose stock-in-trade was the new emotionalism. Under their leadership,\nSeparatist congregations were gathered that were not only an offense to\nthe regular establishment but a challenge to its authority. Hundreds\nleft the old congregations and flocked to the Baptists and Methodists,\nand naturally they would make trouble over paying taxes to support a\nchurch they had repudiated. In short, a little revolution was under way\nthat was to end in the complete disintegration of the parish system.\n\nBy a curious irony of fate, Jonathan Edwards, reactionary Calvinist\nand philosophical recluse, became the intellectual leader of the\nrevolutionaries. His insistence upon conversion as the sole ground\nof admission to communion was the final blow that destroyed the old\ntheocratic system which the Mathers had labored to uphold. Church\nand state were effectively cut asunder by such a test. There is no\nevidence that Edwards was concerned about the political or social\nconsequences that must result from the abandonment of the traditional\n\u201cHalf-way Covenant.\u201d It was a question of doctrine with him, involving\nonly matters of church discipline. Although he was accused of being a\nSeparatist, and of seeking to disintegrate the parish system, he had no\nthought of attacking a parochial order that he held in high esteem. He\nwas unconcerned that his teachings led straight to the old Separatist\nconclusion that it is the church mystical which Christ established,\nand not the church visible. Nevertheless he became the creator of the\nnew Congregationalism, which in accepting the democratic principles\nelaborated by John Wise and establishing the local church as an\nautonomous unit, effectively nullified the Presbyterian tendencies of\nthe old order.\n\nAs one follows the laborious career of this great thinker, a sense of\nthe tragic failure of his life deepens. The burdens that he assumed\nwere beyond the strength of any man. Beginning as a mystic, brooding\non the all-pervasive spirit of sweetness and light diffused through\nthe universe, with its promise of spiritual emancipation; then turning\nto an archaic theology and giving over his middle years to the work\nof minifying the excellence of man in order to exalt the sovereignty\nof God; and finally settling back upon the mystical doctrine of\nconversion--such a life leaves one with a feeling of futility, a sense\nof great powers baffled and wasted, a spiritual tragedy enacted within\nthe narrow walls of a minister\u2019s study. There was both pathos and irony\nin the fate of Jonathan Edwards, removed from the familiar places\nwhere for twenty years he had labored, the tie with his congregation\nbroken, and sent to the frontier mission at Stockbridge to preach to a\nband of Indians and to speculate on the unfreedom of the human will.\nThe greatest mind of New England had become an anachronism in a world\nthat bred Benjamin Franklin. If he had been an Anglican like Bishop\nBerkeley, if he had mingled with the leaders of thought in London\ninstead of remaining isolated in Massachusetts, he must have made a\nname for himself not unworthy to be matched with that of the great\nbishop whom he so much resembled. The intellectual powers were his,\nbut the inspiration was lacking; like Cotton Mather before him, he was\nthe unconscious victim of a decadent ideal and a petty environment.\nCut off from fruitful intercourse with other thinkers, drawn away from\nthe stimulating field of philosophy into the arid realm of theology,\nit was his fate to devote his noble gifts to the thankless task of\nre-imprisoning the mind of New England within a system from which his\nnature and his powers summoned him to unshackle it. He was called to be\na transcendental emancipator, but he remained a Calvinist.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[161] Quoted in Walker, _History of the Congregational Churches in the\nUnited States_, p. 216.\n\n[162] _Ecclesiasticall Politie_, sixth edition, Book III, p. 10.\n\n[163] See Wendell, _Literary History of America_, p. 89.\n\n[164] _Jonathan Edwards_, p. 25.\n\n[165] _Ibid._, p. 13.\n\n[166] For an examination of the philosophy of Edwards, see Adam\nLeroy Jones, \u201cEarly American Philosophers,\u201d in _Columbia University\nContributions to Philosophy, Psychology and Education_, Vol. II, No. 4,\nChapter 4.\n\n[167] For a statement of the doctrine, see Sermon XXXIV, \u201cGod\u2019s\nSovereignty,\u201d in _Works_, New York, 1847, Vol. IV, p. 548.\n\nEdwards unconsciously admits that the doctrine of sovereignty was\nreactionary. \u201cFrom my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections\nagainst the doctrine of God\u2019s sovereignty, in choosing whom He would to\neternal life, and rejecting whom He pleased, leaving them eternally to\nperish and be everlastingly tormented in hell.\u201d Later he came to regard\nsuch repugnance as the sinful expression of the natural man. As he saw\nfurther, his mind \u201capprehended the justice and reasonableness of ...\nGod\u2019s absolute sovereignty and justice with respect to salvation ...\nas much as of anything that I see with my eyes; at least it is so at\ntimes. But I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another\nsense of God\u2019s sovereignty than I had then. I have often hid not only\na conviction, but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often\nappeared exceedingly pleasant, bright, and sweet.... But my first\nconviction was not so.\u201d Quoted in Allen, _Jonathan Edwards_, pp. 37-38.\n\n[168] Sermon XXVII, in _Works_, Vol. IV, p. 438.\n\n[169] See Sermon IX, in _Works_, Vol. IV, p. 226. The argument is\nunfolded in the following propositions: \u201cEvery crime or fault deserves\na greater or less punishment, according as the crime is greater or\nless.\u201d \u201cA crime is more or less heinous, according as we are under\ngreater or less obligations to the contrary.\u201d \u201cOur obligations to\nlove, honor, and obey any being, is in proportion to its loveliness,\nhonorableness, and authority.\u201d \u201cBut God is a being infinitely lovely,\nbecause he hath infinite excellence and beauty.\u201d \u201cSo that sin against\nGod, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime\ninfinitely heinous, and so deserving of infinite punishment.\u201d\n\n[170] See in particular Sermon XI. \u201cThe Eternity of Hell Torments\u201d;\nSermon XII, \u201cWhen the Wicked shall have filled up the measure of their\nSin, wrath will come upon them to the uttermost\u201d; Sermon XIII, \u201cThe End\nof the Wicked contemplated by the Righteous; or, The Torments of the\nWicked in Hell, no occasion of grief to the Saints in Heaven\u201d; Sermon\nXV, \u201cSinners in the Hands of an Angry God,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. IV.\n\n[171] According to Edwards there were four regular stages: (1) the\nfirst stirrings, when the sinner is brought under conviction that he is\nlost; (2) the realization of God\u2019s justice, that he merits damnation;\n(3) the breaking in of the light, the first \u201cgracious discoveries\u201d\nof God\u2019s mercies; (4) peace after the storm, the joy of assurance of\nsalvation. For a fuller statement, see Allen, _Jonathan Edwards_, pp.\n133-160.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Benjamin Franklin \u2022 Our First Ambassador\n\n\nThere was a singularly dramatic fitness in the life and career of\nBenjamin Franklin. America has never been more worthily represented\nat old-world capitals than by this unpretentious commoner, drawn from\nthe stock of the plain people. A plebeian in an aristocratic age, he\nwas nevertheless, by common consent, first among colonial Americans in\nqualities of mind and heart. A wit and philosopher, rich in learning,\ncharming in manners, ripe in the wisdom of this world, resourceful\nin dealing with men and events, he was one of the most delightful as\nhe was one of the greatest men produced by the English race in the\neighteenth century.\n\n\u201cFigure to yourself,\u201d he wrote in his seventy-second year, \u201can old man,\nwith gray hair appearing under a marten fur cap, among the powdered\nheads of Paris. It is this odd figure that salutes you, with handfuls\nof blessings.\u201d An odd figure indeed in such a setting, but a figure\nthat captured the imagination of Paris, as it has since captured the\nimagination of America; so novel as to seem romantic--a charming rustic\nphilosopher who might have stepped out of the pages of Rousseau. And\nso the French aristocracy patronized _le bon homme_, and laughed with\nhim at the affectations of this preposterous world, and made much of\nhim for the zest that it discovered in a novel sensation. It was the\nsame odd figure that had stood at the bar of the House of Commons and\nmatched his intelligence against that of celebrated English lawyers;\nthe same figure that had been called in council by the great Pitt--who\nthought himself too great to learn anything even from Franklin; that\nhad been lashed by the scurrilous tongue of Wedderburn; that had seen a\nthousand bribes dangled before him by Lord Howe and other gentlemen--a\nfigure that seems strangely out of place in that old-fashioned Tory\nworld, with its narrow sympathies and narrower intelligence. And yet\nconsidered in the light of social revolutions, what other figure in\neighteenth-century Europe or America is so dramatically significant?\nThe figure of the self-made democrat, with some three millions of his\nfellows at his back, and countless other millions to come, who was\nentering on a world-wide struggle for political mastery, the end of\nwhich no one can yet foresee? His presence in the councils of gentlemen\nwas a tacit denial of their hitherto unquestioned right of supremacy.\nIt was a rare personal triumph; but it was far more significant than\nthat, it was the triumph of a rising class and a new social ideal.\n\nAlthough Franklin\u2019s origins, whether Boston or Philadelphia, were\nnarrowly provincial, his mind from early youth to extreme old age was\ncuriously open and free, and to such a mind the intellectual wealth\nof the world lies open and free. From that wealth he helped himself\ngenerously, to such good effect that he early became an intellectual\ncosmopolitan, at ease with the best intellects and at home among the\ndiverse speculative interests of the eighteenth century: the sane and\nwitty embodiment of its rationalism, its emancipation from authority,\nits growing concern for social justice, its hopeful pursuit of new\npolitical and economic philosophies, its tempered optimism that trusted\nintelligence to set the world right. No other man in America and few in\nEurope had so completely freed themselves from the prejudice of custom.\nThe Calvinism in which he was bred left not the slightest trace upon\nhim; and the middle-class world from which he emerged did not narrow\nhis mind to its petty horizons. He was a free man who went his own\nway with imperturbable good will and unbiased intelligence; our first\nsocial philosopher, the first ambassador of American democracy to the\ncourts of Europe.\n\nFortune was kind to Franklin in many ways: kind in that it did not\nvisit upon him the fate that befell his elder brother Ebenezer, of whom\nSewall noted, \u201cEbenezer Franklin of the South Church, a male-infant\nof 16 months old, was drowned in a Tub of Suds, Febr. 5, 1702/3\u201d;\nkind also in that it set him in a land where opportunity waited upon\nenterprise, and where thousands of kindred spirits were erecting a\nsociety that honored such qualities as he possessed. In England he must\nhave remained middle-class, shut in by a wall of prejudice; but in\ncolonial America he found a congenial environment. Like Samuel Sewall,\nhe swam easily in the main current of colonial life, won increasing\nhonors, until--as he na\u00efvely remarked--he came more than once to stand\nbefore kings. How fortunate he was is revealed by contrast with the\ncareer of his great English counterpart and fellow spirit, Daniel\nDefoe, whose _Essay on Projects_--a classic document of the rising\nmiddle class--might well have been Franklin\u2019s first textbook.\n\nThe earliest literary representative of the English middle class, Defoe\npreached the same gospel of social betterment. With his head full of\nprojects for the advancement of trade and the material well-being of\nhis fellows, he preached the new gospel of practical efficiency to a\ngeneration of wits, going so far as to assert that the ideal statesman\nshould be sought, not among gentlemen but among merchants, whose\ntraining in business affairs had made them shrewd judges of men and\ncapable in dealing with practical matters. But the London of Queen\nAnne was not a place in which to rise by preaching efficiency. Defoe\u2019s\nday had not yet come in England, and in spite of great abilities and\narduous labors he remained a Grub Street hack, the servant and not\nthe counselor of aristocratic politicians. Instead of coming to stand\nbefore kings--like the more fortunate Franklin--he stood often before\nconstables; instead of cracking his joke and his bottle at Will\u2019s\nCoffee House, he was forced to study the ways of the unprosperous at\nBridewell. But if he failed in his ambition to get on, he found a\ncertain solace in the vicarious realization of his ideal. Robinson\nCrusoe, the practically efficient man making himself master of his\nenvironment, was the dream of Daniel Defoe; Franklin was the visible,\nnew-world embodiment of that dream.\n\nIt was Franklin\u2019s supreme capacity for doing well the things which\nhis fellow Americans held in esteem, that enabled him to rise out of\nobscurity to a position of leadership. Before he should be intrusted\nwith the confidence of his fellow citizens, he must prove himself\nworthy of such confidence, and even in colonial America the task was\nfar from easy. In the wealthier communities society was exclusive and\nselect--nowhere more so than in Philadelphia--and it could not be\nexpected to view with approval the advancement of a printer-tradesman,\nespecially if he were a member of the plebeian anti-Proprietary\nparty. It was an evidence of Franklin\u2019s discretion that he removed\nfrom Boston, where neither his father\u2019s chandlery shop, nor his\nbrother\u2019s baiting of the ruling gentry, would serve his purpose. In\nPhiladelphia, free from family entanglements, he bent himself to the\ntask of securing a competence, understanding how easily the wheel\nturns on a well-greased axle; and by the time he had come to his\nearly forties he had kept his shop so well that henceforth it would\nkeep him. He was ready to do his real work in the world; and in the\nchoice of that work he revealed the curious _flair_ for the timely that\nwas so characteristic. His extraordinary successes in the field of\ncivic betterments gained him the good will of the commonalty, and his\nexperiments in natural philosophy won the approbation of the gentry.\nInterest in scientific inquiry, particularly in physics, had spread\nwidely in England since the founding of the Royal Society, and to be an\nauthority on magnetism was as evident a mark of breeding in Georgian\nEngland as discriminating judgment in the matter of manuscripts and\nmistresses had been a sign of culture among Florentine cinquecentists.\nIn establishing a reputation as a natural philosopher, therefore,\nFranklin not only was acquiring dignity at home, but he was providing\nhimself with a sure passport to European favor. And it was the seal\nof European approval that finally won for Franklin the grudging\nrecognition of the first families of Philadelphia. A few held out\nagainst him and to the day of his death regarded him with disapproval;\nbut in the end his personal charm prevailed with all but a handful of\nelderly Tory ladies. So delightful a wit and so useful a citizen could\nnot be dismissed as a pushing tradesman.\n\nFranklin first entered politics as a member of the popular party, then\nengaged in a bitter struggle with the Proprietors over tax matters,\ndefense of the frontier, and other questions of acute popular concern.\nThere was the usual colonial alignment between the backcountry yeomanry\nand the town gentry; between the agrarian and mercantile interests;\nand the dispute had reached a point where the yeomanry determined to\nappeal to the King to convert the commonwealth into a Crown Colony. As\none of the leaders of the popular party, Franklin was singled out for\nattack. A bitter election went against him, and he lost his seat in the\nAssembly, only to be chosen Colonial Agent to England, there to begin\nhis long diplomatic career. Probably no other attack which Franklin\nsuffered was so coarse or vindictive as this assault by the Proprietary\nparty, led by the first gentlemen of Philadelphia, John Dickinson\namong them. Unpleasant as the experience was, it proved of service to\nFranklin, for it taught him how quickly the hornets would be about the\nears of anyone who disturbed the nest of official perquisites; and this\nwas worth knowing to a colonial diplomat on his first mission to a\ncourt and parliament where yellow jackets were uncommonly abundant.[172]\n\nHe was nearly threescore when he set out on his diplomatic mission,\nwhich beginning modestly as temporary agent of the anti-Proprietary\nparty of Pennsylvania, was to broaden immensely as the American\ndifficulties increased, until he became in the eyes of all the\nworld the spokesman of the colonial cause; first at London to King,\nParliament, and people, and later at Paris to all Europe. It was\na mission of discussion and argument, curiously illuminating to\na colonial bred in a simple, decentralized world. Before he went\nabroad Franklin had been a democrat by temperament and environment;\nwhen he returned he was a democrat by conviction, confirmed in his\npreference for government immediately responsible to the majority\nwill. Centralized Tory governments had taught him the excellence\nof town-meeting ways. At London he discovered widespread political\ncorruption. It was a world flyblown with the vices of irresponsible\npower. The letters of Franklin are full of the scandal of bribe-taking\nand pension-mongering, of gross parliamentary jobbery. The elections\nof 1768 were a debauch, the brisk bidding of Indian nabobs sending the\nmarket price of parliamentary seats up to four thousand pounds. \u201cIt\nis thought,\u201d he wrote on March 13, \u201cthat near two millions will be\nspent on this election; but those, who understand figures and act by\ncomputation, say the crown has _two millions in places and pensions_ to\ndispose of, and it is well worth while to engage in such a seven years\nlottery, though all that have tickets should not get prizes.\u201d[173]\nTo expect such a government to be swayed by appeals to justice or\nabstract rights was plain folly, Franklin very quickly learned. The\ncolonial goose was there to be plucked, and gentlemen who gained their\nlivelihood by skillful plucking would not easily be denied. \u201cTo get\na larger field on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites, is\nall that is regarded,\u201d wrote the celebrated London physician, Dr.\nFothergill, to Franklin.[174] Even war with the colonies might not seem\nundesirable to some, for \u201can auditor of the exchequer has sixpence in\nthe pound, or a fortieth part, of all the public money expended by the\nnation, so that, when a war costs forty millions, one million is paid\nto him.\u201d[175]\n\nIt was a bitter experience for one who had grown up in respect for\nEngland and veneration for English traditions. Franklin was not a\nman of divided loyalties, and his love of the old home was deep and\nsincere. He had many warm friends there, and the idea of American\nseparation from the empire was profoundly repugnant to him. It was not\ntill he was convinced beyond hope that America could expect from the\nEnglish government nothing but ignoble dependence that he accepted the\nidea of independence. Again and again he complained bitterly of \u201cthe\nextreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in this rotten\nold state.\u201d[176] \u201cI wish all the friends of liberty and of man would\nquit that sink of corruption, and leave it to its fate.\u201d \u201cI do not\nexpect that your new Parliament will be either wiser or honester than\nthe last. All projects to procure an honest one, by place bills, etc.,\nappear to me vain and impracticable. The true cure, I imagine, is to\nbe found in rendering all places unprofitable, and the King too poor\nto give bribes and pensions. Till this is done, which can only be by\na revolution (and I think you have not virtue enough left to procure\none), your nation will always be plundered, and obliged to pay by\ntaxes the plunderers for plundering and ruining. Liberty and virtue\ntherefore join in the call, +COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE+!\u201d[177] \u201cThe\npeople of England ... are just and generous,\u201d wrote his friend David\nHartley, member of Parliament, \u201cand, if it were put to the sense of\nthe people of England, you would not be left in any doubt whether it\nwas _want of will_, or _want of power_, to do you justice. You know\nthe blot of our constitution, by which, to our disgrace, and to your\nmisfortune, a corrupt ministry, sheltered by Parliamentary influence,\nare out of our immediate control. A day of account may come, when the\njustice of the nation may prevail; and if it comes not too late, it\nmay prove a day of reconciliation and cordial reunion between us and\nAmerica.\u201d[178] He is blind indeed who cannot see in such experience\nthe explanation of Franklin\u2019s later efforts in Pennsylvania and in the\nconstitutional convention to keep government in America responsive to\nthe will of the people.\n\nDuring the long years of his ambassadorship, so rich in intellectual\nopportunity, Franklin was intimately concerned with economics and\npolitics, and he found in them subjects congenial to his talents. By\ntemperament he was what we should call today a sociologist. He cared\nlittle for abstract reasoning, but much for social betterment; and this\nled him to examine critically current economic theory in the light\nof present fact. All his life economics was a major interest with\nhim, and his several contributions entitle him to be regarded as our\nfirst important economist, the only one indeed before the nineteenth\ncentury. His chief guides in this little explored field seem to have\nbeen Sir William Petty, the statistician of the Restoration period, in\nhis younger days, and the French Physiocrats in later years. He was\nthe first American to abandon the traditional mercantile school--a\ngeneration before other American thinkers had repudiated it; and he was\nthe first to ally himself with the rising school of _laissez faire_.\n\nIn the year 1729, when he was just turned twenty-three, Franklin\nentered the field of economics with a pamphlet entitled _A Modest\nInquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_. It is a\ncuriously suggestive work, not only for the light which it sheds on his\neconomic views, but on his social and political sympathies. It marks\nhis early alignment with the agrarian party, to which he adhered to\nthe end of his life. From the days when Samuel Sewall first confronted\nthe question of land-banks in the Massachusetts legislature till the\nBritish government forbade all issues of bills of credit, the currency\nquestion was bitterly debated in the several colonies. It was primarily\na class issue, in which the town merchants and money lenders found\nthemselves outvoted by the agrarian debtors and small men. Little light\nhad come from those debates on the nature of money and its social\nfunctions; but much heat had been engendered over the supposed question\nof honest versus dishonest money. With this cheap fallacy Franklin was\nnot concerned; but he was greatly concerned in this and in later papers\nin expounding the quantitative theory of money, the nature of credit,\nand the important fact, overlooked by the hard-money men, that gold and\nsilver are themselves commodities, fluctuating in value with supply and\ndemand. This first pamphlet, Franklin afterward remarked, \u201cwas well\nreceived by the common people in general; but the rich men disliked it,\nfor it increased and strengthened the clamor for more money; and, they\nhappening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it,\ntheir opposition slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in\nthe House.\u201d[179]\n\nBy much the most interesting idea in the pamphlet, however, is the\nelaboration of the labor theory of value. Commenting on this, McMaster\nsays in his _Life of Franklin_:\n\n Bad as were his notions of political economy, his pamphlet\n contained one great truth,--the truth that labor is the measure of\n value. Whether he discovered, or, as is not unlikely, borrowed it,\n he was the first openly to assert it; and his it remained till,\n forty-seven years later, Adam Smith adopted it and reaffirmed it in\n \u201cThe Wealth of Nations.\u201d[180]\n\nUnfortunately the biographer\u2019s knowledge of the history of economic\nthought was as faulty as, in his judgment, were Franklin\u2019s economic\nprinciples. In his _Treatise of Taxes_, written in 1662, Sir William\nPetty--whom Franklin in many ways greatly resembled--clearly elaborated\nthe principle of labor-value;[181] it was restated by Vauban in 1707,\nin his _Projet d\u2019une disme Royale_, by Hume in 1752, and later by the\nPhysiocrats; and when Adam Smith wrote it was pretty widely known.\nThere can be little doubt where Franklin got it. The similarity between\nhis work and that of Sir William Petty is too evident to escape\ncomment. But that does not lessen the significance of the fact that a\nself-trained provincial of three and twenty should have read Petty\u2019s\nwork, seized upon the salient idea and turned it to effective use,\nyears before economic students generally were acquainted with it. All\nhis life Franklin took up ideas like a sponge, and what he took he\nincorporated with the solid results of his own observations.\n\nDuring his stay in England Franklin came in close contact with the\nbody of Physiocratic writings, which seem to have greatly stimulated\nhis interest in economic thought. The school was at the height of\nits influence between the years 1763 and 1772, and had pretty well\nundermined the position of the mercantilists. They were the founders\nof modern social science and their teachings contained in germ the\nliberal doctrine of economics in its entirety. In their emphasis upon\nfree trade and _laissez-faire_ competition, on the police theory of\nthe state, on property, security, liberty, on the natural laws of\nassociation and self-interest, and especially in their emphasis on land\nas the sole source of wealth, they presented a system of economics that\nfitted American conditions as Franklin understood those conditions. In\none important point--their acceptance of an absolute prince--Franklin\nbroke with them wholly; but their preference for agriculture over\nmanufacturing and commerce accorded with his deepest convictions.\nAmerica was notably happy and contented in comparison with Europe, and\nAmerica would remain happy and contented, he believed, so long as land\nwas abundant and her farmers remained freeholders. The new middle-class\ngospel of industrialism he profoundly distrusted. He shared Goldsmith\u2019s\nconcern over the destruction of the English peasantry and the creation\nof a degraded proletariat. Manufacture and trade developed only\nwhere free land was inadequate or the peasants were dispossessed;\nindustrialism sprang from the national poverty and was nourished by it.\nWriting in 1760 he said:\n\n Unprejudiced men well know, that all the penal and prohibitory\n laws that were ever thought on will not be sufficient to prevent\n manufactures in a country, whose inhabitants surpass the number\n that can subsist by the husbandry of it.... Manufactures are\n founded in poverty. It is the number of poor without land in a\n country, and who must work for others at low wages or starve, that\n enables undertakers to carry on a manufacture, and afford it cheap\n enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and\n to bear the expense of its own exportation. But no man, who can\n have a piece of land of his own, sufficient by his labor to subsist\n his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer, and work\n for a master. Hence while there is land enough in America for our\n people, there can never be manufactures to any amount or value.[182]\n\nNine years later, in his _Positions to be Examined, concerning National\nWealth_, he stated the Physiocratic theory thus:\n\n There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The\n first is by _war_, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered\n neighbors. This is _robbery_. The second by _commerce_, which is\n generally _cheating_. The third by _agriculture_, the only _honest\n way_, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into\n the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of\n God in his favor.[183]\n\nFranklin\u2019s prejudice against trade somewhat lessened in after years,\nas he considered the economic need of free exchange of commodities.\nIn 1774, two years before the publication of _The Wealth of Nations_,\nhe collaborated with George Whately in writing a pamphlet entitled\n_Principles of Trade_, that suggests Adam Smith. Franklin was\nacquainted with Smith, had visited him, and doubtless had discussed\nwith him the theory of _laissez faire_, division of labor, use of\nmachinery, and other principles of the new school, but no mention of\nhim is made.[184] The central doctrine is thus elaborated:\n\n Perhaps, in general, it would be better if government meddled no\n farther with trade, than to protect it, and let it take its course.\n Most of the statutes, or acts, edicts, _arr\u00eats_, and placarts\n of parliaments, princes, and states, for regulating, directing,\n or restraining of trade, have, we think, been either political\n blunders, or jobs obtained by artful men for private advantage,\n under pretense of public good. When Colbert assembled some wise\n old merchants of France, and desired their advice and opinion,\n how he could best serve and promote commerce, their answer, after\n consultation, was, in three words only, _Laissez-nous faire_: \u201cLet\n us alone.\u201d It is said by a very solid writer of the same nation,\n that he is well advanced in the science of politics, who knows the\n full force of that maxim, _Pas trop gouverner_: \u201cNot to govern too\n much.\u201d Which, perhaps, would be of more use when applied to trade,\n than in any other public concern. It were therefore to be wished,\n that commerce was as free between all the nations of the world, as\n it is between the several counties of England; so would all, by\n mutual communication, obtain more enjoyments. Those counties do not\n ruin one another by trade; neither would the nations. No nation was\n ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.[185]\n\nAs a colonial, long familiar with the injustice of Navigation Laws,\nBoards of Trade, and other restrictions in favor of British tradesmen,\nFranklin agreed with Adam Smith on the principle of free trade; but\nwith later developments of the _laissez-faire_ school--its fetish of\nthe economic man and its iron law of wages--he would not have agreed.\nPlugson of Undershot was no hero of his, and the social system which\nPlugson was creating would have seemed to him as vicious as the old\nsystem with its \u201cbad, wasteful, plundering governments, and their mad\ndestructive wars.\u201d In his later speculations he was rather the social\nphilosopher than the economist, puzzled at the irrationality of society\nthat chooses to make a pigsty of the world, instead of the garden\nthat it might be if men would but use the sense that God has given\nthem. \u201cThe happiness of individuals is evidently the ultimate end of\npolitical society,\u201d[186] he believed, and a starvation wage-system was\nthe surest way of destroying that happiness.[187] In one of the most\ndelightful letters that he ever wrote, Franklin commented on the ways\nof men thus:\n\n It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of this world are\n managed. Naturally one would imagine, that the interests of a few\n individuals should give way to general interest; but individuals\n manage their affairs with so much more application, industry, and\n address, than the public do theirs, that general interest most\n commonly gives way to particular. We assemble parliaments and\n councils, to have the benefit of their collected wisdom; but we\n necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their\n collected passions, prejudices, and private interests. By the\n help of these, artful men overpower their wisdom and dupe its\n possessors; and if we may judge by the acts, _arr\u00eats_, and edicts,\n all the world over, for regulating commerce, an assembly of great\n men is the greatest fool upon earth?...\n\n What occasions then so much want and misery? It is the employment\n of men and women in works, that produce neither the necessaries\n nor conveniences of life, who, with those who do nothing, consume\n necessaries raised by the laborious.... Look round the world, and\n see the millions employed in doing nothing, or in something that\n amounts to nothing, when the necessaries and conveniences of life\n are in question. What is the bulk of commerce, for which we fight\n and destroy each other, but the toil of millions for superfluities,\n to the great hazard and loss of many lives?... It has been computed\n by some political arithmetician, that, if every man and woman would\n work for four hours each day on something useful, that labor would\n produce sufficient to procure all the necessaries and comforts of\n life, want and misery would be banished out of the world, and the\n rest of the twenty-four hours might be leisure and happiness.[188]\n\nBut the immediate problem of Franklin as representative of the colonies\nat St. James\u2019s, was political--how to reconcile the antagonistic\nambitions of the sundered bodies of Englishmen; and the solution which\nhe set forth with admirable clearness, bears the impress of a mind\nintent upon the reality behind parchment pretense. While lawyers were\nbefogging the issue with legal quibble, and politicians were proving\nthe unconstitutionality of the forces stirring in eighteenth-century\nAmerica, Franklin was more concerned with adjusting imperial policy to\nexisting fact. On one side were the colonies, in which the practice of\nlocal self-government had taken deep root; whether the practice was\nsanctioned by their charters or the British constitution was beside the\nquestion. On the other side was the British parliament, serving as a\nlegislative body for its proper constituency, the people of the British\nIsles. Over both colonies and parliament, providing an effective but\nungalling tie to bind the parts together, was the King, to whom both\npaid willing allegiance. So long as England was content to maintain the\n_status quo_, the colonies, Franklin believed, would remain loyal to\nthe empire; but if the ministry persisted in its program of extending\nparliamentary sovereignty over the colonies, the outcome must be one of\ntwo things, federation or separation.\n\nTo the principle of federation Franklin was an early and faithful\nfriend. The conception of a federal union of the several colonies was\nslowly spreading in America, and no other colonial had done so much\nto further it; in his well-known Plan of Union he had sketched the\noutlines of a federal constitution; what was more natural, therefore,\nthan for him to think in terms of a Federated British Empire, as a\nstatesmanlike solution of the present perplexities. The plan involved\ntwo problems: first, an inquiry into the nature and constitution\nof an imperial parliament, and second, provision for an equitable\nrepresentation of the several divisions of the empire. The present\ndifficulties had arisen out of the ambition of the British parliament\nto assume sovereignty over the colonial legislatures, thereby reducing\nthem to a dependent status; those difficulties would be settled only\nby constitutional recognition of local rights and local sovereignties.\n\u201cThe British state,\u201d he argued, \u201cis only the Island of Great Britain,\u201d\nand if by reason of familiarity with local needs, \u201cthe British\nlegislature\u201d is \u201cthe only proper judge of what concerns the welfare of\nthat state,\u201d why does the principle not hold for the several colonial\nlegislatures?\n\n Here appears the excellency of the invention of colony government,\n by separate, independent legislatures. By this means, the remotest\n parts of a great empire may be as well governed as the centre;\n misrule, oppressions of proconsuls, and discontents and rebellions\n thence arising, prevented. By this means, the power of a king\n may be extended without inconvenience over territories of any\n dimensions, how great soever. America was thus happily governed in\n all its different and remote settlements, by the crown and their\n own Assemblies, till the new politics took place, of governing it\n by one Parliament, which have not succeeded and never will.[189]\n\nIn this dream of a British Empire Franklin was far in advance of\nhis time. On both sides of the ocean selfish and unimaginative men\nstood ready to thwart all such proposals; little Englanders and\nlittle colonials in vast numbers were concerned with more immediate\nand personal interests than those of the English race. Nevertheless\nFranklin was convinced that the gods, if not the Tories, were on the\nside of the colonies. The enormous increase in material strength that\nthe years were swiftly bringing to America was an augury of good hope;\nthe legitimate demands of America would be granted when America had\ngrown too strong to be denied, which must be shortly. In the meantime\nit was the duty of Englishmen, British and colonial alike, to endeavor\n\u201cwith unfeigned and unwearying zeal to preserve from breaking that\nfine and noble China vase, the British empire.\u201d It was the traditional\npolicy of \u201cprotract and grow strong\u201d--a wise and sane policy--and\nFranklin clung to it until he was convinced of its utter futility.\nOne other choice remained--separation; and he made that choice sadly,\nunderstanding better than most what it involved.\n\nThe years which followed were filled to the brim for Franklin as well\nas for America. Ideals changed and principles clarified swiftly;\nbut his social philosophy was founded on too wide and sobering an\nexperience with men and governments, to sway with every gusty passion\nof the times. He had been a democrat from his youth up and in those\ncritical first days of independence, when the forces of agrarianism\nwere taking possession of state governments, he threw in his lot\nwith them, and joined heartily in the stimulating work of providing\na democratic constitution for Pennsylvania. During the later years\nof reaction following the peace, when so many Revolutionary leaders\nendeavored to stay the agrarian movement and undo its work, he saw\nno cause to lose faith in government immediately responsive to the\nmajority will. He was a forerunner of Jefferson, like him firm in the\nconviction that government was good in the measure that it remained\nclose to the people. He sat in the Constitutional Convention as one of\nthe few democrats, and although he was unable to make headway against\nthe aristocratic majority, he was quite unconvinced by their rhetoric.\nFor years he had been an advocate of unrestricted manhood suffrage,\nannual parliaments,[190] and a single-chamber legislature; and when he\nheard eloquent young lawyers argue that a single-chamber legislature,\nresponsive to a democratic electorate, must lead to mob legislation,\nand that good government required a carefully calculated system of\nchecks and balances, he remarked:\n\n It appears to me ... like putting one horse before a cart and the\n other behind it, and whipping them both. If the horses are of equal\n strength, the wheels of the cart, like the wheels of government,\n will stand still; and if the horses are strong enough the cart will\n be torn to pieces.[191]\n\nWhen in 1790 it was proposed to substitute a bicameral system for the\nsingle-chamber in Pennsylvania, Franklin came to the defense of the\nsimpler, more democratic form, with a vivacity little staled by years:\n\n Has not the famous political fable of the snake, with two heads and\n one body, some useful instruction contained in it? She was going\n to a brook to drink, and in her way was to pass through a hedge, a\n twig of which opposed her direct course; one head chose to go on\n the right side of the twig, the other on the left; so that time was\n spent in the contest, and before the decision was completed, the\n poor snake died with thirst.[192]\n\nBoth his economic principles and his views on government have been\ncondemned by Federalistic critics as tainted with populism. They both\nsprang from the same root of agrarian democracy. Whether Franklin\nor his critics more adequately represented the larger interests of\neighteenth-century America is beside the present question; it is enough\nto note that all such criticism is leveled primarily at Franklin\u2019s\ndemocratic philosophy as a thing in itself undesirable, if not\ndangerous.\n\nFranklin may often have been wrong, but he was never arrogant, never\ndogmatic. He was too wise and too generous for that. In the midst\nof prosperity he never forgot the unprosperous. All his life his\nsympathy went out to whoever suffered in person or fortune from the\ninjustice of society: to the debtor who found himself pinched by the\nshrinking supply of currency; to the black slave who suffered the most\nelementary of wrongs; to impressed seamen; to the weak and wretched\nof earth. He was a part of that emerging humanitarian movement which,\nduring the last half of the eighteenth century, was creating a new\nsense of social responsibility. True to his Physiocratic convictions,\nFranklin was social-minded. He was concerned not with property or class\ninterests, but with the common welfare; and in his quick sympathy for\nall sorts and conditions of men, in his conviction that he must use\nhis talents to make this world better and not exploit it, he reveals\nthe breadth and generosity of his nature. Reason and work, in his\npragmatic philosophy, are the faithful handmaids of progress, of which\nwar, whether public or private, is the utter negation. After long\nyears of thought he rendered a judgment which later experience has not\nreversed,--\u201cthere is no good war and no bad peace.\u201d\n\nIt is to little purpose that certain shortcomings of Franklin are dwelt\nupon. \u201cThere is a flower of religion, a flower of honor, a flower of\nchivalry, that you must not require of Franklin,\u201d said Sainte-Beuve;\na judgment that is quite true and quite obvious. A man who is less\nconcerned with the golden pavements of the City of God than that the\ncobblestones on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia should be well and\nevenly laid, who troubles less to save his soul from burning hereafter\nthan to protect his neighbors\u2019 houses by organizing an efficient\nfire-company, who is less regardful of the light that never was on\nsea or land than of a new-model street lamp to light the steps of the\nbelated wayfarer--such a man, obviously, does not reveal the full\nmeasure of human aspiration. Franklin ended as he began, the child\nof a century marked by sharp spiritual limitations. What was best\nin that century he made his own. In his modesty, his willingness to\ncompromise, his openmindedness, his clear and luminous understanding,\nhis charity--above all, in his desire to subdue the ugly facts of\nsociety to some more rational scheme of things--he proved himself a\ngreat and useful man, one of the greatest and most useful whom America\nhas produced.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[172] \u201cYou know,\u201d wrote Franklin to his wife on the eve of his\ndeparture, \u201cthat I have many enemies ... and very bitter ones; and\nyou must expect their enmity will extend in some degree to you.\u201d He\nwas forced to slip away and get secretly on board the vessel. His\nactivities were reproved thus by a certain Tory lady:\n\n Oh! had he been wise to pursue\n The track for his talents designed,\n What a tribute of praise had been due\n To the teacher and friend of mankind.\n\n But to covet political fame\n Was in him a degrading ambition,\n The spark that from Lucifer came,\n And kindled the blaze of sedition.\n\n (In _Works_, Vol. VII, p. 267.)\n\nIn Sargent\u2019s _Loyal Verses of Joseph Stansbury and Doctor Jonathan\nOdell_, these verses are attributed to a less likely source.\n\n[173] _Works_, Vol. VII, p. 398.\n\n[174] _Ibid._, Vol. V, p. 81.\n\n[175] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 428. A good deal of light is thrown upon the\nways of the ministry in Franklin\u2019s account, _Negotiations in London_.\nSee in particular pp. 37, 68, 76 of Vol. V, where Lord Hyde and Lord\nHowe exhibit special solicitude for his advancement. His letters tell\nof successive attempts to approach him, and among his works is a\nlittle skit in which he speaks of himself thus: \u201cYour correspondent\n_Brittannicus_ inveighs violently against Dr. Franklin, for his\ningratitude to the ministry of this nation, who have conferred upon\nhim so many favors. They gave him the post-office of America: they\nmade his son a governor; and they offered him a post of five hundred a\nyear in the salt-office, if he would relinquish the interests of his\ncountry; but he has had the wickedness to continue true to it, and is\nas much an American as ever. As it is a settled point in government\nhere, that every man has his price, it is plain they are bunglers in\ntheir business, and have not given him enough.\u201d (_Works_, Vol. IV, pp.\n534-535.)\n\n[176] _Ibid._, Vol. VIII, p. 146.\n\n[177] _Ibid._, Vol. VIII, pp. 215, 505.\n\n[178] _Ibid._, Vol. VIII, p. 177.\n\n[179] _Works_, Vol. II, p. 254.\n\n[180] P. 64.\n\n[181] See _Economic Writings of Sir W. Petty_, Cambridge Press, Vol. I,\npp. 43-51.\n\n[182] _Works_, Vol. IV, p. 19.\n\n[183] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 376.\n\n[184] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 438.\n\n[185] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 401.\n\n[186] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 323.\n\n[187] See \u201cReflections on the Augmentation of Wages, etc.,\u201d in _Ibid._,\nVol. II, p. 436.\n\n[188] \u201cOn Luxury, Idleness, and Industry,\u201d in _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp.\n448-451.\n\n[189] _Works_, Vol. IV, p. 282. For Franklin\u2019s views on American\nrepresentation in Parliament, see Vol. VII, pp. 315, 329.\n\n[190] See the pamphlet indorsed _Some Good Whig Principles_, of the\nprobable date of 1768-69, in _Works_, Vol. II.\n\n[191] _Works of Thomas Paine_, edited by Moncure D. Conway, Vol. IV, p.\n465.\n\n[192] In \u201cQueries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the\nConstitution of Pennsylvania,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. V, p. 167.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: The Awakening of the American Mind \u2022 1763-1783\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 Imperial Sovereignty and Home Rule\n\n\nI \u2022 Background Facts\n\nThe American Revolution remains after a hundred and fifty years\nsomewhat of a puzzle to historians. Much careful investigation has\nbeen done in the last two decades, but we still know too little to\nspeak confidently or with a sense of finality. The appeal to arms would\nseem to have been brought about by a minority of the American people,\ndirected by a small group of skillful leaders, who like Indian scouts,\ncovered their tracks so cleverly that only the keenest trailers can\nnow follow their course and understand their strategy. On the other\nhand, the philosophy of revolution is familiar to us. Revolutions\nare born of an abnormal state of mind, sensitized by an accumulated\nbody of experience. They are psychological explosions, resulting from\nirritations commonly economic in origin, and they are conditioned in\ntheir programs by the stock of knowledge and aspiration peculiar to\ntheir time and place. Two determining facts, then, would seem to lie\nat the root of the American Revolution: the American psychology which\nshaped the colonial outlook, and the peculiar situation of the British\nEmpire at the close of the French and Indian war.[193]\n\nIn old age John Adams \u201chazarded an opinion, that the true history of\nthe American revolution could not be recovered,\u201d for \u201cthe revolution\nwas effected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the\nminds and hearts of the people.\u201d[194] Accepting Adams\u2019s thesis of a\nchange in American psychology, we may hazard a further opinion that\nthe revolution resulted from the emergence in the two countries of\ndivergent interpretations of the theory and practice of sovereignty,\nwhich may be sufficiently distinguished by the terms local home rule\nand imperial centralization. In the beginning it was a clash of\njurisdiction between colonial self-government and absentee paternalism;\nbut later it developed into an open challenge of the monarchical\nprinciple. A popular will to self-rule had long been developing in\nAmerica, and when the outbreak of hostilities clarified its latent\nobjective, it speedily asserted a conscious republican purpose. To\nmany of the early supporters of the colonial protest, this republican\noutcome was unforeseen and deeply regretted; but it was implicit in\nthe whole history of colonial development, and must ultimately stand\nsharply revealed, once its aspirations were balked.\n\nIf the crisis was precipitated almost casually by the program of\nparliamentary regulation, the long drift towards alienation was far\nfrom casual. An American mind had been created by the silent pressure\nof environment. A large measure of economic freedom had developed\nan American liberalism, frankly and vigorously individualistic. It\nwas not consciously democratic, or even republican. There were few\navowed democrats in the stolid mass of colonial provincialism; a busy\nand commonplace routine offered little opportunity for revolutionary\nappeal to a people grown lethargic from economic abundance. Of social\nunrest, the common fuel of revolutionary fires, there was practically\nnone; and but for a blundering ministerial imperialism that challenged\nthis nascent liberalism, throwing over it the mantle of patriotism,\nthe colonies would have written a very different history. Once the\ncrisis was precipitated, however, and it became clear that imperial\ncentralization was encroaching upon local rights, the liberal impulses\nin the background of the American mind assumed a militant form and\npurpose.\n\nThe existence of this native liberalism had been stupidly overlooked\nand ignored by responsible statesmen. With the exception of Franklin,\ncolonial spokesmen were commonly members of the aristocratic group,\namong whom the Tory philosophy was spreading fast. Gentlemen in Boston,\nNew York, Philadelphia, and Charleston fashioned their manners upon\nthe polite world of St. James\u2019s and caught the Tory ways in politics\nas naturally as the London style in wigs. They associated with the\nroyal officials, traveled in England, corresponded with members of\nParliament. advised in all matters of colonial policy, and proved\nthemselves the most shortsighted of counselors. Upon their heads rest\nin part the blunders of the ministry. In failing to understand the\nnative liberalism of America, they not only shared responsibility for\nan unwise policy, but they hastened their own destruction. Samuel Adams\ncould not have played so effectively upon the popular prejudices if\nthe Hutchinsons and Olivers had not brought the Tory ways into wide\ndisrepute by their arrogance.\n\nColonial liberalism, on the other hand, was not so simple and\nhomogeneous as we long believed. It was rather a somewhat vague\ncomposite of the aspirations of three diverse geographical areas, with\ndifferent economic interests, social ways, and political ideals. The\nmiddle and northern coast region, with its mercantile cities, was a\ndistinct area; the tidewater region from Maryland to Georgia, with its\nplantation economy, constituted another; and the indefinite backcountry\nbeyond the older settlements, stretching from Maine southward along\nthe Alleghany watershed, constituted a third. The first was dominated\nby a merchant group--wholesale importers and exporters--wealthy and\nconservative, but with a great majority of the population--small\ntradesmen, mechanics and yeomen--far more democratic than the\nleaders. The second was controlled by the aristocratic planters,\nwhose leadership during the crises of the dispute with England was\nrejected by an economically strong but socially inferior body of\nfactors or alien middlemen. The third was composed of thousands of\nsmall freeholders, largely Scotch-Irish and German, who acknowledged\nno leadership, were unconsciously democratic in their ways, suspicious\nof the seacoast aristocracy, wedded to an agrarian philosophy. The\nmerchant group was liberal only to the extent that liberalism meant\nprofit: their commercial relations with England constituted them\nthe closest tie between the two countries, and their timid love\nof established ways made them naturally conservative rather than\nrevolutionary. The planter group possessed the traditional independence\nof English gentlemen: they would tolerate no outside dictation in\nmatters concerning their own parishes, and their burdensome debts to\nEnglish merchants cooled the ardor of their loyalty to Great Britain.\nThe frontier agrarians, on the other hand, were pronounced liberals by\nenvironment and training to whom English ties were at the strongest\nonly sentimental. They were republican in temper, and becoming class\nconscious during the ten years of debate, they grew rapidly in power\nand finally turned America against England. A recent historian has thus\ncharacterized the change of temper which brought these agrarians to the\nfront as the fighting strength of the republicans:\n\n A new class, formed within a decade, growing rapidly in numbers,\n was rising to power. In Pennsylvania, as in a number of other\n colonies, it consisted of small farmers in the back country,\n Scotch-Irish and German immigrants, re\u00ebnforced by the voteless\n laborers and artisans of Philadelphia or other seaboard cities....\n For over a decade this rising democracy had struggled for power\n against the little seaboard aristocracy of wealth and accepted\n social leadership.... The colonial masses could no longer be\n controlled by reverence for the high-born. The Quaker merchants of\n Philadelphia, the holders of manors on the Hudson, the tobacco and\n rice planters of Virginia and South Carolina, and even the great\n merchants, clergy, and professional men of New England, could no\n longer rule without question their social inferiors.... Thus, in\n 1774, came the climax in the struggle between rich and poor, East\n and West, those with a vote and those who were voteless, between\n privilege and the welfare of the common man. The two classes might\n work in harmony or might clash on the question of resistance to\n Great Britain, but they were pretty sure to be in opposition on\n the issue of individual rights. A merchant ... might welcome the\n support of the mechanics and small shopkeepers against a grievous\n tax by the British Government, but the price, a right to vote and\n to hold office, he was sure to resent, and he grew more and more\n alarmed as the pressure became more insistent.[195]\n\nFrom the imperial point of view there were the soundest reasons why,\nfollowing the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Parliament should have desired\nto set about reorganizing the far-spread British Empire. Within a\nfew years vast territories had been added to the crown, and if the\nscattered parts were to be gathered into a cohesive and powerful whole\nthere was need of a definite policy of co\u00f6rdination and integration.\nThe American colonies were only a small part of the total empire, and\nit was generally agreed among English statesmen that the old policy of\n\u201csalutary neglect\u201d could no longer serve imperial interests. If the\nWhig imperialists under the leadership of Pitt had been put in charge\nof imperial reconstruction, the outcome very likely would have been\npeaceful. But unfortunately for the empire the colonial problem became\nembroiled with English domestic politics. The purpose of the King was\nto set up a personal autocracy with Tory help, overthrow the rule of\nthe Whig families, eliminate from the ministry the more intelligent\nOld Whig leaders--Pitt, Camden, Barr\u00e9, Burke, Shelburne--and bring in\na narrow-minded group who held to the obsolete mercantilist theory\nof colonial dependency. The immediate outcome was the inauguration\nof a policy that ran counter to the economic interests of the three\nmajor colonial regions and aroused the hostility of important colonial\ngroups. Every successive enactment was a greater blunder, until the\ncrowning stupidity of the tea monopoly--which used colonial interests\nas a pawn in a game of the East India Company--threw the colonial fat\ninto the fire.\n\nThe grievances of the merchants resulting from the regulatory trade\nacts were real and serious. However the ministry might justify those\nacts before Parliament, their effects were disastrous to substantial\ncolonial interests, and to American eyes seemed designed to bring\ncolonial trade into further subjection to English merchants. The\nattempt to suppress the widespread practice of smuggling was ill\nadvised even though logical, for it aroused the consuming public as\nwell as the middlemen, and gave popular backing to the protests of the\nmerchants. The total political result was to align against Parliament\nthe most influential groups in the trading towns--the wealthy importers\nand the professional classes--and provided opportunity to the radicals\nto spread their propaganda under cover of respectable leadership.\nThe movement of resistance thus set on foot by the class-conscious\nmerchants eventually slipped from their control and passed into the\nhands of the Sons of Liberty, who drove faster and farther than\nconservative business men would willingly follow; yet these latter\nsoon found themselves coerced by tumultuous forces which they had\nunwittingly loosed. In consequence there came a time of divided\ncounsels, and when independence was finally declared large numbers of\nthe wealthiest and most dignified merchants turned Loyalist and threw\nin their lot with the King. More than two hundred quitted Boston on its\nevacuation by General Gage. Others stood apart as neutrals till the\nwar was over, and then drew together in a compact organization to stem\nthe tide of post-war agrarianism and assist in setting up a federal\ngovernment after their liking.[196]\n\nThe grievances of the plantation group were less obvious but none the\nless real. Probably more critical than taxation or the debts owed to\nEnglish merchants, was the question of the western lands. The Quebec\nAct stirred the South as the tea monopoly stirred Boston and New York\nand Philadelphia. Involved in that act were certain long accepted\ncolonial rights of domain, on the strength of which vast speculation\nin backcountry lands had been engaged in by English and colonial land\ncompanies and individuals.[197] The question was extraordinarily\ncomplicated, involving the rights of the Indians, the ambition of\nthe Hudson Bay Company to retain the western wilderness as a vast\nfur preserve, the rights of Catholics in the French settlements,\nthe rights of the imperial treasury to income from the sale of the\nlands, the rights of soldiers of the French wars to lands granted by\ncolonial legislatures, the rights of frontiersmen to free settlement\nand exploitation, as well as specific grants to several colonies, in\nparticular Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia. From this mass\nof conflicting interests, all eager to exploit an incalculably rich\ndomain, little hope of satisfactory solution offered, and a wiser\nministry would have kept hands off. But an ill-considered Parliamentary\nenactment cut the knot in a way to arouse the quick and keen resentment\nof America. Whatever may be said for the solution, one thing is clear;\nit set aside by arbitrary statute cherished rights which Virginian\ngentlemen, with their eyes on rich plantations to the West, deeply\nresented. It was a matter of vital concern to colonies like Virginia\nthat they should control their wilderness frontier. The Quebec Act not\nonly alienated thousands of western colonials, but it provided them\nwith influential leaders like Washington and Robert Morris. It was more\nfuel to the radical bonfire.\n\nIn the end the fortunes of the revolutionary movement rested with the\nyeomanry, and this yeomanry with its agrarian outlook and republican\nsympathies, was in a mood to respond to radical appeal. That the farmer\nwas induced to take down his squirrel rifle and fight King George was\nmade possible by a number of irritations--his deep-rooted prejudice\nagainst aristocracy, his instinctive dislike of crown officials, his\ninveterate localism that resented alien interference--as well as by\nsubstantial class interests. In every colony the party of incipient\npopulism had been checked and thwarted by royal officials; and it was\nthis mass of populistic discontent, seeing itself in danger of being\ntotally crushed, and its interests ignored, that provided the rank and\nfile of armed opposition to the King. Already Parliament had brought\nacute financial distress to the colonies by forbidding the emission\nof bills of credit; and other attacks on popular policies followed.\nThe strength of the popular opposition to royal programs had lain\nheretofore in the legislative control of the purse; by threatening to\nwithhold salaries, the democratic legislatures had been able to coerce\nthe royal governor and the judges, and keep them somewhat responsive\nto the popular will. To the Tories such coercion was proof that the\ndemocratic claws needed cutting, and one of the purposes of the Stamp\nAct was the providing of a fund to pay the royal officials out of the\nroyal chest. It was a skillful plan, but it overreached itself. Party\nalignment had become too sharp, agrarian suspicions had grown too\nsensitive, for the plan to succeed. The immediate, fatal result was the\naccession of a numerous body of fighting men to the other malcontents.\n\nThe American Revolution was one of the first fruits of a shortsighted\nimperialism. A generous policy of imperial federation would have\nreturned incredible revenues to Great Britain; but the Tory ministry\nwas not intelligent enough to let sleeping dogs lie. A sentimental\nattachment had kept America loyal. So long as his customary and\ntraditional rights remained undisturbed, the colonial would throw\nup his cap for King George; but if he were driven to choose between\nloyalty and self-interest, between sentiment and profit, the choice\nwas certain. If the heavy debts which the foolish wars of Pitt had\nbequeathed to the Empire had not seemed to offer a justification,\nthe Tory blunderers would not have forced the issue; but once it was\njoined, vast numbers of Americans came to believe that the development\nof their country had reached a point where it would be hampered by\nfurther overseas regulation; that America must be free to exploit her\nresources to her exclusive advantage; and that such economic freedom\nwould be possible only with political independence. It was the ill\nluck of the ministry to present the question so concretely that the\ncolonial radicals were given an opportunity to awaken the latent forces\nof American liberalism and turn them against English sovereignty.\nA militant nationalistic psychology resulted from a widespread\npropaganda, and the last ties with England were broken.\n\n\nII \u2022 Argument and Propaganda\n\nWe understand the ways of propaganda today better than our fathers\nunderstood them, and the official pronouncements of diplomats and\nstatesmen we have grown somewhat skeptical of. Historians of the\nAmerican Revolution have paid rather too exclusive attention to formal\nspeeches and state papers, forgetting that those speeches and papers\ntoo often served the purpose of obscuring and evading the real issues.\nThe ten years of dreary debate preceding the clash of arms, during\nwhich theory and precedent were examined by partisan lawyers, did\nlittle more than serve party purposes on both sides of the Atlantic,\ninvesting immediate interests with nationalistic or imperialistic\nidealism. Honest men talked themselves into a passion, but they took\ngood care that their cause should appear dressed to advantage.\n\nOn the American side the argument fell into two broad divisions: an\nattempt to justify the colonial position by appeal to the British\nconstitution, and when that failed by an appeal to the extra-legal\ndoctrine of natural right. To understand the obscure constitutional\nwrangle, it must be recalled that important changes in English\nconstitutional practice had taken place since the colonies were\nfounded. Parliamentary sovereignty had superseded royal sovereignty,\nor in other words, the sovereignty of property had superseded divine\nright autocracy; and this in turn was undergoing change in the second\nhalf of the eighteenth century--the sovereignty of landed property\nwas challenged by the rising capitalism. The Revolution of 1688 had\nestablished the general principle that the state can take no property\nin the form of taxes or levies without the consent of the owner, given\nby himself or by his representative sitting in Parliament. But in\ncurrent practice the system of representation had become so misshapen\nthat a new theory had arisen to give constitutional sanction to\nexisting methods. Refusal to reapportion representation had resulted in\nthe notorious rotten-borough system, control of which boroughs was too\nvaluable an asset to the ruling oligarchy to be surrendered. To justify\nthe scandal a new theory of virtual representation was developed--a\ntheory upon which turned much of the early revolutionary debate. In\nbrief the theory asserted that as Parliament speaks for the total body\nof Englishmen, it makes no practical difference who elects them, where\nthey live, who they are, or what interests they represent. Within the\nhalls of Parliament they can be trusted to think and legislate for the\nnation as a whole. The essential constitutional principle requires\nonly that there shall be a respectable body chosen from among the\ncommons of England, in whose hands shall rest the custody of the purse,\nand who shall serve as a check upon the royal prerogative. Such was\nthe parliamentary situation in 1763, and when appeal was made by the\ncolonials to the principle of no taxation without representation, it\nwas answered by appeal to the theory of virtual representation.\n\nAmerican constitutional practice, on the other hand, had developed in\na contrary direction. Quite as consciously as Parliament, the several\ncolonial legislatures rested on the principle of property rights, but\na different system of representation had developed. By easy logic a\ngeographical theory had emerged, by the terms of which a legislator\nmust be a freeman of the district rather than of the realm, that he\nshould hold power for a short period and frequently submit his conduct\nto the scrutiny of the electors, and that a district should bear a just\nper capita relation to the total population. The doctrine of virtual\nrepresentation was alien to colonial theory, although in fact it might\nbe applied to the large body of disfranchised non-property-holders.\nThe broad difference, then, in the legislative practice of the two\ncountries lay in the important distinction between local, numerical\nrepresentation, and a grotesque system of borough jobbing. Both systems\nrested on a narrow suffrage, although the colonial basis was very\nmuch broader. The difference was without significance so long as the\ntraditional relations between America and England continued; but when\nParliament proposed to extend the theory of virtual representation\nto the colonies, and treat Massachusetts and Virginia as on a\nconstitutional footing with Birmingham and Manchester, the difference\nbecame acute. No American colony was willing to become the pawn of\nparliamentary placemen, at the mercy of parliamentary jobbery.\n\nThe debate over this vital question was involved in obscurities by\nreason of the vagueness of the British constitution. If an unwritten\nconstitution be no other than established practice--and it is true of\nthe English constitution in spite of the body of principles existing in\nsuch pronouncements as Magna Charta, the settlement of 1689, and the\nCommon Law--then the current practice of Parliament must be accepted as\nconstitutional. This was the fatal weakness of the colonial argument,\nas it was the weakness of Pitt and other defenders of America in\nParliament. When Pitt exclaimed with characteristic grandiloquence,\n\u201cI come not here armed at all points with law cases and acts of\nParliament, with the statute-book doubled down in dog-ears, to defend\nthe cause of liberty,\u201d he abandoned the legal ground to appeal to the\nsense of justice and right of Englishmen. But the question could not\nso easily be transferred from the domain of constitutional law. For\nupwards of a hundred years Parliament had been sovereign, and for the\ncolonials now to deny its sovereignty meant one of two things: either\nto go back to the obsolete principle of divine right, or to postulate\nan extra-parliamentary body of constitutional law, unknown to English\npractice. A sovereignty inhering neither in King nor Parliament,\nbut in a super-constitution, was a conception that had been played\nwith by Coke in an endeavor to exalt the Common Law, and hinted at\nby later Whig statesmen, but which had never established itself in\npractice. The colonials recognized the dilemma and made half-hearted\nattempts to evade it. John Adams and Franklin endeavored to argue\nthat as the colonial charters were from the crown, and antedated the\nrise of Parliament, Americans owed allegiance to the King and not to\nParliament, and hence parliamentary pretentions to sovereignty over\nAmerica were only a new form of unconstitutional prerogative. But\nthe argument was taken seriously by neither side, and was soon put\naway.[198]\n\nIt finally became clear to American leaders that if their cause were\nto make headway, appeal must be made to broader principles. Their\ncase must rest on philosophical rather than on legal grounds. This\nsuffices to explain the shift from constitutionalism to abstract\nrights, which marked the middle period of the debate. By 1773 it had\nbecome evident to thoughtful observers that the cause of American\nliberalism must fail, or become revolutionary in purpose and intent,\nand to become such it must seek justification in extra-constitutional\nprinciples. And this justification it discovered in the writings of\nEnglish liberals of the seventeenth century--in Sidney and Milton, and\nabove all in Locke. The influence of Locke had long been paramount in\nEnglish political speculation. He had been the apologist and defender\nof the settlement of 1689; the principles which he expounded lay at the\nbase of the dynastic rights of the reigning house, and were nominally\naccepted by all the parliamentary leaders. The relations between\nnatural rights and parliamentary sovereignty had not wholly clarified,\nand in the background of English constitutional thought still lingered\na vague notion of certain natural rights above the constitution, and\nlimiting parliamentary statutes. Thinkers as different as Blackstone\nand Camden subscribed to such doctrine, but it daily became more\ntenuous in the face of a growing acceptance of unlimited parliamentary\nsovereignty.[199]\n\nIn turning to Locke, therefore, the colonial debaters went back a\ncentury and picked up the argument of liberalism as it existed before\nit had been nullified by later English practice. They occupied a\nposition similar to that defended by him a hundred years before;\nthey were combating the same arbitrary rule that had brought on the\nRevolution of 1688. He had laid down the basic principle of revolution\nin the doctrine of certain natural rights of the subject which no state\nmay subvert without peril to the original compact; he had asserted\nthat taxation without representation constituted such subversive\ntyranny; and he gave high sanction to the right and duty of resistance\nto an encroaching sovereignty. The noble words, \u201cChains are but an\nill wearing how much soever we gild or polish them,\u201d uttered a note\nof defiance to arbitrary power which struck a responsive chord in the\nbreast of the colonial liberal. In short, Locke\u2019s two _Treatises on\nCivil Government_, aimed at Sir Robert Filmer\u2019s absurd _Patriarcha_,\nwere turned against Parliament and became the textbook of the American\nRevolution.\n\nThe ground had been well prepared. The argument of Locke went home\nwith such convincing force to the colonial liberal because it embodied\nconclusions towards which America had long been moving. It was an\neloquent confirmation of native experience, a sober justification\nof the psychology of individualism. The self-governing state had so\nlong been an established fact in colonial life as to have assumed the\ncomplexion of a natural right. The political compact had taken form in\nAmerican political thought, a generation before Locke gave currency to\nthe theory, and Jefferson was expressing native conclusions drawn from\nAmerican experience when he argued that \u201cgovernments derive their just\npowers from the consent of the governed,\u201d and that \u201call men are created\nequal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable\nRights, that amongst these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of\nHappiness.\u201d It is not true to assert that Jefferson was only reciting\nLocke, with modifications derived from the French humanitarians. It is\nnearer the truth to say that he made use of old-world philosophy to\nexpress and justify certain native tendencies then seeking adequate\nstatement.\n\nTo such an experience, armed with such a philosophy, there must\ncome eventually the conviction that both monarchy and aristocracy\nwere irrational; that the ambitions of a coercive alien sovereignty\nwere fraught with danger to the rights of the American citizen.\nThe resurgent absolutism of Stuart times, with its doctrine of\nthe omnicompetent state, which the King was reviving through the\ninstrumentality of Parliament, was broken by the stubborn colonial\nresistance. Absolutism under whatever form was doomed in America,\nhowever slowly it might linger out its life. Jonathan Boucher might\nseek to revive Sir Robert Filmer, and preach to Americans the dogma of\ndivine right through royal primogeniture from Adam, and other colonial\nTories might applaud; but they were fast becoming anachronisms.\nThe Revolution was to overthrow for Americans the principle of the\nabsolutist state, and substitute a modified sovereignty, circumscribed\nby the utilitarian test of its relation to the common well-being of its\ncitizens. For the first time in modern history it was discovered that\n\u201cthe true meaning of sovereignty,\u201d as a recent student has put it, is\nto be sought \u201cnot in the coercive power possessed by its instrument\n[the state,] but in the fused good-will for which it stands.\u201d[200]\n\n\nIII \u2022 Certain Social Consequences\n\nThe swift crystallization of colonial sentiment in favor of\nrepublicanism, as the crisis developed, produced the American\nrevolution of which John Adams wrote. The long leveling process of\na hundred and forty years, with its psychology of decentralization,\nfruited naturally in a new political philosophy fitted to new-world\nconditions. Monarchy, with its social appanage of aristocracy, was\na caste institution wholly unsuited to an unregimented America. The\nwar brought this revolutionary fact home to the consciousness of\nthousands of colonials; and the liberalism that before had been vaguely\ninstinctive quickly became eager and militant. The old order was\npassing; the day of the Tory in America was over for the present; the\nrepublican was henceforth to be master of the new world. Out of this\nprimary revolution were to come other revolutions, social and economic,\nmade possible by the new republican freedom.\n\nThe swift rise of a political philosophy traditionally regarded as\nmean and traitorous was inexplicable to Tory gentlemen, and aroused a\nfierce retaliatory opposition. A social war of the classes, bitter,\nvindictive, followed upon hostilities against England. The arrogance of\nthe gentry during those brisk days when the new spirit was rising is\nscarcely comprehensible to later Americans unused to such frankness.\nThe republicans were scorned by the superior classes as unprincipled\nsedition-mongers, plotting treason against the King and society. If\ncommoners flocked to town-meetings and outvoted the gentlemen, the\nlatter were outraged at the presumption of the \u201cmobsters\u201d in flouting\ntheir betters. For the plain people to take things into their own hands\nwas no other than anarchy. The familiar records of the day are filled\nwith such aristocratic jests as this:\n\n Down at night a bricklayer or carpenter lies,\n Next sun a Lycurgus, a Solon doth rise.[201]\n\n\u201cThe dirty mob was all about me as I drove into town,\u201d said Mistress\nPeggy Hutchinson, as she looked out on turbulent Boston from her\nfather\u2019s chariot; and her feminine contempt for the common people was\nan echo of the universal Tory contempt for republican mechanics and\nfarmers. It was the duty of the vulgar, as loyal subjects, to pay taxes\nand not lay them; to obey the law and not make it. By far the most\nimportant consequence of the Revolution was the striking down of this\nmounting aristocratic spirit that was making rapid headway with the\nincrease of wealth. It sifted the American people as the migrations\nof the seventeenth century had sifted the English people, keeping\nthe republicans at home and sending forth the Tories, weakening the\ninfluence of the conservatives and increasing the influence of the\nliberals. Few experiences in our history have proved so momentous in\nresults as this shift of power and change in personnel that resulted\nfrom the great schism. A middle-class America was to rise on the ruins\nof the colonial aristocracy.\n\nThe unfortunate Loyalists were victims of their own blindness. They did\nnot rightly estimate the driving power of the liberal forces released\nby the struggle, and failing to understand, they staked everything on\nthe issue, and lost, and were driven rudely out of the land by the\nplebeian republicans whom they despised. The disruption of colonial\nsociety resulting from the expulsion of the Loyalists was far graver\nthan we commonly assume. Shiploads of excellent gentlemen, and among\nthem the most cultivated minds in America, were driven from their\nfiresides and sent forth to seek new homes, whether in \u201cHell, Hull\nor Halifax\u201d mattered little to the victors. Upward of forty thousand\nsought refuge in Canada; thousands more went to the Bahamas; and still\nother thousands returned to the old home. \u201cThere will scarcely be a\nvillage in England without some American dust in it, I believe, by\nthe time we are all at rest,\u201d wrote the Loyalist Dutchman, Peter Van\nSchaak. Much suffering was endured and much bitterness engendered, and\nif for years the dominant temper in Canada was fiercely hostile to\nthe United States, the mood is traceable to the expatriated gentlemen\nwho transmitted to their children a grudge against the victorious\nrepublicans. It was an unhappy business, but it was scarcely avoidable\nonce appeal was made to the sword. There was no longer place in America\nfor the foolish dream of a colonial aristocracy.\n\nThe change of temper that came over American society with the loss of\nthe Loyalists, was immense and far-reaching. For the first time the\nmiddle class was free to create a civilization after its own ideals.\nIn rising to leadership it brought another spirit into every phase\nof life. Dignity and culture henceforth were to count for less and\nassertiveness for more. Ways became less leisurely, the social temper\nless urbane. The charm of the older aristocracy disappeared along\nwith its indisputable evils. Although a few of the older wits like\nMather Byles lingered on bitterly, and others like Gouverneur Morris\naccepted the situation philosophically, they belonged to the past. A\nfranker evaluation of success in terms of money began to obscure the\nolder personal and family distinction. New men brought new ways and a\nvulgar clamor of politics went hand in hand with business expansion.\nThe demagogue and the speculator discovered a fruitful field for\ntheir activities. The new capitalism lay on the horizon of republican\nAmerica, and the middle class was eager to hasten its development.\nBut a new economic order required a new political state, and as a\nnecessary preliminary, the spirit of nationalism began that slow\nencroachment upon local frontiers which was to modify profoundly the\ncommon psychology. Americanism superseded colonialism, and with the new\nloyalty there developed a conception of federal sovereignty, overriding\nall local authorities, checking the movement of particularism, binding\nthe separate commonwealths in a consolidating union. This marked\nthe turning point in American development; the checking of the long\nmovement of decentralization and the beginning of a counter movement of\ncentralization--the most revolutionary change in three hundred years of\nAmerican experience. The history of the rise of the coercive state in\nAmerica, with the ultimate arrest of all centrifugal tendencies, was\nimplicit in that momentous counter movement.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[193] An excellent short statement of the causes of the American\nRevolution is given by A. M. Schlesinger in _New Viewpoints in American\nHistory_, Chapter VII. Compare C. H. Van Tyne, _The Causes of the War\nof Independence_.\n\n[194] Letter to Mr. Niles, January 14, 1818.\n\n[195] Van Tyne, _Causes of the War of Independence_, pp. 424-426.\n\n[196] For an admirable study, see A. M. Schlesinger, _The Colonial\nMerchants and the American Revolution: 1763-1776_.\n\n[197] This important subject has been examined by C. W. Alvord, _The\nMississippi Valley in British Policies_: C. A. Beard, _An Economic\nInterpretation of the Constitution_; C. H. Van Tyne, _The Causes of the\nWar of Independence_.\n\n[198] For an excellent discussion of the constitutional questions\ninvolved, see C. H. Van Tyne, _The Causes of the War of Independence_,\nChapters VIII and IX.\n\n[199] For this see Van Tyne, _ibid._, pp. 234-238.\n\n[200] H. J. Laski, _The Problem of Sovereignty_, p. 12; see also\nAppendices A and B.\n\n[201] Moore, _Diary of the Revolution_, Vol. II, p. 22.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Mind of the American Tory\n\n\nSo nearly forgotten by later generations is the American Tory of\nRevolutionary times that it will be well to examine the genus with some\ncare; for only by understanding the great authority inhering in his\ntraditional leadership can we measure his power to thwart the ambitions\nof the republicans. In numbers the Tories were a very small minority;\nunendowed with wealth and position they would have been negligible; but\nas members of the local gentry they enjoyed great prestige which was\nhighly serviceable to the royal cause. Although native born they aped\nthe English aristocracy, and reproduced on a less magnificent scale\nthe manners of the English landed families. Less arrogant than their\nold-world models, certainly much less corrupt in their politics, they\nexuded the same aristocratic prejudices and the same narrow sympathies.\nTheir most cherished dream was the institution of an American nobility,\nwith the seal of royal favor set upon their social pretensions. They\nwere the embodiment of the aristocratic eighteenth century, in a world\ninstinctively hostile to all aristocracies. Out of a numerous company\nof distinguished Tories, three will serve for consideration--Thomas\nHutchinson, Royal Governor, Daniel Leonard, lawyer, and Jonathan\nBoucher, minister.\n\n\nI \u2022 Thomas Hutchinson \u2022 Royal Governor\n\nThe career of the last royal governor of Massachusetts affords a\nsuggestive study in the relation of material prosperity to political\nprinciples. Descended in the fourth generation from the Antinomian\nenthusiast, Mistress Anne Hutchinson, whom all the authorities of\nBoston could neither terrify nor silence, but who suffered contumely\nand exile rather than submit her will to official censors, Thomas\nHutchinson reveals in his stiff conservatism the common change that\nfollows upon economic well-being. The House of Hutchinson had long\nsince abandoned all unprofitable radicalisms and had taken to the safer\nbusiness of acquiring property and respectability; in which work it\nhad by God\u2019s blessing greatly prospered, until it came to be reckoned\nthe first house in the province. With growing wealth political honors\nmultiplied. The grandfather of the governor had been the first Chief\nJustice of the Common Pleas, Commander of the Forces, Assistant,\nand Councilor; and at his death in 1717 he was as eminent a citizen\nas Chief Justice Sewall, the diarist. The governor\u2019s father, Thomas\nHutchinson, Sr., devoted more attention to his calling of merchant than\nto politics, nevertheless he sat in the Council for twenty-five years,\nand was a colonel in the provincial militia. With the advent of Thomas\nHutchinson upon the scene, the respectability of the house was assured,\nabundant wealth had been accumulated, and the path of political\npreferment was open. The little colony was eager to confer honors on\nso promising a son. He was ambitious and thrifty, and he coveted the\ndistinction and the material rewards which officeholding brought. No\nBoston gentleman of his day had a sharper eye for the main chance. He\nadded office to office, and at one and the same time he was Member of\nthe Council, Judge of Probate, Chief Justice, and Lieutenant Governor;\nand such other offices as he could not himself possess he maneuvered to\nget into the hands of his sons, and brothers-in-law, and dependents.\nOne of those brothers-in-law, Samuel Mather, son of Cotton Mather,\nwho refused to follow his kinsman into the Tory camp, called him \u201can\navaritious man\u201d; and avaricious of power, even more than of money, he\ncertainly was.\n\nWith his abundant offices and honors, there was every temptation\nto conservatism. Unless there was hidden in him some lingering\nidealism, some seed of the ancestral radicalism to sprout and grow\ninto discontent, Thomas Hutchinson was marked for a reactionary.\nAnd unhappily in his conventional soul there was not the faintest\nspark of idealism. The enthusiasm of Mistress Anne was washed clean\nout of the Hutchinson blood, leaving only the native stubbornness;\nwhich stubbornness, dominating a character cold, formal, arrogant,\ndogmatic, unimaginative, self-righteous, was finally to play havoc\nwith Thomas Hutchinson\u2019s good fortune. The son of a merchant, he was\na careful, methodical soul, who studied how to save and invest; in a\nlater generation he would have been a great banker, but in his own he\npreferred to invest in politics. How suggestive of Yankee thrift is\nsuch an entry as this:\n\n All the time he was at College he carried on a little trade by\n sending ventures in his father\u2019s vessels, & kept a little paper\n Journal & leger, & enterd in it every dinner, supper, breakfast,\n & every article of expense, even of a shilling; which practice\n soon became pleasant; & he found it of great use all his life....\n Before he came of age, he had, by adventuring to sea from two or\n three quintalls [hundredweight] of fish, given him by his father,\n when about 12 years old, acquired four or five hundred pounds\n sterling.[202]\n\nAfter a number of years in his father\u2019s countinghouse, learning\nthe ways of eighteenth-century trade, he abandoned the mercantile\ncareer and entered politics at the age of six-and-twenty. From May\n31, 1737, when he first took his place in the House of Deputies\nas one of the \u201cBoston Seat,\u201d to June 1, 1774, when he quitted his\ncountry home at Milton to take ship for London and exile, he was a\npower in the political life of Massachusetts, reaching eventually\nthe highest station. During that long period of thirty-seven years\nhe was a spokesman of the New England gentry, always on the side of\ngovernment, never in the opposition. That he ever critically examined\nthe foundations of his political creed, there is nothing in the printed\nrecord to indicate. He had some of the tastes of the book-lover and\nscholar. He was deeply interested in the Puritan past, and his _History\nof Massachusetts Bay_ was based on a wide knowledge of manuscript\nsources which he had been at great pains to collect. But in spite of a\npraiseworthy care for accuracy and impartiality, he lacked the creative\nimagination to reconstruct the past. He had pretty much freed his\nmind from religious bigotry, but he could not rid himself of a narrow\npartisanship, and his treatment of the agrarian movement was grossly\nunfair. His shortcomings as a political thinker were more striking. His\nknowledge of the political classics was of the slightest. When Samuel\nAdams made use of the natural-rights theory, Hutchinson\u2019s comment\nwould indicate that he had no acquaintance with the theory and had not\neven read Locke.[203] He was little given to intellectual interests,\nand ill at ease in dealing with general principles. He possessed the\nmental qualities of a lawyer rather than a speculative thinker, and his\nlong immersion in office contracted a mind naturally sterile to the\nroutine habits of an administrator. He hardened early, and thereafter\nhe was incapable of changing his views or liberalizing his sympathies.\nConsistency he erected into a fetish and once he had taken a position\nhe would not budge from it. He did not understand the liberal America\nthat was rising about him--neither the economic forces that were\ncreating it nor the spokesmen who represented it; and he saw no reason\nfor change. The House of Hutchinson had prospered under existing\nconditions, and other houses would prosper likewise, he believed,\nif they were equally honest and diligent. So he went his tactless,\nunintelligent way, barking his shins on every liberal tendency of the\ntimes, and hating the men who gave him trouble.\n\nHutchinson, in short, was a complete Tory, and if we would understand\nhim and his class, we must first take into account the current Tory\nphilosophy. Compressed into a sentence it was the expression of the\nwill-to-power of the wealthy. Its motive was economic class interest,\nand its object the exploitation of society through the instrumentality\nof the state. Stated thus, the philosophy does not appear to advantage;\nit lays itself open to unpleasant criticism by those who are not\nits beneficiaries. In consequence, much ingenuity in tailoring\nwas necessary to provide it with garments to cover its nakedness.\nEmbroidered with patriotism, loyalty, law and order, it made a very\nrespectable appearance; and when it put on the stately robe of the\nBritish Constitution, it was enormously impressive. The Tory theory\nof the British Constitution may well be regarded as a masterpiece of\nthe gentle art of tailoring. Government by king, lords, and commons it\nasserted, approximated the ideal of a \u201cmixt government,\u201d embracing the\ntotal wisdom of the realm, ruling in the interests of all, avoiding\nthe evils of class domination, and chastising the refractory only for\nthe common good. Gentlemen might well praise the \u201cglorious British\nConstitution.\u201d It was their little jest at the expense of the English\npeople, who were content to be exploited by them.\n\nIn this game of political pretense Hutchinson willingly shared. He\nknew that Parliament did not represent the English people; that it was\ncontrolled by a group of landed gentlemen with mercenaries in their\npay; and yet in reply to repeated charges he revealed no hint of the\ntruth, but reiterated the familiar Tory interpretation in the face of\nshrewd enemies who knew that he was insincere. In private among other\ngentlemen, Hutchinson was frank enough. He knew what was at stake\nin America--whether political control should remain in the hands of\n\u201cgentlemen of principle and property,\u201d with the assistance of English\nTories, or whether it should pass into the hands of the majority. And\nso while declaiming against mobs, and preaching loyalty to the best of\nkings, he secretly busied himself with influential persons in devising\nmethods to frustrate the Whig ambitions. Moreover in dealing with his\nenemies he was a thorough realist. In his comment on American Whigs and\ntheir political methods, he set down many a shrewd and just estimate\nof their actions and motives. But in defense of the English ministry\nhe refused to face reality. He quibbled and misrepresented and denied,\nstooping to dirty politics to hold his party together and strengthen it.\n\nAt the moment when Hutchinson assumed the duties of governor the\nsituation was tense. Bernard had muddled things sadly, and \u201cthe\nrage against him became, at length, so violent, that it was judged\nnecessary to recall him,\u201d[204] and he slipped off to England to receive\na baronetcy and a pension. But he had brought the commonwealth to\nthe parting of the ways, and Hutchinson found himself in a difficult\nposition. The roots of the trouble are laid bare in the following\naffidavit of Bernard:\n\n In the Province of Massachusetts Bay, when civil authority\n was reduced so low as to have nothing left but the form of a\n government, and scarce even that, an enquiry into the causes of so\n great a weakness in the governing power was unavoidable; and there\n was no entering upon such an enquiry, without observing upon the\n ill effects of that part of the constitution of that government,\n whereby the appointment of the Council is left to the people, to be\n made by annual election; and yet the Royal Governor, in all Acts\n of prerogative, is subject to the controul of the Democraticall\n Council. This solecism in policy has been as hurtful in practice\n as it is absurd in theory, and it is the true cause of the extreme\n imbecility of the power of the crown in this government, at times\n when the exertion of it is most wanted. This is not an observation\n of a new date; it is of many years standing; ... ever since he has\n felt the effects which the popular constitution of the Council\n has had upon the Royalty of the government, which is above three\n years ago; within which time, he has seen the King deprived of\n the service of every man at the Council Board, who has resolution\n enough to disapprove the opposition to the authority of the King\n and the Parliament, and their supremacy over the _American_\n Colonies. This, and this only, is the foundation of the charge\n of their endeavouring to overthrow the charter; whereas his real\n desire has been, that the charter should have a more durable\n stability, by means of a necessary alteration, without which, he\n is persuaded it cannot have a much longer duration; as the abuse\n of the appointment of the Council now prevailing, must oblige the\n Parliament to interfere sooner or later.[205]\n\nThe more thoughtfully one considers this frank statement the more\nclearly it appears what grounds for party dissension lay in the\n\u201csolecism\u201d of a constitution whereby the \u201cRoyal Governor, in all Acts\nof prerogative,\u201d was \u201csubject to the controul of the Democraticall\nCouncil.\u201d It would not be easy to patch up a working compromise between\nan absentee prerogative and the local democratic will; one or the\nother must be sovereign; and because the terms of the charter enabled\nthe democracy to nullify the prerogative, Bernard concluded that the\ncharter must be revised and the abuse corrected. In this Hutchinson\nagreed, and from the imperial point of view not without reason. \u201cBy\nan unfortunate mistake,\u201d he wrote in apology to Gage, \u201csoon after\nthe charter, a law passed which made every town in the Province a\ncorporation perfectly democratic.\u201d With every passing year the mistake\nwas becoming more unfortunate, and the vital problem before government,\nin the opinion of Hutchinson, was how to correct this unfortunate\nmistake, together with other like mistakes, with such happy skill as\nto check the democratic branch without arousing popular resentment. On\nthis reef Hutchinson foundered.\n\nAs early as 1764 the meddlesome Bernard had proposed to the home\ngovernment a complete remodeling of colonial governments on the English\nTory plan; and by way of suggestion he forwarded some proposals looking\nto the eventual consolidation of the several colonies under a single\nroyal government, the erection of a house of lords as a balance to the\npopular party and a comprehensive tax policy. It was one of numerous\nsuggestions then being made for incorporating America into the British\nEmpire, and extending the imperial power over the continent. Bernard\u2019s\nbias is sufficiently revealed in the following:\n\n 86. There is no government in America at present, whose powers\n are properly balanced; there not being in any of them, a real\n and distinct third legislative power mediating between the king\n and the people, which is the peculiar excellence of the British\n constitution.\n\n 87. The want of such a third legislative power, adds weight to the\n popular, and lightens the royal scale; so as to destroy the balance\n between the royal and popular powers.\n\n 88. Although America is not now ... ripe enough for an hereditary\n nobility; yet it is now capable of a nobility for life.\n\n 89. A nobility appointed by the king for life, and made\n independent, would probably give strength and stability to the\n American governments, as effectually as an hereditary nobility does\n to that of Great Britain.[206]\n\nIt is not known to what extent Hutchinson indorsed so ambitious and\ncomprehensive a plan. For years he had been Bernard\u2019s understudy, and\nsupported him in all his policies; but being cautious by nature and\nattached to local custom, he probably would have rejected the plan\nof continental consolidation unless his personal ambition had been\nenlisted. Hosmer\u2019s attempt to clear his skirts[207] is not convincing.\nRecalling that Hutchinson yielded invariably to royal or ministerial\nsuggestions, no matter how contrary to local custom, there is no reason\nto believe that he would have objected to any coercive program, which\nprovided adequately for the colonial Tories.\n\nIn another matter that touched the political life of Massachusetts\nto the quick, Hutchinson was deeply engaged. The source of the power\nof the popular party lay in the democratic town meeting. In earlier\ndays the Tories had made no objection to it, for it was amenable to\ncontrol by the \u201cbetter sort of people.\u201d But under the skillful politics\nof Samuel Adams and his fellows, it had become the chief instrument\nof opposition, and Hutchinson was determined to cut its claws. On so\ndelicate a matter, however, it was only to the ministry that he could\nspeak frankly; he must not appear to be laying a plot against an\ninstitution so long established as a part of the political machinery\nof the commonwealth. Under date of March 26, 1770, he wrote to the\nsecretary of Lord Hillsboro:\n\n There is a Town Meeting, no sort of regard being had to any\n qualification of voters, but all the inferior people meet together;\n and at a late meeting the inhabitants of other towns who happened\n to be in town, mixed with them.... It is in other words being under\n the government of the mob. This has given the lower part of the\n people such a sense of their importance that a gentleman does not\n meet with what used to be common civility, and we are sinking into\n perfect barbarism.... If this town could be separated from the rest\n of the Province, the infection has not taken such strong hold of\n the parts remote from it. The spirit of anarchy which prevails in\n Boston is more than I am able to cope with.[208]\n\nWriting to Hillsboro on April 19, 1771, he complained:\n\n In these votes and in most of the public proceedings of the town of\n Boston, persons of the best character and estate have little or no\n concern. They decline attending Town Meetings where they are sure\n to be outvoted by men of the lowest order.[209]\n\nA month later, writing to his old crony, ex-Governor Bernard, he\nsuggested a remedy which in one form or another he was constantly\nholding before the ministry, as an inducement to act:\n\n The town of Boston is the source from whence all the other parts\n of the Province derive more or less troubled water. When you\n consider what is called its constitution, your good sense will\n determine immediately that it never can be otherwise for a long\n time together, whilst the majority which conducts all affairs, if\n met together upon another occasion, would be properly called a mob,\n and are persons of such rank and circumstance as in all communities\n constitute a mob, there being no sort of regulation of voters\n in practice; and as these will always be most in number, men of\n weight and value, although they wish to suppress them, cannot be\n induced to attempt to do it for fear not only of being outvoted,\n but affronted and insulted. Call such an assembly what you will,\n it is really no sort of government, not even a democracy, at best\n a corruption of it. There is no hope of a cure by any legislative\n but among ourselves [_i.e._, ministerial supporters] to compel the\n town to be a corporation.[210] The people will not seek it, because\n every one is sensible his importance will be lessened. If ever a\n remedy is found, it must be by compelling them to swallow it, and\n that by an exterior power,--the Parliament.[211]\n\nIn such advice--the destruction of the democratic machinery by an\n\u201cexterior power\u201d in order that control of government should lie\nbeyond the reach of the popular will--we may discover ample grounds\nfor democratic dissatisfaction with the governor. Hutchinson believed\nthat when matters of state were settled by gentlemen over their wine,\ngood government resulted; but when discussed by common people over\ntheir cider, the door was thrown wide open to anarchy. His particular\n_b\u00eate noire_ was the mob, by which name he designated any gathering\nthat had not received his gracious permission to assemble. It was his\nshortsighted willingness to arm himself with external authority against\nhis fellow countrymen, that filled the years of his administration\nwith so much bitterness. The more he lost ground, the more anxiously\nhe pleaded for help from the ministry. When certain of his private\nletters came to the hands of Franklin and were sent home, Hutchinson\nwas put in a rage. He had long been fearful of such a diplomatic\nleak and urged secrecy, for if his private correspondence should\nbecome public, he explained, \u201cI have no security against the rage\nof the people.\u201d[212] Much ink was used by his friends in declaiming\nagainst the infamy of making public a gentleman\u2019s private letters,\nand Hutchinson characterized it as an \u201caffrontery\u201d such as \u201cwas\nnever known before.\u201d That such private correspondence was in effect\nofficial correspondence, in that it aimed at shaping parliamentary\npolicy towards Massachusetts, was ignored by these outraged gentlemen.\nDiplomats who plan privately rarely like to be read publicly,\nespecially when the public reads how it is being bought and sold.\n\nVery likely the Assembly overstated the case in declaring that \u201cthere\nhas been, for many years past, measures contemplated, and a plan\nformed, by a set of men, born and educated among us, to raise their own\nfortunes, and advance themselves to posts of honor and profit, not only\nto the destruction of the charter and constitution of this province,\nbut at the expense of the rights and liberties of the American\ncolonies.\u201d[213] Hutchinson was too cautious and too conservative to\nseek any revolutionary end; at the same time he was too yielding to\nmake a stand against any encroachment that had legal sanction. From\nhis narrow mind no help could be expected touching the great matter of\nimperial federation. In seeking a way out of the difficulties in which\nthe British Empire was daily becoming entangled, the royal governor\ncould discover no wiser plan than the abridgment of fundamental\nprivileges which a hundred and fifty years of slow growth had made the\npeculiar possession of the colonies. The unhappy conclusion towards\nwhich the American Tories were drifting he set forth in words which\nwere to become the most notorious he ever penned.\n\n I never think of the measures necessary for the peace and good\n order of the colonies without pain. There must be an abridgment of\n what are called English liberties. I relieve myself by considering\n that in a remove from a state of nature to the most perfect state\n of government, there must be a great restraint of natural liberty.\n I doubt whether it is possible to project a system of government in\n which a colony 3000 miles distant from the parent state shall enjoy\n all the liberty of the parent state. I am certain I have never\n yet seen the projection. I wish the good of the colony when I wish\n to see some further restraint of liberty rather than the connexion\n with the parent state should be broken; for I am sure such a breach\n must prove the ruin of the colony.[214]\n\nLater writers, forgetful of Hutchinson\u2019s self-seeking record-and of\nhis Tory philosophy, have inclined to leniency in judging him for\nhis stand on this crucial point. But in spite of his wig and scarlet\nbroadcloth robes he was only an unintelligent politician, who served\nthe hand that fed him. No better commentary could be asked than is\nfound in the caustic remark of the keenest Englishman of his day on\nthe ministerial policy. In a letter of April, 1777, Horace Walpole\nasked, \u201cWhat politicians are those who have preferred the empty name\nof _sovereignty_ to that of _alliance_, and forced subsidies to the\ngolden ocean of commerce?\u201d Hutchinson was stubborn rather than wise.\nHe would make no compromise in the matter of sovereignty; there could\nbe no lawful will but the will of Parliament. \u201cI know of no line that\ncan be drawn between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total\nindependence of the colonies,\u201d he replied to the Assembly, when it was\nstruggling with the idea of federation.[215] When the Council and House\nwere outlining a plan of imperial union, and seeking to demonstrate\nthat the \u201csubordinate authorities\u201d of the colonies were sovereign\nwithin their fields, and \u201cthat, in fact, two such powers do subsist\ntogether, and are not incompatible\u201d; the governor with patient finality\nexplained to them the true \u201cnature of supreme power,\u201d\n\n ... and urged, as an undeniable principle, that such a power is\n essential in all governments, and that another power, with the\n name of subordinate, and with a right to withstand or control the\n supreme in particulars, is an absurdity--for it so far ceases\n to be subordinate, and becomes itself supreme; that no sensible\n writer upon government ever denied what he asserted; and whilst the\n council continued to hold, that two supreme powers were compatible,\n it would be to no purpose to reason upon the other parts of their\n message to him, or to deny what they adduced from a principle so\n contrary to reason.[216]\n\nHutchinson\u2019s position as the King\u2019s representative soon became so\ndifficult that a wiser man would have resigned. He was constrained\nto be the executive of a policy of government by ministerial\ninstructions. Again and again he vetoed a measure, or dissolved the\nlegislature, or took action contrary to the spirit of the charter;\nand the sole justification which he pleaded was a secret letter of\ninstructions, the terms of which he refused to make public, and the\nobject of which must be judged by his acts. \u201cSo long as he continued\ncommander-in-chief,\u201d he replied to the House in one of their perennial\nwranglings, \u201che should think himself bound to conform to every\nsignification of his majesty\u2019s pleasure.\u201d To the denunciations of the\npopular party he remained outwardly indifferent, strong in the supposed\nintegrity of his official purpose. In time, he believed, the evil\nspoken of him by ambitious men would be forgotten, and his course would\nfind vindication. The words of Bernard might well have been his:\n\n He denies, that the opinion of the whole people of that Province\n can now be taken and ascertained, labouring as it does at present,\n under the baneful influence of a desperate faction, who by raising\n groundless fears and jealousies, by deluding one part of the\n people, and by intimidating the other part, has destroyed all real\n freedom, not only of action, but even of sentiment and opinion.\n But the Respondent doubts not but that his Administration has been\n approved by the generally of the best and most respectable men of\n the Province.[217]\n\nIn spite of Hutchinson\u2019s endeavors to build up a prerogative party\nthe drift of public opinion went steadily against him until he was\nconvinced that he stood almost alone. \u201cHe was not sure of support from\nany one person in authority,\u201d he commented stoically, in telling of\nthe tea troubles. The Council, the Assembly, the very constables were\nagainst him. Yet he went his way obstinately; he would fulfill to\nthe last word the instructions of his superiors. The ministry might\nbe unwise, but better the legal folly of Parliament than the madness\nof the democracy. To encroach upon the royal prerogative, Hutchinson\nbelieved was to endanger the nice balance of the constitution. He was\nconvinced that \u201cthe present easy, happy model of government\u201d was as\nnear perfect as the ingenuity of Englishmen could devise; that the\nwelfare of America was dependent upon a proper subordination of the\ncolonies to the mother country; and that the popular party was plotting\ntreason against their country and their king. The third volume of\nhis history is a long argument to demonstrate the wisdom of his own\nand Bernard\u2019s administrations. The liberal governor, Thomas Pownall,\nHutchinson disliked, partly because of his easy familiar ways, but\nchiefly because he was not a prerogative man.[218] But if Pownall\nhad been in Hutchinson\u2019s place, the history of the relations of\nMassachusetts and England would have run very differently.\n\nIt was his ingrained snobbery which, more than anything else, brought\nabout his undoing. The aristocratic governor never differed with a\nlord, and rarely agreed with a commoner. It was intolerable to him that\ncommon fellows should dispute his reasoning or sit in judgment upon\nhis official acts. It was their duty as loyal subjects to obey without\nquestion the mandates of the King\u2019s appointed spokesmen; and when\ntown-meeting resolutions, put through by mechanics and petty tradesmen,\ncriticised his conduct, or refused to accept the decision of the\nsupreme court that the \u201cBoston massacre\u201d was not legally a \u201cmassacre,\u201d\nhe saw in such acts only the madness of the mobocracy. That the people\nshould suspect the probity of his majesty\u2019s judges was painful to him.\nAs partisan bitterness increased, he became acutely suspicious of all\nwho disagreed with him, and shut his mind against every argument. The\ndebates and resolves in House and Council \u201cabounded with duplicity\nand inconclusive reasonings.\u201d \u201cThe disingenuity and low craft, which\nappeared in so many of the messages, resolves, and other publick\ninstruments,\u201d he commented, descended \u201cto the level and vulgarity of a\ncommon newspaper essay.\u201d[219] To the leaders of the popular party, the\ngroup of keen debaters and parliamentarians who kept him constantly on\nthe defense, he attributed an artful malignancy. The fathers of the\nRevolution do not appear to advantage in the pages of his history. The\nOtises had gone over to the opposition because the father had been\ndisappointed on the occasion of Hutchinson\u2019s elevation to the coveted\nchief-justiceship. John Hancock\u2019s \u201cruling passion was a fondness for\npopular applause.... His natural powers were moderate, and had been\nvery little improved by study.\u201d John Adams was a man whose \u201cambition\nwas without bounds.... He could not look with complacency upon any man\nwho was in possession of more wealth, more honours, or more knowledge\nthan himself,\u201d and he went over to the opposition because of a slight\nupon him by refusal of a place on the bench. For Samuel Adams, his\nmost relentless enemy, Hutchinson\u2019s hatred was boundless. He had\ndefaulted as collector of taxes and for equivalent of his arrears of\npublic money he had set up as defender of the public liberties, and he\n\u201cmade more converts by calumniating governors, and other servants of\nthe crown, than by strength of reasoning.\u201d His main business in life\nwas \u201crobbing men of their characters.\u201d\n\nIt is unlikely that time will bring any vindication of the later career\nof Thomas Hutchinson. He was a stiff-necked official of scrupulous\nprinciple, whose principles were grossly reactionary. He was sincerely\nattached to the great ideal of imperial unity, but he conceived of\nthat unity as embodied in the coercive sovereignty of the crown and\nparliament, with Tory gentlemen as exclusive administrators. Samuel\nAdams was not unjust in declaring, \u201cIt has been his principle from a\nboy that mankind are to be governed by the discerning few; and it has\never since been his ambition to be the hero of the few.\u201d Courteous\nand conscientious, with very considerable administrative ability, it\nwas his misfortune to defend a social philosophy alien to the rough\nindividualism of his fellow countrymen. He would think only in terms\nof imperial centralization, and they would think only in terms of\nlocal home rule. He conceived of the political state as a private\npreserve for gentlemen to hunt over, and they conceived of it as a free\nhunting-ground for all. He never understood the assertive, capitalistic\nAmerica that was rising about him, and in joining issue with it he\ndestroyed himself. \u201cIf we were not mad,\u201d he lamented, \u201cI have no doubt\nwe might enjoy all that liberty which can subsist with a state of\ngovernment.\u201d It was the complaint of the Tory upon a democracy that\npreferred self-rule to the blessings of a trusteeship, which, like a\nlawyers\u2019 squabble, consumed the estate in fees. Quite evidently the\n\u201cmobility,\u201d in the days of Thomas Hutchinson, was running into madness,\nfor it demanded greater liberty than was compatible with a \u201cstate of\ngovernment\u201d sanctioned by crown officials--a fact which the royal\ngovernor grieved over but was helpless to restrain.\n\n\nII \u2022 Daniel Leonard \u2022 Tory Lawyer\n\nProbably the most finished prose writer, certainly one of the most\ncultivated minds, among the notable group of American Loyalists, was a\nyoung man of excellent family, who if events had turned out otherwise\nwould have made a much greater name for himself. Daniel Leonard was a\nHarvard graduate and a member of the Boston bar, an effective speaker,\nof some weight in commonwealth politics, and aligned with Hutchinson,\nSewall, and the crown party. In temperament and taste he seems to have\nbeen conspicuously aristocratic. He delighted in fine clothes and\nset up his coach and pair to drive from his countryseat to Boston--a\ngesture of opulence that excited the laughter of sober people, and led\nMercy Warren to introduce him into her comedy, _The Group_, under the\nname of Beau Trumps. According to John Adams, who was a decided gossip,\nit was this cavalier love of display that led to his political undoing,\novercoming his native sympathy with the party of revolution.\n\n He wore a broad gold lace round the rim of his hat, he made his\n cloak glitter with laces still broader, he had set up his chariot\n and pair and constantly traveled in it from Taunton to Boston. This\n made the world stare--it was a novelty. Not another lawyer in the\n province, attorney or barrister, of whatever age, reputation, rank,\n or station, presumed to ride in a coach or chariot. The discerning\n ones soon perceived that wealth and power must have charms to\n a heart that delighted in so much finery, and indulged in such\n unusual expense. Such marks could not escape the vigilant eyes of\n the two arch-tempters, Hutchinson and Sewall, who had more art,\n insinuation, and address, than all the rest of their party.[220]\n\nUnder the pen name of \u201cMassachusettensis,\u201d Leonard published a series\nof weekly letters addressed to \u201cthe Inhabitants of the Province of\nMassachusetts Bay,\u201d running from December 12, 1774, to April 3, 1775,\na fortnight before the affair at Lexington. They were begun soon after\nthe adjournment of the Continental Congress, and may be taken as the\nfinal statement of the Tory argument. They were exceedingly skillful\npartisan pamphlets, adapted with great adroitness to current prejudices\nand old loyalties. Their main appeal was to the psychology of the\ncolonial, and if the springs of that psychology had not been sapped\nby the rising liberalism, the appeal would have been extraordinarily\npersuasive. Probably the King\u2019s cause was never presented more\nconvincingly, and the American Tories were delighted with the\nletters. \u201cOn my return from Congress,\u201d said John Adams, \u201cI found\nthe Massachusetts Gazette teeming with political speculations, and\nMassachusettensis shining like the moon among the lesser stars.\u201d[221]\nHe at once replied to them under the pen name \u201cNovanglus,\u201d beginning\nwith a slashing attack in which the seventeenth-century republicans\nare called in to refute Leonard, and then reciting some plain facts\nabout the British government and its American spokesman, which somewhat\ntarnished the latter\u2019s eulogies. But he soon strayed off into abstract\ndisquisition, and the controversy was brought to an abrupt end with the\nnews from Lexington.\n\nAs in most Loyalist pamphlets, Leonard\u2019s appeal was primarily to\nthe law and the constitution, and it is tagged with references to\nstatutes like a proper lawyer\u2019s brief. But underlying the argument is a\npolitical philosophy which fairly represents the current Tory theory.\nThe immediate purpose of the Letters was to make the rebellious spirit\nof the colonial Whigs toward their lawful sovereign appear both wicked\nand groundless, dangerous to the peace and well-being of society and\ninspired by the personal ambitions of demagogues. This major purpose\ninvolved him in two main arguments: first, on the heinousness of\nrebellion in general; and second, on the special heinousness of the\nWhig leaders. Leonard\u2019s political philosophy is implied rather than\nelaborated. With other American Loyalists he evaded broad principles;\nnevertheless his total argument rests on a philosophical foundation too\nwell known to be glossed over. He derived immediately from Hobbes, and\nhe follows the _Leviathan_ in his exaltation of the sovereign state.\nMen in a state of nature, he argued, live in a condition of anarchy,\nwith the hand of all against all. Amid such chaos civilization is\nimpossible, and the common need of security for person and property\nimpelled men to erect the coercive state as an instrument of social\nprotection. It first arose and has since been maintained from the\nnecessity of holding in check the spirit of anarchy which continually\nthreatens from the ambitions of designing men. This is the great danger\nthat lies always in wait, ready to destroy society. Government is a\nguarantee of the protection of the weak against the strong, and every\nfriend of law and order must enlist his loyalty on the side of the\nlawful prince against all who would foment rebellion; for rebellion is\nthe mischief-maker that unlooses all the evils of Pandora\u2019s box.\n\nThis was no more than the familiar stock-in-trade of the Tory,\nnevertheless Leonard becomes quite terrifying in describing the evils\nof sedition:\n\n Rebellion is the most atrocious offence, that can be perpetrated\n by man, save those which are committed more immediately against\n the supreme Governor of the Universe who is the avenger of his\n own cause. It dissolves the social band, annihilates the security\n resulting from law and government; introduces fraud, violence,\n rapine, murder, sacrilege, and the long train of evils, that riot,\n uncontrouled, in a state of nature. Allegiance and protection are\n reciprocal. The subject is bound by the compact to yield obedience\n to government, and in return, is entitled to protection from it;\n thus the poor are protected against the rich; the weak against\n the strong; the individual against the many; and this protection\n is guaranteed to each member, by the whole community. But when\n government is laid prostrate, a state of war, of all against all,\n commences; might overcomes right; innocence itself has no security,\n unless the individual sequesters himself from his fellowmen,\n inhabits his own cave, and seeks his own prey. This is what is\n called a state of nature.[222]\n\nThe \u201cseeds of sedition\u201d having been sown, they spring up and bring\nforth fruits of death; the \u201cpeople are led to sacrifice real liberty to\nlicentiousness, which gradually ripens into rebellion and civil war.\u201d\n\n And what is still more to be lamented, the generality of the\n people, who are thus made the dupes of artifice, and the mere\n stilts of ambition, are sure to be losers in the end. The best\n they can expect, is to be thrown neglected by, when they are no\n longer wanted; but they are seldom so happy; if they are subdued,\n confiscation of estate and ignominious death are their portion;\n if they conquer, their own army is often turned upon them, to\n subjugate them to a more tyrannical government than that they\n rebelled against.[223]\n\nLeonard then proceeds to supplement the Hobbesian argument by an\nelaborate appeal to the history of English law, and discovers ample\nsanction in a recital of a long list of statutory enactments and\ncourt decisions against the evil of sedition. As treason is the\ngravest social crime, so it has always been visited with the severest\npunishments. He states the history of legislation against treason, and\npoints out how the statutes have been construed to reach so far as to\nembrace the gathering of private men in a warlike manner, with a design\nto redress public grievances or to better their economic condition. He\nmakes a parade of the brutal laws of feudal times, and the decisions\nof Tudor and Stuart judges, justifying those pronouncements as a\nnecessary defense of society against sedition-mongers and their\nsubversive ambitions. By a natural transition he brings the argument\nhome to his American readers. The aims and methods of the Whigs, he\ncontends, constitute a clear violation of the law of treason. They are\nplaying with the gallows, with their Committees of Correspondence--\u201cthe\nfoulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent that ever issued from the\neggs of sedition,\u201d and the imperative need of the hour was to put a\nstop to all treasonable thought and action.\n\n I saw the small seed of sedition, when it was implanted; it was, as\n a grain of mustard. I have watched the plant until it has become\n a great tree; the vilest reptiles that crawl upon the earth, are\n concealed at the root; the foulest birds of the air rest upon its\n branches. I now would induce you to go to work immediately with\n axes and hatchets, and cut it down, for a twofold reason; because\n it is a pest to society, and lest it be felled suddenly by a\n stronger arm and crush thousands in the fall.[224]\n\nFrom the first major proposition, that all sedition is heinous, Leonard\npassed to his second, that the sedition of the American Whigs was\npeculiarly wicked, for it was grounded in no injustice on the part of\nEngland. If loyalty is the highest social virtue, that loyalty might\njustly be claimed by Great Britain as her due. \u201cHas she not been a\nnursing mother to us, from the days of our infancy to this time? Has\nshe not been indulgent almost to a fault?\u201d The Whigs, he asserted\nbroadly, have been patching together their supposed grievances out of\ncloth that never came from an English loom. It is the shoddiest of\nhomespun, mean, and shameful.\n\n We had always considered ourselves, as a part of the British\n empire, and the parliament, as the supreme legislature of the\n whole. Acts of parliament for regulating our internal policy were\n familiar. We had paid postage agreeable to act of parliament, ...\n duties imposed for regulating trade, and even for raising a revenue\n to the crown without questioning the right, though we closely\n adverted to the rate or quantum. We knew that in all those acts of\n government, the good of the whole had been consulted, and whenever\n through want of information any thing grievous had been ordained,\n we were sure of obtaining redress by a proper representation of\n it. We were happy in our subordination; but in an evil hour, under\n the influence of a malignant planet, the design was formed of\n opposing the stamp-act, by a denial of the right of parliament to\n make it.[225]\n\n Our patriots exclaim, \u201cthat humble and reasonable petitions from\n the representatives of the people have been frequently treated\n with contempt.\u201d This is as virulent a libel upon his majesty\u2019s\n government, as falsehood and ingenuity combined could fabricate.\n Our humble and reasonable petitions have not only been ever\n graciously received, when the established mode of exhibiting\n them has been observed, but generally granted. Applications of\n a different kind, have been treated with neglect, though not\n always with the contempt they deserved. These either originated in\n illegal assemblies, and could not be received without implicitly\n countenancing such enormities, or contained such matter, and\n were conceived in such terms, as to be at once an insult to his\n majesty, and a libel on his government. Instead of being decent\n remonstrances against real grievances, or prayers for their\n removal, they were insidious attempts to wrest from the crown, or\n the supreme legislature, their inherent, unalienable prerogatives\n or rights.[226]\n\nThe prerogative might not be argued, according to Leonard, nor the\nsovereignty of parliament discussed, for any such comment was \u201can\ninsult to his majesty, and a libel on his government.\u201d The illegal\nContinental Congress had done both and thereby proved itself seditious.\n\n The prince, or sovereign, as some writers call the supreme\n authority of a state, is sufficiently ample and extensive to\n provide a remedy for every wrong, in all possible emergencies and\n contingencies; and consequently a power, that is not derived from\n such authority, springing up in a state, must encroach upon it,\n and in proportion as the usurpation enlarges itself, the rightful\n prince must be diminished; indeed, they cannot long subsist\n together, but must continually militate, till one or the other be\n destroyed.[227]\n\nThe true animus of the Whig attack upon the nice balance of the British\nconstitution Leonard professed to discover in a dangerous republican\nambition. From the beginning there had been an excess of the democratic\nelement in the charters and practice of many of the colonies; and this\noverbalance must in the end be rectified.\n\n Our council boards are as destitute of the constitutional authority\n of the house of lords, as their several members are of the noble\n independence, and splendid appendages of peerage. The house of\n peers is the bulwark of the British constitution, and through\n successive ages, has withstood the shocks of monarchy, and the\n sappings of democracy, and the constitution gained strength by the\n conflict.[228]\n\nLacking a peerage, which Leonard regrets, but which will come with\ntime, American political practice is less stable than the English,\nmore exposed to \u201cthe sappings of democracy\u201d; but necessary steps have\nalready been taken to stabilize it. The hands of the royal governor and\njudges have been strengthened against the democratic House, and \u201ctown\nmeetings are restrained to prevent their passing traitorous resolves.\u201d\nThe ideal towards which America must travel as fast as circumstance and\nthe colonial temper will permit, is the wise balance of the English\ngovernment, with local powers vested in colonial lords and commons,\nsupervised by the King and the Imperial Parliament. In the midst of\nthese present agitations, wickedly fomented by Whig smugglers--\u201ca\nsmuggler and a whig are cousin germans, the offspring of two sisters,\navarice and ambition\u201d--it should be remembered that \u201cthe terms whig\nand tory have been adopted according to the arbitrary use of them in\nthis province, but they rather ought to be reversed; an American tory\nis a supporter of our excellent constitution, and an American whig a\nsubverter of it.\u201d To bring these American subverters of the glorious\nBritish constitution to a sense of their obligations, Leonard refers\nthem to the words of James Otis written ten years before:\n\n It is a maxim, that the king can do no wrong; and every good\n subject is bound to believe his king is not inclined to do any. We\n are blessed with a prince who has given abundant demonstrations,\n that in all his actions, he studies the good of his people, and\n the true glory of his crown, which are inseparable. It would\n therefore be the highest degree of impudence and disloyalty, to\n imagine that the king, at the head of his parliament, could have\n any but the most pure and perfect intentions of justice, goodness\n and truth, that human nature is capable of. All this I say and\n believe of the king and parliament, in all their acts; even in that\n which so nearly affects the interests of the colonists; and that a\n most perfect and ready obedience is to be yielded to it while it\n remains in force. The power of parliament is uncontroulable but\n by themselves, and we must obey. They can only repeal their own\n acts. There would be an end of all government, if one or a number\n of subjects, or subordinate provinces should take upon them so\n far to judge of the justice of an act of parliament, as to refuse\n obedience to it. If there was nothing else to restrain such a step,\n prudence ought to do it, for forcibly resisting the parliament and\n the king\u2019s laws is high treason. Therefore let the parliament lay\n what burdens they please on us, we must, it is our duty to submit\n and patiently bear them, till they will be pleased to relieve\n us.[229]\n\nThe argument comes back finally to a threat; sovereignty rests not on\ngood will but on coercion. The insincerity and unreality of the Tory\nappeal are only too patent. Those old pleaders were true to their\nbreeding and their interests, for they regarded fact as little as\na modern diplomat. They ignored or denied open and plain evidence.\nNowhere, perhaps, does the weakness of Leonard\u2019s argument become\nmore evident than in his refusal to admit the theoretical right of\nrevolution. He professed allegiance to a king whose claim to the crown\nrested on revolution, and was justified by the apostle of Whiggery,\nLocke. But nowhere does he refer to Locke, and not until he was\nprodded by John Adams, who insisted that the Whig principles were \u201cthe\nprinciples of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and Cicero, and Sydney,\nHarrington and Locke,\u201d did he concede that any other interpretation of\nrevolution than the Hobbesian, was justifiable. In his last paper, of\nApril 3, 1775, he replied to Adams thus:\n\n I hold the rights of the people as sacred, and revere the\n principles, that have established the succession to the imperial\n crown of Great Britain, in the line of the illustrious house of\n Brunswick; but that the difficulty lies in applying them to the\n cause of the whigs ... for admitting that the collective body\n of the people, that are subject to the British empire, have an\n inherent right to change their form of government, or race of\n kings, it does not follow, that the inhabitants of a single\n province, or of a number of provinces, or any given part under a\n majority of the whole empire, have such a right. By admitting that\n the less may rule or sequester themselves from the greater, we\n unhinge all government.[230]\n\nBy such logic does he whittle away the doctrine of the right of\nrevolution. As a lawyer Daniel Leonard discovered a distinction between\nthe Continental Congress of 1774 and the Revolutionary Convention\nof 1689, which rendered the former treasonable and the latter\nglorious. But the rising liberalism of America could see no such nice\ndistinction, and a year later the brilliant young lawyer was forced to\nwithdraw to Halifax. He was rewarded by a grateful King with the post\nof chief justice of Bermuda, lived to be nearly ninety, and died in\nLondon in 1829, one of the last of the exiled Loyalists.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Jonathan Boucher \u2022 Tory Priest\n\nThe extremest expression of American Toryism came not unfittingly from\nan Anglican priest. The English church has always been the mother\nof loyalty, and Jonathan Boucher of Virginia and Maryland was the\nspiritual son of a notable line of bishops and priests who upheld the\nroyal prerogative through evil times and good, throwing the august\nsanction of religion about the monarchical state. A fearless, capable,\noutspoken man was this English-born southerner, taking counsel of\nhis own thought, not over-tolerant of those who differed with him,\nholding himself _in loco parentis_ to his parishioners, and exacting\nobedience from them. He was another Increase Mather, with the same love\nof domination, the same directness of purpose and strength of will. A\nman of conspicuous parts and equally conspicuous position: not only a\nclergyman, but a gentleman of affairs, owner of a large plantation and\nmany slaves, concerned with public business and a volunteer statesman:\na sort of unofficial adviser and secretary to draft provincial laws.\nAbove all of independent mind. He would truckle to no man, and he\nsubjected the opinions of his neighbors to the same scrutiny that he\ngave his own. For the popular orator and the demagogue he had frank\ncontempt, and mass prejudices and mob power held no terrors for him.\n\nThere was both courage and futility in his free, outspoken career.\nHe refused to be intimidated or turned aside by popular disfavor.\n\u201cFor more than six months I preached, when I did preach, with a pair\nof loaded pistols lying on the cushions; having given notice that if\nany one attempted, what had long been threatened, to drag me out of\nthe pulpit, I should think myself justified in repelling violence by\nviolence.\u201d One day he promptly knocked down a burly blacksmith who\nhad been set on him, but there came a time when his church was filled\nwith armed men, and his friends, fearing for his life, held him back\nforcibly from mounting the pulpit. That episode marked the end of his\ncareer in America. He had plainly become obsolete, and he was driven\nhome to his native England. There as an old man, he published in 1797\nthirteen sermons, preached in America between 1763 and 1775, with\nan historical preface, under the title, _A View of the Causes and\nConsequences of the American Revolution_, and dedicated to his old\nneighbor and friend, General Washington.\n\nThe political philosophy of Jonathan Boucher, as elaborated in\nthese discourses, is frank and unequivocal. It is the voice of\nseventeenth-century Cavalier England, speaking to an alien people, bred\nup in another philosophy of government. Church and state, the Bible and\nthe British constitution, the divine authority of God and the divine\nauthority of the _status quo_, have got themselves curiously fused--and\nconfused--in the mind of this disciple of Laud. It was the result\nnot of ignorance but of conviction. When the revolutionary movement\nbegan to make a stir about him, the parish priest took the situation\nseriously and set about preparing himself to cope with it. Before then\nhe had been no student of political theory, but now he turned to his\nbooks. \u201cWith sincerity in my heart, and my Bible in my hand,\u201d he said,\n\u201cI sat down to explore the truth ... to read and study what had been\ncollected and laid down on the subject of government by writers ...\nwho got their materials ... from the only pure sources of information,\nthe law of God, and the law of the land.\u201d[231] The restriction in his\nchoice of writers is suggestive of his bias; it eliminated at one\nstroke the main body of political speculation, not only the English\nthinkers of the preceding century, but the continental followers of the\nnatural-rights school. Actually, however, Boucher did not limit himself\nso narrowly, for he refers frequently to Locke, and he was fairly\nfamiliar with the main doctrines of the revolutionary philosophy. But\nhis most cherished discovery was Sir Robert Filmer\u2019s _Patriarcha_,\nand having digested Filmer\u2019s quaint theory, thenceforth he remained a\nconfirmed patriarchist. The absurd jumble of Hebraic precedent and Tory\nprejudice which Filmer had laboriously put together and which Locke had\nknocked to pieces, was wholly convincing to this belated advocate of\ndivine right, who proceeded to wipe the dust off the precious volume\nand expound its doctrines to an amazed congregation.\n\nThe single and sacred duty of the subject, Jonathan Boucher was\nconvinced, is faithful obedience to the powers that are set over him.\nThose powers derive from God and are instituted for the subject\u2019s good.\nIt follows, therefore, that the unpardonable sin is rebellion against\nlawfully constituted authority. \u201cThe doctrine of _obedience for\nconscience sake_,\u201d he asserted, \u201cis ... the great _cornerstone_ of all\ngood government.\u201d[232] With Daniel Leonard he makes much of it, but he\nappeals rather to the sanctions of religion than to the law.\n\n Obedience to Government is every man\u2019s duty, because it is every\n man\u2019s interest; but it is particularly incumbent on Christians,\n because ... it is enjoined by the positive commands of God....\n If the form of government under which the good providence of God\n has been pleased to place us be mild and free, it is our duty to\n enjoy it with gratitude and with thankfulness.... If it be less\n indulgent and less liberal than in reason it ought to be, still it\n is our duty not to disturb the peace of the community, by becoming\n refractory and rebellious subjects, and _resisting the ordinances\n of God_.[233]\n\n Those great and good men, who, _like wise master-builders_,\n have from time to time so _fitly framed together_ our glorious\n Constitution, well knew that _other sure foundation no man could\n lay_ than ... obedience, not only _for wrath_, but _for conscience\n sake_.[234]\n\nBecause this spirit of obedience was openly flouted in America, where\nevery influence made for rough individual liberty, Jonathan Boucher\nfeared for the future. Loose principles were abroad, notions of popular\nsovereignty under the majority will, that must give \u201crise to a low and\nunworthy opinion of government,\u201d unless the people were recalled to\ntheir duty. Particularly dangerous, he thought, was \u201cthat loose notion\nrespecting government, which has long been disseminated among the\npeople at large with incredible industry, namely, that all government\nis the mere creature of the people, and may therefore be tampered with,\naltered, new-modelled, set up or pulled down, just as tumultuous crowds\nof the most disorderly persons in the community (who on such occasions\nare always so forward to call themselves _the people_) may happen in\nsome giddy moments of overheated ardour to determine.\u201d[235]\n\nThe unhappy results of such evil principles Boucher saw spread\nthrough America. With the insidious undermining of respect for\nlaw and government, the vicious conception of republicanism made\nits appearance. \u201cEverything in America had a republican aspect,\u201d\nhe commented in after years; and he agreed with Bernard that \u201cthe\nsplitting America into many small governments weakened the governing\npower, and strengthened that of the people.\u201d[236] If Parliament had\nbeen wise enough to consolidate government in America, drawing it to a\nsingle head, and investing it with dignity and authority, the country\nwould not have become, like revolutionary France, \u201ca mean and odious\nrepublic.\u201d As a minister and a loyal British subject, Jonathan Boucher\nwould not seduce the American people \u201cby any flowery panegyrics on\nliberty. Such panegyrics are the productions of ancient heathens and\nmodern patriots: nothing of the kind is to be met with in the Bible,\nnor in the Statute Book. The word _liberty_, as meaning civil liberty,\ndoes not, I believe, occur in all the Scriptures.\u201d[237]\n\n To respect the laws, is to respect liberty in the only rational\n sense in which the term can be used; for liberty consists in\n subserviency to law. \u201cWhere there is no law,\u201d says Mr. Locke,\n \u201cthere is no freedom.\u201d... True liberty, then, is a liberty to do\n everything that is right, and the being restrained from doing\n anything that is wrong.[238]\n\nThe evils which flow from disrespect for authority carry much further\nthan the unsettling of the political _status quo_; they end by\noverturning the entire social order. If any group or class rejects\nthe divine plan according to which God has set each in its due place,\nsociety as a whole is involved in strife that may lapse into anarchy.\nIt was an unhappy scene, prophesying an unhappier future, that the\nminister beheld in contemporary America.\n\n There never was a time when a whole people were so little governed\n by settled good principles.... Both employers and the employed,\n much to their mutual shame and inconvenience, no longer live\n together with anything like attachment and cordiality on either\n side; and the laboring classes, instead of regarding the rich as\n their guardians, patrons, and benefactors, now look on them as so\n many overgrown colossuses whom it is no demerit in them to wrong.\n A still more general ... topic of complaint is, that the lower\n classes, instead of being industrious, frugal, and orderly (virtues\n so peculiarly becoming their station in life) are become idle,\n improvident, and dissolute.[239]\n\nWith social morality thus dangerously undermined, the Americans were\na natural prey to demagogues, who filled the land with their clamor\nof patriotism and liberty. The situation in Virginia was peculiarly\ndangerous by reason of long-standing debts to English merchants which\nthe planters were unable to pay; they found themselves in consequence,\nimpaled on the horns of an unhappy dilemma, \u201cto be loyal and be ruined,\nor to rebel and be damned.\u201d[240]\n\nInstructed by the colonial troubles, Jonathan Boucher elaborated a\ntheory of the true origin and purpose of government, a theory taken\nstraight out of Filmer, which he expands thus:\n\n As soon as there were some to be governed, there were also some to\n govern.... The first father was the first king: and ... it was thus\n that all government originated, and monarchy is the most ancient\n form.[241]\n\n The glory of God is much concerned, that there should be good\n government in the world: it is, therefore, the uniform doctrine\n of the Scriptures, that it is under the deputation and authority\n of God alone that _kings reign and princes decree justice_. Kings\n and princes (which are only other words for supreme magistrates)\n were doubtless created and appointed, not so much for their own\n sakes, as for the sake of the people committed to their charge: yet\n they are not, therefore, the creatures of the people. So far from\n deriving their authority from any supposed consent or suffrage of\n men, they receive their commission from Heaven; they receive it\n from God, the source and original of all power.[242]\n\nInstituted by God and functioning under divine sanction, government\nbecomes, therefore, a divine instrument, for the security of which He\nis greatly concerned: \u201cEverything our blessed Lord either said or did,\npointedly tended to discourage the disturbing a settled government.\u201d\n\u201cUnless we are good subjects, we cannot be good Christians.\u201d Jesus\n\u201cthought it would be better, both for Judea in particular, and for\nthe world in general, that ... the people should not be distracted\nby a revolution, and ... that there should be no precedent to which\nrevolutionists might appeal.\u201d \u201cThe only very intolerable grievance in\ngovernment is, when men allow themselves to disturb and destroy the\npeace of the world, by vain attempts to render that perfect, which\nthe laws of our nature have ordained to be imperfect.\u201d \u201cTo suffer\nnobly indicates more greatness of mind than can be shown by acting\nvaliantly.\u201d[243] Jonathan Boucher was the high Tory of the Tory cause\nin America. He refused to strike his flag to the pirate craft of\nrepublicanism; he would not truckle to newfangled notions; but stood up\nstoutly to be counted for God and the King. In laying bare the heart\nof Toryism, he unwittingly gave aid and comfort to the detested cause\nof liberalism. It is reasonable to assume that such militant loyalty\nto the outworn doctrine of passive submission was a real disservice to\nthe ministry, for it revealed the prerogative in a light peculiarly\noffensive to American prejudices. What a godsend to the liberals was\nsuch doctrine on the lips of so eminent a divine!\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[202] _Diary and Letters_, Vol. I, pp. 46-48.\n\n[203] See Hosmer, _Life of Samuel Adams_, p. 259.\n\n[204] Hutchinson, _History of Massachusetts Bay_, Vol. III, p. 255.\n\n[205] \u201cAnswer of Bernard to the Petition of the House of\nRepresentatives to the King,\u201d in _Works of Samuel Adams_, Vol. I, pp.\n365-367.\n\n[206] Quoted in John Adams, _Novanglus_, Second Letter.\n\n[207] See his _Life of Thomas Hutchinson_.\n\n[208] Quoted in _ibid._, p. 189.\n\n[209] _Ibid._, p. 206.\n\n[210] Hutchinson assumes the act of incorporation will lay restrictions\nupon the right of suffrage and the powers of the town meeting.\n\n[211] _Ibid._, pp. 206-207.\n\n[212] _Ibid._, p. 199.\n\n[213] _Resolves of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay_,\nJune 16, 1773.\n\n[214] _Ibid._, p. 436. Compare the view of Van Tyne, _The Causes of the\nWar of Independence_, p. 85.\n\n[215] Speech of January 6, 1773.\n\n[216] _History of Massachusetts Bay_, Vol. III, pp. 381-382.\n\n[217] _Answer of Bernard to the Petition of the House of\nRepresentatives._\n\n[218] For Hutchinson\u2019s statement of the Tory case, see Vol. III, pp.\n352-355.\n\n[219] _History of Massachusetts Bay_, Vol. III, p. 399.\n\n[220] _Works_, Vol. X, pp. 194-195; quoted in Tyler, _Literary History\nof the American Revolution_, Vol. I, Chapter XVI.\n\n[221] Preface to _Novanglus and Massachusettensis_, 1819.\n\n[222] Letter of February 6, 1775, in _Novanglus and Massachusettensis_,\npp. 187-188.\n\n[223] _Ibid._, pp. 152-153.\n\n[224] Letter of January 2, in _ibid._, p. 159.\n\n[225] Letter of December 19, in _ibid._, p. 147.\n\n[226] Letter of March 27, in _ibid._, pp. 217-218.\n\n[227] _Ibid._, p. 219.\n\n[228] Letter of January 9, in _ibid._, p. 171.\n\n[229] Letter of January 23, in _ibid._, p. 181.\n\n[230] _Ibid._, p. 225.\n\n[231] _A View of the Causes, etc._, p. 591.\n\n[232] _Ibid._, p. 309.\n\n[233] _Ibid._, pp. 507-508.\n\n[234] _Ibid._, p. 306.\n\n[235] _Ibid._, p. 313.\n\n[236] _Ibid._, p. xliv.\n\n[237] _Ibid._, p. 504.\n\n[238] _Ibid._, pp. 509 and 511.\n\n[239] _Ibid._, p. 309.\n\n[240] _Ibid._, Preface, p. xlii.\n\n[241] _Ibid._, p. 525.\n\n[242] _Ibid._, p. 534.\n\n[243] _Ibid._, pp. 535, 538, 542, 543.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 John Dickinson \u2022 The Mind of the American Whig\n\n\nFor many colonials it was a hard and bitter choice that was thrust\nupon them by the political situation. They had no wish to choose\nbetween loyalty to the British Empire and love for their native land.\nSo long as the quarrel remained a legal dispute over parliamentary\nencroachments, colonial sentiment was fairly united in opposition to\nthe ministerial policy; differences of opinion arose over methods of\ndefense, rather than the need of it. The threatened loss of home rule\ndrew together radical and conservative. Although Governor Hutchinson\nasserted that the feeling against England was the work of a small\npopulistic element--\u201cin Massachusetts Bay the exception to the\nconstitutional authority of Parliament was first taken, and principally\nsupported, by men who were before discontented\u201d[244]--it is clear\nthat the active Tory party numbered at first few more than the royal\nofficials and their beneficiaries. But when it came to the point of\nsevering colonial relations with the mother country, comparatively few\namong the upper classes in the northern and middle colonies went with\nthe party of independence. The moderate men, the conciliationists,\nwere crushed between the two extremes, and the Tory party was greatly\nincreased in numbers and influence.\n\nOf this moderate party of conciliationists, the outstanding figure\nduring the years of tedious debate was John Dickinson, of Philadelphia.\nHis _Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer_, published between December 2,\n1767, and February 15, 1768, created considerable stir both in America\nand England, and if Hutchinson may be trusted, they \u201cformed a temporary\npolitical creed for the colonies.\u201d Later he was chief draftsman of a\nnotable series of state papers: the Declaration of Rights of the Stamp\nAct Congress; the two Petitions to the King and the Address to the\nInhabitants of Quebec of the first Continental Congress; and finally\nthe Articles of Confederation. Professor Tyler has fastened upon\nhim the title of \u201cpenman of the Revolution\u201d; but a juster title, and\nmore in accord with the facts, would be \u201cspokesman of the Colonial\nWhigs.\u201d From his first entrance into public life to the adoption of\nthe Constitution, Dickinson was a consistent advocate of the political\nphilosophy of which John Pym was the early representative, Locke\nthe philosophical defender, and Pitt the parliamentary advocate--a\nphilosophy which he accepted as the final embodiment of the long\nstruggle for English freedom.\n\nEnglish Whiggery has been fortunate in its advocates. It has been\nexpounded with great fervor and glossed with much eloquence. Its ends\nhave been so persistently proclaimed as at one with the cause of human\nliberty, that in the mind of English-speaking people it early became\nsynonymous with English liberalism. In so far as it represented a\nprotest against divine right, such an interpretation was historically\njust. It was the expression of a rising class, and every rising class\nin its ostensible program professes to be liberal. But in the outcome\nWhiggery proved to be very different from generic liberalism. Examined\ncritically the program of Whiggery is seen to have been compounded\nof substantial economic interests. Although the Whig party created\nthe modern House of Commons and ministerial government, and wrote\ninto the British constitution the principle of no taxation without\nrepresentation, back of such revolutionary changes was a middle-class,\nproperty theory of society. It laid down as the first principle of\npolitical science the dogma that government is instituted for the\nprotection of property; and it advanced by inevitable stages to the\nposition that government should use its powers to extend the field of\nprofitable operations and safeguard exploitation, the natural outcome\nof which was a policy of imperialism. On the pretense of furthering\nhuman liberty it carried the British flag and British goods to the ends\nof the earth. The great Pitt, grandson of the unscrupulous exploiter of\nIndia, completed the work begun by John Pym more than a century before;\nthe American Revolution was the natural sequence of an imperialistic\npolicy begun by Cromwell\u2019s Navigation Act, which, aimed immediately\nat the Dutch carriers, put the power of the government behind British\nshipping to the disadvantage of American competitors.\n\nThe philosophy of Whiggery had spread widely in America before the\nRevolution and numbered among its advocates probably the great\nmajority of thoughtful Americans. Of these John Dickinson became\nthe best known, although he was certainly not the ablest--less\nable, indeed, than his fellow Marylander, Daniel Dulany. Of Quaker\nextraction, Dickinson was a country gentleman who inherited broad\nacres, an honorable name, and high social position. His dignified\nstanding was further assured by his marriage with the only surviving\nchild of Isaac Norris, long Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and\nthe most influential amongst a little group of wealthy merchants who\nhad long ruled the commonwealth in patriarchal fashion. By his wife he\ncame into possession of Fairhill, a country place of several hundred\nacres on the outskirts of Philadelphia, one of the show places of the\ncity, of which the mansion with its stately fa\u00e7ade, its waxed floors\nand red-cedar wainscoting, its books and paintings and statuary,\nits setting of gardens and fishponds and conservatories, was vastly\nimpressive to a world that loved dignified display.\n\nWith such advantages of wealth and position he could hardly fail to\nget on in his profession, and within a short time after his return\nfrom the Inns of Court at London, where he had his training in the\nlaw, he became one of the leaders of the Philadelphia bar and was\nsoon deep in commonwealth politics. He was a gentleman in a society\nof gentlemen and preferment came easily to him. His natural parts\nwere respectable, he had improved himself by considerable reading in\nhistory and politics, he possessed a cultivated pen and some facility\nin debate. He understood commercial problems, could talk trade, was\nready with statistics of imports and exports, and was an advocate of\nthe paper money which Philadelphia merchants had discovered to be a\nstimulus to business. Among his intimate friends were Robert Morris,\nThomas Willing, and George Clymer, representatives of the younger\ngeneration of Philadelphians, whose speculative enterprises were not\napproved by their conservative elders. And so by consequence he became\nthe spokesman of the mercantile interests in their remonstrance against\nthe ministerial policies.\n\nBut Dickinson was more than a legal adviser to clients who were in\ntrade. As lawyer and statesman he was true to the best traditions of\nthe English law and the British constitution, faithful to what he\nconceived to be the larger interests of the British Empire. In all his\npublic acts he was animated by a scrupulous sense of duty, swerving no\nwhit from the line of conduct marked out by his principles in spite\nof the clamor of opposition. From first to last he seems to have been\nguided by a fine sense of responsible stewardship that came to him\nfrom his English heritage. Certainly the dignity of John Dickinson\nand the integrity of his political career suffer little by contrast\nwith certain popular representatives who governed their conduct by\nexpediency rather than principle. The great ideal of imperial unity\npossessed him completely, and he would do nothing to bring it into\njeopardy. He sacrificed his great influence with the radicals by his\nrefusal to go with the majority for independence; he would not assist\nin disrupting the British Empire even though he could not preserve it.\nThe refusal was difficult and it destroyed his popularity in a moment.\nHe withdrew from active participation in political affairs, and for\nyears afterwards, to the eyes of former associates, his conduct seemed\nto have been pusillanimous.\n\nBy temperament and breeding Dickinson was a conservative, and this\nnative bias was emphasized by his English training in the law. The\nlawyers of the middle and southern colonies were far better trained\nthan those of New England. Many were from the Inns of Court, where\nthey had steeped themselves in the Common Law and had imbibed profound\nrespect for the orderly processes of English legal procedure.\nThey found intellectual satisfaction in tracing the evolution of\nconstitutional practice, and their methods of thought were too strictly\nlegal to suffer them to stray into the domain of extra-legal political\nspeculation. Their appeal was to the law and the constitution; never to\nabstract principles. If, on the other hand, the revolutionary leaders\nof New England--and Virginians like Jefferson and Patrick Henry--were\npoorer lawyers they were better political scientists, for their legal\ntraining had been too casual and too scanty to contract their minds to\nstatutes and precedents. Jefferson and John Adams were alike in this\nrespect; their interests were speculative rather than legal; and they\nwrote more convincingly when defending the principles of Locke than in\nexpounding Coke.\n\nBut John Dickinson remained always the lawyer. The English political\nthinkers of the seventeenth century scarcely touched the fringe of\nhis mind. In consequence his writings are a long constitutional\nargument. He rarely refers to political authorities. The philosophy of\nLocke--whom he had read--is largely ignored, and Hume--\u201cthis great man\nwhose political speculations are so much admired\u201d--is quoted only in\nsupport of a constitutional interpretation. \u201cThe constitutional modes\nof relief are those I wish to see pursued on the present occasion,\u201d he\ninsisted in reply to the natural-rights advocates, and the attitude\nis eloquent of the man. This scrupulous legalism he carried to such\nlengths that when the new constitution for Pennsylvania was adopted he\nrefused to take office under it because he doubted the legality of the\nconvention that framed it.\n\nWith such temperament and training Dickinson would seem to have had the\nmaking of an excellent Tory in him. What cause had he to quarrel with\nGreat Britain, and why should he have risked his lot with the party\nof protest? It was not because he denied the ministerial theory of\nparliamentary sovereignty in America, for he acknowledged both the fact\nand the necessity for such sovereignty:\n\n He, who considers these provinces as states distinct from the\n _British Empire_, has very slender notions of _justice_, or of\n their _interests_. We are but parts of a _whole_ and therefore\n there must exist a power somewhere to preside, and preserve the\n connection in due order. This power is lodged in the parliament;\n and we are as much dependent on _Great-Britain_ as a perfectly free\n people can be on another.[245]\n\nNor was it because of old trade grievances--shipping restrictions, the\nspying of customs officers, prohibitions laid on manufactures, and the\nlike. He accepted without challenge the English mercantile view of the\neconomic relations of colonies to the mother country, and he professed\nto see in existing trade regulations only the incidental and necessary\nburdens of a system both salutary and just; he had no protest to urge\nagainst the principle of the Navigation Acts.\n\n Colonies have been settled by the nations of _Europe_ for the\n purposes of trade. These purposes were to be attained, by the\n colonies raising for their mother country those things which she\n did not produce herself; and by supplying themselves from her\n with things they wanted. These were the _national objects_, in\n the commencement of our colonies, and have been uniformly so in\n their promotion.... The parent country, with undeviating prudence\n and virtue, attentive to the first principles of colonization,\n drew to herself the benefits she might reasonably expect, and\n preserved to her children the blessings, on which those benefits\n were founded. She made laws, obliging her colonies to carry to\n her all those products which she wanted for her own use; and all\n those raw materials which she chose herself to work up. Besides\n this restriction, she forbad them to procure _manufactures_ from\n any other part of the globe, or even the _products_ of _European_\n countries, which alone could rival her, without first being brought\n to her. In short, by a variety of laws, she regulated their trade\n in such a manner as she thought most conducive to their mutual\n advantage, and her own welfare.[246]\n\nNot only did Dickinson concede to the mother country the right to\nregulate the entire system of colonial trade and industry to the\nprimary advantage of British merchants, even going so far as to justify\nit by a false historical explanation of the rise of the colonies; not\nonly did he profess to believe that such regulation had been exercised\nin a spirit of unselfish concern for the well-being of the empire; but\nhe professed a faith in the King and the English people that suggests\nHutchinson and Bernard. Consider such na\u00efve adulation as the following:\n\n We have an excellent prince, in whose good dispositions towards us\n we may confide. We have a generous, sensible and humane nation,\n to whom we may apply. They may be deceived. They may, by artful\n men, be provoked to anger against us. I cannot believe they will\n be cruel or unjust; or that their anger will be implacable. Let us\n behave like dutiful children, who have received unmerited blows\n from a beloved parent. Let us complain to our parent; but let our\n complaints speak at the same time the language of affliction and\n veneration.[247]\n\nWith so much conceded, what ground of serious quarrel remained? What\nwas there to justify an American protest against the parliamentary\nprogram? Nothing less than the vital principle of taxation. In this\nmatter the ministerial policy overrode the fundamental tenet of\nWhiggery. The situation was critical, for if the Tories denied the\nvalidity of the Whiggish principle in dealing with the colonies, they\nmight deny it at home and the old battle of 1688 must be fought over.\nThe right of control of the public purse by a chamber in which the\nproperty owners were represented, and which they would dominate, was a\nprinciple too vital to be yielded, and the English Whigs in Parliament,\nled by Pitt and Camden, took vigorous issue with the ministerial tax\nproposals. To American Whigs the proposed innovation was a calamity. To\nsuffer control of the American purse to pass out of their hands into\nthose of a group beyond their reach meant a return to a system of Tory\nspoliation; it meant that property and the rule of property in America\nwere threatened. To the colonial Whig the constitutional representative\nchamber could be no other than the assembly of the commonwealth of\nwhich he was a taxpayer. The English Parliament was alien if not\nhostile to his interests; and if the right of imposing taxes upon the\ncolonies were held to lie in this overseas body, the colonials would\nfind themselves in the identical position of their ancestors of the\ndays of King Charles. No longer masters of their property, they would\nnot be a free people.\n\nAll this John Dickinson understood perfectly, and as a large property\nowner he hastened to the defense of the principle of self-taxation.\nHe proposed to show that the policy of the ministry, in advancing the\nnew tax program, was a usurpation of power and a violation of the\nconstitutional rights of American property owners; and that as such\nit should be resisted on constitutional grounds. This is the burden\nof the celebrated _Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer_. In arguing\ntheir case the American debaters were embarrassed by a long series of\nprecedents which seemed to prove that Parliament possessed sovereignty\nover the colonies; that such sovereignty had in fact been repeatedly\nacknowledged; and that a hundred years of fiscal legislation,\nunchallenged heretofore, had clearly established the parliamentary\nright of taxation. To this difficult point Dickinson directed his\nargument. The real point at issue, he contended, lay in the fundamental\ndistinction between a tax and an imposition; Parliament possessed the\nconstitutional right to impose the latter, but not the former. An\nimposition, he pointed out, is a fiscal arrangement made by the proper\nrepresentatives, primarily \u201cfor the regulation of trade,\u201d and with a\nview to the general interests of the whole; whereas a tax is a \u201cgift\nof the people to the crown, to be employed for public uses.\u201d The one\nis regulatory in intent, imposed in a paternal spirit; and though the\nresult may lessen or increase the opportunity of the individual or the\ncommunity to acquire property, it does not take away what has already\nbeen got; whereas a tax reaches into the pocket of the individual\nand takes from him what belongs to him alone. Unless the subject\n\u201cgive and grant of his own free will,\u201d such a tax had long been held\nunconstitutional. Of necessity, every tax must be internal, and since\nby their charter governments the colonies were granted the right to\nimpose \u201cinternal taxes,\u201d Parliament has no right to impose them.\n\n A \u201c+TAX+\u201d means an imposition to raise money. Such persons\n therefore as speak of _internal_ and external \u201c+TAXES+,\u201d I pray\n may pardon me, if I object to that expression, as applied to the\n privileges and interests of these colonies. There may be _internal_\n and _external_ +IMPOSITIONS+, founded on _different principles_,\n and having _different tendencies_, every \u201ctax\u201d being an imposition,\n tho\u2019 every imposition is not a \u201ctax.\u201d But _all taxes_ are founded\n on the same _principles_; and have the _same tendency_. External\n impositions, for the regulation of our trade, do not \u201cgrant to\n his Majesty _the property of the colonies_.\u201d They only _prevent\n the colonies acquiring property_, in things not necessary, in a\n manner judged to be injurious to the welfare of the whole empire.\n But the last statute respecting us, \u201cgrants to his Majesty _the\n property of the colonies_,\u201d by laying duties on the manufactures of\n _Great-Britain_ which they +MUST+ take, and which she settled on\n them, on purpose that they +SHOULD+ take. What _tax_ can be more\n internal than this? Here is money drawn, _without their consent_,\n from a society, who have constantly enjoyed a constitutional mode\n of raising all money among themselves.[248]\n\nThis line of argument was not original with Dickinson. It had earlier\nbeen elaborated by Daniel Dulany of Maryland, in an able pamphlet,[249]\nwhich had provided argument to Pitt for his speech on the repeal of the\nStamp Act.[250] Dickinson in turn quoted from Pitt\u2019s speech in support\nof his position.[251] How intimate was the connection between English\nand American Whigs, and how like was their reasoning, is made clear\nfrom a passage of a later speech by Pitt which Dickinson quoted in the\npreface to a collected edition of his works issued in 1801:\n\n This universal opposition to your arbitrary system of taxation,\n might have been foreseen; it was obvious from the nature of things,\n and from the nature of man, and _above all_ ... from the spirit\n of +WHIGGISM+ flourishing in _America_. The spirit which _now_\n pervades _America_, is _the same_ which formerly opposed loans,\n benevolences, and ship-money in this country; is _the same spirit_\n which roused all _England_ to action at the revolution, and which\n established at a remote era, your liberties, on the basis of that\n grand fundamental maxim of the constitution, that no subject of\n _England_ shall be taxed, but by his own consent. To maintain this\n principle, is the _common cause_ of the +WHIGS+, on the other\n side of the _Atlantic_, and on this. _It is liberty to liberty\n engaged._ In this great cause they are immoveably allied. It is\n the alliance of _God_ and _nature_, immutable, eternal, fixed as\n the firmament of heaven. As an _Englishman_, I recognize to the\n _Americans_, their supreme unalterable right of property. As an\n _American_, I would equally recognize to _England_, her supreme\n right of regulating commerce and navigation. This distinction is\n involved in the abstract nature of things; property is private,\n individual, absolute: the touch of another annihilates it. Trade\n is an extended and complicated consideration; it reaches as far\n as ships can sail, or winds can blow; it is a vast and various\n machine. To regulate the numberless movements of its several\n parts, and combine them into one harmonious effect, for the good\n of the whole, requires the superintending wisdom and energy of the\n supreme power of the empire. On this grand practical distinction,\n then, let us rest: taxation is theirs, commercial regulation is\n ours. As to metaphysical refinements, attempting to shew, that\n the _Americans_ are equally free from legislative controul, and\n commercial restraint, as from taxation, for the purpose of revenue,\n I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and groundless.[252]\n\nHow characteristic of Pitt is the shrewd purpose, covered over with\npretentious rhetoric, to seize the imperialistic substance of trade\ncontrol for the London merchants, and graciously yield in the name of\nliberty, the shadow of taxation!\n\nDiscussion of abstract rights interested Dickinson no more than it did\nPitt; but he cared greatly for English liberty, by which he meant the\nrights of propertied gentlemen recognized by the British constitution,\nfor which his ancestors had struggled. He had no wish to enlarge\nthose rights, for he believed they were adequate to the well-being\nof Englishmen. No thought of a republican form of government crossed\nhis mind. He had no sympathy with democracy; he believed in a \u201cmixed\ngovernment\u201d as exemplified in the British system; and while he was not\nan outspoken advocate of an American peerage, he would have approved of\nits institution. Like so many upper-class Americans, he was English as\nwell as colonial; he could not conceive that the heritage of England\nto her sons was circumscribed by geographical lines, and he habitually\nthought and spoke in terms of the British Empire, and never in local\nterms. What he most feared was a misunderstanding that would widen\ninto rupture. There is more than a hint of the doctrine of passive\nresistance in his counsel of moderation:\n\n The cause of _liberty_ is a cause of too much dignity to be sullied\n by turbulence and tumult. It ought to be maintained in a manner\n suitable to her nature. Those who engage in it, should breathe a\n sedate, yet fervent spirit, animating them to actions of prudence,\n justice, modesty, bravery, humanity, and magnanimity.... I hope,\n my dear countrymen, that you will, in every colony, be on your\n guard against those, who may at any time endeavour to stir you\n up, under pretense of patriotism, to any measures disrespectful\n to our Sovereign and our mother country. Hot, rash, disorderly\n proceedings, injure the reputation of a people, as to wisdom,\n valour, and virtue, without procuring them the least benefit. I\n pray god, that he may be pleased to inspire you and your posterity,\n to the latest ages, with a spirit of which I have an idea, that\n I find a difficulty to express. To express it in the best manner\n I can, I mean a spirit, that shall so guide you, that it will be\n impossible to determine whether an _American\u2019s_ character is most\n distinguishable, for its loyalty to his Sovereign, his duty to\n his mother country, his love of freedom, or his affection for his\n native soil.[253]\n\nIn these earlier years of the controversy Dickinson seems to have\nremained placidly unaware of the sordid realities of parliamentary\nhuckstering, the details of which Franklin was daily noting in his\nletters. He seems honestly to have believed in the justice and good\nintentions of the King and his ministers, and he felt little sympathy\nfor the New England malcontents. But as the debate dragged on, and the\nEnglish politicians in whose rectitude he had professed confidence,\nclearly were playing into the hands of British trading interests, going\nso far as to seek to bolster up the falling fortunes of the East India\nCompany at the expense of colonial merchants, he was impelled to speak\nwith plebeian warmth. His _Two Letters on the Tea Tax_, written in\nNovember, 1773, are as vigorous in denunciation as Samuel Adams could\nhave penned.\n\n _Five Ships_, loaded with +TEA+, on their Way to _America_, and\n this with a View not only to _enforce_ the _Revenue Act_, but to\n _establish_ a _Monopoly_ for the _East-India Company_, who have\n espoused the Cause of the Ministry; and hope to repair their\n broken Fortunes by the Ruin of _American_ freedom and Liberty! No\n Wonder the Minds of the People are exasperated ... to a degree of\n Madness.... Pray have you heard, whether _they_ and the _Ministers_\n have not _made a Property_ of +US+, and whether +WE+, our +WIVES+\n and +CHILDREN+, together, with the +HARD EARNED FRUITS OF OUR\n LABOUR+, are not _made over_ to this almost _bankrupt Company_,\n to augment their Stock, and to _repair_ their _ruined Fortunes?_\n Justice seems to have forsaken the old World.... The Rights of\n free States and Cities are swallowed up in Power. Subjects are\n considered as Property.... Are we ... to be given up to the\n Disposal of the _East-India Company?_.... Their conduct in Asia,\n for some Years past, has given ample Proof, how little they regard\n the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. They\n have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned lawful Princes,\n and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain ... hackneyed as\n they are in Murders, Rapine, and Cruelty, [they] would sacrifice\n the Lives of Thousands to preserve their Trash, and enforce their\n measures.[254]\n\nThe ideal of a beneficent British Empire, extending English freedom\nthrough the world, appealed to the imagination of Dickinson; but the\nreality of British imperialism, \u201chackneyed in murders, rapine and\ncruelty,\u201d seeking to extend its exploitation to America, striking at\nthe trade interests of Philadelphia and his merchant friends, was\nenough to disturb his legal calm. What fate awaited American rights\nand liberties if the London imperialists were permitted to prey upon\nthem, he began to comprehend. The bones would be picked clean, and\nAmerica would become another India. It was the deepening fear of such\na possibility that sapped Dickinson\u2019s loyalty, and reconciled him to\nindependence after the thing was done.\n\nThe later years of Dickinson were happier than those of the middle\nperiod. The conservative reaction that set in with the conclusion of\npeace carried the emerging party of nationalism back to the position\nof Whiggery, which Dickinson had tenaciously occupied. The leaders of\nthat party were coming to agree on the necessity for a closer alignment\nin defense of property rule, and they gladly accepted Dickinson as\nan ally and co-worker. He was chosen a member of the Constitutional\nConvention, and there found a congenial audience for the exposition of\nhis political principles. In the debates he spoke as a high Federalist\nwho would like to go further toward the model of the British system\nthan the state of the public mind rendered expedient. A strong and\nstable government, he believed, depended upon a just balance of king,\nlords, and commons.\n\n A limited monarchy he considered as _one_ of the best governments\n in the world. He was not certain that the same blessings were\n derivable from any other form. It was certain that equal blessings\n had never yet been derived from any of the republican forms. A\n limited monarchy, however, was out of the question. The spirit of\n the times, the state of our affairs, forbade the experiment, if it\n were desirable. Was it possible, moreover, in the nature of things,\n to introduce it, even if these objects were less insuperable? A\n house of nobles was essential to such a government. Could these\n be created by a breath, or by a stroke of the pen? No. They were\n the growth of ages, and could only arise under a complication of\n circumstances none of which existed in this country. But, though a\n form the most perfect, _perhaps_, in itself, be unattainable, we\n must not despair.[255]\n\nGranted the necessity of a republican form of government, the question\nso vital to Whiggery remained, how could property secure and maintain\na commanding position in the government? The reply was obvious; it\nmust be through limitation of suffrage rights. If the vote could be\nrestricted to property holders, even though small freeholders were\nincluded, the common rights of property would be secure.\n\n Mr. Dickinson had a very different idea of the tendency of\n vesting the rights of suffrage in the freeholders of the Country.\n He considered them as the best guardians of liberty; And the\n restriction of the right to them as a necessary defence agst. the\n dangerous influence of those multitudes without property & without\n principle, with which our country like all others, will in time\n abound.[256]\n\nA further safeguard offered in the proper constitution of the Senate.\nAs a representative of a small state, Dickinson was concerned that the\nseveral states should enjoy a parity of power in the upper house, as he\nwas concerned that the Senate should provide a safeguard for property\ninterests. It must be rendered secure from factional unrest and\ndemocratic aggression. He was very likely at one with his friend George\nClymer, in holding that \u201ca representative of the people is appointed\nto think _for_ and not _with_ his constituents\u201d; and to the end that\nthe right persons should be chosen to do the national thinking, he\nlaid down the principle that, \u201cIn the formation of the Senate, we\nought to carry it through such a refining process as will assimilate\nit as nearly as may be to the House of Lords in England.\u201d[257]\nSuch expressions throw sufficient light upon Dickinson\u2019s opinions\nof democratic government, but they do not prepare us for a curious\ninconsistency that marked his last years, namely, his friendship for\nJefferson and his sympathy with the Jeffersonian program. The reasons\nfor this strange shift are not clear, but it is generally attributed\nto his fear of consolidation that might end in subordinating the small\nstates to the greater ones. It certainly was not due to any sympathy\nwith agrarianism.\n\nDickinson was in no sense a serious political thinker. He was a\ncultivated lawyer who defended with skill and grace a ready-made\nphilosophy, unconcerned about the social significance of that\nphilosophy. Scarcely anywhere else in his writings does he show to such\npoor advantage as in the nine _Letters of Fabius_ written in defense\nof the Constitution during the great debate. There is in them not\na single illuminating comment. His most anxious concern is shown in\nhis reply to George Mason\u2019s direct charge, that the \u201cgovernment will\ncommence in a moderate aristocracy; it is at present impossible to\nforesee whether it will, in its operation, produce a monarchy, or a\ncorrupt oppressive aristocracy.\u201d[258] After searching the records of\nthe past he concludes that \u201cthe uniform tenor of history ... holds up\nthe _licentiousness_ of the people, and _turbulent temper_ of some of\nthe states, as _the only causes_ to be dreaded, not the conspiracies\nof federal officers.\u201d[259] The argument had been somewhat staled by\nFederalistic repetition, but Dickinson soberly accepted it as sound\nhistorical interpretation. His cleverest defense he found in an\nappeal to the analogy of the British constitution, which has only one\ndemocratic branch, and that \u201cdiseased\u201d by inadequate representation, to\nwithstand the power and influence of king and lords; if English liberty\nhas been thus safeguarded, what danger can threaten America with \u201ca\nconstitution and government, every branch of which is so extremely\npopular\u201d?[260]\n\nHowever greatly the writings of Dickinson, from the Farmer\u2019s Letters\nto the _Letters of Fabius_, may have appealed to Whiggish lawyers, it\nis inconceivable that they should have appealed to the rank and file\nof Americans. As an eighteenth-century gentleman he little understood\nthe spirit of liberalism that was stirring in many minds; he did not\nsympathize with the turbulent forces that were driving towards a\ndifferent social order; and in consequence his technical arguments\nseem today curiously old-fashioned. Franklin\u2019s common sense kept him\na realist; but Dickinson\u2019s loyalty made him an idealist, incapable of\nunderstanding current economic forces either in England or America. The\ncolonial was so ingrained in his habits of thought that it was hard for\nhim to become an American. So long as it was politic to profess loyalty\nto England while remonstrating against ministerial policies, John\nDickinson was the man for the business. But when it became necessary\nto throw aside the mask of loyal professions, to stand up and fight,\nhe was thrust aside to make room for more vigorous spokesmen. No doubt\nthere were desirable things which the radicals overlooked; no doubt\nthe ideal of imperial unity, of a world-wide federation of the several\nbodies of Englishmen, possessed a grandeur which ardent patriots held\ntoo cheap. But that ideal did not prevail, despite Dickinson\u2019s earnest\nendeavors; and in the new order which arose he probably never felt\nquite at home, or was free from a lingering regret. He belonged still\nin that older world in which he was bred.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[244] _History of Massachusetts Bay_, Vol. III, p. 257.\n\n[245] \u201cFarmer\u2019s Letters,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. I, p. 312.\n\n[246] _Ibid._, p. 337.\n\n[247] _Ibid._, p. 327.\n\n[248] _Ibid._, pp. 332-333.\n\n[249] _Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British\nColonies, for the Purpose of Raising a Revenue by Act of Parliament._\n\n[250] See Tyler, _Literary History of the American Revolution_, Vol. I,\np. 111.\n\n[251] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 320.\n\n[252] _Ibid._, pp. xv-xvii.\n\n[253] \u201cFarmer\u2019s Letters,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. I, pp. 324-325.\n\n[254] _Works_, Vol. I, pp. 459-461.\n\n[255] _Elliot\u2019s Debates_, Vol. V, p. 148.\n\n[256] _Ibid._\n\n[257] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 163.\n\n[258] Quoted in Ford, _Pamphlets on the Constitution_, p. 332.\n\n[259] _Ibid._, p. 200.\n\n[260] _Ibid._, p. 212.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 Samuel Adams \u2022 The Mind of the American Democrat\n\n\nIn the history of the rise of political democracy in America Samuel\nAdams occupies a distinguished place. He was by no means the first\nAmerican to espouse the democratic cause, but he was the first to\nconceive the party machinery to establish it in practice. The single\npurpose of his life was the organization of the rank and file to\ntake over control of the political state. He was the instrument of a\nchanging world that was to transfer sovereignty from the aristocratic\nminority to the democratic majority. Political sovereignty inheres\npotentially in the mass will of the people; but if that will is\nrestrained from exercising its strength by an undemocratic psychology,\nit remains powerless in presence of an organized minority. The America\nin which Samuel Adams labored was ripe to throw off the inhibitions\nof the popular will; and it was his perception of that fact, and the\ntenacity and skill with which he cajoled the mass to \u201cmake a push for\nperfect political liberty,\u201d that made him an outstanding figure in our\nhistory. In his hands the majority will became in reality the sovereign\nwill. But before he could wield it he must create it; and before he\ncould create it he must understand the mass mind. He must turn popular\nprejudice to his own purpose; he must guide the popular resentment at\ngrievances into the way of revolution; he must urge the slow moving\nmass forward until it stood on the threshold of independence, beyond\nwhich lay the ultimate goal of his ambitions, the democratic state.\nAnd so, in pursuit of his life purpose, Samuel Adams became a master\npolitical strategist, the first of our great popular leaders.\n\nThe modern term, professional agitator, most adequately characterizes\nhim. He was an intriguing rebel against every ambition of the regnant\norder. He hated every sort of aristocratic privilege, whether in\nthe form of overseas prerogative or in the later guise of native\nFederalism; it must be swept away and a new, democratic order take its\nplace. In the pursuit of this great end he daily counseled treason\nand made rebellion his business. Loyalty to the government _de facto_\nwas no virtue in his political ethics; he was not frightened into\nconformity by the stigma attaching to the term rebel. America was\nfounded in rebellion, he well knew, and it should continue in rebellion\ntill every false loyalty was cast off and concern for the common\nwell-being accepted as the single loyalty worthy of respect. \u201cWhat has\ncommonly been called rebellion in the people,\u201d he commented wisely,\n\u201chas often been nothing else but a manly and glorious struggle in\nopposition to the lawless power of rebellious Kings and Princes.\u201d[261]\nHe was the outstanding example in his day of the militant idealist to\nwhom the dissemination of unrest was a matter of principle. No cause\ngoes forward without its leaders, and democratic America owes Samuel\nAdams a debt which it has too grudgingly acknowledged.\n\nHe was born and grew up in an atmosphere of politics. His father\nwas a prosperous, well-read gentleman who found politics a pleasant\navocation; he established the Caucus Club for political discussion,\nand became one of the leaders of the popular party that opposed the\nTory group, gathered about the royal officials. Its personnel can only\nbe guessed at, but it was probably composed of small merchants, with\na following of mechanics and other unimportant folk. It seems to have\nbeen greatly interested in currency reform, and the elder Adams was\none of the principal organizers and stockholders of the Land Bank, a\nproject for increasing the money of the commonwealth. The institution\nwas roughly liquidated by government decree at the instigation of\ncommercial rivals interested in \u201ctight money\u201d; the father lost heavily\nand the son was pretty much ruined by later attempts at arbitrary\ncollection on his stock. It seems to have been a petty and altogether\nsordid move on the part of government, in which Hutchinson played an\nimportant part. With the loss of his money Samuel Adams, Jr., settled\ndown to a meager, somewhat precarious existence, preferring politics\nto profits, and began that long, arduous career which resulted so\nmomentously for America.\n\nHe had taken his two degrees at Harvard in the expectation of becoming\na minister; but while an undergraduate he was more interested in the\npolitical classics than in theology, and he rejected the ministry for\nthe law. But a brief experience with Coke sufficed, and he turned\nto more congenial fields. With a group of like-minded young men he\nfounded in 1748 _The Public Advertiser_, a weekly magazine of politics.\nIn the essays which as a young man of twenty-six he wrote for that\npaper, he expounded a political creed frankly liberal. He began as he\nended, anti-Tory and pro-democratic. From then till the beginning of\nthe tax troubles he was a tireless contributor to the newspapers, and\nexcept during the administration of the liberal Pownall, always in\nthe opposition. Hutchinson stated the exact truth when he said, \u201cHe\nwas for near twenty years a writer against government in the public\nnewspapers.\u201d The need was urgent, for during those years the government\nof Massachusetts was being subtly changed. With increasing prosperity,\nways of thinking, like styles of dress, were becoming more like those\nof St. James\u2019s. Ambitious young men were drawn into the circle of the\nruling group and caught with the bait of preferment. An aristocracy\nwas emerging that wanted only titles to make ready to set up a House\nof Lords. Quite plainly it was time for the liberals to arouse the\nrank and file of the people to the danger, and this became the daily\nbusiness of Samuel Adams.\n\nThe evidence available is insufficient to explain the motives which\nimpelled him to take up and carry forward so difficult and thankless\na work. The cost in personal ease and the good opinion of respectable\npeople was great, the peril certain, and the reward dubious.\nNot lightly will a serious man compromise with treason; to talk\nrepublicanism was not profitable in Tory New England; and Samuel Adams,\nno more than another, was anxious to come to close acquaintance with\nthe hangman. What secret motives inspired the heart of this ascetic\nPuritan--\u201che eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, thinks much,\u201d\nsaid the Loyalist Galloway, half sneeringly, half out of respect--we\ncan only guess at. Very likely there was an old grudge at a government\nthat had ruined him; very likely love of power stimulated his hatred\nof the ruling clique; very likely his close association with tradesmen\ncolored his resentment at overseas regulation, for better than most,\nhe knew that the American goose was reserved for English plucking.\nNevertheless the more intimately one comes to know Samuel Adams the\nmore inadequate seem all cynical and sordid interpretations of his\nstrange career. He was no self-seeking politician, but a man of vision.\nHe believed ardently in the principle of local home rule. Love of\nthe New England town-meeting democracy was bred in his bones. More\nclearly than others he saw the danger of erecting a governing class\nirresponsive to the popular will. He was, in short, the embodiment\nof the rising spirit of the eighteenth century that found expression\nin individualism, that exalted liberty and hated tyranny--a spirit\nthat had for its ultimate purpose the reduction of the powers of the\npolitical state.\n\nHis critical study of the methods of Tory politicians early stripped\nfrom government the last vestige of glamor so appealing to the\nignorant. Adams understood too perfectly the secret springs and\nbackstairs intrigues that determined governmental policies, to be taken\nin by appeal to his loyalty. English politics was a sordid business,\nconducted by professional traders, to whom loyalty and patriotism were\nno more than gestures to gull the simple. Quite as well as Franklin,\nAdams understood its ways. He had watched the steady unfolding of the\nministerial program: how it was proposed to free the royal governor\nand judges from popular restraint by the payment of salaries from the\nroyal chest; to change the charter in the interest of prerogative by\nvesting the nomination of the councilors in the governor; to disarm the\ndemocracy by destroying the town meeting as a political instrument;\nin short to substitute government by ministerial instructions for\ngovernment by the people. As he watched the calculated encroachments\nupon the historical rights of the commonwealth--rights that were\nsanctioned by a hundred and forty years of exercise, and were now in\ndanger from carelessness--he would have been faithless to his duty\nif he had not sought to arouse the people of Massachusetts to the\ndanger. There was no idle rhetoric in the words, \u201cNo time can better\nbe employed than in the preservation of the rights derived from the\nBritish constitution.... No treasure can be better expended, than in\nsecuring that true old English liberty, which gives a relish to every\nother enjoyment.\u201d[262]\n\nIn the fulfillment of this purpose to defend the democratic rights of\nMassachusetts, Adams became no mean master of political theory. In the\nworks of no other writer is the total body of Revolutionary thought so\nadequately revealed. He was deeply read in the political classics, and\nall the great names--Hooker and Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel, Coke and\nBlackstone, Locke and Milton and Sidney and Hume and Montesquieu--are\nspread largely through his pages to buttress his argument. In spite\nof the elusive \u201cmeanders and windings\u201d of his thought, veering and\ntacking as the winds blew, three broad lines of defense are clearly\ndiscernible. He rested his case on an appeal to the natural rights of\nman, to the particular rights and privileges of the British subject\nunder the constitution, and to the express terms of the compact between\nthe crown and its emigrant subjects laid down in the several colonial\ncharters. Inasmuch as the American cause was to be argued before an\nold-world court, it was common prudence to seek to justify the seeming\ninnovations of American institutional development, by old-world\nprecedent and authority. If he could base the American grievance on\nthe Whig doctrine of representation, he might rally the English Whigs\nto the American cause. This was sound constitutionalism, and Adams was\ntoo shrewd not to profess the highest respect for the glorious British\nconstitution. \u201cYou know there is a charm in the word \u2018constitutional,\u2019\u201d\nhe slyly suggested to a fellow colonial; and such respect, not to say\nveneration, he trumpeted to the world, until it may well have seemed\nthat he did protest too much.\n\nIn his first line of defense Adams was on familiar ground, and he\nwas supported by the authority of Locke, whose opinions were sacred\nin the eyes of English Whigs. What use he made of him is evident;\n\u201cthe immortal Locke,\u201d he calls him at one time, and at another, \u201cone\nof the greatest men that ever wrote.\u201d He had been a disciple of\nLocke since his first interest in political theory, and he thought\nand spoke habitually in terms of the natural-rights school. It is\nsometimes asserted that the appeal to natural rights was made only\nafter the breakdown of the colonial argument drawn from constitutional\npractice.[263] But as early as 1765 Adams based his argument on Locke\nin assuming the economic origin of government, and the inevitable\nconnection between property and parliamentary representation.[264]\nHow heavily he leaned on the natural-rights school appears again\nand again; particularly in a brilliant series of articles, signed\n\u201cCandidus,\u201d written in 1771, where he paraphrases the _Second Treatise\non Government_:\n\n Mr. Locke has often been quoted in the present dispute ... and very\n much to our purpose. His reasoning is so forcible, that no one has\n ever attempted to confute it. He holds that \u201cthe preservation of\n property is the end of government, and that for which men enter\n into society. It therefore necessarily supposes and requires\n that the people should have property, without which they must be\n suppos\u2019d to lose that by entering into society, which was the _end_\n for which they enter\u2019d into it; too gross an absurdity for any man\n to own. Men therefore _in society having property_, they have such\n right to the goods, which by the law of the community are theirs,\n that no body hath the right to take _any part_ of their subsistence\n from them without their consent: Without this, they could have no\n property at all. For I truly can have no property in that which\n another can by right take from me when he pleases, against my\n consent. Hence, says he, it is a mistake to think that the supreme\n power of any commonwealth can dispose of the estates of the subject\n arbitrarily, or _take any part_ of them at pleasure. The prince or\n senate can never have a power to take to themselves the whole or\n any part of the subjects\u2019 property without _their own_ consent;\n for this would be in effect to have no property at all.\u201d--This is\n the reasoning of that great and good man. And is not our own case\n exactly described by him?[265]\n\nThis was excellent doctrine in the eyes of the English Whigs, and\nit explains in part the support which Pitt and Camden lent to the\ncolonial cause. But in his second line of defense, namely, that the\nEnglish constitution was a fundamental charter of the natural rights\nof the subject, and that a statute which disregarded those natural\nrights was null and void, Adams was on less tenable ground. Every\nattempt to establish such a principle, whether that fundamental law\nbe conceived of as the \u201claw of God and nature,\u201d special compacts like\nthe Magna Charta, or the Common Law, has met with failure in English\nconstitutional practice. Nevertheless Adams made use of the argument,\nderived, very likely, from Coke.\n\n Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained Declaration\n or proclamation, and promulgation in the name of King, Lords, and\n Commons, of the sense the latter had of their original, inherent,\n indefeazible natural Rights, as also those of free Citizens equally\n perdurable with the other. That great author, that great jurist,\n and even that Court writer Mr. Justice Blackstone holds that this\n recognition was justly obtained of King John sword in hand: and\n peradventure it must be one day sword in hand again rescued and\n preserved from total destruction.[266]\n\n [Magna Charta] is affirm\u2019d by Lord Coke to be declaratory of\n the principal grounds of the fundamental laws and liberties of\n England. \u201cIt is called _Charta Libertatum Regni, the Charter\n of the Liberties of the kingdom_, upon great reason ... because\n _liberos facit, it makes and preserves the people free_.\u201d... If\n then according to Lord Coke, _Magna Charta_ is declaratory of\n the principal grounds of the _fundamental_ laws and liberties of\n the people, and Vatel is right in his opinion, that the supreme\n legislature cannot change the constitution, I think it follows,\n whether Lord Coke has expressly asserted it or not, that an act of\n parliament made against Magna Charta in violation of its essential\n parts, is void.[267]\n\nAdams was probably fully aware of the weakness of the argument. The\nwell known attempt of Coke to establish a body of super-parliamentary\nlaw that sanctioned the annulling of a statute had been a total\nfailure. Parliament had refused to yield sovereignty to the lawyers.\nThe Tories were on stronger ground in asserting Hume\u2019s doctrine that\n\u201cthe only rule of government is the established practice of the age,\nupon maxims universally assented to\u201d; and the established practice\nwas sufficient reply to the argument that \u201cit is the glory of the\nBritish constitution that it hath its foundations in the law of God and\nnature.\u201d Moreover the doctrine of virtual representation was at hand\nto cover any discrepancy between natural rights and existing practice;\nthe argument from Locke was met by a legal refinement which held that\nas the charter of Massachusetts was as of the manor of East Greenwich,\nthe freemen of Boston were personally represented by the parliamentary\nmember from that borough.\n\nWhen Adams fell back upon his third line of defense, the appeal to\nthe colonial charter, he broke with the English Whigs completely. The\nroyal charters, by authority of which the colonies had been founded and\ngoverned hitherto, were exalted by him into a secondary fundamental\nlaw, subordinate to the English constitution, but with authority\nbeyond an act of parliament. This organic law of the charter was \u201cthe\nonly medium of their political connection with the Mother State,\u201d he\nargued, and as sacred to Americans \u201cas Magna Charta is to the People of\nBritain, as it contains a Declaration of all their Rights founded in\nnatural Justice.\u201d[268]\n\n Thus we see that Whatever Govermnt in general may be founded in,\n Ours was manifestly founded in Compact.... By this Charter, we have\n an exclusive Right to make Laws for our own internal Government &\n Taxation: And indeed if the Inhabitants here are British Subjects\n ... it seems necessary that they should exercise this Power\n themselves; for they are not represented in the British Parliamt &\n their great Distance renders it impracticable: It is very probable\n that all the subordinate legislative Powers in America, were\n constituted upon the Apprehension of this Impracticability.[269]\n\nAfter all, the futility of argument as a colonial defense against\nGrenville or Townshend was evident to so shrewd a student of political\nrealism as Samuel Adams. If the colonies were to preserve their\ntraditional liberties, more effective means must be found than appeal\nto justice or colonial use and wont. Force must be used, and that\nforce--short of armed rebellion--could be only an aroused public\nopinion. It was like to prove a difficult business, this arousing of\nan effective public opinion, and not wanting in danger; but neither\ndifficulty nor danger would deter a calculating enthusiast like Adams\nfrom undertaking it. He was ready to devote his life to the work of\ncreating and guiding a popular interest in political measures.\n\nThe means which he made use of were as novel as they were repugnant\nto the Tory statecraft. He was the first American to understand the\npower of publicity, and not the least of his services to democracy was\nhis attack upon the principle of secret government. Affairs of state\nhad always been guarded jealously from public knowledge, on the theory\nlong before stated by Sir Robert Filmer that the subject must \u201chave\nnothing to do to meddle with mysteries of state, such _arcana imperii_,\nor cabinet councils, the vulgar may not pry into.\u201d Adams now proposed\nto lay them open to common inspection. He insisted that questions of\ngovernmental policy be taken out of the exclusive jurisdiction of\nsecret councils, and transferred to Faneuil Hall where the freemen\nof Boston might examine them, and where the \u201cCause of Liberty\u201d might\n\u201cbe warmly espoused and ably vindicated.\u201d Here was a revolutionary\nproposal indeed, with its demand for public discussion and a popular\nreferendum; and naturally it gave offense to the crown officials. It\nmeant the vulgarization of government. It was a disturbing thought\nto such men that government might come to be regarded as the common\nconcern of the tax-paying public; that the town meeting might fall\nunder the control of the plebeian mass and crowd in with its demands\nupon the aristocratic Council. How could gentlemen deliberate freely\nand determine wisely, with demagogues sitting in judgment on every word\nand vote? So disturbing to gentlemen was any criticism that one of\nHutchinson\u2019s followers went so far as to charge Adams with \u201cIndecency\nin \u2018undertaking to answer a Governor\u2019s Message,\u2019\u201d to which he replied:\n\n I know very well that it has been handed as a political Creed of\n late, that the Reasoning of the People without Doors is not to be\n regarded--But every \u201ctransient Person\u201d has a Right publickly to\n animadvert upon whatever is publickly advanc\u2019d by any Man, and I am\n resolv\u2019d to exercise that Right, when I please, without asking any\n Man\u2019s Leave.[270]\n\nEffective organization of the rank and file of the people was the\nbusiness at hand. It was a new problem and there was need of new\nmethods. The Caucus Club, founded by his father, served as a training\nschool for the leaders; there the policies were determined upon for the\ntown meeting and the assembly, and there the plans for a continental\nunion were laid in Non-Importation Agreements, organization of\nCommittees of Correspondence, and the like. The program there agreed\nupon Adams made it his business to put through the town meeting, as\nthe first step. When he faced his fellow Bostonians in Faneuil Hall\nhe relied upon the influence which long years of familiar intercourse\nwith all sorts and conditions of men had won for him, and many a Boston\nfreeman went to the meeting ready to vote for \u201cwhatever the old man\nwanted.\u201d Behind the imposing figure of John Hancock, or the eloquence\nof John Adams, was certain to be the directing mind of the \u201cmaster of\nthe puppets,\u201d as Hutchinson sneeringly called Samuel Adams.\n\nHis hours of triumph in Boston town meeting or in the assembly were\npreceded by an incredible amount of labor with the pen as well as with\nthe tongue, for this master politician was the journalist as well as\nthe organizer of the New England revolution. The public opinion on\nwhich he depended was daily being made in chimney corners and tavern\ntalk, and he proposed to mold it through the agency of a party press.\nNo other pen in Boston was so busy as his. \u201cThere is Sam Adams writing\nagainst the Tories,\u201d his fellow townsmen are said to have remarked\nwhen they saw his familiar candle burning long into the night. When he\nwas away in attendance on the Continental Congress he reproached his\nfriends at home for neglecting the work of publicity. \u201cYour presses\nhave been too long silent. What were your Committees of Correspondence\nabout? I hear nothing of circular Letters--of joynt Committees &c.\nSuch Methods have in times past raised the Spirits of the people--drawn\noff their Attention from picking up Pins, & directed their Views to\ngreat objects.\u201d[271]\n\nWith such neglect Samuel Adams could not be charged. As clerk of the\ninevitable Committee of Grievances appointed by the Boston town meeting\nin accordance with his prearranged plan, he wrote those plain-spoken\npapers that stirred the wrath of Tory gentlemen; as clerk of the\nassembly he was the chief author of successive state papers, which\nunder guise of replying to the prerogative principles of Bernard\nand Hutchinson, set forth in masterly fashion the whole theory of\ncolonial rights; and as Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence\nhe appealed to his fellow Americans of every colony. Yet his official\nwritings constitute only a minor part of his total work. His letters\nwere innumerable and his newspaper articles crowded the desk of every\nfriendly editor. The labors undergone and the energy consumed were\nenormous. It was no holiday task to create and guide a public opinion\nthat was so constantly falling into apathy.\n\nRunning through the third volume of Hutchinson\u2019s _History of\nMassachusetts Bay_ is a note of indignant protest at \u201cthe machinations\nof selfish and designing men\u201d who at the precise time when the feeling\nbetween the two countries was friendliest, and an amicable settlement\nof differences seemed likeliest, were assiduous to breed fresh discord\nand frustrate the hopes of peace. That he had Adams chiefly in mind\nthere can be little doubt. During the \u201ccalm interval\u201d of the summer\nof \u201971, when, according to Hutchinson, \u201cthe province was more free\nfrom real evils\u201d than for years, and when \u201cto keep up a spirit of\ndiscontent, recourse was had, either to evils merely imaginary, or to\nsuch as were at a distance, and feared rather than felt,\u201d[272] Adams\nwrote the ablest of his many able newspaper articles.[273] In no other\nphase of his work is the craft of the man so evident as in these\nanonymous newspaper discussions. There was cunning as well as caution\nin his method. Changing his style with every fresh quill and every\nnew pen name, putting forth an idea for the sake of denying it, then\nexamining its merits cautiously, and finally advocating it boldly, he\ncreated like Falstaff a host of patriots out of a single Bostonian in\nbrown homespun, making it appear that many were troubled over evils\nthat were visible only to him. On occasion his style possesses the\nlight touch, the leisurely detail, the easy pleasantry of a Spectator\nessay;[274] again, there is a note of biting irony and studied\ninsult;[275] and again, there is dignified discussion in which Adams\nargues dispassionately with his countrymen, or pleads with them to\nstand together in defense of the common welfare. But in whatever vein\nor under whatever disguise he wrote, the conclusion of every argument\nwas the implied suggestion, how much better it would be if the American\npeople were to take into their own hands the management of their\naffairs.\n\nBut before the colonial could be induced to strike for governmental\ncontrol, the old psychology of subserviency to the ruling class must\nbe uprooted; and an effective means to that end was to lay bare the\nselfish motives of the aristocracy. To stimulate what we call today\nclass consciousness was a necessary preliminary to a democratic\npsychology; and to this task Adams devoted every energy. The ways\nof the iconoclast are rarely lovely, and the breaking of idols is\ncertain to wound sensitive souls. There was abundant justification\nfor the charge of Hutchinson that \u201crobbing men of their characters\u201d\nwas the \u201cpatriotic business\u201d of Samuel Adams; but he missed the point\nin attributing to him the motive, _Gubernatorum vituperatio populo\nplacet_. The respect that attached to Bernard and Hutchinson by\nvirtue of their official positions was a powerful ally of ministerial\nauthority; their words carried weight beyond the sanction of their\nlogic; for the good of America their power must be destroyed. Doubtless\nAdams was ungenerous in attack; certainly he was vindictive in his\nhates; but the cold record as we read it today justifies one in the\nbelief that the men whom he attacked were tools of the ministry,\nand must be struck down if the rights of Massachusetts were to be\npreserved. And it was due to the bitter denunciations of Adams that\nThomas Hutchinson was driven from his native land and forced to take\nrefuge in England, the best hated man in all the colonies.\n\nBut it was not enough to pull down the courtly Hutchinson, for behind\nthe governor was a group of lawyers and judges, equally subservient\nto prerogative, adepts in the art of interpreting away rights by due\nprocess of law. It became part of the day\u2019s work, therefore, to lay\nopen the sacred precincts of the courts to common inspection; to create\na public opinion to review judicial decisions when those decisions\nwere political rather than legal. It was a startling innovation for a\nprivate citizen to assert in the public press that \u201c_state-lawyers_,\nattorneys and sollicitors general, & persons advanced to the highest\nstations in the courts of law, _prostitute_ the honor of the\nprofession, become _tools of ministers_, and employ their talents for\n_explaining away_, if possible, the Rights of a kingdom.\u201d Never before\nhad the integrity of the colonial courts been openly attacked and\nthe motives of the judiciary impugned. But it was far more startling\nfor Adams to lay down the thesis, that in matters which concern the\ngeneral welfare, the letter of the law is not to be considered final,\nand \u201cthe opinions ... and determinations of the greatest Sages and\nJudges of the law in the Exchequer Chamber, ought not to be considered\nas decisive or binding ... any further, than they are consonant to\nnatural reason.\u201d[276] If Franklin was concerned to create a new\neconomics in harmony with democratic needs, Samuel Adams was concerned\nto democratize the New England law. He was dissatisfied with a legal\nsystem created by a Tory past, and that had lately received a fresh\nTory impress at the hands of Blackstone. Such a body of law could not\nanswer the needs of a free people; it must be reshaped to conform to\nnew needs. And the conclusion towards which his thinking pointed was\nthe principle of a referendum of judicial decisions, for how otherwise\ncould it be determined whether a given decision were \u201cconsonant to\nnatural reason\u201d?\n\nSamuel Adams was little given to striking at the air, and he set\nhimself to the work of cutting the claws of the more obnoxious judges\nwith the same cool skill that marked his baiting of the governor.\nCertain of them who held plural offices he maneuvered out of the\nCouncil, on the ground that they ought not to exercise both legislative\nand judicial functions; and when Bernard protested that they had been\nmembers of the Council for years and by reason of \u201ctheir knowledge of\nthe public business, were almost necessary to the body,\u201d he replied\nthat they were to be released \u201cfrom the cares and perplexities\nof politics ... to make further advances in the knowledge of the\nlaw\u201d--which thrust, in view of the notorious fact that few of them had\nbeen trained in the law, but had risen to the bench through political\ninfluence, must be reckoned a palpable hit.[277] Others beyond his\nimmediate reach found their characters assailed and their motives\naspersed, until popular respect for them was destroyed; and the unlucky\njudges who accepted payment from the royal chest found such a hue and\ncry raised against them that they were driven to make choice between\nthe royal guineas or answering to the mob--a rude but effective way of\nstimulating their loyalty to the commonwealth. In short, this \u201cmaster\nof the puppets,\u201d measuring the power of the judges and fearing their\nprerogative bias, did not scruple over ways and means of rendering them\nmore responsive to the popular will, which in the eyes of the best\npeople of Boston was no less than incendiary.\n\nThe work of Samuel Adams was largely done before the word democrat was\ngiven vogue by the French Revolution, and he cautiously refrained from\nusing it; nevertheless he was probably the most thoroughgoing democrat\nof his generation of Americans. He was wholly persuaded that the\nsovereign people have a right to change their fundamental law, together\nwith the interpretation and administration of it, whenever they\ndesire; and that pending such change it was well to nullify an act of\nprerogative subversive of their interests. \u201cWe contend, that the People\n& their Representatives have a Right to withstand the abusive Exercise\nof a legal & constitutional Prerogative of the Crown,\u201d he argued in\nreply to Hutchinson; \u201cwhenever instructions cannot be complyed with,\nwithout injuring the people, they cease to be binding.\u201d[278] From the\nnecessary corollary, that the people are competent to judge of their\nown good and manage their own affairs, Adams did not shrink. Stated\nthus in general terms, the theory possessed no novelty. The sovereignty\nof the people had long been a staple of Whiggish theory; but Adams gave\nto the doctrine democratic significance. The people, in his philosophy,\nwere something more than the wealthy and cultured minority to whom the\nWhigs appealed; they were the mass of men--the yeoman, the tradesman,\nthe mechanic--all that multitude of homespun folk who had hitherto been\nmere pawns in the political game. Such a passage as this, written four\nyears before Lexington, reads like Tom Paine and his doctrine of the\n_res publica_:\n\n The _multitude_ I am speaking of, is the _body of the people_--no\n contemptible multitude--for whose sake government is instituted;\n or rather, who have themselves erected it, solely for their own\n good--to whom even kings and all in subordination to them, are\n strictly speaking, servants and not masters.... Philanthrop\n [Jonathan Sewall] I think, speaks somewhat unintelligently, when\n he tells us that the well being and happiness of the whole depends\n upon _subordination_; as if mankind submitted to government for the\n sake of being subordinate.... Mankind have entered into political\n societies, rather for the sake of restoring _equality_.... I am not\n of levelling principles: But I am apt to think, that constitution\n of civil government which admits equality in the most extensive\n degree, consistent with the true design of government, is the\n best.[279]\n\nAccepting the sovereignty of the people, Adams was led to a pure\ndemocracy, based on the town meeting. He rejected every form of \u201cmixt\ngovernment,\u201d whether in the form of king, lords and commons, or in\nthe form of constitutional checks and balances. That sober men should\nprofess to prefer the dominion of the few to the rule of all, he could\nnot understand. \u201cI find everywhere some Men, who are afraid of a free\nGovernment,\u201d he said in 1776, \u201clest it be perverted, and made Use of\nas a Cloke for Licenciousness. The fear of the Peoples abusing their\nLiberty is made an Argument against their having the Enjoyment of it;\nas if anything were so much to be dreaded by Mankind as Slavery.\u201d[280]\nDemocracy he believed was inevitable, for \u201cin these times of Light\nand Liberty, every man chuses to see and judge for himself.\u201d[281]\nHe was quite untroubled by any fear of the tyranny of the mass; he\nwas a good enough historian to know that it is always the minority\nand not the mass that creates tyranny. Though Toryism might infect\nthe government circles, and aristocracy appeal to the wealthy and\nambitious, the great body of Massachusetts people were democratic, and\nhe looked forward hopefully to a new political order, created by the\npopular mind. It came more quickly than he had expected, once the old\ninhibitions were removed. \u201cNew Govts are now erecting in the several\nAmerican states under the Authority of the People,\u201d he wrote soon after\nIndependence. \u201cMonarchy seems to be generally exploded. And it is not\na little surprising to me that the Aristocratick Spirit, which appeard\nto have taken deep Root in some of them, now gives place to that of\nDemocracy.\u201d[282]\n\nDuring the difficult after-years of reconstruction Adams remained\ntrue to his democratic principles. As he had earlier resisted the\nencroachments of monarchical centralization, he later fought against\nFederalistic consolidation. He distrusted the Constitution as an\nundemocratic instrument, fearing a centralized authority removed from\nimmediate control; and he joined heartily in the work of securing a\nBill of Rights. He welcomed the French Revolution and followed closely\nthe developing democratic philosophy which that great upheaval did so\nmuch to clarify and disseminate. He remained an unrepentant Jacobin\nduring those acrimonious years when the Federalists were filling the\nair with their anti-Jacobin fustian. He had heard gentlemen rant\nbefore and was probably amused when, as Governor, he attended Harvard\nCommencement and listened to young Robert Treat Paine fulminate against\nthe red atheism of France and its American spawn. Although a kinsman of\nJohn Adams and warm friend, he welcomed the election of Jefferson as a\nreturn to democratic principles after an unhappy period of \u201cprejudice\nand passion,\u201d although he warned him, \u201cyou must depend upon being\nhated ... because they hate your principles.\u201d The last letter in the\ncollected edition of his works, addressed to his old friend Tom Paine,\nNovember 30, 1802, is an appeal for democratic unity; and the words\nwith which it concludes--_felix qui cautus_--embody the principle of\nhis amazing political strategy. In playing for great stakes it is well\nto be wary.\n\nHis anti-Federalism, aggravated by his frank advocacy of Jacobin\nprinciples, cost him heavily in after days, and like Philip Freneau his\njust fame was long obscured by partisan spleen. Although he retained\nhis hold on the affections of the Massachusetts electorate, and was\nannually chosen Governor until the infirmities of age determined his\nwithdrawal from public affairs, he was silently dropped from the roll\nof American patriots whose deeds were celebrated in current panegyrics.\nHis manuscripts were scattered after his death, and he was in the way\nof being forgotten till Bancroft, in the next century, gave fresh\ncurrency to his earlier reputation. Since then the figure of Samuel\nAdams has grown steadily larger, although he still awaits a biographer\nwho will set him in his due place in the history of American liberalism.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[261] _Works_, Vol. II, p. 269.\n\n[262] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 348.\n\n[263] Hutchinson seems to justify such a view from a passage written in\n1770: \u201cThe leaders here seem to acknowledge that their cause is not to\nbe defended on constitutional principles, and Adams now gives out that\nthere is no need of it; they are upon better ground; all men have a\nnatural right to change a bad constitution for a better, whenever they\nhave it in their power.\u201d (Hosmer, _Life of Samuel Adams_, p. 259.)\n\n[264] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 135.\n\n[265] _Works_, Vol. II, p. 299.\n\n[266] \u201cThe Rights of the Colonists,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, pp. 355-356.\n\n[267] \u201cCandidus,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, pp. 325-326.\n\n[268] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 28.\n\n[269] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 29.\n\n[270] \u201cA Chatterer,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, pp. 45-46.\n\n[271] _Works_, Vol. III, p. 289.\n\n[272] _History of Massachusetts Bay_, Vol. III, p. 349.\n\n[273] See in particular the \u201cCandidus\u201d articles in _Works_, Vol. II, in\nwhich he elaborated his views on government by ministerial instructions.\n\n[274] See \u201cPuritan\u201d articles, in _Works_, Vol. I, p. 201 _et seq._\n\n[275] See \u201cCandidus,\u201d in Vol. II, p. 246; \u201cChatterer,\u201d in Vol. II, pp.\n35, 39, 43; \u201cLayman,\u201d in Vol. I, p. 322.\n\n[276] _Works_, Vol. II., p. 436.\n\n[277] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 80.\n\n[278] _Works_, Vol. II, pp. 22, 26.\n\n[279] _Works_, Vol. II, p. 150.\n\n[280] _Works_, Vol. III, p. 244.\n\n[281] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 39.\n\n[282] _Ibid._, Vol. III, p. 305.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V \u2022 Literary Echoes\n\n\nThe Revolutionary upheaval produced no polite literature in any\nrespects comparable to its utilitarian prose. The expiring wit\nliterature of England was an exotic that refused to be naturalized, and\nthe times were unpropitious for the creation of a native poetry. An\noccasional dilettante like Mather Byles aspired to be a wit, but the\nreputation of the clever Bostonian owed more to his tongue than to his\npen, and he is dimly remembered for the letter that he received from\nthe great Mr. Pope, rather than for notable verse. Nevertheless in the\nearly seventies pure literature was beginning to make a perceptible\nstir in New England. Clever young men in the colleges were turning\nmoderns and making ready to wage a new battle of the books. They\npreferred the refinements of verse to the didacticism of sermons; they\nwere discovering the charm of playful satire; and they found in the\ncurrently fashionable tetrameter a brisk vehicle for their attacks on\nacademic dullness. They admired Churchill, then at the height of his\nbrief fame, but they were restrained by a decent modesty and dared\nnot go his length in brutal frankness. It was from these young men,\namateurs in verse writing and amateurs likewise in politics, that the\nAmerican cause mainly recruited its literary defenders. They might be\nflaming Whigs but they were also well-bred young gentlemen who studied\nthe amenities and sought to unite patriotism with good form.\n\n\nI \u2022 The Whig Satirists\n\n\n1. John Trumbull\n\nThere was the best of Yankee blood in the veins of John Trumbull.\nAmong his kinsmen were the Reverend Benjamin Trumbull, historian\nof Connecticut, Governor Jonathan Trumbull--Washington\u2019s \u201cBrother\nJonathan\u201d--and John Trumbull the painter. On his mother\u2019s side he was\ndescended from the vigorous Solomon Stoddard, grandfather of Jonathan\nEdwards. His father was a scholarly minister, long a trustee of Yale\nCollege, at which school the son spent seven years as undergraduate and\ntutor. He was a precocious youth with a strong love of polite letters,\nand a praiseworthy desire to achieve literary distinction. Greek and\nLatin had been the toys of his childhood and when he was seven years of\nage he passed the entrance examination to college. During the period\nof his tutorship he joined with Timothy Dwight and Joseph Howe in\nthe work of overhauling the stale curriculum, supplementing Lilly\u2019s\nGrammar and Calvin\u2019s Institutes with Pope and Churchill. Like other\naspiring youths of the day he dabbled in Spectator papers, practiced\nhis couplets, and eventually produced _The Progress of Dulness_, the\ncleverest bit of academic verse till then produced in America. At heart\nTrumbull was thoroughly academic, and nothing would have suited his\ntemperament better than the life of a Yale professor; but the prospects\nproving unfavorable, he began to mingle Blackstone with the poets in\npreparation for his future profession.\n\nHe was thus engaged during the middle years of the long dispute with\nEngland, the bitter wranglings of which seem to have disturbed him\nlittle in his quiet retreat. But in 1773 he resigned his tutorship\nto prepare himself further in the law. Removing to Boston he entered\nthe office of John Adams, then rising to prominence as a spokesman\nof the popular party; and he took lodgings in the house of Caleb\nCushing, Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. Placed thus at the\nstorm center of provincial politics, he was soon infected with the\nWhig dissatisfactions and joined himself to the patriotic party. When\nAdams went to Philadelphia to sit in the Continental Congress, Trumbull\nwithdrew to Hartford, where he established himself. Before quitting\nBoston he had published an _Elegy on the Times_, a political tract that\nseemed to Adams so useful to the cause that he marked the young poet\nfor future service, and the year following he encouraged the writing\nof _M\u2019Fingal_, the first part of which appeared in 1775. So great was\nthe prestige it met with that Trumbull tinkered with it for seven\nyears, publishing it finally in its completed form in 1782. The law\nseems to have been a jealous mistress then as now, and his dreams of\nfurther literary work were inadequately realized. He is believed to\nhave had a hand in _The Anarchiad_, and he wrote some minor poems; but\nhe soon drifted into politics, went on the bench, finally removed to\nDetroit in 1825, and died there in 1831, at the age of eighty-one. He\nhad outlived his Revolutionary generation, long outlived his literary\nambitions, and was pretty much forgotten before he died. His collected\nworks, published in 1820, proved a losing venture for the printer.\nAmerica in 1820 was turning romantic, and few, it seems, cared to\ninvest in two volumes of echoes.\n\nTrumbull\u2019s reputation rests exclusively on _M\u2019Fingal_. It was so\npopular in its time that more than thirty pirated editions were\nissued. It was broadcasted by \u201cnews-papers, hawkers, pedlars, and\npetty chapmen,\u201d and it served its partisan purpose. The author was\ncomplimented by the Marquis de Chastellux on fulfilling all the\nconditions of burlesque poetry as approved since the days of Homer;\nbut in spite of the indisputable cleverness of some of the lines,\nit is not a great work. In its final form it is spun out to extreme\nlength, and pretty much swamped by the elaborate machinery on which the\npoet visibly prided himself. Even in the thick of attack Trumbull did\nnot forget his academic reading, but he explains his allusions with\nmeticulous care. He seems, indeed, rather more concerned about the laws\nof the mock epic than the threatened rights of America. The Scotch Tory\nhero is a figure so unlike the real Tory--the Olivers and Leonards and\nHutchinsons, with their love of power and dignified display--that the\ncaricature loses much in historical veracity. Trumbull\u2019s patriotism\nwas well bred and unmarked by fierce partisanship. His refined tastes\nwere an ill equipment for the turmoil of revolution. The ways of the\nradical were not lovely in his eyes; the Sons of Liberty with their\ntar-pots and feather-beds were too often rough fellows, and although\nthey provided him with comic material to set off the blunderings of\nthe Squire, they probably seemed to him little better than tools of\ndemagogues. Very often this tousle-headed democracy behaved like a mob,\nand Trumbull in his tie-wig did not approve of mobs.\n\nThe more thoughtfully one reads _M\u2019Fingal_, throwing upon it the light\nof the total career of its author, the more clearly one perceives\nthat John Trumbull was not a rebellious soul. In the year 1773, while\nprojecting some fresh ventures in the Spectator vein, \u201che congratulated\nhimself on the fact \u2018that the ferment of politics\u2019 was, as he supposed,\n\u2018pretty much subsided,\u2019 and that at last the country was to enjoy a\n\u2018mild interval from the struggles of patriotism and self-interest,\nfrom noise and confusion, Wilkes and liberty.\u2019\u201d He had then no wish for\nembroilment in civil war, no dreams of political independence. All his\nlife he seems to have suffered from ill health, which probably sapped\nhis militancy and lessened his pugnacity. From this temperamental\ncalmness came a certain detachment that allowed his partisanship to\nremain cooler than the hot passions of the times commonly suffered. He\ncould permit himself the luxury of a laugh at the current absurdities;\nand it is this light-heartedness that made _M\u2019Fingal_ so immediately\neffective. The rollicking burlesque of the Tory argument, the telling\n_reductio ad absurdum_ of the Tory logic, must have tickled the ears of\nevery Whig and provoked many a laugh in obscure chimney-seats. Laughter\nis a keen weapon, and Trumbull\u2019s gayety laid open weak spots in the\nTory armor that were proof against Freneau\u2019s invective. It was a rare\nnote in those acrimonious times, and one likes Trumbull the better for\nminding his manners and engaging in the duel like a gentleman. After\nall, this son of Yale had certain characteristics of the intellectual,\nand if his environment had been favorable and the law had not claimed\nhim, very likely he would have given a better account of the talents\nthat were certainly his. He wrote with ease if not with finish, and he\npossessed the requisite qualities of a man of letters. A lovable man he\nseems to have been, but somewhat easy-going, too lightly turned away\nfrom his purpose; and in consequence his later life failed to realize\nthe expectations of his early years.\n\nThat he was not a Loyalist was probably due in large measure to\nenvironment and his family connections. Considering his temperament,\nit is not easy to discover any logical reason why he should have\nturned Whig. He had never suffered in his own fortune from existing\narrangements; he was not a political idealist to throw the glamor of\nrepublicanism about the struggle; he had not subjected the colonial\nquestion to critical analysis. He was an academic dilettante,\nunconcerned with political principles, little more than an echo of the\nConnecticut gentry in such matters; and if he espoused the Whig cause\nit is a pretty good indication that Yale College was indoctrinated\nin Whig principles. An echo he remained throughout his life. When\nlater he became a Federalist and enjoyed some of the emoluments of\nparty victory, and when later still democracy lifted up its head in\nConnecticut, wearing the French cockade, and bringing down upon it\nthe wrath of all respectable people, he reflected faithfully the views\nof his class. John Trumbull was a moderate liberal, but no leveler, no\ndemocrat, no friend to Jeffersonian heresies. Democracy he detested\nheartily, and he joined with the other Hartford Wits to draw its\nportrait in unflattering terms. As a Connecticut gentleman he was\ninsistent on the supremacy of the tie-wig in government as well as in\nsociety; he would scarcely have been a Connecticut gentleman had he\nthought otherwise.\n\n\n2. Francis Hopkinson, Esq.\n\nIf the career of Trumbull indicates that Whiggery existed among the\nyoung collegians of Connecticut, the career of Francis Hopkinson\nsuggests that the culture of Philadelphia, the great center of\nfashion and wit, was Whiggish also. That it should have been so is\nthe more noteworthy, for the Quaker spirit of Philadelphia was far\nless militant than the Puritan spirit of Boston; more peaceful, if\nnot more conservative. The city had long been dominated by a group\nof sober merchants who detested the leveling tendencies of New\nEngland. But the domination of these older men was passing; a younger\ngeneration, more aggressive in trade and speculation, was rising to\npower; and that Philadelphia finally went with the Whigs was due to the\ninfluence of these younger merchants. When it became clear that the\ncommercial interests of men like Robert Morris and George Clymer were\ndisadvantaged by the connection with England, the ardor of patriotism\ngrew stronger, and talk of independence became common. No sooner had\nbusiness come out for independence than culture swung over; the wit\nwhich would gladly have remained loyal applauded the comments of the\ncountinghouse, and the newspaper essay reflected the new patriotic\nsentiments.\n\nChief among the Philadelphia wits was Francis Hopkinson, Esq., a\ncharmingly versatile dilettante, who to the vocation of the law and the\nbench of admiralty, joined the polite avocations of painting, music,\nnatural philosophy, and literature. He was indisputably clever, full of\ninnumerable sprightly enthusiasms, and master of cultivated speech and\nmanners. Of his skill in painting and music we cannot judge, but of his\nliterary accomplishments the record has been preserved. Life seems to\nhave been an agreeable experience to him, and if his dainty enthusiasms\nwere a marvel to John Adams,[283] it would indicate that society in\nPhiladelphia in 1775 was far more refined than in provincial Boston.\n\nHopkinson possessed ample means to gratify his polite tastes, and\nhad long moved in the most exclusive circles. The son of an eminent\nlawyer, he had received the best education available in the colonies,\nafter which he went abroad to acquire old-world polish. Some fourteen\nmonths were spent in England, where, as a near kinsman of the Bishop\nof Worcester, he frequented the best English society, made the\nacquaintance of eminent men, and even enjoyed the distinction of\ndining with my Lord North. On his return he prudently fell in love\nwith an heiress of the Bordens, of Bordentown, and turned Jerseyman\nthe better to administer his wife\u2019s estates. He entered the law, and\ndoubtless at the solicitation of his kinsman the Bishop, he became a\nbeneficiary of ministerial patronage: receiving appointment in 1772\nto a sinecure post as collector of customs at Newcastle, and two\nyears later being made mandamus councilor for New Jersey--a somewhat\nhazardous post, considering the nature of the office and the temper\nof the people. Already in Massachusetts certain gentlemen had learned\nthat the compliment of royal recognition might cost too dear a price.\nThat Hopkinson should have been tendered such an appointment as late as\n1774, shows that he was regarded by the ministry as good Tory material.\n\nDuring the anxious months of 1774, when intelligent Americans were\ntrying to forecast the outcome of the growing radicalism of the\ncolonial temper, Hopkinson must have done some serious thinking; with\nthe result that when in September the Continental Congress assembled\nin Philadelphia, he offered to the members as his contribution to the\ndiscussion a clever little allegory wherein the whole question at issue\nbetween England and the colonies was sketched with a light touch that\nis an agreeable relief from the arguments of the official debaters. In\n_A Pretty Story_ Hopkinson is frankly pro-colonial, and offers his wit\nto the service of his country. It is not a great work, but it shows\nthat he had definitely put aside the ministerial temptation--probably\nto the disgust of the good Bishop--and had gone over to the Whigs. Two\nyears later he took a seat in the Congress, and within a week voted\nfor the Declaration of Independence, aligning himself against the\nconservative group led by his fellow townsman, John Dickinson.\n\nWhat impelled Hopkinson to so momentous a shift in political\nopinion can be explained by no records that have been preserved,\nand must remain a matter of conjecture. Even less than Trumbull was\nhe revolutionary in temper. His Whiggery was probably commercial\nin origin, a reflection of the economic interests of the merchant\nclass with which he mingled. That he went so far as to attack the\naristocratic spirit of the English government--its debauching of public\nservants and its sordid motives--may have been due quite as much to a\nrefined integrity as to partisan advantage; but for an aristocrat to\nattack the aristocratic principle of government was unusual as it was\ndangerous for his class. But though he turned Whig he was no agrarian\nto substitute the majority will for the royal prerogative; and when the\nwar was over and political re-alignment was under way, Hopkinson went\nwith his group, became a stout Federalist, defended the Constitution,\nand enjoyed his share of the party emoluments. His wit was unembittered\nby the acrimonious disputes of Jacobin days, and his partisanship\nretained its note of casual sprightliness through the dogdays of the\nnineties.\n\nHis chief contributions to the debate over the Constitution were _The\nNew Roof_ and _Objections to the Proposed Plan of a Federal Government\nfor the United States, on Genuine Principles_. They are delightfully\nclever, but the cleverness cannot conceal a good-natured contempt for\nthe democratic underling and all his ways. The attitude of aristocratic\nsuperiority is the more striking for its easy bearing. The first is\nan implied eulogy of James Wilson, Scotch lawyer of Philadelphia, who\nas master-architect finds his plans for erecting a splendid roof over\na \u201ccertain Mansion-house\u201d violently opposed by Margery, a slattern\nmidwife, for no better reason than that \u201cin the construction of the\nnew roof, her apartments would be considerably lessened.\u201d Margery, of\ncourse, is agrarian democracy, and to further her interests she incites\nthree worthless servants to testify that the old leaky roof is better\nthan the one proposed. Naturally their flimsy arguments are laughed out\nof court, and the wisdom of the architect is apparent to all except a\n\u201chalf-crazy fellow\u201d[284] who filled the air with his \u201cfustian,\u201d making\nhimself a general nuisance to the disgust of all respectable people.\n\nIn the second of the two works, Hopkinson gives freer rein to his\npolite fancy, figuring the opposition to the Constitution under the\nform of a Wheelbarrow Society at the city gaol. Within those walled\nprecincts, he suggests, the most advanced advocates of natural liberty\nmay be found, and there the monstrous crime of the Constitution is\nmost eloquently exposed. How foolish is this America that persists in\nbelieving what able lawyers and reputable gentlemen say of the merits\nof the document, and refuses to intrust the making of a fundamental law\nto such true liegemen of democracy as these knights of the chain-gang!\nIt is all very witty, and provokes its laugh, and serves its purpose\nof heaping on the head of the opposition the class prejudice that was\nindignant at the insolence of plebeians in holding contrary views on\na subject quite beyond their comprehension. But times change, and the\nsprightliest wit may lose its savor. Those old Federalist skits are as\ndead today as the marvelous pageant got up by Hopkinson to celebrate\nthe adoption of the Constitution, an affair which greatly pleased the\namiable little gentleman, a detailed account of which he prepared\nfor the definitive edition of his works, where it may be read by the\ncurious.\n\nIf Francis Hopkinson is no very important figure in our literary\nhistory, he is not without significance as a representative of our\ncolonial culture that deliberately chose to be Whig rather than Tory.\nHe risked much and he was amply rewarded. For years he sat on the bench\nof the Court of Admiralty, sparkled at dinners, and was a respected\nand influential member of a genteel society. If the recompense for his\nservices during the perilous days was greater than fell to the lot of a\ndemocrat like Philip Freneau, who will wonder? Like rewards like, and\nthe days of democratic rewards were not yet come in America.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Tory Satirists\n\n\n1. Jonathan Odell\n\nAmongst the occasional writers who dedicated extemporized couplets\nto the defense of Toryism in America, there can be no doubt to whom\nbelongs the primacy. Jonathan Odell was easily first as a purveyor of\nvirulent Loyalist rhyme. Of the sternest Puritan ancestry, Odell was\neducated in medicine, and saw service in the West Indies as surgeon\nto his Majesty\u2019s forces. Turning Anglican he was ordained priest\nin London, and came home to his native colonies as a missionary, to\nfurther the cause of episcopacy. Busily engaged with parochial duties,\nhe chose to remain aloof from all political disputes, and during the\nearly months of the war he refrained from taking sides. Unfortunately,\nhowever, he made acquaintances among some captive British officers,\nfor whom he wrote a song in honor of the King\u2019s birthday, which was\nsung with much drinking of wine on June 4, 1776, the news of which\ngetting abroad stirred the Whig partisans to anger. Soon thereafter\nmatters grew too warm for Odell to remain longer neutral; he suffered\ncertain humiliating personal experiences and was driven to seek refuge\nwithin the British lines. Thenceforth none was more ardent in the royal\ncause. He busied himself with innumerable intrigues to undermine the\nWhig strength, amongst others serving as a go-between in the unlucky\nAndr\u00e9-Arnold affair. He remained implacable to the end, and not until\nthe last Redcoat was withdrawn from the independent states, did he\nleave off urging reprisals. When it was all over he withdrew sullenly\nto Nova Scotia, was amply rewarded by his King, and sat down to nourish\nto the end of a long life the most virulent hatred of all Whigs and\nrepublicans. \u201cToryissimus,\u201d Professor Tyler calls him, borrowing Sir\nWalter\u2019s word; and the term hits to a nicety the bitter arrogant nature\nwhich so closely resembled in its essentials the \u201cproud prelate Laud,\u201d\nfrom whom his ancestors had fled a hundred and fifty years before.\n\nA vigorous man was Jonathan Odell, strong, capable, uncompromising,\npossessing a clear intellect and a heart little touched by Christian\ncharity--a stern Hebraist who would sweep away with the besom of wrath\nall the enemies of his God and his King. He felt no hesitation in\nmaking out the list of the proscribed: the enemies of the King were\n_ipso facto_ the enemies of God--rebels who were daily signing their\nown death warrants in overt acts of treason. Watching the seditious\ncrew of \u201cCongress men\u201d seducing the colonials into unnatural rebellion\nagainst the best of kings and fathers, he took it to be his Christian\nduty to lay the rod of correction upon their shoulders. If they would\nnot be warned they must be hanged. Not content with active intrigue, he\npressed his pen into service, and during the year 1779 he wrote four\npieces which for bitterness of satire outdid Freneau at his frankest.\nFreneau was bitter and brutal in all conscience, but he was never\nnasty; there were infamies of personal insult that he would not stoop\nto, vulgarities of innuendo that he was not guilty of. If he studied\nthe art of Churchill, he stopped short of Churchill\u2019s grossness. But\nOdell the priest was unhampered by scruple; the meanest gossip found\na place in his \u201cacrid rhyme.\u201d No Christian charity spread its mantle\nover the shortcomings of his enemies, no Christian forgiveness found\nlodgment in his unforgiving heart. He was a son of the Old Testament\nand he girded up his righteousness with prayer.\n\n Ask I too much? then grant me for a time\n Some deleterious pow\u2019rs of acrid rhyme:\n Some ars\u2019nic verse, to poison with the pen\n These rats, who nestle in the Lion\u2019s den![285]\n\nThe four satires which embody his holy wrath and which were little\ncalculated to spread sweetness and light in a world sorely in need of\nthem, are _The Word of Congress_, _The Congratulation_, _The Feu de\nJoie_, and _The American Times_--all written, probably, in the last\nmonths of the year 1779. Of these the first and the last are the most\nsuggestive in their denunciation. The spirit which prompted him to turn\nto satire is given in the preface to the 1780 edition of _The American\nTimes_.\n\n The masters of Reason have decided, that when doctrines and\n practices have been fairly examined, and proved to be contrary to\n Truth, and injurious to Society, then and not before may Ridicule\n be lawfully employed in the Service of Virtue. This is exactly\n the case of the grand American Rebellion; it has been weighed in\n the balance, and found wanting: able writers have exposed its\n principles, its conduct, and its final aim. Reason has done her\n part, and therefore this is the legitimate moment for Satire.\n Accordingly the following Piece is offered to the Public. What it\n is found to want of Genius, the Author cannot supply; what it may\n want of Correction, he hopes the candor of the Public will excuse\n on account of the fugitive nature of the subject: next year the\n publication would be too late; for in all probability there will\n then be no Congress existing.\n\nWhen we examine the work of Odell to discover the deeper springs of his\nthought, we come upon naked class prejudice, undiluted Toryism. His\nsocial philosophy is erected upon that unstable foundation; the actions\nof men are judged solely by that light. Of any valid or reasoned\nphilosophy, social or political, he was as wanting as a child. Of any\nreal understanding of his fellow Americans who had espoused the Whig\ncause, he was as lacking as General Clinton, whose \u201cwarfare,\u201d Odell\nasserted, \u201cwas the war of God.\u201d The colonial grievances which other\nTories acknowledged to have some foundation, Odell casually ignored.\nThere was no cause in heaven or earth for colonial disloyalty, he\nwas convinced, except Whiggish perversity, and for such perversity\nthere must be due punishment--the rope. In his mind\u2019s eye he sees the\n\u201cimpious crew,\u201d one after another silenced by the halter. There must be\nno ill-judged mercy; the best of the rebels must swing with the worst,\nfor they are all sedition-mongers, all attainted traitors. From his\nvast ignorance Odell derived an equally vast confidence in the ultimate\ntriumph of truth. There is a note of finality in his judgments that\namazes, an infallibility that amuses. The Reverend Jonathan frankly\nacknowledges himself to be the boon companion of Reason, the favored\nsuitor of Truth--from them only has he taken instruction and in their\nname he professes to speak. Whereas the Whigs are poor fellows who have\nheld commerce with neither.\n\nOdell is careful of his workmanship and organizes his materials with\nan eye to climax. _The American Times_ is formally divided into three\nparts. The poem opens with a summoning of the infernal crew of sedition\nand the abuse of them severally, rising to a rhetorical conclusion in\nan address to Washington; then the leering portrait of the mother of\nall mischiefs. Democracy, is painted; finally comes a pure and lofty\nstrain which summons Reason to decide in the great cause. Taxation,\nIndependence, are haled before her august throne and there condemned,\nand the whole concludes with a vision of Britannia\u2019s guardian angel\nbearing a two-edged sword and proclaiming:\n\n At length the day of Vengeance is at hand:\n The exterminating Angel takes his stand:\n Hear the last summons, rebels, and relent:\n Yet but a moment is there to repent.\n Lo! the great Searcher ready at the door,\n Who means decisively to purge the floor:\n Yes, the wise Sifter now prepares the fan\n To separate the meal from useless bran.\n Down to the centre from his burning ire\n Ye foes of goodness and of truth, retire:\n And ye, who now lie humbled in the dust,\n Shall raise your heads, ye loyal and ye just;\n Th\u2019 approving sentence of your Sovereign gain,\n And shine refulgent as the starry train.\n Then, when eternal justice is appeas\u2019d;\n When with due vengeance heav\u2019n and earth are pleas\u2019d;\n America, from dire pollution clear\u2019d,\n Shall flourish yet again, belov\u2019d, rever\u2019d:\n In duty\u2019s lap her growing sons be nurs\u2019d,\n And her last days be happier than her first.[286]\n\nInto this framework Odell has fitted a surprising number of personal\nattacks. His ink blots out the good name of every Whig on whom it\ndrips. To the present generation it furnishes food for wonder to\nsee what a paltry appearance the fathers make in the verse of this\nplain-speaking Tory. Jefferson, Paine, Morris, Adams, Washington, and\na host of others, are shallow creatures, in the judgment of Odell,\nbereft of reason, void of honor, the very scum of the revolutionary\npot; whereas Clinton and Gage, Hutchinson and Galloway, are holy\ninstruments in the hand of God to cleanse the land of pollution. The\nattack is rankly and grossly partisan, with no saving grace of humor or\nhumanity. The alpha and omega of Odell\u2019s political faith was loyalty to\nthe crown, and the bankruptcy of such a creed in revolutionary America\nis nowhere thrust into harsher relief than in the bitter verses of\nthis bitter heart. Empty Jonathan Odell of prejudice, class interest,\npassion for the prerogative, with their corollary of praise for an\nunmanly truckling to the King, and nothing remains, the empty sack\ncollapses. It was a hardship that he should have been driven out of his\nnative country upon the failure of the King\u2019s cause, but what could\nbe done with a fellow who insisted that his empty sack was stuffed\nwith all the virtues? He was harshly intolerant in his Toryism, and he\nencountered a victorious republican harshness.\n\n\n2. Samuel Peters\n\nIt is amusing to turn from the implacable Odell to the mendacious\nPeters, only to meet with another tale of abortive missionary zeal.\nThe Anglican clergy played a conspicuous part during the Revolutionary\ntroubles--a part that in many cases inspired small regard for the\nestablishment in the minds of a dissenting laity. Not in vain did\nthe church teach loyalty to authority, for while the British Empire\nwas breaking asunder, the Anglican ministers were visible pillars of\nprerogative and with pen and voice lent effective aid to the royal\ncause. Sometimes their ardor outran their intelligence, their devotion\nbetrayed their discretion; nevertheless their zeal contributed notably\nto the number and quality of the Loyalist writings.\n\nFor some inconceivable reason Samuel Peters was seized with a desire\nto plant the Anglican church in Congregational Connecticut--surely\nthe strangest of desires and the strangest of men to undertake such\na work. To uplift the banner of episcopacy in a commonwealth that\nfor over a hundred years had been militantly Separatist, that did\nnot want bishops and would not have them--here was missionary zeal\nthat a plain man understands with difficulty. To have made headway\nat all there was need of apostolic fervor and an ingratiating tact;\nand Samuel Peters possessed neither. He was a gentleman who preened\nhimself on his quality, exuding in speech and action a pride of caste\nthat led him to speak of the American farmers as peasants--the only\nnative Loyalist who thus aped the English. His abilities were far from\nmean, but his better qualities were corroded by overweening conceit.\nPossessed of all the arrogance of a lord and all the ostentation of a\nbrewer, he was scarcely the man to serve the Connecticut laity with\ndue Christian humility. He pointed out the truth authoritatively and\nthen took it as a personal affront if his hearers failed to agree with\nhim. And so, after explaining to the Congregationalists of Connecticut\nthe infallible truth of the Anglican way, and being ready to minister\nto them according to that way, he fell into a pet when they refused to\nturn churchmen. The more he argued the more he got himself disliked,\nand when his tactless loyalism brought down the Sons of Liberty upon\nhim and he was driven to Boston--whence he sailed for England where he\nsurvived for thirty-one years--he took a spirited revenge by writing\nhis _History of Connecticut_, a work that solaced the early years of\nexpatriation, and provided material for many an after argument.\n\nIt is an amazingly provocative book, over which the sons of Connecticut\nhave disputed acrimoniously for a hundred years without coming\nto agreement. Fortunately those disputes are of far less concern\ntoday than the political philosophy tucked away in the pages of the\n_History_; the scandal is far less interesting than the shrewd comment\non the causes of the American Revolution. Samuel Peters was a high Tory\nwith the virtue of frankness, which defeat had made the more open. From\nhis secure refuge in England he looked back upon the revolutionary\nupheaval, and his analysis of causes is the more suggestive from the\nfact that he had nothing to gain from truckling to popular opinion. His\njudgments are interesting even when he exaggerates. The colonial Tory\nis no longer serving immediate partisan ends, but after the battle has\nbeen fought and lost he takes a grim pleasure in pointing out to the\nEnglish government its costly blunders. Affairs went ill in America,\nnot because of too much Toryism on the part of government, but because\nof too little and too late applied. The explanation of the origin\nand spread of unrest in America, Peters regarded as very simple. The\ntap-root of the disaffection was republicanism, which through the\ncriminal negligence of government was not severed in the days when the\nplant was small, but which was suffered to grow till the tree could not\nbe pulled up or destroyed.\n\n It appears to me, that the British government, in the last century,\n did not expect New-England to remain under their authority; nor did\n the New-Englanders consider themselves as subjects, but allies,\n of Great Britain. It seems that England\u2019s intent was to afford an\n asylum to the republicans who had been a scourge to the British\n constitution; and so, to encourage that restless party to emigrate,\n republican charters were granted, and privileges and promises given\n them far beyond what an Englishman in England is entitled to.\n The emigrants were empowered to make laws, in church and state,\n agreeable to their own will and pleasure, without the King\u2019s\n approbation.[287]\n\n From the first they have uniformly declared, in church and state,\n that America is a new world, subject to the people residing in it;\n and that none but enemies to the country would appeal from their\n courts to the King in Council. They never have prayed for any\n earthly king by name. They always called themselves republicans\n and enemies to kingly government.... They hate the idea of a\n parliament.... They never have admitted one law of England to be\n in force among them, till passed by their assemblies.... They hold\n Jesus to be their only King, whom if they love and obey, they will\n not submit, because they have not submitted to the laws of the King\n of England.[288]\n\nThe natural fruits of this pernicious root of republicanism were the\ncolonial hostility to the monarchical and aristocratic elements of\nthe British constitution, together with all the domestic turbulence\nand lawlessness which have marked the history of New England from the\nfirst. If gentlemen wished an object lesson in republicanism, none\nbetter than Connecticut could be had; there from the earliest days,\n\u201crepublicanism, schisms, and persecutions,\u201d have gone hand in hand;\nand it was to make this clear to the world that Samuel Peters took the\ntrouble to write his _History_.\n\n In the course of this work, my readers must necessarily have\n observed, in some degree, the ill effects of the democratical\n constitution of Connecticut. I would wish them to imagine, for\n I feel myself unable adequately to describe, the confusion,\n turbulence, and convulsion, arising in a province, where not only\n every civil officer, from the Governor to the constable, but also\n every minister, is appointed as well as paid by the people, and\n faction and superstition are established. The clergy, lawyers, and\n merchants or traders, are the three efficient parties which guide\n the helm of government.... _En rabies vulgi_--I must beg leave to\n refer my readers to their own reflections upon such a system of\n government as I have here sketched out.[289]\n\nThat such a people would respect the King\u2019s laws at a late day, when\nthose laws lessened their profits, was foolish to expect. There had\nbeen much complaint from ministerial gentlemen in respect to colonial\nsmuggling; but how idle was it to complain of the natural consequences\nof ministerial laxness chronic for a hundred years!\n\n Smuggling is rivetted in the constitutions and practice of the\n inhabitants of Connecticut ... and their province is a storehouse\n for the smugglers of the neighboring colonies. They conscientiously\n study to cheat the King of those duties, which, they say, God and\n nature never intended should be paid. From the governor down to\n the tithing-man, who are sworn to support the laws, they will aid\n smugglers, resist collectors, and mob informers.[290]\n\nIn contemplating these open and notorious facts, which every member of\ngovernment must have known, Samuel Peters came very near anger at the\ngross stupidity of the ministerial policy. The way to have met these\ndifficulties was plain--the itch of democracy should have been cured\nwith the salve of aristocracy. The natural leaders in the several\ncolonies should have been taken care of by a judicious distribution of\ntitles of nobility.\n\n The people of New-England are rightly stiled republicans: but a\n distinction should be made between the learned and unlearned, the\n rich and poor. The latter form a great majority; the minority,\n therefore, are obliged to wear the livery of the majority, in\n order to secure their election into office. Those very republican\n gentlemen are ambitious, fond of the power of governing, and grudge\n no money nor pains to obtain an annual office. What would they not\n give for a dignity depending not on the fickle will of a multitude,\n but on the steady reason and generosity of a King?[291]\n\nThere was shrewd, unclerical wisdom in the comment of Samuel Peters.\nIf the gentlemen of England had founded their colonial policy on the\nprinciple of sharing the emoluments of rank and power with ambitious\ngentlemen in America, there might well have been quite another story\nto tell. But because they begrudged the small rewards, because they\nwould have the shadow as well as the substance, they lost everything.\nAn outcome so untoward and so stupid hurt Samuel Peters to the quick;\nbut it was not his fault, and he doubtless found a crumb of malicious\nsatisfaction in pointing out the ministerial stupidity after the\nmischief was done.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[283] See _Familiar Letters of John and Abigail Adams_, p. 217.\n\n[284] \u201cPhiladelphiensis,\u201d one of the anti-Federalist pamphleteers.\n\n[285] _Loyalist Poetry_, p. 55.\n\n[286] _Loyalist Poetry_, p. 36.\n\n[287] _A General History of Connecticut_, Appendix, p. 374.\n\n[288] _Ibid._, p. 290.\n\n[289] _Ibid._, pp. 282-285.\n\n[290] _Ibid._, p. 320.\n\n[291] _Ibid._, p. 377.\n\n\n\n\nBook Three: Liberalism and the Constitution \u2022 1783-1800\n\n\n\n\nPart One: The Agrarian Defeat \u2022 1783-1787\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 Agrarianism and Capitalism\n\n\nI \u2022 The Background of Ideas \u2022 English and French Contributions\n\nWith the close of the war the question of the times was the urgent\nproblem of the form and control of the new political state to be\nerected: whether it should be the coercive sovereign of the whole, or\nshould share its sovereignty with the several states. Although the\nproblem was political, the forces that were driving to a solution were\neconomic, and were commonly recognized as such. Agrarian and mercantile\ninterests opposed each other openly and shaped their political programs\nin accordance with their special needs. Not until French romanticism\npopularized the doctrine of social equalitarianism was there any\nserious questioning of the principle of the economic basis of politics.\nThe fact of property rule was challenged in America no more than in\nEngland, and the laws of suffrage in the several states were founded\non that principle. The new state, therefore, took its shape from men\nwho were political realists, deeply read in the republican literature\nof the seventeenth century, and inspired by the ideals of the rising\nEnglish middle class. The opponents of the new state, on the other\nhand, were economic liberals who rejected English middle-class ideals,\nand inclined increasingly to the humanitarian theory of the French\nthinkers, though with an eye always upon American conditions. The\nstruggle between these two schools of thought determined the final\noutcome of a long and acrimonious contest.\n\nThe English middle class had received its creative bent from\nseventeenth-century Puritanism. That vast movement survived political\ndefeat and effected a silent revolution in English character that\nprojected its ideals far into the future. It permeated the rising\ntradesman class, stimulated its ambition, and gave it an ethics\nprecisely fitted to its needs. In inculcating the doctrine of a sacred\ncalling to work, it substituted the modern attitude towards production\nfor the medieval. It rejected the older conception of work for the sake\nof a livelihood, of production for consumption, and substituted the\nideal of work for its own sake, of production for the sake of profit.\nIt implicitly condemned the leisurely, play-loving and pleasure-taking\nactivities of medieval England, and substituted a drab ideal of\nlaborious gain, that measured life in terms of material prosperity\nand exalted the business of acquisition as the rational end of life.\nIn the sanction of such an ethics, wealth became the first object of\nsocial desire; and this ideal, that answered the ambitions of the\nrising middle class, was preached under the authority of religion. To\nlabor diligently in the vocation to which one is called of God, it was\nbelieved, was to labor under the great Taskmaster\u2019s eye, and in the\nconfident hope of eternal reward.\n\nNo conceivable discipline was better calculated to breed a utilitarian\nrace and create a nation of tradesmen. The immediate result was the\nemergence of a middle-class, unimaginative, laborious, prudential,\nwho devoutly believed that the right to rise in the world, to pursue\neconomic well-being in a competitive society, was the most sacred of\nhuman rights; that those who were faithful in little things, God would\nmake rulers over great things. To scant one\u2019s service, whether to God\nor one\u2019s master, was the cardinal sin; work, thrift, self-denial, were\nthe cardinal virtues. This amazing revolution in the ethics of work\nlaid the basis upon which modern England was to rise; it carried in its\nloins the industrial revolution. The rise of the new ethics coincided\nhistorically with the final disintegration of the craft guilds, and\nthe emergence of the great trading companies. It provided a desirable\nsanction for the modern principle of exploitation, and the development\nof the middleman system of distribution; and these conceptions the\nPuritanized English commercial class seized upon eagerly, and in\ncapable fashion set about the work of creating the system of modern\ncapitalism.\n\nEvery rising group is jealous of its interests and active in asserting\nthem. It joins forces with whatever movements of current liberalism\npromise to further its purpose, but it will see to it that the wider\nmovement shall serve its narrower ends. The commercial class gathered\nstrength swiftly during the early seventeenth century, and with the\ngentry formed the backbone of discontent with the strong rule of\nStrafford. London was growing fast, \u201cthe abode of smoke, disease and\ndemocracy,\u201d as a contemporary gentleman phrased it; and the London\nburgesses supported Parliament heartily. The new money-economy wanted\nto be free from governmental restrictions and exactions, and the\nsimplest way seemed to lie in asserting parliamentary sovereignty. That\nhope was frustrated after 1660 when control of Parliament passed into\nthe hands of the landed gentry. The aristocracy was too strong for the\nmiddle class, and the latter was forced to buy its privileges in the\nopen parliamentary market. Not until the intellectual liberalism of\nthe later eighteenth century clarified its conception of the minimized\nstate, did the money economy rise to fresh political consciousness, and\nthen it joined heartily with the new liberalism in an attack upon the\ncentralized powers of the political state.\n\nThe philosophy of this new liberalism was derived largely from two\nnotable thinkers of the preceding century, Harrington and Locke,\nsupplemented later by Adam Smith. The influence of the _Oceana_ upon\nlater thinkers was profound. In grasping and applying the principle of\nthe economic interpretation of history Harrington laid the foundation\nof modern political theory. The true source of political power, he\nasserted, is economic power--\u201cempire follows the balance of property.\u201d\nThe form of government in a given country, whether monarchical,\naristocratic, or democratic, according to the doctrine of economic\ndeterminism, depends upon the ownership of land, whether vested\nlargely in one, in a minority, or in many. This primary economic power\nis modified, however, by the presence in every society of a natural\naristocracy; the authority of character and ability imposes a natural\nleadership on those less capable, and disturbs the simple economics\nof the situation. Because of the resulting clash of interests,\npolitical stability can be secured only by a judiciously calculated\nsystem of checks; and the system which Harrington elaborated provided\nfor a bicameral legislature--the aristocratic branch proposing and\ndebating, and the democratic branch resolving--rotation in office,\nand the ballot, to the end that there should be a government of laws\nand not of men. His ideal was rulership by the best and wisest under\nwell-considered laws, circumscribed by a written constitution.\n\nLocke followed Harrington in founding his political theory upon\neconomics, but he gave to it a characteristically middle-class\ninterpretation. Harrington had been primarily concerned with a land\neconomy; Locke was to become unconsciously a spokesman of a money\neconomy. The persistent problem of that economy was the security of\nprivate property against sequestration, and the ultimate effect of\nLocke\u2019s teachings was to secure and strengthen the rights of property\nin the state. In basing his doctrine of property ownership upon labor,\nhe prepared the way for a conception of economic power dissociated\nfrom land. In the universal communism which marks the state of nature,\nhe argued, private property rights result from labor bestowed, and\nare ethically and socially valid. But in such a state of nature, the\npossession and enjoyment of property thus detached from the communal\nwhole are at constant hazards. \u201cThe great and chief end, therefore, of\nmen uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government,\nis the preservation of their property.\u201d[292] If such was the original\npurpose for which government was instituted among men, it follows that\ngovernment must regard property rights with particular tenderness;\nfor if the state prove untrustworthy, the original compact upon\nwhich it was erected is dissolved, and society returns to a state of\nnature. Locke therefore went far in asserting the inviolable rights of\nproperty, laying it down as a guiding principle that the sovereign in\ntime of war may lawfully enforce conscription upon the bodies and lives\nof his subjects, but not upon their property. \u201cThe supreme power cannot\ntake from any man any part of his property without his own consent,\u201d\nfor \u201cto invade the fundamental law of property\u201d is to subvert \u201cthe end\nof government.\u201d[293] In thus asserting the sacredness of property,\nLocke laid the foundation of the new philosophy of capitalism.\n\nAs English capitalism grew stronger it began to envisage more\ncritically the fundamental problem of the powers and functions of the\npolitical state. A state controlled by the landed interests, given to\nimposing vexatious restrictions upon trade, could not answer its needs;\nfreedom rather than regulation was requisite to healthy development.\nFrom the Physiocratic teachings had come the new conception that\neconomic well-being cannot be imposed from above by governmental\npaternalism, but results from untrammeled individual enterprise. The\ngreat concern of government should be to assist and not hamper industry\nand trade; political policies should follow and serve commercial\ninterests. Thus was provided the background from which emerged\n_The Wealth of Nations_, the declaration of independence of modern\ncapitalism. Adam Smith completed the work of Locke, and gave definite\nform to the middle-class liberalism of eighteenth-century England, a\nliberalism that in the pursuit of commercial freedom found it desirable\nto limit the powers of the state. The Tory state had been centralized\nand paternal, the capitalistic state was to be reduced to the position\nof umpire between competitors. The net results, thus, of two hundred\nyears of English middle-class struggle to free its economic ambitions\nfrom governmental restrictions was the conception of the social,\npolitical, and economic sufficiency of _laissez faire_. \u201cLet alone\u201d had\nbeen erected into a fetish.\n\nIn France, on the other hand, the economic interpretation of history\ndominated political thinking far less than in England, and the liberal\nmovement owed more to a group of intellectuals than to the middle\nclass. The French leaders were a remarkable group, far removed in\ntemper from Harrington and Locke and Adam Smith. The Physiocrats were\nagrarians and the romantics were humanitarians. They followed the path\nof logic to broad principles. As leadership passed from Montesquieu to\nRousseau, French liberalism abandoned the cautious historical appeal,\nand turned to generalization that carried far beyond liberalism. The\nRousseau school became advanced radicals, aiming at the regeneration\nof society as a whole, seeking political justice by a universal appeal\nto reason. This explains the breadth and suggestiveness of their\nthinking, as well as the smallness of their immediate achievement. In\nseeking much they overreached accomplishment, for they had behind them\nno disciplined, class-conscious group, pursuing definite ends. But in\noutrunning their own time, they became leaders of later times; and the\nunfulfilled program of Rousseau carried over to become the inspiration\nof later humanitarianism.\n\nThe creative impulse of French romantic philosophy was a passionate\nsocial idealism. A disciple of Locke, Rousseau went further than\nhis master and translated politics and economics into sociology.\nThat a juster, more wholesome social order should take the place of\nthe existing obsolete system; that reason and not interests should\ndetermine social institutions; that the ultimate ends to be sought were\nuniversal liberty, equality, and fraternity--such in brief were the\nmain conceptions of his philosophy. \u201cRegard for the general good\u201d must\nbe accepted as the sole test of laws and institutions. He attacked the\nproblem by way of psychology, essaying a revaluation of human nature.\nIncalculable harm had been done, and grave mistakes made, Rousseau\nbelieved, by the old slanderous interpretation; to assume that every\nman is a knave, governed solely by self-interest, was an assumption\ncontrary to fact. It was a generalization deduced from certain acquired\ncharacteristics. If in a competitive society men prove to be selfish,\nambitious of power and distinction, brutal in seeking egoistic ends,\nthe blame attaches to a vicious social system that has debased them\nfrom their natural state. In a state of nature men are kindly,\nrational, sociable; but in society the great rewards fall to the\nself-seeking. A ruthless social order is forever perverting the natural\nman; whereas if social rewards were bestowed on the social-minded,\nthe innate sense of justice would speedily modify and control the\nimpulse to egoism. The solution of the vexing social problem, Rousseau\nconcluded, lay in a return to a state of nature, where under the\ndetermining influence of wholesome environment the individual should\ndevelop naturally, unperverted by false standards and unjust rewards.\n\nFrench radicalism, then, was driving in the same direction with English\nliberalism, but it went much further. Both desired a loosening of the\nmachinery of centralized power as represented by the political state;\nbut whereas English liberalism protested against a paternalism that\ndiminished its profits, French radicalism struck at the principle\nof centralization. Political institutions it regarded as artificial\nagencies for the purposes of exploitation--the state was little more\nthan a tax machine; whereas the living source and wellspring of every\ntrue civilization is social custom, voluntary association, free\nexchange. The root of French radicalism was anarchistic, and its ideal\nwas an agrarian society of free-holders. It would sweep away the long\naccumulated mass of prescriptive rights, the dead hand of the past,\nand encourage free men to create a new society that should have as\nits sole end and justification, the common well-being. A pronounced\nindividualism characterized both movements, French and English; but\nin the one case it was humanitarian, appealing to reason and seeking\nsocial justice, in the other it was self-seeking, founded on the right\nof exploitation, and looking toward capitalism.\n\nDuring the period with which we are concerned, American thought, become\nmilitantly self-conscious but still vague and inchoate touching any\nultimate program, drew inspiration from both sources; but the deeper,\ncontrolling influence came finally to be English rather than French.\nThe common doctrine of decentralization fitted American conditions,\nbut to many Americans decentralization, whether social or political,\nhad proved undesirable. The common doctrine of liberty accorded with\nthe passions released by the Revolution, but the French humanitarian\nconceptions of equality and fraternity found little response in a\nmiddle-class, competitive world. On the contrary, the English doctrine\nof economic individualism made universal appeal. In presence of vast,\nunpre\u00ebmpted resources, the right of every man to pre\u00ebmpt and exploit\nwhat he would, was synonymous with individual liberty. Any government\nwhich should endeavor to limit such exploitation would be bitterly\nassailed; and if the small man were free to enjoy his petty privilege,\nthe greater interests might pre\u00ebmpt unchallenged. The total influence\nof old-world liberalism upon the America of post-war days was,\ntherefore, favorable to capitalistic development and hostile to social\ndemocracy. Until the early years of the nineties the democratic spirit\nof French radicalism was little understood in America, and the field\nremained free to the English middle-class philosophy, which appealed\nequally to the agrarian and the capitalistic groups.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Political Situation\n\nAgainst this background of ideas, the political tactics of the year\n1787 are sufficiently comprehensible. Two major problems had been\nsettled by the war, namely, that henceforth the exploitation of America\nwas to remain the prerogative of Americans, and that in the new country\nthere was no place for a king or a titled aristocracy. But with these\npreliminaries settled, the problem remained to determine the form and\npowers of a national government. Should that government be entrusted\nwith coercive sovereignty, or should it remain the titular head of\nconfederated sovereign commonwealths? The latter solution had been\naccepted during the period of war, and in proposing abolition of the\nArticles of Confederation and the substitution of a new instrument, the\nburden of proof fell upon the advocates of the new. How the problem\nwas met and the solution achieved by a skillful minority in face of\na hostile majority is a suggestive lesson in political strategy. It\nis a classic example of the relation of economics to politics; of the\nstruggle between greater property and smaller property for control of\nthe state.\n\nThe strategic position of the large property interests in the year\n1787 was favorable to a bold stroke. In the northern and middle\nstates the controlling influence was wielded by a powerful money\ngroup that had been slowly rising during pre-Revolutionary days,\nand had greatly increased its resources and augmented its prestige\nas a result of war financing and speculation in currency and lands.\nThey at once assumed the leadership which before had belonged to\nthe gentry. Like all eighteenth-century realists they exhibited a\nfrank property-consciousness that determined all their moves. With\nthem affiliated such members of the older gentry as remained, the\nprofessional classes, ambitious Revolutionary officers who had set up\nthe militant Order of the Cincinnati, together with a numerous body\nof the disappointed and the disaffected; the net result of which was\na close working alliance of property and culture for the purpose of\nerecting a centralized state with coercive powers. They were powerfully\naided by two outstanding characteristics of the eighteenth-century\nmind: an aristocratic psychology which was deeply ingrained in the\ncolonial through the long unchallenged rule of the gentry; and the\nuniversal belief in the stake-in-society theory of government,\nevidenced by the general disfranchisement of non-property-holders.\nProperty had always ruled in America, openly and without apology,\nand the money group could count on a spontaneous response to its\ndemand that property should reorganize the feeble central government\nand set up one more to its liking. In the South this reorganization\nwas unnecessary, for the planter aristocracy, in siding with the\nRevolution, remained masters of their society, and the money group\nhad not risen to challenge their supremacy. It remained only for the\nnorthern interests to join forces with the planters to bring the great\nproperty interests of the country under one banner.\n\nThe status of the small property holders, on the other hand, was much\nless happy. They were in possession of many of the state governments,\nand were strongly wedded to the Articles of Confederation; but they\nwere deep in populism and their agrarian measures offered rallying\npoints for a powerful opposition. They lacked disciplined cohesion and\nwere wanting in a broad program. The militant mood of Revolutionary\ndays had given place to suspicion and disillusion, and their fighting\nstrength was greatly weakened. They were suffering the fate of all\npost-war governments. The widespread depression was attributed to\npopulist policies, and all the evils from which the country was\nsuffering were laid at the doors of agrarian legislatures. Under such\nconditions the political strategy of the money group was predetermined.\nThe issue was ready-made. Astute politicians like Hamilton seized the\nopportunity and crystallized the discontent by the ingenious argument\nthat the trouble was too much agrarianism, that agrarianism resulted\nfrom too much democracy, and that the inevitable end of too much\ndemocracy was universal anarchy. The root of all the troubles, it was\nasserted, was the pernicious slackness of the Articles of Confederation\nwhich prevented a vigorous administration. There could be no prosperity\nuntil a competent national government was set up on a substantial basis.\n\nThe inevitable consequence was that the ideal of popular democratic\nrule received a sharp setback. The aristocratic prejudices of the\ncolonial mind were given a more militant bias by skillful propaganda.\nDemocracy was pictured as no other than mob rule, and its ultimate\npurpose the denial of all property rights. Populistic measures were\nfiercely denounced as the natural fruit of democratic control; all\nAmerica was in danger of following the destructive example of New\nHampshire and Rhode Island. \u201cLook at the Legislature of Rhode Island,\u201d\nexclaimed a speaker in the New York Constitutional Convention, \u201cwhat\nis it but the perfect picture of a mob!\u201d The virus of democracy\nwas a poison that destroyed the character of the people as well as\ngovernment; was not the fate of Rhode Island a warning to the rest\nof the country? Here is a picture of that commonwealth, drawn by an\nEnglish gentleman before agrarianism had done its worst.\n\n The government of this province is entirely democratical, every\n officer, except the collector of the customs, being appointed ...\n either immediately by the people, or by the general assembly....\n The character of the Rhode Islanders is by no means engaging,\n or amiable, a circumstance principally owing to their form of\n government. Their men in power, from the highest to the lowest, are\n dependent upon the people, and frequently act without that strict\n regard to probity and honour, which ought invariably to influence\n and direct mankind. The private people are cunning, deceitful, and\n selfish: they live almost entirely by unfair and illicit trading.\n Their magistrates are partisan and corrupt: and it is folly to\n expect justice in their courts of judicature; for he who has the\n greatest purse is generally found to have the fairest cause.... It\n is needless, after this, to observe that it is in a very declining\n state.[294]\n\n\u201cUnder the Articles of Confederation,\u201d comments a recent student,\n\u201cpopulism had a free hand, for majorities in the state legislatures\nwere omnipotent. Any one who reads the economic history of the time\nwill see why the solid conservative interests of the country were\nweary of the talk about the \u2018rights of the people,\u2019 and were bent upon\nestablishing firm guarantees for the rights of property.\u201d[295] The\nmoney-economy had made up its mind that such government as that of\nRhode Island could not longer be tolerated. An example must be made of\nsuch hotbeds of anarchy; if reason would not be listened to, force must\nbe used. An ardent Federalist, Judge Dana of Massachusetts, offered a\npossible solution:\n\n This state [Rhode Island] will not choose delegates to the\n convention, nor order on their delegates to Congress. I hope they\n will not, as their neglect will give grounds to strike it out of\n the union, and divide its territory between their neighbors....\n According to my best observation, such a division of this state\n would meet the best approbation of the commercial part of it,\n though they are afraid to take any open measures in the present\n state of things, to bring it about. Their interest must dictate\n such a measure; they never can be secure under the present form\n of government, but will always labor under the greatest mischief\n any people can suffer, that of being ruled by the most ignorant\n and unprincipled of their fellow citizens. This state is too\n insignificant to have a place on an equal footing with any of\n the others in the Union, unless it be Delaware. Therefore a\n bold politician would seize upon the occasion their abominable\n anti-federal conduct presents, for annihilating them as a separate\n member of the Union.[296]\n\n\u201cIt is fortunate,\u201d wrote General Varnum to Washington, confirming Judge\nDana\u2019s analysis of the economic divisions of Rhode Island, \u201cthat the\nwealth and resources of this state are chiefly in possession of the\nwell affected, and they are entirely devoted to the public good.\u201d\n\nIt was Shays\u2019s Rebellion, that militant outbreak of populism that\nset all western Massachusetts in uproar, and spread to the very\noutskirts of Boston, which crystallized the anti-democratic sentiment,\nand aroused the commercial group to decisive action. With its armed\nattack upon lawyers and courts, its intimidation of legislators, its\nappeal for the repudiation of debts, it provided the object lesson\nin democratic anarchy which the \u201cfriends of law and order\u201d greatly\nneeded. The revolt was put down, but the fear of democracy remained\nand called aloud for stronger government. \u201cWe see the situation we are\nin,\u201d exclaimed a Boston member in the Massachusetts Constitutional\nConvention. \u201cWe are verging toward destruction, and every one must be\nsensible of it.\u201d Shays had failed, but with political power in the\nhands of agrarian legislatures, friendly to debtors, what dangers must\nnot the future hold in store? Was it not the patriotic duty of the\nsober conservators of society to set up betimes a strong constitutional\ndefense, before the rights of property were swept away by the fierce\ntide of democracy? Writing to Washington under date of October 23,\n1786, General Knox argued:\n\n On the very first impression of faction and licentiousness, the\n fine theoretic government of Massachusetts has given way, and its\n laws are trampled under foot.... Their creed is, that the property\n of the United States has been protected from the confiscation of\n Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be\n the common property of all.... This dreadful situation, for which\n our government have made no adequate provision, has alarmed every\n man of principle and property in New England. They start as from a\n dream, and ask what can have been the cause of this delusion? What\n is to give us security against the violence of lawless men? Our\n government must be braced, changed, or altered to secure our lives\n and property. We imagined that the mildness of our government and\n the wishes of the people were so correspondent that we were not as\n other nations, requiring brutal force to support the laws. But we\n find we are men--actual men, possessing all the turbulent passions\n belonging to that animal, and that we must have a government\n proper and adequate for him. The people of Massachusetts ... are\n far advanced in this doctrine, and the men of property and the men\n of station and principle there, are determined to establish and\n protect them in their lawful pursuits.... Something is wanting and\n something must be done.[297]\n\nDuring these years of unrest the problem of a new fundamental law\nwas carefully studied by the anti-agrarian leaders and solutions\nsuggested. A remarkable change had come over their thinking. They\ndiscarded the revolutionary doctrines that had served their need in the\ndebate with England. They were done with natural rights and romantic\ninterpretations of politics and were turned realists. They parted\ncompany with English liberalism in its desire for a diminished state.\nTheir economic interests were suffering from the lack of a strong\ncentralized government, and they were in a mood to agree with earlier\nrealists who held that men are animals with turbulent passions, and\nrequire a government \u201cproper and adequate\u201d for animals; and in view\nof local agrarian majorities, a proper and adequate government could\nnot be had without a strong centralized state. The solution, they\nwere convinced, lay in a return to some form of seventeenth-century\nrepublicanism, possibly modeled after Harrington, but with further\nchecks upon the power of the democratic branch of the legislature, and\na stronger executive. Hobbes with his leviathan monarchy had gone too\nfar, but he had, at least, understood the need of a strong state; and a\nstrong state, subservient to their interests, the business and landed\ngroups were determined to set up as a barrier against a threatening\nagrarianism.\n\nThe great obstacle to such a program was the political power of the\nfarmers, bred up in the traditional practice of home rule, jealous of\nlocal rights, and content with the Articles of Confederation. These\nhome rulers would not take kindly to any suggestion of a centralized\nstate, even though it should be republican in form. The thing must be\ndone skillfully, if it were to succeed. To nullify where they could not\noverride the political power of the agrarians, therefore, became the\npractical problem of the money-economy. The fear aroused by Shays\u2019s\nRebellion provided the strategic opportunity, and the best brains of\nthe country suggested the method. The struggle had begun which was to\nprovide a new fundamental law for the United States.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[292] _Second Treatise on Civil Government_, Chapter IX.\n\n[293] _Ibid._, Chapter XI.\n\n[294] Burnaby, _Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America\nin the Years 1759 and 1760_.\n\n[295] Beard, _The Supreme Court and the Constitution_.\n\n[296] Austin, _Life of Elbridge Gerry_, Vol. II, pp. 66-67.\n\n[297] Brooks, _Henry Knox_, pp. 194-195.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Great Debate\n\n\nWhen one considers the bulk of commentary that has grown up about\nthe Constitution, it is surprising how little abstract political\nspeculation accompanied its making and adoption. It was the first\nresponse to the current liberal demand for written constitutions as a\nsafeguard against tyranny, but it was aimed at the encroachments of\nagrarian majorities rather than at Tory minorities. It was the work\nof able lawyers and men of affairs confronting a definite situation,\nrather than of political philosophers; and it was accompanied\nby none of that searching examination of fundamental rights and\nprinciples which made the earlier Puritan and later French debate\nover constitutional principles so rich in creative speculation. Not a\nsingle political thinker comparable to the great English and French\nphilosophers emerged from the struggle. The debate drew freely upon the\nmaterials supplied by those thinkers, but it added little that was new.\n\nThe Constitution was a venture in republicanism, on a scale and under\nconditions without historical precedent. It was inevitable, therefore,\nthat the debate should concern itself greatly with the nature of\nrepublicanism and its adaptability to American conditions. As the\nargument developed, two major questions assumed critical importance:\nthe question of the powers of the Federal state, and the question of\nthe sovereign rights of the majority; and in dealing with both the\ndebaters were on ground inadequately surveyed. Of definite republican\ntheory little was available except the writings of a small group of\nseventeenth-century republicans. Of democratic theory, on the other\nhand, even less was available. American democratic aspiration had\nfar outrun old-world liberalism, and had produced no independent\nspeculation of its own. French democratic theory still awaited the rise\nof Jacobinism to clarify its principles. The party of Commonwealth\nLevelers, to be sure, with their doctrines of a \u201cparamount law,\u201d\nmanhood suffrage, and annual parliaments, offered much that might have\nproved suggestive; but the literature of the Levelers was buried too\ndeep under Tory obloquy to be resurrected, and nowhere else was to be\nfound any considerable body of democratic theory. It was inevitable,\ntherefore, that the debaters should go back to the English liberals of\nthe preceding century.\n\nConsider for a moment the authorities bandied to and fro in the great\ndebate. With such exceptions as Machiavelli, Vattel, Pufendorf,\nMontesquieu, they were the well-known English theorists, Hobbes,\nHarrington, Milton, Sidney, Halifax, Hume, and Blackstone. Unhappily\nfor the democrats every one of these great names counted against\ntheir aspirations. Hobbes was a state absolutist whose _Leviathan_\nprovided sharp weapons for those who wished to tone the government\nhigh; Hume was a Tory who accepted the traditional interpretation of\nhuman nature in the light of which democracy was the open door to\nanarchy; Blackstone was a Tory lawyer, who interpreted the British\nconstitution by a narrow legalism that was obsolete before the\n_Commentaries_ came from the press. Harrington, Milton, and perhaps\nSidney, were republicans of strong aristocratic bias, and Halifax\nand Locke--the latter by much the most influential of all--were\nconstitutional monarchists.[298] Every one of these great authorities\neither distrusted or violently condemned democracy, yet they provided\nthe major body of theory made use of by the Federalists.\n\nOn the other hand, the slowly accumulating democratic theory was\nunknown to the members of the convention. In 1761 Robert Wallace\nhad advanced an Owenite theory of property, attacking the principle\nof economic individualism as responsible for the current evils of\ngovernment by landed property; but his book, _Various Prospects_, made\nno ripple on the placid waters of English liberalism.[299] In 1768\nJoseph Priestley, a thinker who later was to exercise great influence\nin America, who lived here for a number of years and was intimate with\nJefferson, published his essay. _First Principles of Government_, a\nwork embodying the first English interpretation of the perfectibility\nof man, the rule of reason, the theory of the diminished state, and the\nBenthamite principle of utilitarianism or expediency in statecraft,\nwhich struck at the principle of coercive sovereignty. But the ideas\nof Priestley were probably little known in America in 1787, and his\ninfluence was undermined further by a theological attack which sought\nto fasten upon him the stigma of atheism. In short, in this war of\nideas the democrats were provided with little ammunition and fought at\na great disadvantage. If the debate had taken place five years later,\nafter the French Revolution had provided new democratic theory, the\ndisparity of intellectual equipment would have been far less marked.\n\nOne other fact must be kept in mind, namely, that the great debate was\nin reality two debates, one carried on in the quiet of the convention\nhall, the other in the open. Each interprets the other, and taken\ntogether they reveal the conflict of forces and ideas that determined\nthe form of the Constitution. In the privacy of the convention the\nspeakers were free to express their views frankly, and in consequence a\nloose rein was given to the play of ideas; fundamental principles were\nexamined critically and economic motives and class interests openly\nacknowledged. But in arguing the case before the generality of voters\nwithout doors a more cautious approach was necessary; arguments must\nbe tempered to well-known prejudices, and circumspection must take the\nplace of frankness. In the earlier debate, among innumerable lesser\nproblems, two main questions dominated the argument: the question of\nthe form of the centralized state--whether it should be aristocratic or\nrepublican; and if republican--as was inevitable--the question of what\nshould be done about the majority will--how representation should be so\nrefined as to guarantee stability to the government and security to the\nminority. In the second debate the appeal was to expediency rather than\nto principles, and turned on three chief points: the need of adoption\nin view of the desperate condition of the country; the adaptation\nof the proposed republican form to the vast extent of territory and\ndiversity of interests; and the necessity of providing checks upon\npolitical parties if anarchy were to be avoided.\n\nIn the convention the need of a strong state, with powers beyond\nlocal legislatures, was not so much debated as assumed. By common\nconsent it was agreed that the present lack of a centralized, coercive\nsovereignty, was the source of all current evils. How many members\npreferred monarchy to republicanism, in principle, it is impossible to\ndetermine; but they all realized the inexpediency of attempting to set\nit up; even Hamilton yielded to the logic of Colonel Mason\u2019s argument:\n\u201cNotwithstanding the oppression and injustice experienced among us\nfrom democracy, the genius of the people is in favor of it, and the\ngenius of the people must be consulted.\u201d Accepting then the principle\nof republicanism as a compromise between the extremes of monarchy\nand democracy, the practical problem remained of erecting a system\nthat should secure the minority against the aggressions of political\nfaction. If the danger lay in an uncontrolled majority will, the way\nof safety lay in imposing restraints upon that will. In elaborating\na system of checks and balances the members of the convention were\ninfluenced by the practical considerations of economic determinism more\nthan by the theories of Montesquieu. They were realists who followed\nthe teachings of the greatest political thinkers from Aristotle to\nLocke in asserting that the problem of government lay in arranging a\nstable balance between the economic interests of the major classes. The\nrevolutionary conception of equalitarianism, that asserted the rights\nof man apart from property and superior to property, did not enter into\ntheir thinking as a workable hypothesis. The very conditions of the\nunsettled times were an argument against it. Property, they argued,\nis the stabilizing force in society; it is conservative and cautious;\nhaving everything to lose by social upheavals, it is a restraining\nforce upon factional unrest. The propertyless, on the other hand,\nhaving nothing to lose, easily become the victims of demagogues and\nembroil society with foolish experiments. The republican experiment\nmight work in America because property was widely distributed, but in\nthe course of time a propertyless majority would arise, whose fickle\nand subversive will must be held in check. The problem, therefore, was\nto provide in time against such an eventuality. Certain members of the\nconvention did not go so far in their fear of the propertyless, but\nrelied upon the ability of property to protect itself by extra-legal\nmeans. \u201cGive the votes to people who have no property,\u201d argued\nGouverneur Morris, \u201cand they will sell them to the rich, who will be\nable to buy them.\u201d[300] But the more general view was expressed by\nMadison:\n\n The landed interest, at present, is prevalent, but in process of\n time ... when the number of landholders shall be comparatively\n small ... will not the landed interests be overbalanced in future\n elections? and, unless wisely provided against, what will become of\n our government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to\n all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be\n insecure. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations\n be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of\n the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share\n in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to\n balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to\n protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.[301]\n\nThis conception of the natural sovereignty of the landed interest with\nits stake-in-society theory of political rights, America inherited\nfrom England; and although the new Constitution professed to rest\non the sovereignty of the people, the men who framed it refused to\ninterpret the term, sovereignty of the people, in an equalitarian\nsense. They did not profess to be, in the words of John Quincy Adams,\n\u201cslavish adorers of our sovereign lords the people.\u201d Every principle\nof their social and political philosophy taught them the desirability\nof limiting the majority will in order that the wiser minority will\nmight rule. Paul Leicester Ford has asserted that \u201cthe Federal compact\nwas the first deliberate attempt and assent of a majority to tie\nits own hands; to give to the minority guarantees of fair and equal\ntreatment, without which democratic government is well-nigh impossible,\nsave when developed along the lines of socialism.\u201d[302] Such partisan\nmisinterpretation of plain historical fact is characteristic of our\nFederalist historians. If the hands of the disfranchised majority\nwere tied by the voting minority, it is a bit absurd to attribute the\nresulting guarantees to an altruistic sense of justice, deliberately\nexpressed by the former. Very possibly in a world so aristocratic as\nwas America in 1787, no other course would have succeeded; but there is\nnot a single historical fact to justify so na\u00efve an interpretation, and\nthe bitter partisan warfare which followed is sufficient to disprove it.\n\nWe are too prone to forget the wide popular disfavor with which the\nnew Constitution was received. No sooner did the second debate open\nthan it became evident that the majority opinion held quite a different\nconception of the sovereignty of the people than was expressed by the\nconvention. It had no desire to tie its own hands; it did not take\nkindly to the proposal to transfer power from the several states to the\nFederal government. The villagers and small men were afraid of the new\ninstrument; they asserted that it had been prepared by aristocrats and\nmoneyed men, and they repudiated the stake-in-society principle. \u201cThe\nConstitution,\u201d said General Thompson in the Massachusetts Convention,\n\u201cand the reasons which induced gentlemen to frame it, ought to have\nbeen sent to the several towns to be considered by them. My town\nconsidered it seven hours, and after this there was not one in favor of\nit.\u201d In Rhode Island, where it was thus submitted, it was rejected \u201cby\na very great majority.\u201d The state of mind of the agrarian majority was\nthus expressed by Amos Singletary, of Sutton, Massachusetts:\n\n These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk\n so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us, poor\n illiterate people, swallow down the pill, expect to get into\n Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this\n Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their\n own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like\n the great leviathan.[303]\n\nAmong the host of pamphlets and newspaper articles that quickly\nappeared, _The Federalist_ written by Hamilton and Madison with some\nhelp from Jay, and _Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican_,\nby Richard Henry Lee, fairly adequately present the opposing arguments.\nBy common consent _The Federalist_ was at once accepted by its party\nas an unanswerable defense of the Constitution; and its fame has grown\ngreater with the passing years. No other work on political theory in\nthe American library has been rated so high, or been more frequently\ncited. From the mass of contemporary pamphlets it emerges like a\ncolossus. It \u201chas been seriously and reverently called the Bible of\nRepublicanism.\u201d says a legal historian, which \u201cfor comprehensiveness\nof design, strength, clearness, and simplicity ... has no parallel\namong the writings of men, not even excepting or overlooking those of\nMontesquieu and Aristotle,\u201d[304]; and a literary historian pronounces\nauthoritatively, \u201cit is so wisely thoughtful that one may almost\ndeclare it the permanent basis of sound thinking concerning American\nconstitutional law.\u201d[305]\n\n_The Federalist_ was the work of able lawyers, with whom was joined a\nnotable political thinker. In very large part it is of interest only to\nstudents of early constitutional theory and practice. It was designed\nas a frankly partisan argument to appeal to an influential group in\nNew York, many members of which had followed George Clinton and Robert\nYates in opposition to the Constitution. On the political side it\ndevelops four main theses: the necessity for taking effective action in\nview of the self-confessed failure of the Articles of Confederation;\nthe urgent need of a sovereign, unitary state, to avoid the horrors\nwhich must follow from \u201cthe political monster of an _imperium in\nimperio_\u201d; the necessity of providing that justice shall prevail over\nthe majority will; and the adaptability of the republican form to a\ngreat extent of territory and divergent interests. Of these the second\nand third lay bare the heart of Federalist political theory; and in the\ntreatment of them there is no shrinking from the conclusions of the\nearlier debate, although the tone is conciliatory.\n\nThe argument for a unitary, sovereign state, developed by Hamilton,\nand the argument for justice, developed by Madison, rest upon the same\nbasis and are regarded as the twin problems of government. The true\nsanction of government is found, not in good will, as Bentham and later\ndemocratic thinkers have urged, but in coercion;[306] and coercion\nis accepted as necessary because of universal selfishness. \u201cWhy has\ngovernment been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not\nconform to the dictates of reason and justice, without restraint.\u201d[307]\nGranted coercive sovereignty, government must guarantee justice to\nall; and justice demands that the majority shall suffer needful\nrestraint equally with the minority. The great and insidious danger\nto good government has always been faction, the argument runs, and a\nchief merit of the Constitution lay in its provisions to lessen the\ndisasters of factional ambition. \u201cComplaints are everywhere heard\nfrom our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends\nof public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that\nour governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded\nin the conflict of rival parties, and that measures are too often\ndecided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the\nminor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing\nmajority.\u201d[308]\n\nNo theory is more representative of the time than the theory of\nfaction. It was a first line of defense thrown up against the\nadvancing democratic movement. The term had long served conveniently\nto stigmatize any popular unrest, the \u201cfactious multitude\u201d having\nbeen held synonymous in earlier usage with mob; but in the eighteenth\ncentury the word was applied generally to political parties. In a\nworld moving inevitably towards manhood suffrage, a sharp alignment of\nparties with definite platforms was greatly feared by the minority,\nfor the organization of the rank and file of voters must end in\nmajority control. An honest appeal to the people was the last thing\ndesired by the Federalists, and the democratic machinery of recalls\nand referendums and rotation in office, which had developed during\nthe war, was stigmatized as factional devices which in the end must\ndestroy good government. \u201cAs every appeal to the people would carry an\nimplication of some defect in the government,\u201d argued Madison,[309]\n\u201cfrequent appeals would in a great measure deprive the government of\nthat veneration which time bestows on everything, and without which\nthe wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite\nstability.\u201d \u201cThe danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by\ninteresting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious\nobjection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to\nthe decisions of the whole society.\u201d\n\nIn the remarkable tenth number, which compresses within a few pages\npretty much the whole Federalist theory of political science, Madison\nhas explained the Federalist objections to political parties and party\ngovernment.\n\n By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting\n to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated\n by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to\n the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate\n interests of the community.... If a faction consists of less than\n a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which\n enables the majority to defeat its sinister views, by regular\n vote.... When a majority is included in a faction, the form of\n popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to\n its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights\n of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights,\n against the danger of such a faction, is then the great object\n to which our inquiries are directed.... By what means is this\n great object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the\n existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same\n time must be prevented; or the majority, having such coexistent\n passion or interest, must be rendered by their number and local\n situations, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of\n oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to\n coincide, we well know, that neither moral nor religious motives\n can be relied on as an adequate control.\n\nIn full agreement with the greater political thinkers of the past,\nMadison then traces political parties to economic sources. Since in\nevery society the diversity of economic groups creates diversity of\npolitical programs, party divisions and party alignments are inevitable\nin the ordinary course of events. The unequal distribution of property\nis the realistic basis of all politics, and the \u201c_sentiments_ and\n_views_ which arise from the possession of different degrees and kinds\nof property form the stuff of so-called \u2018political psychology.\u2019\u201d[310]\n\n The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of\n property originate, is ... an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity\n of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first\n object of government. From the protection of different and unequal\n faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different\n degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the\n influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective\n proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different\n interests and parties.\n\n The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of\n man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees\n of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil\n society. A zeal for different opinions ... [has] divided mankind\n into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered\n them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to\n co-operate for their common good.... But the most common and\n durable source of factions has been the various and unequal\n distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without\n property have ever formed distinct interests of society. Those\n who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like\n discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest,\n a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser\n interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide\n them into different classes actuated by different sentiments and\n views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests,\n forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves\n the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary\n operations of the government.\n\nAs a means of securing a necessary balance between rival interests,\nMadison approved a republican rather than a democratic form of\ngovernment:\n\n The two great points of difference, between a democracy and\n a republic, are, first, the delegation of the government, in\n the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest;\n secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of\n country, over which the latter may be extended. The effect of the\n first difference is, on the one hand, to refine or enlarge the\n public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body\n of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interests\n of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice,\n will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial\n considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen, that\n the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people,\n will be more consonant to the public good, than if pronounced by\n the people themselves, convened for the purpose.... The other point\n of difference is, the greater number of citizens, and extent of\n territory, which may be brought within the compass of republican,\n than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance\n principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded\n in the former, than in the latter.... Extend the sphere, and you\n take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it\n less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common\n motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common\n motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to\n discover their strength, and act in unison with each other.[311]\n\nIn such argument Madison was adapting to his purpose the views of\nMilton and other seventeenth-century republicans, to whom in the\ndangerous days when the Puritan Commonwealth was breaking up, the\n\u201cnoise and shouting of the rude multitude,\u201d the drunken ribaldry of the\nLondon rabble, was prophetic of \u201cnew injunctions to manacle the native\nlibertie of mankinde.\u201d But it has long since become a commonplace of\npolitical observation that the minority and not the majority is the\nmore dangerous to the common well-being, for it is the minority that\nmost frequently uses government to its own ends.\n\nThe contrast in temper and argument between _The Federalist_ and\nRichard Henry Lee\u2019s _Letters from the Federal Farmer_,[312] is\nstriking. The calmness and fair-mindedness of the work persuade one\nthat it ill deserves the name partisan; it comes near to being a frank\nand disinterested examination of the proposed instrument of government.\nIts sharpest strictures are tempered by ready acknowledgment of\nexcellent features. The burden of Lee\u2019s accusation is that the\ninstrument is undemocratic; that it must result in placing the majority\nunder control of the minority; and that it in no wise reflects the\nsober judgment of the body of the people. He is more restrained than\nElbridge Gerry, who asserted that it was the outcome of a conspiracy\nhatched in secret, a work of \u201csuch motley mixture, that its enemies\ncannot trace a feature of Democratic or Republican extract.\u201d But the\nFarmer\u2019s restraint adds weight to the serious charges which he brings\nagainst the instrument, and the unseemly haste of its advocates in\nurging its speedy adoption. It was not to destroy the work of the\nConvention that he pleaded for delay; but that it should receive full\nand fair consideration, and be disposed of as its merits or defects\nshould warrant.\n\nHis first concern is that the Constitution should not be adopted with\nthe inconsiderate haste for which _The Federalist_ was pressing.\n\u201cThe first principal question that occurs, is, Whether, considering\nour situation, we ought to precipitate the adoption of the proposed\nConstitution?\u201d Hamilton had made much of the desperate state of affairs\nthat admitted of no delay; Lee replied by denying, with Franklin and\nother competent observers, that the present state was desperate.\nMatters were improving daily, peace was restoring the ravages of war.\n\n I know uneasy men, who with very much to precipitate, do not admit\n all these facts; but they are facts well known to all men who\n are thoroughly informed in the affairs of this country. It must,\n however, be admitted, that our federal system is defective, and\n that some of the state governments are not well administered;\n but ... we impute to the defects in our governments many evils\n and embarrassments which are most clearly the result of the late\n war.... When we want a man to change his condition, we describe\n it as wretched, miserable, and despised; and we draw a pleasing\n picture of that which we would have him assume.... It is too often\n the case in political concerns that men state facts not as they\n are, but as they wish them to be.... Men who feel easy in their\n circumstances, and such as are not sanguine in their expectations\n relative to the consequences of the proposed change, will remain\n quiet under the existing governments. Many commercial and monied\n men, who are uneasy, not without just cause, ought to be respected;\n and by no means, unreasonably disappointed in their expectations\n and hopes.... It is natural for men, who wish to hasten the\n adoption of a measure, to tell us, now is the crisis--now is the\n critical moment which must be seized or all will be lost; and to\n shut the door against free enquiry, whenever conscious the thing\n presented has defects in it, which time and investigation will\n probably discover.... If it is true, what has been so often said,\n that the people of this country cannot change their constitution\n for the worse, I presume it still behoves them to endeavor\n deliberately to change it for the better.\n\nGranted that experience has demonstrated the need of revising the\nArticles of Confederation in certain essential points, Lee maintains\nthat the enemies of democracy have been making undue capital out of\nthe shortcomings of an emergency government, in the hope of subverting\nthe democratic state governments and substituting a more aristocratic\nform.\n\n The confederation was formed when great confidence was placed in\n the voluntary exertions of individuals, and of the respective\n states; and the framers of it, to guard against usurpation, so\n limited, and checked the powers, that, in many respects, they\n are inadequate to the exigencies of the union.... During the\n war, the general confusion, and the introduction of paper money,\n infused in the minds of people vague ideas respecting government\n and credit. We expected too much from the return of peace, and of\n course we have been disappointed. Our governments have been new and\n unsettled; and several legislatures, by making tender, suspension,\n and paper money laws, have given just cause of uneasiness to\n creditors. By these and other causes, several orders of men in\n the community have been prepared by degrees, for a change of\n government; and this very abuse of power in the legislatures,\n which in some cases has been charged upon the democratic part of\n the community, has furnished aristocratical men with those very\n weapons, and those very means, with which, in great measure, they\n are rapidly effecting their favourite object.\n\nThe methods by which the convention was brought together at a time when\nthe \u201cidea of destroying ultimately, the state government, and forming\none consolidated system, could not have been admitted,\u201d is traced\nbriefly with penetrating comment, and the unfortunate decision of some\nexcellent republicans to take no part in the work is regretted:\n\n Here the favorable moment for changing the government was\n evidently discerned by a few men, who seized it with address....\n Tho\u2019 they chose men principally connected with commerce and the\n judicial departments, yet they appointed many good republican\n characters--had they all attended we should see, I am persuaded, a\n better system presented. The non-attendance of eight or nine men,\n who were appointed members of the convention, I shall ever consider\n as a very unfortunate event to the United States.--Had they\n attended, I am pretty clear that the results ... would not have\n had that strong tendency to aristocracy now discernible in every\n part of the plan ... the young visionary men, and the consolidating\n aristocracy, would have been more restrained than they have been.\n\nLee frankly concedes that the instrument possesses many excellent\nfeatures, but he considers it greatly vitiated by the \u201cwant of that one\nimportant factor in a free government, a representation of the people.\u201d\n\u201cBecause we have sometimes abused democracy, I am not among those who\nthink a democratic branch a nuisance.\u201d \u201cEvery man of reflection must\nsee, that the change now proposed, is a transfer of power from the many\nto the few.\u201d The present agitation may be traced to its source in \u201ctwo\nvery unprincipled parties,\u201d between whom stand the great mass of honest\nand substantial people:\n\n One party is composed of little insurgents, men in debt, who want\n no law, and who want a share of the property of others; these are\n called levellers, Shaysites, &c. The other party is composed of a\n few, but more dangerous men, with their servile dependents; these\n avariciously grasp at all power and property; you may discover\n in all the actions of these men, an evident dislike to free and\n equal government, and they go systematically to work to change,\n essentially, the forms of government in this country; these are\n called aristocrats, m--ites, &c. Between these two parties is\n the weight of the community: the men of middling property, men\n not in debt on the one hand, and men, on the other, content with\n republican governments, and not aiming at immense fortunes, offices\n and power. In 1786, the little insurgents, the levellers, came\n forth, invaded the rights of others, and attempted to establish\n governments according to their wills. Their movements evidently\n gave encouragement to the other party, which, in 1787, has taken\n the political field, and with its fashionable dependents, and the\n tongue and the pen, is endeavouring to establish in a great haste,\n a politer kind of government. These two parties ... are really\n insignificant, compared with the solid, free, and independent part\n of the community.\n\nCalm voices such as Lee\u2019s were few in those strident days, and the\nFederalists fairly overwhelmed the silent majority with clamorous\nargument. Polite culture and professional learning joined forces to\nwrite down the agrarians. The Hartford Wits dedicated smart couplets\nto the cause; Francis Hopkinson made merry over their ways; Noah\nWebster confuted them with his economic interpretation of politics;\nlawyer-scholars like James Wilson and John Dickinson exposed their\nheresies; solid business men like Peletiah Webster contributed after\nthe measure of their intelligence. In their ardor the Federalists\nwent further. \u201cWhat can be the views of those gentlemen in Boston.\u201d\nasked Lee pertinently, \u201cwho countenanced the printers in shutting up\nthe press against a fair and free investigation?\u201d From the strident\ndebate emerged not only the Constitution, but political parties, no\nlonger to be spoken of as factions, but eventually to be accepted as\nnecessary agencies in republican government; and to understand their\nrival policies we must turn to examine the political philosophies of\nthe outstanding leaders.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[298] These English liberals have been often regarded as democrats.\nThus Merriam says of Locke, \u201cHe was the most famous of seventeenth\ncentury democratic thinkers.\u201d _American Political Theories_, p. 90.\n\n[299] See Laski, _Political Thought from Locke to Bentham_, p. 188.\n\n[300] _Elliot\u2019s Debates_, Vol. I, p. 386.\n\n[301] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 449-450.\n\n[302] _The Federalist_, Introduction, p. viii.\n\n[303] Quoted in Harding, _The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts_.\n\n[304] Carson, _History of the Supreme Court_, quoted by Ford, _The\nFederalist_, p. xxix.\n\n[305] Wendell, _Literary History of America_, p. 118.\n\n[306] Number 15.\n\n[307] _Ibid._\n\n[308] Number 10.\n\n[309] Number 49.\n\n[310] Beard, _The Economic Basis of Politics_, pp. 29-32.\n\n[311] Number 10.\n\n[312] The full title is: _Observations leading to a fair examination\nof the system of government, proposed by the late Convention; and to\nseveral essential and necessary alterations in it. In a number of\nLetters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican._ Reprinted in Ford\u2019s\npamphlets.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Political Thinkers \u2022 The English Group\n\n\nOf this great age of American political thought, two important\ncharacteristics emerge: it was overwhelmingly English in its\nantecedents; and it was already differentiating its program from\nthat of contemporary English liberalism. Nearly all the outstanding\nmen--Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Wilson, Mason, Madison, Gouverneur\nMorris--were of the older liberal tradition, and with some notable\nexceptions, of the school of Pitt. Contemporary English liberals such\nas Priestley, Bentham, and Godwin numbered few adherents among the\nleaders of American thought. Economic conditions in America already\nwere imposing conclusions that pointed in a direction other than that\nwhich English liberalism was traveling. The doctrine of the diminished\nstate, which was making persistent headway among English liberals,\ncould make no appeal to men who desired an augmented state; and\nliberalism as a policy was in ill repute at a time when men believed\nthey were suffering from too much liberalism. American political\nthought, therefore, followed an independent path, and in spite of its\nEnglish origin came to conclusions that differentiated it broadly from\nthe old-world theory.\n\n\nI \u2022 Alexander Hamilton \u2022 The Leviathan State\n\nOf the disciplined forces that put to rout the disorganized party\nof agrarianism, the intellectual leader was Alexander Hamilton,\nthe brilliant Anglo-French West Indian, then just entered upon his\nthirties. A man of quite remarkable ability, a lucid thinker, a great\nlawyer, a skillful executive, a masterly organizer, a statesman of\nbroad comprehension and inflexible purpose, he originated and directed\nthe main policies of the Federalist group, and brought them to\nsuccessful issue. For this work he was singularly well equipped, for\nin addition to great qualities of mind and persuasive ways he was free\nto work unhampered by the narrow localisms and sectional prejudices\nthat hampered native Americans. He was rather English than American,\nwith a certain detachment that refused to permit his large plans to be\nthwarted by minor, vexatious details, or the perversity of stupid men.\nHe was like the elder Pitt in the magnificence of his imperial outlook.\n\nSuch a man would think in terms of the nation rather than of the\nstate. He would agree with Paine that the continental belt must be\nmore securely buckled. The jealousies and rivalries that obstructed\nthe creation of a centralized Federal government found no sympathy\nwith him. He was annoyed beyond all patience with the dissensions of\nlocal home rule. In his political philosophy there was no place for\n\u201cthe political monster of an _imperium in imperio_\u201d; he would destroy\nall lesser sovereignties and reduce the several commonwealths to a\nparish status. For town-meeting democracies and agrarian legislatures\nhe had frank contempt. The American villager and farmer he never knew\nand never understood; his America was the America of landed gentlemen\nand wealthy merchants and prosperous professional men, the classes\nthat were most bitterly anti-agrarian. And it was in association with\nthis group of conservative representatives of business and society\nthat he took his place as directing head in the work of reorganizing\nthe loose confederation into a strong and cohesive union. When\nthat work was accomplished his influence was commanding, and for a\ndozen years he directed the major policies of the Federalist party.\nHis strategic position as Secretary of the Treasury enabled him to\nstamp his principles so deeply upon the national economy that in all\nthe intervening years since he quitted his post they have not been\npermanently altered. That we still follow the broad principles of\nHamilton in our financial policy is a remarkable testimony to the\nperspicacity of his mind and his understanding of the economic forces\nthat control modern society. And hence, because the Hamiltonian\nprinciples lie at the core of the problem which has proved so difficult\nof solution by modern liberalism, the life and work of Hamilton are of\nparticular significance in our democratic development.\n\nHamilton was our first great master of modern finance, of that finespun\nweb of credit which holds together our industrial life; and because\nhis policies opened opportunities of profit to some and entailed\nloss upon others, they have been debated with an acrimony such as few\nprograms have endured. About the figure of the brilliant federalist\nthe myth-makers have industriously woven their tales, distorting the\nman into either a demigod or a monster. The individual has been merged\nin the system which he created, and later interpretation has been shot\nthrough with partisan feeling; political and economic prejudice has\nproved too strong for disinterested estimate. Any rational judgment\nof Hamilton is dependent upon an interpretation of the historical\nbackground that determined his career, and in particular of the state\nof post-Revolutionary economics; and over such vexing questions\npartisans have wrangled interminably. Thus Sumner, in his life of\nHamilton, asserts dogmatically that Federalism was no other than the\nforces of law and order at war with the turbulent, anarchistic forces\nunloosed by the Revolution, and that the putting down of the scheme\nof repudiation was the necessary preliminary to the establishment\nof a great nation. In the light of such an interpretation, Hamilton\nthe far-seeing, courageous and honest master of finance, was the\nsavior of nationality, the one supreme figure rising above an envious\ngroup of lesser men. But, as has been sufficiently pointed out in\npreceding chapters, the historical facts are susceptible of quite other\ninterpretation; and as our knowledge of the economic struggle then\ngoing on becomes more adequate, the falsity of such an explanation\nbecomes patent. If, on the other hand, we concede that the crux of the\npolitical problem in 1787 was economic--the struggle waging between\nfarmer and business groups for control of government--then the position\nof Hamilton becomes clear; he was the spokesman of the business\neconomy. He thought in terms of nationality and espoused the economics\nof capitalism, because he discovered in them potentialities congenial\nto his imperialistic mind.\n\nThe career of Hamilton followed logically from the determining facts\nof temperament and experience. He came to New York an alien, without\nposition or influence, ambitious to make a name and stir in the\nworld; and in the America of his day there could be little doubt\nwhat doors opened widest to preferment. He made friends easily, and\nwith his aristocratic tastes he preferred the rich and distinguished\nto plebeians. Endowed with charming manners and brilliant parts, he\nfascinated all whom he met; before he was of age he was intimate with\nall the Whig leaders, civil and military, on Washington\u2019s staff and\nelsewhere, lending his brains to the solution of knotty problems,\nprodding stupider minds with illuminating suggestions, proving himself\nthe clearest thinker in whatever group he found himself. It was by\nsheer force of intellect that he gained distinction. Singularly\nprecocious, he matured early; before his twenty-fifth year he seems\nto have developed every main principle of his political and economic\nphilosophy, and thereafter he never hesitated or swerved from his path.\nHe was tireless in propaganda, urging on the proposed Constitutional\nconvention, discussing with Robert Morris his favorite project of\na national bank, outlining various systems of funding, advocating\ntariffs as an aid to domestic manufacture, and sketching the plan of a\npolitical and economic system under which native commercialism could go\nforward. His reputation as an acute and trustworthy financial adviser\nwas well established with influential men north and south, when the new\ngovernment was set up, and Washington turned to him naturally for the\nTreasury post, to guide financial policies during the difficult days\nimmediately ahead. But so able a man could not be restricted within\na single portfolio, and during the larger part of Washington\u2019s two\nadministrations Hamilton\u2019s was the directing mind and chief influence.\nHe regarded himself as Prime Minister and rode roughshod over his\ncolleagues. Major policies such as that of no entangling alliances must\nreceive his careful scrutiny and approval before they were announced;\nand in consequence more credit belongs to Hamilton for the success of\nthose first administrations than is commonly recognized.\n\nBut when we turn from the administrator and statesman to the\ncreative thinker, there is another story to tell. The quickness of\nhis perceptions, the largeness of his plans and efficacy of his\nmethods--his clear brilliancy of understanding and execution--are\nenormously impressive; but they cannot conceal certain intellectual\nshortcomings. There was a lack of subtlety in the swift working of his\nmind, of shades and _nuances_ in the background of his thought, that\nimplied a lack of depth and richness in his intellectual accumulation.\nSomething hard, almost brutal lurks in his thought--a note of\nintellectual arrogance, of cynical contempt. He was utterly devoid of\nsentiment, and without a shred of idealism, unless a certain grandiose\nquality in his conceptions be accounted idealism. His absorbing\ninterest in the rising system of credit and finance, his cool unconcern\nfor the social consequences of his policies, reveal his weakness. In\nspite of his brilliancy Hamilton was circumscribed by the limitations\nof the practical man.\n\nIn consequence of such limitations Hamilton was not a political\nphilosopher in the large meaning of the term. In knowledge of history\nhe does not compare with John Adams; and as an open-minded student of\npolitics he is immensely inferior to Jefferson. Outside the domain of\nthe law, his knowledge does not always keep pace with his argument. He\nreasons adroitly from given premises, but he rarely pauses to examine\nthe validity of those premises. The fundamentals of political theory he\nseems never to have questioned, and he lays down a major principle with\nthe easy finality of a dogmatist. Compare his views on any important\npolitical principle with those of the greater thinkers of his time, and\nthey are likely to prove factional if not reactionary. The two tests\nof eighteenth-century liberalism were the doctrine of individualism,\nand the doctrine of the minimized state; and Hamilton rejected both:\nthe former in its larger social bearing, and the latter wholly. He\nwas not even abreast of seventeenth-century liberalism, for that was\nstrongly republican, and Hamilton detested republicanism only a little\nless than democracy. Harrington and Locke were no masters of his;\nmuch less were Bentham or Priestley or Godwin. He called the French\nrevolutionary writers \u201cfanatics in political science\u201d; to what extent\nhe read them does not appear. The thinkers to whom he owed most seem to\nhave been Hume, from whom he may have derived his cynical psychology,\nand Hobbes whose absolute state was so congenial to his temperament.\nBut political theory he subordinated to economic theory. He was much\ninterested in economics. With the Physiocratic school and its agrarian\nand sociological bias he could have no sympathy, but with the rising\nEnglish school that resulted from the development of the industrial\nrevolution, he found himself in hearty accord. Capitalism with its\ncredit system, its banks and debt-funding and money manipulation, was\nwholly congenial to his masterful temperament. He read Adam Smith with\neagerness and _The Wealth of Nations_ was a source book for many of his\nstate papers. To create in America an English system of finance, and an\nEnglish system of industrialism, seemed to him the surest means to the\ngreat end he had in view; a centralizing capitalism would be more than\na match for a decentralizing agrarianism, and the power of the state\nwould augment with the increase of liquid wealth.\n\nBut granted that he lacked the intellectual qualities of the\nphilosopher, it does not follow that his significance diminishes. On\nthe contrary his very independence of contemporary European theory\nenlarged his serviceableness to party. He was free to employ his\nintelligence on the practical difficulties of a new and unprecedented\nsituation. English liberalism did not answer the needs of Federalism,\nif indeed it could answer the needs of the country at large. The time\nhad come to decide whether the long movement of decentralization should\ngo further, and confirm the future government as a loose confederacy\nof powerful states, or whether an attempt should be made to check\nthat movement and establish a counter tendency towards centralized,\norganized control. If the former, it meant surrendering the country\nto a democratic _laissez faire_, and there was nothing in the history\nof political _laissez faire_ as it had developed in America, that\njustified the principle to Hamilton. It had culminated in agrarianism\nwith legislative majorities riding down all obstacles, denying the\nvalidity of any check upon its will, constitutional, legal or ethical.\nThe property interests of the minority had been rendered insecure.\nThere had been altogether too much _laissez faire_; what was needed\nwas sharp control of legislative majorities; the will of the majority\nmust be held within due metes and bounds. Even in the economic world\nthe principle of _laissez faire_ no longer satisfied the needs of\nthe situation. Parliamentary enactments had aided British interests\nin their exploitation of America before the war; it was only common\nsense for an American government to assist American business. The new\ncapitalism that was rising stood in need of governmental subsidies.\nBusiness was languishing; infant industries could not compete on\neven terms with the powerful British manufacturing interests, long\nestablished and with ample capital. From a realistic contemplation of\nthese facts Hamilton deduced the guiding principle that has since been\nfollowed, namely, that governmental interference with economic laws is\ndesirable when it aids business, but intolerable and unsound when it\naims at business regulation or control, or when it assists agriculture\nor labor.\n\nThroughout his career Hamilton was surprisingly consistent. His mind\nhardened early as it matured early, and he never saw cause to challenge\nthe principles which he first espoused. He was what a friendly critic\nwould call a political realist, and an enemy would pronounce a cynic.\nWith the practical man\u2019s contempt for theorists and idealists, he took\nhis stand on current fact. He looked to the past for guidance, trusting\nto the wisdom of experience; those principles which have worked\nsatisfactorily heretofore may be expected to work satisfactorily in the\nfuture. Whoever aspires to become a sane political leader must remember\nthat his business is not to construct Utopias, but to govern men; and\nif he would succeed in that difficult undertaking he must be wise in\nthe knowledge of human nature. At the basis of Hamilton\u2019s political\nphilosophy was the traditional Tory psychology. Failure to understand\nhuman nature, he believed, was the fatal weakness of all democratic\ntheorists; they put into men\u2019s breeches altruistic beings fitted only\nfor a Utopian existence. But when we consider men as they are, we\ndiscover that they are little other than beasts, who if unrestrained\nwill turn every garden into a pigsty. Everywhere men are impelled by\nthe primitive lust of aggression, and the political philosopher must\nadjust his system to this unhappy fact. He must not suffer the charge\nof cynicism to emasculate his philosophy; \u201cthe goodness of government\nconsists in a vigorous execution,\u201d rather than in amiable intentions;\nit is the business of the practical man and not of the theorist.\n\nIt needs no very extensive reading in Hamilton to discover ample\njustification for such an interpretation of his political philosophy;\nthe evidence lies scattered broadly through his pages. At the\nprecocious age of seventeen he laid down the thesis, \u201cA vast majority\nof mankind is entirely biassed by motives of self-interest\u201d; and as\npolitical systems are determined by the raw material of the mass of\nthe people, they must be conditioned by such egoism. A year later he\ndiscovered in Hume the central principle of his philosophy:\n\n Political writers, says a celebrated author, have established it\n as a maxim, that, in contriving any system of government, and\n fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, _every\n man_ ought to be supposed a _knave_; and to have no other end,\n in all his actions, but _private interest_. By this interest we\n must govern him; and, by means of it, _make him co-operate to\n public good_, notwithstanding his insatiable avarice and ambition.\n Without this, we shall in vain boast of the advantages of _any\n constitution_.[313]\n\nAt the age of twenty-seven he reiterated the doctrine, \u201cThe safest\nreliance of every government, is on men\u2019s interests. This is a\nprinciple of human nature, on which all political speculation, to be\njust, must be founded.\u201d[314] Obviously this was not a pose of youthful\ncynicism, but a sober judgment confirmed by observation and experience.\n\nAccepting self-interest as the mainspring of human ambition, Hamilton\naccepted equally the principle of class domination. From his reading\nof history he discovered that the strong overcome the weak, and as\nthey grasp power they coalesce into a master group. This master group\nwill dominate, he believed, not only to further its interests, but to\nprevent the spread of anarchy which threatens every society split into\nfactions and at the mercy of rival ambitions. In early days the master\ngroup was a military order, later it became a landed aristocracy, in\nmodern times it is commercial; but always its power rests on property.\n\u201cThat power which holds the purse-strings absolutely, must rule,\u201d he\nstated unequivocally. The economic masters of society of necessity\nbecome the political masters. It is unthinkable that government should\nnot reflect the wishes of property, that it should be permanently\nhostile to the greater economic interests; such hostility must destroy\nit, for no man or group of men will be ruled by those whom they can\nbuy and sell. And in destroying itself it will give place to another\ngovernment, more wisely responsive to the master group; for even a\ndemocratic people soon learns that any government is better than a\ncondition of anarchy, and a commercial people understands that a\ngovernment which serves the interests of men of property, serves the\ninterests of all, for if capital will not invest how shall labor\nfind employment? And if the economic masters do not organize society\nefficiently, how shall the common people escape ruin?\n\nSuch are the fundamental principles which lie at the base of Hamilton\u2019s\nphilosophy. He was in accord with John Adams and James Madison and\nNoah Webster, in asserting the economic basis of government, with\nits corollary of the class struggle. He not only accepted the rule\nof property as inevitable, but as desirable. As an aristocrat he\ndeliberately allied himself with the wealthy. That men divide into\nthe rich and the poor, the wise and the foolish, he regarded as a\ncommonplace too evident to require argument. The explanation is\nto be sought in human nature and human capacities. For the common\npeople, about whom Jefferson concerned himself with what seemed to\nHamilton sheer demagoguery, he felt only contempt. Their virtues and\ncapacities he had no faith in. \u201cI am not much attached to the _majesty\nof the multitude_,\u201d he said during the debate over the Constitution,\n\u201cand waive all pretensions (founded on such conduct) to their\ncountenance.\u201d His notorious comment--which the American democrat has\nnever forgiven him, \u201cThe people!--the people is a great beast!\u201d--was\ncharacteristically frank. Hamilton was no demagogue and nothing was\nplainer to his logic than the proposition that if the people possessed\nthe capacity to rule, their weight of numbers would give them easy\nmastery; whereas their yielding to the domination of the gifted few\nproves their incapacity. A wise statesman, therefore, will consider\nthe people no further than to determine how government may be least\ndisturbed by their factional discontent, and kept free to pursue a\nlogical program. Under a republican form good government is difficult\nto maintain, but not impossible. The people are easily deceived and\nturned aside from their purpose; like children they are diverted by\ntoys; but if they become unruly they must be punished. Too much is at\nstake in government for them to be permitted to muddle policies.\n\nIt is sufficiently clear that in tastes and convictions Hamilton\nwas a high Tory. The past to which he appealed was a Tory past, the\npsychology which he accepted was a Tory psychology, the law and\norder which he desired was a Tory law and order. His philosophy was\nnot liked by republican America, and he knew that it was not liked.\nPractical business men accepted both his premises and conclusions, but\nrepublicans under the spell of revolutionary idealism, and agrarians\nsuffering in their pocketbooks, would oppose them vigorously. He was\nat pains, therefore, as a practical statesman, to dress his views in\na garb more seemly to plebeian prejudices, and like earlier Tories\nhe paraded an ethical justification for his Toryism. The current\nFederalist dogma of the divine right of justice--_vox justiciae vox\ndei_--was at hand to serve his purpose and he made free use of it.\nBut no ethical gilding could quite conceal a certain ruthlessness of\npurpose; in practice justice became synonymous with expediency, and\nexpediency was curiously like sheer Tory will to power.\n\nIn certain of his principles Hamilton was a follower of Hobbes.\nHis philosophy conducted logically to the leviathan state, highly\ncentralized, coercive, efficient. But he was no idealist to exalt the\nstate as the divine repository of authority, an enduring entity apart\nfrom the individual citizen and above him. He regarded the state as\na highly useful instrument, which in the name of law and order would\nserve the interests of the powerful, and restrain the turbulence of\nthe disinherited. For in every government founded on coercion rather\nthan good will, the perennial unrest of those who are coerced is a\ngrave menace; in the end the exploited will turn fiercely upon the\nexploiters. In such governments, therefore, self-interest requires\nthat social unrest shall be covered with opprobrium and put down by\nthe police power; and the sufficient test of a strong state lies in\nits ability to protect the privileges of the minority against the\nanarchy of the majority. In his eloquent declamation against anarchy\nHamilton was a conspicuous disciple of the law and order school. From\nthe grave difficulties of post-Revolutionary times with their agrarian\nprograms, he created a partisan argument for a leviathan state, which\nfell upon willing ears; and in the Constitutional convention, which,\nmore than any other man, he was instrumental in assembling, he was the\noutstanding advocate of the coercive state.\n\nIn his plan of government presented to the Convention, the principle\nof centralized power was carried further than most would go, and his\nsupporting speeches expressed doctrines that startled certain of his\nhearers. He was frankly a monarchist, and he urged the monarchical\nprinciple with Hobbesian logic. \u201cThe principle chiefly intended to be\nestablished is this--that there must be a permanent _will_.\u201d \u201cThere\nought to be a principle in government capable of resisting the popular\ncurrent.\u201d\n\n Gentlemen say we need to be rescued from the democracy. But\n what [are] the means proposed? A democratic assembly is to be\n checked by a democratic senate, and both these by a democratic\n chief magistrate. The end will not be answered, the means will\n not be equal to the object. It will, therefore, be feeble and\n inefficient.[315]\n\nThe only effective way of keeping democratic factionalism within\nbounds, Hamilton was convinced, lay in the erection of a powerful\nchief magistrate, who \u201cought to be hereditary, and to have so much\npower, that it will not be his interest to risk much to acquire more,\u201d\nand who would therefore stand \u201cabove corruption.\u201d Failing to secure\nthe acceptance of the monarchical principle, he devoted himself to\nthe business of providing all possible checks upon the power of\nthe democracy. He \u201cacknowledged himself not to think favorably of\nrepublican government; but he addressed his remarks to those who did\nthink favorably of it, in order to prevail on them to tone their\ngovernment as high as possible.\u201d[316] His argument was characteristic:\n\n All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The\n first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people.\n The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and,\n however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is\n not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they\n seldom judge or determine right. Give, therefore, to the first\n class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will\n check the unsteadiness of the second; and as they cannot receive\n any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good\n government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the\n mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?\n Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.\n Their turbulent and uncontrollable disposition requires checks.[317]\n\nThe argument scarcely needs refuting today, although curiously enough,\nit was rarely questioned by eighteenth-century gentlemen. It was the\nstock in trade of the Federalists, nevertheless Hamilton was too acute\na thinker not to see its fallacy. It denied the fundamental premise\nof his political philosophy. If men are actuated by self-interest,\nhow does it come about that this sovereign motive abdicates its rule\namong the rich and well born? Is there a magic in property that\nregenerates human nature? Do the wealthy betray no desire for greater\npower? Do the strong and powerful care more for good government than\nfor class interests? Hamilton was fond of appealing to the teaching of\nexperience; but he had read history to little purpose if he believed\nsuch notions. How mercilessly he would have exposed the fallacy in the\nmouth of Jefferson! It was a class appeal, and he knew that it was a\nclass appeal, just as he knew that success knows no ethics. He was\nconfronted by a situation in practical politics, and in playing ignobly\nupon selfish fears he was seeking to force the convention towards the\nEnglish model. He had no confidence in the Constitution as finally\nadopted, and spoke in contemptuous terms of its weakness; whereas for\nthe British constitution he had only praise, going so far, according\nto Jefferson, as to defend the notorious corruption of parliament on\nthe ground of expediency: \u201cpurge it of its corruption\u201d--Jefferson\nreports him as saying--\u201cand give to its popular branch equality of\nrepresentation, and it would become an _impracticable_ government;\nas it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the\nmost perfect government which ever existed.\u201d[318] The argument savors\nof cynicism, but it is in keeping with his philosophy; the British\nconstitution owed its excellence to the fact that in the name of the\npeople it yielded control of the state to the landed aristocracy.\n\nIt was as a statesman that the brilliant qualities of Hamilton showed\nto fullest advantage. In developing his policies as Secretary of\nthe Treasury he applied his favorite principle, that government and\nproperty must join in a close working alliance. The new government\nwould remain weak and ineffective so long as it was hostile to\ncapital; but let it show itself friendly to capital, and capital\nwould make haste to uphold the hands of government. Confidence was\nnecessary to both, and it was a plant of slow growth, sensitive to\ncold winds. The key to the problem lay in the public finance, and the\nkey to a strong system of finance lay in a great national bank. This,\nHamilton\u2019s dearest project, was inspired by the example of the Bank of\nEngland. No other institution would so surely link the great merchants\nto government, he pointed out, for by being made partners in the\nundertaking they would share both the responsibility and the profits.\nIt was notorious that during the Revolution men of wealth had forced\ndown the continental currency for speculative purposes; was it not as\ncertain that they would support an issue in which they were interested?\nThe private resources of wealthy citizens would thus become an asset\nof government, for the bank would link \u201cthe interest of the State in\nan intimate connection with those of the rich individuals belonging to\nit.\u201d \u201cThe men of property in America are enlightened about their own\ninterest, and would easily be brought to see the advantage of a good\nplan.\u201d Hence would arise stability and vigor of government.\n\nMoreover, the bank would be of immense service in the pressing business\nof the public debt. In regard to this difficult matter Hamilton was\nearly convinced that only one solution was possible: all outstanding\nobligations, state and national, must be assumed by the Federal\ngovernment at face value, and funded. Anything short of that would\namount to repudiation of a lawful contract, entered into in good faith\nby the purchaser; and such repudiation would destroy in the minds of\nthe wealthy the confidence in the integrity of the new government\nthat was vital to its success. It was true that speculators would reap\ngreat and unearned profits; but the speculators for the most part were\nthe principal men of property whose support was so essential that any\nterms were justifiable, and nothing would bind them so closely to the\ngovernment as the knowledge that it would deal generously with them.\nIt was true also that thousands of small men would lose by such a\ntransaction; but under any existing social economy the small man was\nat a disadvantage, and the present state of affairs was not such as to\njustify Utopian measures. To alienate the rich and powerful in order\nto conciliate the poor and inconsequential seemed to him sheer folly.\nThe argument of expediency must prevail over abstract justice; the\ngovernment must make terms with those in whose hands lay the success or\nfailure of the venture.\n\nHis report on the public credit, of January 14, 1790, is one of the\nsignificant documents in the history of American finance. It is the\nfirst elaboration by an American statesman of the new system of\ncapitalization and credit developed in eighteenth-century England,\nand it laid a broad foundation for later capitalistic development. To\nless daring financiers of the time the public debt was no more than a\nheavy obligation to be met; but to Hamilton it offered an opportunity\nfor revivifying the whole financial life of the nation. Let the debts\nbe consolidated and capitalized by a proper system of funding, and the\naugmented credit would multiply capital, lower the rate of interest,\nincrease land values, and extend its benefits through all lines of\nindustry and commerce. It was a bold plan and it encountered bitter\nopposition, which was not lessened by the heavy taxation that it called\nfor. In his tax proposals Hamilton revealed his political philosophy so\nnakedly as almost to prove his undoing. His doctrine of the blessing of\na national debt smacked rather too strongly of English Toryism for the\nAmerican stomach.\n\n A national debt, if it be not excessive, will be to us a national\n blessing. It will be a powerful cement to our Union. It will also\n create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which,\n without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry.... It were\n otherwise to be feared our popular maxims would incline us to\n too great parsimony and indulgence. We labor less now than any\n civilized nation of Europe; and a habit of labor in the people, is\n as essential to the health and vigor of their minds and bodies, as\n it is conducive to the welfare of the State.[319]\n\nA further struggle was encountered over the proposals of an internal\nrevenue and a tariff. In his advocacy of the former Hamilton\nencountered the vigorous opposition of the backcountry. The total\nlack of adequate means of transportation rendered the problem of a\ngrain market a chronic difficulty to the frontier farmers. The most\nconvenient solution lay in distilling, and so whisky had become the\nchief commodity of the farmer that was transportable and brought\na cash price. In placing a tax upon distilled liquors, therefore,\nHamilton struck so directly at the economic interests of thousands of\nbackwoodsmen, as to bring a rebellion upon the new administration. He\nknew what he was doing, but he calculated that it was safer to incur\nthe enmity of farmers than of financiers; nevertheless the fierceness\nof the opposition surprised him, and aroused all the ruthlessness that\nlay in the background of his nature. He called for the strong arm\nof the military and when the rising was put down, he was angered at\nWashington\u2019s leniency in refusing to hang the convicted leaders. In\nhis advocacy of a tariff he was on safer ground, for he was proposing\na solution of the difficult situation confronting the manufacturers.\nSomething must be done to revive industry so long stagnant. The old\ncolonial machinery had been destroyed and new machinery must be\nprovided. Industrial independence must follow political independence;\nand the easiest way lay in providing a tariff barrier behind which\nthe infant industries of America might grow and become sufficient for\ndomestic needs.\n\nIn his notable report on manufactures, submitted on December 5, 1791,\nHamilton showed his characteristic intelligence in his grasp of the\nprinciples of the industrial revolution. Certainly no other man in\nAmerica saw so clearly the significance of the change that was taking\nplace in English industrialism, and what tremendous reservoirs of\nwealth the new order laid open to the country that tapped them. The\nproductive possibilities that lay in the division of labor, factory\norganization, the substitution of the machine for the tool, appealed to\nhis materialistic imagination, and he threw himself heart and soul into\nthe cause of industrial development in America. He accepted frankly the\nprinciple of exploitation. He was convinced that the interests of the\nmanufacturers were one with the national interests, and he proposed to\nput the paternal power of the government behind them. With the larger\nsocial effects--the consequences to the working classes, congestion of\npopulation, the certainty of a labor problem--he concerned himself no\nmore than did contemporary English statesmen. He was contemptuous of\nJefferson\u2019s concern over such things. He had no Physiocratic leanings\ntowards agriculture; material greatness alone appealed to him; and he\ncontemplated with satisfaction the increase in national wealth that\nwould accrue from levying toll upon the weak and helpless.\n\n Besides this advantage of occasional employment to classes having\n different occupations, there is another, of a nature allied to\n it, and of a similar tendency. This is the employment of persons\n who would otherwise be idle, and in many cases, a burthen on the\n community, either from bias of temper, habit, infirmity of body,\n or some other cause, indisposing or disqualifying them for the\n toils of the country. It is worthy of particular remark, that,\n in general, women and children are rendered more useful, and the\n latter more early useful, by manufacturing establishments, than\n they would otherwise be. Of the number of persons employed in\n the cotton manufactories of Great Britain, it is computed that\n four-sevenths, nearly, are women and children; of whom the greatest\n proportion are children, and many of them of a tender age.[320]\n\nIf the material power and splendor of the state be the great end of\nstatesmanship--as Hamilton believed--no just complaint can be lodged\nagainst such a policy; but if the well-being of the individual citizen\nbe the chief end--as Jefferson maintained--a very different judgment\nmust be returned.\n\nAlthough the fame of Hamilton has been most closely associated with\nthe principle of constitutional centralization, his truer significance\nis to be found in his relation to the early developments of our modern\ncapitalistic order. In his understanding of credit finance and the\nfactory economy, he grasped the meaning of the economic revolution\nwhich was to transform America from an agrarian to an industrial\ncountry; and in urging the government to further such development, he\nblazed the path that America has since followed. \u201cA very great man,\u201d\nWoodrow Wilson has called him, \u201cbut not a great American.\u201d In the\nlarger historical meaning of the term, in its democratic implications,\nthat judgment is true; but in the light of our industrial history,\nwith its corporate development and governmental subsidies, it does not\nseem so true. As the creative organizer of a political state answering\nthe needs of a capitalistic order--a state destined to grow stronger\nas imperialistic ambitions mount--he seems the most modern and the\nmost American of our eighteenth-century leaders, one to whom our\nindustrialism owes a very great debt, but from whom our democratic\nliberalism has received nothing.\n\n\nII \u2022 John Adams \u2022 Realist\n\nMidway between Hamilton and Jefferson stands John Adams, the most\npainstaking student of government and the most widely read in political\nhistory, of his generation of Americans. The noble art of government\nwas a lifelong passion with him--the sublimest subject, in his opinion,\nwhich a free citizen could study. Solid, pragmatic, unimaginative, he\nwas an admirable representative of the later eighteenth century with\nits vigorous understanding, its distrust of idealisms, its contempt for\nsocial theory. He was the political counterpart of Dr. Johnson. To a\ngeneration sniveling over the sorrows of life and seeking panaceas in\nRousseau sentimentalisms, the English Tory proffered the consolation of\nthe realist. Things are bad enough, heaven knows; poverty, injustice,\ndisease, death, are evils which no optimism can shut its eyes to. But\nwhat can be done? The malady of human nature is a disease beyond the\nreach of romantic plasters. No quack remedies will cure ills that\nlie too deep for laws or kings--they only aggravate the trouble.\nBe sensible therefore. Endure like men what cannot be cured. Stop\nsniveling and make the best of things as they are.\n\nThe analogy between these two vigorous exponents of common sense is\ntoo obvious to miss. For years the chief business of John Adams was\nto bring home to Americans the lesson in realism which Samuel Johnson\nwas urging upon his countrymen. The mischief of romantic idealisms was\nspreading widely in America, disseminated by propagandists like Tom\nPaine and theorists like Jefferson; there was high need that the people\nbe brought back to sober reality. This duty he took upon himself. He\nwas an uncompromising realist who refused to be duped by fine dreams or\nhumanitarian panaceas; he was much given to throwing cold water on the\nhope of social regeneration through political agencies. And the reward\nwhich he gained for his voluntary labors was a personal unpopularity\nbeyond that of any other statesman of the time. He was charged\nwith apostasy from his earlier democratic faith, and the charge had\nsufficient foundation, unfortunately, to make it credible if one wished\nto believe it.\n\nDuring the revolutionary struggle he had been a member of the left\nwing; during the early struggles under the Constitution he was a member\nof the right wing. The young man had been a stalwart defender of human\nrights, the old man was a stalwart defender of property rights; and\nthis shift of position was fatal to his reputation with the rising\ndemocratic party. The French Revolution marked the critical turning\npoint in his intellectual development. As a politician he was well-nigh\nruined by it; but as a political thinker he owed it much. Before that\nvast upheaval came to challenge his somewhat conventional mind, he\nwas a hard-working lawyer-politician, with a liking for legalistic\nconstitutional theory; but as the Revolution went forward, he was\nforced into uncompromising reaction. While ardent young Americans\nwere becoming pro-French, he became pro-British; while they were\naccepting the new leveling principles, he searched history to prove\nhow inevitable are social distinctions and economic classes; while\nthey looked hopefully forward to a democratic future, he gathered his\nmaterials for an interpretation of political forces that revealed\naristocracy as the dominant factor in every society. Both Adams and his\ncritics were products of the French upheaval, but facing in different\ndirections; naturally, the antagonism between them became sharp and\nbitter.\n\nThe severest critic cannot deny to John Adams excellent qualities\nof mind and heart. A sound lawyer, a capable statesman, a vigorous\nthinker and courageous debater, he fought his way from obscurity\nto high position and many honors, and in every responsibility he\nacquitted himself in a fashion altogether worthy of the notable\nAdams posterity. A stubborn intellectual independence and a vigorous\nassertiveness were his distinguishing characteristics. He revealed\nto the full the Adams trait of going its own way and coming to its\nown conclusions. He was never the victim of mob psychology, and he\nwas never careful of occasion or circumstance in speaking out his\nconvictions. America has had too few independent minds, and much of\nAdams\u2019s unpopularity was the result of his refusal to hunt with the\npack. Unfortunately his admirable qualities were offset by a blundering\ntactlessness and a colossal vanity that brought many troubles upon\nhis head. He loved to be in the public eye and he studied the little\narts of self-advertising. In his youthful diary he set down these\ncharacteristic words: \u201cReputation ought to be a perpetual subject of\nmy thoughts, and aim of my behavior. How shall I spread an opinion of\nmyself as a lawyer of distinguished genius, learning, and virtue?\u201d\nSelf-confident, domineering, and jealously suspicious--always on the\nlookout lest some honor due him should fall to another--he struggled\nthrough a career strewn with animosities and heartburnings that a\nnicer tact and a more generous nature would have avoided. He was his\nown worst enemy. He did not spare himself in public service, but he\ndemanded strict payment and was inclined to haggle over the terms; in\nconsequence his later days were embittered and his fame was less than\nhe deserved.\n\nOur present concern, however, is with the political scientist and not\nwith the politician; with the theories of government that occupied so\nmuch of his thought, rather than with the policies of the statesman.\nHe wrote voluminously, heavily, with no grace of style or savor of\nwit, and the long row of his collected writings may well appall the\nreader who proposes to make his acquaintance. Ponderous treatises are\nsupplemented by lesser works and flanked by innumerable letters; his\nindustry was prodigious and no one will wonder at his exclamation, \u201cMy\nhand is impatient of the pen and longs to throw it down.\u201d His important\nwork divides broadly into two main divisions: his contribution to the\ncolonial debate with England, and his elaborate system of government\nformulated during the years of French revolutionary debate. A brief\nconsideration will suffice for the first, but the second requires more\ncareful examination.\n\nIn his contributions to the colonial debate Adams concerned himself\nmainly with questions of constitutional law. He placed little reliance\non the appeal to natural rights, and showed scant respect for \u201cpopular\ntalk and those democratical principles which have done so much mischief\nin this country.\u201d[321] The American cause, he believed, should be based\non constitutional principles, but those principles required restatement\nin the light of existing fact. They must be rescued from the narrow\ninterpretation of little Englanders and adapted to meet the pressing\nneeds of imperial federation. The English people were not all residents\nof the British Isles, and a constitutional practice suited to compact\ngroups in a common environment, was ill adapted to the needs of widely\nsundered bodies of British subjects. Into this difficult and momentous\nbusiness of imperial federation, Adams plunged earnestly in an endeavor\nto chart the unexplored field. That the problem was the gravest then\nconfronting Englishmen is abundantly evident today; that it received\ngrossly inadequate consideration on both sides of the Atlantic is\nequally clear. In this field John Adams was a pioneer and his work\npossesses still some historical interest. This fact, too frequently\noverlooked, has been emphasized by a recent student, who has summarized\nthe final results of Adams\u2019s thinking in the following theses: that the\nempire was an association of equals, each with independent legislative\npowers; that the British constitution was the fundamental law of the\nempire, defining the relationship of the constituent parts; and that it\nwas the function of the judiciary to disallow a legislative act of any\nof the several legislatures which did not comport with the fundamental\nlaw, or which attempted to impose the will of one of the partners in\nviolation of the fundamental understanding and its guarantee.[322]\n\nSuch, in compressed form, was Adams\u2019s elaboration and justification\nof the dogma of Otis, that an act against the constitution was void.\nIn its relation to current English constitutional practice it was\nat once revolutionary and reactionary. It implied a double attack\nupon parliamentary sovereignty, first in limiting its powers by a\nsuper-parliamentary constitution, and then in subjecting its acts to\njudicial review. The final result would be the transfer of sovereignty\nfrom the legislature to the judiciary. The idea had been toyed with\nby English lawyers, but never seriously considered; it was alien to\nthe whole theory and history of parliamentary development. English\nlanded gentlemen have never been minded to grant the veto power to\nthe judiciary, but have persistently retained sovereignty in the\nlegislature. Nevertheless in such early speculation is found the germ\nof our later practice, as it finally developed through the decisions of\nChief Justice Marshall.\n\nIn the works of his later period, such as _A Defence of the\nConstitution of Government of the United States of America_ and\n_Discourses on Davila_, Adams emerged from the narrow field of\nconstitutional law and elaborated a theory of government based on wide\nreading and long observation. It was by way of reply to the French\nthinkers, and it contributed in large measure to the partisan passions\nof the time. Unfortunate circumstances attended the publication of\nthe works. The _Defence of the Constitution_ appeared at the moment\nwhen newspaper accounts of the absurd dress in which he appeared at\nthe Court of St. James\u2019s were provoking republican jests; and the\n_Discourses on Davila_ came out in the _Gazette of the United States_,\nwhen the country was buzzing about his childish fondness for titles and\nceremonies. It was impolitic for Adams to publish in the _Gazette_,\na virulently Federalistic sheet and anathema to all liberals. His\nunpopular theories could not fail to arouse republican antagonism when\nset over against such seeming commentary as this:\n\n _Take away thrones and crowns from among men and there will\n soon be an end of all dominion and justice._ There must be some\n adventitious properties infused into the government to give it\n energy and spirit, or the selfish, turbulent passions of men can\n never be controlled. This has occasioned that artificial splendor\n and dignity that are to be found in the courts of many nations. The\n people of the United States may probably be induced to regard and\n obey the laws without requiring the experiment of courts and titled\n monarchs. In proportion as we become populous and wealthy must the\n tone of the government be strengthened.[323]\n\nThe unfortunate effect of _Davila_ upon a highly wrought public opinion\nAdams himself records: \u201cthe rage and fury of the Jacobinical journals\nagainst these discourses, increased as they proceeded, intimidated the\nprinter, John Fenno, and convinced me, that to proceed would do more\nhurt than good. I therefore broke off abruptly.\u201d[324] But the mischief\nto his reputation had been done; henceforth Adams was popularly\nregarded as anti-republican. Debating the nature of aristocracy in the\nNew York Constitutional Convention, one of the speakers said, \u201cI would\nrefer the gentleman for a definition of it to the Hon. John Adams, one\nof our natural aristocrats.\u201d Madison went so far as to charge that he\nwas secretly a monarchist. The charge was absurd, as any examination of\nhis political theory will convince. \u201cIt is a fixed principle with me,\u201d\nhe wrote to Samuel Adams in 1790, \u201cthat all good government is and must\nbe republican.\u201d But that he advocated a system of government hostile to\nagrarianism, that he was bitterly antagonistic to French Jacobinism\nand all its works, is apparent to the most casual reader. He was a\nrealist of the seventeenth-century school of English republicanism,\nattacking what he regarded as the delirium of democracy, appealing to\nexperience in answer to abstract theory.\n\nAdams erected his political system upon what he called \u201cself-evident\ntruths.\u201d He went to the root of the matter and directed his inquiry\ninto the validity of the humanitarian psychology which asserted that\nmen are good by nature, and may be trusted to deal justly with their\nfellows. He appealed to the whole unhappy record of past misrule to\ndisprove the thesis. Instead of discovering in the average man a\nkindly, rational being--as Jefferson professed to discover--Adams\nfound quite the contrary; and he summoned a host of historians and\nphilosophers to witness that Machiavelli was right in his contention\nthat \u201cthose who have written on civil government lay it down as a\nfirst principle ... that whoever would found a state, and make proper\nlaws for the government of it, must presume that all men are bad by\nnature; that they will not fail to show that natural depravity of heart\nwhenever they have a fair opportunity.\u201d[325] In further substantiation\nof this fact he examined the history of governments past and present,\nand he found everywhere testimony to the truth that the mass of men are\nnaturally indolent, selfish, given to luxury, shortsighted, jealous,\ntending to faction and all mischievous intrigue. Never does he find\nthem given to virtue, choosing wisdom, seeking justice. They cannot\nendure that others should be superior in virtue, or rank, or power;\nbut driven by ambition they strive to pull down their superiors in\norder themselves to rise. The men in any society who possess sufficient\nvirtue to set justice above self-interest, are few and count for little\nin the scale against the selfish many.[326]\n\nThis Calvinistic doctrine that \u201chuman nature is not fit to be\ntrusted,\u201d and that \u201cmen are never good but through necessity,\u201d being\naccepted--and John Adams was as clearly satisfied of its truth as\n\u201cof any demonstration of Euclid\u201d--he proceeded to translate it\ninto political terms, and examine the bearing of it upon systems\nof government. At once a second fallacy of the humanitarian school\nemerged--men are impelled not by ideals but by needs, not by reason,\nas Godwin argued, but by the desire for goods. In a social state the\nnatural selfishness of human nature impels to economic aggression.\nUnderneath the turbulent unrest which threatens every government is\neconomic ambition. This is the rock on which all schemes of social\njustice founder--a rock which every sound political thinker will chart\nand recognize as a danger reef. Economics and biology provide the major\nsocial drives. \u201cThat the first want of every man is his dinner and the\nsecond want his girl were truths well known ... long before the great\nphilosopher Malthus arose to think he enlightened the world by his\ndiscovery.\u201d[327] The supposed liberty of a democratic state proves in\npractice to be no other than anarchy, running swiftly into license and\nending in tyranny. All human societies are rooted in exploitation, the\nbitter fruit of which is domestic warfare.\n\nThe universal social state is one of ruthless class struggle, wherein\nthe strong conquer the weak--this is the third deduction from the\npremises which Adams laid down. It cannot be otherwise, he argued, from\nthe natural inequality of men. The rude mass being shiftless, ignorant,\nspendthrift, they are at the mercy of the strong, ambitious, and\ncapable, who exploit them freely. Hence in every society emerges the\ndivision between patricians and plebeians, developing into caste as the\nsocial order grows complex. The self-interest of the patricians teaches\nthem the need of class solidarity, and with intelligent solidarity the\nfew easily seize control of the state and use it to their ends. Hence\narises an aristocracy or oligarchy, which maintains its power through\ncontrol of the economic resources of society. Control of property means\ncontrol of men; for sovereignty inheres in economics. In presence of\nthis historical fact it is foolish to declaim about natural rights;\nthere are no rights except such as are won either by property or the\nsword.\n\nThat there should long exist a society without a property aristocracy\nAdams regarded as inconceivable. The French democrats with their\ntalk of equality and fraternity were mischievous visionaries. \u201cEvery\ndemocracy ... has an aristocracy in it as distinct as that of Rome,\nFrance, England.\u201d In older societies the aristocracy maintained\nsupremacy through possession of the land. In America the vast extent\nof territory and the wide diffusion of landholding presented the most\nfavorable opportunity in history for democratic development if such\nwere possible; nevertheless the evidences of an aristocracy developing\nhere were too patent to miss. The abundance of economic resources,\nAdams pointed out, was an invitation to gigantic exploitation, the\nlogical outcome of which must be the emergence of a master group,\nricher and more powerful than the world has ever known. The power of\neconomic appeal was nullified in America by no special providence.\n\n Paper wealth has been a source of aristocracy in this country,\n as well as landed wealth, with a vengeance. Witness the immense\n fortunes made _per saltum_ by aristocratical speculations, both in\n land and paper.... But, sir, land and paper are not the only source\n of aristocracy. There are master shipwrights, housewrights, masons,\n &c. &c., who have each of them from twenty to a hundred families\n in their employment, and can carry a posse to the polls when they\n will. These are not only aristocrats, but a species of feudal\n barons....\n\n Should a planter in Virginia sell his _clarissimum et\n illustrissimum et celeberricum locum_ with his thousand negroes,\n to a merchant, would not the merchant gain the aristocratical\n influence which the planter lost by his transfer? Run down, sir,\n through all the ranks of society ... from the first planter and the\n first merchant to the hog driver, the whiskey dram-seller, or the\n Scottish peddler, and consider, whether the alienation of lands,\n wharves, stores, pike stock, or even lottery tickets, does not\n transfer the aristocracy as well as the property.[328]\n\nBelieve--as John Adams believed regarding the funding operations--that\n\u201cpaper wealth is the madness of the many for the profit of the\nfew,\u201d[329] it is nevertheless a modern illustration of the old truth\nthat the few do profit from the madness of the many, and by reason of\nsuch profit set themselves up as masters. If then the historian cannot\nescape the conclusion that political systems and social classes rest\nupon economic foundations, this fundamental fact must preside over\nthe speculations of the political philosopher. Democracy is out of\nthe question, even if it were desirable. The great and sole object\nof political science must be the preservation of liberty--the right\nof every individual to life, freedom, property, in an aristocratic\nsociety--and the frustration of the universal drive of self-interest\nwhich leads on the one hand to tyranny, and on the other to anarchy.\nBetween these two poles of tyranny and anarchy, of oligarchy and\ndemocracy, every society oscillates; to prevent such oscillation and\ndiscover some mean between the extremes must be the business of the\npolitical philosopher. The pregnant fallacy of the French school,\nAdams insisted, lay in its doctrines of equality and fraternity. The\nmeanest underling does not desire equality; men kiss the feet above\nthem and trample on the fingers beneath. That the people love a lord\nis a sign of their abundant folly. Should the democrats abolish the\nprinciple of hereditary rank by law, it would still remain in fact; for\nthe property basis on which it rests is transmitted legally from father\nto son, and each successive generation gains an adventitious advantage\nfrom its substantial heritage as well as from the historical splendor\nof the family name. On this rock every attempt at a democracy has\nfoundered.\n\n If these words are true, no well ordered commonwealth ever existed;\n for we read of none without a nobility, no, not one, that I can\n recollect, without a hereditary nobility; ... It would be an\n improvement in the affairs of society, probably, if the hereditary\n legal descent could be avoided; and this experiment the Americans\n have tried. But in this case a nobility must and will exist,\n though without the name, as really as in countries where it is\n hereditary.[330]\n\nThe mortal weakness of democracy, Adams agreed with Madison and the\nFederalists generally, lay in faction, a disease which in the nature of\nthe case he regarded as incurable. The use of party power other than\njustly was factional, and because the mass of men do not set justice\nabove present interest, the unbridled rule of the majority drives\nstraight towards mass tyranny. Despoiled by the superior ability of the\naristocracy, the exploited plebeians fight back blindly; and where the\nconstitution of government permits them to band together in a political\nparty, they override the rights of the minority as ruthlessly as the\nlatter before had denied the rights of the majority. Aristocratic\nexploitation leads to democratic leveling; and the resultant anarchy is\nbut prelude to the rise of another aristocracy to repeat the unhappy\nprocess.\n\n The passions and desires of the majority of the representatives\n being in their nature insatiable and unlimited by any thing within\n their own breasts, and having nothing to control them without, will\n crave more and more indulgence, and, as they have the power, they\n will have the gratification.[331]\n\n If you give more than a share in the sovereignty to the democrats,\n that is, if you give them the command or preponderance in the\n sovereignty, that is, the legislature, they will vote all property\n out of the hands of you aristocrats, and if they let you escape\n with your lives, it will be more humanity, consideration, and\n generosity than any triumphant democracy ever displayed since the\n creation. And what will follow? The aristocracy among the democrats\n will take your places, and treat their fellows as severely and\n sternly as you have treated them.[332]\n\nThe end of every democratic experiment, Adams pointed out, has been the\nman on horseback. So inevitably does democracy culminate in despotism,\nthat \u201cin reality, the word democracy signifies nothing more nor less\nthan a nation of people without any government at all, and before any\nconstitution is instituted.\u201d[333] \u201cDemocracy never has been and never\ncan be so desirable as aristocracy or monarchy, but while it lasts,\nis more bloody than either. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It\nsoon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy\nthat did not commit suicide.\u201d \u201cThe proposition that the people are\nthe best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the\nworst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge,\nact, think, or will, as a political body. Individuals have conquered\nthemselves; nations and large bodies never.\u201d[334]\n\nHaving thus examined the major doctrines of the French democratic\nschool, namely, that men are good by nature, that the social end\nis liberty, equality, fraternity, and that social well-being will\nresult from an appeal to reason, Adams had cleared the problem of\nwhat he regarded as misconceptions, and was ready to lay out a\nsystem of government which should demonstrate his skill in political\narchitecture. The determining factor in laying down the main lines was\nsufficiently clear. Since property lies at the root of the problem\nof government, the business of devising a just and stable system of\ngovernment resolves itself into the question, What shall be done about\nproperty? As an orthodox Whig Adams found part of his answer ready\nto hand. With Locke he believed that property rights are sacred, and\nthat it is a chief business of government to protect private property\nagainst unjust expropriation. The security of property may be taken as\nthe measure of the stability of government. \u201cThe moment the idea is\nadmitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of\nGod, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect\nit, anarchy and tyranny commence.\u201d[335] \u201cThe very name of a republic\nimplies, that the property of the people should be represented in\nthe legislature, and decide the rule of justice,\u201d he argued, quoting\nCicero.[336] Moreover, the futility of any other arrangement was\naxiomatic in his philosophy. If property is not granted representation,\nit will usurp it; if attacked, it will know how to defend itself; and\nthe end will be the setting up of an oligarchy on the ruins of the\nrepublic. But if Adams agreed with Hamilton that the state should\ndeal tenderly with the rights and interests of property, he refused\nto go with the latter in his sole concern for the wealthy. Greater\nproperty interests must be held in due balance with the smaller, for\nif unchecked the strong will drive on to ruthless exploitation of the\nweak, and society will be endangered from the top as in a democracy it\nis endangered from the bottom. It was this desire for a mean between\noligarchy or monarchy on the one hand, and democracy on the other, that\ndetermined his choice of a republican form of government.\n\nThe difficult problem of property-power in the state, Adams was\nconvinced, could be solved justly and permanently only by a judicious\nsystem of balanced interests. Subjected, as every government must be,\nto a persistent stress of rival interests, it must be constructed with\ncalculated nicety, or the structure would fall of its own weight;\nand the sole principle, he believed, is that of the Gothic arch--the\nprinciple of thrust and counter-thrust. Provide in such manner that the\nselfishness of one group in society shall be neutralized by the counter\nselfishness of other groups, let the buttress support the arch at its\nweakest point, and upon such an equilibrium of counterforces great\nvaults and noble towers may be erected. It is the apotheosis of the\nsystem of checks and balances.\n\n It is agreed that \u201cthe end of all government is the good and ease\n of the people, in a secure enjoyment of their rights, without\n oppression\u201d; but it must be remembered, that the rich are _people_\n as well as the poor; that they have rights as well as others; that\n they have as clear and as sacred a right to their large property\n as others have to theirs which is smaller; that oppression to them\n is as possible and as wicked as to others. The rich, therefore,\n ought to have an effectual barrier in the constitution against\n being robbed, plundered, and murdered, as well as the poor; and\n this can never be without an independent senate. The poor should\n have a bulwark against the same dangers and oppressions; and this\n can never be without a house of representatives of the people. But\n neither the rich nor the poor can be defended by their respective\n guardians in the constitution, without an executive power, vested\n with a negative, equal to either, to hold the balance even between\n them, and decide when they cannot agree.[337]\n\nSuch in brief was the master principle of that system of mixed\ngovernment which John Adams advocated so persistently in the teeth\nof the popular demand for a simpler, more responsive form. It based\nitself frankly upon the dogma of the class struggle; it provided each\nclass--as he recognized them in his simple social analysis--with a\nlegislative arm with which to defend itself; and it set as arbiter\nbetween them an executive, carefully selected, who was supposed to\nrepresent that abstract _tertium quid_, the public. The keynote is\nstruck in a line from Pope set on the title-page of the _Defence_--\u201cAll\nNature\u2019s difference keeps all Nature\u2019s peace.\u201d That Adams greatly\nadmired his handiwork is beyond doubt; that he was intellectually\nhonest with himself is very likely true; but that there is a note of\ndisingenuousness, a failure to take into account his pronounced bias\ntowards property interest, is certain. There was ample ground for the\npopular dislike of his theory. This is not the place to enter upon an\nexamination of the system of checks and balances, nor to insist that\nany such system becomes in practice an impossibility. It is more to\nthe point to remark upon certain fallacies in his theory which Adams\nhimself must have seen if his mind had been quite free from bias.\n\nAdams\u2019s intelligent analysis of social forces should have saved him\nfrom the major fallacy of the doctrine of checks and balances. In\nimposing the doctrine of a separation of powers upon the doctrine of\nproperty power, he effectively denied the validity of the latter.\nAssuming for the sake of the argument that the Senate will represent\nproperty, what reason justified the assumption that the House would\nrepresent the small men, or that the President would speak for the\nwhole? If property is sovereign, as Adams maintained--\u201cHarrington\nhas shown that power always follows property. This I believe to be\nas infallible a maxim in politics, as that action and reaction are\nequal, is in mechanics\u201d[338]--will it not rule the House equally with\nthe Senate? above all, will it not control so important an officer as\nthe President? The theory that the President represents an abstract\npublic is a disingenuous political fiction; in the light of Adams\u2019s\ntheory of economic determinism it is a gross absurdity. Moreover, Adams\ninvalidated his entire system by refusing to provide the necessary\nmachinery by which the House could represent the small man. In denying\nmanhood suffrage, he eliminated the proletarian and the renter from\nthe political equation, and left them without political power; in his\ndefinition the small man was the freeholder, the representative of\nthe middle class. The House, therefore, equally with the Senate, was\nthe mouthpiece of property interests; the former more likely to be\nrepresentative of land, the latter of capital.\n\nWhere did Adams get the major ideas of his political philosophy?[339]\nAn omnivorous reader, he gathered from many sources, and his memory was\na well-stocked storehouse of fact and theory. As a young man he was\ndisciple of Locke and the natural-rights school, but as he grew older\nhe abandoned the natural-rights theory. His interpretation of human\nnature he took over from Machiavelli, Hobbes and Hume, discovering in\ntheir psychology of self-interest and emulation--often mean but many\ntimes admirable--a conception in harmony with the Calvinism of his\nearly training. He owed much to Bolingbroke, whom he read five times,\nbut to James Harrington, the Commonwealth intellectual, he turned with\na zest of discovery so great that he may not unjustly be called one\nof Harrington\u2019s disciples. From the _Oceana_ he drew so abundantly\nthat the most casual student of political theory must remark his\nindebtedness. Many of the major doctrines of Adams, which by dint of\niteration have become associated with his name, were taken straight\nout of Harrington: such as the doctrine of a natural aristocracy; the\neconomic basis of sovereignty, discovered in the close relation of\nproperty to power; the necessity of effecting a balance between rival\ninterests, with the ideal state rendered static by a nice balance of\ngovernmental machinery; the conception of government by laws and not\nby men; and finally, the historical method of approach, the cautious\nappeal to past experience. Since Harrington\u2019s time many of these\nideas had been restated: the defense of property rights by Locke; the\nprinciple of the separation of powers and the historical method by\nMontesquieu; the psychology of emulation by Hume and Robert Wallace,\nthe latter of whom is another Adams in his thesis, \u201cLust of power\nsets man against his neighbor to the profit of the rich.\u201d But in spite\nof these later reinterpretations and his own additions, John Adams\nremained essentially a seventeenth-century republican, preferring with\nMilton the rule of the aristocracy to that of plebeians, and hating\nall Jacobin radicalisms as the spawn of a dangerous romanticism that\ndisregarded the plain teachings of history and the admonitions of\ncommon sense.\n\nThough Adams was fiercely assailed as an advocate of class government,\nhe was far less hostile to agrarianism than was Hamilton. He was no\nbeliever in unchecked government by wealth. His honest realism taught\nhim the sophistry of Hamilton\u2019s assumption that gentlemen of property\nare equally gentlemen of principle, and that wealth voluntarily\nabdicates selfish interest. He feared the aggressions of the rich as\nmuch as the turbulence of the poor. The bulk of his property was in\nland, and his sympathies were enlisted on the side of a law-abiding\nagrarianism, rather than on the side of a speculative capitalism.[340]\nHe would put down vigorously all such leveling as was implied in\nShays\u2019s program, and the repudiations of Rhode Island; but he would not\npermit the powerful to exploit the poor through the instrumentality\nof government. This may explain in part his hostility to Hamilton and\nhis partial sympathy with Jefferson. He stood between the two rival\neconomies, arguing for a system of government that should be neither\nagrarian nor capitalistic, but should maintain a static mean; and\nin consequence he pleased nobody. His four years in the presidency\ndisrupted the Federalist party, and prepared the way for the triumph\nof Jefferson. Though tactless and blundering in dealing with trimming\npoliticians, he was an honest and courageous man, and his many sterling\nqualities merit a larger recognition than has been accorded them by a\ngrudging posterity. In spite of his dogmatisms and inconsistencies he\nremains the most notable political thinker--with the possible exception\nof John C. Calhoun--among American statesmen.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[313] _Works_, Vol. II, p. 51.\n\n[314] _Ibid._, p. 298.\n\n[315] Brief of speech submitting his plan of Constitution, in _Works_,\nVol. II, p. 415.\n\n[316] _Elliot\u2019s Debates_, Vol. V, p. 244.\n\n[317] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 422.\n\n[318] _Works of Jefferson_, Ford edition, Vol. I, p. 165.\n\n[319] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 257.\n\n[320] _Works_, Vol. III, pp. 207-208.\n\n[321] \u201cAutobiography,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, p. 310.\n\n[322] R. G. Adams, _Political Ideas of the American Revolution_,\nTrinity College Press, 1922, pp. 92-93.\n\n[323] _Gazette of the United States_, March, 1790; quoted in Forman,\n\u201cThe Political Activities of Philip Freneau,\u201d in _Johns Hopkins Studies\nin History and Political Science_, XX, Nos. 9-10.\n\n[324] _Works_, Vol. VI, p. 272, note.\n\n[325] _Works_, Vol. IV, p. 408.\n\n[326] See \u201cDefence of the Constitution, etc.,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. VI, pp.\n9, 57, 97.\n\n[327] Letter to John Taylor, in _Works_, Vol. VI, p. 516.\n\n[328] _Ibid._, pp. 508-509.\n\n[329] _Ibid._, p. 508.\n\n[330] \u201cDefence of the Constitution, etc.,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. VI, pp.\n124-125.\n\n[331] _Ibid._, p. 64.\n\n[332] \u201cLetter to John Taylor,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. VI, p. 516.\n\n[333] _Works_, Vol. VI, p. 211.\n\n[334] See \u201cDefence of the Constitution, etc.,\u201d and in particular Vol.\nIV of _Works_.\n\n[335] \u201cDefence of the Constitution, etc.,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. VI, p. 9.\n\n[336] _Works_, Vol. IV, p. 295.\n\n[337] \u201cA Defence of the Constitution, etc.,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. VI, p. 65.\n\n[338] _Works_, Vol. IX, p. 376.\n\n[339] For a detailed examination of the sources of his philosophy, see\nthe excellent discussion in C. M. Walsh, _The Political Science of John\nAdams_, Chapters XV, XVI.\n\n[340] See Beard, _The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy_, p.\n317.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: Political Democracy Gets Under Way \u2022 1787-1800\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Impact of the French Revolution\n\n\nThe dramatic impact of the French Revolution upon a situation which\nfor months had been overwrought entailed disturbing consequences.\nWithin a week after the setting up of the new government there began\nthat long series of events in France which carried far and gave birth\nto extraordinary hopes and fears; and throughout the remaining years\nof the century the French movement exercised a determining influence\nupon American parties and issues. In the words of Colonel Higginson, it\n\u201cdrew a red-hot ploughshare through the history of America as well as\nthrough that of France. It not merely divided parties, but molded them;\ngave them their demarcations, their watchwords and their bitterness.\nThe home issues were for a time subordinate, collateral; the real party\nlines were established on the other side of the Atlantic.\u201d[341] The\nstirring of political passions afresh resulted in greatly clarifying\npolitical philosophies, and in rendering more exact, political\nalignments that before had been vague and inchoate.\n\nThe creative influence of the French Revolution upon the western world\nresulted from the enormous impetus which it gave to the movement to\ndemocratize American life and institutions. In no other country to\nwhich the sparks of revolution drifted was there such quantity of\ncombustible material ready for the torch; and in setting afire this\nnative material the French upheaval put a stop to the aristocratic\nreaction which had carried everything before it during the previous\ndecade. It spread widely the spirit of leveling, and destroyed the\nlast hope of the \u201cmonarchy men.\u201d But it did more--it gave a wide\nand popular currency to the ideal of democracy. Before the French\nRevolution the American mind had been curiously sensitive over the term\ndemocrat; even Samuel Adams had been driven by expediency to reject\nthe word, and, amongst the radicals, few had the boldness to avow\nthemselves democrats. By common consent the term had been covered with\nopprobrium; democracy was no other than a _bellua multorum capitum_,\nthe hydra-headed monster of earlier Tories, licentious, irreligious,\nthe very spawn of anarchy. But now the old conceptions were rapidly\nswept away, and democracy was accepted by liberals as the ultimate form\nof political organization, to which the American experiment was to be\ndedicated.\n\nIn thus imparting social idealism to political speculation, the\nRevolution not only elevated the democratic ideal, but it provided a\nbody of philosophy, the lack of which had so seriously handicapped\nthe democrats during the great debate. And this new philosophy gained\nextraordinarily wide currency in America under the stimulus of\nrevolutionary enthusiasm. It made direct appeal to the vast majority\nwho still remained among the political disinherited; it aroused\nthem to political consciousness and intensified the class alignment\nthat followed. The country divided sharply between left and right,\nand political discussion became more intense as the French movement\ndeveloped. The English declaration of war upon France produced a crisis\nin America, and sharpened the party cleavage. The Federalists went\nwith Great Britain and turned fiercely upon the democratic movement,\nassailing it with increasing venom. The democrats, on the other\nhand, became French partisans, and denounced all aristocrats with\ntrue republican fervor, becoming more radical as French Jacobinism\ndeveloped. Never before had political passion risen to such heights in\nAmerica, not even during the early days of the American Revolution;\nand never before had political ideas taken such hold upon the common\npeople. Out of this increasing ferment emerged certain consequences of\nvast significance to the democratic movement: not only was an effective\nbarrier erected against the further spread of aristocratic Federalism,\nbut certain of its most characteristic doctrines disintegrated and\ndisappeared. The current dogma of faction gave way to a more democratic\ninterpretation of the majority will; the doctrine of the ethical\nabsolute--the _vox justiciae, vox dei_--quietly yielded to the more\npractical conception of expediency; and the lately resurrected ideal of\nan augmented state received a temporary check, the majority preferring\nto intrust power to local bodies rather than to a central authority.\n\nAt the beginning the sympathy of America as a whole went heartily\nwith the revolutionary movement in France. The adherence of Lafayette\njustified the cause to the most conservative. But with the advent of\nthe Girondists to power a division in American sentiment appeared:\nHamilton, John Adams, and other extreme Federalists drew back in\ndisapproval; and with the rise of the Jacobins, party cleavage\nbecame sharp and bitter. All over America the liberals organized\ndemocratic clubs, instituted committees of correspondence, and actively\nforwarded the new leveling principles. The attack on ceremonial and\ntitles of address in Congress, of which Maclay has left record in\nhis _Journal_, was only a skirmish in the general war levied upon\nsocial distinctions.[342] It was to these democratic societies that\nCitizen Gen\u00eat made appeal; they rallied about him, toasted the French\nprinciples, and assured him of the warm support of the American people.\nThe recall of Gen\u00eat was a blow to the American Jacobins, and they\nretaliated by direct appeals to the people to repudiate the act of the\nadministration. Stung by their criticism of his policy of neutrality,\nWashington denounced them as \u201ccertain self-created societies\u201d that\noffensively \u201cassumed the tone of condemnation\u201d of governmental\npolicies; and went so far as to imply that such criticism was\nseditious. It was ill-advised for it was like a torch to dry leaves.\nThe Federalists fell upon the democrats with gusto. They denounced the\ninfidel French mobocracy and its American offspring. They declaimed\nagainst \u201csecret organizations,\u201d imputing to them every evil known to\nSatan: the democratic clubs were called \u201cdemoniacal clubs,\u201d \u201cnurseries\nof sedition,\u201d \u201chotbeds of atheism,\u201d \u201cspawn of faction\u201d; and common\ndecency required that they be put down with a strong hand. In short the\nmost eminent Federalists joined heartily in the silly work of turning\nthe country into a bedlam.\n\nA characteristic _odium theologicum_ quickly gathered about the\nmovement and extended to the whole democratic philosophy. Well-meaning\nbut ignorant gentlemen saw in Jacobinism only atheism and immorality.\nJohn Adams professed not to know \u201cwhat to make of a republic of\nthirty million atheists,\u201d and he attributed the unhappy result to the\n\u201cencyclopedists and economists, Diderot and D\u2019Alembert, Voltaire\nand Rousseau,\u201d with their mad doctrines of the \u201cequality of persons\nand property.\u201d But the more violently such men protested, the more\ninsidiously \u201cthe infidel and irreligious spirit\u201d spread through the\nland. It found its way into such strongholds of orthodoxy as Harvard\nCollege, to the scandal of the respectable; and as a counterblast to\nPaine\u2019s _Age of Reason_, a copy of Watson\u2019s _Apology for the Bible_\nwas presented to every Harvard undergraduate, with what results in\ngodliness no record remains to tell. On both sides there was more\nheat than light, more passion than reason, and in consequence such a\ntremendous hue and cry was worked up that the noise carried to the\nfarthest outposts of settlement, and brought home to the most sluggish\nsome realization of the significance of the world-wide movement of\ndemocracy then under way, and left few quite indifferent to the import\nof the tricolor cockade. It was the first great popularization of\ndemocratic ideals in America and when the hubbub finally subsided it\nwas apparent to all that democracy had made a definite and stable\nadvance, from which it must move forward to still other vantage points.\nOnly a few unregenerate aristocrats shared with Gouverneur Morris his\nreasons for joy at the final overthrow of Napoleon: \u201c\u2019Tis done, the\nlong agony is over. The Bourbons are restored. France reposes in the\narms of her legitimate prince\u201d; or who agreed with Robert Treat Paine\nin calling the democratic movement of the nineties \u201cthe melancholy\nrecord of our national degradation.\u201d The Federalists still hated\nJefferson and his \u201crevolution of 1800,\u201d but a triumphant agrarianism\nhad broken them and their power for the time being.\n\nSo tremendous a movement naturally developed its literature of\npropaganda in America as elsewhere. In the main this was little more\nthan an echo of the old-world debate, and, in particular, of the\ncontroversy between Burke and Paine which deeply stirred the entire\nEnglish reading-public. Among the innumerable pamphlets, four works\nmay be regarded as representative: Paine\u2019s _Rights of Man_, Barlow\u2019s\n_Advice to the Privileged Orders_, John Adams\u2019s _Discourses on Davila_,\nand John Quincy Adams\u2019s _Publicola_; and of these we need here concern\nourselves only with _The Rights of Man_ and _Publicola_, which clearly\nreveal the divergent political philosophies of the two parties. The\nchief point of difference is the familiar issue, so acrimoniously dealt\nwith during the debate over the Constitution, the question of minority\nrights as opposed to the majority will. Paine had made wide appeal\nwith his argument of social expediency against Burke\u2019s doctrine of\npre-contract. His celebrated dictum, \u201cThat which a whole nation chuses\nto do, it has a right to do,\u201d if granted, must destroy the reasoning\nnot of Burke alone, but of American Federalism, for it rested on an\ninterpretation of sovereignty that was vital to the question. To Paine\nsovereignty was necessarily inherent in the present majority will; to\nassume that it rested elsewhere, whether in crown or judiciary or past\ngenerations, was to deny the fundamental tenet of democracy. There can\nbe no trusteeship superior to the sovereign people, he asserted--no\nconstitution beyond their rightful power to alter or destroy.\n\nIt was against this doctrine of the present sovereignty of the\nmajority will that eleven articles signed _Publicola_, and appearing\nin the _Columbian Centinel_ of Boston from June 8 to July 27, 1791,\nwere directed. They were from the pen of John Quincy Adams, then in\nhis early twenties and lately admitted to practice at the Boston\nbar. Written with considerable skill, they were at once accepted as\nthe most effective reply offered to Paine\u2019s argument; but they have\nlost their appeal today and seem rather slight and tenuous essays in\nFederalistic legalism. The outstanding note is concern for minority\nrights. To permit the majority will to function unchecked seemed to\nthis young lawyer to open wide the door to tyranny. It is justified by\nno political philosophy, he argued, certainly not by the doctrine of\nnatural rights. If all men are endowed by their creator with certain\ninalienable rights, it follows that such rights must suffer abridgment\nfrom no power, whether monarchical or democratic. Power may override\nthose rights temporarily, but power and rights are not synonymous\nterms. The gist of Adams\u2019s argument is thus set down:\n\n This principle, that a whole nation has a right to do whatever it\n pleases, cannot in any sense whatever be admitted as true. The\n eternal and immutable laws of justice and of morality are paramount\n to all human legislation. The violation of those laws is certainly\n within the power, but it is not among the rights of nations. The\n power of a nation is the collected power of all the individuals\n which compose it.... If, therefore, a majority ... are bound by no\n law human or divine, and have no other rule but their sovereign\n will and pleasure to direct them, what possible security can any\n citizen of the nation have for the protection of his unalienable\n rights? The principles of liberty must still be the sport of\n arbitrary power, and the hideous form of despotism must lay aside\n the diadem and the scepter, only to assume the party-colored\n garments of democracy.[343]\n\nConcerning the repository of the \u201ceternal and immutable laws of justice\nand morality,\u201d which are paramount to all human legislation, Adams\nis as vague as other Federalists; but he seems to imply that it is\nthe body of English Common law, and that abstract justice is somehow\ninterwoven with the British constitution. In other words, his argument\nconducts straight to the familiar doctrine of _vox justiciae, vox\ndei_, with its implied sovereignty of the judiciary. In this, with\nother thinkers of the abstract justice school, Adams was upholding\nthe principle of judicial trusteeship in opposition to the democratic\nprinciple of the majority will. The distinction reveals exactly the\ndifferent positions of the two parties: the democrats accepted the\nprinciple of utilitarian expediency; the Federalists espoused the\ndoctrine of the ethical absolute as the final law. To a generation\nstill strict in religious professions, the doctrine of the ethical\nabsolute made strong appeal; but the democrats attacked it so sharply\nthat it survived only by skillfully metamorphosing itself into judicial\nsanctions.\n\nThe final outcome of the long acrimonious discussion of fundamental\nprinciples was a curious reversal of positions: whereas the democrats\nwere charged with being political and social romantics, appealing to\na false psychology and following abstract theory, they were in fact\nidealists who pointed to the sordid facts of economic and social\nreality, in justification of new programs. No change could make\nthings worse. The Federalists, on the other hand, finding the appeal\nto realism making against them, and fearful of the majority that was\ndiscontented with the _status quo_, took their stand upon abstract\nprinciple that was cousin german to a rigid legalism. It was a\nsignificant impasse to which they were brought by the exigencies of the\npolitical struggle.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[341] Quoted in Hazen, \u201cContemporary American Opinion of the French\nRevolution,\u201d in _Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and\nPolitical Science_, Extra Vol. XVI. The material in this excellent\nstudy has been used freely in the present chapter.\n\n[342] For an amusing account see Hazen, _ibid._, pp. 209-219.\n\n[343] _The Writings of John Quincy Adams_, edited by W. C. Ford, Vol.\nI, pp. 70-71.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Political Thinkers \u2022 The French Group\n\n\nThe change which came over political thought in America in consequence\nof the rise of French Jacobin philosophy is not inadequately revealed\nin the writings of two men, quite dissimilar in antecedents and\ntraining, but alike in fundamental purpose--Thomas Paine and Thomas\nJefferson. Both were speculative thinkers, profoundly in sympathy with\nFrench revolutionary ideals: but the former was detached from local\npatriotisms and national interests, a delegate at large in the cause\nof human rights, concerned with spreading the gospel of freedom in\nall lands; the latter remained wholly American, and while a keenly\ninterested spectator of the French upheaval, he was primarily concerned\nto discover principles that would apply to native conditions and\nfurther the cause of American democracy. Paine therefore became the\npopular disseminator of the philosophy of republicanism, and Jefferson,\nthe practical statesman embodying it in political programs. Warm\nfriends, their influence became closely interwoven during the years\nwhen agrarian democracy was gathering its strength to strike down the\nrule of Federalism.\n\n\nI \u2022 Tom Paine \u2022 Republican Pamphleteer\n\nNo more striking figure emerges from the times than the figure of the\nThetford Quaker. English in birth and rearing, in middle life Paine\ncame to embody the republican spirit of the American revolution;\nand that spirit he made it his after business to carry overseas and\nspread among the discontented of all lands. He was the first modern\ninternationalist, at home wherever rights were to be won or wrongs\ncorrected. \u201cMy country is the world,\u201d he asserted proudly, \u201cto do good,\nmy religion.\u201d Throughout his later life he was a fearless skirmisher on\nthe outposts of democracy--another \u201cFree born John\u201d Lilburne, seeking\nto complete the great work begun and thwarted in an earlier century;\nand his career remains a stirring record of a time when revolution\nthreatened to sweep away the power and privilege of all kings and\naristocracies. Naturally his zeal cost him dear in reputation. The\npassions of all who feared the loss of sinecures gathered about his\nhead, and he became the victim of an _odium theologicum et politicum_,\nwithout parallel in our history. The Tories hunted him in packs,\nand their execration and vituperation outran all decency. In London\nclubs it became the fashion for gentlemen to wear TP nails in their\nboot-heels to witness how they trampled on his base principles. He\nwas proscribed and banished, and his books burnt by the hangman. He\nwas regarded as worse than a common felon and outlaw, because more\ndangerous. In America gentlemen echoed the common detestation--to be a\nPaine-hater was a badge of respectability. \u201cThe filthy Tom Paine,\u201d John\nAdams called him, and the phrase stuck like a burr to his reputation.\nBut \u201creason, like time,\u201d as Paine remarked \u201cwill make its own way,\u201d and\nthe years are bringing a larger measure of justice to him.\n\nLike Hamilton, Paine was an alien, but endowed with a heritage quite\nunlike that of the brilliant boy from the West Indies. When he landed\nin Philadelphia in the second week in December, 1774,[344] he was\nin his thirty-seventh year, and had seemingly made shipwreck of his\nlife. He had been schooled in misfortune and was marked as a social\ninefficient. A broken staymaker and tobacconist, he had twice been\nremoved from the office of petty exciseman for what today would be\ncalled unionizing activity. He had separated from his wife, and his\nmean and petty environment seemed to offer no hope of a decent living.\nOne stroke of good fortune had come to him, when as a delegate from\nhis union on some business with Parliament, he made the acquaintance\nof Franklin, who was taken with \u201cthose wonderful eyes of his,\u201d and\nadvised America as a likely place for getting on. So provided with\nlittle more than Franklin\u2019s letter of introduction, he set sail for new\nworlds, cherishing the unmilitant plan of setting up in Philadelphia\na seminary of polite learning for young ladies. But the times proved\nunpropitious for such a venture. He found himself in a world hesitating\nfearfully on the brink of revolution, the electric atmosphere of which\nhe found strangely congenial. He at once threw himself whole-heartedly\ninto the colonial dispute, quickly seized the main points, mastered\nthe arguments, and thirteen months after his arrival published _Common\nSense_, a pamphlet that was to spread his name and fame throughout\nAmerica.\n\nThe amazing influence of _Common Sense_ on a public opinion long\nbefogged by legal quibble flowed from its direct and skillful appeal to\nmaterial interests. For the first time in a tedious, inconsequential\ndebate, it was openly asserted that governmental policies rest on\neconomic foundations; that the question of American independence was\nonly a question of expediency, and must be determined in the light of\neconomic advantage. Government is no more than a utility, and that\npolicy which was most likely to secure freedom and security \u201cwith the\nleast expense and greatest benefit,\u201d must be preferred. The point at\nissue before the American people, therefore, was whether a more useful\narrangement would result from continuing the old connection with\nEngland, or from setting up for themselves; and it must be decided,\nnot in the court room or council chambers, but in the countinghouse\nand market place, in the field and shop, wherever plain Americans\nwere making a living. Let the common people consult their own needs,\nand determine the case without regard to legal or constitutional\nprecedents. It was a simple matter to be judged in the light of common\nsense and their particular interests.\n\nTo further clear thinking on this fundamental matter Paine commented\non the economic consequences to America of the English connection.\nThroughout colonial history, he asserted with some disregard to\nfact, dependence had resulted in disadvantage to America; England\nhad systematically exploited the colonies and hampered development.\nWhatever prosperity had been won heretofore, had been won in spite of\nEnglish hostility and interference; the peculiar economic position of\nthe colonies had proved their best reliance in the past, and would\nprove still more advantageous in the future, if America were free\nfrom jealous, paternal restrictions. What reason was there to expect\ngenerous treatment from a power that had never shown generosity in past\ndealings? How skillful was the appeal to colonial self-interest is\nrevealed in such passages as these:\n\n We are already greater than the King wishes us to be, and will he\n not hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring the matter to one\n point, Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper\n power to govern us? Whoever says _No_, to this question, is an\n Independent, for independency means no more than this, whether we\n shall make our own laws, or, whether the King, the greatest enemy\n this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us _there shall be no\n laws but such as I like_.\n\n America would have flourished as much, and probably much more,\n had no European power taken any notice of her. The commerce by\n which she hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and\n will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.\n As Europe is our market for trade we ought to form no partial\n connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America\n to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do\n while by her dependence on Britain she is made the makeweight in\n the scale of British politics.\n\n Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our\n imported goods must be paid for buy them where we will.... \u2019Tis as\n great folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law as for land.\n\nBut Paine well knew that self-interest may be so clouded by prejudice\nas not to see the way its nose is pointing. Though the colonial\ntalked of his grievances, he remained colonial in psychology, held\nin unconscious subjection to English traditions. He was in the\nclutch of outworn loyalties--loyalty to the crown and loyalty to the\nBritish constitution; and to this difficult problem Paine addressed\nhimself with great skill. To a republican, as Paine seems to have\nbeen from his landing in America, the odium which George III had\nincurred was a heaven-sent opportunity. In order to strike at the\nmonarchical principle, it was only necessary to point out that the\nfolly of the King was the best commentary upon the foolishness of\nhereditary monarchy. The boldness and audacity of Paine\u2019s attack\non the king-principle must have added greatly to the popularity of\n_Common Sense_ along the frontier. It was the first clear, far-carrying\nappeal for republicanism addressed to American ears. How successful\nit was, how ruthlessly it stripped away the divinity that doth hedge\na king, laying bare the stupidity of the king-cult, is suggested by\nthe remarkable change in the American attitude towards monarchy that\na few months brought about. After the appearance of _Common Sense_,\nmiddle and lower class Americans shed their colonial loyalties like a\nlast year\u2019s garment, and thenceforth they regarded the pretentions of\nkings as little better than flummery. King George\u2019s disgraced exciseman\nhad his revenge; he had thrust his royal master out of the colonial\naffection and destroyed the monarchical principle in America.\n\nA more difficult task remained, that of instituting \u201can inquiry into\nthe _constitutional errors_ of the English form of government,\u201d in\norder to prove what gains would result if America took herself out of\nthe English system. Here Paine faced, single-handed, a solid phalanx\nof lawyers. He was the first pamphleteer to question the excellence of\na constitution that was proclaimed by American Tories as the wonder of\nthe world and the envy of other nations. In the acrimonious disputes\nbetween 1765 and 1775, this was the single point on which all professed\nto agree. A vast deal of laudation had been uttered; innumerable legal\npamphlets had been written; and no colonial had had the temerity to\nquestion the adequacy of the British constitution to colonial needs.\nAnd now came this republican, with penetrating comment on its origin\nand working, to disturb the common complacency by pointing out how ill\nfitted it was to answer the needs of America. It was a telling attack,\nmade with skill and shrewd insight; and it had a great part in arousing\na bitter antagonism to the English system in the minds of the American\nyeomanry.\n\nPaine was not a constitutional historian, but he had a keen eye for\nrealities. The fundamental fallacy of the English system, he asserted,\nlay in the so-called \u201cmixt aristocracy,\u201d which was presumed to gather\nthe wisdom of the realm in council with the king, but which was no\nmore than a convenient arrangement for dividing the spoils. The House\nof Commons had grown out of the struggles of feudal barons against\nthe king. It presumed to speak for the common people, but the rights\nof the people were thus recognized only to be thwarted by the old\ntyrannies. The \u201cRepublican materials, in the persons of the Commons,\non whose virtue depends the freedom of England,\u201d were held in check by\nthe \u201cremains of aristocratical tyranny in the person of the Peers,\u201d\nand further restrained by the \u201cremains of Monarchical tyranny in the\nperson of the King.\u201d From the play of these elements arose the system\nof checks and balances which placed control in the hands of landed\nproperty. It was based on the assumption that \u201cthe King is not to\nbe trusted without being looked after,\u201d and that \u201cthe Commons, by\nbeing appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of\nconfidence than the Crown.\u201d But in spite of the supposed balance \u201cthe\nprovision is unequal to the task,\u201d for the Crown, as the dispenser of\nplaces and pensions, is more than a match for Commons in the game of\npolitics.\n\n The will of the king; is as much the law of the land in Britain\n as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding\n directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the\n formidable shape of an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles\n the First hath only made kings more subtle--not more just.\n\nThis was but the beginning of a long assault on the British\nconstitution which was to engage him much in after life. _Common Sense_\nwas a pronouncement of the new philosophy of republicanism that was\ntaking firm hold of the American mind, and which the French Revolution\nwas to spread so widely. It was a notable contribution, of which Paine\nto the end of his life was justly proud.\n\nAs he came to America almost casually, with no conscious revolutionary\nintent, so in the critical year 1787 he returned to Europe with the\npeaceful intention of perfecting an iron bridge on which he was\nengaged. True to his Quaker breeding he was more interested in the\narts of peace than of war, but again circumstance was too much for\nhim. Before he had completed his bridge, delegates from France came to\ninvite him to a seat in the National Assembly. A new day was rising\nthere; the constitution of a freer order was being constructed, and so\ncompetent a workman could not be spared. In the thick of that eager\nworld of constitution-making, Paine finally clarified his political\nphilosophy and gave it wide currency. He became the pamphleteer of\nrevolution to the English-speaking world, to Philadelphia and New York\nequally with London. Yet he was never an extremist; he was a Girondist\nrather than a Jacobin, and when the Girondists were overthrown and a\ndictatorship set up, he remained a constitutionalist. By the Jacobin\nradicals he came to be regarded as a reactionary from his willingness\nto retain monarchy in France; but Paine was a practical Englishman with\na shrewd judgment of what was politically possible, and he refused to\noutrun reasonable expectations of accomplishment.\n\nIt was the simplicity and clarity of his political philosophy that\nmade its appeal so widely effective. His thinking turned on the two\nfundamental questions, the source of government and the purpose for\nwhich it is instituted among men; and the major premise on which\nhe reared his logic was the thesis that sovereignty inheres in the\nmajority will. At the basis of his philosophy was the natural-rights\ntheory, but given a fresh significance and vitality by the assertion\nof the doctrine of continuous reaffirmation of the social compact.\nInstead of deriving the sovereign state from a fictitious compact,\npresumably entered into in a remote past, he derived it--as Roger\nWilliams had done a century and half before--from a continuous compact\nreaffirmed by each generation. With the birth of each individual appear\nfresh rights which no pre-contract can justly circumscribe or nullify;\nancestral arrangements are valid only to the extent that they are\nacceptable to the living. Hence it follows, first, that the general\nbody of the people may at any time remake the fundamental law, and\nbring it into accord with present desire; and second, that there can be\nno law superior to this popular will expressed through the majority.\nHis most celebrated dictum--\u201cThat which a nation chuses to do it has a\nright to do\u201d--a dictum that aroused a bitterer hostility than any other\nof his pronouncements--was the logical expression of his republicanism\nthat differentiated between the sovereign people and their agency, the\ngovernment; and this in turn he justified by a celebrated saying out\nof Swift, \u201cGovernment is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of\nmany heads.\u201d Like Jefferson, he would not have government kept from the\npeople, the agent domineer over the principal.\n\nThe purpose of government Paine discovered in the Benthamite principle\nof expediency. If a diffused well-being results from the policies\nof government, such government is justified; but if the tax-levies\nare wasted in unsocial ways, if unjust impositions are levied, if\nexploitation or tyranny results, such government is not justified.\nThe agent has cheated the principal, and must be called to account.\nThe final test of every government Paine found in its concern for\nthe \u201c_res publica_, the public affairs, or the public good\u201d; any\ngovernment that \u201cdoes not make the _res publica_ its whole and sole\nobject, is not a good government.\u201d In its most obvious phase, concern\nfor the _res publica_ means concern for the national economy, and this\nin turn conditions the taxes that shall be levied and the ends for\nwhich they shall be spent--whether upon the arts of peace or war. A\nbeneficent government has no need of standing armies and navies, or an\ninquisitorial police; it is established in the hearts of the people\nand rests securely on the common good will. It is the injustice of\ngovernment that creates armies to defend the earnings of injustice.\nBut every wise government will respect its limitations. As a child of\nthe eighteenth century, Paine hated the leviathan state as a monster\ncreated by a minority to serve the ends of tyranny. The political\nstate he accepted as a present necessity, but he would not have its\nprestige magnified and the temptation to tyranny increased by the cult\nof nationalism. \u201cGovernment is no farther necessary,\u201d he believed,\n\u201cthan to supply the few cases to which society and civilization are not\nconveniently competent.\u201d At best it is an artificial thing.\n\n Formal government makes but a small part of civilized life; and\n when even the best that human wisdom can devise is established, it\n is a thing more in name and idea than in fact.... The more perfect\n civilization is, the less occasion has it for government, because\n the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself....\n All the great laws of society are laws of nature.[345]\n\nThe maturest elaboration of Paine\u2019s political philosophy is found in\n_The Rights of Man_. This extraordinary work, the most influential\nEnglish contribution to the revolutionary movement, was an examination\nof the English constitution in the light of what Paine held were the\ntrue source and ends of government. It is a brilliant reply to Burke,\nwho rested his interpretation of the English constitution on the\nlegal ground of the common law of contract. Following the Revolution\nof 1688, Burke had argued, the English people through their legal\nrepresentatives, entered into a solemn contract, binding \u201cthemselves,\ntheir heirs, and posterities forever,\u201d to certain express terms; and\nneither in law nor in equity were they, of whatever generation, free\nto change those terms except by the consent of both parties to the\ncontract. This was an elaboration of the theory of government tacitly\nheld by the Old Whigs, which derived government from a perpetual civil\ncontract as opposed to the radical doctrine of a revocable social\ncontract; and in attacking it Paine allied himself with such thinkers\nas Price, Priestley, Franklin and Rousseau.[346] He pointed out the\nabsurdity of carrying over the law of private property into the high\nrealm of political principle--to seek to impose the dead past upon the\nliving sovereignty. If sovereignty inhered in the English people in\n1688, it must inhere in the English people in 1793, unless it had been\nviolently wrested from them; no parchment terms of another age can bind\nthat sovereignty other than voluntarily. Over against Burke\u2019s theory of\na single, static contract, Paine set the doctrine of the reaffirmation\nof natural rights. Any generation--as the generation of 1688--is\ncompetent to deal with its affairs as it sees fit, but it cannot barter\naway the rights of those unborn; such a contract on the face of it is\nnull and void.\n\n Every age and generation must be free to act for itself _in\n all cases_ as the ages and generations which preceded it. The\n vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most\n ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.... Every generation is,\n and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions\n require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be\n accommodated.[347]\n\nBurke\u2019s defense fares even worse when the argument is examined in the\nlight of expediency. Illogical as the English system must appear to the\npolitical philosopher, can it plead the justification that it works;\nthat it does well the things it is paid to do; that it makes the _res\npublica_ its main concern? The reply to such questions, Paine believed,\nshould be sought in the condition of the national economy; more\nparticularly by an examination of the account-books of the exchequer.\nThe English people paid annually seventeen millions sterling for the\nmaintenance of government, and what did they get in return? Nine\nmillions of the total went to pay interest on old wars, which in the\nbudget was known as the funded debt; of the remaining eight millions\nthe larger part was spent in new wars and sinecure pensions; whereas\nthe real needs of England--the true _res publica_--were shamelessly\nneglected. The English people got little for their money except new\ndebts to justify new taxes. The poor were even taxed for the benefit\nof the great. Thus my Lord Onslow, who was particularly zealous in\nthe business of proscribing Paine as \u201cthe common enemy of us all,\u201d\ndrew four thousand pounds from the royal chest in sinecures, which\nmade him \u201cthe principal pauper of the neighbourhood, and occasioning a\ngreater expense than the poor, the aged, and the infirm, for ten miles\naround.\u201d[348] Government on the hereditary principle of Burke did not\nappear to advantage in the light of such facts.\n\nThe injustice of aristocratic government, Paine believed, was fast\nbringing it to its \u201crotting time\u201d in England. \u201cThe opinions of men with\nrespect to government are changing fast in all countries; the enormous\nexpense of governments has provoked the people to think, by making\nthem feel.\u201d Englishmen must soon throw aside the outworn monarchical\nsystem and set up a republic. Economics was on the side of revolution.\nThe great work of revising fundamental laws was the pressing business\nof the time. If this could be done peacefully, by means of a national\nconvention, it were well; if not, it would come by means of an uprising\nof the people. It was no lawyer\u2019s business to be determined by the\nlaw of private property, but a practical matter of determining the\nreal will of the nation and putting it into execution. The judgment of\nthe people must be recorded, and the judgment of the people could be\nhad only through an adequate system of representation based on free\npublicity. \u201cI do not believe that the people of England have ever\nbeen fairly and candidly dealt by,\u201d Paine declared. Henceforth they\nmust be taken into full confidence. There must be no more _arcana\nimperii_--\u201cNations can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like\nthose of individuals, are always their defects.\u201d[349]\n\n One of the great advantages of the American Revolution has been,\n that it has led to a discovery of the principles, and laid open the\n imposition of governments. All the revolutions till then had worked\n within the atmosphere of a court, and never on the grand floor of\n a nation. The parties were always of the class of courtiers.... In\n all cases they took care to represent government as a thing made up\n of mysteries, which only themselves understood; and they hid from\n the understanding of the nation the only thing that was beneficial\n to know, namely, _That government is nothing more than a national\n association acting on the principles of a society._[350]\n\nFor the follies of government the people pay the bill--it was this\nelementary lesson in public economics that Paine sought to impress upon\nthe popular mind; and they would still be cheated and plundered by\ngentlemen who prospered in cozening, until they took matters into their\nown hands. He had no fear of popular government. He believed in the\nessential fairness of men and their capacity to deal wisely with the\nproblems of society if the necessary information were set before them.\n\u201cAs far as my experience in public life extends, I have ever observed\nthat the great mass of people are always just, both in their intentions\nand their object; but the true method of attaining such purpose does\nnot always appear at once,\u201d[351] he argued before the French Assembly;\nand the words express his settled conviction. Those who fear the\npeople usually have very good reasons. Heretofore politics had been\njealously guarded from free discussion; but now that the common people\nwere coming to understand that government is justified only by its\nmeasure of service, the beginning of a new age was at hand.\n\nThe ripest product of Paine\u2019s speculations on the relation of\ngovernment to the individual, is _Agrarian Justice_, a work too little\nknown to modern readers. It is a slender tract, written in the winter\nof 1795-96, although not published till a year later; and it was an\nanswer to a sermon by Watson, Bishop of Llandaff,[352] entitled _The\nWisdom and Goodness of God in having made both Rich and Poor_. In this\nremarkable essay, Paine advanced from political to social theory,\npushing his thought into the unexplored realm of economic justice. The\nprime impulse of his speculation is found in the contrast between the\naugmenting poverty of Europe and the ideal of equality; a contrast\nwhich in France had lately produced a proletarian revolt under Babeuf,\nand which in England was harshly aggravated by the brutal inclosure\nmovement of the last forty years of the eighteenth century. The\nquestion which he considers lies at the heart of our social problem,\nnamely, whether civilization is competent to cure the disease of\npoverty which everywhere it disseminates?\n\nThe question emerged naturally from the development of Paine\u2019s\nthinking. It was implied in his major principle of the _res publica_,\nand the solution must lie in the problem of the relation of government\nto social well-being. But in prescribing means to end, he parted\ncompany from Babeuf.[353] The latter was a Communist who approached\nthe problem from the point of view of the proletarian who had been\ndisappointed of the promised equality; whereas Paine, like Jefferson,\nwas essentially a Physiocratic agrarian. His long residence in America\nhad confirmed him in the belief that land monopoly was the root of\neconomic inequality; and his observations of the evictions then going\non in England, uprooting the peasants and sending them to industrial\ncenters to become wage-workers, strengthened his conviction. The land\nproblem must be solved if civilization were to be worth its cost, and\nthe technique of the solution, he believed, must be worked out by the\nstate. With his usual directness Paine went to the heart of the problem:\n\n The first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought\n still to be, that the condition of every person born into the\n world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be\n worse than if he had been born before that period. But the fact\n is, that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is\n far worse than if they had been born before civilization began, or\n had been born among the Indians of North-America at the present\n day.[354]\n\n It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am\n pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as\n it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should\n be.[355]... The contrast of affluence and wretchedness ... is like\n dead and living bodies chained together.[356]\n\n It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of\n civilization ... to make some provision for persons becoming poor\n and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as\n a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their\n becoming poor?[357]\n\nThe crux of the problem, Paine proceeds to point out, lies in the\nprinciple of private property; whether property rights are sacredly\nindividual--as Locke had asserted--or are limited by social needs.\nIn reply to this searching question Paine laid down the principle of\nsocial values, a theory curiously modern and profoundly suggestive,\nwhich makes _Agrarian Justice_ read like a chapter out of _Progress\nand Poverty_. The principle is so broad, as Paine states it, that it\napplies equally to a capitalistic and an agrarian order.\n\n Personal property is the _effect of society_; and it is as\n impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without\n the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally....\n All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a\n man\u2019s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society;\n and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of\n civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society\n from whence the whole came ... if we examine the case minutely it\n will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in\n many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that\n produced it; and the consequence of which is, that the working hand\n perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is,\n perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labor to the\n profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for\n the injustice, that were a workman to receive an increase of wages\n daily he would not save it against old age, nor be much better\n for it in the interim. Make, then, society the treasurer to guard\n it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason, that because he\n might not make a good use of it for himself, another should take\n it.[358]\n\n It is the value of the improvement only, and not of the earth\n itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore,\n of cultivated land, owes to the community a _ground-rent_ ... for\n the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the\n fund proposed in this plan is to issue.[359]\n\nHaving thus pointed out an equitable source of social income--the\nreturning to society what society has created--Paine proposed to deal\nwith the problem of poverty by means of a ten per cent inheritance tax\nto provide a fund for the endowment of the young and the pensioning\nof the old. It was an early form of the state insurance idea. In his\nown thinking Paine doubtless went much farther than this, but the\npractical difficulty of separating the social moiety from the private\nright inclined him to favor an inheritance tax as the simplest and best\nplan; that it would lead to greater things as the social intelligence\nquickened, he very likely believed. To bring men to realize that\nsociety is responsible for poverty, and that its total eradication must\nbe regarded as the first object of civilization, was his prime purpose.\nHe was seeking to awaken the social conscience of his generation--a\ngeneration sorely in need of idealism to offset its love of profits.\n_Agrarian Justice_ was a contribution to the slowly developing\nhumanitarian sentiment, and it made appeal to minds already aroused by\nthe revolutionary movement. The republican clubs that were springing up\nin England and America reflected the new social thought, and the most\nradical became the most humanitarian. As early as 1791, in an address\nsigned by Horne Tooke, one of Paine\u2019s English lieutenants, it was\ndeclared:\n\n We are oppressed with a heavy national debt, a burthen of taxes, an\n expensive administration of government, beyond those of any people\n in the world. We have also a very numerous poor; and we hold that\n the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy,\n and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented\n wants of courtly extravagance, ambition, and intrigue.[360]\n\nThe more critically one follows the thought of Paine the more evident\nit becomes that the master passion of his later years was concern for\na new social economy. The well-being of society became an engrossing\ninterest with him; and his zeal for political revolution was predicated\non the belief that popular control of the political state was a\nnecessary preliminary to a juster social economy. Nothing was to be\nexpected from the old aristocratic order. His main attack, therefore,\nwas directed against the monarchical system, but now and then he paused\nto level a thrust at the rising system of capitalism. If he hated King\nGeorge and the Tories, he hated the younger Pitt and the imperialists\neven more. Over against _Agrarian Justice_ should be set his pamphlet\nentitled _The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance_,\nwritten in 1796, a skillful attack upon the new funding system. Paine\ncould not foresee, of course, the enormous expansion of credit that was\nto accompany the industrial revolution, but in his commentary on the\nquantitative theory of money, and the social consequences of inflation,\nhe unconsciously foretold later conditions. War he regarded as the\ngreat waster, the fruitful mother of social misery. With his Quaker\ntraining he was dedicated to pacifism, and he spent his life warring\nagainst war, and disease, and poverty, and injustice, and ignorance,\nand unreason; but no other war would he sanction. For those futile wars\nbred of the ambitions of courts and monarchs, and which for all their\ncost in blood and money served no social purpose, he would substitute\narbitration. \u201cWar is the Pharo-table of governments, and nations the\ndupes of the game,\u201d he declared[361]--whereas arbitration is an appeal\nto reason which alone should adjudicate and determine between nations.\n\nIt would be idle to attempt to trace to their sources the major ideas\nof his philosophy. Probably Paine did not know where he got them. He\nwas not a student like John Adams, familiar with all the political\nphilosophers; rather he was an epitome of a world in revolution. He\nabsorbed ideas like a sponge. He was so wholly a child of his age that\nthe intellectual processes of the age were no other than his own. But\nhe was very much more than an echo; he possessed that rarest of gifts,\nan original mind. He looked at the world through no eyes than his\nown. There is a curious remark in an early pamphlet which admirably\nexpresses his method: \u201cWhen precedents fail to assist us, we must\nreturn to the first principles of things for information, and _think_,\nas if we were the _first men_ that thought.\u201d[362] It was his remarkable\nability to think from first principles that gave such freshness and\nvigor to his pen. He drew largely from French thought, but at bottom he\nremained English. If he was Gallic in his psychology of human nature\nand his passionate humanitarianism, he was English in his practical\npolitical sense and insistence on the economic sources of political\naction. In his political theory he was curiously like Roger Williams.\nA thoroughgoing idealist in aim, generous and unsparing in service\nto humanity, he was a confirmed realist in the handling of facts. He\nrefused to be duped by imposing appearances or great reputations, but\nspoke out unpleasant truths which gentlemen wished to keep hidden.\nClear and direct in expression, he seasoned his writings with homely\nfigures and a frequent audacity of phrase that made wide appeal.\nHe was probably the greatest pamphleteer that the English race has\nproduced-and one of its great idealists.\n\nDuring his residence abroad Paine habitually thought and spoke\nof himself as an American. He conceived it to be his mission to\ndisseminate throughout Europe the beneficent principles of the\nAmerican Revolution; yet nowhere was he hated more virulently than\nin America. To the animosity which his political principles excited\namong Federalists was added the detestation of the orthodox for the\ndeism of the _Age of Reason_. The ministers outdid the politicians in\nvirulent attack upon his reputation, until the generous Quaker, the\nfriend of humanity and citizen of the world, was shrunk and distorted\ninto \u201cthe infidel Tom Paine.\u201d It was a strange reward for a life spent\nin the service of mankind. Like all idealists he made the mistake of\nunderestimating the defensive strength of vested interests, and their\nskill in arousing the mob prejudice. His thousands of followers among\nthe disfranchised poor could not protect his reputation against the\nattacks of the rich and powerful. Although reason may \u201cmake its own\nway,\u201d it makes its way with wearisome slowness and at unreasonable\ncost. How tremendous were the obstacles that liberalism confronted in\npost-revolutionary America is revealed with sufficient clearness in the\nodium visited upon our great republican pamphleteer.\n\n\nII \u2022 Thomas Jefferson \u2022 Agrarian Democrat\n\nThe years following the great defeat were disastrous to the party of\nagrarian democracy. Under the brilliant leadership of Hamilton the\nFederalists went forward confidently, gaining daily a firmer grip\non the machinery of government, and establishing their principles\nin far-reaching legislative enactments. Their appeal to the wealthy\nclasses, to those who made themselves audible above the clamor, was\nelectrical. Hamilton was the hero of the hour, and the effusive\napproval that augmented with every added profit to the money brokers,\nseemed to indicate that the country was enthusiastically behind the\nFederalist policy. To what despondency the democrats were reduced is\nrevealed in Maclay\u2019s _Journal_, with its caustic comment on political\nmeasures and motives. But the tide was already at the turn. The ideas\nlet loose by the French Revolution were running swiftly through\nAmerica, awakening a militant spirit in the democracy. Antagonism to\nthe aristocratic arrogance of Federalism, and disgust at its coercive\nmeasures, were mounting fast. If that inchoate discontent were\norganized and directed by a skillful leader, it might prove strong\nenough to thrust the Hamiltonian party from power. To that work Thomas\nJefferson devoted himself with immense tact and untiring patience. A\nmaster of political strategy, he spun his webs far and wide, quietly\nawaiting the time when the bumbling Federalist bees should range too\ncarelessly in search of their honey. Accepted at once as the leader of\nagrarian America, he was to prove in the course of a long life the most\noriginal and native of the political leaders of the time.\n\nDespite the mass of comment that has gathered about Jefferson, the full\nreach and significance of his political philosophy remains too little\nunderstood. Uncritical praise and censure have obscured or distorted\nhis purpose, and allied his principles with narrow and temporary ends.\nDetraction will not let him alone. The hostility of his enemies, as a\nrecent biographer has remarked, has frequently taken \u201cthe peculiar form\nof editing his works or writing his life.\u201d[363] For this distortion\nthere is, perhaps, more than usual excuse. Certainly Jefferson is the\nmost elusive of our great political leaders. Apparently inconsistent,\nchanging his program with the changing times, he seemed to his enemies\ndevoid of principle, a shallow demagogue who incited the mob in order\nto dupe the people. One of the most bitterly hated and greatly loved\nmen in the day when love and hate were intense, he was the spokesman\nof the new order at a time of transition from a dependent monarchical\nstate, to an independent republican state. Back of the figure of\nJefferson, with his aristocratic head set on a plebeian frame, was\nthe philosophy of a new age and a new people--an age and a people not\nyet come to the consistency of maturity, but feeling a way through\nexperiment to solid achievement. Far more completely than any other\nAmerican of his generation he embodied the idealisms of the great\nrevolution--its faith in human nature, its economic individualism,\nits conviction that here in America, through the instrumentality of\npolitical democracy, the lot of the common man should somehow be made\nbetter.\n\nFrom the distinguished group of contemporary political thinkers\nJefferson emerges as the pre\u00ebminent intellectual, widely read, familiar\nwith ideas, at home in the field of speculation, a critical observer\nof men and manners. All his life he was a student, and his devotion to\nhis books, running often to fifteen hours a day, recalls the heroic\nzeal of Puritan scholars. He was trained in the law, but he was too\nmuch the intellectual, too curious about all sorts of things, to\nremain a lawyer. For such a man the appeal of political speculation\nwas irresistible, and early in life he began a wide reading in the\npolitical classics that far outweighed Coke and Blackstone in creative\ninfluence on his mind. He was equally at home with the English\nliberals of the seventeenth century and the French liberals of the\neighteenth; and if he came eventually to set the French school above\nthe English, it was because he found in the back-to-nature philosophy,\nwith its corollary of an agrarian economics and its emphasis on social\nwell-being, a philosophy more consonant with Virginian experience\nand his own temperament than Locke\u2019s philosophy of property. But\nhe was very far from being a narrow French partisan, as has been\noften charged; rather he judged old-world theory in the light of its\napplicability to existing American conditions, and restrained his\nlove of speculation by immediate practical considerations. The man of\naffairs kept a watchful eye on the philosopher in his study.\n\nIn the major doctrines of his political philosophy Jefferson was\nan amalgam of English and French liberalisms, supplemented by the\nconscious influence of the American frontier. That fusion early took\nplace in his mind. The first bill that he introduced into the Virginia\nAssembly, at the age of twenty-six, was a bill to permit slave-owners\nto manumit their slaves; and his first published pamphlet, issued\nin 1774,[364] rejected the legal reasoning of John Dickinson and\nDaniel Dulaney--supporting the parliamentary right to impose external\ntaxation--and took its stand on the doctrine of natural right to\nlocal self-government and freedom of trade. When two years later he\ndrafted the Declaration of Independence the fusion was complete. The\nstrong influence of French humanitarianism is revealed in the passage\non slavery that was stricken out on the floor of Congress, and more\nsignificantly in the change in the familiar phrasing of the several\nnatural rights. Samuel Adams and other followers of Locke had been\ncontent with the classical enumeration of life, liberty, and property;\nbut in Jefferson\u2019s hands the English doctrine was given a revolutionary\nshift. The substitution of \u201cpursuit of happiness\u201d for \u201cproperty\u201d marks\na complete break with the Whiggish doctrine of property rights that\nLocke had bequeathed to the English middle class, and the substitution\nof a broader sociological conception; and it was this substitution\nthat gave to the document the note of idealism which was to make its\nappeal so perennially human and vital. The words were far more than\na political gesture to draw popular support; they were an embodiment\nof Jefferson\u2019s deepest convictions, and his total life thenceforward\nwas given over to the work of providing such political machinery for\nAmerica as should guarantee for all the enjoyment of those inalienable\nrights. If the fact that he set the pursuit of happiness above\nabstract property rights is to be taken as proof that Jefferson was an\nimpractical French theorist, the critic may take what comfort he can\nfrom his deduction.\n\nThat Jefferson was an idealist was singularly fortunate for America;\nthere was need of idealism to leaven the materialistic realism of the\ntimes. It was a critical period and he came at the turn of a long\nrunning tide. He watched the beginnings of the political shift in\nAmerica from isolated colonial commonwealths to a unitary sovereign\nstate; and his wide reading and close observation had convinced him\nthat the impending change was fraught with momentous issues for the\ncommon man. He had meditated much on the social results of the slow\noscillations in western civilization between social decentralization\nand centralization, with their contrasting political and economic\nstructures; and he understood how the movement from simplicity to\ncomplexity--from freedom to regimentation--creates a psychology and\nan institutionalism that conducts straight to the leviathan state,\ncontrolled by a ruling caste, serving the demands of exploitation,\nheedless of the well-being of the regimented mass. This great lesson\nin social drifts he brought home to America. There had been created\nhere the psychology and institutions of a decentralized society, with\na corresponding exaltation of the individual and the breakdown of\ncaste. In the broad spaces of America the old-world coercive state had\ndwindled to a mere police arrangement for parochial duties; the free\ncitizen refused to be regimented; the several communities insisted\non managing their affairs by their own agents. Such was the natural\nconsequence of free economics; but with the turning of the tide would\nnot the drift towards centralization nullify the results of earlier\nAmerican experience and repeat here the unhappy history of European\npeoples?\n\nTo the philosophic mind of Jefferson, such a question was not academic,\nbut urgent and vital. He had been bred in that older world, he believed\npassionately in the excellence of its virtues, and his political and\nsocial philosophy was determined by that experience. He sprang from a\nsociety deep-rooted in an agrarian economy, and he wished to preserve\nthat society. Born on the Virginia frontier, he had never seen a hamlet\nso large as twenty houses before his eighteenth year; his neighbors\nand associates were capable and vigorous frontier democrats, who\nmanaged the affairs of local government with the same homespun skill\nthat went to their farming. \u201cIt is not difficult,\u201d remarks an acute\ncritic, \u201cto see how the great principle of Jefferson\u2019s life--absolute\nfaith in democracy--came to him. He was the product of the first West\nin American history; he grew up with men who ruled their country well,\nwho fought the Indians valiantly.... Jefferson loved his backwoods\nneighbors, and he, in turn, was loved by them.\u201d[365] This early\nconviction of the excellence of a freehold order was confirmed by later\nexperience; wide observation and much travel convinced him that no\nother people was so favored by circumstance as the American, or so\nvigorously self-reliant. That such well-being resulted from a plastic\neconomics, he regarded as self-evident; and from this economic freedom\ncame political freedom. In his European travels he saw everywhere\nwant and wretchedness dwelling in the shadow of the aristocratic\nstate, and he could not dissociate the two. Political tyranny was the\noutward and visible sign of greater tyrannies that ran down to the very\nroots of society; the leviathan state was the convenient instrument\nthrough which those tyrannies took their heavy toll of the common\nwell-being. America was a land of free men; it was exploited neither\nby an aristocracy nor a plutocracy. Surely there could be no greater\nor nobler ambition for an American than to assist in preserving his\ncountry from the misery that must attend a change from the present\nhappy condition of democratic industry, to the serfdom of the European\nwage-taker and peasant.\n\nTo a mind imbued with such conceptions the appeal of the Physiocratic\ntheory of social economics would be irresistible. The ground was\nprepared for the sowing of the seeds of the liberal French thought.\nWith its emphasis laid upon agriculture, its doctrine of the _produit\nnet_, its principle of _laissez faire_, and its social concern, the\nPhysiocratic theory accorded exactly with his familiar experience,\nand it must have seemed to Jefferson that it was little other than a\ndeduction from the open facts of American life. He had read much in\nthe works of the Physiocratic group, and was intimately acquainted\nwith DuPont de Nemours; and the major principles of the school sank\ndeep into his mind and creatively determined his thinking, with the\nresult that Jeffersonian democracy as it spread through Virginia and\nwest along the frontier assumed a pronounced Physiocratic bias. The\nsharp struggle between Jefferson and Hamilton must be reckoned, in\npart at least, a conflict between the rival principles of Quesnay and\nAdam Smith, between an agrarian and a capitalistic economy. Much as\nJefferson feared the ambitions of an aristocracy, he feared quite as\nmuch the creation of a proletariat. As he looked into the future he saw\ngreat cities rising to breed their Roman mobs, duped and exploited by\ndemagogues, the convenient tools of autocracy; and counting the cost\nin social well-being, he set his face like flint against the rising\ncapitalism. A free yeomanry he regarded as the backbone of every great\npeople, the producers of the real wealth, the guardians of manly\nindependence; and the number of factory workers measured for him the\nextent of social disease. It is this Physiocratic conception that\nexplains his bitter hostility to protective tariffs, national banks,\nfunding manipulations, the machinery of credit, and all the agencies of\ncapitalism which Hamilton was skillfully erecting in America. Not to\nhave hated such things Jefferson must first have emptied his mind of\nthe teachings of experience and the lessons of the social philosophers.\n\nIn the _Notes on Virginia_ there is a well-known passage that amplifies\nhis favorite thesis that a sound American economy was an agrarian\neconomy:\n\n The political economists of Europe have established it as a\n principle, that every State should endeavor to manufacture for\n itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer to\n America.... But we have an immensity of land courting the industry\n of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should\n be employed in its improvement, or that one half should be called\n off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for\n the other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of\n God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his\n peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the\n focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise\n might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in\n the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation\n has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those, who not\n looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the\n husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on casualties\n and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and\n venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools\n for the designs of ambition.... Generally speaking the proportion\n which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in\n any state to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its\n unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer\n whereby to measure its degree of corruption. While we have land to\n labor then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a\n work-bench, or twirling a distaff ... for the general operations\n of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe. It is better\n to carry provisions and materials to work-men there, than bring\n them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners\n and principles.... The mobs of great cities add just so much to\n the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the\n human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve\n a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon\n eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.[366]\n\nSuch was his attitude in 1782, an attitude identical with Franklin\u2019s.\nThirty-four years later he had modified his views of industrialism.\nThe bitter experience of the Napoleonic wars, with the hardships\nand losses visited upon neutral shipping, had convinced him of the\nneed of domestic manufactures, and he was then deeply interested in\nimproved machinery, new methods, original ventures. \u201cWe must now place\nthe manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist,\u201d he conceded, or\nremain in economic dependence. But how much further the country should\nbe industrialized, whether it \u201cshall be proposed to go beyond our own\nsupply\u201d to compete in foreign markets, was not yet clear to him; the\nproblem remained still to be determined whether \u201cthe _surplus_ labor\u201d\nwould be \u201cmost beneficially employed in the culture of the earth, or\nin the fabrications of art.\u201d[367] In such commentary Jefferson failed\nto measure the thrust of economic determinism that drives every people\nto go through with the industrial revolution, once it is begun; but\nif we recall the primary principle of his political philosophy, that\nthe \u201ccare of human life and happiness, and not their destruction,\nis the first and only legitimate object of good government,\u201d we may\nperhaps judge what would have been his attitude towards a centralized\nindustrialism. He would have judged its desirability, not by the\nbalance sheet of corporate business, but by the social ledger. As a\nsocial economist he could not think in terms of the economic man, nor\nsimplify human beings to labor commodity, nor reduce the social tie\nto the cash nexus. It is inconceivable that he should have shared\nHamilton\u2019s satisfaction at the contemplation of women and children--and\nmany of the latter \u201cof tender age\u201d--wasting away in the mills; he was\ntoo social-minded for that, too much an idealist, too human in short.\nThough necessity might force him away from a simple agrarian economy,\nit does not follow that he would become partisan to a centralizing\nindustrialism, with control vested in banking credit.\n\nIt is a common charge that Jefferson was consumed with suspicion, and\nit is set down against him as the mark of a mean and ungenerous nature.\nThat in later years he was suspicious of fair-spoken advocates and\nplausible programs was as true of Jefferson as of Sam Adams; he had\nlearned like the Boston democrat the virtue of the saying, _felix qui\ncautus_, and with so much at stake he would practice caution. He feared\nmany things, for he was acutely aware of the incapacity of the heedless\nmajority to defend itself against an able and instructed minority. As\na child of an aristocratic age he fell into the mistake of visualizing\nthat minority in the guise of a landed gentry, rather than in the\nguise of plutocracy; but in his quick fear of a minority he had all\nhistory as counselor. When he took his seat in Washington\u2019s cabinet\nhis suspicions of the Hamiltonian program were quickly aroused. He\nbelieved that a monarchy was aimed at, and if that proved unattainable,\nthen a highly centralized state designed to hold in check the\ndemocratic tendencies. His line of reasoning may be summarized thus:\nIn consequence of the republican enthusiasm of the early years of the\nRevolution, democratic reorganization of the several state governments\nhad been successfully achieved. Very great progress towards democracy\nhad been made. Certain legislative acts of agrarian assemblies were now\nbeing turned against democracy, to invalidate it as a working system of\ngovernment. But if agrarian majorities had used their power to enact\nlaws beneficial to their interests, they were only applying a lesson\nlearned from long experience with aristocratic legislatures. Such acts\nwere no serious indictment of the democratic principle, and to make\npartisan use of them to justify curtailing the powers of the majority,\nwas a betrayal of popular rights. And this, Jefferson believed, was\nthe deliberate purpose of the Federalist leaders. Unable to stem the\npopular tide in the several commonwealths, the wealthy minority had\ndevised a plan to superimpose upon the sovereign commonwealths a\ncentralized federal government, so hedged about as to lie beyond the\nreach of local majorities, and hence able to override and nullify the\ndemocratic will. Once safely established, this federal government would\ngather fresh powers into its hands, until there emerged a rigorous\nmachine, modeled after the British system, and as little regardful of\nthe common interests. If this were not the Federalist purpose, why all\nthe praise of the British system as the ripe product of experience,\nexactly adapted to the political genius of the English race?\n\nIn the matter of appeal to past experience, which provided the staple\nof Federalist argument, Jefferson discovered fresh grounds of fear.\nThe past he looked upon as evil, and the record of experience was a\ntale of injustice and bitter wrong. He would not have America follow\nthe trodden paths, for whither they led he knew too well. He would\ncountenance no entangling alliances with old-world upper-class systems\nof statecraft, for such systems would reproduce in America the evils\nit should be the chief business of America to prevent. There must be\nerected here no counterpart of the European state; there must be no\nking, no aristocracy, no plutocracy; but a new democratic organization\nof government, in which the welfare of the whole people should be the\nsole concern.\n\n When I left Congress in \u201976 [he wrote as an old man] it was in the\n persuasion that our whole code must be revised, adapted to our\n republican form of government, and now that we had no negatives of\n Councils, Governors and Kings to restrain us from doing right, that\n it should be corrected in all its parts with a single eye to reason\n and the good of those for whose government it was planned.[368]\n\nNot past experience but present need should instruct America in\ndrawing the plans of a new system of government and a new code of\nlaw. In analyzing the evils of European systems Jefferson came to\ncertain conclusions that dominated all his later thinking, and\nthat may be phrased thus: The political state tends inevitably to\nself-aggrandizement, the logical outcome of which is a political\nleviathan, too big and too complex for popular control. With sovereign\npowers vested in the hands of governmental agents, those agents lie\nunder a constant temptation to corruption and tyranny, and in the end\nthey align the powers of the state on the side of the most ambitious\nand capable. The greater the power of government, the ampler its\nrevenues, the more energetic its administration, the more dangerous\nit may become to the rights of men; for where the prize is greatest,\nmen struggle most ruthlessly, and what prize could be greater than the\nprivilege of exploiting society in the name of the state? History knows\nno objective more tempting to the will to power, than the control of\nthe absolute state. A government adequately socialized, intent solely\nupon furthering the common well-being, Jefferson would have been\nunanxious about. But such governments existed only in the dreams of\nSir Thomas More and the Utopians; he could discover none such either\nin the past or present. Everywhere strong governments were little more\nthan efficient tax-machines to support armies and provide subsidies and\nplaces for the minority. Against such forces of corruption the people\nstruggle in vain.\n\nIf such was the common testimony of old-world experience--and no man\nwho knew the inner workings of government there would deny it--what\nreason was there to expect that like causes would work unlike results\nin America? To what purpose was the talk of strong government\nencouraged amongst the holders of the public debt? To what end had\nlobbyists for the funding bill invaded the floor of Congress? It was\nidle to expect in America a nullification of the law, that where power\nsits within, corruption waits without. The love of power is universal.\nMost men are potential autocrats, the strong and capable may become\nactual autocrats. No man is good enough, no group of men, to be trusted\nwith unrestrained powers--in America any more than in Europe. A\ncentralized government in control of the tax-machine, and secure from\npopular restraint, would undo the results of the Revolutionary War. The\nmovement to consolidate power, Jefferson asserted, was \u201cbut Toryism in\ndisguise.\u201d \u201cThe generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers\ninto one body ... has destroyed the liberty and the rights of men in\nevery government which has ever existed under the sun.\u201d\n\n Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a\n single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from\n under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance\n of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details\n necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the\n same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their\n constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder\n and waste.[369]\n\nThe practice of local home rule had grown up in America in response to\nnative conditions; it had resulted from democratic needs; and Jefferson\nwas too thoroughly American, too instinctively democratic, to overlook\nthe significance of local sovereignties in a democratic philosophy.\nFrom the sharp contrast between American and European practice he\ndeduced a cardinal principle, namely, that good government springs from\na common interest in public affairs, and that such common interest\nis possible only when the field of activities is circumscribed. Set\ngovernment apart from the people, or above them, and public interest\nis lost in a sense of futility. The danger of an encroaching tyranny\nby a superimposed sovereignty, is made easy by the public lethargy\nin respect to distant and unfamiliar things, and establishes itself\nthrough the psychology of custom. Jefferson was never greatly concerned\nabout stable government; he was very much more concerned about\nresponsive government--that it should faithfully serve the majority\nwill. He made no god of the political state. He had no conventional\nreverence for established law and order; he inquired rather what\nsort of law and order he was asked to accept, was it just or unjust.\nChanging conditions make ancient good uncouth, and established\ninstitutions tend to fall into dry-rot, or to become tyrannical. Men\nare more important than constitutions, and the public well-being is\nmore sacred than statutes. An occasional revolution, he commented\ngrimly apropos of the hue and cry over Shays\u2019s Rebellion, is salutary;\nif it does not come of itself it might well be brought about. Progress\nin government results from experiment; and it is easier and safer to\nexperiment on a small scale than on a great. Inertia increases with\nsize, and the more consolidated the government, the more unyielding it\nbecomes. The longest delayed revolutions are the gravest.\n\nIn asserting the principle of the majority will, Jefferson like other\ndemocratic thinkers of the time, found himself countered by the\nargument of abstract justice. Vehement denunciation had greeted Paine\u2019s\ndoctrine that what a nation chooses to do, it has a right to do. There\ncan be no rights, it was confidently asserted, superior to the right.\nThe people may legislate, but it remains to determine the validity of\nstatutes in the light of justice; that which is unjust is _ipso facto_\nnull and void. It was Coke\u2019s doctrine of judicial review, set up in\nAmerica after its repudiation in England, and Jefferson\u2019s hostility\nto it was bitter. As an intellectual he had none of the lawyer\u2019s\ncomplacency with legal principles, or conceit of the law\u2019s sufficiency;\nand as a democrat he would not yield sovereignty into the hands of the\njudiciary. He had no veneration for the Common Law of England: it had\ngrown up by slow accretions during centuries of absolutism; how should\nit be expected to answer the needs of a freer age? It must be purged\nof outworn elements, imbued with democratic sympathies. The Revolution\nhad been fought in defense of rights that are broader and more human\nthan legal principles; and to hand over those rights to be interpreted\naway by lawyers, seemed to him moonstruck madness. It was the law of\nBlackstone rather than of Coke that he feared most--that \u201celegant\u201d\ncanonization of the malign influences of Tory reaction, and that was\nso cried up by the smatterers and \u201cephemeral insects of the law\u201d in\nAmerica; whereas Coke \u201cwas as good a Whig as ever wrote\u201d:\n\n Blackstone and Hume have made tories of all England, and are\n making tories of those young Americans whose native feelings of\n independence do not place them above the wily sophistries of a\n Hume or a Blackstone. These two books, and especially the former\n [Blackstone], have done more towards the suppression of the\n liberties of man, than all the million of men in arms of Bonaparte,\n and the millions of human lives with the sacrifice of which he will\n stand loaded before the judgment seat of his Maker.[370]\n\nAs Jefferson grew older his fear of judicial encroachment on the\npopular will became acute, but it shifted from distrust of the Common\nLaw to concern over the Supreme Court. A strong and outspoken hatred\nof the Federal judiciary runs through all his later writings, and he\nlost no opportunity to popularize the thesis--\u201cIt is a misnomer to call\na government republican, in which a branch of the supreme power is\nindependent of the nation.\u201d\n\n The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body,\n like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming\n advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is\n engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that\n which feeds them.[371]\n\n It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the judges as the\n ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. It is one\n which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.... The\n Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to\n whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party,\n its members would become despots.[372]\n\nAs Jefferson watched Chief Justice John Marshall gathering all\nthings within the purview of the Federal judiciary, preparing future\nstrongholds by the skillful use of _obiter dicta_, legislating by\nmeans of judicial interpretation, nullifying the will of the majority,\nand with the power of repeal made nugatory by the complexity of the\nprocess, he saw clearly what the outcome would be. Surely that was\nno democracy where judge-made laws were enforced by bench warrants,\nand where the sovereign power lay beyond the immediate reach of the\npopular will. The government that he desired would not rest on the\nlegal fiction of an abstract justice above statutes and constitutions,\nwhereof a group of judicial gentlemen were the repositories and\nguardians. It would be like Paine\u2019s, \u201ca plain thing, and fitted to the\ncapacity of many heads\u201d; for \u201cwhere the law of the majority ceases to\nbe acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes\nits place.\u201d\n\nGranted the truth of Jefferson\u2019s premises that power tends to contract\nto the hands of a few, and that all government of the few is\nvicious, then democracy is the only form of government under which an\napproximation to justice can be realized. A class will serve class\ninterests. Government by an aristocracy is government in the interest\nof the aristocracy. For the staple argument of the Federalists, that\ngentlemen of principle and property alone may be intrusted with affairs\nof state, Jefferson had a quiet contempt. \u201cI have never observed men\u2019s\nhonesty to increase with their riches,\u201d he remarked. On the contrary,\nhe regarded the \u201cbetter sort of people\u201d as a chief hindrance to the\nspread of social justice. The past had been evil because the past had\nbeen exploited by gentlemen of principle and property. They had kept\ngovernment away from the people, and with their secret councils and\nsecret diplomacy they had plundered the taxpayers and drenched nations\nin blood. Their selfish rivalries everywhere exacted a heavy toll of\nsociety and left behind a trail of poverty and wretchedness. The future\nwould be better in the degree that mastery passed into common hands.\n\nFrom the conclusions of his democratic premise he did not shrink. If\nit were indeed true that the people were beasts, then the democratic\ngovernment of the future would be a bestial government--and even that\nmight be better than the old arrangement of masters and slaves. But the\nAmerican people whom Jefferson trusted were very far from beasts; he\nwas convinced that they were honest and well-meaning; and if government\nwere brought close to them, kept responsive to their will, a new and\nbeneficent chapter in human history would open. The populistic laws\npassed by the legislatures of Rhode Island and New Hampshire, about\nwhich such an uproar was raised by fearful creditors, and which were\nurged as an argument against popular government, gave him no concern.\nHe understood the ways of propaganda, and he never accepted judgment of\nthe American people from the mouths of their enemies. The cure for the\nevils of democracy, he believed, was more democracy. The whole are far\nless likely to be unjust than the few; and if sovereignty does not rest\nin the majority will, where shall it lodge?\n\n Hume, the great apostle of toryism, says \u201cthe Commons established\n a principle, which is noble in itself, and seems specious [_i.e._\n pleasing], but is belied by all history and experience, _that the\n people are the origin of all just power_.\u201d And where else will\n this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men,\n find the origin of _just_ power, if not in the majority of the\n society? Will it be in the minority? Or in the individual of that\n minority?[373]\n\nThe America of Jefferson\u2019s day was a simple world, with a simple\ndomestic economy. More than ninety per cent were plain country folk,\nfarmers and villagers, largely freeholders, managing their local\naffairs in the traditional way. There were no great extremes of\npoverty and wealth, no closely organized class groups. With its sharp\nrestrictions on suffrage and the prestige accorded the gentry, it was\nstill far from a political democracy; but it was hastening towards a\nmore democratic order. Remote from the cesspools of European diplomacy,\nand not yet acquainted with imperialism, it had no need for a leviathan\nstate. Economic conditions sanctioned a _laissez-faire_ government,\nsimple and unambitious. In such a world the well-known words of\nJefferson\u2019s first inaugural address, justified themselves to all who\ndid not seek to use the state for personal advantage.\n\n A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from\n injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to\n regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall\n not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is\n the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the\n circle of our felicities.\n\nIn one significant direction he would extend the scope of\ngovernment--the encouragement of education. An intelligent people is\nnecessary to a democracy; free schools are a sign of a free society.\nTyranny thrives on ignorance and superstition, and every exploiting\ngroup fears popular education. Free himself in thought and action,\nbelieving in the unshackled commerce of ideas, hating all censorships,\nJefferson accounted the founding of the University of Virginia his\nlargest contribution to the well-being of his native commonwealth.\n\nTo all who profess faith in the democratic ideal Jefferson is a\nperennial inspiration. A free soul, he loved freedom enough to deny it\nto none; an idealist, he believed that the welfare of the whole, and\nnot the prosperity of any group, is the single end of government. He\nwas our first great leader to erect a political philosophy native to\nthe economics and experience of America, as he was the first to break\nconsciously with the past. His life was dedicated to the service of\nfreedom, and later generations may well recall his words, \u201cI have sworn\nupon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny\nover the mind of man.\u201d Europe made Jefferson wholly American. From\nhis studies in France he came to see that where men enjoy free access\nto the sources of subsistence, government is likely to be simple and\nhonest, and society free and content; but where a policy of pre\u00ebmption\nhas run its course, the function of government is seduced from its\nsocial purpose to perpetuate the inequalities which spring from the\nprogressive monopolization of natural resources, with augmenting\ncorruption and injustice. To preserve government in America from such\ndegradation, to keep the natural resources open to all, were the prime\ndesire and object of his life. That such an effort was foredoomed to\nfailure, in presence of imperious forces that shape society beyond the\ncapacity of political means to change or prevent, cannot detract from\nthe nobility of his ideal, or the inspiration of his life. Among the\ngreater thinkers of the constitutional period Jefferson remains by far\nthe most vital and suggestive, the one to whom later generations may\nreturn most hopefully.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[344] For the date of his arrival, see _Massachusetts Historical\nSociety Proceedings_, Vol. XLIII, p. 246.\n\n[345] _Rights of Man_, Part II, pp. 407, 408.\n\n[346] For an excellent discussion of this, see C. M. Walsh, _The\nPolitical Science of John Adams_, pp. 203-226.\n\n[347] _The Rights of Man_, Part I, p. 278.\n\n[348] \u201cLetter to Lord Onslow,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. III, p. 36.\n\n[349] _Rights of Man_, Part II, p. 428.\n\n[350] _Ibid._, pp. 410-411.\n\n[351] Conway, _Life of Paine_, Vol. II, p. 4.\n\n[352] Author of _An Apology for the Bible_ (a reply to Paine\u2019s _Age\nof Reason_), which was distributed among Harvard undergraduates. See\nabove, page 324.\n\n[353] For the program of Babeuf, see R. W. Postgate, _Revolution from\n1789 to 1906_, pp. 24, 54-60.\n\n[354] _Works_, Vol. III, p. 329.\n\n[355] This and the preceding sentence were expunged from all early\neditions by the censor.\n\n[356] _Ibid._, p. 337.\n\n[357] _Ibid._, p. 338.\n\n[358] _Ibid._, p. 340.\n\n[359] _Ibid._, p. 329.\n\n[360] _Address and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and\nLiberty_, quoted in Conway, _Life of Paine_, Vol. I, p. 316.\n\n[361] _Rights of Man_, Part II, p. 413.\n\n[362] _Works_, Vol. I, p. 155.\n\n[363] Francis W. Hirst, _Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson_, p. 266.\n\n[364] _A Summary View of the Rights of British America_, Williamsburg.\n\n[365] Dodd, _Statesmen of the Old South_, p. 23.\n\n[366] _Writings_, Vol. III, pp. 268-269.\n\n[367] _Ibid._, Vol. X, p. 8.\n\n[368] \u201cAutobiography\u201d, in _Writings_, Vol. I, p. 57.\n\n[369] _Writings_, Vol. VII, p. 451.\n\n[370] _Ibid._, Vol. VI, p. 335.\n\n[371] _Ibid._, Vol. X, p. 189.\n\n[372] _Ibid._, Vol. X, p. 160.\n\n[373] _Ibid._, Vol. VII, p. 356.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 The War of Belles Lettres\n\n\nTo turn from the field of political theory to the realm of polite\nliterature is not to quit the partisan battle-ground. The long struggle\nbetween Federalist and Democrat was too bitter and absorbing, too\nsharp in its alignment, not to conscript gentlemen of culture equally\nwith politicians. Every available quill was called to the colors, and\na civil war of _belles lettres_ broke out, that exceeded in animosity\nany other known to our literary history. Attack and counter-attack were\nslashing and acrimonious. Gentlemen forgot their manners and indulged\nfiercely in tall language. Satire ran about the streets seeking new\nvictims to impale; slander lay in wait for every passer-by. The\ncrudest lies found willing listeners and sober ministers turned from\nwriting sermons to enshrine pothouse tales in heroic couplets. In this\nvirulent battle the Federalists, on the whole, had the better of it,\nfor they were greater masters of invective and flayed their victims\nless clumsily; but the Democrats made up in ardor what they lacked in\nskill, and the blows that fell on carefully tied wigs must have hurt\ncruelly. As poetry those old satires may seem to us feeble enough,\nbut as historical documents they are eloquent. The passion of a world\nin revolution, the hopes and fears of our forefathers as they watched\nthe great fires consuming the world in which they had grown up, still\nsurvive in those stinging lines, as a reminder to later generations of\nthe rough and inhospitable way that democratic America has traveled in\nits onward course.\n\n\nI \u2022 The Federalist Group\n\n\n1. The Hartford Wits\n\nWhat Federalism was capable of in the way of polite letters is\nsufficiently revealed in the work of a coterie of poetasters who\nare known in our literary histories as the Hartford Wits. The title\nof the group suggests their literary antecedents. They were the\nrepresentatives of a literary mode that had slowly percolated through\nthe crust of Puritan provincialism and imparted a certain sprightliness\nto a dour temper. They were the literary old-guard of the expiring\neighteenth century, suspicious of all innovation, contemptuous of every\nidealistic program. They stood stoutly by the customary and familiar.\nThe nineteenth century was knocking at their door, but they would\nnot open to it. And as they saw that new century coming in the guise\nof revolution, exciting to unheard-of innovations in the fields of\npolitics and economics and religion and letters, giving rise to Jacobin\nClubs and Jeffersonian democracy, they set themselves seriously to\nthe work of barring its progress through their own little world. They\nconveniently associated the economic unrest of post-war days, that\ngave birth to a strange progeny in Rhode Island and New Hampshire and\nMassachusetts, with the contamination of French atheism, charged all\nunrest to the account of democracy, and hastened to put it down in the\nname of law and righteousness. They hated new ways with the virtuous\nhatred of the well-to-do, and dreamed of a future America as like the\npast as one generation of oysters is like another.\n\nThere is a certain historical fitness in the fact that the Wits\nshould have arisen in Connecticut and been the intellectual children\nof Yale. For generations the snug little commonwealth had been the\nhome of a tenacious conservatism, that clung to old ways and guarded\nthe institutions of the fathers with pious zeal. Nowhere else in New\nEngland did the ruling hierarchy maintain so glacial a grip on society.\nThe Revolution of \u201976 had only ruffled the surface on Connecticut life;\nit left the social structure quite unchanged. The church retained its\nunquestioned control of the machinery of the commonwealth; and the\nchurch was dominated by a clerical aristocracy, hand in glove with a\nmercantile aristocracy. Fresh currents of thought that were stirring\nthe pulpits of eastern Massachusetts--suggestions of an Arianism that\nwas to lead to the Unitarian schism--did not reach so far as New Haven,\nand Yale was content to remain the bulwark of an obsolete Calvinism.\nIn such a soil Federalism would flourish like Jonah\u2019s gourd; and it\nexuded a special odor of sanctity from the Calvinism in which it was\nrooted. To stout Federalists like Timothy Dwight, the current dogma of\ntotal depravity sufficed to disprove the validity of all democratic\naspiration. It was a presumption little short of blasphemous to\nassert that sinners are competent to manage the temporal affairs of\nsociety. The doctrine of equalitarianism was a particular stench in the\nnostrils of the aristocratic clergy, who disliked all leveling. The\nIrish immigrants seem to have been the most offensive equalitarians.\nA New England gentleman, traveling in Pennsylvania in the nineties,\nwrote home: \u201cI have seen many, very many Irishmen, and with a few\nexceptions, they are ... the most God-provoking Democrats on this side\nof Hell.\u201d And in 1798 Harrison Gray Otis wrote: \u201cIf some means are not\nadopted to prevent the indiscriminate admission of wild Irishmen and\nothers to the right of suffrage, there will soon be an end to liberty &\nproperty.\u201d[374] To prevent, if possible, such an unhappy outcome, the\nupper classes of New England fell to organizing and drilling all the\nelements of conservatism for a vigorous defense. They wrote and spoke\nand preached, till the mind of respectable New England was saturated\nwith prejudice. The democratic principle was converted into a bogey to\nfrighten the simple. Such a hideous misshapen imp of darkness, such a\nvile hag of anarchy had never before been painted for the imagination\nof honest Yankees to shudder at; and if democracy seemed to them a\nwild and fearsome thing making ready to destroy their venerated social\norder, they only believed what the minister preached on the Sabbath and\nthe squire asserted on week days. The plebeian democrat, very likely\nin debt, was quite overwhelmed by the organized forces of village\nrespectability.\n\nIn this great work of saving the commonwealth of Connecticut from the\npollutions of democracy the Hartford Wits were competent laborers. The\nmore important members of the group were John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight,\nJoel Barlow, Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, Richard Alsop, and\nTheodore Dwight. To these may be added the names of Dr. Elihu Hubbard\nSmith and Dr. Mason F. Cogswell, who were friends and occasional\ncollaborators. Nearly all were Yale men with a pronounced Yale\npredilection for Calvinism and Federalism, admirable representatives\nof the oligarchical upper class of the provincial Connecticut society.\nTimothy Dwight, grandson of Jonathan Edwards, was a minister and\npresident of Yale; Hopkins, Smith and Cogswell were physicians of high\nprofessional standing; Trumbull and Theodore Dwight were lawyers;\nBarlow and Humphreys found their way into the diplomatic field, and\nAlsop was a merchant. They were all comfortably well off and several\nwere wealthy. Alsop was one of the few millionaires of the time; Barlow\nacquired a fortune in France; and Humphreys late in life established\na textile industry incorporated for half a million. Hot Federalists,\nthey found in Washington, Governor Trumbull, and Fisher Ames, their\npolitical mentors and guides. The most active of the group politically,\nwas Theodore Dwight, who with his cousin Timothy was a director of\nthe Eagle Bank, a Federalist institution, and bitterly opposed to the\nchartering of Republican banks. When one of the latter applied to the\nlegislature for a charter he denounced it as a \u201cchild of intrigue and\nthe mother of Discord.\u201d He was deep in the Hartford Convention, serving\nas its secretary and later as its historian. He denounced Jeffersonian\nrepublicanism as seeking to \u201cdiscredit the ministry, decry religion,\nand destroy public worship,\u201d and as he saw it spreading through New\nEngland he attributed to it the certain decay of morality and the\nimpending break-up of family ties, exclaiming with somewhat extreme\nvivacity: \u201cThe outlaws of Europe, the fugitives from the pillory and\nthe gallows, have undertaken to assist our own abandoned citizens, in\nthe pleasing work of destroying Connecticut.... Can imagination paint\nanything more dreadful on this side of hell!\u201d\n\nLater generations remember best the massive character of Timothy\nDwight, a man endowed with all the Connecticut virtues and walking\namongst his fellows with magnificent confidence in his powers.\nA great preacher, an authoritative theologian, a distinguished\nadministrator--\u201cevery inch a college president\u201d--a ready counselor on\nany knotty point be it in law or politics or finance or agriculture or\n_belles lettres_, a born leader of men, and by way of recreation an\ninditer of Hebraic epics and huge didactic poems and ample Connecticut\npastorals, a confirmed traveler observing the manner of life in many\ncommonwealths and preserving his observations in solid volumes--he was\na man to compel the admiration of his fellows and put his stamp upon\nhis age. So vast was the contemporary reputation of Timothy Dwight, and\nso many-sided, it may seem ironical that time should have shrunk him\nto the narrow compass of a paragraph in our literary history. And yet\nthe more curiously one considers the work of the great president of\nYale, the more insistent become one\u2019s doubts concerning the fineness\nof this nugget of Connecticut gold. It shows very suspicious signs of\ntarnish. His commanding presence and authoritative manner, his sonorous\neloquence, his forwardness in defense of what few doubted, his vehement\nthreshing of straw long since reduced to chaff, his prodigious labors,\nhis abundant printing, no longer seem so authentic a seal of greatness\nas they seemed to his open-mouthed contemporaries; and one suspects\nthat he impressed his fellow citizens by the completeness with which\nhe measured up to every Connecticut ideal, rather than by the creative\nvigor of his mind. The great Timothy, in short, seems to a later\ngeneration to have been little more than a walking repository of the\nvenerable Connecticut _status quo_.\n\nThe intellectual inquisitiveness that gave birth to disintegrating\ntheory in the mind of his grandfather Jonathan Edwards, and made him a\nprofoundly revolutionary influence in his time, was wholly lacking in\nthe grandson. The latter refused to follow the questioning intellect\ninto unsurveyed fields. He would not meddle with change. His mind\nwas closed as tight as his study windows in January. He read widely\nin the fields of rationalism, but he read only to refute. Now and\nthen to be sure, certain generous promptings visited him: he spoke\nout against slavery; he encouraged the higher education of women.\nBut from such temptations to become a living voice he turned away to\nfollow the main-traveled road of Connecticut prejudice. His eyes were\nfixed lovingly upon the past, and his fondest dreams for his native\ncommonwealth hovered about the ideal of a church-state which John\nCotton had labored to establish and Increase Mather to preserve. It\nis with those capable theocrats of Massachusetts Bay, rather than\nwith Thomas Hooker of Hartford, that he is to be associated. Two\nmen could scarcely be more alike than Timothy Dwight and Increase\nMather; their careers ran in similar lines; each was the unmitered\npope of his generation, and each owed his extraordinary influence\nto the same sterling qualities. As ecclesiastical politicians they\ndrew no line between religious and secular affairs, but were prompt\nwith a hand in every affair of the commonwealth. They spoke and\nwrote with unquestioned authority. They regarded the minister as the\nresponsible leader of society who must not suffer his flock to be\nled astray. The church was the guardian of morality, and the state\nwas its secular arm. The true faith must not be put in jeopardy by\nunfaith. To Timothy Dwight infidelity and democracy went hand in\nhand, and to suffer the commonwealth to fall under the control of\nthe godless meant the end of all morality and religion. To uphold the\nestablished order--of which he was a distinguished member--was for him\nthe first of Christian duties. A stalwart Federalist, he was a good\nhater of all Jacobins. His detestation of Jefferson was virulent and\nhe swallowed the nastiest tales about the great Virginian without a\nqualm, never doubting their authenticity. It was sometimes hinted that\nhe was too much the aristocrat to feel the warmest sympathy for the\nunprosperous, and there seems to have been ground for the suspicion.\nThe unprosperous were likely to be infected with Jeffersonian heresies,\nand as he watched them being drawn off to the York-state frontier,\nhe rejoiced that their voting power was no longer to be feared. Such\nrestless spirits, he pointed out, \u201care impatient of the restraints of\nlaw, religion, and morality; grumble about the taxes, by which Rulers,\nMinisters, and Schoolmasters are supported.... We have many troubles\neven now; but we should have many more, if this body of foresters had\nremained at home.\u201d[375] If the disaffected did not like the way the\nCongregational-Federalist party managed the good state of Connecticut,\nit were a godsend if they should remove beyond its boundaries.\n\nBut it is with the literary work of Timothy Dwight that we are more\nimmediately concerned, and in all his abundant output, totaling\nfourteen volumes and perhaps as much more in manuscript, the same\nsolid qualities are revealed. It is the occasional work of a man\nwanting humor, playfulness, grace, lacking subtlety and creative\nsuggestiveness, but with a shrewd common sense, a great vigor, and a\ncertain grandiose imagination. A sonorous declaimer, he dearly loved\ncombat and the shock of marshaled argument. He went out of his way\nto invite majestic effects. In _The Conquest of Canaan_ he described\nso many thunderstorms that Trumbull suggested he ought to furnish a\nlightning rod with the poem. Such a man could not move easily in narrow\nspaces. An epic was none too slight to contain his exuberant rhetoric.\nHis ready versification, one often feels, runs like a water pipe with\nthe faucet off; the words flow in an unbroken stream with never a pause\nto pick or choose. Yet even in his amazing copiousness there is vigor;\na well-stocked mind is pouring out the gatherings of years. When he\npauses to give advice--as he was fond of doing--his abundant sense\nis worth listening to; the homely wisdom of his talk to the farmers\nin the sixth part of _Greenfield Hill_ is not unlike Franklin. As a\nsatirist he belongs to the Churchill school; he is downright, abusive,\noften violent, quite lacking the lightness of touch and the easy gayety\nthat runs so pleasantly through _M\u2019Fingal_. His _Triumph of Infidelity_\nis solid old-fashioned pulpit-thumping. The spirit of toleration was\nwithheld from him by his fairy godmother, and he knew no other way of\ndealing with those who persisted in disagreement after their mistakes\nhad been pointed out, than the cudgel. In this tremendous poem he lays\nabout him vigorously. On Hume and Voltaire and Priestley, and all their\nfollowers, his blows fall smartly. Bloody crowns ought to be plentiful,\nbut--though he does not seem to know it--the blows fall on straw men\nand none proves mortal. On the whole one prefers him in the pastoral\nmood when he lays aside his ministerial gown, and _Greenfield Hill_,\nunless one excepts the _Travels in New England and New York_, remains\nhis most attractive work. Yet even that is sadly in need of winnowing.\nA great college president Timothy Dwight may very well have been; he\nwas worshiped by his admirers only this side idolatry; but a great\nthinker, a steadfast friend of truth in whatever garb it might appear,\na generous kindly soul loving even publicans and sinners, regardful of\nothers and forgetful of self, he assuredly was not.\n\n\n2. \u201cThe Anarchiad\u201d\n\nMost of the political satire of the Wits was done in collaboration,\nand consists of occasional sketches contributed to newspapers--with\nexplanatory comments and notes--dealing with matters of current\ninterest. Of the major works thus produced, _The Anarchiad_, _The\nEcho_, and _The Political Greenhouse_, the first will suffice to reveal\nthe political sympathies of the Hartford group. _The Anarchiad_ is a\nmock epic designed to counteract the populistic tendencies of post-war\ntimes. It was published in _The New Haven Gazette_ between October 26,\n1786, and September 13, 1787. In 1861 it was resurrected from a long\nsleep by Luther G. Riggs, and reissued with an introduction and notes.\n\u201cThis fearless satire,\u201d according to the editor, \u201cis supposed to have\nexerted great and beneficial influence upon the public mind, and to\nhave tended in no small degree to check the leaders of insubordination\nand infidel philosophy\u201d; and it must be regarded as \u201ca _national Poem_,\nbattling nobly for the right universal, for the majesty of law, and for\nthe Federal government.\u201d The idea was got from a contemporary English\nscreed entitled _The Rolliad_, one of the numerous political satires\nof which the late eighteenth century was so fond. Probably most of the\nmembers of the group had a hand in it, but the acrid quality of its\ncomment owes more to Hopkins than to the others.\n\nFor such work the angular Connecticut physician was admirably fitted.\nThe son of a Waterbury farmer. Dr. Lemuel Hopkins was the most\npicturesque member of the Hartford Wits, the most characteristically\nYankee. Brought up at the plow-tail, he received nevertheless an\nexcellent education, and because of a hereditary predisposition\nto consumption turned to the medical profession. After serving\nhis apprenticeship at Wallingford he entered upon his practice at\nLitchfield in 1776. During the Revolution he served for a short time\nas a volunteer, but soon returned to his lancet and medicine case. In\n1784 he removed to Hartford where he spent the remainder of his life.\nIn person he was tall, lean, stooping, rawboned, with coarse features\nand large brilliant eyes. His uncouth appearance and eccentricity of\nmanner made him a striking figure, and his caustic wit rendered him\na redoubtable antagonist. As a physician he stood at the head of the\nConnecticut profession. He was one of the founders of the Medical\nSociety of Connecticut, and as a frequent contributor to professional\nliterature he exerted a wide influence on the current practice.\n\nThe eccentric doctor seems to have been as honest as he was outspoken.\nHe was uncompromising in his warfare on all quacks, both medical and\npolitical. For a time as a young man he was a disciple of French\ninfidel philosophy, but he cured his mental indisposition by a severe\nBiblical regimen, and having restored himself to the robust health of\nCalvinistic Christianity, he devoted himself to the work of curing\nothers. He became in consequence a specialist in the treatment of the\nravages caused by the _bacillus gallicus_. For every sort of humbug\nhe had a hearty contempt, and any political nostrum not listed in the\nFederalistic materia medica he regarded as arrant quackery. He thought\nno better of old wives\u2019 remedies in government than in medicine,\nand when the Rhode Island legislature passed its paper-money act in\n1785, and six months later Shays\u2019s Rebellion broke out, and mobs were\nbesieging the legislature of New Hampshire, he proposed to speak\nplainly to the good people of Connecticut on the follies of popular\ndelusions. This would seem to have been the origin of _The Anarchiad_.\nIt sprang from the indignation of Dr. Hopkins, when, to quote from the\npoem,\n\n In visions fair, the scenes of fate unroll,\n And Massachusetts opens on my soul.\n There Chaos, Anarch old, asserts his sway,\n And mobs in myriads blacken all the way.\n\nThe sardonic temper of Dr. Hopkins fitted him for virulent satire,\nand in this bitterest of the productions of the Wits, the reins were\non the neck of the muse. Scarcely another New England satire reflects\nso sharply the class consciousness that underlay the bitter struggle\nbetween agrarianism and capitalism. It is a slashing attack upon\nagrarian economics and democratic liberalism, a versified echo of\nthe anger of creditors who were fighting the measures of populistic\nlegislatures. The staple of the satire is the wickedness of all\npaper-money issues, with the State of Rhode Island as the chief of\nagrarian sinners. About this main theme is gathered a miscellany\nof Federalist shibboleths--the godlessness of Shays and his crew,\nthe seditious spirit of all who oppose the new Constitution, the\ndemagoguery of democratic politicians--and the satire rises to a\npatriotic crescendo in declaiming against the folly of the democratic\nideal. So tremendous a work, however, cannot be adequately described;\nthe lines must speak for themselves. The following bits may serve in\nlieu of the whole, the first of which is a comment on Rhode Island, the\npariah of States:\n\n Hail! realm of rogues, renown\u2019d for fraud and guile,\n All hail! ye knav\u2019ries of yon little isle.\n There prowls the rascal, cloth\u2019d with legal pow\u2019r,\n To snare the orphan, and the poor devour;\n The crafty knave his creditor besets\n And advertising paper pays his debts;\n Bankrupts their creditors with rage pursue,\n No stop, no mercy from the debtor crew.\n Arm\u2019d with new tests, the licens\u2019d villain bold,\n Presents his bills, and robs them of their gold;\n Their ears, though rogues and counterfeiters lose,\n No legal robber fears the gallows noose.\n Look through the State, the unhallow\u2019d ground appears\n A pen of dragons, and a cave of bears;\n A nest of vipers, mix\u2019d with adders foul;\n The screeching night-bird, and the greater owl:\n For now, unrighteousness, a deluge wide,\n Pours round the land an overwhelming tide;\n And dark injustice, wrapp\u2019d in paper sheets,\n Rolls a dread torrent through the wasted streets;\n While net of law th\u2019 unwary fry draws in\n To damning deeds, and scarce they know they sin.\n New paper struck, new tests, new tenders made,\n Insult mankind, and help the thriving trade.\n Each weekly print new lists of cheats proclaims,\n Proud to enroll their knav\u2019ries and their names;\n The wiser race, the snares of law to shun,\n Like Lot from Sodom, from Rhode Island run....[376]\n\n Nor less abhorr\u2019d, the certain woe that waits\n The giddy rage of democratic States,\n Whose pop\u2019lar breath, high-blown in restless tide,\n No laws can temper, and no reason guide:\n An equal sway, their mind indignant spurns;\n To wanton sway, the bliss of freedom turns;\n Led by wild demagogues, the factious crowd,\n Mean, fierce, imperious, insolent and loud,\n Nor fame, nor wealth, nor power, nor system draws--\n They see no object, and perceive no cause;\n But feel, by turns, in one disastrous hour,\n Th\u2019 extremes of license, and th\u2019 extremes of power....\n\n Will this vain scheme bid restless factions cease,\n Check foreign wars, or fix internal peace?\n Call public credit from her grave to rise,\n Or gain in grandeur what they lose in size?...\n But know, ye favor\u2019d race, one potent head\n Must rule your States, and strike your foes with dread.\n The finance regulate, the trade control,\n Live through the empire, and accord the whole.\n Ere death invades, the night\u2019s deep curtain falls,\n Through ruin\u2019d realms the voice of +UNION+ calls; ...\n On you she calls! attend the warning cry;\n +Ye live united, or divided die!+[377]\n\n But chief the race allured by fleeting fame,\n Who seek on earth the politicians name;\n Auspicious race! whom folly joys to bless,\n And wealth and honor crown with glad success;\n Formed, like balloons, by emptiness to rise\n On pop\u2019lar gales, to waft them through the skies ...\n See, from the shades, on tiny pinions swell\n And rise, the young +DEMOCRACY+ of _hell!_\n Before their face the _powers of Congress_ fade,\n And _public credit_ sinks, an empty shade;\n Wild severance rages, wars intestine spread,\n Their boasted +UNION+ hides her dying head;\n The forms of government in ruin hurl\u2019d,\n Reluctant empire quits the western world.[378]\n\nAmid such democratic welter and mortal confusion the sole hope of\nsafety lies in Federalism, and the sapient leader who shall bring order\nout of the wild misrule is thus greeted:\n\n Ardent and bold, the smiling land to save,\n In council sapient as in action brave,\n I fear\u2019d young Hamilton\u2019s unshaken soul,\n And saw his arm our wayward host control; ...\n Fire in his eye, and thunder on his tongue.[379]\n\nOther work the Hartford Wits did, but none which need detain us. Soon\nchanges and removals broke up the coterie, and they went diverse ways\nto diverse rewards: Timothy Dwight to safeguard Yale undergraduates in\nNew Haven, Humphreys to the American legation at Paris, Trumbull to\nthe Michigan frontier, and Barlow to his notable career in Europe. But\nhappily not before they had contributed their portion of sweetness and\nlight to the great debate. The Wits were no skulkers in presence of\n\u201cinsubordination and infidel philosophy,\u201d when their economic interests\nwere touched.\n\n\nII \u2022 The French Group\n\nThe Wits were not devoid of cleverness, but they were wanting in\nideas. They were partisans rather than intellectuals. In the r\u00f4le of\nself-appointed custodians of Federalist moralities they were rather\ntedious fellows, who substituted fustian for creative thought, and blew\nup their verses with flatulent rhetoric. They sealed the windows of\ntheir minds against the disturbing winds of doctrine that were blowing\nbriskly; they inspected the family tree of every new idea to determine\nits respectability. An occasional fresh idea is necessary to keep one\nfrom falling into staleness and mediocrity; but the Wits chose to\nremain too ignorant to be interesting, and it is a relief to turn from\nthem to the more stimulating company of the French partisans. Here at\nleast there was intellectual sincerity: a genuine desire to understand\nwhat was going on in the larger world of thought; to use what brains\nGod had given them to better the lot of the American people. Philip\nFreneau, Joel Barlow, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge were not intellectual\ngiants, but they represent the best intelligence then being devoted to\nliterature in America, and their work retains a suggestiveness today\nfar beyond that of the Hartford Wits.\n\n\n1. Philip Freneau \u2022 Poet of Two Revolutions\n\nIt is fitting that our first outstanding poet should have been a\nliberal. The idealist has always seen deeper into the spirit of America\nthan the realist, and been less complacent with halfway achievement.\nAnd it is equally fitting that his idealism should have got him into\ntrouble with the dominant group of his generation. Philip Freneau\nwas a volunteer in two revolutions, a color-sergeant carrying the\nnewly unfurled flag of democracy in the thick of civil strife. He\nwas a lifelong rebel, whose rebellions turned out to be patriotic or\nseditious as they went with or against the purpose of the victorious\nparty. In the Revolution of \u201976 he fought shoulder to shoulder with\nJohn Adams and Hamilton and Washington, and his services were accorded\nhigh praise. His poems inspired patriotic enthusiasm, greatly aided the\nnational cause, and won wide approval. But in the Revolution of \u201993 he\nparted company with Adams and Hamilton and Washington. When the old\nleaders turned back in fear at the unloosing of democratic aspirations,\nhe went forward to new battles. He served the cause of \u201993 with the\nsame ardor that had inspired his pen in \u201976. It was not a new cause in\nhis eyes, but the old; not a different war, as Federalists asserted,\nbut other battles of the same war--the never ceasing struggle for human\nfreedom.\n\nIn thus breaking with the party of Federalism and casting his lot with\nthe democratic Jacobins, Freneau contracted a serious _m\u00e9salliance_\nthat destroyed his good name. Thereafter he was marked as a vulgar\ndemocrat, a disseminator of insubordination and infidelity, an evil\ninfluence among a respectable, God-fearing people. The further he went\nin his new crusade, the lower he sank in decent opinion, until the\npoet of the American Revolution came to be regarded as the hireling\nmouthpiece of Jefferson, a writer of wretched and insolent doggerel,\nan incendiary journalist--a mean and paltry figure beside the stately\nforms of the Fathers of the Constitution. Gentlemen exhausted the\nresources of ample vocabularies to express their detestation of his\nleveling ways. To Timothy Dwight he was \u201cA mere incendiary, or rather\n... a despicable tool of bigger incendiaries, and his paper ... a\npublic nuisance.\u201d To the gentle-natured Irving he was \u201cA barking cur,\u201d\nand to Washington, whose words were accorded a quasi-royal respect,\nhe was \u201cThat rascal Freneau\u201d: rather loose expressions, certainly,\nfor cultivated gentlemen to apply to another cultivated gentleman,\nthe friend of Madison and Brackenridge. It is evident that Freneau\nand the great Federalist leaders disagreed somewhat violently in\ntheir interpretations of the purpose and scope of the new venture in\nrepublicanism.\n\nThe source of their disagreement lay in divergencies of social\nphilosophy too great to be bridged. In his republicanism Freneau\nhad gone far in advance of the Federalists. He was a democrat while\nthey remained aristocrats. He had rid himself of a host of outworn\nprejudices, the heritage of an obsolete past, which held them in\nbondage. He had read more clearly the meaning of the great movement\nof decentralization that was shaping a new psychology, and must\nlead eventually to democratic individualism. He had no wish to stay\nor thwart that development; he accepted it wholly with all its\nimplications. He had freed his mind from the thralldom of caste; he\nwas impelled by no egoistic desire to impose his will upon others;\nhe was wholly free from the lust of economic aggression, either for\nhimself or for his class. He was an idealist who cared only for the\n_res publica_, the common well-being, and he desired chiefly that the\nnew American government should serve the needs of a free people. There\nwas no envy in the soul of Freneau, and no self-seeking. He was the\nfriend of civilization rather than the advocate of particular forms\nof government. He put his trust in local self-rule rather than in a\ncoercive state. Like Paine he distrusted all centralizing power. Like\nFranklin he regarded the every-day world of business and politics as\na preposterous arrangement, unconcerned with justice; and he took it\non himself to do what he could to make it over. All his life he was an\nunmuzzled advocate of whatever new movements gave promise of lessening\nthe old tyrannies. In championing the cause of democracy, he championed\na score of lesser causes: Unitarianism, deism, antislavery, Americanism\nin education: thereby bringing down on his head the resentment of\nall the conservatisms, religious, political, economic, social, then\nprospering in America. Nevertheless he went his way through a sordid\nworld of politicians and speculators, feeding upon whatever shreds of\nbeauty he met with, a dreamer and an idealist sneered at by exploiters,\na spirit touched to finer issues than his generation cared for.\n\nThe chief desire of Freneau\u2019s life was to be a poet, and if the country\nhad not been turmoiled by revolution, doubtless he would have been\ncontent to \u201clive unpromoted and write poems.\u201d But revolution and not\npoetry was the serious business of the age, and he chose to have a hand\nin that business. Many later critics have lamented his choice. They\nregret that he did not turn aside from the battle-ground to wander in\npastoral fields; that he was not content with the _noctes coenaeque\ndeum_ where the minstrel\u2019s song is sufficient passport to hospitality.\nIt is a nice question of literary ethics. The raw material of poetry\nwas in Philip Freneau; there was need only of calm years to master\nhis art and clarify the vague romanticism of his nature. He had only\nto stand apart from the turmoil, refusing to soil his hands with\npolitics, and cultivate his faculty for verse, to have made himself the\nindisputable founder of American poetry. He was endowed with a romantic\nimagination and love of natural beauty, a generation before the\nromantic revival, and he might well have become a notable contributor\nto that revival.\n\nBut he refused to stand apart. He would not hire a substitute to\ndefend the cause of freedom. There was rough work to be done, and\nthe democrats were too few to spare so competent a workman. So when\npoetry proved unequal to the task he turned journalist, and set to\nwork in a field unclaimed by the muses. It was an immense sacrifice,\nbringing disaster to all hope of contemporary fame, and tarnishing his\nreputation in after years. His place in American letters was fixed by\na Federalist verdict, and he has since remained obscure and neglected\nby all, save an occasional historian who dips into a few poems, regrets\nthat the smell of revolution is so rank, and dismisses him with the\ncomment that Campbell and Scott did him the honor to appropriate a\nfigure of speech without acknowledgment. Only within recent years\nhas a collected edition of his poems been accessible, and his prose\nwritings still remain buried in newspaper files. In consequence the\nliterary critics have echoed the political critics, and given new\nlife to the old partisanship. Thus Professor Wendell remarks that\n\u201ca considerable part of his poetry ... consists of rather reckless\nsatire, not conspicuously better or worse than much other satire of the\nperiod.\u201d[380] Even Professor Tyler, usually so generous in sympathy for\nour early writers, dismisses Freneau with these words:\n\n The poor old man, thus found dead on the lonely New Jersey moor,\n had undoubtedly some sweetness in his heart; but he permitted\n very little of it to work its way down to the tip of his pen.\n With that pitiless pen of his he had fought many a fierce fight\n in his day.... He was the poet of hatred, rather than of love....\n Among all his verses, the reader finds scarcely one lyric of\n patriotic enthusiasm, nor many lines to thrill the hearts of the\n Revolutionists by any touch of loving devotion to their cause, but\n everywhere lines hot and rank with sarcasm and invective against\n the enemy.... Like Odell, Freneau was a good hater; his was the\n wrathful muse; his chosen warfare was grim, unsparing, deadly. He\n was the satirical gladiator on behalf of the Revolution, even as\n Odell was the satirical gladiator in opposition to it.[381]\n\nSuch commentary is neither discriminating nor just. That the ways of\nFreneau were often ruthless it needs only a casual reading of his\nsatire to perceive; that he was a good hater is quite as apparent;\nbut that the deeper springs of his nature were bitter is not true. He\nwas no satirist like Churchill to love filth and delight in venom.\nIt was an age of partisan ruthlessness, and if Freneau was a fierce\npartisan it was because the new hope then whispering to liberals was\nin danger of being stifled by selfish men who feared it. The vision of\na free republic arising on the ruins of colonial monarchy had taken\npossession of his imagination; a republic admirable in justice and\nrighteous in all its ways. That vision, he believed, might be realized\nif the republicans stood firm in its defense. A thousand perils beset\nit. The lingering colonial traditions--the ties of old custom--were\npowerful advocates of the old inequality; the greed of profit and\npower--the ambitions of a monied aristocracy--were equally powerful\nadvocates of new tyrannies. Not only must George III and his Tory\nsupporters be driven from the land, but the work thus begun must be\ncarried through. An army of domestic enemies must be dealt with--a\nformidable aristocracy of wealth and family. Naturally it would be no\nholiday task. The King had no mind to be driven out of his American\ndominions, and the Federalists had no mind to surrender control of the\nnew American state. And so no choice remained to the republicans but\nto make the advocates of monarchy and aristocracy appear so hateful in\nthe eyes of the people that they would rise and destroy them.\n\nIn times of profound upheaval the demands of partisanship are stern\nand exacting. The gray-goose quill may serve the cause of peace, but\nthe porcupine quill stings and rankles more; and if Freneau was given\nto using the latter it was because he cared greatly for the ends to\nbe achieved. \u201cHow oft has rugged nature charged my pen with gall,\u201d\nhe lamented late in life as he contemplated the enemies he had made.\nSensitive and proud, he had a Gallic impetuosity of onset. If he\nplundered the broadsides of their store of abuse and ransacked the\ndictionaries of their wealth of scurrility, it was not because he loved\nabuse and scurrilities. If like Sam Adams, he was given to robbing men\nof their characters, it was due to no personal or selfish motives;\nthose great ones whom he lampooned so fiercely, he believed were\nenemies of the new order. If \u201chis chosen warfare was grim, unsparing,\ndeadly,\u201d as Professor Tyler asserts, it was because he was fighting for\na great ideal against men who were equally grim, unsparing, deadly.\nUnembittered laughter had little opportunity to try its sanative\nqualities in that long warfare of bushwhackers.\n\nDuring the last quarter of the century the writings of Freneau in verse\nand prose constitute an abstract and brief chronicle of the times. If\nthey seem old-fashioned to us today, they were quite new-fashioned\nto the men who first read them. The early satires, printed in 1775\nmust have fallen upon American ears with almost startling effect.\nA revolutionary change had come over Freneau; he had broken wholly\nwith the colonial temper and turned nationalist a year before the\nDeclaration of Independence. When he graduated from Princeton College\nin the summer of 1771, he wrote in collaboration with Hugh Henry\nBrackenridge a commencement poem entitled _The Rising Glory of\nAmerica_, in which the youthful collegians, bred up in a hotbed of\nWhiggery, were as British as Pitt himself. The new English imperialism\nfairly rioted in the swelling couplets. The poem is a prophecy of the\ntime when the British flag should wave from the Atlantic to the Pacific\nover a contented people, who \u201cwarm in liberty and freedom\u2019s cause,\u201d\ngloried in the name of Briton. Agriculture and commerce are duly\ncelebrated as the twin pillars of American prosperity, and the pages of\ncolonial history are combed for great names and heroic deeds. On the\nroll of American heroes Braddock, Sir William Johnson, and Whitefield\nare the most conspicuous. Oddly enough Washington\u2019s valor at the time\nof Braddock\u2019s defeat was unknown to these collegians in 1771, but\nwas afterwards discovered and inserted in later editions. Following\nindependence Freneau revised the poem and the changed circumstances\nplayed havoc with the colonial text. Braddock was silently expunged\ntogether with \u201cBritannia\u2019s warlike troops, Choice spirits of her isle.\u201d\n\u201cFalse Gallia\u2019s sons\u201d becomes \u201cGallia\u2019s hostile sons.\u201d A notable\ntribute to English generosity seemed incongruous to Freneau after his\nexperience on the prison ship and was deleted. He no longer felt that\n\n The British epithet is merciful,\n And we the sons of Britain learn like them\n To conquer and to spare.\n\nWhat happened to Freneau during the years following his graduation is\nuncertain, but in July, 1775, he appeared in New York City with his\npockets stuffed with another sort of verse, which he scattered among\nthe print-shops, the rebellious spirit of which may be judged from the\nprayer,\n\n _Libera Nos, Domine._--Deliver us, O Lord, not only from British\n dependence, but\n\n From the scoundrel, Lord North, who would bind us in chains,\n From a royal king Log, with his tooth-full of brains,\n Who dreams, and is certain (when taking a nap)\n He has conquered our lands, as they lay on his map.\n\n From a kingdom that bullies, and hectors, and swears,\n We send up to heaven our wishes and prayers\n That we, disunited, may freemen be still,\n And Britain go on--to be damned if she will.[382]\n\nThe colonial slipped easily from Freneau and left him wholly American.\nAnd with the colonial psychology there slipped from him also the\nuseless impedimenta of old-world social and political philosophies.\nHow far he advanced towards the democratic conception of society,\nduring those first rebellious years, is not clear; but he had set his\nfoot on a path that must conduct him far if he did not turn back.\nAnd it is certain that he never turned back. His declaration of\nindependence from King George was the first of many such declarations\nof independence--for himself and his fellow Americans. Thereafter\nhis serious business was the work of stripping from the colonial\nevery loyalty which still bound him to England. He supplemented the\nwork of Paine in teaching men whose fathers were English that they\nwere of another nation; that they could no longer remain both English\nand American, but must make choice between the two allegiances. Year\nafter year he stirred the troubled waters, arousing the spirit of\nnationalism by attacking everything pro-British. His attacks on the\nEnglish generals, the Tories, the royalist printers, were but means to\nthe great end of uprooting the traditional dependence on England and\nquickening the new national psychology.\n\nThe second stimulus to Freneau\u2019s revolutionary ardor came from the\nFrench uprising. Later in the summer of 1775 he had quitted New York\nand sailed for the West Indies. He spent two years on the Island of\nSanta Cruz, then and later engaging in sea voyages about the islands\nand along the American coast. They were creative years, when removed\nequally from the distractions of war and the utilitarianism of America,\nhe was free to cultivate the romantic strain of poetry that was strong\nin him. Then followed unhappier days. A period of stagnation had come\nto him during the years of post-war reaction; and if fresh fuel had\nnot been brought from overseas to kindle anew his social enthusiasms,\nit is likely that he would have drifted into a stale and unprofitable\nold age. The spirit of romantic poetry was deadened by an unsympathetic\nenvironment, but with the democratic hope rising in France came a fresh\ncall to arms. He discovered a larger and nobler interpretation of his\nrepublican creed, that was to transform it into French Jacobinism\nand arm it for a new leveling crusade. If he could not be a poet to\nAmerica he would enlist in the army of democracy. Not only must the\nnew government be made French-democratic instead of English-Whig,\nbut all distinctions of rank must be swept away, together with every\ntyrannical dogma of church and state. In short there must be a social\nhouse-cleaning, the limits of which were to be determined only by\nreason and the common democratic good. So Freneau enthusiastically\njoined with Paine and Jefferson in the partisan labor of spreading the\nnew faith.\n\nHis literary activity during this second period was remarkable. Songs\nand odes and satires came from his ready pen in unending stream, eager,\ncutting, vibrant with feeling. It requires an intimate knowledge of\nthe times to make out the identity of every figure at which he shoots\nhis arrows, but it needs no very intimate knowledge to measure the\nintensity of his partisanship. The democratic hopes and fears of those\nvibrant days find reflection in many an acrid verse. He was at one with\nJefferson in his concern at the monarchical reaction.\n\n In ten short years, of freedom weary grown\n The State, Republic, sickens for a throne.\n\nThe man who attached to the pen name of Peter Slender the letters O. S.\nM.--One of the Swinish Multitude--would not fail to take the part of\nthe private soldier neglected by the state:\n\n Sold are those arms which once on Britons blazed,\n When, flushed with conquest, to the charge they came;\n That power repelled, and Freedom\u2019s fabrick raised,\n She leaves her soldier--famine and a name![383]\n\nNor would he fail to capitalize the aristocratic contempt of the\nFederalists for that same swinish multitude.\n\n Lodge where you must, drink small-beer where you can,\n But eat no roast pig, if no Federal man....\n\n Your mouth was made for rye or barley bread;\n What claims have you to halls of state,\n Whose business is to stand and wait,\n Subservient to command?\n What right have you to white-bread, superfine,\n Who were by nature destin\u2019d for \u201c_a swine_\u201d--\n As said good Edmund Burke,\n The drudge of Britain\u2019s dirty work,\n Whose mighty pamphlets rous\u2019d the royal band![384]\n\nDuring the tumultuous year of \u201993 Freneau issued a series of\n_Probationary Odes by Jonathan Pindar, Esq._, which reflect sharply\nthe partisan passions aroused by the French Revolution. They were\nlampoons directed at members of government who were in the democratic\nblack-book, chiefly John Adams, Knox, and Hamilton. The introductory\npoem was addressed _To all the Great Folks in a Lump_; the second, _To\nAtlas_, was an attack on Hamilton; the third, _To A Select Body of\nGreat Men_, was a lampoon of the Senate; and the fourth, _To a Would Be\nGreat Man_, was addressed to Freneau\u2019s particular _b\u00eate noire_, John\nAdams. This last, apropos of _Davila_, will serve to show the popular\nreception which that unfortunate work received.\n\n Daddy Vice, Daddy Vice,\n One may see in a trice\n The drift of your fine publication.\n As sure as a gun\n The thing was just done\n To secure you a +PRETTY HIGH+ station.\n\n When you tell us of _kings_\n And such pretty things\n Good mercy! how brilliant your page is!\n So bright is each line\n I vow you\u2019ll shine\n Like--a glow worm to all future ages.\n\n On Davila\u2019s page\n Your discourses so sage\n Democratical numskulls bepuzzle,\n With arguments tough\n As white leather or buff,\n The republican Bull Dogs to muzzle.\n\n \u2019Tis labor in vain,\n Your senses to strain,\n Our brains any longer to muddle;\n Like Colossus you stride\n O\u2019er our noddles so wide\n We look up like frogs in a puddle.\n\nIf Freneau\u2019s hatred of the men who opposed the democratic movement\nwas immeasurable, his enthusiasm for the new age of reason that he\nbelieved was rising was as boundless. His pages during those years of\nJacobin radicalism are dotted thick with odes to liberty and addresses\nto republicans; probably more fully than any other pages they reflect\nthe spirit that in England and America was forming Tom Paine clubs,\nand projecting innumerable programs of social reform. A new social\nconscience was stirring in Freneau, broadening immensely the horizon of\nhis thought; and if he counted rather too confidently on the appeal to\nreason to bring the golden age, he proved himself thereby a true child\nof his generation. In such lines as these one discovers the spirit that\nmoved Godwin to write _Political Justice_.\n\n How can we call those systems just\n Which bid the few, the proud, the first,\n Possess all earthly good;\n While millions robbed of all that\u2019s dear\n In silence shed the ceaseless tear,\n And leaches suck their blood....\n\n Let laws revive, by heaven designed,\n To tame the tiger in the mind\n And drive from human hearts\n That love of wealth, that love of sway,\n Which leads the world too much astray,\n Which points envenomed darts:\n\n And men will rise from what they are;\n Sublimer, and superior, far,\n Than Solon guessed, or Plato saw;\n All will be just, all will be good--\n That harmony, \u201cnot understood,\u201d\n Will reign the general law.\n\n For, in our race, deranged, bereft,\n The parting god some vestige left\n Of worth before possessed;\n Which full, which fair, which perfect shone,\n When love and peace, in concord sown,\n Ruled, and inspired each breast.[385]\n\nIn quite another vein, that reveals Freneau\u2019s unusual mastery of\ncolloquial prose, is the following passage, impersonating Robert\nSlender, the country philosopher.\n\n Mr. Editor,\n\n Having heard that there was a tavern at about the distance of a\n mile or so from my favorite country spot, where now and then a few\n neighbors meet to spit, smoke segars, drink apple whiskey, cider\n or cider-royal, and read the news--a few evenings ago, I put on my\n best coat, combed out my wig, put my spectacles in my pocket, and a\n quarter dollar--This I thought was right; for although Mrs. Slender\n told me eleven-pence was enough, says I, I\u2019ll e\u2019en take the quarter\n dollar, for a man always feels himself of more consequence when he\n has got good money in his pocket--so out I walks with a good stout\n stick in my hand, which I always make a point to carry with me,\n lest the dogs should make rather freer with my legs than I could\n wish. But I had not gone more than half the way, when, by making a\n false step, I splash\u2019d my stocking from the knee to the ancle. Odds\n my heart, said I, see what a hand I have made of my stocking; I\u2019ll\n be bail, added I, I\u2019ll hear of this in both sides of my head--but\n it can\u2019t now be helped--this, and a thousand worse accidents,\n which daily happen, are all occasioned by public neglect, and the\n misapplication of the public\u2019s money--Had I, said I, (talking to\n myself all the while) the disposal of but half the income of the\n United States, I could at least so order matters, that a man might\n walk to his next neighbor\u2019s without splashing his stockings or\n being in danger of breaking his legs in ruts, holes, gutts, and\n gullies. I do not know, says I to myself, as I moralized on my\n splash\u2019d stocking, but money might with more profit be laid out\n in repairing the roads, than in marine establishments, supporting\n a standing army, useless embassies, exorbitant salaries, given to\n many flashy fellows that are no honor to us, or to themselves,\n and chartering whole ships to carry a single man to another\n nation--Odds my life, continued I, what a number of difficulties a\n man labors under, who has never read further than Lilly\u2019s grammar,\n and has but a poor brain--had I been favored with a good education,\n I could no doubt readily see the _great usefulness_ of all these\n measures of government, that now appear to me so unaccountable--I\n could then, said I, still talking to myself, see the reason why\n the old patriots, whose blood flowed so freely in purchasing our\n independence, are cast aside, like a broken pitcher, (as the\n Scripture says) and why the old tories and active refugees are\n advanced to places of power, honor and trust.[386]\n\nIn another writer so whimsical a note would have no other purpose than\nto fill a Spectator paper. But the garrulous Robert Slender is Freneau\nin quieter vein, pursuing his old purpose. As a social philosopher\nhis opinions are oddly like those of Tom Paine. In commenting on\nthe government\u2019s use of the people\u2019s money he was seeking to awaken\ninterest in the social possibilities of government: that government\nwould better serve the _res publica_ through internal improvements,\nthan by creating armies and navies and providing posts and pensions\nfor great men. This was a fashion of thought which Paine had done much\nto spread, and in the midst of a pompous Federalism, when gentlemen\nprofessed to believe that government could acquire reverence in the\npeople\u2019s eyes only by being hedged about with ceremonial, Robert\nSlender\u2019s cogitations were very much to the point. If government were\ntruly democratized, if it concerned itself with realities, serving the\npeople in the homely affairs and common needs of everyday life, there\nwould be no need of aristocratic ceremonial. Like Paine, Freneau was an\nidealist, with his head full of ideas which to practical men were only\nsilly French notions; and yet the idealist, in this matter of the _res\npublica_, was the true realist.\n\nFor all his Jacobinism Freneau might have been spared some of the\nodium that gathered about his head if he had not turned partisan\njournalist and put himself in the thick of the fight. In the eighteenth\ncentury the newspaper editor had not yet wholly risen from the rank\nof mechanic; he was still a master-printer, with hands much too\nink-stained to pass himself off as a gentleman, and with financial\nresources too limited to be intellectually independent. If his paper\nwere largely literary he made no powerful enemies, but let him enter\npolitics or seek to mold public opinion on important matters, and he\nwas likely to meet the fate of John Mein, outspoken editor of the\n_Boston Chronicle_, who was destroyed for exposing the weakness of the\nmerchants\u2019 non-importation policy.[387] Freneau had had considerable\nexperience in newspaper work at times when his sea life had grown\nirksome, but he took no active part in politics until the fall of 1791,\nwhen he set up the _National Gazette_ in Philadelphia, and began that\ntumultuous career lasting two years which brought so much abuse upon\nhim.\n\nThe detailed story of his connection with the _Gazette_ is given in an\nadmirable study,[388] and need not be recounted further than to bring\ninto relief the bare essentials. Soon after the formation of the new\ngovernment Hamilton had provided himself with a newspaper, _The United\nStates Gazette_, that was an effective advocate of all Hamiltonian\npolicies. The editor, John Fenno, seems to have been a vigorous fellow,\ninto whose hands Hamilton threw much of the public printing, and whose\ndebts he paid when they became pressing. Alarmed at the influence\nwielded by the newspaper, Jefferson and Madison approached Freneau,\nwho had been contemplating a new venture, with the suggestion that\nhe set up a rival democratic paper. To encourage him Jefferson gave\nFreneau a small post as translator in the State Department, worth $250\na year. The _National Gazette_ was thereupon established, and for two\nyears a war between the hostile papers went on fiercely. If the _United\nStates Gazette_ lauded the virtues of the English government, extolled\nthe wisdom of Hamilton and abhorred all Jacobins, the _National\nGazette_ retorted in kind, attacking the Secretary of the Treasury\nand applauding the growing Jacobite spirit that struck at every form\nof aristocracy. It became the common clearing house for democratic\npropaganda, and Freneau\u2019s influence spread so widely that he may justly\nbe regarded as \u201cthe leading editor in America\u201d during those critical\nyears.\n\nIt is quite evident today that \u201cthe chief business of the _Gazette_\nwas to destroy Hamilton.\u201d Probably more largely than any other\nwriter, Freneau awakened a popular distrust of Federalist men and\nmeasures, which a few years later was to break the party. Jefferson\u2019s\noften-quoted remark, \u201cHis paper has saved our Constitution _which was\nfast galloping into monarchy_, and has been checked by no one means so\npowerfully as by that paper,\u201d is somewhat extravagant; nevertheless the\nuniversal detestation in which Freneau was held by all Federalists is\nsufficient testimony to his influence. Washington was greatly ruffled\nand wanted to remove him from his petty post in the State Department,\nbut Jefferson would not consent. It seems that Washington felt no\nill-will toward John Fenno, who drew six times the sum from the public\ntreasury that Freneau received. But Fenno was no democrat, \u201chostile to\ngarter, ribbon, crown, and star;\u201d Fenno was no unsparing critic who\nwould attack even Washington if he lent himself to undemocratic ends;\nwhereas Freneau was plain-spoken, and no gentleman likes plain speaking\nfrom subordinates.\n\nAll this was a hundred years ago and more. The inditers of those\npartisan scurrilities, Democrat and Federalist alike, have long since\nceased their bickerings. Words which once stung like a whiplash\nhave become only echoes of dead passions. As the struggles of those\ntumultuous years fall into truer perspective, the figure of Philip\nFreneau takes on larger and nobler proportions. The cloud of calumny\nthat long obscured his virtues is dissipating, and we discover in him\nan eager child of an age of democratic aspiration, the friend and\nadvocate of social justice. Like Paine and Jefferson and Franklin, he\nwas a notable American, who gave himself unselfishly to the work of\nfurthering the common well-being. \u201cIt was a long and stormy life,\u201d says\nForman, \u201cand it was lived for human rights and human freedom\u201d--\n\n Still on the people\u2019s, still on Freedom\u2019s side;\n Still in the cause of man severely true.\n\nAfter all, the poet in Freneau was deeper than the partisan. Despite\nhis conviction that a sordid America cared nothing for poetry--that \u201can\nage employed in edging steel can no poetic raptures feel\u201d--his love of\nbeauty was never killed nor the spring of poetic creation dried up.\nIn moments of release from cares he found solace in the poetry that\nwelled up from the unembittered depths of a rich and generous nature.\nThe portrait drawn by Professor Tyler depicts one side of Freneau; the\nfollowing lines, from a very late poem, reveal another:\n\n The world has wrangled half an age,\n And we again in war engage,\n While this sweet, sequestr\u2019d rill\n Murmurs through the valley still....\n\n But, with all your quiet flow,\n Do you not some quarrels know!\n Lately, angry, how you ran!\n All at war--and much like man.\n\n When the shower of waters fell,\n How you raged, and what a swell!\n All your banks you overflow\u2019d,\n Scarcely knew your own abode!\n\n How you battled with the rock!\n Gave my willows such a shock\n As to menace, by its fall,\n Underwood and bushes, all:\n\n Now you are again at peace:\n Time will come when that will cease;\n Such the human passions are;\n --You again will war declare.\n\n Emblem, thou, of restless man;\n What a sketch of nature\u2019s plan!\n Now at peace, and now at war,\n Now you murmur, now you roar;\n\n Muddy now, and limpid next,\n Now with icy shackles vext--\n What a likeness here we find!\n What a picture of mankind![389]\n\nThis was the valedictory of Philip Freneau. His life was bitter and\nturbulent, cast in a bitter and turbulent age; yet he found some grains\nof comfort in the contemplation of nature and the exercise of the\npoet\u2019s craft. Through it all his heart remained clean and his hands\nunstained. If he was not a great poet whom all the critics praise, he\nloved beauty and served it in a careless world among an indifferent\npeople, and it ill becomes America to forget his contribution or deny\nhim some portion of the honor that has fallen generously to others no\nmore deserving.\n\n\n2. Joel Barlow \u2022 Jacobin\n\nThat he should have long associated with the Hartford Wits and\ncollaborated with them in defense of Connecticut Federalism must have\nseemed to Joel Barlow in after years the choicest bit of comedy in his\nvaried career. His subsequent adventures led him far from the strait\npath of Yale orthodoxy. In those ripe later years life had pretty well\nemptied him of all dogmatisms and taught him the virtue of catholic\nsympathies. He had become acquainted with diverse philosophies and\nhad observed the ways of alien societies, and from such contacts the\nhorizons of his mind had broadened and his character mellowed. It was\na long road that he traveled from New Haven to his Washington salon.\nBorn a Connecticut Yankee, he accepted in his youth all the Connecticut\nconventions, and graduated from Yale with as complete a stock of\nrespectable opinions as his classmate Noah Webster. An energetic\ncapable fellow, he wanted to get on in life. He wanted to be rich and\nfamous, and he tried many roads that promised to lead to that desirable\ngoal--law, politics, journalism, poetry, psalmody, speculation. Needing\na job he volunteered soon after graduation as chaplain in the army.\nHe had not prepared for the ministry and while preaching somewhat\nindifferently to ragged soldiers he dreamed of poetic fame, and devoted\nmore time to his couplets than to pious meditation. His abilities\ndiscovering no more profitable field for exercise than writing verse,\nhe was pretty much at a stand till chance sent him abroad as agent\nfor one of the speculative land-companies that were springing up like\nmushrooms in post-war America. There he found his opportunity. In\nFrance, where he established his headquarters, he entered a world of\nthought vastly different from that of prim little Hartford. It was an\nextraordinarily stimulating experience into which he threw himself with\nzest. Seventeen years, from 1788 to 1805, he spent abroad on that first\nvisit, and those years changed the provincial Yankee into one of the\nmost cosmopolitan Americans of his generation. From a member of the\nHartford Wits, ardent in defense of the traditional Connecticut order,\nhe had become a citizen of the world, outspoken in defense of the\nrights of man.\n\nIt was this later Barlow, completely new-outfitted by French romantic\ntailors, that after years remember and that early friends could\nnot forgive. In adopting the Jacobin mode and setting himself to\nthe serious business of political thinking, he invited the caustic\ncriticism of his former associates; yet nothing in his life was more\ncreditable or marks him more definitely as an open-minded, intelligent\nman. He was as receptive to new ideas as Timothy Dwight was impervious.\nHe plunged boldly into the maelstrom of speculation then boiling in\nEurope. He moved in the society of the intellectuals, inquired into the\nlatest political and social theories, turned humanitarian, re\u00ebxamined\nhis Calvinistic theology in the light of current deism, and became one\nof the free democratic thinkers swarming in every European capital.\nHe was equally at home in London and Paris, passing long periods of\ntime in both cities. An active member of the Constitutional Society of\nLondon, he was intimate with Joseph Priestley, Horne Tooke, and Tom\nPaine, sympathized with every liberal movement, and offered his pen to\nthe cause of a freer England. His _Advice to the Privileged Orders_ was\neulogized by Fox on the floor of Commons, and the Pitt ministry was\nmoved to suppress the work and proscribe the author. Thereupon Barlow\nwent into hiding. There seems to have been considerable provocation for\nthe government\u2019s action. \u201cIt is safe to say,\u201d remarks his biographer,\n\u201cthat no political work of the day created so wide an interest or was\nso extensively read.\u201d With Paine and Barlow both loose in England there\nwas need of the government looking to its fences.\n\nIn 1793 he was made a citizen of France. His French career was not\nunlike Paine\u2019s, whom he resembled in many ways. He had much of the\nlatter\u2019s genius for publicity and skill in propaganda, and his career\nwas a great stimulus to radicals at home. He was not too busy to\nserve his country in a diplomatic way. He risked his life to aid\nAmerican prisoners in Africa and by his skill and address eventually\nfreed them--an achievement that few men could have gone through with\nsuccessfully. In the meantime he had not neglected his private affairs.\nHe made a fortune in the French funds, which he increased by able\nmerchandising. He had come to his goal by distant roads, and on his\nreturn to America in 1805 he took up his abode at Washington, creating\na delightful countryseat on the outskirts of the raw little capital\nwhere he maintained a salon for American liberals. He seems to have\nfelt no inclinations towards Connecticut; the old ties were broken\nnow for good, the French Jacobin could not fit into the rigid grooves\nof Hartford Federalism. Six years later he was impressed a second time\ninto the diplomatic service, was sent to France on a difficult mission,\nfollowed Napoleon, then on the Russian campaign, was caught in the\nbreak-up of the grand army, suffered exposure, contracted pneumonia,\nand died in a village near Cracow in Poland--a fate which many honest\nFederalists regarded as amply merited by his vicious principles.\n\nThe later reputation of Barlow has been far less than his services\nwarranted or his solid merits deserved. His admirable prose writings\nhave been forgotten and the _Columbiad_ returns always to plague him.\nThe common detraction of all Jacobins and democrats fell heavily on so\nconspicuous a head. \u201cIt is simply impossible,\u201d says his biographer,\n\u201cfor the historian of Federal proclivities and environment to do\njustice to the great leaders of Republicanism in America.\u201d Barlow\nwas forced to pay a heavy price for his intellectual independence.\nDetraction was always lying in wait for him. John Adams, who had\nsuffered many a sharp thrust from him, wrote to Washington, \u201cTom Paine\nis not a more worthless fellow.\u201d Of the Yale dislike Barlow was well\naware, for he once confessed that he would have presented the school\nwith some needed chemical apparatus but he \u201csupposed that, coming\nfrom him, the college authorities would make a bonfire of them in the\ncollege yard.\u201d[390] Yet it is hard for a later generation to discover\nwherein lay the viciousness of his life or principles. A warm-hearted\nhumanitarian, he was concerned always for the common well-being. The\ntwo major passions of his life were freedom and education. During the\nlast years at Washington he was ardently promoting a plan for a great\nnational university at the seat of government, and had he lived ten\nyears longer his wide influence would probably have accomplished it.\nHis sins would seem to have been no other than an open break with the\nCalvinism and Federalism of the Connecticut oligarchy--somewhat slender\ngrounds on which to pillory him as an infidel and a scalawag.\n\nThe social foundation of Barlow\u2019s political philosophy is lucidly\npresented in the _Advice to the Privileged Orders_, a work that\ndeserves a place beside Paine\u2019s _Rights of Man_ as a great document\nof the times. It does too much credit to American letters to be\nsuffered to lie buried with a dead partisanship. It is warm with the\nhumanitarian enthusiasm that had come down as a rich heritage from\nthe Physiocratic school of social thinkers. Two suggestive ideas lie\nat the base of his speculations: the doctrine of the _res publica_,\nand the doctrine of social responsibility for individual well-being.\nThe former, given wide currency by the _Rights of Man_, resulted from\nthe imposition of social conscience on abstract political theory, out\nof which was derived a new conception of the duties and functions\nof the political state--the conception that the state must be the\nresponsible agent of society as a whole rather than the tool of a\nclass, and that its true concern is the _public thing_, safeguarding\nthe social heritage as a common asset held in trust for succeeding\ngenerations; the latter resulted from the inquiry into the relations of\nthe political state to the individual citizen--its responsibility as\nthe social agent, for the social waste of wrecked lives and thwarted\nhappiness, a waste that a rational social order would greatly lessen if\nnot eradicate. Barlow flatly denied that the primary function of the\nstate is the protection of property interests; its true end lies in\nsecuring justice. But justice without equal opportunity is a mockery;\nand equal opportunity is impossible unless the individual citizen\nshall be equipped to live on equal terms with his fellows. Hence the\nfine flower of political justice is discovered in education; in that\ngenerous provision for the young and the weak that shall equip them\nto become free members of the commonwealth. Like Paine\u2019s _Agrarian\nJustice_, the _Advice to the Privileged Orders_ is an extraordinarily\nmodern work, far more comprehensible today than when it was written.\nThat the \u201cState has no right to punish a man, to whom it has given no\nprevious instruction,\u201d and that \u201cShe ought not only to instruct him in\nthe artificial laws by which property is secured, but in the artificial\nindustry by which it is obtained,\u201d are doctrines that seem far less\npreposterous to us than they seemed to Timothy Dwight. The president of\nYale College was greatly troubled over Calvinistic sin; Joel Barlow was\ngreatly troubled over social injustice; in that difference is measured\nthe distance the latter had traveled in company with the French\nJacobins.\n\nThe root of his political thinking is the doctrine of equalitarianism.\n\u201cOnly admit,\u201d he says, \u201cthe original, unalterable truth, _that all men\nare equal in their rights, and the foundation of everything is laid_.\u201d\nAccepting the romantic doctrine that human nature is excellent in its\nplastic state, and capable of infinite development, he is untroubled\nby the fact of human selfishness. He sees no bogey in democracy to\nfrighten timid souls, no specter of anarchy in the rule of the people.\n\n They say mankind are wicked and rapacious, and \u201cit must be that\n offences will come.\u201d This reason applies to individuals; but not to\n nations deliberately speaking a national voice. I hope I shall not\n be understood to mean, that the nature of man is totally changed by\n living in a free republic. I allow that it is still _interested_\n men and _passionate_ men, that direct the affairs of the world.\n But in national assemblies, passion is lost in deliberation, and\n interest balances interest; till the good of the whole community\n combines the general will.\n\n If government be founded on the vices of mankind, its business is\n to restrain those vices in all, rather than to foster them in a\n few.[391]\n\nIt was his sensitive social conscience that brought him to revolt\nagainst all class government. He had seen the naked sordidness of such\ngovernments in Europe, and he watched with concern the beginnings of\nlike government in America. The significance of the Hamiltonian program\ncould not escape so shrewd an observer as Barlow; he was too much a\nrealist to take political professions at face value. \u201cI see,\u201d he wrote,\n\u201cimmense fortunes made by our funding legislators out of the public\nfunds which they funded for themselves.\u201d Politics for profit was a\nsorry spectacle to him, and he occupied his mind much with the problem\nof erecting the machinery of an adequate democratic state that should\nbe faithful to its stewardship as agent of the whole.\n\nIt was this difficult problem with which he dealt in his _Letter\nto the National Convention of France_. In this suggestive work two\nideas determined his thinking: the doctrine of the sovereignty of\nthe majority will, and the doctrine of government as a social agent.\nIn both he returned to the position of Roger Williams a hundred and\nfifty years before. The sovereignty of the majority will he conceives\nto be continuous and immediately effective; it cannot be held in\ncheck by a rigid constitutionalism, for as Paine had pointed out,\nsuch constitutionalism is no other than government from the grave.\nHe proposed therefore, that the fundamental law be amendable by\nlegislative enactment, one legislative body proposing and the next\ndetermining, under full publicity. As a guarantee that such action\nshould express the popular will, that love of power on the part of the\nagent should not defeat the purpose of society, he held that there must\nbe annual elections. Representatives should be periodically excluded\nfrom candidacy, and other representatives fresh from the people sent\nup, for \u201cpower always was and always must be a dangerous thing.\u201d The\nprinciple of recall he regarded as indispensable in a democratic\ngovernment, for it \u201cwill tend to maintain a proper relation between\nthe representatives and the people, and a due dependence of the former\nupon the latter. Besides, when a man has lost the confidence of his\nfellow citizens ... he is no longer their representative; and when he\nceases to be their\u2019s, he cannot in any sense be the representative of\nthe nation.\u201d The fundamental principle of state-craft Barlow states\nthus: \u201cEvery individual ought to be rendered as independent of every\nother individual as possible; and at the same time as dependent as\npossible on the whole community.\u201d The familiar romantic doctrine of\nthe diminished state is implicit in all his reasoning. Like Paine he\nwould do away utterly with the old mystery of government under which\nambitious men cloak their will to power; \u201cfor whatever there is in\nthe art of government, whether legislative or executive, above the\ncapacities of the ordinary class of what are called well-informed men,\nis superfluous and destructive and ought to be laid aside.\u201d\n\nA thoroughgoing radical in economics and politics, Barlow was no\ninnovator in polite literature. He had pulled himself out of many a\nConnecticut provincialism, but he stuck fast in the bog of provincial\npoetry. It has long been the fashion to make merry over _The\nColumbiad_, and there is only too patent a reason for it. To criticize\nit is a work of supererogation. The appeal of \u201cthe grand style\u201d seems\nto have been too much for him. Some explanation doubtless is to be\nfound in the fact that he was working over an earlier poem done in the\ndays of an ebullient patriotism. It was a mistake to return to it,\nfor the heroic note in the vein of a political pamphleteer must play\nhavoc with it. What he now attempted, in the light of his long European\nexperience, was to embody in the narrative suitable political ideas,\ntransforming _The Vision of Columbus_ into an epic glorifying the great\nrepublican experiment. His purpose is set forth in the preface.\n\n [The] real object of the poem is to inculcate the love of national\n liberty, and to discountenance the deleterious passion for violence\n and war; to show that on the basis of republican principle all good\n morals, as well as good government and hopes of permanent peace,\n must be founded; and to convince the student in political science,\n that the theoretical question of the future advancement of human\n society, till states as well as individuals arrive at universal\n civilization, is held in dispute and still unsettled only because\n we have had too little experience of organized liberty in the\n government of nations, to have well considered its effects.\n\nThe humanitarian note is strong. War, slavery, monarchy, injustice,\nthe tyranny resulting from political inequality, and a host of other\nevils, social and political, are assailed in vigorous declamation. It\nmay not be good poetry but the sentiments are those of an enlightened\nand generous man. The conclusion rises to a vision of a golden age of\ninternational commerce and universal peace, when \u201cearth, garden\u2019d all,\na tenfold burden brings,\u201d and the sundered nations shall draw together,\nand--\n\n ... cloth\u2019d majestic in the robes of state,\n Moved by one voice, in general congress meet\n The legates of all empires.\n\nIn that future time science will have learned \u201cwith her own glance to\nken the total God,\u201d and philosophy will \u201cexpand the selfish to the\nsocial flame.\u201d Of the political ideas incorporated in the massive work\nsome suggestion may be got from the following lines:\n\n Ah, would you not be slaves, with lords and kings,\n Then be not Masters; there the danger springs.\n The whole crude system that torments this earth,\n Of rank, privation, privilege of birth,\n False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars,\n The rage of conquest and the curse of wars,\n Pandora\u2019s total shower, all ills combined\n That erst o\u2019erwhelmed and still distress mankind,\n Boxt up secure in your deliberate hand,\n Wait your behest to fix or fly this land.\n\n Equality of right is nature\u2019s plan;\n And following nature is the march of man.\n Whene\u2019er he deviates in the least degree,\n When, free himself, he would be more than free,\n The baseless column, rear\u2019d to bear his trust,\n Falls as he mounts and whelms him in the dust....\n\n Too much of Europe, here transplanted o\u2019er,\n Nursed feudal feelings on your tented shore,\n Brought sable sires from Afric, call\u2019d it gain,\n And urged your sires to forge the fatal chain....\n Restore their souls to men, give earth repose,\n And save your sons from slavery, wars and woes.\n\n Based on its rock of right your empire lies,\n On walls of wisdom let the fabric rise;\n Preserve your principles, their force unfold,\n Let nations prove them and let kings behold.\n +Equality+, your first firm-grounded stand;\n Then +FREE ELECTION+; then your +FEDERAL BAND+:\n This holy Triad should forever shine\n The great compendium of all rights divine,\n Creed of all schools, whence youths by millions draw\n Their themes of right, their decalogues of law;\n Till men shall wonder (in these codes inured)\n How wars were made, how tyrants were endured.[392]\n\nDiverse politics incline to diverse literary judgments, and the\ncritics are not yet done with Joel Barlow. If he was not a great poet\nor a great political thinker, he was at least capable, open-minded,\ngenerous, with a sensitive social conscience--certainly the most\nstimulating and original of the literary group that foregathered\nin Hartford. Injustice has long been done him by overlooking his\npicturesque career, and his services to America, and restricting his\nintroduction to posterity to a few lines from _Hasty Pudding_. To\nmake a mush of so honest a thinker, to ignore his very considerable\ncontributions to the cause of democracy, is to impose too heavy a\npenalty for his defection from Connecticut respectability. He suffered\nquite enough in his lifetime. In the thick of his revolutionary\nstruggles abroad his wife begged him \u201cto go home and be respectable\u201d;\nbut it was not in the ardent nature of Joel Barlow to listen to such\ncounsel of timidity. He was in too deep to go back, and so while\nTimothy Dwight was gathering laurels from every bush in Connecticut,\nthis apostle of humanitarianism, this apostate from Calvinistic\nFederalism, was content to remain a byword and a shaking of the head\nin the villages of his native commonwealth. For all which, perhaps,\nthe Washington salon and the intimate association with Jefferson may\nhave served as recompense. Better society could not be found even in\nHartford.\n\n\n3. Hugh Henry Brackenridge \u2022 Free-Lance Democrat\n\nIn taking leave of this disturbant time when new social theories were\nbringing confusion to weak understandings, one cannot do better than\nto dip into the wittiest and most readable sketch produced by that\nvigorous generation, as well as one of the sanest. _Modern Chivalry_\nwas the single noteworthy contribution to American letters by Hugh\nHenry Brackenridge, a western Pennsylvanian of Scotch birth, and a\ngraduate of Princeton in the class with Freneau and Madison. With the\nformer he had practised his couplets, collaborating in writing the\ncommencement poem, _The Rising Glory of America_. After leaving college\nhe tried his hand at the usual things open to young graduates, was\ntutor in the college, taught in an academy, studied divinity, served\nas chaplain in the Revolutionary army, and later read law. He removed\neventually to the frontier town of Pittsburgh, was active in Republican\npolitics, became an ardent pro-French sympathizer, and finally went\nupon the supreme bench of Pennsylvania. He wrote for his own amusement\nand tried his hand at various kinds of polite literature, producing\na masque, a poetic drama on Bunker Hill, prose essays, some sermons,\nand turned at last to satire. For this he was admirably equipped;\nhe possessed a keen, well-balanced mind, a prose style delightfully\ncolloquial and a wit pleasantly caustic.\n\nBrackenridge is a refreshing person to come upon after one is satiated\nwith the heroic. A free-lance critic, independent in thought and act,\nhe was no vociferous party or class advocate given to enlisting God on\nhis side. Federalist and Republican alike might lose their heads and\nindulge in unseemly clamor, but Brackenridge with good Scotch judgment\nrefused to howl with the pack. A stout and unrepentant democrat, he was\nno visionary to shut his eyes to unpleasant facts lest they disturb\nhis faith. As he considered the turbulent confusions of an America\nin rough process of democratization, he saw the evils as clearly as\nthe hope, and it amused him to satirize those evils after the manner\nof Don Quixote. _Modern Chivalry_ has proved somewhat of a puzzle to\nlater critics who have not cleared their minds of the old cobwebs of\nFederalist criticism. Thus a literary historian has suggested that it\nis \u201ca half-hidden satire on democracy\u201d[393] and he inclines to number\nit among the literary ram\u2019s horns that were blown against the walls of\nthe democratic Jericho. But such an interpretation certainly misses\nthe point. Brackenridge had become a thorough Westerner with a fresh\npoint of view. Among the stump fields of his Pennsylvania circuit he\nwas equally removed from the cynicism of Hamilton and the romanticism\nof Barlow. He saw all about him a rough and tumble democracy, living a\nvigorous and capable if not lovely life. As a democrat he accepted the\nfact of political equality and approved of it; the thing was there and\nneeded no justification or defense. Some of its ways were foolish, many\nof its purposes were shortsighted; it amused him therefore to sharpen\nhis pen against certain of its absurdities and essay the remedial\neffects of unembittered laughter. He was a realist concerned with\nrealities.\n\n_Modern Chivalry_ is our first backcountry book. It is redolent\nof stump-lands and their rude leveling ways, and for years it was\nimmensely popular along the western frontier. It is a satire aimed\nprimarily at backwoods shortcomings, but with an eye that kept turning\ntowards the older settlements to scrutinize their equal shortcomings.\nIts main theme is concerned with certain weaknesses of popular\nsovereignty already unpleasantly evident as a result of the extension\nof suffrage; and in particular with the unseemly office-hunting zeal\nof coonskin candidates. The preposterous spectacle of a pushing fellow\nwith no qualifications setting himself up for high office was to become\nmore frequent with the later rise of Jacksonian democracy; but already\nthere was abundant justification for the satire of Brackenridge. The\nrecords of the time are loud in criticism of the demagoguery that\nresulted from the sudden shift of leadership in consequence of the\nsocial upheaval following the Revolutionary War. The old leaders of the\naristocratic tradition had fled or had fallen into disfavor, and new\nmen, too often of small capacity and less breeding, had pushed into\nthe seats of authority. With the triumph of Jefferson this transfer\nof power went forward briskly to the scandal of all aristocrats. The\nlust of office spread like the plague, and demagogues caught the\npopular ear, none too nice to distinguish between sense and fustian.\nIrving brushed against the democratic weakness in his brief venture\ninto politics, and vented his spleen in _Rip Van Winkle_. It is this\nwhich Brackenridge deals with primarily in _Modern Chivalry_, the\nfirst part of which was published in 1792 and the second in 1805. The\ngeneral leveling of offices, he pointed out, was not democracy, but the\nabuse and ruin of democracy. America was engaged in a great and noble\nexperiment; the success of that experiment depended upon an honest and\nintelligent electorate; it must not be brought to failure by demagogues\nthrough the incapacity of the voter.\n\nBrackenridge had come in later years to be a pacifist. He had had his\nfill of revolutions and armed revolts. As a principal arbitrator during\nthe tumult of the Whisky Insurrection, he had come to fear popular\nlawlessness; and as a friend of the French Revolution he was concerned\nat the methods of the Jacobin leaders. Commenting on the Whisky\nInsurrection he said in later years:\n\n I saw before me anarchy, a shock to the government, a revolution\n impregnated with the Jacobin principles of France.... Let no man\n suppose I coveted a revolution; I had seen the evils of one already\n in the American; and I had read the evils of another, the French.\n My imagination presented the evils of the last strongly to my view,\n and brought them so close to a possible experience at home, that\n during the whole period of the insurrection, I could scarcely bear\n to cast my eye on a paragraph of French news.[394]\n\nA reasonable and intelligent democracy, holding steadily to the\npurpose of the common good, was his cherished ideal. He was not a\npolitical philosopher interested in general principles. His purpose\nwas to satirize manners, not to speculate on causes; and in the days\nof triumphant republicanism the most conspicuous target was offered by\nthe tousled head of the demagogue, \u201cthe courtier of democracy.\u201d In the\npreface to the 1846 edition, the editor thus summarizes the political\nviews of Brackenridge:\n\n An enlightened democracy was looked upon by him as the true\n nobility. He considered the true democrat as the true gentleman,\n who _ought_ to feel a stain on his fair reputation, \u201cas a wound.\u201d\n He maintained \u201cthat democracy is not in its nature coarse, and\n vulgar, or destitute of high integrity and honor.\u201d The aim and\n end of his writings was to raise the standard of democracy, and\n to elevate \u201cthe noble of nature\u201d to the same level with any\n other noble, in those qualities which constitute true nobility.\n The noble of nature, in his opinion, ought not to yield to the\n noble of aristocracy or monarchy, in strict integrity, in liberal\n and benevolent feelings, in propriety of manners and general\n intelligence.\n\nThe work is a string of adventures, interspersed with miscellaneous\ndiscussion, of Captain John Farrago--who is evidently Brackenridge\nhimself--and his bog-trotting servant Teague O\u2019Regan. The Captain\nis an intelligent person, well read in the literature of the times,\nand \u201ca good deal disposed to subscribe to the elementary principles\u201d\nof Paine\u2019s _Rights of Man_. He can summarize neatly the arguments\non both sides of the political questions of the day, but he retains\nthe open mind and cautious judgment of the independent. He is\na free-lance critic, democratic in sympathies but unsparing in\nexposure of absurdity. His hits fall right and left, on the country\nyokel, the city speculator, members of Congress, the institution of\nslavery. He is greatly concerned to preserve his servant from the\ntemptations of ambition which assail him in the backwoods as well as\nin Philadelphia. The career of Teague O\u2019Regan is a broad satire on\nthe mounting ambition of old-world peasants to push their way up.\nThat the underling should rise in a democratic country was well; but\nthat he should be in unseemly haste to scramble into positions beyond\nhis capacities, that in pushing his private fortunes he should bring\nridicule upon the democratic experiment, was not well. Teague O\u2019Regan\u2019s\ndesire to scramble discovered quite too fertile a field for his own\nor the country\u2019s good. He is nearly sent to Congress by a backwoods\nconstituency, listens to other seductive appeals, and in the end is\nsent by President Washington to the West as a revenue officer, where\nhe falls into the untender hands of the whisky rioters, and finds his\nIrish beauty marred by a coat of tar and feathers.\n\nIt is in his burlesque of electorate methods that Brackenridge hits\nmost sharply at the current tendencies of republicanism. The ways of\nthe backwoods he caricatures by describing a contest between an honest\ndeacon and an ignorant Scotch-Irishman, which he came upon in his\nperegrinations.\n\n When they looked upon the one, they felt an inclination to promote\n him. But when, again, on the other hand, they saw two kegs which\n they knew to be replenished with a very cheering liquor, they\n seemed to be inclined in favor of the other. The candidates were\n called upon to address the people, and the grave person mounted\n the stump of a tree, many of them standing round, as the place was\n a new clearing. His harangue was listened to by some of the older\n and more sedate, and one man, hard of hearing, seemed to make great\n effort to catch the sounds. As soon as the man of the two kegs took\n a stump, he was surrounded by an eager crowd.--\u201cFrinds,\u201d said he,\n in the native Scotch-Irish, \u201cI\u2019m a good dimicrat, and hates the\n Brattish--I\u2019m an elder of the meetin\u2019, forby, and has been overseer\n of the roads for three years:--An\u2019 ye all know, that my mammy was\n kilt o\u2019 the Ingens--now all ye that\u2019s in my favor, come forit an\u2019\n drenk.\u201d Appetite, or rather thirst, prevailed, and the voters gave\n their votes to the man with the two kegs.[395]\n\nIf whisky decided elections in the backcountry, business controlled\nthem in the city. The following is almost modern in its caricature:\n\n The candidates were all remarkably pot-bellied; and waddled in\n their gait. The captain inquiring what were the pretensions of\n these men to be elected; he was told, that they had all stock\n in the funds, and lived in brick buildings; and some of them\n entertained fifty people at a time, and ate and drank abundantly;\n and living an easy life, and pampering their appetites, they had\n swollen to this size.\n\n \u201cIt is a strange thing,\u201d said the captain, \u201cthat in the\n country, in my route, they would elect no one but a weaver or a\n whisky-distiller; and here none but fat squabs, that guzzle wine,\n and smoke segars.\u201d... \u201cNo, faith\u201d (said his friend), \u201cthere is na\n danger of Teague here, unless he had his scores o\u2019 shares in the\n bank, and was in league with the brokers, and had a brick house at\n his hurdies, or a ship or twa on the stocks ... all is now lost in\n substantial interest, and the funds command everything.\u201d[396]\n\nThat there might be no mistake as to the meaning of his satire\nBrackenridge set down at the end an explicit statement of his purpose.\n\n As already hinted by some things put into the mouth of the\n captain, I could make it a principal matter to form the heart of\n _a republican government_. And in order to this, keep out all\n that nourishes _ambition_, the poison of public virtue.... In the\n American republics, we retain yet a great deal of the spirit of\n monarchy. The people are not aware of the phraseology itself, in\n some instances.... The first lesson I would give to a son of mine\n would be to have nothing to do with public business, but as a duty\n to his country. To consider service in civil life, no more to be\n desired than service in the military.... Those who say to them,\n _vox populi vox dei_, offer up an incense to flattery, as impious\n as the worshippers of the Caesars. They should be warned to beware\n of flatterers, whose object is not to serve them, but themselves.\n The demagogue in a democracy, and the courtier in a monarchy, are\n identical. They are the same, plying the same arts in different\n situations.... I shall have accomplished something by this book, if\n it shall keep some honest man from lessening his respectability by\n pushing himself into public trusts for which he is not qualified;\n or when pushed into public station, if it shall contribute to keep\n him honest by teaching him the folly of ambition, and farther\n advancement.... This is in great part, the moral of this book; if\n it should be at all necessary to give a hint of it.\n\nOne may do a worse service to democracy than to point out its faults.\nBrackenridge was no truckler either to King George or to his neighbors.\nLiving in the midst of a coonskin democracy, he refused to believe\nthat there was any particular virtue in coonskin. It is not the cap\nbut what is under it that signifies. He was a vigorous individualist,\na confirmed democrat, a friend of all honest liberalisms, a man who\nhonored his own counsels and went his own way. We could better spare\nmore pretentious books from the library of our early literature than\nthese clever satires that preserve for us some of the homely ways of a\ntime when American institutions were still in the making.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[374] Quoted by Samuel Eliot Morison in _Harrison Gray Otis_, Vol. I,\np. 107.\n\n[375] _Travels_, Vol. II, p. 458.\n\n[376] Number III.\n\n[377] Number X.\n\n[378] Number XI.\n\n[379] Number IX.\n\n[380] _Literary History of America_, p. 300.\n\n[381] _Literary History of the American Revolution_, Vol. I, p. 172.\n\n[382] _Poems_, Pattee edition, Vol. I, p. 141.\n\n[383] _The American Soldier._\n\n[384] _To Duncan Doolittle._\n\n[385] _On False Systems of Government._\n\n[386] _Letters on Various Interesting and Important Subjects, etc._,\nby Robert Slender, 1799; quoted by Pattee, Introduction to _Poems of\nPhilip Freneau_.\n\n[387] See A. M. Schlesinger, _The Colonial Merchants and the American\nRevolution_, Chapter IV.\n\n[388] Forman, \u201cThe Political Activities of Philip Freneau,\u201d in _Johns\nHopkins Studies in History and Political Science_, Vol. XX.\n\n[389] _The Brook of the Valley._\n\n[390] Purcell, _Connecticut in Transition_, p. 27.\n\n[391] _Advice to the Privileged Orders_, pp. 66, 70.\n\n[392] _Book VIII._\n\n[393] Cairns, _History of American Literature_, p. 147.\n\n[394] _Modern Chivalry_, edition of 1846, p. 170.\n\n[395] _Ibid._, p. 105.\n\n[396] _Ibid._, pp. 127-128.\n\n\n\n\nConclusion\n\n\nWith the triumph of Jefferson in the great struggle of 1800, the first\ndemocratic battle had been won at the polls, but victory remained still\nin doubt. The new liberalism was in the saddle, but how long it would\nkeep its seat, or whither it would drive, no one could foresee. The\naristocratic eighteenth century was still in secure possession of all\nthe vantage points of polite culture. It still held the positions of\nhonor and emolument and dictated the ways of society. The tie-wig and\nsmallclothes had not yet been put to rout by homespun and coonskin, and\nwere laying plans to make good the first defeat. Polite letters were\nstill content with the old wit ideal, still enamored of the couplet,\nstill in love with caustic satire, still transfixing democracy with its\nsharp quills. The nineteenth century with its cargo of romanticisms had\nnot yet crossed the Atlantic, and while Napoleon was strewing Europe\nwith the wrecks of old empires, America was still dwelling in the\ntwilight of a century that was loath to be gone.\n\nThe account in the American ledger was complex and not easily cast up,\nyet Jefferson might well have regarded with satisfaction the results\nof two hundred years of new-world experience. The drift was all in\nthe direction he was facing. The age of theology was gone, the age of\npolitical speculation was passing, the age of constitution building\nwas over. Disintegration had come upon every system of caste brought\nhither from the old world; the free economics of a decentralized\nsociety had proved a sufficient solvent to destroy the principle\nof monarchy and of aristocracy, and prepare the American mind for\na venture in republicanism. Overseas liberalisms had flourished in\nthe soil that proved inhospitable to overseas conservatisms; and it\nwas these European liberalisms that provided the mold into which ran\nthe fluid experience of America to assume substantial form. That\nthe venture in republicanism would inure to the benefit of agrarian\nAmerica--to the producers on their scattered farms--Jefferson seems\nnever to have doubted; and the ready naturalization of the philosophy\nof equalitarianism in the backwoods settlements might well have seemed\nto justify his hopes. Nevertheless new forces were preparing that\nwere to bring about momentous changes in nineteenth-century America.\nCapitalism with its banks and credit and elastic currency and its\npsychology of speculation, and industrialism with its technique of\nfactory production, were already at work preparing a different pattern\nof life for America, a pattern wholly unlike that of the simpler\nagrarianism with its domestic economy, which Jefferson represented. A\nnew romanticism of the middle class was eventually to shoulder aside\nthe aspirations of gentleman and farmer alike, and refashion America\nafter its own ideal. What was implied in that momentous change provides\nthe theme for another study, and cannot be entered upon here.\n\n\n\n\nBibliography\n\n\nOnly the more important titles dealt with in the present study are\nlisted hereunder, together with selected biographical and critical\nmaterial. The invaluable bibliographies in the _Cambridge History of\nAmerican Literature_, four vols., New York, 1917-22, cover most of the\nwriters considered, and the reader is referred to them for detailed\nmaterial.\n\n\nBook I: Part I\n\nI. English Backgrounds: For the broader European movements, see\nPreserved Smith, _The Age of the Reformation_ (New York, 1920). For\nEnglish movements, see David Masson, _Life of Milton_ (6 vols.,\nLondon, 1859-80). The important ideas of Luther will be found in _An\nOpen Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning\nthe Reform of the Christian State_ (1520); _The Babylonian Captivity\nof the Church_ (1520); _A Treatise on Christian Liberty_ (1520). For\ndiscussion, see L. H. Waring, _The Political Theories of Martin Luther_\n(New York and London, 1910). For Calvin, see Williston Walker, _John\nCalvin, The Organiser of Reformed Protestantism_ (New York and London,\n1906; with bibliographical note).\n\nII. The Transplanting of Ideas: For political history see James\nTruslow Adams, _The Founding of New England_ (Boston, 1921). For\nliterary history consult the invaluable work of Moses Coit Tyler, _A\nHistory of American Literature, 1607-1765_ (2 vols., New York, 1878).\nHistories of Congregationalism will be found in Henry M. Dexter,\n_The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years as Seen in\nIts Literature_ (New York, 1880; with full bibliography); Williston\nWalker, _A History of the Congregational Churches in the United\nStates_ (New York, 1900); also W. Walker, _Creeds and Platforms of\nCongregationalism_ (New York, 1893).\n\nIII. John Cotton: Little of Cotton\u2019s work has been reprinted. _A Reply\nto Mr. Williams His Examination_ was reissued in _Narragansett Club\nPub._, Vol. II, pp. 1-240. His most important work is _The Way of the\nCongregational Churches Cleared_ (London, 1648).\n\nNo life has been written. See Cotton Mather\u2019s _Magnalia_; W. Walker\u2019s\n_Ten New England Leaders_ (New York, 1901); A. Young, _John Cotton\u2019s\nLife and Letters. Chronicles of the First Planters, etc._ (Boston,\n1846).\n\nJohn Winthrop: _Journal ..._ (Hartford, 1790); as _The History of New\nEngland ..._ edited by J. Savage (2 vols., Boston, 1825-26, 1853);\nedited by J. K. Hosmer (2 vols., New York, 1908).\n\nSee R. C. Winthrop, _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_ (2 vols.,\nBoston, 1863, 1866, 1869, 1895). J. Twitchell, _John Winthrop, First\nGovernor of Massachusetts_ (New York, 1892).\n\nIV. Thomas Hooker: His works have not been reprinted. The _Survey of\nthe Summe of Church-Discipline ..._ was published in London in 1648.\nContemporary notes of his _Sermon before the General Court on May 31,\n1638_, were printed with comment by J. Hammond Trumbull, in _Conn.\nHist. Soc. Col._, Vol. I, No. 19.\n\nFor his life, see G. L. Walker, _Thomas Hooker, Preacher, Founder,\nDemocrat_ (New York, 1891; with bibliography by J. H. Trumbull).\n\nRoger Williams: _The Works of Roger Williams. Edited by members of the\nNarragansett Club_ (6 vols., Providence, 1866-1874).\n\nNo satisfactory life has been written. The best is Oscar S. Straus,\n_Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty_ (New York, 1894).\nSee also Edmund J. Carpenter, _Roger Williams: A Study of the Life,\nTimes and Character of a Political Pioneer_ (New York, 1909; Grafton\nHist. Series).\n\n\nBook I: Part II\n\nI. Samuel Sewall: _Diary_ (printed in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Col._, Series\n5, Vols. 5-7). No life has been written.\n\nII. Increase Mather: The extensive bibliography is confused, and a\ndefinitive list is being prepared by T. J. Holmes and G. P. Winship.\nFew works have been reprinted, and about the only available title is\n_Illustrious Providences_ (Boston and London, 1684; London, 1687);\nunder title of _Remarkable Providences_ (London, 18561, 1890).\n\nThe authoritative life is by Kenneth B. Murdock, _Increase Mather,\nThe Foremost American Puritan_ (Harvard University Press. 1925; with\nbibliography). See also Williston Walker, _Ten New England Leaders_\n(New York, 1901).\n\nCotton Mather: The bibliography is enormous, but few titles are\navailable. _The Wonders of the Invisible World_ (Boston, 1693) has been\ntwice reprinted: with title, _Salem Witchcraft ..._ and notes by S. P.\nFowler (Cambridge, 1861); and with I. Mather\u2019s _Account of the Tryals\nof the New-England Witches_ (Library of Old Authors, London, 1862).\n_The Bostonian Ebenezer_, Boston, 1698, was reprinted in Old South\nLeaflets, Boston, 1896. The _Magnalia Christi Americana_, London, 1702,\nwas reissued (2 vols., Hartford and New Haven, 1820); and the same with\nnotes by T. Robbins, and translations of foreign quotations by L. F.\nRobinson, and a life by S. G. Drake (Hartford, 1853). The _Essays to Do\nGood_ has been reprinted ten times, the latest editions London, 1842,\nand Boston, 1845. The most available text is _Selections from Cotton\nMather_, edited with introduction, by K. B. Murdock (New York, 1926;\nAmerican Authors Series).\n\nThe best life is by Barrett Wendell, _Cotton Mather, Puritan Priest_\n(New York, 1891; Harvard University Press, 1925). See also A. P.\nMarvin, _The Life and Times of Cotton Mather_ (Boston, 1892).\n\nIII. John Wise: _The Churches Quarrel Espoused ..._ (Boston, 1710,\n1715, 1745, 1772); reissued with the _Vindication_, with introduction\nby J. S. Clark (Boston, 1860). _A Vindication of the Government of the\nNew-England Churches. Drawn from Antiquity; the Light of Nature; Holy\nScripture ..._ (Boston, 1717, 1772); reissued with the preceding title\n(Boston, 1860).\n\nNo life of Wise has been written.\n\n\nBook II: Part I\n\nI. Colonial Backgrounds: See Herbert L. Osgood, _The American Colonies\nin the Eighteenth Century_ (2 vols., New York, 1924).\n\nNew Stock: See John R. Commons, _Races and Immigrants in America_ (New\nYork, 1902, 1920). F. R. Diffenderfer, _The German Immigrants into\nPennsylvania ..._ (New York, 1900). _The Diary of John Harrower (Amer.\nHist. Review_, Vol. VI, p. 65).\n\nThe Frontier--Lubberland: _The Journal of Sarah Kemble Knight_ (New\nYork, 1825; Albany, 1865; Norwich, Conn., 1901).\n\nWilliam Byrd: _Westover Manuscripts: containing the History of the\nDividing Line ... A Journey to the Land of Eden ..._ (Petersburg,\nVa., 1841); reissued under title, _The History of the Dividing Line_\n(edited by T. H. Wynne; 2 vols., Richmond, 1866). Also _The Writings of\n\u201cColonel William Byrd of Westover in Virginia, Esq.\u201d_ Edited by J. S.\nBassett (New York, 1901).\n\nThe Frontier--Land of Promise: _Letters from an American Farmer ..._\n(London, 1782; with note by W. P. Trent and introduction by Ludwig\nLewisohn, New York, 1904). _More \u201cLetters from an American Farmer,\u201d_\nedited with introductions by H. L. Bourdin, R. G. Gabriel, and S. T.\nWilliams, and issued under the title, _Sketches of Eighteenth Century\nAmerica_ (New Haven, 1925).\n\nFor the life of Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur, see Julia Post Mitchell, _St. Jean de\nCr\u00e8vec\u0153ur (Col. Univ. Studies in English and Comp. Lit._, New York,\n1916).\n\nII. Jonathan Edwards: _Works_ (8 vols., Leeds, 1806-11). _Works_,\nedited by S. E. Dwight (10 vols., New York, 1829, 1830). _Works_ (10\nvols., Edinburgh, 1847). Numerous other editions and many reprints.\n\nThe best life is by V. G. Allen, _Jonathan Edwards_ (Boston, 1889,\n1890; with bibliography). See also Woodbridge Riley, _American Thought_\n(New York, 1915).\n\nIII. Benjamin Franklin: The best edition of his works is that edited by\nJ. Bigelow (10 vols., New York, 1889). The _Autobiography_ was first\nprinted complete by J. Bigelow, New York, 1874. The latest reprint is\nin the American Authors Series, edited with introduction by Percy H.\nBoynton (New York, 1926).\n\nOf the several lives, see James Parton, _Life and Times of Benjamin\nFranklin_ (2 vols., New York, 1864); J. B. McMaster, _Benjamin Franklin\nas a Man of Letters_ (Boston, 1887); J. T. Morse, _Benjamin Franklin_\n(American Statesmen Series, Boston, 1889). See also W. A. Wetzel,\n_Benjamin Franklin as an Economist_ (_Johns Hopkins Studies in Hist.\nand Pol. Science_, Thirteenth Series, Vol. IX, pp. 421-476). A recent\nlife: Phillips Russell, _Benjamin Franklin: The First Civilized\nAmerican_ (New York, 1926).\n\n\nBook II: Part II\n\nI. Imperial Sovereignty and Home Rule: For the literature of the\nRevolutionary period, see the invaluable _Literary History of the\nAmerican Revolution_, by Moses Coit Tyler (2 vols., New York, 1897;\nwith annotated bibliography). For the political phases, see C. H. Van\nTyne, _The Causes of the War of Independence ..._ (Boston and New York,\n1922); A. M. Schlesinger, _The Colonial Merchants and the American\nRevolution, 1763-1776_ (New York, 1918); J. T. Adams, _Revolutionary\nNew England, 1691-1776_ (Boston, 1923).\n\nII. Thomas Hutchinson: _The History of Massachusetts_ (3 vols., Boston\nand London, 1764-1767-1828; Vols. I and II, Boston, 1795). _Diary and\nLetters of Thomas Hutchinson ..._, edited by P. O. Hutchinson (2 vols.,\nBoston, 1884-1886). J. K. Hosmer, _Life of Thomas Hutchinson_ (Boston,\n1896).\n\nDaniel Leonard: _Massachusettensis_ (London, 1776); reissued with\n_Novanglus_ by John Adams, and ascribed on the title page to Jonathan\nSewall (Boston, 1819).\n\nJonathan Boucher: _A View of the Causes and Consequences of the\nAmerican Revolution_ (London, 1797).\n\nIII. John Dickinson: _Political Writings_ (2 vols., Wilmington, 1801).\n_Writings_, edited by P. L. Ford (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1895).\n\nSee C. J. Still\u00e9, _The Life and Times of John Dickinson_ (Philadelphia,\n1891).\n\nIV. Samuel Adams: _Writings_, edited by H. A. Cushing (4 vols., New\nYork, 1904-08).\n\nSee J. K. Hosmer, _Samuel Adams_ (Boston, 1884); revised edition (1898,\nAmerican Statesmen Series). W. V. Wells, _The Life and Public Services\nof Samuel Adams_ (3 vols., Boston, 1865).\n\nV. John Trumbull: _Poetical Works_ (2 vols., Hartford, 1820). _The\nProgress of Dulness_ (New Haven, 1772-73). _An Elegy on the Times_\n(Boston, 1774; New Haven, 1775). _M\u2019Fingal_ (printed in parts from\n1775 to 1782, and much revised; first published entire, Hartford,\n1782; numerous contemporary editions). _The Progress of Dulness_\nand _M\u2019Fingal_ are reprinted in _The Connecticut Wits_, edited with\nintroduction and bibliography by Vernon L. Parrington (New York, 1926,\nAmerican Authors Series).\n\nNo life of Trumbull has been written.\n\nFrancis Hopkinson: _Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings_ (2\nvols., Philadelphia, 1792). George Hastings, _Life and Works of Francis\nHopkinson_ (University of Chicago Press, 1926).\n\nJonathan Odell: _The Loyal Verses of Joseph Stansbury and Doctor\nJonathan Odell_, edited by Winthrop Sargent (Albany, 1860).\n\nSamuel Peters: _A General History of Connecticut ... to which is added\nan Appendix, wherein New and True Sources of the Present Rebellion are\npointed out ... By a Gentleman of the Province_ (London, 1781; New\nHaven, 1829; New York, 1877).\n\n\nBook III: Part I\n\nI. Agrarianism and Capitalism: A vivid account of the party struggles\nof the time is given in Claude G. Bowers, _Jefferson and Hamilton_\n(Boston, 1925), with full bibliography. For political theory, see\nHarold J. Laski, _Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham_\n(New York, 1920). Charles E. Merriam, _A History of American Political\nTheories_ (New York, 1903). A dramatic account of Shays\u2019s Rebellion is\ngiven in Edward Bellamy, _The Duke of Stockbridge_ (New York, 1901).\n\nII. The Great Debate: The bibliography is extensive. See J. Elliot,\n_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the\nFederal Constitution ..._ (4 vols., Washington, 1827, 1836; 5 vols.,\nPhiladelphia, 1906). Max Farrand, _Records of the Federal Convention of\n1787_ (3 vols., New Haven, 1911). S. B. Harding, _The Contest over the\nRatification of the Federal Constitution in the State of Massachusetts_\n(New York, 1896). Charles A. Beard, _An Economic Interpretation of the\nConstitution of the United States_ (New York, 1913). _The Federalist_,\nnumerous editions; the best are those edited by H. C. Lodge (New\nYork, 1886) and by P. L. Ford (New York, 1898). Richard Henry Lee,\n_Observations leading to a fair examination of the system of government\n... In a number of Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican_\n(reprinted in _Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States,\n1787-1788_, edited by P. L. Ford, Brooklyn, 1888).\n\nIII. Alexander Hamilton: _Works, Comprising his Correspondence_, edited\nby J. C. Hamilton (7 vols., New York, 1850-51). _Works_, edited by H.\nC. Lodge (10 vols., New York, 1885).\n\nThere are numerous lives. See J. C. Hamilton, _The Life of Alexander\nHamilton_ (2 vols., New York, 1834). H. C. Lodge, _Alexander Hamilton_\n(Boston, 1882, 1898). J. T. Morse, _The Life of Alexander Hamilton_\n(2 vols., Boston, 1876). See also Gertrude Atherton, _The Conqueror_\n(New York and London, 1902). A. H. Vanderberg, _The Greatest American,\nAlexander Hamilton ... with a Symposium of Opinions by Distinguished\nAmericans_ (New York and London, 1922). F. S. Oliver, _Alexander\nHamilton: An Essay on the American Union_ (New York, 1907)--an English\nview.\n\nJohn Adams: _Works ... with a Life of the Author_, edited by C. F.\nAdams (10 vols., Boston, 1850-56).\n\nSee J. Q. Adams and C. F. Adams, _The Life of John Adams_ (2 vols.,\nPhiladelphia, 1871). J. T. Morse, Jr., _John Adams_ (Boston, 1884,\n1898). _Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams_, edited by C. F.\nAdams (2 vols., Boston, 1840). C. M. Walsh, _The Political Science of\nJohn Adams_ (New York, 1915).\n\n\nBook III: Part II\n\nI. The Impact of the French Revolution: Abundant material will be found\nin Charles D. Hazen, _Contemporary American Opinion of the French\nRevolution_ (Baltimore, 1897, _Johns Hopkins Studies in Hist. and Pol.\nScience_, Extra Vol. 16). See also _The Journal of William Maclay_,\nedited by E. S. Maclay (New York, 1890). For _Publicola_, see John Q.\nAdams, _Writings ..._, edited by Worthington C. Ford (7 vols., New\nYork, 1913-17).\n\nII. Tom Paine: _Writings ..._, edited by Moncure D. Conway (4 vols.,\nNew York, 1894-99). Moncure D. Conway, _Life of Thomas Paine ... To\nwhich is added a Sketch of Paine by William Cobbett ..._ (2 vols., New\nYork and London, 1892).\n\nThomas Jefferson: _Writings_, edited by H. A. Washington (9 vols.,\nWashington, 1853-54). _The Works of Thomas Jefferson_ (with _Anas_ and\n_Autobiography_), edited by P. L. Ford (12 vols., New York, 1904-05).\n\nNumerous lives, many of which are wholly unreliable. The official\nbiography was written by Henry S. Randall, _The Life of Thomas\nJefferson_ (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1858, 1871). Of later studies the\nfollowing are excellent: David S. Muzzey, _Thomas Jefferson_ (New York,\n1919); Francis W. Hirst, _Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson_ (New\nYork, 1926)--an English view; and Albert Jay Nock, _Jefferson_ (New\nYork, 1926). See also Sarah N. Randolph, _The Domestic Life of Thomas\nJefferson_ (New York, 1871) and Thomas E. Watson, _The Life and Times\nof Thomas Jefferson_ (New York, 1903).\n\nIII. The Federalist Group: For backgrounds of the Hartford wits, see\nRichard J. Purcell, _Connecticut in Transition: 1775-1818_ (Washington,\n1918). William A. Robinson, _Jeffersonian Democracy in New England_\n(New Haven, 1916). Samuel E. Morison, _Life and Letters of Harrison\nGray Otis_ (2 vols., Boston, 1913). For criticism, see F. Sheldon,\n\u201cPleiades of Connecticut\u201d (_Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. XV). Mrs. Annie\nR. Marble, _Heralds of American Literature_ (Chicago, 1907). Moses\nCoit Tyler, _Three Men of Letters_ (New York, 1895)--Dwight and\nBarlow. The writings of the Wits have long been out of print. The most\navailable text is _The Connecticut Wits_, edited with introduction\nand bibliographies, by Vernon L. Parrington (New York, 1926, American\nAuthors Series), which reprints large portions of Trumbull, Timothy\nDwight, Barlow, Humphreys, _The Anarchiad_, and portions of _The Echo_.\n\nTimothy Dwight: The most important titles are _The Conquest of Canaan\n..._ (Hartford, 1785). _The Triumph of Infidelity ..._ (1788).\n_Greenfield Hill ..._ (1794). _Travels in New England and New York:\n1796-1815_ (4 vols., New Haven, 1821-22; London, 1823).\n\nSee W. B. Sprague, _Life of Timothy Dwight_ (Sparks _Lib. Amer. Biog._,\nSecond Series, Vol. IV, Boston, 1845).\n\nThe French Group: Philip Freneau: _Poems_, edited for the Princeton\nHist. Assoc. by Fred L. Pattee (3 vols., Princeton, 1902-07). Victor\nH. Paltsits, _A Bibliography of the Separate and Collected Works of\nPhilip Freneau, together with an Account of his Newspapers_ (New York,\n1903). Mary S. Austin, _Philip Freneau, Poet of the Revolution_ (New\nYork, 1901). S. E. Forman, _The Political Activities of Philip Freneau_\n(Baltimore, 1902, _Johns Hopkins Studies in Hist. and Pol. Science_,\nSeries XX, No. 9-10). Mrs. Annie R. Marble, _Heralds of American\nLiterature_ (Chicago, 1907).\n\nJoel Barlow: His works are out of print, but portions will be found in\n_The Connecticut Wits_ (New York, 1926). The important titles are: _The\nVision of Columbus ..._ (Hartford, 1787; London, 1787). _A Letter to\nthe National Convention of France ..._ (London, 1792). _Advice to the\nPrivileged Orders in the Several States of Europe ..._ (London, 1792,\n1796). _The Conspiracy of Kings ..._ (London, 1792). _The Hasty Pudding\n..._ (New York, 1796; Salem, 1799; Stockbridge, 1799). _The Columbiad_\n(Philadelphia, 1807; London, 1809).\n\nCharles Burr Todd, _Life and Letters of Joel Barlow_ (New York, 1886).\nSee also Tyler, _Three Men of Letters_ (New York, 1895), and Marble,\n_Heralds of American Literature_ (Chicago, 1907).\n\nHugh Henry Brackenridge: _Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of\nCaptain John Farrago, and Teague O\u2019Regan, his servant ..._ (2 vols.,\nPhiladelphia, 1792; Vol. 3, Pittsburgh, 1793; Vol. 4, Philadelphia,\n1797). These four volumes constitute Part I. Part II was issued in two\nvolumes, Philadelphia, 1804-05. Many revisions and changes of the text\nfollowed. The complete work was issued in four volumes (Philadelphia,\n1815), the fourth volume containing new material. Another complete\nedition was issued in two volumes (Pittsburgh, 1819). For detailed\ninformation see _Cambridge History of American Literature_ (Vol. I, p.\n526).\n\nAn account of Brackenridge and in particular of his experience during\nthe Whiskey Rebellion, in a memoir by H. M. Brackenridge, prefaces the\nedition of 1846 and later editions. No life of Brackenridge has been\nwritten. His fugitive writings in verse, drama, and prose are numerous\nbut inaccessible. Some comment on Brackenridge is given in Henry Adams,\n_Life of Albert Gallatin_ (Philadelphia, 1879).\n\n\n\n\nIndex [Volume One]\n\n\n Adams, James Truslow, 20 n, 30 n, 36 n, 58 n, 87 n, 103 n\n\n ----, John, 179, 188, 190, 200 n, 205, 207, 208, 213, 222, 241, 247,\n 249, 253, 259, 292, 296, 299, 307-320, 323, 324, 328, 340, 368,\n 375, 384\n\n ----, John Quincy, 283, 324, 325-326\n\n ----, R. G., 310 n\n\n ----, Samuel, 123, 181, 196, 200, 206, 228, 233-247, 311, 322, 344,\n 348, 372\n\n ----, Samuel, Sr., 234\n\n _Address and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and\n Liberty_, 339 n\n\n _Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec_, 219\n\n _Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe_,\n 324, 383, 384-386, 386 n\n\n _Age of Reason, The_, 324, 341\n\n _Agrarian Justice_, 337-339, 385\n\n Allen, V. G., 154, 157 n, 160 n\n\n Alsop, Richard, 359, 360\n\n Alvord, C. W., 184 n\n\n _American Belisarius, The_, 147, 147 n\n\n _American Historical Review, The_, 136 n\n\n _American Political Theories_, 280 n\n\n _American Soldier, The_, 375 n\n\n _American Times, The_, 257-259\n\n _American Weekly Mercury, The_, 134\n\n Ames, Fisher, 360\n\n _Anarchiad, The_, 249, 363-367\n\n Andr\u00e9, Major John, 256\n\n Andros, Sir Edmund, 118\n\n Anne, Queen, 87, 166\n\n _Answer of Bernard to the Petition of the House of Representatives to\n the King_, 199 n, 204 n\n\n _Apology for the Bible, An_, 324, 337 n\n\n _Arbitrary Government Described: & the Government of the\n Massachusetts Vindicated from that Aspersion_, 44\n\n Aristotle, 213, 282, 284\n\n Arnold, Benedict, 256\n\n _Autobiography of John Adams_, 309 n\n\n _Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson_, 350 n\n\n Augustine, Saint, 68, 150\n\n Austin, James Trecothick, 276 n\n\n\n Babeuf, Fran\u00e7ois Noel, 337\n\n _Babylonian Captivity, The_, 12 n\n\n Baillie, Joseph, 35\n\n Ball, Captain John, 134\n\n Bancroft, George, 247\n\n Barlow, Joel, 324, 359, 360, 367, 368, 382-389, 391\n\n Barr\u00e9, Isaac, 183\n\n Beard, Charles A., 184 n, 276 n, 287 n, 320 n\n\n Belcher, Mr., 113\n\n Bentham, Jeremy, 285, 292, 296\n\n Berkeley, Bishop, 162\n\n Bernard, Governor, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204, 205, 216, 224, 242, 243,\n 244\n\n Blackstone, Lord, 189, 236, 238, 244, 249, 280, 343, 352, 353\n\n Blathwayt, Mr., 127\n\n _Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, The_, 68 n, 70\n n, 71 n, 72\n\n _Bloudy Tenent Yet more Bloody, The_, 68 n, 69 n, 71 n\n\n _Body of Liberties_, 21, 76, 80\n\n Bolingbroke, Henry Saint John, Lord, 319\n\n Borgeaud, Charles, 58 n\n\n _Boston Chronicle, The_, 379\n\n _Boston Gazette, The_, 128\n\n Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, 190, 194, 214-218\n\n Bowres, Captain, 135\n\n Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 368, 369, 372, 390-395\n\n Braddock, General Edward, 373\n\n _Brook of the Valley, The_, 381 n\n\n Brooke, Lord, 34\n\n Brooks, Noah, 277 n\n\n Browne, Robert, 59\n\n Bunyan, John, 40, 85\n\n Burke, Edmund, 69, 183, 324, 325, 334, 335, 375\n\n Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 276 n\n\n Byles, Rev. Mather, 128, 192, 248\n\n Byrd, Colonel William, 138-140, 141\n\n\n Cairns, William B., 391 n\n\n Calef, Robert, 108\n\n Calhoun, John C., 320\n\n Calvin, John, 9, 11, 12-15, 20, 23, 27, 30, 42, 76, 89, 100, 150,\n 159, 249\n\n Camden, Charles Pratt, Earl of, 183, 189, 224, 238\n\n Campbell, Thomas, 370\n\n _Candidus_, 237, 239 n, 242 n, 243 n\n\n Canticles, 40, 65, 66 n, 154\n\n Care, Henry, 119 n\n\n Carson, Hampton Lawrence, 284 n\n\n _Causes of the War of Independence, The_, 179 n, 182 n, 184 n, 188 n,\n 189 n, 203 n\n\n Channing, William Ellery, 62, 65, 105, 106\n\n Charles I, King, 16, 19, 55, 76, 77, 84, 225\n\n Chastellux, Marquis de, 250\n\n _Chatterer, A_, 241 n, 243 n\n\n _Christian Commonwealth, The_, 81-84\n\n Church, Dr., 118 n\n\n Churchill, Charles, 248, 249, 257, 363, 371\n\n _Churches Quarrel Espoused, The_, 120, 122 n, 123\n\n Cicero, 213, 317\n\n Clark, Mr., 113\n\n Clarke, Captain Jonathan, 134\n\n Clymer, George, 221, 230, 252\n\n Clinton, George, 285\n\n ----, Sir Henry, 258, 259\n\n Cogswell, Dr. Mason F., 359\n\n Coke, Sir Edward, 44, 64, 89, 188, 222, 234, 236, 238, 239, 343, 352\n\n Colbert, Jean Baptiste, 173\n\n Colman, Rev. Benjamin, 109\n\n _Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, The_, 183 n, 379 n\n\n _Columbia University Contributions to Philosophy, Psychology and\n Education_, 155 n\n\n _Columbiad, The_, 384, 387-389\n\n _Columbian Centinel, The_, 325\n\n _Commentaries_ (Blackstone), 280\n\n _Common Sense_, 329-332\n\n Commons, John R., 134 n\n\n _Congratulation, The_, 257\n\n _Connecticut in Transition: 1775-1818_, 384 n\n\n _Conquest of Canaan, The_, 362\n\n _Considerations for J. W._, 39\n\n _Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British\n Colonies, for the Purpose of Raising Revenue by an Act of\n Parliament_, 226 n\n\n _Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution_, 321 n, 323 n\n\n Conway, Moncure D., 177 n, 336 n, 339 n\n\n Corinthians, Second Epistle to the, 66 n\n\n Cotton, Rev. John, vi, 19, 27-37, 38, 49, 51, 54, 55, 57, 60, 62, 63,\n 64, 72, 82, 99, 101, 361\n\n _Cotton Mather, Puritan Priest_, 108 n, 114 n\n\n Coults, James, 134\n\n Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur, Hector St. John de, 140-147\n\n Cromwell, Oliver, 10, 29, 66, 82, 220\n\n Crusoe, Robinson, 166\n\n _Curiosa Americana_, 115\n\n Cushing, Caleb, 249\n\n\n Daingerfield, Colonel, 136\n\n D\u2019Alembert, Jean le Rond, 324\n\n Dana, Judge, 276\n\n Danforth, Mr., 93\n\n Daniel, Book of, 66 n\n\n Davenport, Rev. John, 60\n\n ----, Mr., 113\n\n David, King, 31\n\n Dean, John Ward, 80 n\n\n _Declaration of Rights of the Stamp Act Congress_, 219\n\n _Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance, The_, 340\n\n _Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of\n America, A_, 310, 311, 312 n, 315 n, 316 n, 317 n, 318 n\n\n Defoe, Daniel, 90, 91, 110, 166\n\n _De Jure Naturae et Gentium_, 121\n\n _Diary of Jonathan Edwards_, 154\n\n _Diary of John Harrower_, 135-136\n\n _Diary of Cotton Mather_, 107, 109, 109 n, 110 n, 112, 123, 123 n,\n 128 n\n\n _Diary of Samuel Sewall_, 88, 90 n, 91 n, 92 n, 93, 93 n, 94 n, 95 n,\n 96 n, 97 n, 113 n, 126 n, 127 n\n\n _Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson_, 196 n\n\n _Diary of the Revolution_, 191 n\n\n Dickinson, John, 137, 167, 219-232, 253, 291, 344\n\n Diderot, Denis, 324\n\n Diffenderfer, F. R., 134, 135 n\n\n _Discourses on Davila_, 310, 311, 324, 376\n\n Dodd, William Edward, 345 n\n\n _Don Quixote_, 390\n\n Duck, Chancellor, 56\n\n Dudley, Joseph, 29\n\n ----, Governor Joseph, 92, 93, 104, 112, 113, 118, 126-127\n\n ----, Paul, 112, 127\n\n Duguit, L\u00e9on, 73 n\n\n Dulaney, Daniel, 221, 226, 344\n\n Dummer, Mr., 92\n\n Duns Scotus, 14\n\n Dwight, Theodore, 359, 360\n\n ----, Rev. Timothy, 249, 358, 359, 360-363, 367, 369, 383, 385, 389\n\n\n _Early American Philosophers_, 155 n\n\n _Ecclesiasticall Politie_, 149, 149 n\n\n _Echo, The_, 363\n\n _Economic Basis of Politics, The_, 287 n\n\n _Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, An_, 184 n\n\n _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, The_, 320 n\n\n _Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, The_, 171 n\n\n Edwards, Jonathan, vi, 105, 120, 151, 152-163, 249, 359, 361\n\n _Elegy on the Times, An_, 249\n\n Elizabeth, Queen, 7\n\n Eliot, Rev. John, 30, 59, 81-84\n\n ----, Sir John, 38\n\n _Elliot\u2019s Debates_, 229 n, 230 n, 282 n, 283 n, 302 n\n\n Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 62, 153\n\n _End of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous, The; or, The\n Torments of the Wicked in Hell, no Occasion of Grief to the\n Saints in Heaven_, 159 n\n\n Endicott, Roger, 23, 29, 50\n\n Epistle to the Romans, 67\n\n Ernst, Dr. James E., 67 n\n\n _Essay of Projects, An_, 166\n\n _Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, An_, 105, 106\n\n _Eternity of Hell Torments, The_, 159 _n Every Man in his Humour_, 28\n\n\n _False Systems of Government, On_, 377 n\n\n _Familiar Letters of John and Abigail Adams_, 253 n\n\n _Federal Constitution in Massachusetts, The_, 284 n\n\n _Federalist, The_, 283 n, 284-288, 289\n\n Fenno, John, 311, 379, 380\n\n Ferne, Dr., 46\n\n _Feu de Joie, The_, 257\n\n Filmer, Sir Robert, 103, 189, 190, 215, 218, 240\n\n _First Principles of Government_, 280\n\n Ford, Paul Leicester, 231 n, 283, 284 n\n\n ----, Worthington C., 326 n\n\n Forman, S. E., 311 n, 379 n, 380\n\n Fothergill, Dr., 169\n\n _Founding of New England, The_, 20 n, 30 n, 36 n, 58 n, 87 n\n\n Fox, Charles James, 383\n\n Franklin, Benjamin, vi, 90, 97, 124, 128, 162, 164-178, 180, 188,\n 202, 236, 244, 328, 334, 347, 363, 369, 380\n\n ----, Ebenezer, 165\n\n ----, James, 96, 128, 166\n\n ----, Josiah, 166\n\n ----, Mrs., 168 n\n\n _Freedom of the Will, On the_, 157\n\n Freneau, Philip, 247, 251, 255, 256, 368-381, 390\n\n _Frontier Woman, The_, 146 n\n\n Fuller, Dr., of Plymouth, 23\n\n\n Gage, General Thomas, 128, 183, 199, 259\n\n Galloway, Joseph, 235, 259\n\n _Gazette of the United States, The_, 311, 311 n\n\n _General History of Connecticut, A_, 260-262\n\n Genesis, Book of, 94\n\n Gen\u00eat, Citizen, 323\n\n George III, King, 182, 183, 184, 185, 190, 228, 256, 259, 330, 340,\n 371, 373, 395\n\n _German Immigrants into Pennsylvania, The_, 134, 134 n\n\n Gerry, Elbridge, 288\n\n _God\u2019s Sovereignty_, 156 n\n\n Godwin, William, 292, 296, 313, 376\n\n Goldsmith, Oliver, 172\n\n Gooch, George Peabody, 73 n\n\n _Grace Abounding_, 40\n\n _Greenfield Hill_, 363\n\n Grenville, George, 240\n\n Grotius, Hugo, 236\n\n _Group, The_, 207\n\n\n Halifax, Marquis of, 280\n\n Hamilton, Alexander, vi, 275, 281, 284, 285, 289, 292-307, 317 n,\n 320, 323, 328, 342, 346, 347, 348, 367, 368, 375, 380, 391\n\n Hancock, John, 205, 241\n\n Harding, Samuel Bannister, 284 n\n\n Harrington, James, 25, 26, 103, 213, 269, 270, 278, 280, 296, 318, 319\n\n _Harrison Gray Otis_, 359 n\n\n Harrower, John, 135-136\n\n Hartford Wits, The, 291, 357-367, 368\n\n Hartley, David, 170\n\n Hasselwood, Captain, 135\n\n _Hasty Pudding, The_, 389\n\n Haynes, Governor, 57, 57 n\n\n Hazen, Charles D., 321 n, 323 n\n\n _Henry the Fourth_, 28\n\n _Henry Knox_, 277 n\n\n Henry, Patrick, 222\n\n _Heresiography_, 64 n\n\n Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 321\n\n Hirst, Francis W., 342 n\n\n _History of American Literature, A_, 391 n\n\n _History of American Literature during the Colonial Period, A_, 89 n\n\n _History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, A_, 23\n n, 25 n, 100 n, 101 n, 148 n\n\n _History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century, A_,\n 73 n\n\n _History of the Dividing Line, The_, 138 n, 139-140\n\n _History of Massachusetts Bay Colony_, 31 n, 33 n, 34 n, 50 n, 127 n,\n 196, 198 n, 203 n, 205 n, 219 n, 242, 242 n\n\n _History of Mrs. B., The_, 146 n\n\n _History of New England, A_, 118 n\n\n _History of New England_ (Winthrop), 49 n, 105\n\n _History of the Supreme Court_, 284 n\n\n Hobbes, Thomas, 68, 69, 103, 208, 278, 280, 296, 300, 319\n\n Hillsboro, Lord, 200, 201\n\n _Hoch Deutsche Pennsylvanische Bericht, Der_, 135\n\n Homer, 250\n\n Hooker, Richard, 12, 67, 68, 149, 236\n\n ----, Thomas, 47, 53-62, 68, 79, 90, 99, 361\n\n Hopkins, Dr. Lemuel, 359, 364-365\n\n ----, Rev. Samuel, 105\n\n Hopkinson, Francis, 252-255, 291\n\n Hosmer, J. K., 196 n, 200, 237 n\n\n Howe, Joseph, 249\n\n ----, Sir William, 164\n\n Hubbard, Rev. William, 57\n\n Hume, David, 171, 222, 236, 239, 280, 296, 298, 319, 352, 353, 354,\n 363\n\n Humphreys, David, 359, 360, 367\n\n Hutchinson, Mistress Anne, 24, 28, 29, 49, 50, 194, 195\n\n ----, Mistress Peggy, 191\n\n ----, Colonel John, 38\n\n ----, Thomas, Sr., 195\n\n ----, Governor Thomas, 31 n, 33 n, 50 n, 127 n, 181, 194-206, 207,\n 219, 224, 234, 235, 237 n, 241, 242, 243, 245, 250, 259\n\n _Hutchinson Papers_, 36 n\n\n\n _Increase Mather, the Foremost American Puritan_, 98 n, 100 n, 101 n,\n 103 n, 104 n, 106 n\n\n _Institutes of Calvin_, 20, 30, 31 n, 42 n, 249\n\n Irving, Washington, 369, 391\n\n Isaiah, 14, 66 n\n\n\n James I, King, 55, 76\n\n Jay, John, 284\n\n Jefferson, Thomas, iii, vi, 72, 147, 176, 190, 222, 230, 247, 259,\n 280, 292, 296, 299, 302, 306, 307, 312, 320, 324, 327, 333,\n 337, 342-356, 362, 368, 374, 375, 379, 380, 389, 391, 397, 398\n\n _Johns Hopkins Studies in History and Political Science_, 311 n, 321\n n, 379 n\n\n Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 307\n\n ----, Sir William, 373\n\n _Jonathan Edwards_, 154 n, 157, 160 n\n\n Jones, Adam Leroy, 155 n\n\n Jonson, Ben, 28, 76\n\n _Journal of William Maclay_, 323, 342\n\n _Journal_ (Winthrop), 32, 45 n, 47 n\n\n\n Knight, Madam Sarah, 137-138, 141\n\n Knox, General Henry, 277, 375\n\n\n Lafayette, Marquis de, 323\n\n _Landscapes_, 147 n\n\n Laski, Harold J., 190 n, 280 n\n\n Latimer, Hugh, 55\n\n Laud, Archbishop, 23, 27, 32, 55, 56, 84, 215, 256\n\n _Law in the Modern State_, 73 n\n\n _Layman_, 243 n\n\n Lechford, Thomas, 23\n\n Lee, Richard Henry, 284, 288-291\n\n Leonard, Daniel, 194, 207-213, 216, 250\n\n _Letter to Lord Onslow_, 335 n\n\n _Letter of Lord Say and Sele_, 48 n\n\n _Letter to Lord Say and Sele_, 31 n\n\n _Letter to Major Mason_, 57 n\n\n _Letter to the National Convention of France_, 386-387\n\n _Letter to Mr. Niles_, 179 n\n\n _Letter to John Taylor_, 313 n, 316 n\n\n _Letter to Robert Wodrow_, 123 n\n\n _Letter to the Town Clerk of Providence_, 67 n, 72 n\n\n _Letters from an American Farmer_, 140, 142 n, 143 n, 144 n, 145, 145\n n, 146\n\n _Letters of Fabius_, 230, 231\n\n _Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican_, 284, 288-291\n\n _Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer_, 219, 223 n, 224 n, 225, 226 n,\n 228 n\n\n _Letters on Various Interesting and Important Subjects_, 378 n\n\n _Leviathan, The_, 209, 280\n\n _Libera Nos, Domine_, 373\n\n _Liberty of the Press in the American Colonies, The_, 119 n\n\n _Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson_, 342 n\n\n _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_, 39 n, 40 n, 41 n, 43 n, 44 n, 45\n n, 46 n, 47 n\n\n _Life of Samuel Adams_, 196 n, 237 n\n\n _Life of Franklin_, 171\n\n _Life of Elbridge Gerry_, 276 n\n\n _Life of Thomas Hutchinson_, 200 n, 201 n, 202 n, 203 n\n\n _Life of Milton_, 64 n, 75 n\n\n _Life of Thomas Paine_, 336 n, 339 n\n\n Lilburne, \u201cFree-born\u201d John, 328\n\n _Lilly\u2019s Grammar_, 249, 378\n\n Lincoln, Earl of, 29\n\n _Literary History of America, A_, 116 n, 150 n, 284 n, 371 n\n\n _Literary History of the American Revolution, A_, 207 n, 226 n, 371 n\n\n Livy, 213\n\n Locke, John, iv, 66, 69, 103, 121, 123, 149, 189, 190, 196, 213, 215,\n 217, 220, 222, 236, 237, 238, 239, 269, 270, 271, 282, 296,\n 316, 319, 338, 343, 344\n\n _Loyal Verses of Joseph Stansbury and Dr. Jonathan Odell, The_, 168\n n, 257 n, 259 n\n\n Luther, Martin, 6, 9, 11-12, 70, 72, 100\n\n _Luxury, Idleness and Industry, On_, 174 n\n\n\n Machiavelli, 280, 312, 319\n\n Maclay, Senator William, 323, 342\n\n _M\u2019Fingal_, 249, 250-251, 363\n\n McMaster, John Bach, 171\n\n Madison, James, 282, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 292, 299, 311, 315,\n 369, 379, 390\n\n _Magnalia Christi Americana_, 33 n, 63, 63 n, 108, 115, 116\n\n Malthus, Thomas Robert, 313\n\n _Man of Sorrows, The_, 146 n\n\n Marshall, Chief Justice John, 310, 353\n\n Martin, George, 134 n\n\n Mary, Queen, 91 n\n\n Mason, George, 231, 281, 292\n\n _Massachusettensis_, 207-213\n\n _Massachusetts Historical Society Collections_, 81 n, 90 n, 112 n,\n 123 n\n\n _Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings_, 119 n, 328 n\n\n Masson, David, 64 n, 75 n\n\n _Master John Cotton\u2019s Answer to Master Roger Williams_, 37 n\n\n Mather, Cotton, 14, 27, 28, 33, 56, 63, 75, 85, 86, 97, 99, 106-117,\n 120, 123, 127, 128, 137, 148, 162, 195\n\n ----, Increase, 76, 98, 99-106, 114, 119, 127, 214, 361\n\n ----, Richard, 60, 99\n\n ----, Samuel, 195\n\n Mather Dynasty, The, 98-117\n\n Mathers, The, 98, 120, 128, 162\n\n Mein, John, 379\n\n _Memoirs of Rev. Nathaniel Ward_, 80 n\n\n _Memorial of the Present Deplorable State of New England ... by the\n Male-Administration of their Present Governor, Joseph Dudley,\n Esq. and his Son Paul, A_, 112 n\n\n Merriam, Charles E., 280 n\n\n Milton, John, 10, 12, 38, 59, 66, 72, 103, 149, 189, 236, 280, 288,\n 320\n\n _Mississippi Valley in British Politics, The_, 184 n\n\n _Model of Moses His Judicials_, 33\n\n _Modell of Christian Charity_, 43\n\n _Modern Chivalry_, 390-394\n\n _Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency,\n A_, 170\n\n Montcalm, Marquis de, 141\n\n Montesquieu, Baron, 236, 271, 280, 282, 284, 319\n\n Moore, Frank, 191 n\n\n More, Sir Thomas, 350\n\n _More Letters from an American Farmer_, 140\n\n _More Wonders of the Invisible World_, 108\n\n Morison, Samuel Eliot, 359 n\n\n Morris, Gouverneur, 192, 282, 292, 324\n\n ----, Robert, 184, 221, 252, 259, 295\n\n Murdock, Kenneth B., 98 n, 100 n, 101 n, 103 n, 104 n, 106 n\n\n\n Napoleon, 324, 353, 384, 397\n\n _Narragansett Club Publications_, 25 n, 35 n, 37 n, 57 n, 64 n, 66 n,\n 67 n, 68 n, 69 n, 71 n, 72 n, 74 n\n\n _Narrative of the Surprizing Works of God, A_, 160\n\n _Nation, The_, 86 n\n\n _National Gazette, The_, 379\n\n _Negotiations in London_, 169 n\n\n Nemours, DuPont de, 346\n\n _New England Courant, The_, 128\n\n _England Weekly Journal, The_, 128\n\n _New Haven Gazette, The_, 363\n\n _New Roof, The_, 254\n\n _New View Points in American History_, 179 n\n\n _News-Letter_, 127-128\n\n Norris, Isaac, 221\n\n _Notes on Virginia_, 347\n\n North, Frederick Lord, 253, 373\n\n _Novanglus_, 200 n\n\n _Novanglus and Massachusettensis_, 208 n\n\n\n Oakes, President, 102\n\n _Objections to the Proposed Plan of a Federal Government for the\n United States on Genuine Principles_, 254-255\n\n _Oceana_, 25, 269, 319\n\n Odell, Rev. Jonathan, 255-259, 371\n\n Olivers, The, 250\n\n Onslow, Lord, 335\n\n Otis, Harrison Gray, 359\n\n ----, James, 205, 212, 310\n\n\n Paget (_also_ Pagit _or_ Pagitt), Rev. Ephraim, 64 n\n\n Paine, Robert Treat, 247, 324\n\n ----, Tom, 62, 72, 245, 247, 259, 293, 307, 324, 325, 327-341, 352,\n 353, 369, 374, 376, 378, 380, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 393\n\n Palfrey, John Gorham, 118 n\n\n _Pamphlets on the Constitution_, 231 n\n\n _Patriarcha_, 189, 215\n\n Pattee, Fred L., 373 n, 378 n\n\n Paul, Saint, 8, 15, 67\n\n Peters, Rev. Hugh, 75\n\n ----, Rev. Samuel, 58\n\n ----, Rev. Samuel (of Connecticut), 259-263\n\n _Petition to the King_, 219\n\n Petty, Sir William, 170, 171, 172\n\n _Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica_, 93\n\n _Philadelphiensis_, 254 n\n\n Philip, King, 29, 30\n\n Phips, Governor William, 86, 104, 119\n\n _Pillars of Salt_, 110\n\n Pitt, William, 8, 164, 182, 183, 185, 188, 220, 224, 226, 227, 238,\n 292, 293, 372\n\n ----, William (the younger), 340, 385\n\n Plato, 213\n\n Plugson of Undershot, 174\n\n _Poems of Philip Freneau_, 373 n, 378 n\n\n _Poganuc People_, 13\n\n _Political Activities of Philip Freneau, The_, 311 n, 379 n\n\n _Political Greenhouse, The_, 363\n\n _Political Ideas of the American Revolution, The_, 310 n\n\n _Political Justice_, 376\n\n _Political Science of John Adams, The_, 319 n, 334 n\n\n _Political Theory of Roger Williams, The_, 67 n\n\n _Political Thought from Locke to Bentham_, 280 n\n\n Pope, Alexander, 248, 249, 318\n\n _Positions to be Examined concerning National Wealth_, 173\n\n Postgate, R. W., 337 n\n\n Pownall, Governor Thomas, 205, 235\n\n _Pretty Story, A_, 253\n\n Price, Lucien, 86 n\n\n Price, Richard, 334\n\n Priestley, Joseph, 280, 292, 296, 334, 383\n\n Prince, Rev. Thomas, 94, 114, 128\n\n _Principles of Trade_, 173\n\n _Private Journal Kept by Madam Knight on a Journey from Boston to New\n York in the year 1704, The_, 137-138\n\n _Probationary Odes by Jonathan Pindar, Esq._, 375\n\n _Problem of Sovereignty, The_, 190 n\n\n _Progress and Poverty_, 338\n\n _Progress of Dulness, The_, 249\n\n _Projet d\u2019une Disme Royale_, 171\n\n Proverbs, 113\n\n Psalms, 83\n\n Ptolemy, 13\n\n _Public Advertiser, The_, 235\n\n _Publick Occurrences_, 127\n\n _Publicola_, 324, 325-326\n\n Pufendorf, Baron, 121, 236, 280\n\n Purcell, Richard J., 384 n\n\n _Puritan_, 243 n\n\n Pym, John, 220\n\n\n _Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of\n Pennsylvania_, 177 n\n\n Quesnay, Fran\u00e7ois, 346\n\n\n _Races and Immigrants in America_, 134 n\n\n Read, Charles, 134\n\n _Reflections on the Augmentation of Wages_, 174 n\n\n _Remarkable Providences_, 105\n\n _Replye to the Answ: Made to the Discourse about the Neg: Vote, A_,\n 44, 46 n\n\n _Resolves of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay_, 202 n\n\n Revelation, Book of the, 66 n, 83, 94\n\n _Revolution from 1789-1906_, 337 n\n\n Reyner, Mr., 91\n\n _Rhode Island Historical Society Publications_, 64 n\n\n Riggs, Luther G., 363\n\n _Rights of the Colonists, The_, 238 n\n\n _Rights of Man, The_, 324, 334-337, 340 n, 384, 385, 393\n\n _Rise of Modern Democracy, The_, 58 n\n\n _Rising Glory of America, The_, 372, 390\n\n _Rip Van Winkle_, 391\n\n Robinson, Rev. John, 17\n\n _Rolliad, The_, 364\n\n Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 154, 164, 271, 272, 324, 334\n\n\n Sainte-Beuve, 178\n\n Santayana, George, vi\n\n Sargent, Winthrop, 168 n\n\n Say and Sele, Lord, 29, 34\n\n Schlesinger, A. M., 179 n, 183 n, 379 n\n\n Schuyler, Livingston Rowe, 119 n\n\n Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice, 119 n\n\n Scott, Sir Walter, 256, 370\n\n _Selling of Joseph, The_, 95\n\n _Sermon IX_, 159 n\n\n _Sermon XXVII_, 158 n\n\n _Sermon XXXIV_, 156 n\n\n Sewall, Henry, 90\n\n ----, Jonathan, 207, 246\n\n ----, Samuel, 85, 87, 88-97, 113, 114, 117 n, 124, 126, 127, 165,\n 170, 195\n\n Shays, Daniel, 277, 278, 320, 352, 364, 365\n\n Shakespeare, 28\n\n Shelburne, Earl of, 183\n\n Sidney, Algernon, 103, 189, 213, 236, 280\n\n _Simple Cobler of Aggawam, The_, 76-80\n\n Singletary, Amos, 284\n\n _Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God_, 159 n\n\n _Sketches of Eighteenth Century America_, 140 n, 146, 147 n\n\n Smith, Adam, 171, 173, 269, 271, 296, 346\n\n ----, Dr. Elihu Hubbard, 359\n\n Solomon\u2019s Song. See Canticles\n\n _Some Good Whig Principles_, 177 n\n\n Song of Songs. See Canticles\n\n _Speech of January 6, 1773_ (Hutchinson), 203 n\n\n Spinoza, 152\n\n _State Trials_, 119 n\n\n _Statesmen of the Old South_, 345 n\n\n Stoddard, Rev. Solomon, 153, 249\n\n Stone, Rev. Samuel, 57\n\n Stoughton, Lieut. Governor, 85\n\n Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 13, 153\n\n Strafford, Earl of, 269\n\n _Summary View of the Rights of British America, A_, 244 n\n\n Sumner, William Graham, 294\n\n _Supreme Court and the Constitution, The_, 276 n\n\n _Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline, A_, 54, 60-62\n\n Swift, Jonathan, 333\n\n\n Tailor, Colonel, 113\n\n _Thomas Hooker, Preacher, Founder, Democrat_, 55 n, 58 n, 59 n\n\n Thompson, General, 284\n\n Tippet, Mehetabel, 141\n\n _To all the Great Folks in a Lump_, 375\n\n _To all True-hearted Christians_, 96\n\n _To Atlas_, 375\n\n _To Duncan Doolittle_, 375 n\n\n Tooke, Horne, 339, 383\n\n _To a Select Body of Great Men_, 375\n\n Townshend, Charles Viscount, 240\n\n _To a Would Be Great Man_, 375\n\n _Travels in New England and New York_, 362 n, 363\n\n _Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America in the Years\n 1759 and 1760_, 276 n\n\n _Treatise on Christian Liberty_, 12\n\n _Treatise on Taxes_, 171\n\n _Treatises on Civil Government, Two_, 189, 237, 270 n\n\n _Two Letters on the Tea Tax_, 228\n\n _Triumph of Infidelity, The_, 363\n\n Trumbull, Rev. Benjamin, 248\n\n ----, John, 248-252, 254, 359, 362\n\n ----, John (the painter), 248\n\n ----, Governor Jonathan, 248, 360\n\n Tyler, Moses Coit, 89 n, 123, 207 n, 220, 226 n, 256, 371, 372, 381\n\n\n _United States Gazette, The_, 379\n\n\n Vane, Sir Harry, 10, 12, 38, 59, 66, 72, 73-74\n\n Van Schaak, Peter, 192\n\n Van Tyne, C. H., 179 n, 182 n, 184 n, 188 n, 189 n, 203 n\n\n _Various Prospects_, 280\n\n Varnum, General, 276\n\n Vattel, Emrich von, 236, 239, 280\n\n Vauban, S\u00e9bastien de, 171\n\n _View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, A_,\n 215-218\n\n _Vindication of the Government of the New England Churches, A_, 119\n n, 120, 122 n, 123\n\n _Vision of Columbus, The_, 387\n\n Voltaire, 324, 363\n\n\n _Walker, G. L._, 55 n, 56 n, 58 n, 59 n\n\n ---- Williston, 23 n, 24, 100 n, 101 n, 148 n\n\n Wallace, Robert, 280, 319\n\n Walley, Major, 119\n\n Walpole, Horace, 203\n\n Walsh, C. M., 319 n, 334 n\n\n Ward, Nathaniel, 21, 33, 55, 76-81, 84\n\n Warren, Mrs. Mercy, 207\n\n Warwick, Earl of, 29\n\n Washington, George, 184, 258, 259, 276, 277, 292, 295, 305, 323, 349,\n 360, 368, 369, 380, 393\n\n Watson, Bishop, of Llandaff, 324, 337\n\n _Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared, The_, 35\n\n _Wealth of Nations, The_, 171, 173, 271, 296\n\n Webster, Daniel, 25\n\n ----, Noah, 291, 299, 382\n\n ----, Peletiah, 291\n\n Wedderburn, Alexander, 164\n\n Wendell, Barrett, 107, 114 n, 116, 150 n, 284 n, 370\n\n Whately, George, 173\n\n _When the Wicked shall have Filled up the Measure of their Sins,\n Wrath will come upon them to the Uttermost_, 159 n\n\n Whitfield, Rev. George, 160, 373\n\n Whittier, John G., 89\n\n Wigglesworth, Rev. Michael, 85\n\n Wilkes, John, 251\n\n Willard, Rev. Samuel, 87\n\n William III, King, 91 n\n\n Williams, Roger, iv, vi, 6, 10, 12, 24, 25, 28, 35-36, 37, 49, 50,\n 53, 54, 57 n, 59, 62-75, 77, 79, 94, 100, 103, 105, 121, 333,\n 341, 386\n\n Willing, Thomas, 221\n\n Wilson, James, 254, 291, 292\n\n ----, Rev. John, 59\n\n ----, Wood row, 306\n\n _Wingate on the Common Law_, 93\n\n Winthrop, Adam, 41\n\n ----, John, 17, 18, 19, 30, 32, 38-50, 51, 55, 57, 58, 71, 80, 88,\n 92, 97, 105\n\n ----, Margaret, 39\n\n _Wisdom and Goodness of God, In having Made both Rich and Poor, The_,\n 337\n\n Wise, Rev. John, 94, 101, 118-125, 162\n\n _Witchcraft, Then and Now_, 86 n\n\n _Wonders of the Invisible World, The_, 86 n, 108, 115-116, 116 n\n\n Worcester, Bishop of, 253\n\n _Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country, A; Or the Bank of Credit_,\n 124\n\n _Word of Congress, The_, 257\n\n _Works_ of John Adams, 207 n, 309 n, 311 n, 312 n, 313 n, 314 n, 315\n n, 316 n, 317 n, 318 n\n\n _Works_ of Samuel Adams, 199 n, 234 n, 236 n, 237 n, 238 n, 239 n,\n 240 n, 241 n, 242 n, 244 n, 245 n, 246 n\n\n _Works_ of John Dickinson, 226 n, 227 n, 228 n\n\n _Works_ of Jonathan Edwards, 156 n, 158 n, 159 n\n\n _Works_ of Benjamin Franklin, 168 n, 169 n, 170 n, 171 n, 173 n, 174\n n, 176 n, 177 n\n\n _Works_ of Alexander Hamilton, 298 n, 301 n, 304 n, 306 n\n\n _Works_ of Martin Luther, 12 n\n\n _Works_ of Thomas Paine, 177 n, 335 n, 338 n, 339 n, 341 n\n\n _Works_ of Daniel Webster, 26 n\n\n _Writings_ of John Quincy Adams, 326 n\n\n _Writings of Col. William Byrd of Westover in Virginia, Esq., The_,\n 138 n\n\n _Writings_ of Thomas Jefferson, 303 n, 347 n, 348 n, 350 n, 351 n,\n 353 n, 355 n\n\n _Wyoming Massacre, The_, 146 n\n\n\n Yates, Robert, 285\n\n\n\n\nThe Romantic Revolution in America [Volume Two]\n\n\n\n\nForeword\n\n\nIn justification of the choice of writers and allotment of space in\nthe following pages, let it be said frankly that I have been guided\nby what I conceived to be the historical significance of the several\ndocuments. With aesthetic judgments I have not been greatly concerned.\nI have not wished to evaluate reputations or weigh literary merits, but\nrather to understand what our fathers thought, and why they wrote as\nthey did. This will serve to explain the considerable number of pages\ndevoted to southern letters, as well as to certain well-nigh forgotten\nfigures. For the purpose I had in view such a method was inevitable.\nLost causes have a way of shrinking in importance in the memory of\nlater generations, and the historian must go back to the days before\ntheir overthrow, and view them in the light of their hopes. Time is\nnot always a just winnower; it is partial to success and its verdict\ntoo often inclines to the side of the biggest cannon or the noisiest\n_claque_. The exhuming of buried reputations and the revivifying of\ndead causes is the familiar business of the historian, in whose eyes\nforgotten men may assume as great significance as others with whom\nposterity has dealt more generously. Communing with ghosts is not\nunprofitable to one who listens to their tales. To our fathers John\nTaylor and Beverley Tucker and Fisher Ames were living figures; they\nspoke for their generation, and they may have something still to say to\na later generation. For dealing at length with such men as Hugh Legar\u00e9\nand Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy and Herman Melville, no apologies\nneed be offered. They have too long been slighted. Walt Whitman I have\nchosen to regard as the forerunner of a later school, and have reserved\nthe consideration of his work for another study. Certain other men I\nhave omitted regretfully out of regard to space--diverse figures such\nas Orestes Brownson, Albert Brisbane, and John Esten Cooke, together\nwith a group of poets and essayists, who though they have long been\nreckoned ghosts are nevertheless well worth knowing. Even echoes imply\nsubstance somewhere.\n\n V. L. P.\n\n_Seattle, February 22, 1926._\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\nThe present volume is the second in a proposed study of the main\ntendencies of American thought as expressed in our literature. In\nthe preceding volume I have considered the incoming into America of\ncertain old-world ideals and institutions, and the subjection of\nthose ideals and institutions to the pressure of a new environment,\nfrom which resulted the overthrow of the principles of monarchy and\naristocracy, and the setting up of the principle of republicanism.\nIn the present study I purpose considering certain new growths that\nsprang up in the land thus cleared--what particular forms they assumed\nand why they assumed such forms. The delimitations of the period\nto be treated of are fixed by two wars that disturbed the normal\nunfolding of national experience: the War of 1812 that hastened the\ndevelopment of nineteenth-century ideals, and the Civil War that\nuprooted certain of the crasser growths of those vigorous years. The\nhalf century that lay between these dramatic episodes was a period of\nextravagant youth, given over to a cult of romanticism that wrought as\nmany marvels as Aaron\u2019s rod. In the South, in New England, and on the\nwestern frontier, it laid hold of men\u2019s minds, consuming the stubble\nof eighteenth-century harvests, sweeping away the drab realisms of\na cautious past, and offering in their stead more alluring ideals.\nRevolutions, greater and lesser, trod on each other\u2019s heels; the common\nadventure led into unexplored paths; and the final outcome for which it\nwas all preparing was the emergence of a new middle class that in the\nsucceeding half century was to subdue America to middle-class ends.\n\nSuch drastic overturnings of the customary and familiar, such swift\nruptures with the past, quite evidently do not come from trivial\ncauses. Men do not put off the old before the new is ready; and if in\nthose credulous years they turned romantic and refused to heed the\ncounsels of experience, it was because the soil had been new-plowed for\nthe growing of such crops as their fathers had not known. The grapes\nfrom which the wine of romance is vinted, it must not be forgotten, are\nrooted in the common earth. The loveliest romantic dreams spring from\na parentage that is humbly prosaic. There is no more fruitful source\nof romantic hope than a fluid economics that overflows all narrow\npre\u00ebmptions and sweeps away the restrictions that hamper free endeavor.\nWith fresh economic realms to conquer, the dullest plodder discovers\na stimulus in anticipation that sets him upon creating a Utopia. The\nbreaking up of the static, the bold adventuring upon new worlds, is the\nfertile soil in which romance springs most luxuriantly. It needs no\nuncommon eyes, surely, to discover in the swift changes that came to\nAmerica in the wake of the second English war, the seed-bed of those\nebullient romanticisms which in politics and economics, in theology\nand literature, turned away so contemptuously from the homespun past.\nOf a sudden America was becoming a new world with potentialities\nbefore undreamed of; and this new America was no longer content with\nthe narrow ways of a more cautious generation. The older America of\ncolonial days had been static, rationalistic, inclined to pessimism,\nfearful of innovation, tenacious of the customary. It conceived of\nhuman nature as evil, and accounting men incurably wicked, it opened no\ndoors to Utopian dreams of a golden future. The round of daily life was\nconfined within a narrow domestic economy, with few and rare changes in\nsocial status. Growth in population came mainly from natural increase.\nExploitation was laborious, and such wealth as was laid by was gained\nin shop and field, in fisheries and shipping. With its expectations\ncramped by a drab agrarianism, it was content to remain primitively\nself-sufficient, not given to seeking riches by speculative short-cuts,\nclinging to the habitual, distrustful of change.\n\nDuring the thirty-odd years between the Peace of Paris and the end\nof the War of 1812 that older America was dying. The America that\nsucceeded was a shifting, restless world, youthfully optimistic,\neager to better itself, bent on finding easier roads to wealth\nthan the plodding path of natural increase. It conceived of human\nnature as acquisitive, and accounting acquisitiveness a cardinal\nvirtue, it set out to inquire what opportunities awaited it in the\nunexploited resources of the continent. The cautious ways of earlier\ngenerations were become as much out of date as last year\u2019s almanac. New\ncommonwealths were rising in the wilderness; immigration from war-torn\nEurope was pouring in; wild lands were daily coming on the market.\nMoney was to be made by the enterprising, and the multitude of the\nenterprising was augmenting with the expansion of the settlements. The\nideal of a static society having been put away, progress was assumed\nto be the first law of nature, and innovation was accepted as the sign\nand seal of progress. It was our first great period of exploitation,\nand from it emerged, as naturally as the cock from the mother egg, the\nspirit of romance, gross and tawdry in vulgar minds, dainty and refined\nin the more cultivated. But always romance. The days of realism were\npast, and it was quietly laid away with the wig and smallclothes of an\noutgrown generation.\n\nUnfortunately economic romance is more imperious in its demands than\nliterary romance. Its dreams follow objective desires, and in America\nof those days of new beginnings the desires of diverse economic groups\nconducted straight to antagonistic imperialisms. The major interests\nof the three great sections of the country differentiated more and\nmore sharply. The East was discovering its Utopia in an industrial\ncapitalistic order. With the flocking of immigrants to the factories\nbegan the extraordinary expansion of the cities and the movement of\ncentralization that was eventually to transform America from a rural\nto an urban society, supplanting the farmer by the business man and\ndisintegrating the traditional psychology. The new manufacturing and\nthe new finance were subjecting an agrarian people to the dislocations\nand readjustments implied in the industrial revolution, the outcome of\nwhich no man could foresee. The reaction of this new industrialism upon\nthe South was immediate. With the improvements in textile manufacturing\ncame greater demands upon the new southern staple, and an agriculture\nthat had long been static with its traditional crops of indigo, rice,\nand tobacco, began to look forward confidently to a Utopia founded on\ncotton, and conceived an imperialistic dream of expanding fields of\nwhite bolls and black slaves, reaching into Mexico and embracing the\nWest Indies. The new South left off apologizing for slavery and hoping\nfor its ultimate extinction. Slavery had become enormously profitable\nand it proposed to exploit the negro as frankly as New England was\nexploiting the Irish immigrant, but more humanely if possible, in\nsomething of the patriarchal spirit.\n\nMeanwhile in the Inland Empire was arising an economics that looked\nwith little favor on the imperialisms of eastern capitalism or southern\nslavery; an economics equalitarian in temper, decentralizing in\nimpulse; nourished on the idealism of the Declaration of Independence,\nbut interpreting it to mean the natural right of every free citizen to\nsatisfy his acquisitive instinct by exploiting the national resources\nin the measure of his shrewdness. Democratic in professions, it was\nmiddle-class in spirit and purpose. Discovering the inflowing tide of\nimmigration to be favorable to speculation, it sought its Utopia in\ncounty-seat towns where land holdings mounted in value with every new\nwave. No narrow horizons bounded a realm that stretched to the Pacific\nand into the remote Northwest, and no stodgy ways of money-getting\ncould satisfy men whose imaginations ranged through such spaces. This\ncountry was theirs to do with as they chose, and if eastern capitalism\nor southern slavery interfered with their inalienable rights, their\nSharp\u2019s rifles were at hand for defense. In the vast territory drained\nby the Mississippi--the \u201cValley of Democracy,\u201d a recent writer has\nchosen to call it--was conceived what may be accounted the most\nromantic dream that ever visited the native mind of America. It\nimpressed de Tocqueville, who discovered the poetry of America in this\nromance of a moving frontier, in the vision that led the pioneer on his\nconquering way westward, hewing at an interminable wilderness that was\nmatched only by his ambitions.\n\nSuch swift expansions, such mounting romanticisms of temper, must\ninevitably provide themselves with correspondent philosophies to phrase\nthe new aspirations. The nineteenth century was not content to think in\nthe narrower terms of the eighteenth, but must refashion its thought to\nsuit the romantic style. The modes which it came to accept were for the\nmost part of European origin, adapted to new-world needs. From France\nand England, and later from Germany, came variant schools of romantic\ntheory that at bottom were a common glorification of the ideal of\nindividualism; and this very diversity of interpretation made possible\nin America an appeal to different classes and diverse interests, the\nsum total of which was a many-sided contribution to social theory, but\na contribution which carried within it the seeds of later conflict.\n\nThe first stage in the romanticization of American thought resulted\nfrom the naturalization of French revolutionary theory. Its devious\nprogress through the country can be traced fairly accurately. Landing\nfirst in Virginia in the early seventeen-seventies, it met with a\nhospitable reception from the generous planter society and spread\nwidely there the fashion of Physiocratic agrarianism. Traveling thence\nwestward into the Inland Empire it domesticated itself in frontier log\ncabins under the guise of an assertive individualism, to issue later\nas the coonskin democracy of the Jacksonian revolution. Eventually\nreaching New England, the last haven and refuge of eighteenth-century\nrealism, it disarmed Yankee antagonism by assuming the dress of\nUnitarianism and preached the doctrine of human perfectibility with\nsuch conviction as to arouse the conscience of New England to an\nextraordinary enthusiasm for reforming man and society. And coming\nfinally to New York it inoculated the mind of the emerging proletariat\nwith its doctrine of the rights of man, with Fourieristic and other\nUtopias, and turmoiled contemporary politics with equalitarian Locofoco\nprograms. No other philosophy assumed so many and such attractive\ndisguises, or wrought such changes in American ideals, as this French\nromanticism with its generous humanitarian impulses. The ground was\nready for the seed it was to sow, and if in the judgment of a hostile\nphilosophy the crop turned out to be tares, increasing thousands\nbelieved it to be excellent wheat, to the growing of which America was\nto be dedicated henceforth.\n\nThe rival philosophy, which came to view with increasing dislike the\ndoctrines of French romanticism, was of English middle class origin\nand sprang from the long struggle of that class to loose the hands of\nthe landed gentry from control of the state. Phrased persuasively by\nAdam Smith, it embodied the principle of liberalism as that principle\nwas understood by men of affairs. It conceived of a social Utopia that\nmust result if economic forces were given free play; if governmental\nrestrictions on trade were done away with and individual enterprise\nwere free to buy and sell in the open market. Springing from the\nsame root of individualism that brought forth French romanticism, it\nflowered in an economics that denied the aspirations of the French\nschool. Assuming as its determining principle the common instinct of\nacquisitiveness, it set up the economic man as the criterion of conduct\nand proposed to reorder society to the single end of trade. Thus\nsanctioned and given free rein, the principle of acquisitiveness set\nforth on its triumphant march through western civilization. Accepted by\nthe English middle class as the ultimate social philosophy sufficient\nto all needs, it presented to willing eyes the ideal of exploitation as\nthe goal of social progress.\n\nBut transported to America, the new philosophy soon discovered\nunforeseen obstacles in its path. The acquisitive instinct was here\nenormously strengthened by the vast unpre\u00ebmpted resources lying\nall about, but unfortunately those resources were too great or too\nspeculative to be exploited by individual effort. Capital was wanting,\nand unless collective funds were available, exploitation must be\nslow and inadequate. There was need of the state to further the\nopening up of western lands and to throw its guardianship about an\ninfant industrialism. Roads and canals could not wait on individual\nenterprise; tariffs and subsidies could flow only from the government.\nHence arose a modification of _laissez faire_, from which resulted\nthe theory that a democratic state stands _in loco parentis_ to\nthe economic interests of its citizens, and should guarantee the\nprogressive well-being of strategic groups on whose prosperity\ndepended the common well-being. It was this modification of the\nEnglish philosophy that the Whig party came to embody in its platform,\nand which by pooling the interests of western speculators, eastern\nfinanciers and New England industrialists, sponsored the \u201cAmerican\nPlan,\u201d a curiously ingenious scheme to milk the cow and divide the milk\namong those who superintended the milking.\n\nMeanwhile in the imperialistic South was arising a distinctive\nphilosophy, native to the special conditions imposed by slavery, that\nwas to set it apart from both eastern and western economics and draw it\ninevitably into a narrowing isolation. Frankly defensive in purpose,\nrejecting alike French equalitarianism and English individualism, it\nsought to justify the institution of slavery by an appeal to realism\nand square it to the theory of democracy by analogy with northern\nindustrialism. The conception of a Greek democracy, which was the\nlast citadel of the southern mind, was a skillful compromise between\nthe antagonistic principles of aristocracy and democracy, the most\nromantic ideal brought forth by our golden age of romance. Assuming\nthe middle-class principle of exploitation as the creative source of\nevery civilization, it proposed to erect a free state on the basis of\na slave proletariat after the model of ancient Athens. A democracy,\nit argued, is possible only among equals. In every society hitherto\nthe inevitable inequality between economic classes has nullified every\ndemocratic program. Master and man, exploiter and exploited, are\nnecessarily opposed in vital economic interests; and this potential\nclash, this fundamental antagonism of classes, has been intensified\nby the rise of industrialism. Exploitation has been brutalized by the\nimpersonal wage-system, and the proletariat has been reduced to sodden\nand embittered beasts. If now as honest realists we recognize frankly\nthat equality cannot exist between inferior and superior races, if\nwe accept the inevitable proletarian status of the negro, if finally\nwe concede the truism that the lifelong relations between master and\nslave are more humane than the temporary relations between wage-giver\nand wage-earner, we shall concern ourselves less with a romantic\nequalitarianism and more with a rational conception of a democracy of\nequals that may conceivably erect a civilization worthy of the name.\n\nIt was an ingenious theory, but unfortunately it left out of account\nthe ambitions of the middle class, and it was this class that in the\nend destroyed it. Whether they will it or not, imperialisms have a\nway of clashing with rival imperialisms. Reality persists though\nromance may deny it, and in their several programs the three diverse\nsections of America were driving blindly to a collision. In that bitter\ncollision the dream of the South was destroyed. With the overthrow of\nthe aristocratic principle in its final refuge the ground was cleared\nof the last vestiges of the eighteenth century. Thenceforth America was\nto become wholly middle class, and such romance as it might bring forth\nwas to be of another sort.\n\nThe literature of this extraordinarily vigorous period we are now\nto deal with, not in the narrow field of _belles lettres_ alone but\nin the outlying fields of social and political philosophies. The\ndifficulties in the way are many. To endeavor to penetrate critically\nto the intellectual core of a period, to weigh this romance in\nrealistic scales, to take off the outer wrappings and lay bare the\ninner truth, is no May-day undertaking. The critic finds himself at\nevery turn confronted by reputations distorted by contemporary praise\nor censure. In the formal biographies written in that golden age of\nmyth-making, criticism too often gave way to eulogy. Our fathers wrote\nlike gentlemen, but unfortunately too often they believed that in\npreparing a biography a gentleman was under obligation to speak well of\nthe dead. No blemishes were to be recognized, no disagreeable truths\nto find a place in their immaculate pages. In consequence scarcely a\nsingle commentary of the times is to be trusted, and the critic is\nreduced to patching together his account out of scanty odds and ends,\nor else settling down to do a series of full-length portraits, in which\nwork, quite evidently, he will not get far. The inadequacies of the\npresent study I am painfully conscious of: its omissions, its doubtful\ninterpretations, its hasty generalizations, its downright guesses;\nbut in the present lack of exact knowledge of the history of American\nletters, I do not see how such inadequacies can be avoided.\n\n\n\n\n Contents [Volume Two]\n\n\n Introduction: Delimitations of period; romance and economic\n change; differentiating imperialisms of East, South, West; romantic\n philosophies: Physiocratic agrarianism, French equalitarianism,\n English _laissez faire_; a counter-philosophy--slavery and a\n Greek democracy iii\n\n\n Book I: The Mind of the South\n\n The mind of the South old-fashioned. Two germinal sources: Virginia,\n from which derived Kentucky and Tennessee; South Carolina,\n from which derived the Black Belt 3\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Virginia Renaissance\n\n I. The Old Dominion: The mother of the agrarian West.\n Transition from middle-class to plantation ideals.\n Increasingly libertarian 5\n\n II. The Heritage of Jeffersonianism\n\n I. Jeffersonianism an expression of native conditions.\n Interpreted in terms of Physiocratic agrarianism,\n natural rights. Terminable nature of compact the\n source of states-rights doctrine. Struggle between\n capitalistic and agrarian economics. Virginia the\n leader of the latter movement 10\n\n II. John Taylor--Agrarian Economist: Leader of the\n young Republicans. His works. Theory founded\n in Physiocratic doctrine. Aristocratic origins of the\n political state. Examination of the principles of John\n Adams, Hamilton--social classes derive from exploitation.\n Danger of a paper aristocracy. His philosophy\n summarized 14\n\n III. John Marshall--Last of the Virginia Federalists:\n His strategic position. Middle-class sympathies;\n intellectual qualities. A politician on the bench.\n Two fixed ideas: sovereignty of the federal state;\n sanctity of private property. His decisions Federalistic.\n Two main groups: sovereignty of the judiciary;\n irrevocable nature of contract. The Yazoo Fraud\n case. An arch conservative 20\n\n IV. The Older Plantation Mind\n\n I. Plantation backgrounds: The literary renaissance\n followed English romantic movement. Kennedy\u2019s\n _Swallow Barn_ and the rise of the plantation tradition 28\n\n II. William Wirt: The man--embodiment of eighteenth-century\n culture. _The British Spy_--characteristics.\n _Life of Patrick Henry_--solution of the problem.\n Later shift in political sympathies 30\n\n III. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker--A Virginia Fire-eater.\n His parochialism; his pessimism. _The Partisan\n Leader_--a dramatization of Calhoun\u2019s philosophy;\n the note of romantic extravagance. Hatred of democracy--appeal\n to South Carolina 35\n\n V. Adventures in Romance\n\n I. William Alexander Caruthers and the transition to\n romance. _The Kentuckian in New York_, a contribution\n to intersectional good will. An appreciation of\n northern qualities; a criticism of slavery. _The Cavaliers\n of Virginia_, the new spirit of romance. His slight\n reputation 41\n\n II. John Pendleton Kennedy--A southern Whig: The\n man--Jeffersonian backgrounds; influence of Edward\n Gray. Turned protectionist, accepted the doctrine\n of progress. A romantic; an amateur. _Swallow\n Barn_--an idyl of plantation life--slavery. _Horse-Shoe\n Robinson; Rob of the Bowl_--cavalier romance. _Quodlibet_--a\n Whig satire of Jacksonianism. His later\n career 46\n\n III. Edgar Allan Poe: Relations to southern environment--his\n prejudices against New England. Aloofness from\n Virginia ideals. A problem for abnormal psychology\n and belletristic criticism. An artist and a critic 57\n\n\n Part II\n\n The Renaissance of Slavery\n\n I. Southern Imperialism: Shift in attitude towards\n slavery--consequences to Jeffersonian democracy. The Black\n Belt--reasons why cotton became king. Reaction of\n the South to imperialism. Jefferson Davis--his\n character 61\n\n II. Winds of Political Doctrine\n\n I. Three streams of thought: Virginia humanitarianism,\n western individualism, Carolina imperialism. Increasing\n dominance of the third. Rise of a defensive\n strategy; appeal to the Constitution 67\n\n II. John C. Calhoun--Realist. His influence--destroyed\n Jeffersonianism for the new South. A southern Puritan.\n His early career--a nationalist. The year 1828\n a turning-point--recognition of the danger of democracy\n to slavery. Two lines of defense: states rights,\n constitutional checks. Amplification of the second by\n extension of the principle of the veto. Failure of\n existing checks to protect minorities. Fallacy in the\n conception of democratic majorities--an obscuring\n of the economic basis of politics. Doctrine of the\n concurrent majority. Conception of democracy--an\n attack on theory of natural rights. His objective a\n Greek democracy. Likeness to John Adams 69\n\n III. Alexander H. Stephens--Constitutionalist: The man--passion\n for freedom under law. His localism expressed\n in states rights. A confirmed liberal--fear of extra-legal\n powers. His _Constitutional View of the War\n between the States_. Theory of the terminable nature of\n compact--doctrine of good will. A political thinker,\n rather than economic. Position on slavery 82\n\n IV. Francis Lieber--A New-Modeled Federalism: A German\n liberal influenced by English constitutional\n practice and the common law. His doctrine of historical\n evolution. Liberty founded in institutional self-government.\n A _laissez-faire_ conception of the political state 93\n\n III. The Dream of a Greek Democracy\n\n I. Difficulty of the southern position. A reply to northern\n industrialism--civilization and labor exploitation.\n Contrast between wage-slavery and black slavery--certain\n advantages of the latter. Southern replies to\n _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_ 99\n\n II. William J. Grayson: _The Hireling and the Slave_ as a\n southern document. A contrast: the wretchedness\n of the wage-slave in industrial centers; the contentment\n of the black slave on the plantation. His attack\n on Abolitionists 103\n\n IV. Adventures in _Belles-Lettres_\n\n I. Old Charleston: The capital of the planters--aristocratic,\n Puritan, Victorian. Traditional home of Federalism.\n Culture old-fashioned. A distinguished\n society 109\n\n II. William Crafts--Charleston Wit: A southern Robert\n Treat Paine, seeking to domesticate Boston culture\n in Charleston. His work 112\n\n III. Hugh Swinton Legar\u00e9--Intellectual: A southern\n Puritan. His career. A legal scholar, interpreting\n politics in terms of the common law. A lexolater,\n contemptuous of political philosophers. A juridical\n romantic. Accepted the economics of _laissez faire_\n and capitalism. Pessimistic in regard to the South.\n Hostile to Nullification and Calhoun. The weakness\n of slavery 114\n\n IV. William Gilmore Simms: A plebeian snubbed by\n Charleston, yet loyal to the Charleston parochialisms.\n A realist hampered by the current romanticisms.\n The most virile figure of the old South. A rich\n and generous nature--likeness to Fielding. The\n picaresque note in his work. Reasons for his exploitation\n of \u201cblood-pudding.\u201d Lieutenant Porgy. His\n two major themes: his special frontier compared with\n Cooper\u2019s; his revolutionary tales. His treatment of\n the Indian. _The Yemassee_, compared with Cooper.\n Later life 125\n\n\n Part III\n\n The Romance of the West\n\n I. New Worlds\n\n I. The Inland Empire and Jeffersonianism. Romance and\n social change. Rise of the middle class, and clash of\n philosophies. Economic origins of western Whiggery 137\n\n II. Henry Clay: The embodiment of Whiggery. Reason\n for his shift from Jeffersonianism. His theory of\n paternalism 141\n\n II. Two Spokesmen of the West\n\n I. Andrew Jackson--Agrarian Liberal: The rise of western\n equalitarianism. Federalist contempt for a Democrat.\n Jackson our first great popular leader. Characteristics.\n Early drift towards middle-class position;\n reaction to agrarianism. Repudiation of Whiggery.\n Hatred of aristocracy. His attitude toward the Bank\n a return to the economics of John Taylor. His attitude\n towards the state a modified Jeffersonianism. His\n influence on American democracy. Effect on later\n Whig strategy 145\n\n II. Lincoln--Free-Soil Liberal: Liberalism and the Declaration\n of Independence. A Jeffersonian who came to\n the defense of natural rights. Equalitarianism and\n _laissez faire_. The problem of free soil--a realist\n seeking to reconcile them. His \u201cdivided house\u201d\n position an appeal to political realism. Good will\n versus coercive sovereignty. The prose of his speeches.\n Lincoln and the myth-makers 152\n\n III. The Frontier in Letters: Romance and the Inland\n Empire. Two main conceptions: Boone and the\n Dark and Bloody Ground; Crockett and frontier\n humor 161\n\n I. The Romantic Frontier 162\n\n II. The Realistic Frontier\n\n (1) Augustus Longstreet and the Georgia Frontier:\n The native realism of Georgia life. A frontier\n plebeian who developed middle-class qualities.\n A follower of Calhoun, but at bottom a Jeffersonian\n agrarian. With the rise of Abolitionism abandoned\n natural-rights philosophy. _Georgia Scenes_--the\n note of realism 166\n\n (2) The Davy Crockett Myth: The popular appeal of\n the _Narrative_ and the rise of the Crockett myth.\n Origin at Washington. Three stages: frontier\n waggery; anti-Jackson spleen; the Alamo adventure.\n A Whig attempt to catch the coonskin\n vote--a by-product of Jacksonian methods. The\n beginnings in _Sketches and Eccentricities_. Effect\n on Davy. _The Tour_ and the _Life of Martin\n Van Buren_. Conjectural authorship. How Davy\n was made a Whig. The _Exploits and Adventures_.\n _The Narrative_--the real Davy a wastrel 172\n\n\n Book II: The Mind of the Middle East\n\n A product of two centers: Philadelphia, New York. Lack of\n intellectual backgrounds 183\n\n I. The Old Capital\n\n I. Philadelphia the capital of the older American culture.\n Its contributions to the Revolutionary debates. Its\n economic prospects curtailed by topography. Its\n decline with the removal of the national capital 185\n\n II. Brockden Brown and French liberalisms--influence\n of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Explanation\n of their appeal. _Alcuin; A Dialogue._ _Arthur Mervyn_,\n a study in Godwinianism. _Wieland_ and the \u201cblood-pudding\u201d\n school. Influence on later fiction in America 188\n\n III. Robert Montgomery Bird: His contributions to the\n romantic drama. _Nick of the Woods_--a realistic\n treatment of the Indian. A contribution to the myth\n of western humor 190\n\n II. The New Capital\n\n I. New York an economic rather than a cultural capital.\n Reasons for its rise. The older Knickerbocker world\n disintegrating. Stephen Van Rensselaer and John\n Jacob Astor 193\n\n II. Intellectual backgrounds: Lack of creativeness. Political\n divisions. Emergence of the boss--Martin Van\n Buren and Thurlow Weed 195\n\n III. James Kent: The last of the old Federalist school.\n His political theory--a disciple of Fisher Ames. His\n _Commentaries on American Law_ 197\n\n IV. Beginnings of the renaissance: _Salmagundi_; _The Croaker\n Papers_. Fitz-Greene Halleck. His views--attitude\n towards the proletariat. _Connecticut_; _Fanny_. The\n last of the Wits 199\n\n III. Two Knickerbocker Romantics\n\n I. Washington Irving: His detachment. A _fl\u00e2neur_. His\n years abroad. Reaction to the Reform Bill. An\n incipient liberal. Rediscovery of America. The\n mission to Madrid. Contrast with Cooper. Political\n principles--drift towards the middle class. _A Tour\n of the Prairies_, _Astoria_, _Life of Washington_. His early\n and late work contrasted 203\n\n II. James Kirke Paulding: His origins--a son of the\n people, distrustful of the middle class. Defense of\n America against the English critics. His idealism.\n _The Backwoodsman_; _The Puritan and his Daughter_.\n His rejection of English \u201cblood-pudding\u201d romantic.\n A Jeffersonian: _Letters from the South_ an echo of John\n Taylor\u2019s agrarianism; opposed Clay\u2019s American Plan;\n satirized Clay in _Koningsmarke_. _Westward Ho!; The\n Dutchman\u2019s Fireside._ An amateur in letters 212\n\n IV. James Fenimore Cooper--Critic: The problem of\n Cooper. A barometer of his generation. Troubled by\n the transition from an aristocratic to a capitalistic\n order--lingered between worlds. His Tory origins--Judge\n William Cooper. Abandoned Federalism yet\n ill content with Democracy. Effect of his European\n travels. Likeness to John Adams--hated all cant.\n Two phases of his criticism: the older Federalist\n theories; the fallacies of capitalism. _The Monikins_--an\n attack on the stake-in-society theory. _The Redskins_--an\n attack on capitalistic exploitation. A\n romanticized eighteenth century his refuge against\n the vulgarities of Jacksonianism and capitalism.\n _Home as Found_ and _The Redskins_ as studies in social\n criticism. His love of the wilderness and hatred of\n the frontier. The anti-rent trilogy. Picture of the\n squatter. His growing realism--_Wyandott\u00e9_. His\n later political philosophy--an ethical interpretation\n of sovereignty. Failure of the critics to understand\n Cooper 222\n\n V. Some Contributions of New England\n\n I. William Cullen Bryant--Puritan Liberal: Injustice\n done him by neglect of his journalistic work. An\n original mind. Transition from Federalist to Democrat.\n Influence of the English economists--an\n English liberal. Never a Jeffersonian, but anti-Whig.\n Influence of William Leggett and Parke Godwin.\n Attitude towards the labor movement. Defense of\n free speech. A critic of the rising capitalism 238\n\n II. Horace Greeley--Yankee Radical: A practical man\n seeking a way out of the confusions of the times. His\n early life; defense of protectionism. His working\n back to Jeffersonianism. Interest in Fourierism.\n Champion of the farmer and the wage-earner. His\n \u201cVote Yourself a Farm\u201d policy. Interest in the\n proletariat--interpretation\n of slavery. Co\u00f6peration. An idealist 247\n\n III. Herman Melville--Pessimist: The source of his pessimism\n in life itself--effect of frustrations. His ancestry:\n the Gansevoort strain; the Melville strain. Contrast\n between mother and son; effect of his marriage.\n Stages toward pessimism marked by _Typee_, _Mardi_,\n _Moby Dick_, _Pierre_. Transcendentalism and reality.\n His democracy. A critic of America. Spiritual\n dissatisfactions--_Clarel_ 258\n\n\n Book III: The Mind of New England\n\n The New England renaissance the last expression in America of\n eighteenth-century revolutionary thought. Given a native ethical\n bias. Twin tendencies of earlier New England. Static conditions\n of life--the renaissance a movement of liberalism, shaped\n by the Puritan strain 271\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Twilight of Federalism\n\n I. The Passing of the Tie-Wig School\n\n I. Old Boston: Conservatism of temper--a reaction from\n the revolutionary enthusiasm of \u201976. Emphasized by\n refusal to entertain French romantic theories. The\n renaissance delayed a generation. The home of the\n stake-in-society principle; opposition to democracy 275\n\n II. Fisher Ames and the Tie-Wig School: The spokesman\n of Boston Federalism. A conservative, given to pessimism.\n His political philosophy an adaptation of\n English Whiggery to the Calvinistic conception of\n stewardship; based on an absolute morality. Prosperity\n and the Saints--the end of government to protect\n property; hence it must be strong and coercive. Fear\n of faction. A repository of aristocratic prejudice 279\n\n III. Robert Treat Paine, Jr.--Wit: The last of the\n eighteenth-century Wits. His verse. A Tory--attitude\n towards the French Revolution. His prose. Contempt\n for Jacobin doctrine 288\n\n II. Winds of Political Doctrine\n\n I. Changing economics after 1812--rise of industrialism.\n A new spirit of nationalism. Danger of agrarianism,\n particularism. Rise of the Whig party--middle-class\n capitalistic. Menace of the new southern school of\n states rights. Need of a new nationalistic theory of\n the Constitution 296\n\n II. Work begun by Joseph Story: A Massachusetts Republican.\n Characteristics of New England Republicanism.\n His shift to Whiggery. His _Commentaries\n on the Constitution_: derived from the common law and\n _The Federalist_. His view of the compact--interpretation\n of \u201cWe the people\u201d 299\n\n III. Daniel Webster--Realist and Constitutionalist: Contrasted\n with Emerson--English in temperament.\n Two periods of intellectual development: an eighteenth-century\n realist before 1825; a legalist afterwards.\n A disciple of Harrington. Two early speeches:\n _The Basis of the Senate, The First Settlement of New\n England_--an elaboration of the economic basis of\n politics. His economic theory--_laissez faire_. Shift\n to protectionism due to changing economics of his constituents.\n His reply to Hayne. His constitutional\n theory in _The Constitution not a Compact_--his debt to\n Story. His position on slavery--_The Seventh of\n March Speech_. Effect on his reputation. Comment\n of liberals. The Dartmouth College case. His failure 304\n\n\n Part II\n\n The Rise of Liberalism\n\n I. The Renaissance: The movement of liberalism more\n pronounced in New England because long restrained.\n Ethical rather than economic; German rather than\n French. Many-sided but rebellious 317\n\n II. Liberalism and Calvinism\n\n I. The stir in the church. French romanticism and\n Unitarianism. The conservative reaction. The\n dilemma of Calvinism--efforts to escape the horns of\n dogma. The growth of rationalism. The philosophy\n of Unitarianism--a recovery of the principle of primitive\n Congregationalism. Elements of conservatism 321\n\n II. William Ellery Channing: A spiritual nature, concerned\n with two cardinal ideas: God\u2019s love, man\u2019s excellence.\n Slow clarification of his thought. Major\n tenets derived from Rousseau and the English Arians.\n Attitude toward slavery. Theory of the political\n state--approximation to the position of Jefferson. On\n freedom of speech--the vital principle of Unitarianism 328\n\n III. Liberalism and the Social Conscience\n\n I. The Social Mind: The Puritan conscience individual\n rather than social. Influence of Unitarianism in\n awakening a sense of social responsibility. Beginnings\n of reform 339\n\n II. Perfectionism: An extreme expression of ethical\n radicalism. John Humphrey Noyes, a Yankee Fifth\n Monarchy man. His doctrines--expression in Conventions 342\n\n III. Brook Farm: An attempt at an economic solution of\n social maladjustments. Influence of transcendentalism.\n Attitude of certain transcendentalists. Hostility\n to Fourierism 346\n\n IV. Abolitionism: The awakening of the New England\n conscience to the evil of slavery. The Abolitionists a\n remnant in Israel--their characteristics 350\n\n IV. Certain Militants\n\n I. William Lloyd Garrison: A flinty character. His early\n life. _The Liberator._ A primitive Hebraist--his antagonisms.\n His political theory founded on the Declaration\n of Independence. A Perfectionist. Nullified the\n Constitution. The strength and weakness of his\n methods 352\n\n II. John G. Whittier--Puritan-Quaker: The religion of\n the Inner Light. A primitive Christian--a Come-outer.\n Significance of _Leaves from Margaret Smith\u2019s\n Journal_. The politician amongst the Abolitionists.\n Reasons for his break with Garrison. Not a political\n thinker. His Abolitionist verse. His later verse. An\n anachronism in industrial New England 361\n\n III. Harriet Beecher Stowe--A Daughter of Puritanism:\n Her Calvinist heredity. A sympathetic student of\n New England psychology. Intellectual antecedents.\n _Old-Town Folks_; _Poganuc People_. _The Minister\u2019s\n Wooing_ a defense of the Calvinist clergy. Her contact\n with slavery--_Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_; _Dred_ 371\n\n\n Part III\n\n The Transcendental Mind\n\n I. The Genesis of Transcendentalism: An expression\n of metaphysical Utopianism. Idealism long starved in\n New England. Derived from Unitarian doctrine of\n the open mind. German idealism and native impulses.\n A glorification of conscience and will--romantic.\n The note of mysticism. The outcome a\n movement of criticism 379\n\n II. Ralph Waldo Emerson--Transcendental Critic: His\n theory of transcendental criticism. The early Emerson--an\n ascetic. Influence of first trip abroad--_Nature_.\n The gist of Emersonianism. Reasons for the\n contrast between the real and ideal. Estimate of\n democracy; theory of the political state--the ethical\n absolute--a transcendental Jeffersonianism. Theory\n of economics--bias towards Physiocratic conception.\n A critic of contemporary America--its materialisms.\n Attitude towards reform 386\n\n III. Henry Thoreau--Transcendental Economist: His life-business\n to explore the meaning of wealth. His life an\n experiment in values. A Concord man who \u201csigned\n off.\u201d A Hellenist interpreting spiritual values. The\n problem of economics stated. Significance of _Walden_--suggestions\n of William Morris. The challenge of\n slavery: _Civil Disobedience_. Compared with Godwin\u2019s\n _Political Justice_--doctrine of individual syndicalism.\n Admiration for John Brown. The extremest expression\n of eighteenth-century individualism 400\n\n IV. Theodore Parker--Transcendental Minister: His characteristics:\n a fighting man, a revolutionary. Sermon\n on _The Transient and Permanent in Christianity_--marks\n the second stage of Unitarianism. His studies\n in higher criticism; his doctrine. His conception of\n human perfectibility--evolutionary. A primitive\n democrat; a political critic. Attack on current\n materialisms--criticism of Webster. A modern 414\n\n V. Margaret Fuller--Rebel: An embodiment of transcendental\n rebellions. The contradictions in her\n character as explained by Freudian psychology. Her\n training--a victim of sex. Contemporary analysis of\n her character. An intellectual child of eighteenth-century\n romanticisms--influence of Goethe. Transcendentalism--Brook\n Farm. _Woman in the Nineteenth\n Century_ and feminism. Work as a critic.\n Career in Europe. Influence of Jean Jacques. The\n price of her rebellions 426\n\n\n Part IV\n\n Other Aspects of the New England Mind\n\n I. The Reign of the Genteel\n\n I. Brahminism and the genteel in letters--a refined\n ethicism. Dislike of realistic methods. Lowell\u2019s\n position 435\n\n II. Brahminism and history: The New England school:\n Ticknor, Jared Sparks--methods of the latter. Bancroft\u2019s\n _History of the United States_--an attempt at a\n democratic interpretation. Prescott, Motley, Parkman--followers\n of the romantic school. Parkman\n considered 437\n\n III. Longfellow: Influence of Germany. A poet of the\n library--his aloofness--his translations. The slavery\n poems. Characteristics 439\n\n II. Nathaniel Hawthorne--Skeptic: A temperament detached,\n rationalistic, unhopeful, skeptical about\n Utopias. Neither transcendental nor Unitarian in\n philosophy, but curious concerning evil. Intellectually\n unlocalized--his aloofness from romantic Salem. Like\n Jonathan Edwards in probing the psychology of sin.\n Tendency to symbolism and allegory. His intellectual\n poverty--revealed in _American Notes_. Brook\n Farm and _The Blithedale Romance_--reasons for his\n interpretation of Hollingsworth and Margaret Fuller.\n The sterility of his later years 442\n\n III. The Authentic Brahmin\n\n I. Oliver Wendell Holmes--Beacon Street Wit: Decline\n of his reputation. Holmes and Paine as wits. A child\n of the eighteenth century turned romantic. A\n rationalist--hatred of Calvinism. Defense of Boston--a\n Brahmin rebel defending free thought. Attack on\n equalitarianism--dislike of the plutocracy--indifferent\n to proletarian problems. His heroes respectable.\n An amateur--a minor figure 451\n\n II. James Russell Lowell--Cambridge Brahmin: Of\n the true Brahmin line. His intellectual confusions.\n Influence of his Tory heritage--the Lowells. His\n course determined by environment and certain dominant\n personalities. Three periods of his intellectual\n life: the Maria White period and his immersion in current\n radicalisms--reflections in his verse and prose;\n the professorial period--immersion in scholarship--his\n shortcomings as a critic--as a political writer; the\n ambassadorial period--influence of Godkin--resurgence\n of Brahmin conservatism--fear of democracy--of\n agrarian and proletarian movements--concern at\n political corruption--failure to understand its causes--faith\n in civil service reform. His escape to London--the\n final Lowell an English liberal 460\n\n Conclusion: Effects of the Civil War on earlier\n romanticisms--destruction of the slave economy; strengthening of\n the rival agrarian and capitalistic economies. Certain\n anachronisms--eighteenth-century liberalism--local home\n rule--submerged by movement of consolidation. Romantic literary\n schools became obsolete. The sovereignty of the middle class\n and the emergence of realistic criticism 473\n\n Bibliography 475\n\n Index 483\n\n\n\n\nBook One \u2022 The Mind of the South\n\n\nTo those who follow the main-traveled road of American experience, as\nwe know it today, the mind of the old South seems curiously remote.\nIt is so archaic, so wholly apart from all present-day ambitions, as\nto appear singular. Yet the continental highways we now travel so\nfamiliarly, it must be remembered, were not the highways of an earlier\nAmerica. It is the North that has changed, and not the South, and the\nnationality that sits so easily upon us would have seemed ominous to\nthe simpler world that determined the ideals of the Old Dominion. The\nsouthern mind has grown old-fashioned, but it is native and of long\nand honorable descent. It derived its singularity from the eighteenth\ncentury in which it took shape; and it retained the clear impress of\nits origins long after the eighteenth century had become an anachronism\nin America. It was primarily political, of the French rather than\nthe English school; but it was economic also, out of Quesnay and Du\nPont de Nemours rather than Adam Smith, with a frank bias towards the\nPhysiocratic agrarianism that was so congenial to the needs and temper\nof a plantation society; and this political agrarianism, parochial in\nits outlook rather than national, suffices to explain the singularity\nof the southern mind in the eyes of a later industrialized America.\n\nSimple and homogeneous in the early years of the nineteenth century,\nit nevertheless carried the seeds of disruption within it. Beneath the\nsurface of this common political agrarianism disintegrating forces\nwere at work, that were to produce broad cleavages of thought and lead\nto sharp differences of outlook and polity. An old South and a new\nSouth dwelt side by side, and to the West lay a frontier that took\nparticular form as it came under the determining influence of one\nor the other. Virginia and South Carolina were the germinal centers\nof southern culture, from which issued the creative ideas that gave\nspecial forms to the brood of frontier states. Kentucky and Tennessee\nwere the intellectual heirs of Virginia; Alabama and Mississippi were\nthe intellectual heirs of South Carolina. Of these two schools of\nthought that looked in different directions and sought different ends,\nJefferson and Calhoun were the intellectual leaders; and the contrasts\nin their philosophies--the rejection by the latter of equalitarian\nidealism, and the substitution of economic realism--mark the diverse\ntendencies which in the end disrupted the South. Jackson and Lincoln\nwere followers of the Jeffersonian school; Jefferson Davis finally\nwent with Calhoun; and Henry Clay, lacking an adequate philosophy,\nwavered between them. The differences between these men were open\nand patent, and any analysis of the mind of the South, any attempt\nto understand the conflict of tendencies that marked the development\nof southern thought between 1800 and 1860, must give due weight to\nsuch differences. The problem, therefore, instead of being single is\nthreefold, and involves an examination of the mind of Virginia, the\nmind of South Carolina, and the mind of the new West from the Ohio\nRiver to the Gulf.\n\n\n\n\nPart One: The Virginia Renaissance\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Old Dominion\n\n\nThe history of the Old Dominion is an easy chapter in the textbook of\neconomic determinism. It is a modern instance that exemplifies the\nlaw of land distribution and political control as laid down by James\nHarrington; it is another Oceana seated by the James River, that\nwould not suffer a king to rule because gentlemen held the land and\nacknowledged no feudal dues or royal prerogatives. On the surface its\nhistory seems little more than a bundle of paradoxes. From the raw\nmaterials of English middle-class stock it created a distinguished\nand capable aristocracy, that was restrained from feudal tyranny by\na vigorous yeomanry that held its land in fee simple and stoutly\nmaintained its rights. Established on a slave economy, it adopted an\nagrarian economy, espoused a republic, and accepted the doctrine of\ndemocratic equalitarianism. It was generous, humanitarian, independent;\nparochial in its jealousies, yet farsighted in outlook; tenacious of\nits authority and quick to defend it, yet never mean or grasping.\nDuring the noonday of its power its influence was always on the side\nof local democratic freedom and the common well-being. It opposed the\nencroachments of the centralizing state and the spirit of capitalistic\nexploitation; yet its domestic economy rested on the most primitive of\nall exploitation.\n\nBut these paradoxes disappear when the history of Virginia is\ninterpreted in the light of its land economy. By force of circumstances\nthe Old Dominion became broadly American in its social philosophy, the\ninterpreter of America to herself. Native conditions created there a\nnative psychology, and this native psychology spread widely through\nthe frontier states where a like economics provided suitable breeding\nplaces. Virginia was the mother of the agrarian West, as New York,\nPhiladelphia, and Boston were the progenitors of the mercantile and\nindustrial East; and in the frequent clashes between country and\ntown, between agrarianism and capitalism, the ideas of Virginia have\ncommonly opposed the ideas of the northern cities. Between the older\ncolonial America and later industrial America, stand the ideals of\nthe Old Dominion, more humane and generous than either, disseminating\nthe principles of French romantic philosophy, and instilling into the\nprovincial American mind, static and stagnant in the grip of English\ncolonialism, the ideal of democratic equalitarianism and the hope of\nhumane progress. The nineteenth century first entered America by way of\nthe James River.\n\nThe renaissance in Virginia began with the transition from middle-class\nto plantation ideals that marked the last half of the eighteenth\ncentury; and it was given intellectual stimulus by the libertarian\nnatural-rights philosophy that in England and France was undermining\nthe old order. There were no cities either mercantile or social, in\nthe Old Dominion, and no industrialism. Life everywhere centered in\nthe plantation. The navigable rivers of the tide-water region were\nfavorable to the development of a decentralized economics, and in\nspite of royal commands to create adequate seaports, and heavy taxes\nby the commonwealth, trading towns did not prosper. For two hundred\nyears Virginia refused to create a native middleman group to handle\nits staples, but preferred to deal through British factors and ship\ndirectly, preferably in Dutch bottoms. Each planter insisted on putting\nhis hogsheads of tobacco aboard ship at his own wharf, and receiving\nhis merchandise direct from London. The system was wasteful, and\nMadison was active in an attempt to limit by law the ports of entry to\ntwo, in order to build up a middleman machinery; but the plan broke on\nthe fixed prejudices of plantation masters who had come to share the\nold English dislike of tradesmen. Virginia stubbornly refused to adopt\nmiddle-class methods, even though refusal cost her dear. She preferred\nto be exploited by British factors rather than create a domestic class\nto devour her resources.\n\nThe system had grown up in earlier times when the merchant spirit was\nstrong in Virginia. It is often assumed that the Virginia aristocracy\nwas descended from emigrant Cavaliers who fled from England during the\ncommonwealth period; but the facts of history do not bear out such a\ntheory. It was descended largely from vigorous middle-class stock--from\nmen who had been merchants in England and in turning planters brought\nto the business qualities that had been developed in mercantile\npursuits. In the seventeenth century Virginia society exhibited few of\nthe usual characteristics of the Cavalier. It was frankly _bourgeois_,\npushing, avaricious, keen in driving hard bargains, with no high sense\nof honor, canny rather than impulsive, preferring the law to the duel,\nhating war and only half-hearted in defense against the Indians--a\nlittle world of London burgesses new seated on the banks of the James\nand the Rappahannock. \u201cBeyond doubt,\u201d concludes a recent student,\n\u201cthe most numerous section of the Virginia aristocracy was derived\nfrom the English merchant class\u201d (Thomas J. Wertenbaker, _Patrician\nand Plebeian in Virginia_, p. 28), pretty much the same class that\nsettled Boston and Philadelphia. For a hundred and fifty years these\nmerchant ideals characterized Virginia society. Speculation in land\nwas universal; exploitation was open and shameless; the highest\nofficials took advantage of their positions to loot the public domain,\nresorting to divers sharp practices from tax dodging to outright theft.\nOne gentleman added a cipher to a grant for two thousand acres, and\nalthough the fraud was commonly known, so great was his influence that\nno one disputed his title to twenty thousand acres. While governor,\nAlexander Spotswood issued patents for sixty thousand acres to\ndummy holders, who deeded the land to him after he had retired from\noffice.[397]\n\nIn the third quarter of the eighteenth century such practices came\nto an end. The merchant spirit died out among the Virginia planters,\nand the Cavalier spirit took its place. A high sense of personal\nand civic honor became the hall-mark of the landed aristocracy, and\nfor upwards of a hundred years this common code gave to Virginia an\nenviable distinction. Both in national and commonwealth politics her\nrepresentatives were clean-handed and jealous to deserve the public\nfaith reposed in them. Among the planters were good business men, of\ncourse, notably Washington, who under his stately manners concealed\na capable mind for speculative affairs. He engaged in various\nenterprises; speculated heavily in western lands; was president of\nthe Potomac Company, organized to improve navigation and connect his\nholdings with salt water; and at his death was one of the wealthiest\nmen in America. But such a career was very unusual in Virginia after\nthe Revolutionary War. Washington, indeed, may properly be regarded\nas the last of the eighteenth-century gentlemen, who like Colonel\nWilliam Byrd was interested in accumulating vast holdings as well as\ncultivating his plantation. Even more characteristic of an earlier day\nwas John Marshall, the last of the great Virginia Federalists, who was\nnearer akin to Robert Morris, with whom he had business dealings, than\nwith Jefferson or John Randolph of Roanoke.\n\nThe opportunity for such careers in Virginia was passing. Population\nwas draining off into the West and few immigrants came to settle.\nWith no rapidly growing cities the incentive to speculate in unearned\nincrement was lacking and liquid capital was inadequate. The economics\nof plantation life developed agrarian rather than capitalistic\ninterests. In the midst of a rapidly changing America, a world given\nover to exploitation, increasingly middle class and contemptuous of\nthe older aristocratic order, the Old Dominion remained static and\nunchanging. The plantation aristocracy was marooned by the rising tide.\nIt repudiated the ways of trade and industry and sharply criticised the\nNorth for its plebeian spirit. \u201cCommerce is certainly beneficial to\nsociety in a secondary degree,\u201d said Governor Tyler in 1810, addressing\nthe Virginia legislature, \u201cbut it produces also what is called citizens\nof the world--the worst citizens in the world\u201d (quoted in Wertenbaker,\n_Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia_, p. 102). Enterprising young\nmen who a generation before would have been strong Federalists and\nsupported the new capitalism, found such an atmosphere stifling and\nmigrated to the new South--to Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, or\nfarther West still, where greater opportunity awaited them. Virginia\nproduced no more Washingtons or Marshalls, but turned whole-heartedly\nto the school of Jefferson, providing the leaders of states-rights\nagrarianism. She broke off all intellectual alliances with the\nmercantile and industrial North, and withdrew within her own plantation\nworld.\n\nPurged thus of its Federalist remnant Virginia became increasingly\nlibertarian in its social and political philosophy. Its mind had\ntaken form at the time when French humanitarianism was in the air,\nand it discovered much in the new philosophy that appealed to its\nromantic spirit. A quick and jealous concern for personal liberty\nand the rights of man was a common passion. The gentlemen of the Old\nDominion were bound together by caste solidarity, but they remained\nstrikingly individual, never amenable to group coercion, expressing\ntheir convictions freely and ready to uphold their views by the code of\nthe duel. \u201cNo people ever lived,\u201d said Alexander H. Stephens in 1867,\n\u201cmore devoted to the principles of liberty, secured by free democratic\ninstitutions, than the people of the South\u201d (_Constitutional View_,\netc., Vol. I, p. 539). The right of dissent from majority opinion was\nthe imprescriptible right of every gentleman. In no other part of\nAmerica could the career of John Randolph be paralleled--a free-lance\ncritic of politicians and political measures, who turned his caustic\nwit against whom he would, an arch individualist in opinions as other\nAmericans were in acquisitiveness. Politics was an absorbing game in\nVirginia. Debarred from commercial pursuits, ambitious young Virginians\nwent in for law and politics, with an eye upon a congenial career at\nWashington. This serves to explain the long predominance of southern\nleadership in the national government. For two generations the South\nprovided a surprising number of first-class men whose influence was\ncommanding. Until the problem of slavery became acute, and leadership\npassed from moderate Virginians to Fire Eaters from further south,\nthe influence of Virginia at Washington was thrown on the side of\nrepublican simplicity, low taxes and the decentralization of power. The\narmed clash over slavery very probably might have been averted if the\nspirit of the Old Dominion had prevailed.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[397] For these and other facts, see Wertenbaker\u2019s book (mentioned\nabove), pp. 95-99.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Heritage of Jeffersonianism\n\n\nI\n\nTo the young Virginia Republicans of the year 1800, Jeffersonianism\nseemed to be a comprehensive social philosophy peculiarly adapted to\ntheir needs. It offered a practical and humane program of national\ndevelopment in harmony with existing fact and native genius. It had\nnot yet been distorted by the caprice of circumstance into a somewhat\nnebulous idealism, nor confined within the narrower limits of political\nequalitarianism and states-rights theory. By later generations\nJefferson has been interpreted too exclusively in terms of the\nDeclaration of Independence, the glowing idealism of which has proved\ncuriously elastic and has been stretched by later libertarian movements\nto meet their special and particular ends: by the Jacksonian democracy\nin their struggle for manhood suffrage; by the Abolitionists in their\nattack upon a slave-sanctioning Constitution; by other idealists in\ntheir various crusades. The great name of Jefferson, in consequence,\nhas come to be commonly associated with the conception of democracy and\nthe ideal of social justice. But to his young Virginia followers in the\nmorning of the Republican movement, the perennial suggestiveness of\ntheir leader lay in the fact that he embodied for them the many-sided\nliberalism of French revolutionary thought, its economic and social\nidealisms equally with political. They interpreted him more adequately,\nfor they understood, as later interpreters frequently have not, how\ndeeply the roots of his natural-rights philosophy went down into\ncurrent economics. Of the different French writers who gave shape\nand substance to his thinking, the strongest creative influence on\nthe mature Jefferson came from the Physiocratic group, from Quesnay,\nCondorcet, Mirabeau, Du Pont de Nemours, the brilliant founders of an\neconomy that was primarily social rather than narrowly industrial or\nfinancial. Historically the Physiocratic school is as sharply aligned\nwith idealistic agrarianism as the Manchester school is aligned with\ncapitalistic industrialism. The conception that agriculture is the\nsingle productive form of labor, that from it alone comes the _produit\nnet_ or ultimate net labor increment, and that bankers, manufacturers\nand middlemen belong to the class of sterile workers, profoundly\nimpressed the Virginia mind, bred up in a plantation economy and\nconcerned for the welfare and dignity of agriculture.\n\nFranklin had first given currency to the Physiocratic theory in America\na generation earlier, but it was Jefferson who spread it widely among\nthe Virginia planters. He did more; he provided the new agrarianism\nwith a politics and a sociology. From the wealth of French writers\nhe formulated a complete libertarian philosophy. His receptive mind\nwas saturated with romantic idealism which assumed native, congenial\nform in precipitation. From Rousseau, Godwin and Paine, as well as\nfrom Quesnay and Condorcet, came the idea of political justice and the\nconception of a minimized political state, assuming slightly different\nforms from filtering through different minds. The early doctrine of\n_laissez faire, laissez passer_--a phrase given currency by Gournay,\nthe godfather of the Physiocratic school--proved to be curiously\nfruitful in the field of political speculation, as in economic. From\nit issued a sanction for natural rights, the theory of progress, the\nlaw of justice, and the principle of freedom. The right of coercion was\nrestricted by it to the narrowest limits, and the political state was\nshorn of all arbitrary power. \u201cAuthority,\u201d the Physiocratic thinkers\nconcluded, \u201cshould only employ the force of the community to compel\nmadmen and depraved men to make their conduct conform to the principles\nof justice.\u201d\n\nSo far Jefferson went gladly with the Physiocrats, but in their\nacceptance of a benevolent despotism he discovered a denial of their\nfirst principles, and turned to the more congenial democratic group.\nWith the political principles of Godwin and Paine he was in hearty\naccord. With them he accepted as an historical fact the principle that\ngovernment is everywhere and always at war with natural freedom, and\nfrom this he deduced the characteristic doctrine that the lover of\nfreedom will be jealous of delegated power, and will seek to hold the\npolitical state to strict account. From this same principle, following\nPaine, he deduced the doctrine of the terminable nature of compact,\nwhich he set over against the legal doctrine of inviolability. In this\nmatter French liberalism and English legalism were at opposite poles.\nReplying to Burke\u2019s doctrine of irrevocable compact, Paine had written\n_The Rights of Man_, which Jefferson did much to popularize in America,\nand with the broad principles of which he was in complete accord.\n\u201cThe earth belongs in usufruct to the living,\u201d Paine had argued, and\nthe dead possess no rights over it. Government from the grave is a\nnegation of the inalienable rights of the newborn; hence social justice\ndemands that a time limit should automatically revoke all compacts.\nSince no generation can rightly deed away the heritage of the unborn,\nthe natural limit of every compact is the lifetime of the generation\nratifying it. \u201cNo society,\u201d Jefferson said, \u201ccan make a perpetual\nConstitution, or even a perpetual law.\u201d\n\nIn this suggestive theory of the terminable nature of compact is to be\nfound the philosophical origin of the later doctrine of states rights.\nHowever deeply it might be covered over by constitutional lawyers and\nhistorians who defended the right of secession, the doctrine was there\nimplicitly, and the southern cause would have been more effectively\nserved if legal refinements had been subordinated to philosophical\njustification of this fundamental doctrine. With a frank contempt for\nall legalists Jefferson believed that social well-being was not to be\nbounded by constitutional limitations or statutory enactments; that\npolitical action should be governed by reason rather than by historical\nprecedent. He had discovered that the political state does not remain\nstatic, but gathers power by the law of physical attraction; with\nincreasing power it becomes increasingly dangerous to natural freedom;\nhence a long-established and venerable constitution may become, by\nreason of its hold upon the popular affection, the most useful of\nagencies to cloak aggressions on the rights of the people. The love\nof profits is always seeking to overthrow the rule of justice. Human\nselfishness persistently distorts civic conduct, warping it from ideal\nends. But the shortcomings of existing political states cannot abrogate\nthe law of justice or destroy the love of freedom. To safeguard freedom\nfrom encroachment by the political state, and to establish the rule of\njustice, were always the great and difficult ends that Jefferson aimed\nat, and as a follower of the Physiocratic school and a Virginia planter\nhe turned naturally to a _laissez faire_ agrarianism in opposition to a\ncentralizing capitalism.\n\nBut he was much too sound a political thinker and too sagacious a\nparty leader to rest his case upon abstract theory. In all his later\nwritings and counsels he kept his mind close to economic fact, and\nthe Jeffersonian movement was a long and effective training school in\nthe economic basis of politics. It habituated the motley rank and file\nof the electorate to think in economic terms and to regard political\nparties as the instruments of economic groups. This was in keeping\nwith the soundest eighteenth-century tradition, before romantic dogma\nhad divorced politics and realism; and in so far Jefferson agreed\nwith his Federalist opponents, Hamilton and John Adams. A decade of\nacrimonious debate had made it plain to the common voter that the real\nstruggle in America lay between the rival capitalist and agrarian\ninterests, of which the Federalist and Republican parties were the\npolitical instruments. The Congressional enactments of the first twelve\nyears had further clarified the issue. The funding plan had visibly\nincreased the number and wealth of the rising capitalist group. The\nfirst banks were being erected and the complex machinery of modern\ncredit--the hated \u201cpaper system\u201d that had driven out the traditional\nmetallic currency--was being rapidly built up. A small financial group\nin the northern cities was growing powerful from discounting and\nmoney-brokerage. The truth was slowly coming home to the farmers and\nsmall men that war is profitable to the few at the cost of the many;\nthat from the egg of war-financing was hatched a brood of middlemen\nwho exploited the post-war hardships and grew rich from the debts that\nimpoverished the producing farmers. This ambitious class, hitherto\nnegligible in America, was provided with the means to make a vigorous\nfight; it invoked the political state as an ally, and under Hamilton\u2019s\nleadership used the administration to serve its financial interests.\nIt looked with open hostility upon every agrarian program, was cynical\ntowards French romantic theories, and was restrained by no scruples. To\nloose the hands of this capable class from the helm of government, to\nkeep America agricultural, and the Federal state secondary in all but\nnecessary police powers to the several commonwealths, was the avowed\nand logical purpose of the Jeffersonian Republicans.[398]\n\nThe leaders of the movement were men who in capacity and training were\nworthy opponents of the capable Federalists. In surprising number\nthey were from the Old Dominion, gentlemen of the best Virginia\nstock, who in the last decades of the eighteenth century engrafted\nupon a generous plantation tradition the Physiocratic doctrines of\nFrance. A finer race of gentlemen America has never produced, and it\nwas fortunate for the Jacksonian movement, which produced no notable\nthinkers and contributed little to political and economic theory, that\nthe preceding generation had given adequate form to the philosophy of\nagrarianism. That theory took definite shape between 1800 and 1820.\nIn the days of Hamilton\u2019s control of the Treasury Department, the\nagrarian opposition was weakened by the lack of such a theory; but the\nnecessities of the situation were a prod to the young Republicans,\nand the philosophy of agrarianism rapidly crystallized. In its final\nform it was an extraordinarily interesting and native expression of\ntwo hundred years\u2019 experience of a society founded on agriculture--a\nreasoned defense of an older America against the ambitions of a younger\nand more vigorous.\n\n\nII \u2022 John Taylor \u2022 An Agrarian Economist\n\nThe intellectual leader of the young Republicans in the great attack\non the economics of Federalism was a thinker too little recognized by\nlater Americans. His just fame has been obscured with the cause for\nwhich he labored, and his reputation lies buried with the old agrarian\n_r\u00e9gime_. Nevertheless John Taylor of Caroline County, Virginia, \u201cthe\nphilosopher and statesman of agrarianism,\u201d was the most penetrating\ncritic of Hamiltonian finance and the most original economist of his\ngeneration. Unambitious, simple, honest, calm and dignified in bearing,\nhe embodied the heroic virtues of the great age of Virginia. In his\n_Thirty Years\u2019 View_, Thomas H. Benton describes him thus:\n\n I can hardly figure to myself the ideal of a republican statesman\n more perfect and complete than he was in reality:--plain and\n solid, a wise counsellor, a ready and vigorous debater, acute and\n comprehensive, ripe in all historical and political knowledge,\n innately republican--modest, courteous, benevolent, hospitable,--a\n skilful, practical farmer, giving his time to his farm and his\n books, when not called by an emergency to the public service--and\n returning to his books and his farm when the emergency was over....\n He belonged to that constellation of great men which shone so\n brightly in Virginia in his day, and the light of which was not\n limited to Virginia, or our America, but spread through the bounds\n of the civilized world. (Chapter XVIII.)\n\nTaylor was a member of Congress at the time of the funding operations\nand contributed two notable pamphlets to the public discussion: the\nfirst, issued in 1793, entitled _An Examination of the Late Proceedings\nin Congress Respecting the Official Conduct of the Secretary of the\nTreasury_; the second, issued the following year, entitled _An Inquiry\ninto the Principles and Tendencies of Certain Public Measures_. Twenty\nyears later, in 1814, he embodied his matured convictions in a stout\nvolume, printed at Fredericksburg, entitled _An Inquiry into the\nPrinciples and Policy of the Government of the United States_. The\nwork is tediously prolix--dressed, according to Benton, \u201cin a quaint\nSir Edward Coke style\u201d--even more tediously moralistic; but in spite\nof very evident stylistic shortcomings, it deserves, in the opinion\nof Professor Beard, \u201cto rank among the two or three really historic\ncontributions to political science which have been produced in the\nUnited States\u201d (_Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy_, p. 323).\nIt was the last of the eighteenth-century works, solidly reasoned,\nkeeping a main eye upon economics and refusing to wander off into\nthe bog of constitutionalism, concerned rather with the springs and\nsources of political action and the objectives of political parties. It\nsummed up adequately the agrarian argument against capitalism, analyzed\nthe current tendencies, and provided a convenient handbook for the\nJacksonian movement, from which the latter drew freely in the dispute\nover the Bank.\n\nLike Jefferson\u2019s, the agrarianism of Taylor was founded in the\nPhysiocratic economy. He was convinced that the tiller of the soil\nwas the only true economist, and that if republican America were to\nretain its republican virtues it must guard against every system of\nexploitation, for in exploitation lay the origin of social caste.\nAmerica had rid itself of the feudal principle of a landed aristocracy,\nwhich in the past had provided the machinery of exploitation, by the\nabolition of the law of primogeniture and entail, only to be confronted\nby a graver danger, the new aristocracy of liquid wealth. His main\npurpose, therefore, was an examination of the sources of power of the\ncapitalistic order, and the successive steps by which it had risen to\npower. His analysis is acute and reveals a mind concerned with the\nrealities that lie beneath outward appearances. It is the economics\nof history that concern him most, for as fully as John Adams he was\nconvinced that economics determine the form of the political state.\nIn his analysis of the origins of government, he discovers in every\nsociety a master class that becomes the beneficiary of sovereign\npower: the political state is first erected and thereafter used to\nsafeguard the past acquisitions and to further the present ambitions\nof a dominant economic group which calls itself an aristocracy; and\nsuch an aristocracy imposes its will upon the exploited mass, crudely\nby the sword and purse, and subtly by the skillful use of psychology.\nOnce in control of the political state it intrenches itself behind\ncertain fictions which profess to carry moral sanction. This political\njugglery plays many tricks to catch the gullible; arrayed in the garb\nof patriotism, loyalty, obedience to authority, law and order, divine\nright, it carries a weighty appeal. When these moral fictions fail,\nthe fictions of the law step in, and such doctrines as the sacredness\nof contract translate the stealings of the master class into vested\ninterests which the state is bound to protect. There is a fine irony\nin Taylor\u2019s implied references to Burke\u2019s doctrine of a changeless\nconstitution based on a nonrevocable compact, and Hamilton\u2019s doctrine\nof the public faith, which, he argues, were clearly designed to\nsacrifice the common good to the interests of a class:\n\n Law enacted for the benefit of a nation, is repealable; but law\n enacted for the benefit of individuals, though oppressive to\n a nation, is a charter, and irrepealable.... Posterity, being\n bound by the contracts of its ancestry, in every case which\n diminishes its rights, man is daily growing less free by a\n doctrine which never increases them. A government intrusted with\n the administration of publick affairs for the good of a nation,\n has a right to deed away that nation for the good of itself or\n its partisans, by law charters for monopolies or sinecures; and\n posterity is bound by these deeds. But although an existing\n generation can never reassume the liberty or property held by its\n ancestors, it may recompense itself by abridging, or abolishing the\n right of its descendants. (Page 61.)\n\nThe two theories to which he devotes chief attention are the natural\naristocracy theory of John Adams, and the capitalistic aristocracy\ntheory of Hamilton. The first of these takes its bias from stressing\nthe inequality inherent in the nature of men; individuals are\nbiologically unequal; and from this fact Adams deduces that the thrifty\nrise to opulence and the thriftless sink into poverty by reason of\nindividual qualities. Society can neither keep a strong man down nor\nthrust a weak man up. Between the rich and the poor, the capable and\nincapable, a state of war exists, held in check by the strong hand\nin feudal and monarchical societies, but necessarily open and bitter\nin a democracy. Hence the inevitable failure of democracy wherever it\nis tried, and the necessity of nicely calculated checks in a republic\nto prevent the equal tyranny of an aristocracy and a mob. The second\ntheory, the Hamiltonian, justifies itself by the same theory of\nhuman nature. It accepts the fact of social inequality as inherent\nin men, but it sees no reason to pursue Utopian dreams. Recognizing\nthe universal fact of economic control, it erects the state upon\nexploitation as preferable to anarchy. This capitalistic state it\ndefends before a gullible public by eloquent appeals to the national\nfaith, the security of property, the fear of lawlessness.\n\nHaving thus analyzed the two theories Taylor seeks to cut the ground\nfrom under both by arguing that social classes cannot be historically\nexplained by the fact of biological inequality amongst individuals, but\nrather by accidental opportunity, unscrupulousness, and brute force.\nAll aristocracies, whether feudal, natural, or capitalistic, take their\norigin and uphold their dominion, not from superior excellence or\ncapacity, but from exploitation, that beginning in a small way grows\nby what it feeds on till it assumes the proportions of a colossus.\nExploitation breeds a continually augmenting exploitation that conducts\ninevitably to caste regimentation. All aristocracies are founded in\nsocial theft. They are not established in the morality of nature, but\nexist as parasites on the social wealth; they levy upon the producer;\nand the only preventive is to destroy the foundations on which they\nrest by taking from them the means of exploitation.\n\nIn conjuring up phantom dangers of feudal aristocracies, Taylor pointed\nout, John Adams was fighting dead issues. No feudal aristocracy could\narise in America; land was too plentiful and the quick jealousy of the\npeople would strike it down. The danger to republican institutions\nwas closer at hand; it was the poison of the new capitalism that was\nspreading its virus through all the veins of the national life. And\nin order that the American people might know something of the history\nof this innovating force which they must reckon with, John Taylor\nproceeded to open to them a page in the economics of capitalism. The\naristocracy of credit, founded on \u201cmonopoly and incorporation,\u201d he\npointed out, had arisen first in England with the growing power of\nthe middle class; it had gone forward swiftly in consequence of the\nNapoleonic wars, and through the agencies of the Bank of England and\nthe Consolidated Debt, it had secured control of the public credit. It\nhad arisen first in America in consequence of the financial disturbance\nresulting from the Revolutionary War, and had further strengthened its\nposition by the War of 1812. Ambitious men had taken advantage of the\nnational necessities to create an artificial paper system identical\nwith that of England. They had profited immensely from the funding\noperations and the National Bank; they were setting up their private\nbanks in every city and town, and through the manipulation of credit\nwere taking heavy toll of the national production. A money monopoly was\nthe most dangerous of all monopolies, and the master of all.\n\nTaylor had grown up under the traditional domestic economy. He was\nhabituated to think of production in terms of consumption, and of\nmoney as a stable measure of exchange. He could not adjust his mind\nto the theory of production for profit, of middleman speculation, as\nsocially legitimate; and when that speculation extended to the national\ncurrency, and exacted its profits from the medium of exchange, he took\nalarm. Gold and silver are fairly stable commodities that allow of no\nsudden increase or diminution, and in consequence a specie currency\ndoes not readily lend itself to speculative juggling. But a paper\nsystem has no natural limitations. Expanded and contracted at the\nwill of speculators, it subjects the business of the country to the\nexploitation of money brokers. Vast sums had thus been taken from the\npeople by the funding operations. Gold and silver had been driven out\nof circulation, and with their disappearance a riot of speculation\nhad begun by which only the brokers had profited. Such was the origin\nof the new money aristocracy that had already taken possession of\nthe state and was using it for the sole end of exploitation. America\nmust make choice between agrarianism and capitalism; the two were\nincompatible, John Taylor was convinced, and unless the ambitions of\nthe paper-money aristocracy were held in check, the American producer\nwould come under the heel of middle-class exploitation.\n\nSo suggestive was the reasoning of Taylor, so interesting for the light\nit throws on the agrarian mind of the Virginia Republicans, that it\nwill be well to set down his theses in compact form. As summarized\nadmirably by Professor Beard, his argument runs thus:\n\n 1. The masses have always been exploited by ruling classes, royal,\n ecclesiastical, or feudal, which have been genuine economic castes\n sustaining their power by psychological devices such as \u201cloyalty to\n the throne and altar.\u201d\n\n 2. Within recent times a new class, capitalistic in character,\n has sprung up, based on exploitation through inflated public\n paper, bank stock, and a protective tariff, likewise with its\n psychological devices, \u201cpublic faith, national integrity, and\n sacred credit.\u201d\n\n 3. In the United States, this class was built up by Hamilton\u2019s\n fiscal system, the bank, and protective tariff, all of which\n are schemes designed to filch wealth from productive labor,\n particularly labor upon the land.\n\n 4. Thus was created a fundamental conflict between the capitalistic\n and agrarian interests which was the origin of parties in the\n United States.\n\n 5. Having no political principles, capitalism could fraternize with\n any party that promised protection, and in fact after the victory\n of the Republicans successfully entrenched itself in power under\n the new cover.\n\n 6. The only remedy is to follow the confiscatory examples of\n other classes and destroy special privilege without compensation.\n (_Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy_, p. 351.)\n\nIn the great battle of ideas that followed the conflict of interests,\nthe Virginia agrarians armed themselves with trenchant weapons.\nIn intellectual equipment they were a match for the ablest of\nthe Federalists; in social idealism, in generous concern for the\n_res publica_, or common public business, in sober and practical\nhumanitarianism, they were far superior. Between John Taylor of\nVirginia, spokesman of planter agrarianism, and Fisher Ames of\nMassachusetts, spokesman of Boston Federalism, the contrast could\nscarcely be greater. It is a contrast in social culture, in humane\nideals, in interpretations of the native genius of America; and in the\ncomparison it is not the Virginia Republican who suffers.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[398] See Charles A. Beard, _The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian\nDemocracy_, Chapter XIII.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 John Marshall \u2022 Last of the Virginia Federalists\n\n\nUnlike John Taylor of Caroline, whose fame lies buried with his cause,\nthe reputation of John Marshall has taken on immense proportions with\nthe later triumph of his principles. There is abundant reason for the\nveneration in which he has come to be held by present-day disciples of\nHamilton. More than any other man he saved the future for Federalism.\nDuring the critical years of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian assaults\nupon the outworks of nationalism, he held the inner keep of the law,\nand prepared for the larger victories that came long after he was in\nhis grave. His strategic judicial decisions served as a causeway over\nwhich passed the eighteenth-century doctrine of the sovereignty of the\nlaw, to unite with the new philosophy of capitalistic exploitation. The\nturbid waters of frontier leveling and states-rights democracy washed\nfiercely about him, but he went on quietly with his self-appointed\nwork. He was one man who would not bow his neck to the majority yoke,\nwould not worship the democratic Baal. He profoundly distrusted the\nprinciple of confederation. Convinced that the \u201ccontinental belt\u201d\nmust be buckled tightly, he gave unstinted service to the cause of\nconsolidation. The imperative need of a sovereign political state\nto curb the disintegrating forces of America was axiomatic in his\nthinking. Looking upon all democratic aspirations as calculated to\ndestroy federal sovereignty, and convinced that the principle of\nequalitarianism was a bow strung to wield against society, he stoutly\nupheld the principle of minority rule as the only practical agency of\nstable and orderly government. Holding such views it was a matter of\nhigh and patriotic duty with Marshall to use his official position\nto prevent the majority will from endangering interests which were\nfar more sacred in his eyes than any natural rights propagated in the\nhothouse of French philosophy. He was the last of the old school of\nFederalists and the first of the new.\n\nThat John Marshall should have come out of Virginia is perhaps the\nmost ironical fact in the political history of the Old Dominion. Quite\nunrepresentative of the dominant planter group that had gone over\nto Jefferson, bitterly hostile to the agrarian interests that spoke\nthrough John Taylor, he was the leader of a small remnant of Virginians\nwho followed Washington through the fierce extremes of party conflict.\nHe was the last and ablest representative of that older middle-class\nVirginia, given to speculation and intent on money-making, that was\nbeing superseded by a cavalier Virginia concerned about quite other\nthings than financial interests. He belonged rather to Boston than to\nRichmond. His intense prejudices were primarily property prejudices.\nHe was the Fisher Ames of the South, embodying every principle of\nthe dogmatic tie-wig school of New England Federalists. Profoundly\ninfluenced by Hamilton and Robert Morris, he seems to have found the\nBoston group more congenial in temper and outlook. The explanation\nof his strong property-consciousness is to be discovered both in\nhis material ambitions and his professional interests. He was a\nbusiness man rather than a planter. He was heavily involved in land\nspeculation and held stock in numerous corporations launched to exploit\nthe resources of the state. Robert Morris, whose daughter married\nMarshall\u2019s younger brother, was his financial adviser and advanced\nmoney with which to purchase the Fairfax estate, an investment that\ncost the buyers the very considerable sum of fourteen thousand pounds\nand numerous lawsuits. He was a director in banks and a legal adviser\nin important cases involving property rights. His financial interests\noverran state boundaries and his political principles followed easily\nin their train, washing away all local and sectional loyalties.\n\nLike his kinsman Jefferson, Marshall was bred on the Virginia\nfrontier, and to the end of his life he retained the easy and careless\ndemocracy of dress and manners that marked his early environment. In\nhis deportment he was far removed from the prim respectability of\nthe Boston Federalists. A friendly, likable man, fond of pitching\nhorseshoes and sitting in a game of cards, he was outwardly a genial\nmember of the crude little Richmond world where politics and law and\nspeculation engrossed the common attention. An easy-going nature, he\nwas wholly wanting in intellectual interests. Strangely ill-read in the\nlaw, he was even more ignorant of history and economics and political\ntheory. His mind took an early set, and hardened into rigidity during\nthe reactionary years that lay between Shays\u2019s Rebellion and the\nrise of Napoleon. Of social and humanitarian interests he was utterly\ndevoid. One might as well look for the sap of idealism in a last year\u2019s\nstump as in John Marshall. French romantic philosophy he regarded as\nthe mother of all vicious leveling. There is no indication that he\nhad ever heard of the Physiocratic school of economics, or had looked\ninto the writings of Rousseau or Godwin or Paine. The blind sides of\nhis mind were many; his intellectual contacts were few; yet what he\nsaw and understood he grasped firmly. The narrowness of his outlook\nintensified the rigidity with which he held to his fixed opinions; and\nhis extraordinary courage coupled with a dominant personality clothed\nhis strategic position as Chief Justice with fateful influence on the\nlater institutional development of America.\n\nAlthough Marshall\u2019s later fame is the fame of a lawyer, he was in\nreality a politician whom fate in the person of John Adams placed on\nthe Supreme Court bench at a critical moment, where his political\nopinions translated themselves into the organic law of the land, and\nshaped the constitution to special and particular ends. Masterful,\ntenacious, manipulating his fellow judges like putty, he was a judicial\nsovereign who for thirty-five years molded the plastic constitution\nto such form as pleased him, and when he died the work was so\nthoroughly done that later generations have not been able to undo\nit. His political opinions, therefore, become a matter of very great\nimportance to the historian, for they help to explain the peculiar\ndirection taken by our constitutional development. Materials for a\njust estimate of his remarkable career were long wanting, but with the\nappearance of Beveridge\u2019s able and explicit _Life of John Marshall_\nit is now possible to view him in exact historical perspective.\nCarefully documented, the work is a genial and readable interpretation\nthat will go far to revivify the fame of the great Federalist. And\nyet in spite of its abundant documentation--drawn perhaps somewhat\novermuch from Federalist sources--it is essentially a _biographie \u00e0\nth\u00e8se_ that is careful to magnify the nationalism of its hero and to\nminify the property consciousness. It provides a picturesque setting,\nbut it is a bit careless in its evaluation of the rival philosophies\nthen struggling for supremacy. Concerning the economics of the great\ncontest between Federalism and Republicanism it offers very inadequate\ninformation, with the result that Jefferson is reduced to the status\nof a master politician set over against the constructive statesman. The\nintellectual limitations of the lawyer have reacted in these pages upon\nhis political enemy. Certain of the old Federalist prejudices have come\nto life again in these entertaining pages.\n\nThe two fixed conceptions which dominated Marshall throughout his long\ncareer on the bench were the sovereignty of the federal state and the\nsanctity of private property; and these found their justification in\nthe virulence of his hatred of democracy. No man in America was less\ndemocratic in his political convictions. Underneath the free and easy\nexterior of the Chief Justice was as stalwart a reactionary as ever\nsat on the Supreme Court bench. He was utterly indifferent to popular\nviews, and he calmly overturned the electoral verdicts of his fellow\nAmericans with the deliberateness of a born autocrat. Not only were\nhis important decisions political opinions, but they were Federalist\nopinions. America had made definite choice between the Federalist\nand Republican theories of government. It had repudiated the rule of\n\u201cgentlemen of principle and property\u201d and set up a very different\nrule. But to this mandate of the supposedly sovereign people Marshall\ndeclined to yield. Defeated at the polls, no longer in control of the\nexecutive and legislative branches of the government, Federalism found\nitself reintrenched in the prejudices of John Marshall. He boldly\nthrew down the gage to the majority will, and when the long fierce\nstruggle was over, he had effectively written into the fundamental law\nof the land the major tenets of the repudiated philosophy. \u201cJudicial\nstatesmanship,\u201d Mr. Beveridge calls these political decisions, and bids\nus admire statesmanship on the bench; yet the phrase runs so far as to\nmerge the judge in the politician--an honest but somewhat indiscreet\nadmission that the law may be twisted to partisan ends. The frankly\npolitical nature of Marshall\u2019s decisions was universally recognized at\nthe time, and this explains the intense partisanship they evoked, the\nfury of the Republicans and the extravagant praise of the Federalists.\nThe so-called Jeffersonian assault on the judiciary, of which so much\nhas been made by the orthodox historians, and which came near to\nwrecking the system, was not primarily an attack upon the courts but\nupon political judges who used their places to serve party ends. It is\na dangerous thing for the bench to twist the law to partisan or class\npurposes, yet to this very thing John Marshall was notoriously given.\n\nAs a judicial statesman, then, rather than a lawyer, Marshall is to\nbe judged, and to such a business the political historian is more\ncompetent than the legalist. His important decisions fall into two main\ngroups: those like Marbury _vs._ Madison that assert the supremacy of\nthe judiciary over the legislature--that is, the power of the Supreme\nCourt to nullify an act of Congress; and those like the Yazoo Fraud\ncase and the Dartmouth College case, that assert the irrevocable nature\nof contracts. The first was an official pronouncement of the principle\nthat Hamilton had elaborated in _The Federalist_, namely, that the\nconstitution is a law and as such lies within the field of judicial\ninterpretation. This was sound Federalist doctrine, and Marshall\nwelcomed the opportunity to engraft it upon the fundamental law of\nthe land, going far out of his way to bring it within the judicial\npurview.[399] It was a bold and skillful move, and as Beveridge\nremarks, it announced a principle that \u201cis wholly and exclusively\nAmerican. It is America\u2019s contribution to the science of the law\u201d\n(Beveridge, _Life of John Marshall_, p. 142). A contribution, it should\nbe added, which with the multiplying of republican constitutions in the\nlater nineteenth century was pretty generally rejected.\n\nEven more partisanly Federalist were the decisions touching the nature\nof contract. These reached to the heart of the bitter opposition\nof the commercial and financial interests to the legislative acts\nof populistic majorities. Suffering heavily from the post-war\nconfusions, those majorities had struck blindly at the profiteers whose\nwell-feathered nests were securely protected by the law. The revolt\nwas natural and human; a rough sense of social justice lay behind it;\nbut because it struck at the most prosperous and capable members of\nsociety, who held the professional classes in retainer and dominated\nthe agencies of publicity, it aroused an extraordinarily vindictive\nopposition. Dip into the literature of the seventeen-eighties and\nnineties anywhere, in the _Anarchiad_ and the _Echo_ of the Hartford\nWits, or the private letters of indignant gentlemen, and the animus\nof the respectable classes is clamorously revealed. At bottom it was\nno other than this, that the law of business must be made the law of\nthe land, and that any populistic tampering with such law was wicked\nand anarchistic. How determining was this spirit in the matter of\nthe Constitutional Convention is sufficiently well known. In the\nnew constitution certain practices of populistic majorities were\nestopped--the emission of bills of credit and paper money, and laws\nimpairing the obligation of contracts; but such provisions, strictly\ninterpreted, did not reach to all cases. There were still gaps in the\nlaw of business through which populistic majorities might force their\nbills. To stop those gaps and complete the great work of rendering\nbusiness secure was the problem to which Marshall addressed himself;\nand in the Yazoo Fraud case and the Dartmouth College case, he brought\nthe long Federalistic struggle to a triumphant issue.\n\nAn examination of the first of these two celebrated cases will suffice\nto reveal the spirit of his judicial statesmanship. The state of\nGeorgia, through its Legislature, had contracted to sell thirty-five\nmillion acres of land--the great part of the territory now comprising\nthe states of Alabama and Mississippi--to certain speculative companies\n\u201cat less than one and one-half cents an acre.\u201d The passage of the bill\nwas marked by more than the usual jobbery, so common with a generation\nfond of looting the public domain. The fraud was so gross that the\nstate of Georgia was thrown into a fury that visited itself upon the\ncorrupt legislators. A new legislature repealed the law and rescinded\nthe contract; but some of the land had already been resold to investors\nin Boston and Philadelphia, who brought their claims before the Supreme\nCourt. The state of mind in which the chief justice heard the argument\nis thus suggested by Beveridge: \u201cMarshall was profoundly interested in\nthe stability of contractual obligations. The repudiation of these by\nthe legislature of Virginia had powerfully and permanently influenced\nhis views upon this subject. Also Marshall\u2019s own title to part of the\nFairfax estate had more than once been in jeopardy. At that very moment\na suit affecting the title of his brother\u2019s to certain Fairfax lands\nwas pending in Virginia courts\u201d (Vol. III, p. 584). To suggest that a\nnicer judicial honor would have inhibited Marshall from sitting in the\ncase is perhaps going too far if one accepts the principle of judicial\nstatesmanship. Certainly Marshall discovered none of the scruples that\nmust have troubled George Wythe. In awarding claims for compensation\nto the investors he held that the act of the Georgia legislature was a\ncontract and as such was inviolable. The crux of the decision, however,\nlay in the pronouncement that the courts cannot examine the motives\nthat induce legislators to enact a law, that the people are bound\nby their agents and must suffer the penalties of choosing unwise or\ncorrupt agents. The upshot of the verdict, in plain language, was that\na legislative contract is sacred no matter how corruptly got. A curious\ndecision, surely, for one who professed to venerate the common law. A\nVirginian of the type of John Randolph would never have reasoned thus\nto a conclusion that laid open the public domain to the deals of clever\nlobbyists and encouraged the betrayal of official stewardship. He would\nscarcely have sacrificed the public interests to the law of business.\n\nThe bitter hostility which Marshall\u2019s decisions aroused in his native\ncommonwealth reveals how far the Virginia of Jefferson had traveled\nfrom the Federalism of the commercial North. The states-rights\nphilosophy and the philosophy of consolidation were at swords\u2019 points;\nthe agrarian and capitalistic economies were engaged in a mortal\nduel; that it should have been a Virginian who saved the day for the\nHamiltonians, erecting the old Federalism into the law of the land,\nand conducting by his decisions straight to an augmented, consolidated\nstate, under the shadow of whose power the development of corporate\nfinance might go forward without agrarian let or hindrance, was a\nbitter brew for the Jeffersonian planters to drink. As Marshall grew\nold he drew farther away from his fellow Virginians. In his last years\nhe was perhaps the most reactionary man in America. \u201cShould Jackson\nbe elected,\u201d he wrote in 1828, \u201cI shall look upon the government as\nvirtually dissolved\u201d (Beveridge, Vol. IV, p. 463). His last hatreds\nhe divided between Old Hickory and the rising democratic movement. He\nbitterly resisted the spread of manhood suffrage; he would make no\nchange even in the antiquated judicial system of Virginia; he would\nhave no overturning of anything established. A stubborn autocrat he\nremained to the end, and there was a certain ironic fitness in his last\nencounter with the executive power. The autocratic lawyer met his match\nin the autocratic soldier who grimly remarked, \u201cJohn Marshall has made\nhis decision, now let him enforce it.\u201d\n\n Nearly a century has passed since these happenings [concludes\n Beveridge] and Marshall\u2019s attitude now appears to have been that\n of cold reaction; but he was as honest as he was outspoken in his\n resistance to democratic reforms. He wanted good government, safe\n government. He was not in the least concerned in the rule of the\n people as such. Indeed, he believed that the more they directly\n controlled public affairs the worse the business of government\n would be conducted. He feared that sheer majorities would be\n unjust, intolerant, tyrannical, and he was certain that they would\n be untrustworthy and freakishly changeable. (Vol. IV, p. 507.)\n\nA strong, resourceful, honest, capable man was John Marshall. In so far\nthere is pretty common agreement. Beyond this, comes in the sundering\nblade of political theory. Concerning the wisdom of his judicial\nstatesmanship it is idle to expect Federalist and Democrat to agree.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[399] For an excellent discussion see Beveridge, _Life of John\nMarshall_, Vol. III, Chap. III.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 The Older Plantation Mind\n\n\nI \u2022 Plantation Backgrounds\n\nThe literary renaissance of Virginia began in the late twenties when\nthe English romantic movement reached the quiet plantations. Till\nthen the Virginia mind had lingered pleasantly in the twilight of the\nliberal eighteenth century, following ways of thought it had learned\nof revolutionary France, and writing with a leisurely finish it had\nlearned of Augustan England. In that older Virginia dignified sentiment\nwas accepted as the hall-mark of breeding--a sentiment somewhat ornate\nand consciously elegant, that recognized its obligations to a strict\nmorality, and laid its nosegay at the feet of the pure and beautiful\nand good. When the Virginian essayed somewhat infrequently to commit\nhis thoughts to paper, he wrote as an old-fashioned gentleman,\nconscious of his social responsibility, consulting classic standards\nof taste, and embellishing his sentences with bits of choice Latin.\nBut after the year 1830 sentiment gave place to romance, and dignity\nto exuberance of fancy. A new generation, trained in the school of Sir\nWalter Scott, fell to the pleasant task of portraying the familiar\nplantation life in glowing colors and investing it with romantic charm.\n\nThe plantation tradition, it will be remembered, first took shape in\nthe Old Dominion and assumed its salient features at the hands of\nVirginia romantics. Its development was contemporary with the New\nEngland transcendental movement, and in origin and spirit it was\nas native to Virginia as the philosophy of idealism was native to\nMassachusetts. Inspired by an over-seas romanticism, it accepted the\nmaterials it found at hand and transmuted the easy-going plantation\nlife into enduring romance. The work was begun by Kennedy in his\nidyllic _Swallow Barn_. The picture thus slightly sketched was given\nstronger colors by Caruthers, and received completer form from John\nEsten Cooke. From their hands Thomas Nelson Page took his materials\nto refashion to suit the taste of a later day. No realism added its\nsobering touches to the romantic picture thus early drawn, and none has\nsince been added. A golden light still lingers upon the old plantation.\nMemories are still too dear to the Virginian to suffer any lessening\nof the reputed splendors of _ante bellum_ days. The tragedy of a lost\ncause has woven itself into the older romance and endowed the tradition\nwith an added sanction. It has long since spread beyond the confines of\nVirginia and become a national possession. North as well as South is\nso firmly convinced of its authenticity that realism has never had the\ntemerity to meddle with it.[400]\n\nIt was a romanticizing age, and in Virginia congenial materials were\nready to hand. The distinction of a plantation aristocracy set in the\nmidst of a bucolic republican society, with its genial hospitality,\nits individuality, its sharp contrasts of whites and blacks, its\nclutter of cabins for background to the pillared mansion, its wide\nneighborhood interests, its outdoor life, its patriarchal spirit, was\na distinction that no romantic could overlook, the most individual and\nnative picturesque in all America. Life on the plantation was uncramped\nby the drab routine and skimpy meanness of the New England farm; it was\nunsoiled by the coarseness and vulgarity of the frontier; it had none\nof the sordidness of the middle-class town. It might be wasteful, but\nit was good material for literature; and hence the Virginia romantic\nhad no need to seek the picturesque in England and Spain, as Irving\nhad done. He had only to pick and choose from the familiar stuff lying\nall about him, emphasizing the agreeable, overlooking the unpleasant,\nfashioning his figures and action to suit the ideal of a golden age\nof plantation society. Yet the result, it must be confessed, is not\nwholly adequate. Virginia has suffered gravely from the want of a sober\nrealism. It is not so much that the worst did not get into the romantic\ntradition--shortcomings in Virginia life which even Wirt hints at--as\nthat the best did not get in. The plantation master of the romantics\nfalls grossly short of the reality that Virginia provided. The simple\ndignity of John Taylor, the ingrained Puritanism of Lee and Jackson,\nthe catholic culture and fine integrity of George Wythe, have been\nleft out of the tradition. The Virginian created by the romantics is\nabsurdly inferior to such men, who by any standard were as admirable a\ngroup of gentlemen as America has ever bred. A little honest realism\nwould have corrected the picture, to the advantage of the Old Dominion.\n\nAt the time when the romantics were beginning their work of\nconstructing the plantation tradition the intellectual renaissance\nof Virginia was passing. With the fading of the French influence\nafter 1820 came increasing isolation and a conscious sectionalism.\nIntellectual discipline and catholic tastes became rarer. Virginia\nhad no share in the revolutionary enthusiasms of the Utopian thirties\nand forties, when New England expected the Promised Land to appear at\nthe next turn in the road; it received no stimulus from the expansive\nsystems of thought that were setting all Europe in ferment. The new\nGermany seems to have made no impression on the Virginia mind, neither\nits philosophical idealism nor its provocative higher criticism.\nThe new interest in social speculation and experiment that arose in\nMassachusetts with the beginnings of industrialism awakened no response\nin Virginia. Plantation society was static, and social speculation was\nunwelcome. The theories of Comte, of Fourier, of Owen were unknown;\nUtopian experiments were untried. If Virginia escaped the curse of\nindustrialism it lacked the intellectual stimulus that came to New\nEngland with the rise of the textile mills. Social unrest bred no\nprotests against the plantation order. The revolutionary mood was gone,\nand after 1820 the stimulus to intellectual life grew weaker. English\nromanticism as exemplified in the work of Scott and Tom Moore was the\nsingle foreign influence that spread amongst the plantations, and the\nnew literature accepted the cult of the picturesque romantic. With the\npassing of the great age of Virginia the tradition of her greatness\nremained to be gathered up and preserved.\n\n\nII \u2022 William Wirt\n\nTo Virginia gentlemen of the old school it must have seemed a bit\nironical that William Wirt should have come to be accepted as the\nliterary representative of the Old Dominion in the days of John\nRandolph of Roanoke. Born in Maryland in 1772 of Swiss parentage,\nWirt belonged to Virginia only by adoption, and although on terms of\nintimacy with the plantation gentry he embodied few of the traits that\nwent to the making of the plantation tradition. In temperament he was\nfar removed from the easy-going planter. A certain canny thrift marked\nhim, a pronounced desire to rise in the world and cut a distinguished\nfigure. He was careful to make a good investment of his talents,\nattentive to profitable undertakings, whether in law or eloquence or\nspeculation. His mature life ran a singularly prosperous and dignified\ncourse. He gathered property and reputation and office, and in every\nposition he acquitted himself honorably. To do less than well in any\nundertaking he would have accounted a stain upon his reputation. In\nevery company he made himself liked. There was none of the aggressive\nindividualism of John Randolph, in wait for an opportunity to send\nhome a shaft of rankling wit, but always a studious concern to please.\nHe was troubled that anyone should think his criticism severe in _The\nBritish Spy_, and he hesitated long before publishing his _Patrick\nHenry_ for fear offense would be taken at the few blemishes he\ndiscovered in his hero. An honest man and a capable, sterling after\nhis kind but not notably intellectual, not creative, he owed his\nadvancement to very practical qualities: an engaging personality and\ngenial wit, a knack at formal oratory, a graceful pen, a persevering\npursuit of his profession, the cultivation of desirable friendships.\nAn excellent lawyer, he never turned aside from the law to meddle with\npolitics; yet he was on good terms with the politicians, and he reached\nthe top of his ambition by appointment to the Attorney-Generalship of\nthe United States, a post which he held for upwards of twelve years.\n\nIn training and culture Wirt was of the sound eighteenth-century\ntradition. He was bred in the classics, English literature, and the\ncommon law. When he set up in his profession his library consisted\nof Blackstone, _Don Quixote_, and _Tristram Shandy_. His literary\ntaste was formed by the later writers of the eighteenth century, by\nGray, Hervey, Young, Ossian, Burke, Sterne, rather than by Pope and\nDryden. In _The British Spy_ he praises Bacon highly and lavishes\ncommendation upon Addison, regretting that the _Spectator_ \u201cshould be\nthrown by, and almost entirely forgotten, while the gilded blasphemies\nof infidels, and the \u2018noontide trances\u2019 of pernicious theorists, are\nhailed with rapture, and echoed around the world\u201d (_Letter X_). Yet the\ndetermining influence in his own writings, it is clear, came from the\nsentimentalists and from Burke. From the former he caught the note of\npolite emotion, and from the latter the strain of sonorous eloquence.\nHis well-bred sensibilities were constantly in the service of his pen\nor tongue, to lend pathos to an affecting bit of description or to\ntransport his hearers by a melting appeal. A look, a gesture, a pose,\nwas nicely calculated to bring sympathetic tears to the eyes of his\nauditors. To touch the emotions he considered the triumph of art,\nand to conduct through the emotions to a sound morality, its sole\njustification.\n\nAs a member of the Virginia bar Wirt took pride in the tradition\nof sober culture that had grown up amongst its distinguished\npractitioners. The members of that bar were gentlemen as well as\nlawyers, who would rather go wrong in their legal authorities than in\ntheir classical embellishments; they were orators as well, careful of\ntheir diction and meticulous in rounding a period. In these excellent\nqualities Wirt early distinguished himself. He had read more than\nmost, and apposite quotations from the classics came easily to his\npen to grace the pellucid flow of his English. One of the signal\ntriumphs of his life was when in an elaborate legal argument before\nthe Supreme Court at Washington, he retorted a passage of the _Aeneid_\nupon his opponent, to provide a text for a burst of the exuberant\nrhetoric that so delighted his generation (_The British Spy_, 1855, pp.\n88-90). His love of ornate speech seems to us curiously old-fashioned,\nyet it was the manner of the times, and he gave himself to it with\nenthusiasm--_vivo gurgite exundans_, as he would have chosen to\nsay. The chief interest of his life was oratory, and how skillful a\npractitioner he was adjudged by his own generation is revealed in the\ncomment of a contemporary who often admired \u201cthe blaze of his reasoning\nand declamation\u201d:\n\n The march of his mind is direct to its object, the evolutions by\n which he attains it, are so new and beautiful, and apparently\n necessary to the occasion, that your admiration is kept alive, your\n fancy delighted, and your judgment convinced, through every stage\n of the process.... There is no weak point in his array, no chink\n in the whole line of his extended works. Then the sweet melody\n of voice, the beautiful decorations of fancy, the easy play of\n a powerful reason, by which all this is accomplished, amaze and\n delight. His pathos is natural and impressive; there is a pastoral\n simplicity and tenderness in his pictures of distress, when he\n describes female innocence, helplessness, and beauty, which the\n husband on whom she smiled should have guarded from even the winds\n of heaven which might visit it too roughly, \u201cshivering at midnight\n on the winter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the\n torrent, which froze as they fell;\u201d it is not a theatrical trick,\n to move a fleeting pity, but a deep and impressive appeal to the\n dignified charities of our nature. (_Ibid._, pp. 84-85.)\n\nWirt\u2019s literary reputation rests chiefly upon _The British Spy_\nand _Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry_, both of\nwhich may be characterized in the admirable phrase above quoted,\nas studies in \u201cthe dignified charities of our nature.\u201d The former\nwas done hastily at the age of thirty, the latter was toiled over\nfor years and appeared when he was forty-five. They were received\nwith vast approval and set him quite in the front rank of American\nliterary fame. Yet the contemporary popularity of _The British Spy_\nis inexplicable to us today. It is astonishing that so slight a thing\nshould have achieved so great a reputation, and it suggests the depths\nof literary poverty in which the Virginia of 1803 was sunk. The work\nis a miscellany--hodgepodge perhaps is a juster term--of character\nsketches, geology, description, rhapsody, moralizing, with the faintest\nsuggestion of criticism. The sketch which achieved the greatest\ncelebrity, the description of the blind preacher (_Letter VII_,\npp. 195-202), is elaborately artificial and sentimental, done from\nSterne. The sketches of contemporary politicians, and in particular\nthat of Jefferson, contributed much to current appeal, and the casual\ncriticism aroused a mild remonstrance. There is a certain grace of\nstyle after the late eighteenth-century manner, abundant sentiment and\nlittle wit. Perhaps the happiest touch is the title; only a British\nspy could discover material for criticism in the excellent life and\nideal institutions of Virginia, or insinuate that the commonwealth was\nlacking in public spirit--that its roads were as bad as its schools,\nand that the \u201cone object throughout the state\u201d was \u201cto grow rich.\u201d But\nit was a very moral spy who was troubled that \u201cthe noxious weed of\ninfidelity had struck a deep, a fatal root, and spread its pestilential\nbranches far around\u201d; and who lamented that \u201cour eccentric and fanciful\ncountryman, Godwin, had contributed not a little to water and cherish\nthis pernicious exotic\u201d (_Letter VII_, p. 203).\n\nThe demands made upon the dignified charities of our nature Wirt found\nmore insistent when he came to write the life of Patrick Henry. He was\ntroubled by his materials, as well as by the want of them. He complains\nrepeatedly in his letters of the difficulties of the task. There were\nblemishes in the character of his god, spots that marred his divinity;\nyet how to clean them away and not spoil the natural appearance was a\nproblem. He could not tell Virginians that Patrick Henry in his old\nage was grasping and vain, that he changed his politics as he grew\nrich. The idea was too repugnant to his own good nature, and to the\ntaste of the times. The age was sentimental and romantic even in its\neulogy. It took seriously the motto, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_; it\nwas patriotically engaged in making a myth out of the figures and\nevents of the Revolution; and sober truth is not to be expected from\nthe stately biographies that emerged from this period of excessive\npatriotism. The writers were too much in awe of their subjects, too\nmuch concerned to present them in full dress with wig and cloak and\nsword, and see to it that they acted a proper part. It was in this\nattitude that Wirt first approached his theme, but failing to achieve\nthe desired result, he turned the work into eulogy of Henry\u2019s oratory.\nThis was the most congenial of tasks to one so deeply interested in the\nart of the orator. The fragmentary records that had come down were a\nchallenge to his inventiveness, and he set himself to recreate the lost\nspeeches, from scanty notes. How admirably he succeeded is shown in\nthe celebrated \u201cgive me liberty, or give me death\u201d speech, that became\nat once an American classic. One could forgive him much for such a\nmasterpiece.\n\nThe leaders of that older Virginia society were lawyers rather than\nplanters, and Wirt\u2019s excursions into the field of _belles lettres_\nwere only pleasant outings from the court-room. His intellectual\ninterests were narrow. Though bred in an atmosphere of politics, he\ncared nothing for political theory, was wholly unread in the political\nclassics, and untouched by the flood of social speculation that came\nwith the French Revolution. He drifted politically with the stream\nof his generation, taking color from the changing waters. Brought\nup a Jeffersonian Republican, he remained curiously ignorant of the\neconomic and political philosophy of agrarianism. He was little given\nto abstract speculation on the rights of man, and was never partisan\nto a cause. He was a genial embodiment of those colorless times when\nthe enthusiasms of eighteenth-century liberalism were dead and the\nromanticisms of nineteenth-century exploitation were not yet risen,\nknown in the history books as the era of good feeling. Fundamentally\nconservative and somewhat conventional, he would not look with approval\nupon the new men and new ways that came in with the western democracy.\nUpon the accession of Jackson he went over to the Whig party. He\nsupported Clay, yet for some reason, perhaps a harmless vanity, he\naccepted a nomination for the presidency by the Anti-Masons in 1832\nand went down before the hosts of the Jacksonians. Two years later his\nblameless life was brought to a close. A kindly and honorable gentleman\nof old-fashioned tastes, with a culture founded in Blackstone,\nembellished by Addison and Sterne, and given a classic dignity by Livy,\nhe filled the measure of the excellencies as they were understood in\nthe Old Dominion in the days before romance had created the plantation\ntradition.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Nathaniel Beverley Tucker \u2022 A Virginia Fire Eater\n\nIn striking contrast to the amiable Attorney-General was another\nVirginia lawyer and judge who ventured into literature and whose one\nimportant novel created a mighty stir in its day. Beverley Tucker\nwas twelve years younger than Wirt. Half brother of John Randolph of\nRoanoke, for some years on the bench in Missouri, and long professor\nof law at William and Mary College, he was a well-known figure in the\nOld Dominion, and his vigorous speech was much applauded at conventions\nwhere southern gentlemen met to talk over their grievances. In him\nwere richly embodied all the picturesque parochialisms that plantation\nlife encouraged. He was so completely and exclusively Virginian as\nto deserve the epithet \u201cVirginianissimus.\u201d He never traveled, never\ncompared diverse civilizations, never questioned the excellence of\nthat in which he had been bred. His loyalty to his native commonwealth\nwas a consuming jealousy for its honor, and he tucked the horizons\nof Virginia about him like a Hudson\u2019s Bay blanket and defied the\ncold winds of the North. Beyond Mason and Dixon\u2019s line lay a foreign\ncountry, and he judged all foreign countries by their size and color\non his wall map. He was the arch-romantic of his generation and his\n_Partisan Leader_ is the repository of the curious political and\neconomic romanticisms of the ardent southern mind.\n\nOver his after-dinner bottle of Madeira, Beverley Tucker may well\nhave been the raciest and most delightful of companions. Like Samuel\nJohnson, he found his pleasure in a mind well stocked with robust\nprejudices and a wit to phrase them tellingly. He never spared his\nepithets nor hesitated to damn an opponent. Like Fisher Ames, he\ncoddled an aggravated case of political spleen and luxuriated in\na picturesque pessimism. The clouds hung low over his mind, and\nthe future of Virginia appeared as black to him as the future of\nMassachusetts appeared desperate to the Boston Federalist. His\npessimism no doubt was a solace to his old age and provided a sauce\nfor his dinner. Temperamentally he was curiously like the New England\nJeremiah. He followed Calhoun with the unreasoning and passionate\nconviction with which Fisher Ames followed Hamilton. He foresaw a\nfuture laid waste by the ravenings of democracy, and like Ames he\ntook pleasure in sketching the dark picture. It would be no fault of\nhis if the easy-going planters remained indifferent to the political\nmonster that in the guise of Jacksonian democracy had made his den\nat Washington and was preparing to devour the liberties of sovereign\ncommonwealths. He would make haste, while the shadows of those\nliberties remained, to arouse Virginia to its peril before the jaws\nclosed upon it.\n\nIt was to this end that he wrote _The Partisan Leader_, an obvious\nattempt to dramatize the political philosophy of Calhoun and breathe\ninto it a war psychology. Its single purpose was to popularize the\ndoctrine of secession and encourage Virginia to act upon it. The\nbook was printed at Washington by the notorious Duff Green, who had\nquitted Jackson and gone over to Calhoun, and appeared under the pen\nname of Edward William Sidney. Written in the last years of Jackson\u2019s\nsecond term, it prophesied Van Buren\u2019s succession and his setting up a\ndictatorship. The beginning of the action is projected thirteen years\ninto the future. Van Buren is assumed to be in his third term and is\nseeking election a fourth time. He is in secure and insolent possession\nof \u201cthe presidential throne.\u201d He has surrounded himself with a horde\nof democratic sycophants; his political machine is well oiled and the\narmy and navy are at his bidding. Virginia has been split asunder by\nfactions. Mercenaries in Van Buren\u2019s pay occupy the public stations,\nand supported by Federal bayonets they carry things with a high hand.\nThe lower South, under the leadership of South Carolina, has already\nseceded, and freed from the exploitation of northern tariffs is\neconomically rejuvenated. The Virginia patriots are biding their time,\nworking under cover and making detailed plans to carry the commonwealth\nover to the new Confederacy when the hour shall strike. The hand of\nfate is no other than economic pressure. The free South has provided\nan eloquent object lesson to Virginia planters. By reason of a trade\ntreaty with England, by the terms of which each country exports to\nthe other its natural wares unvexed by artificial restrictions--an\nindustrial economy and an agricultural mutually benefiting by the\nexchange--the cotton and tobacco growers to the south of Virginia are\nenjoying a prosperity unshared by the exploited planters of the Old\nDominion. When economic depression shall have finally opened the eyes\nof Virginians to the folly of a federal union that sacrifices southern\ninterests to fatten northern manufacturers, the commonwealth must drop\ninto the lap of the Confederacy like a ripe persimmon. In the meantime\na mysterious Mr. B.--presumably Calhoun--moves adroitly behind the\nscenes, shaping matters for the great event--a super-statesman, a man\nof godlike sagacity and divine benevolence, a heroic embodiment of all\nthe magnanimous southern virtues, compared with whom Webster and Clay\nare common political mercenaries and Jackson a paltry charlatan.\n\nIt is a romantically extravagant book, quite the absurdest in the\nlibrary of the old South. It possesses no savor of humor or pleasantry\nof satire. Tucker was too deadly in earnest to play with his theme. He\nhad so long and bitterly brooded over the supposed wrongs of Virginia\nthat he had lost all sense of proportion. He lacks a cool skill in\ndissection; he has not learned the gentlemanly art of flaying his\nvictim; he defends Virginia with a matchlock instead of a rapier.\nGilmore Simms credited him with one of the most finished prose styles\nof the day, and a very recent critic remarks that \u201cno other American\nof the time wrote with such classical restraint and pride as Tucker\u201d\n(_Cambridge History of American Literature_, Vol. I, p. 312). But there\nis little evidence of such mastery in _The Partisan Leader_. It is the\nwork of an unpracticed writer, with a command of rhetoric to furnish\nforth a southern stump-speaker, but quite inadequate to the needs of\na competent novelist. Compared with Simms or Kennedy he is a mere\nbungler. His characters are as wooden as Cooper\u2019s females, and his plot\nis grossly distorted by his polemics. The drama sags under the weight\nof the sacred cause. There is inadvertent comedy in the picture of Van\nBuren as the man on horseback--the sleek, well-groomed politician of\nhistory rises somewhat inadequately to the r\u00f4le. In comparison with\nKennedy\u2019s _Quodlibet_ his attack upon Jackson is only caricature.\nBeverley Tucker was a patriotic Virginian whose craftsmanship proved\ninadequate to the serious business in hand.\n\nThe backgrounds of his thought are clearly Jeffersonian. His prejudices\nrun strongly for eighteenth-century _laissez faire_. He is a confirmed\nagrarian and his hatred of industrialism amounts to an obsession. He\nwill have nothing to do with protective tariffs that lay a tax upon\nthe planter to aid the manufacturer. In his advocacy of political\ndecentralization he is a disciple of Calhoun, but more pessimistic\nthan his master. Southern interests can be adequately protected, he\nis convinced, only by a jealous insistence on the sovereign powers\nof Virginia, and so long as Virginia remains within the centralizing\nfederal Union those sovereign powers will suffer a subtle diminution.\nThe simple-minded and magnanimous southern planter was no match in\nthe political game with unscrupulous and ambitious Northerners. But\nin certain significant aspects of his political philosophy, Beverley\nTucker broke with the Jeffersonian tradition. Two current developments\nhad quite destroyed his faith in the democracy of Jefferson. The\nrise of Jacksonianism had seated the rabble in power, and the spread\nof Abolitionism was threatening to infect that triumphant rabble\nwith its poison. The very life of Virginia was at the mercy of a\nhostile democracy, and to protect themselves and their slaves from\nthe encroachments of a democratized federal government seemed to him\nthe urgent business of the southern planters. Unless a move were made\nspeedily it would be too late, for the power of the northern democracy\nwas fast outstripping the confederate power of the South.\n\nTucker\u2019s intense prejudices color every judgment, and in consequence\nhis misunderstanding of the North was colossal. He imagined a\nprofit-mongering clown whom he dubbed Yankee, and solemnly assured\nhimself that it was an authentic likeness. The Abolitionist was a\nYankee with an added Puritan malignancy. In his defense of slavery\nTucker has corrected the sentimental mistake of Jefferson in assuming\nthe extinction of slavery to be desirable, but he professes an equally\nhumanitarian spirit. His benevolence toward the negro is so warmly\ngenerous that one is ready to weep at the sad fate of the faithful\nslave who is in danger of being turned out into the cold world by the\nwicked Abolitionists. The loyal attachment between master and servant,\nhe argues, is too finely generous to be understood by the mercenary\nNorth. The Yankees \u201chave not the qualities which would enable them to\ncomprehend the negro character. Their calculating selfishness can never\nunderstand his disinterested devotion. Their artificial benevolence is\nno interpreter of the unsophisticated heart.... They know no more of\nthe feelings of our slaves, than their fathers could comprehend of the\nloyalty of the gallant cavaliers from whom we spring; and for the same\nreason. The generous and self-renouncing must ever be a riddle to the\nselfish\u201d (p. 205, edition of 1861). Hence it is the clear duty of the\nmagnanimous planter to keep his generous and self-renouncing slaves out\nof the clutches of the selfish Abolitionists.\n\nSomething of the ardency of Beverley Tucker\u2019s convictions is revealed\nin certain fragments of his letters to Gilmore Simms, to whom he\npoured out his heart in uncensored words, and whose magazine, _The\nSouthern Quarterly Review_, he made use of to further the cause. In\nthose letters he writes himself down a frank and whole-hearted Tory.\nThere is an inveterate and ingrained aristocracy of temperament that\nwill not mince words when it comes to dealing with democracy. In his\ncomment on the growing democratic spirit he is virulent. He has lost\nall hope for Virginia in the year of grace 1851. \u201cShe is sunk in the\nslough of democracy, which has no sense of honor, no foresight, and is\nnever valiant but against its own instruments\u201d (W. P. Trent, _William\nGilmore Simms_, p. 186). Georgia is in an even worse way. His spleen\nat the commonwealth of Stephens and Toombs--\u201cfilled as that State is\nwith Yankee traders\u201d--spits out venom: \u201cShe has been bought, and her\nprice is in the pockets of those she trusted.\u201d He quotes sardonically\nthe comment of a Georgia senator: \u201cThe State of Georgia is a damned\nrascal. I bought and sold her, and will buy her and sell her again\nwhen I please\u201d (_ibid._, p. 182). His only hope is in South Carolina,\nand he pleads with Simms for decisive action. Calhoun\u2019s kingdom is\nsingularly blessed, for no base democracy there sullies the purity of\nmanly councils. As early as 1820 Tucker had come to realize that the\nUnion was a curse to the South. \u201cI vowed then, and I have repeated\nthe vow, _de die in diem_, that I will never give rest to my eyes nor\nslumber to my eyelids until it is shattered into fragments.... Time\nwas when I might have been less desperate, because I could have sought\nrefuge under some emperor or king. But all such refuges are broken up,\nand there is now no escape from the many-headed despotism of numbers,\nbut by a strong and bold stand on the banks of the Potomac.... If we\nwill not _have_ slaves, we must _be_ slaves.\u201d He then makes his great\nappeal:\n\n And what are our democracies but mobs? South Carolina alone can\n act, because she is the only State in which the gentleman retains\n his place and influence, and in which the statesman has not been\n degraded from his post. You are fast coming to that hopeless and\n irreclaimable condition; and then all hope of action is gone. Work\n now.... The twilight is already upon you, and hence I fear you will\n not act even _now_. And if not now--never, never, never! (_Ibid._,\n p. 187.)\n\nIt was not granted to Beverley Tucker to know what harvests were to be\ngathered from his sowings. He did not live to see the fields of his\nbeloved commonwealth drenched in the blood that he had done more than\nhis share to let. In that bitter struggle it is certain that he would\nhave borne his part valiantly. He had sown to the wind, and he would\nhave welcomed the whirlwind. But the outcome must have broken his proud\nheart, and it is well that he was not spared to see his hopes turn to\nashes in his mouth.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[400] For an excellent study, see Francis Pendleton Gaines, _The\nSouthern Plantation_, 1925.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V \u2022 Adventures in Romance\n\n\nI \u2022 William Alexander Caruthers \u2022 A Virginia Liberal\n\nIn the early thirties came the transition in Virginia from the\nessay-sketch that had prevailed since the appearance of _The British\nSpy_, to the full blown romance of love and adventure. The older\ntype had been a blend of nature description, social observation,\ncharacter sketches, with somewhat injudicious portions of sentiment\nand moralizing, and with frequent resort to the old letter-form of\nfiction that lingered out a surprising old age. Not only is the\ntransition revealed in the work of John P. Kennedy, whose _Swallow\nBarn_, written in 1832, was followed in 1835 by _Horseshoe Robinson_,\nbut quite as strikingly in the work of Dr. William Alexander Caruthers,\nwhose _Kentuckian in New York, or, the Adventures of Three Southerns_,\npublished in 1834, was followed at once by _The Cavaliers of Virginia_,\n1834-35.\n\nDr. Caruthers was a genial and cultivated Virginian from the Piedmont\nregion, with a ready wit and a clever pen, who had pretty well rid\nhimself of the intense and narrow parochialisms that restricted the\nsympathies of Beverley Tucker. He was a Virginia liberal of the older\nschool, before the renaissance of the slave cause transferred southern\nleadership to the South Carolina group, and he shared none of Tucker\u2019s\npartisanship for Calhoun. He had traveled widely both south and north,\nand had discovered that human nature was much the same on both sides\nof Mason and Dixon\u2019s line. This experience qualified him to become a\nshrewd and kindly interpreter of both sections of the country, and his\n_Kentuckian in New York_ was an excellent contribution to the cause of\nintersectional good-will. He sends two young South Carolinians just out\nof college on a trip north, who fall in with a Kentuckian on the way,\nand together they enjoy life in New York City, lose their hearts and\nmeet with divers romantic and amusing adventures. A fourth character,\na young Virginian, he sends to South Carolina, likewise to lose his\nheart and encounter adventures; and the copious letters that travel\nbetween them are filled with intelligent comment on unfamiliar ways.\nThe writers are generous-minded young liberals with keen eyes, and\ntheir observations still make excellent reading after nearly a hundred\nyears.\n\nThe South Carolinian who falls romantically in love with a New York\ngirl is far from a Calhoun Fire Eater. He can see good even in the\nYankee, whom he defends against the common southern prejudice by\narguing that Yankee chicanery has resulted from a niggardly environment\nand the competition that comes with overpopulation, a competition that\nVirginia has been spared by the draining off of her population west;\nand as for the Yankee \u201ccanting and sniveling,\u201d \u201ctell me,\u201d he remarks,\n\u201cif you have not, in the very bosom of your great valley, as genuine\nPresbyterians and Roundheads as ever graced the Rump Parliament, or\nsung a psalm on horseback? And to give the devil his due, these same\nPresbyterians are no bad citizens of a popular government\u201d (Vol. I, p.\n72). Virginia has judged the North out of her prejudices rather than\nknowledge, and the advice Caruthers gives his Virginia neighbors, as an\nantidote to the suspicions of Beverley Tucker, is to travel beyond the\nboundaries of the Old Dominion.\n\n Every southern should visit New-York. It would allay provincial\n prejudices, and calm his excitement against his northern\n countrymen. The people here are warm-hearted, generous,\n and enthusiastic, in a degree scarcely inferior to our own\n southerns.... Many of these Yorkers are above local prejudices, and\n truly consider this as the commercial metropolis of the Union, and\n all the people of the land as their customers, friends, patrons,\n and countrymen. Nor is trade the only thing that flourishes.\n The arts of polished and refined life, refined literature, and\n the profounder studies of the schoolmen, all have here their\n distinguished votaries,--I say distinguished, with reference to the\n standard of science in our country. (Vol. I, p. 181.)\n\nThe material prosperity of the North contrasts painfully in his mind\nwith the condition of his native Carolina, and there is a note of\napprehension in his comment:\n\n The more I see of these northern states, the more I am convinced\n that some great revolution awaits our own cherished communities.\n Revolutions, whether sudden or gradual, are fearful things; we\n learn to feel attachments to those things which they tear up, as\n a poor cripple feels attached to the mortified limb, that must be\n amputated to save his life. A line of demarkation in such a case is\n distinctly drawn between the diseased and the healthy flesh. Such a\n line is now drawing between the slave and free states, I fear. God\n send that the disease may be cured without amputation, and before\n mortification takes place. I know that this latter is your own\n belief. What think you now, since you have seen the greater extent\n of the disease? (Vol. I, p. 165.)\n\nThe question is addressed to another young man on his travels, a young\nVirginian who has gone south, and who is even more troubled at what he\nfinds. He cannot bring himself to think well of the sacred institution\nas he sees it in South Carolina. There it is laid bare in all its naked\nexploitation. The humaner relations between the races that he has known\nin Virginia have been destroyed by the absentee system with its drivers\nand overseers--\u201cto these animals,\u201d he says, \u201cI have always had an utter\naversion.\u201d The evils of the large-scale system have carried farther;\nslavery in the Carolinas has destroyed the middle class of yeomen,\nunduly exalted the aristocracy and utterly debased the poor white. The\nsingle spot he heartily approves in the two commonwealths is Salem,\na Moravian settlement where no slavery exists, where all work, and\nwhere education is thought so well of that the daughters of the first\nsouthern families go there for their schooling. In Salem he found an\nanswer to the southern problem far more competent than Nullification.\n\n _Here_, then, is a triumphant answer--an answer in deeds, instead\n of words--in the happiness, and the substantial wealth of these\n simple and primitive Moravians. Here ... is an industrious,\n intelligent, and healthy community, in the very heart of all the\n misery I have described. Let us then improve by the lesson, seek\n out the sources of their prosperity, find the point where their\n plans diverge from ours, and, my word for it ... we become a great,\n a flourishing, and a happy people. (Vol. I, p. 80.)\n\nTo the problem of slavery he returns constantly, and his views may\nperhaps be sufficiently understood from the following passages:\n\n The poor of a slave-country are the most miserable and the most\n wretched of all the human family. The grades of society in this\n state are even farther apart than in Virginia. Here, there is one\n immense chasm from the rich to the abject poor. In the valley\n of Virginia, or in the country where you are, there are regular\n gradations. The very happiest, most useful, and most industrious\n class of a well-regulated community, is here wanting. Their place\n is filled up by negroes; in consequence of which, your aristocrats\n are more aristocratic, and your poor still poorer. The slaves\n create an immeasurable distance between these two classes, which\n can never be brought together until this separating cause be\n removed. You know I am no _abolitionist_, in the incendiary meaning\n of the term; yet I cannot deny from you and myself, that they\n are an incubus upon our prosperity. This we would boldly deny,\n if a Yankee uttered it in our hearing; but to ourselves, we must\n e\u2019en confess it. If I am, therefore, an abolitionist, it is not\n for conscience-sake, but from policy and patriotism. (Vol. I, pp.\n 76-77.)\n\n With us [in Virginia] slavery is tolerable, and has something\n soothing about it to the heart of the philanthropist; the slaves\n are more in the condition of tenants to their landlords--they are\n viewed as rational creatures, and with more kindly feelings....\n _Here_ slavery is intolerable; a single individual owning a hundred\n or more, and often not knowing them when he sees them.... The\n slaves here are plantation live-stock; not domestic and attached\n family servants, who have served around the person of the master\n from the childhood of both.... Here, besides your white overseers,\n you have your black _drivers_;--an odious animal, almost peculiar\n to the far south. It is horrible to see one slave following another\n at his work, with a cow-skin dangling at his arm, and occasionally\n tying him up and flogging him when he does not get through his two\n tasks a day.... I do not observe much difference between the North\n and South Carolinians, except in the case of those who inhabit the\n most southern portions of the latter state. There your rich are\n more princely and aristocratic, and your poor more wretched and\n degraded; but to tell you the plain truth, many of your little\n slaveholders are miserably poor and ignorant; and what must be the\n condition of that negro who is a slave to one of these miserable\n wretches? (Vol. II, pp. 115-119.)\n\nTo the solution of the difficult problem Caruthers offers no easy\nplan. He cannot go with the northern \u201centhusiasts\u201d who propose\nimmediate emancipation. They do not comprehend the complexity of the\nproblem. \u201cWe cannot set slaves free among us. Such a course would\ndissolve the social compact. It would set at defiance all laws for the\nprotection of life, liberty, and property, either among them or the\nwhites.\u201d He foresaw clearly what happened during the unhappy days of\nreconstruction. \u201cWould it be any reparation of an hereditary wrong, to\nplunge the subjects of that wrong, with ourselves, into irretrievable\nruin, to attain nominal justice?\u201d The free negroes would constitute a\nmenace more serious than the northern city mobs, which latter Caruthers\nhad no liking for. \u201cThese city mobocracies, composed as they are,\nprincipally of wild Irish, are terrible things\u201d; how much worse would\nbe a negro mobocracy? A confirmed agrarian, he finds his chief hope in\na vigorous yeomanry, and until the South shall develop that, matters\nmust go ill with it. In the midst of the Carolina system his thoughts\nreturn fondly to his native state. He is under no illusion in regard\nto the tide-water region of Virginia. It has lived a generous life,\nbut spendthrift and wasteful, and has come to evil days. But in the\nWest, beyond the mountains, a newer and more vigorous age is rising\nthat \u201cwill sweep away the melancholy vestiges of a former and more\nchivalrous and generous age.\u201d\n\n Poor, exhausted eastern Virginia! she is in her dotage. Her\n impassable roads protect her alike from the pity and contempt\n of foreign travellers; but with all her weakness, with all the\n imbecilities of premature age upon her, I love her still. (Vol. II,\n p. 194.)\n\nOf this more vigorous age the prototype is the title-hero of the\nvolume, the stalwart Kentuckian whose native intelligence and racy\nspeech delight the Carolinian. This free son of the untamed West is\nportrayed with bold strokes, and if his talk leans somewhat heavily\non the current convention of frontier humor, if Montgomery Damon in\nhis picturesque exaggerations suggests Davy Crockett, the result is\nnone the less salty. Caruthers does not descend to caricature, but\nwrites with gusto, and the Kentuckian\u2019s single letter is a little\nmasterpiece in the vein of the free frontier humor that was competing\nwith the cavalier romantic for popular approval. His whimsicalities,\nCaruthers tells us, he hopes will encourage \u201ca smile of good-humor\u201d\nso that this maiden product of the author\u2019s pen may find its way into\nthe good graces of the reader--a course reckoned \u201cthe more necessary\nby a southern aspirant, as there is evidently a current in American\nliterature, the fountainhead of which lies north of the Potomac, and in\nwhich a southern is compelled to navigate up the stream if he jumps in\ntoo far south\u201d (Vol. II, p. 218.)\n\n_The Cavaliers of Virginia, or the Recluse of Jamestown_, announced\nin the postscript to the _Kentuckian in New York_, and published\nsoon afterwards, is a full-fledged historical romance, with Bacon\u2019s\nRebellion for a background and a somewhat melodramatic figure of\na recluse warrior for its romantic hero. There is brisk action,\ndramatic Indian fights, much ruffling of young cavaliers, and a fine\naristocratic swagger, but Caruthers\u2019 sympathies seem to incline to the\nmore democratic elements and in the end his rebellious hero proves\nhimself a match for the brisk young blades. There is excellent reading\nin it, as there is in his last work, _The Knights of the Horse-Shoe;\na Traditionary Tale of the Cocked Hat Gentry in the Old Dominion_,\npublished in 1845, and reissued as late as 1909; a genial story of\nGovernor Spotswood\u2019s time. Caruthers deserved a better fate than fell\nto his lot. In spite of his excellent work surprisingly little is known\nabout him; even the spelling of his name and the date of his death\nare matters about which there is disagreement. From a slight sketch\ncontributed to _The Knickerbocker Magazine_ for July, 1838, _Climbing\nthe Natural Bridge_, it is known that he was a student at Washington\nCollege, now Washington and Lee, at Lexington, Virginia, in the year\n1818, and the signature affixed carries only one \u201cr.\u201d He seems to\nhave removed later to Savannah, Georgia, an enthusiastic description\nof which he gives in the _Kentuckian in New York_. No doubt he there\npracticed medicine and died in his prime, perhaps in the year 1846.\nVirginia historians have inconsiderately neglected a cultivated and\nopen-minded writer who embodied the finer spirit of the Old Dominion\nand whose stories have contributed their portion to the plantation\ntradition.\n\n\nII \u2022 John Pendleton Kennedy \u2022 A Southern Whig\n\nA far more prosperous course was run by John P. Kennedy, whose\nsympathies drew him north rather than south, and who early learned\nthat it is better to serve a rising than a decaying order. Very like\nCaruthers in temperament and gifts, a liberal in all his sympathies, he\nfound the ties that bound him to the Old Dominion more fragile, and the\ndrift of circumstance carrying him with the stronger current. It was a\nkindly fate that took him in charge, bringing him abundant prosperity\nand contemporary fame.\n\nOne of the most attractive figures of his generation was this son\nof a Maryland father and a Virginia mother. A gentleman of much\npersonal distinction, high-minded and of wide culture, endowed with\na pleasant wit, easy manners and generous nature, he is an agreeable\nrepresentative of the _ante bellum_ Southerns, an American Victorian of\nthe Cobden-Bright school, standing midway between the northern radical\nand the southern Fire Eater. Like Henry Clay, he was a Whig engrafted\non a Jeffersonian root. Born and educated in Baltimore, he was a son of\nthe borderland, with strong ties of kinship and love that drew him to\nthe Old Dominion, and even stronger ties of intellectual, social and\nfinancial interests that drew him towards Philadelphia and New York,\nSaratoga and Newport. As a young man he found his inspiration in the\nlife of William Wirt, whose biography he afterwards wrote. Like Wirt,\nhe dreamed of combining law and letters and adopting the life of a\nsouthern gentleman; but he discovered little that was congenial in the\nexactions of the law, and in spite of considerable success as attorney\nfor certain Baltimore interests, he largely abandoned the profession.\nHe loved his Chaucer and Shakespeare more than his Coke and Blackstone:\nhe was more interested in Dickens and Thackeray and Carlyle and Irving\nand Scott than in John Marshall\u2019s decisions, and he followed the more\ncongenial path. He tried his hand likewise at politics. He was a member\nof Congress for six years, was Secretary of the Navy during the last\nmonths of President Fillmore\u2019s administration, and was of service to\nthe Whig party as spokesman on dignified occasions. But he was never\na practical politician, and the rough and tumble of political life\nhe found utterly distasteful. As he grew older he unconsciously drew\nfurther away from his southern antecedents. In his later years there\nwas little to distinguish him from Irving and Robert C. Winthrop and\nother northern friends. He had left the world of Beverley Tucker far\nbehind him. He had severed all ties with Virginia and South Carolina,\nand during the Civil War he was a militant Unionist, though it cost him\nmuch grief and the loss of old friendships.\n\nKennedy\u2019s life ran an usually placid and prosperous course, greatly\nunlike that of Gilmore Simms. His father was a Scotch-Irish merchant\nof Baltimore who married Nancy Pendleton, daughter of an excellent\nVirginia family with many honorable connections. His early years\nwere not unlike Irving\u2019s--a little Latin and Greek and much outdoor\nlife, with a desultory education got from vagrant books. The course\nof study at the local college afforded far less intellectual stimulus\nthan _Tristram Shandy_, over which he pored of evenings, dissecting\nthe prose style to discover the secret of its charm, and filling his\nnotebooks with elaborately colloquial sentences, highly seasoned with\ndashes and exclamation points. Graduating at eighteen, he enlisted in a\nBaltimore regiment to fight the British, who were preparing their raid\non Washington. He went through the campaign as a summer lark, emerging\nunscathed from the single skirmish. The field was lost, but whether the\nhonor of the crack Fifth was left on the battle ground may be judged\nfrom Kennedy\u2019s humorous comment. \u201cSoon we had the famous \u2018trial of\nsouls\u2019--the battle of Bladensburg. The drafted militia ran away at the\nfirst fire, and the Fifth Regiment was driven off the field with the\nbayonet. We made a fine scamper of it. I lost my musket in the m\u00eal\u00e9e\nwhile bearing off a comrade\u201d (Tuckerman, _Life of Kennedy_, p. 79).\n\nThroughout his twenties Kennedy was a studious dilettante in letters\nand politics and law. He married but lost his wife and son within the\nyear; with his friend Peter Hoffman Cruse he published a series of\nBaltimore sketches in two volumes entitled _The Red Book_; and at the\nage of thirty-four married again. His second wife was the daughter\nof Edward Gray, a wealthy Baltimore cotton-spinner who at the age of\neighteen had emigrated from northern Ireland to Philadelphia, became\na bank clerk and a Federalist simultaneously, adopted Washington and\nHamilton--whom he occasionally met in a professional way--as his\nparticular heroes, prospered greatly, purchased the Ellicott Mills a\nfew miles out of Baltimore, and set up a half feudal estate vastly\nattractive to discriminating visitors like Irving.\n\nKennedy\u2019s marriage to Elizabeth Gray in 1829 seems to have been the\nturning-point of his life. Before this he had been a disinterested\nliberal in his views, concerning himself in a political way with such\nhumanitarian issues as the repeal of the brutal debtor laws. He had\nnever been an avowed Jeffersonian like William Wirt and many of his\nVirginia connections, but the Jeffersonian idealism must have appealed\nto the generous sympathies of the young man. Immediately upon being\ntaken into the Gray family he adopted its ample scale of living, its\ngenial hospitality, its social and political philosophy. The influence\nof the masterful Edward Gray was thenceforth a dominant creative factor\nin Kennedy\u2019s life, and he followed faithfully in the footsteps of his\nfather-in-law. The profits of the Ellicott Mills had been greatly\nincreased by the tariff act of 1824. Naturally Edward Gray was an\nardent protectionist, and Kennedy frankly espoused the same policy. He\naccepted Henry Clay as his political leader, was sent to Congress on a\nprotectionist platform, lectured before Workingmen\u2019s Institutes on the\nadvantages of industrial development, and gained a very considerable\nreputation as an expounder of the American Plan. After the war he\nbecame a Republican, voted for Grant, and adopted extreme nationalist\nviews. That the family income was dependent on tariff favors is a\ndetail which only a more realistic generation would suggest in\nexplanation of his political course; the fact remains, nevertheless,\nthat the youthful disciple of William Wirt adopted the new philosophy\nof prosperity, became president of the board of directors of the\nBaltimore and Ohio Railway, invested in West Virginia coal lands,\nand was by way of becoming a captain of industry. The break with his\nsouthern antecedents was complete and final; he went with his native\ncity in preferring the industrial to the plantation economy.\n\nBaltimore in Kennedy\u2019s day was a thriving port with a growing trade\nto the West Indies and Europe. It had long been a convenient market\nfor the tobacco of Virginia, and with the development of the clipper\nservice its over-sea commerce expanded greatly. Unlike Charleston,\nthe mercantile interests predominated over the planter. Middle-class\nideals, to be sure, were still tempered by the dignified decorum that\nlingered on from the eighteenth century. Merchants still emulated the\ngentry and strove for personal distinction. They professed benevolent\nideals and their talk was much of public spirit and the progress of the\ntown. They adopted the romantic faith of their class in the beneficent\nprocesses of trade and industry in furthering social well-being,\nand they endowed Mechanics Institutes and founded public libraries\nand museums with all the ardor of converts. In this agreeable work\nof expounding the gospel of progress, Kennedy joined heartily. It\nsatisfied the latent idealism of his nature and recompensed him for\nthe loss of his Virginia heritage. Intellectually he was too honest to\npervert the gospel of progress to selfish class interest and seek to\nhide the perversion behind sonorous platitudes, as his friend Robert C.\nWinthrop of Boston was guilty of doing. He had too much love for the\nEnglish language to misuse it even in defense of the family income.\nHe could not contract his mind to the compass of a Whig politician\u2019s.\nHis defense of industrialism, in consequence, embodies the spirit of\nthe best English liberalism as that liberalism was interpreted by\nVictorian Englishmen. He seems to have been honestly convinced that the\nfuture well-being of America was dependent upon the development of an\nindustrialism to provide an economic balance between manufactures and\nagriculture.\n\nLike his friend Irving, Kennedy was a devout romantic, with a love of\nthe old-time picturesque; but as a consistent Whig he would spin and\nweave his romance out of domestic materials, refusing to import. He\nwas a child of the effervescent days following 1812, when the static\neighteenth century was breaking up and an ebullient romanticism was\npermeating the land. Of this youthful period his thought reveals the\nclear impress. Washington Irving from long pottering over the old-world\npicturesque had become English romantic, with an inveterate dislike of\nall innovation. The vulgar nineteenth century was destroying for him\nthe charm of the eighteenth; he would have had the world remain as it\nwas before the American and French revolutions had despoiled life of\npicturesque feudal ways. Whereas Kennedy, sharing in a romanticism that\nwas economic and social--that was creating a wonderful America of the\nfuture out of the raw materials of life--was content to remain native,\nat home in the land of his birth. He might turn to the past for the\nfigures and scenes of his stories, but he discovered in the activities\nof the present materials for romance quite as fascinating. He was\nwholly Victorian in his genial optimism. He was receptive to new ideas\nand promising ventures. He listened sympathetically to inventors and\nscientists and promoters. He was instrumental in securing Congressional\naid to erect Morse\u2019s telegraph line between Washington and his native\ncity. As Secretary of the Navy he provided for Commodore Perry\u2019s\nexpedition to Japan, and the expedition to search for Dr. Kane in the\nArctic regions. But unfortunately his economic romanticism gradually\nundermined his literary romanticism; he outgrew his earlier literary\nambitions, and the romances of his later life never got written. In the\nend the gospel of progress was his undoing.\n\nThat the generous comfort in which he lived afforded him leisure, means\nof travel, contact with distinguished people, goes without saying; but\nthat it was favorable to letters is far from clear. Divided interests\nconsumed his energies and kept him an amateur to the last. His literary\ndevelopment was an evolution from a sketchy and humorous Addisonian,\nwith its echoes of the eighteenth century, to the full Victorian\nromantic. The foreign elements from an earlier time slowly settled\nto the bottom of the vat and left the pure wine of romance. But it\ntook time. Like other amateurs he was influenced by current literary\nsuccesses, and was much given to following the changing fashions. His\nthree best-known books, written between the ages of thirty-six and\nforty-five, are unlike enough to have been written by different men.\n_Swallow Barn_, like the youthful sketches of _The Red Book_, is\nIrvingesque, and the Irving influence crops out again in a late book\n_Quodlibet_; but _Horseshoe Robinson_ is substantial Revolutionary\nromance, done in sober narrative with touches of realism; and _Rob of\nthe Bowl_ is light and whimsical cavalier romance, all atmosphere and\nsmall talk, utterly unlike Irving. It is in this latter book, perhaps,\nwritten in 1838 at the age of forty-two, that Kennedy really found\nhimself; he seems to move through the scenes more easily and with\ngreater delight than in any other of his pages.\n\nThat the leisurely sketches of _Swallow Barn_ belong to the school of\nIrving is a fact as obvious as Kennedy\u2019s love for the idling plantation\nlife. Quite too much, however, has been made of this imitativeness--it\nis an imitativeness rather of method than of theme or style. If it was\nnot quite a pioneer work in the field of local description, it was\namongst the earliest. Paulding had dealt with Dutch colonial life,\nand Timothy Flint and James Hall had begun the descriptive literature\nof the West; but little else had been done at the time _Swallow Barn_\nappeared. Longstreet\u2019s _Georgia Scenes_ came out two years later.\nIntrinsically as well as historically the work is curiously suggestive.\nNowhere else does the plantation life of the Old Dominion in the days\nbefore its decline appear so vividly as in these discursive pages: \u201cthe\nmellow, bland, and sunny luxuriance of her old-time society--its good\nfellowship, its hearty and constitutional _companionableness_, the\nthriftless gaiety of the people, their dogged but amiable invincibility\nof opinion, and that overflowing hospitality which knows no ebb.\u201d\n\nLike Irving, Kennedy went back to the old home, but that old home was\nVirginia and not England; and there he found still lingering on the\ngreat plantations charmingly romantic anachronisms that had disappeared\nelsewhere--a spontaneous romanticism of temperament that gave color and\nzest to the daily routine. The aloofness of plantation life had bred in\nthe Virginia gentry a piquant individuality, a distinction as of old\nmorocco or calfskin. Philly Wart, the shrewdly humorous fox-hunting\nlawyer; old Mr. Tracy of The Brakes, \u201cturning a little sour with age\u201d\nand resembling \u201cthat waterish, gravelly soil that you see sometimes\naround a spring, where nothing grows but sheep-sorrel,\u201d who cherishes a\nhereditary boundary dispute, pursuing his hypothetical rights through\nall the law courts and discovering, when the matter has been amicably\nsettled by arbitration, that much of the zest has gone out of his\nlife; the heroine Bel Tracy, a frank wholesome girl with a dash of Di\nVernon in her romantic affectations that lead her to play at hawking:\nsuch figures fit as naturally into the background as the pampered house\nservants, the horseback riding, the constant visiting, the abundant\ndinners. Especially the dinners, when the neighborhood is invited in.\nThe table spread with opulent hospitality and careless profusion--the\nbaked ham at one end and the saddle of roast mutton at the other, with\nfried chicken, oysters, crabs, sweet potatoes, jellies, custards--a\nprodigal feast that only outdoor stomachs could manage, and all by way\nof preliminary to the dusty wine-bottles and easy stories that hold the\nmen long after the ladies have withdrawn. Surely the romance of Old\nVirginia, preserved in these light-hearted discursive pages, is worth\nremembering by later generations who have forgotten how to live so\ngenially.\n\nIn 1832 when _Swallow Barn_ was written, the southern mind was just\nat the turn in its attitude towards slavery, and Frank Meriwether, a\nVirginian Sir Roger de Coverley, bred in the humanitarianism of the\nolder liberals, accepts the institution as a present evil that is in\na way of natural extinction. Slavery in _Swallow Barn_ is kept in the\nbackground. There are slaves, of course, on the plantation, many of\nthem; but they are in the tobacco fields or the quarters, far from the\nmansion; and not till near the end of the book does Kennedy\u2019s curiosity\ninduce him to visit the cabins and draw out Frank Meriwether in talk\non slavery. The result is what one could have foreseen. The plantation\nmaster was the victim of a benevolent romanticism that vaguely looks\nfor a solution to colonization schemes that will return the negro to\nAfrica; but like other southern gentlemen he is somewhat testy at the\nsuggestion of outside interference. Slavery he regards as an exclusive\nsouthern problem, to be solved by those who understand its complex\ndomestic implications. It would be better for everybody if Abolition\nbusybodies would mind their own affairs and cease stirring up feelings\nwhere no good can come of it. To prove that Virginia gentlemen are\naware of their responsibility, Meriwether offers a half humorous\nsuggestion that negro emancipation might well follow the example of\nEnglish villeinage, with a slow break-up of the system, the emancipated\nnegro to remain in a protective feudal relation to his master. It was\nan amiable notion to play with, and it fitted the feudal psychology of\nthe plantation.\n\nIn these early sketches Kennedy revealed an easy knack at writing\nthat gave promise of excellent work later. He has lightness, grace,\nrefinement, an eye sensitive to picturesque effects, delight in line\nand texture and color, an agreeable wit and playful sentiment, a relish\nfor English idiom and the literary colloquial. In _Horseshoe Robinson_,\nwritten three years later, he abandoned the essay-sketch and turned\nto the school of historical romance then in full swing. The story is\ndone in the orthodox manner of the thirties; it is compounded of equal\nparts gentry and commoners, the former providing respectability and the\nlatter dramatic interest, the whole garnished with a few historical\nfigures. There is quite obvious concern for authentic reality. The\ntitle-hero, a shrewd homespun scout, is carefully drawn from life; the\nbackground of bushwhackings and forays and onsets, and the numerous\ncompany of blackguards and honest folk, are painted in skillfully;\nand the whole conducts to a dramatic finale in the battle of King\u2019s\nMountain. It is an excellent tale, quite worth reading today, but\nscarcely comparable in vividness and brisk action--in picaresque\nrealism which any true war story must embody--with _The Partisan_\nof Gilmore Simms, written in the same year of 1835. Realism was not\nKennedy\u2019s forte and after _Horseshoe Robinson_ he abandoned the field\nof the Revolution which offered so rich an opportunity for the robuster\ngenius of the Charleston romancer.\n\nIn _Rob of the Bowl_ Kennedy opened a promising vein that he never\nadequately explored--the vein of the cavalier romantic. Temperamentally\nhe was ill fitted to deal with rollicking action or picaresque\nadventure; he preferred the leisurely, discursive romantic, subdued\nto gentle raillery or humorous tenderness. One trembles to think what\nSimms would have made of the materials that Kennedy brought together\nin this tale of old St. Mary\u2019s in the days of Charles II. Here is the\nraw stuff of a true bloody-bones thriller: a gentlemanly blackguard\nwith the stumps of his legs bound in a huge rocking trencher and moving\nabout with the help of crutches, who is deep in the contraband trade;\na swaggering young pirate, a Brother of the Bloody Coast, who falls\nin love with the daughter of the Collector of the Port and kidnaps\nher from her father\u2019s house; a romantic lover, slender and clerkly,\nbut skillful with the rapier, who turns out to be the son of Rob; a\nhaunted house that covers the smuggling operations of Rob and Captain\nCocklescraft; and all this set against a background of partisan\nstruggle between Roundhead and Cavalier, Protestant and Catholic, in\nthe early days of the Maryland settlement.\n\nBut in the handling the story is far removed from a bloody-bones tale.\nThe action is deliberately subdued to the humoresque; atmosphere is\nstudiously created; adventure is held in strict subjection to the\nwhimsical; and a mellow old-time flavor is imprisoned in the leisurely\npages. Kennedy had an appreciative eye for picturesque characters, and\nin _Rob of the Bowl_ he has gathered a choice group, limned--as he\nwould choose to say--with a partial hand. Garret Weasel, the garrulous\npot-valiant innkeeper, and Dorothy his termagant spouse; Captain Jasper\nDauntless, the cogging, wheedling swordsman who twists Dame Dorothy\nabout his fingers and inveigles his host into undue commerce with\nhis cups--these to be sure are stock characters, but they are done\nwith excellent vivacity. Their abundant talk is well seasoned, and\nif the action sometimes drags, the company is good and the drinking\nis a sufficient end in itself. All the while he is writing Kennedy\nkeeps half an eye on Elizabethan literature to assure himself of the\nexact turn of phrase. His vocabulary is saturated with the homely old\nspeech, and his characters talk as if they had culled all the simples\nof English cottage gardens to garnish the staple of their wit. He has a\nkeener delight than Simms in the picturesque archaic. He far surpasses\nIrving in easy mastery of the old-fashioned colloquial, as indeed he\nsurpasses all our early novelists. He delights in the courtly wit of\nthe Cavalier equally with the humors of Dogberry and Falstaff and\nCaptain Bobadil, and he quite evidently is seeking to cross the sparkle\nof Congreve with the robustness of the Elizabethans. The result may\nsometimes appear a bit self-conscious; his phrases too often seem to\nbe on dress parade; but he can plead his precedents in justification.\nIn its fondness for the literary colloquial his prose style almost\nsuggests Thackeray, and it is this suggestion, perhaps, that gave rise\nto the tradition that Kennedy wrote for the former a certain chapter\nof _The Virginians_. That he supplied Thackeray with materials for his\nVirginia backgrounds may be accepted as true, but the indebtedness\nprobably went no further.\n\n_Rob of the Bowl_ is certainly Kennedy\u2019s best work, as it is one of\nthe most finished and delightful of our earlier romances. Although it\nran to six editions, the latest in 1907, it has scarcely received the\nrecognition its lightness of touch deserves. But instead of opening\nthe vein further he turned away to venture in new fields. _Quodlibet_,\nwritten in 1840,[401] is a surprising successor to _Rob_--a satire on\nJacksonian democracy, done with a light touch and great good humor.\nIn those acrimonious days when Old Hickory\u2019s attack on the Bank so\nembittered its Whig partisans, Kennedy kept his temper, tipped his\nshafts with laughter and sent them neatly between the joints of the\nDemocratic armor. Against such amusing satire fustian is helpless.\nThe book is keen, vivacious, sparkling. The supposed follies of\nJacksonianism--its deification of the majority vote, its cant of the\nsovereign people, its hatred of all aristocrats, its demagoguery and\nbluster and sheer buncombe--are hit off with exuberant raillery. The\nstory professes to be an account of the rise to prosperity of the\nBorough of Quodlibet, under the beneficent smile of Democratic finance.\nMean and insignificant before the coming of Jackson, with the removal\nof the \u201cDeposites,\u201d \u201clike Jeshurun, it waxed fat,\u201d with its rows\nof brick shops built on speculation and its Patriotic Copper-Plate\nBank that issued an unlimited supply of beautifully engraved notes\nas a stimulus to enterprise. To be sure the bank broke and the\ncashier absconded with his family to Europe, but its untoward end was\nattributed by all Jacksonian New Lights to the vile machinations of the\nWhigs. It was certainly Nick Biddle and the Barings, with their hatred\nof Old Bullion Benton\u2019s democratic gold coinage, that were the devil in\nthe pot to spill the people\u2019s porridge.\n\nYet even in its laughter Kennedy\u2019s political bias is sharply and\nnarrowly partisan. The satire is a capitalistic counter to the agrarian\nattack on the rising money power, and it is colored by the chagrin of\ngentlemen who find themselves displaced by plebeians. Something of the\nold aristocratic contempt for the plain man functioning as a political\nanimal lingers in its pages, which the bubbling humor does not wholly\nconceal. In Jackson\u2019s onslaught on the Bank, Kennedy discovers only an\nimpudent demagoguery; it is selfish and stupid, turmoiling the country\nfor partisan ends and seeking to cover its petty spite with the mantle\nof patriotism. The Old Hero cuts a sorry figure in these brisk pages,\nand Van Buren a still sorrier one. The satire sparkles amusingly, but\nit is drawn from the old Federalist vintage and it preserves the flavor\nof a time when gentlemen frankly resented the rule of the unwashed\nmajority. For that very reason _Quodlibet_ is an unusually interesting\ndocument. It is the most vivacious criticism of Jacksonianism in our\npolitical library, one of our few distinguished political satires, and\nit deserves a better fate than to gather dust on old shelves.\n\nAfter _Quodlibet_ Kennedy did little else. The last twenty years of his\nlife were largely wasted. His dignified life of William Wirt, published\nin 1849, seems to have met with approval, for it ran to six editions.\nOur grandfathers liked stately narrative that portrayed their subjects\nin full dress; and Kennedy gave them an impeccably respectable work in\nwhich all the rugosities of character were ironed out neatly and a fine\nstarchy effect achieved. It is hard to understand how a writer so keen\nto detect the whimsical should have drawn so lifeless a picture of the\ngenial Attorney-General. Perhaps the memory of Wirt\u2019s reputed greatness\nrested too heavily upon him; or it may have been that a lawyer in\nold Virginia lived as colorless a life as the narrative suggests; at\nany rate the novelist who never had failed to breathe life into the\ncharacters of his fiction, somehow failed in depicting this excellent\ngentleman of the old school. During the Civil War Kennedy contributed\nto the northern cause his _Letters of Mr. Paul Ambrose on the Great\nRebellion in the United States_, in which he again showed that he\ncould keep his temper and argue calmly. It was a difficult theme for\nwhich he was inadequately equipped. His constitutional argument is not\nimpressive and it makes an ill showing when set over against Alexander\nH. Stephens\u2019 _Constitutional View of the War between the States_. He\nwas a man of letters rather than a lawyer, and if he had eschewed\npolitics and law and stuck to his pen our literature would have been\ngreatly in his debt. Few Americans of his day were so generously\ngifted; none possessed a lighter touch. He has been somewhat carelessly\nforgotten even by our literary historians who can plead no excuse for\nso grave a blunder.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Edgar Allan Poe \u2022 Romantic\n\nIt is from this slovenly background of aristocratic Virginia, with\nits liberalisms and conservatisms running at cross purposes, that the\nenigmatical figure of Poe emerged to vex the northern critics. In so\nfar as any particular environment determined his highly individual and\ncreative nature, it was the indolent life of the planter gentry, shot\nthrough with a pugnacious pride of locality, with a strong dislike of\nalien ways, with haughtiness, dissipation, wastefulness, chivalry.\nIn his proud, irascible individualism that went out of its way to\npick a quarrel, there is something of the spirit of John Randolph of\nRoanoke, but pied and streaked with unfortunate qualities that to\nmany observers seemed the marks of the mere charlatan. As a southern\ngentleman he imbibed the common dislike of New England, and this\ndislike was aggravated by its diverse conception of the functions of\nart, and by the misfortunes that attended his literary career. An\naesthete and a craftsman, the first American writer to be concerned\nwith beauty alone, his ideals ran counter to every major interest\nof the New England renaissance: the mystical, optimistic element in\ntranscendentalism; the social conscience that would make the world\nover in accordance with French idealism, and that meddled with its\nneighbor\u2019s affairs in applying its equalitarianism to the negro; the\npervasive moralism that would accept no other criteria by which to\njudge life and letters--these things could not fail to irritate a\nnature too easily ruffled. The Yankee parochialisms rubbed across his\nVirginia parochialisms; and when to these was added a Yankee pre\u00ebmption\nof the field of literary criticism, when a little clique engaged in the\nbusiness of mutual admiration puffed New England mediocrities at his\nexpense, the provocation was enough to arouse in a sensitive southern\nmind an antagonism that rivaled Beverley Tucker\u2019s. In his unhappy\npilgrimage through life Poe was his own worst enemy, but he took\ncomfort in charging his ill fortune upon the malignancy of others.\n\nSouthern though he was in the deep prejudices of a suspicious nature,\nhis aloofness from his own Virginia world was complete. Aside from his\nart he had no philosophy and no programs and no causes. He got from\nVirginia what was bad rather than good, and his alienation from the\nmore generous southern ideals did him harm. It was perhaps harder to be\nan artist in that slack southern society than in New England--harder\nto be a romantic concerned only with twilight melancholy. It would\nhave been hard enough anywhere in Jacksonian America. His romanticisms\nwere of quite another kind than those his countrymen were pursuing;\nand the planter sympathized with them no more than did the New York\nliterati, or the western men of letters. In a world given over to\nbumptious middle-class enthusiasms, there would be scant sympathy for\nthe craftsman and dreamer. There was no unearned increment to be got\nfrom investments in \u201cthe misty mid-region of Weir,\u201d which Poe threw\non the market. The technician concerned with the values of long and\nshort syllables would find few congenial spirits in a world of more\nsubstantial things; and the purveyors of shoddy tales would not take\nit kindly if their shortcomings were pointed out and a more competent\ncraftsmanship insisted upon. And so, like Herman Melville, Poe came to\nshipwreck on the reef of American materialisms. The day of the artist\nhad not dawned in America.\n\nSo much only need be said. The problem of Poe, fascinating as it is,\nlies quite outside the main current of American thought, and it may be\nleft with the psychologist and the belletrist with whom it belongs.\nIt is for abnormal psychology to explain his \u201cneural instability\namounting almost to a dissociated or split personality,\u201d his irritable\npride, his quarrelsomeness, his unhappy persecution complex, his\nabsurd pretentions to a learning he did not possess, his deliberate\nfabrications about his life and methods of work, his oscillations\nbetween abstinence and dissipation, between the morbidly grotesque and\nthe lucidly rational, his haunting fear of insanity that drove him to\ndemonstrate his sanity by pursuing complex problems of ratiocination.\nSuch problems are personal to Poe and do not concern us here. And it is\nfor the belletrist to evaluate his theory and practice of art: his debt\nto Coleridge and Schlegel; the influence of the contemporary magazine\non his conception of the length of a work of the imagination; the\nvalue of his theory of the tyrannizing unity of mood in the poem and\nshort story; the provocation to the craftsman of the pretentiousness\nof contemporary American literature, joined to a flabby and crude\ntechnique; the grossness of the popular taste and the validity of his\ncritical judgments. Whatever may be the final verdict it is clear that\nas an aesthete and a craftsman he made a stir in the world that has\nnot lessened in the years since his death, but has steadily widened.\nOthers of greater repute in his day have fared less prosperously in\nlater reputation. He was the first of our artists and the first of our\ncritics; and the surprising thing is that such a man should have made\nhis appearance in an America given over to hostile ideals. He suffered\nmuch from his aloofness, but he gained much also. In the midst of gross\nand tawdry romanticisms he refused to be swallowed up, but went his own\nway, a rebel in the cause of beauty, discovering in consequence a finer\nromanticism than was before known in America.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[401] The characteristic title is _Quodlibet: Containing some Annals\nthereof, with an Authentic Account of the Origin and Growth of the\nBorough and the Sayings and Doings of Sundry Townspeople: Interspersed\nwith Sketches of the Most Remarkable and Distinguished Characters\nof that Place and its Vicinity. Edited by Solomon Secondthoughts,\nSchoolmaster, from original MSS. Indited by him, and now made Public at\nthe Request and under the Patronage of the Great New Light Democratic\nCentral Committee of Quodlibet._\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: The Renaissance of Slavery\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 Southern Imperialism\n\n\nI\n\nBy the year 1824 a change was becoming evident in the South that was\nto affect profoundly the course of southern thought in regard to\nher peculiar institution. The passing of the long Virginia hegemony\nwas a sign that southern opinion was undergoing a revolutionary\noverturn, and that leadership henceforth would rest with men of a\ndifferent philosophy. The humanitarian spirit that marked the thought\nof the preceding generation was dying out, to be replaced by a frank\nrecognition of local economic interests. Expectation that slavery was\non the way to natural extinction was yielding to the conviction that\nthe system was too profitable to the South to permit its extinction,\nand this in turn bred an imperious desire to spread it westward to\nthe Pacific. With this significant shift from apology to imperialism,\nit became clear to ardent pro-slavery men that lukewarm Virginians of\nthe old tradition were not the spokesmen to entrust with the fortunes\nof the South, and leadership passed to the South Carolina school. In\nthat momentous shift much was implied. It was more than a shift from\nJefferson to Calhoun, from humanitarian idealism to economic realism.\nIt marked the complete ascendancy of a small minority of gentleman\nplanters over the inarticulate mass of southern yeomanry, and the\nassertion of the aristocratic ideal as the goal of southern society.\nIt denied the principle of democracy as that principle was understood\nin the North and West, and it rejected the new humanitarian spirit of\nwestern civilization. It abandoned the Jeffersonian equalitarianism\nthat was so deeply rooted in the southern mind from Kentucky to\nGeorgia; it cast aside the agrarianism of John Taylor and the older\nVirginians; and it set up in place of these congenial conceptions the\nalien ideal of a Greek democracy. More momentous still, it threw down\nthe gauntlet to the ideals of the middle class, then in the first\nflush of a triumphant career, and in the armed clash that eventually\nresulted, it was destroyed by that class.\n\nThe intellectual capital of southern imperialism was Charleston, but\nits numerical strength lay in the Black Belt, with South Carolina to\nthe east and Texas to the west, a compact territory the heart of which\nwas Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In this new South that\nwas rapidly passing through its frontier development, the patriarchal\nsystem of Virginia gave way to a system of negro exploitation, more\nnaked as it passed further westward. It was here that the proportion\nof slaves to whites was greatest; it was here that slave labor was\nmost profitable; and it was here in consequence that the slave economy\nwas most militant. The Black Belt became the native habitat of the\nsouthern Fire Eater. In the late twenties and early thirties South\nCarolina provided the outstanding leaders of the new school; but the\nphilosophy of imperialism spread rapidly and western men came more and\nmore to the front. George McDuffie and Bob Toombs, perhaps the boldest\nof the loquacious tribe of Fire Eaters, came from Georgia; Alexander\nH. Stephens was bred in the same turbulent state; L. Q. C. Lamar and\nJefferson Davis were from Mississippi. For the most part self-made,\nproducts of a frontier environment, these western extremists had got\nfrom Jefferson little more than an assertive individualism that easily\nespoused the states-rights philosophy and prompted them to defend their\nimmediate interests. It was this vigorous group that largely created\nthe new southern psychology and prodded the southern mind along the\npath marked out for it to travel. Democratic in their attitude towards\nthe white voter, middle class in their love of exploitation, they\nretained little of the spirit of the Virginia school.\n\nThe expansion of the South to the Gulf region came a generation later\nthan the settlement of the Ohio valley. The Creek Indians who clung\ntenaciously to the rich lands of Mississippi were long an obstacle to\nthe white advance, and the settlers filtered in slowly. Moreover the\nslave economy was ill fitted to the business of pioneering. It was\ndifficult to transport negroes and establish great plantations in a\nwilderness; there was too little security in a region that offered\nevery temptation to the slave to run away. The plantation system could\nprosper only after a considerable degree of development had been\neffected and sufficient negroes provided. On the other hand, the rich\nsoil, virgin and productive, offered every inducement for large-scale\nproduction of cotton, tobacco and sugar. Here the economics of slavery\ncould be fairly tested, and if the system were found to be profitable\nit would spread of its own impulse beyond the Mississippi, becoming\nmore imperialistic with every extension, ambitious to seize Texas with\nits filibusters, looking as far as California and the Oregon territory\nfor future expansion. But while planning for such expansion it must\nsecure its strategic front at Washington, making certain that no rival\neconomy should control the central government to its disadvantage. It\nwas an ambitious program, but it was all implicit in the evident fact\nthat slavery in the Black Belt proved to be profitable.\n\nThe explanation of this sudden prosperity of the Black Belt is a\nmatter of familiar knowledge. Coincident with the first westward\nexpansion of slavery came a revolution in the technique of the English\ncotton industry that brought about corresponding changes in southern\nagriculture. The production of cotton textiles in England had long\nbeen held back by the difficulty of spinning a fine and even thread.\nWhen this problem was solved at the beginning of the century by the\ninvention of new machines, the cotton industry at once developed\namazingly, making heavy demands upon the supply of American raw\nmaterials. This supply in turn was greatly increased by the invention\nof the cotton gin, and the combined result of these inventions was\nan upheaval in southern agriculture. In the eighteenth century the\nsouthern staples were tobacco, rice and indigo; by 1825 the staples\nhad become cotton, tobacco and sugar. Almost in a decade cotton had\nbecome king. In 1791, three years after Andrew Jackson settled in\nNashville, the total export of cotton was only 200,000 pounds. In 1803\nit had risen to 40,000,000 pounds, and by 1860 the export for the\nyear was of the value of nearly two hundred millions of dollars. Such\nfigures provide a sufficient explanation of the militant spirit of the\nslave economy after 1820. Here was an enormous vested interest, the\neconomic life of the South, that could not suffer its present or future\nprofits to be put in jeopardy by any political party on any pretext.\nIts well-being and its prestige were both at stake. The peculiar\ninstitution, which a generation before was commonly believed to be in\nthe way of natural extinction, had the South by the throat.\n\nIt was the strategic weakness of the South that the spirit of\nexploitation, which following the peace of 1783 had spread through\nAmerica like the itch, should there have assumed its most hateful\nform, far more revolting to the humanitarian sense and far less\njustifiable to uneasy consciences than wage slavery. With every\nextension the system became necessarily more brutal in exploitation.\nAs new plantations were opened the natural increase of negroes was\ninadequate to meet the pressing demands for slaves. Since the abolition\nof the traffic with Africa the occasional smuggling by venturesome\nrunners--many of whom were respectable New England church members--had\nprovided a totally inadequate supply of raw material; the price of\nslaves rose steadily, and this in turn led to increasing speculation\nin negroes. Buying and selling by middlemen went on briskly, to the\nhorror of northern humanitarians and the concern of southern. So\nbrutal and open was the exploitation that Alexander H. Stephens--the\nkindest-hearted of men--went so far as to advocate the reopening of the\nslave trade with Africa, as the lesser of the two evils. The better\nSouth hated what it could not help. Although the slave trader remained\na social pariah with whom no gentleman would associate, his business\nwas a necessary evil of the system and could not be eradicated.\n\nThe reaction of the slave system upon the southern people, both\nplantation masters and poor whites, was wholly evil. The generous\nculture of Virginia failed to take root in the Black Belt. The\ndevelopment of the plantation system under hired overseers infected\nthe masters, few in numbers and absolute in power, with an exaggerated\nsense of their own greatness. The aristocratic spirit of the Old\nDominion had been tempered by a feeling of patriarchal responsibility\nthat humanized the relations between master and slave, and more\ngenerous social contacts had created an admirable republican\nsquirearchy. But in the frontier Gulf states the rapid expansion of\nthe plantation system created an aristocracy given to swaggering,\n_bourgeois_ in spirit, arrogant in manners. Republican simplicity was\nlosing vogue and there was much loose talk about the superiority of\nthe classes. It is said that when Alexander H. Stephens was appointed\na delegate to the Confederate Convention at Montgomery, he refused\nto attend till he was assured that the jingoes would make no attempt\nto set up a monarchy. Gideon Welles is authority for the story that\nwhen news came to Washington of the secession of South Carolina,\nMrs. Jefferson Davis was all aflutter: \u201cShe said she wanted to get\nrid of the old government; that they would have a monarchy South, and\ngentlemen to fill official positions\u201d (_Diary_, Vol. II, p. 256). Such\nstories were probably the result of war hysteria; nevertheless they\nsuggest a bias in the southern temper that reveals how far the new\nSouth had drifted from its Jeffersonian moorings.\n\nOf this new South with its grandiose dreams of slave imperialism, fate\nselected Jefferson Davis to be the political leader and spokesman. The\nchoice may have proved unfortunate, but it was logical. Much calumny\nhas been heaped upon his name, but that is the common fate of partisans\nof lost causes. The real Jefferson Davis is to be sought in some mean\nbetween the extravagant adulation of his friends and the slanders of\nhis enemies. Not a great man certainly; in no sense comparable to Lee\nor Stonewall Jackson or Alexander H. Stephens; he was very far from a\npetty or time-serving nature. As time softens the old animosities it\nreveals the features of a high-minded southern gentleman who possessed\nthe virtues and the weaknesses of his race. Simple and austere in\ntastes, he was the product of a crossing of the southern Puritan with\nthe aristocratic tradition of the Old Dominion. If he was not of\nthe old cavalier stock he was a gentleman by instinct and training.\nHis father was half Welsh, half English; his mother Scotch-Irish.\nHe came of Revolutionary stock. After the war his father settled in\nGeorgia and later removed to Kentucky, where the son was born in Todd\nCounty in 1808. While still a small child he was taken to Wilkinson\nCounty, Mississippi, where he was brought up on a plantation. Educated\nat Lexington, Kentucky, and at West Point, he proved a serious,\ncapable student, who loved reading but possessed little intellectual\ncuriosity. His ideas were few, but those he embraced he clung to with\nthe tenacity of a strong nature. Resigning from the army after a few\nyears of honorable service, he settled down as a plantation master.\nHe was summoned from his isolation by the call for troops to serve\nin the Mexican campaign, went through several battles with unusual\ndistinction, and proved himself an extremely able officer. With\nhis military fame the path to political preferment was open and he\ndemonstrated his ability in Congress. At the outbreak of the secession\nmovement he was eager to receive the appointment as commander of\nthe southern armies, but fate called him to the presidency of the\nConfederacy and he devoted his best strength unselfishly to the cause,\nonly to find the accumulated bitterness of the North heaped upon his\nsingle head. It was an unhappy lot, but there was iron in him, and he\nbore it like a man.\n\nJefferson Davis was cut out of the same tough oak that fashioned John\nC. Calhoun. Hard and unyielding, tenacious of opinion, dictatorial,\nsomewhat inclined to arrogance, he might break, but he would not\nbend. The Scotch-Irish stock was rarely genial or tolerant, and Davis\npossessed none of the seeming pliability of Lincoln that yielded the\nnon-essentials to secure the essentials. Utterly lacking in humor and\neasy-going good nature, he offended by his very virtues. Profoundly\nPuritan, he was narrow and rigid, a legalist in temperament, proud and\njealous of authority. Meticulously honest, he could not get on well\nwith men; he quarreled with his generals and wore himself out trying\nto do everything himself. Politically he was a strict constructionist\nof the most rigid views. He refused to follow Calhoun into the camp\nof Nullification. His patriotism was extreme, and only a greater\nloyalty to his state made him an advocate of secession. At bottom he\nwas a Jeffersonian and to the end of his life he was faithful to the\nprinciples of his party. Kindly and humane, he treated his dependents\nwith singular consideration. He set up a curious little democracy\namongst the slaves of his plantation, and his negroes were devoted to\nhim with rare loyalty. There was in his nature not the slightest trace\nof the exploiter; he was a patriarchal master after the old Virginia\nideal, with no hint of the speculator or middleman. The background of\nhis thought was agrarian and he shared with Jefferson a dislike for\ncapitalistic industrialism. The President of the Confederacy may have\nbeen an unfortunate civil leader, but the slanders that so long clung\nto his name are only worthy of the gutter. The sin that he was led into\nwas not counted a sin in his southern decalogue; it was the sin, not\nof secession, but of imperialism--a sin common to all America in those\ndrunken times when the great West invited exploitation.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Winds of Political Doctrine\n\n\nI\n\nAn economic revolution so widespread and profound could not fail to\nimpress its ideals on current political thought. In the year 1825 three\nstreams of tendency were flowing through the southern mind, rising from\ndifferent sources, incompatible in spirit and purpose, strong in their\ndiverse appeals; and in the end the major current was certain to engulf\nthe lesser. The humanitarianism of Virginia, the individualism of the\nnew West, and the imperialism of the Black Belt might seem to mingle\ntheir waters for a time, but there would be confusions of thought and\ndiversity of counsels until one or another had worn a deeper channel\nthrough which the dominant opinion might run. There could be no more\nfascinating study in the economics of political theory than the\nchanging mind of the South during the critical decades from 1820 to\n1850, as it followed the course determined by its peculiar institution.\nPolitical thought passed under the jurisdiction of slavery, and\nevery southern writer took his daily bearings from that polar fact.\nIt is unintelligent to charge upon southern politicians a lack of\nconsistency--to point out that after 1820 Calhoun reversed himself on\nevery major political principle. It was true of Calhoun, as it was\ntrue of Webster and true of Clay. In a rapidly changing America, with\neconomics in a state of flux, men were no longer free political agents,\nguiding themselves by the fixed stars of accepted theory; they were\nborne like corks on the current of the times, and their inconsistency\nis the surest evidence that they spoke for their constituents. The\nNorth and the South were at the parting of the ways, and if southern\nimperialism created for its needs a philosophy of particularism, it\nwas met by a counter philosophy of nationalism created for its needs\nby northern capitalism, which likewise was following the path of its\nmanifest destiny. The charge of innovation, indeed, lies more justly\nagainst northern theory than southern; it was Webster rather than\nCalhoun who ignored the teachings of the fathers.\n\nOf these three streams of tendency it was the new imperialism of the\nBlack Belt that wore the deepest channel, gathering its tributaries\ntill it was swollen to an overwhelming flood that drew in every lesser\ncurrent. Every other interest was eventually sacrificed to slavery,\nevery ambition was laid upon that consuming altar. Southern political\nthought, in consequence, came to be an ingenious study in the strategy\nof defense. From the somewhat vague doctrine of states rights as struck\noff by the Virginia school was elaborated a complete philosophy of\nparticularism with its principle of a protective state veto. Tremendous\nas was the stir created by the doctrine of Nullification, that doctrine\nwas little more than a warning gesture, a militant expression of the\nsouthern temper. The time was not ripe for the critical issue, the\nphilosophy of the new South was not yet clarified; the objective was\nclearly seen, but the defenses were incomplete, the line of campaign\nnot yet laid down. That great work was in the skillful hands of\nCalhoun, and much was yet to be done. The deeper purpose that lay\nbehind the gesture of Nullification was the purpose of erecting in the\nslave states a civilization founded on a landed aristocracy that should\nserve as a sufficient counterweight to the mercantile and industrial\ncivilization of the North; and in the event that the institution of\nslavery were not assured of peaceful extension through the new West,\nto secede and establish a southern Confederacy wherein a generous\ncivilization might develop, modeled after the Greek democracy. Such at\nleast was the dream of the noblest minds of the South.\n\nThrown early upon the defensive, southern political thought found too\nlittle time to examine fundamental principles. The necessities of the\nsituation entailed a meticulous constitutional debate, in which the\nterms of the Constitution were examined with microscopic care, and\ninterpreted in the light of their historical origin. Something of the\nsterility of the lawyer\u2019s mind marked the long debate; and little\nof the suggestiveness of the philosopher\u2019s. Acute as was Calhoun\u2019s\nreasoning, it reveals the weakness of contemporary political thought,\nnorthern as well as southern. It concerned itself too exclusively\nwith government under the Constitution--its origin, the just\ninterpretation of the terms of the fundamental law, the potentialities\nof consolidation inherent in the principle of loose construction. To\nthe broader problems of the nature and functions of the political\nstate--questions that had so deeply interested the speculative minds of\nthe French school--quite inadequate consideration was given. The drift\nof circumstance was in the way of creating a leviathan state. Southern\norators railed at consolidation in abundant and florid language,\nbut they concerned themselves little with the deeper problem of the\nrelation of the political state to the well-being of the citizen.\nThis common weakness is strikingly evident in the work of Calhoun\u2019s\nsuccessor, Alexander H. Stephens, whose interest was so exclusively\nhistorical and constitutional as almost to exclude him from a place\namong political philosophers.\n\n\nII \u2022 John C. Calhoun \u2022 Realist\n\nThe greatest figure in that long controversy was certainly John C.\nCalhoun, a man who set his face like flint against every northern\nmiddle-class ambition, and with his dream of a Greek democracy steered\nhis beloved South upon the rocks. A truly notable figure was this\nascetic Carolinian. In the passionate debates over slavery he daily\nmatched powers with Webster and Clay and proved himself intellectually\nthe greatest of the three. He is the one outstanding political thinker\nin a period singularly barren and uncreative. His influence was\ncommanding. Tall, lean, eager, with no humor, no playfulness, lacking\nthe magnetic personality of Clay and the ornate rhetoric of Webster,\nspeaking plainly and following his logic tenaciously, this gaunt\nScotch-Irishman became by virtue of intellect and character, driven by\nan apostolic zeal, the master political mind of the South, an uncrowned\nking who carried his native Carolina in his pocket like a rotten\nborough. Long before his death he had expanded a political philosophy\ninto a school of thought. What he planned a hundred disciples hastened\nto execute. Like Jefferson he was a pervasive influence in shaping\nmen\u2019s opinions. It was impossible to ignore him or to escape the\nadmonitory finger that pointed at every weak and shuffling compromiser.\n\nWhatever road one travels one comes at last upon the austere figure of\nCalhoun, commanding every highway of the southern mind. He subjected\nthe philosophy of the fathers to critical analysis; pointed out\nwherein he conceived it to be faulty; cast aside some of its most\nsacred doctrines; provided another foundation for the democratic\nfaith which he professed. And when he had finished the great work of\nreconstruction, the old Jeffersonianism that had satisfied the mind of\nVirginia was reduced to a thing of shreds and patches, acknowledged\nby his followers to have been a mistaken philosophy, blinded by\nromantic idealism and led astray by French humanitarianism. To\nsubstitute realism for idealism, to set class economics above abstract\nhumanitarianism, was the mission to which Calhoun devoted himself. He\nundid for the plantation South the work of his old master. Speaking\nin the name of democracy, he attacked the foundations on which the\ndemocratic movement in America had rested, substituting for its\nlibertarian and equalitarian doctrines conceptions wholly alien and\nantagonistic to western democracy, wholly Greek in their underlying\nspirit.\n\nCalhoun\u2019s career was linked indissolubly with slavery. He was the\nadvocate and philosopher of southern imperialism, and in defense of\nthat imperialism he elaborated those particularist theories which\nprepared the way for the movement of secession. Born and bred in\nSouth Carolina, he was enveloped from infancy in the mesh of southern\nprovincialisms. Except for two years at Yale, where he graduated in the\nclass of 1804, and eighteen months reading law in Connecticut, his life\nwas spent between Washington and his plantation. He was in temperament\na Puritan, of that Scotch-Irish strain which, scattered along the\nwide American frontier, greatly modified the American character and\ngave to the South such different leaders as Stonewall Jackson and\nJefferson Davis. It was a hard, stern race--that Scotch-Irish--little\nresponsive to humanitarian appeal; and Calhoun was harder and sterner\nthan most. He held his emotions in strict subjection to his reason.\nIntent on thinking every problem through from premise to conclusion,\nconcerned always with fundamental principles, he would have become,\nin an environment congenial to humanistic thought, a distinguished\nintellectual. His mind would have lost its rigidity and become pliable\nfrom contact with diverse streams of theory, and his speculations would\nhave found new horizons from more generous intellectual acquisitions.\nBut unhappily there was nothing either at Washington or in South\nCarolina that tended to liberalize his thinking. He had not gone to\nschool, as Jefferson had done, to the great thinkers of Europe; he\nhad not found an intellectual stimulus in revolutionary systems of\nphilosophy. He dwelt all his life in the arid world of politicians.\nHis two years at Yale may even be accounted a calamity. Timothy Dwight\nand Calhoun were cut out of the same cloth. The South Carolina Puritan\nwould only be confirmed in his dogmatisms by the most dogmatic of\nYankee Puritans; and in consequence his career, like Jonathan Edwards\u2019,\nsuffered from a narrow, ingrowing intellectualism. He was a potential\nintellectual whose mind was unfertilized by contact with a generous\nsocial culture.\n\nCalhoun\u2019s public life covered the forty years from 1810 to 1850,\nfrom the first administration of Madison to that of Zachary Taylor.\nFor nearly half of the total period, up to the year 1828, he was a\npolitician of ability but without distinction. He entered Congress at a\ntime when the young men from the South and West were becoming impatient\nwith the cautious policy of the old Republicans led by Jefferson and\nMadison. The war psychology was mounting under British pin-pricks,\nand the young nationalists, forgetful that bayonets and cannon and\nships are not easily defeated by rhetoric, were eager to teach the\nMistress of the Seas some much-needed international manners. In those\nearly years Calhoun joined with Clay in driving through Congress a war\npolicy. In this he seems to have represented his constituents, whose\npatriotism was always somewhat bellicose. During the shameful war\nexperience, the cool analytical Calhoun came near to exhibiting the\ntawdry marks of the jingo; and thereafter for years there was little to\ndistinguish him from a Hamiltonian Federalist. He was a throughgoing\nnationalist of the school of loose construction. He advocated a\nprotective tariff on the ground that \u201cit would form a new and most\npowerful cement, far outweighing any political objections that might be\nurged against the system\u201d (Gaillard Hunt, _John C. Calhoun_, p. 29). As\nyet he had discovered no constitutional scruples against the exercise\nof this or other implied powers. He was, he said, \u201cno advocate for\nrefined arguments on the Constitution. The instrument is not intended\nas a thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on. It ought to\nbe construed with plain, good sense; and what can be more express than\nthe Constitution on this point?\u201d (_ibid._, p. 30). As Secretary for War\nin Monroe\u2019s cabinet he was an advocate of internal improvements, and he\nsubmitted to Congress an elaborate report on a proposed system of roads\nand canals. Until the critical year 1828 there was little in Calhoun\u2019s\ncareer to distinguish him from Clay. The tide of national expansion was\nrunning strong; the growth of exploitation was creating a middle-class\npsychology; and Calhoun in these earlier years was as unconsciously\nmiddle class as afterwards he became consciously aristocratic. He\nsprang from an acquisitive race, and to the end of his life some\nremnants of the old instincts clung to him despite his repudiation of\nthe middle-class political philosophy.\n\nThe year 1828, marked by a fierce discussion in South Carolina of\nthe Tariff of Abominations, proved the turning-point of his career.\nAs Vice President he had been little more than a spectator of the\ngrowing discontent in his native state at the contrast between the\nindustrial prosperity of New England and the agricultural depression of\nthe South. But he could no longer remain an idle spectator. Pamphlets\nand newspaper articles were appearing that sharply challenged his\nposition. Capitalistic Federalism and democratic equalitarianism were\nequally under fire. The celebrated Dr. Cooper, an Englishman long\nresident in South Carolina, who had suffered under the Alien and\nSedition law, had vigorously attacked the natural-rights dogma, and was\nactive in arousing the public mind against Calhoun\u2019s consolidationist\ntendencies.[402] The publication in 1821 of Yates\u2019s _Minutes of Debates\nof the Constitutional Convention_ had awakened widespread interest in\nan historical interpretation of the Constitution, and the time was\nripe for a new period of constitutional debate. The tariff act of 1828\nprovided the immediate occasion. It opened the flood gates, and the\nwaters of states-rights doctrine that had long been gathering rushed\nforth in a torrent. Calhoun hesitated no longer. The problem and the\nsolution had both clarified themselves in his mind, and he at once took\nthe lead in directing the unrest to achieve a definite end.\n\nCalhoun\u2019s contribution to political theory--a contribution that\nelevates him to a distinguished place among American political\nthinkers--was the child of necessity, and received its particularist\nbias from the exigencies of sectional partisanship. With the rapid\nexpansion of the nation westward, and the consequent augmenting of a\npotentially hostile free-soil power, the South was doomed to become\nincreasingly a minority voice in the councils of government; and if it\nwere to preserve its peculiar institution it must find more adequate\nmeans of self-protection than it had enjoyed hitherto. The tendencies\nmost to be feared, in his judgment, were the spontaneous drift towards\nconsolidation, and an uncritical faith in numerical majorities.\nHe was convinced that America had too thoughtlessly accepted the\nprinciple of political democracy as a sufficient safeguard against\nthe danger of arbitrary government. Soon or late it must discover,\nwhat the South already was discovering, that numerical democracy,\nunrestrained by constitutional limitations on its will, is no friend\nto political justice. The critical test of every government is the\nmeasure of protection afforded its weakest citizen; and judged by this\ntest a democratic state, when power has come to be centralized in few\nhands, may prove to be no other than a tyrant. Irresponsible in its\nunrestraint, the majority vote may easily outdo an Oriental despot\nin arbitrary rule, and the more power it wields the more ruthless\nwill be its disregard of minority opinion. The political philosopher\nwho proposes to formulate an ideal democratic system of government,\ntherefore, must deal critically with this fundamental problem of\npolitical justice, for upon the solution will turn the excellence and\npermanence of every democracy. It was to this baffling problem that\nCalhoun addressed himself.\n\nIn seeking a constitutional defense for the threatened southern\ninterests, he drew from the two great reservoirs of American\nconstitutional theory. From the Jeffersonian Republicans he derived his\nfamiliar doctrine of states rights in opposition to the consolidating\nprinciple; from the Federalists of the Montesquieu school he drew his\ntheory of static government, resulting from exactly balanced powers;\nand from the amalgamation of these diverse theories he formulated a new\nprinciple. Both schools of earlier thought, he had come to believe, had\nbeen sound in their major premises, but both had gone astray in certain\nimportant deductions. The experience of forty years, with the democracy\nconstantly augmenting its powers, had demonstrated to Calhoun\u2019s\nsatisfaction both the grave danger that lay in the principle of\nconsolidation, and the insufficiency of existing checks on the Federal\ngovernment. The prime mistake of the Jeffersonians, he conceived, was\ntheir belief that the democratic majority will necessarily serve the\ncause of political justice; and the miscalculation of the Federalists\nresulted from the belief that the division of powers provided in the\nConstitution was adequate to prevent arbitrary government. He now\nproposed to correct these two mistakes by providing an additional\ncheck through the simple expedient--as logical as it was efficacious,\ngranted his premises--of recognizing the veto power of the individual\ncommonwealth upon an act of the Federal government. Stripped of its\nstates-rights limitation, this was in germ the principle of the\nreferendum, modified, however, by certain suggestive provisions.\n\nThe veto-power as a protective principle Calhoun regarded as the\nhallmark of constitutional government. Granted that sovereignty\nunder the Constitution inheres in the people, and that all authority\nis delegated, it follows that government is no more than an agent\nwith strictly defined fiduciary powers, all the acts of which are\nsubject to review by the principal. Whether such review shall be\nimmediate and plenary, or at more or less remove and limited,\nbecomes therefore a fundamental question of constitutional polity.\nUnfortunately much confusion has resulted from an intentional\nvagueness, contributed by interested groups to further particular ends,\nin the common understanding of the terms, the people and government.\nThe former is rarely, as is usually assumed, a homogeneous body\nwith common interests, but a congeries of individuals and groups\nand classes with diverse and often antagonistic interests; and the\nlatter--in a republic--is never a sacred entity, the residuary\nlegatee of sovereignty, to criticize which is to commit the crime\nof _l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9_, but a group of officials invested with temporary\nauthority and actuated by motives common to all men. A necessary\npreliminary, therefore, to an intelligent understanding of the\nprinciple of veto is a critical analysis of these much misunderstood\nterms.\n\nCalhoun was far too honest a realist to be under any hallucinations in\nregard to political government. He estimated at its full significance\n\u201cthe never-ending audacity of elected persons.\u201d Power he knew to be the\nmost insidious of poisons; every government is liable to the disease of\nauto-intoxication. Seated securely in office the agent assumes all the\nprerogatives of the principal and clothes his acts with the sanctity\nof sovereignty. Armed with the taxing power, he distributes penalties\nand benefits with partial hand, and unless an adequate defense\nprotects the weaker interests they will suffer a legal exploitation.\nEvery government justly rests under suspicion, and only the most\ncritical scrutiny of its conduct can keep it decently honest. Popular\ngovernment, from which the Republicans hoped too much, changes only\nthe outward form of the selfish struggle for power by substituting\nparty rule for class rule. With its disciplined party machine the\nlure of political spoil encourages the most shameless exploitation of\nthe weaker groups, who have no recourse.[403] Hence, the more popular\nthe government, the more ruthless becomes the majority rule; and any\nsystem of checks and balances that does not adequately restrain this\ninherent tendency of party rule must prove a failure. However carefully\nthe political philosopher may provide for a division of powers among\nexecutive, legislature and judiciary, he must fail of his object, for\na regnant majority will control all three branches of government, and\nthus intrenched will defy the protests of the minority. The Montesquieu\ntheory had proved a failure in practice.\n\nAn even greater danger, in Calhoun\u2019s judgment, lay in the current\nmisinterpretation of the term \u201cthe people,\u201d the result of which was\nthe obscuring of the economic basis of society and the befuddling\nof the whole problem of government. To this disastrous result, he\nbelieved, both schools of political thought had contributed. The early\nRepublicans had oversimplified the political problem by assuming a\nclear division between ruler and subject. The conception was a heritage\nfrom European experience, where it had taken form as a strategic\nmove to align the unthinking mass against a despotic monarchy. The\nJeffersonians had used it to like purpose in their struggle against\nconsolidation, appealing to a common democracy against the aristocracy.\nThe early Federalists were even more blameworthy, for, understanding\nclearly the economic origins of political power and the economic\nends served by the political state, they made their knowledge serve\ntheir interests and concealed their designs by deceptive appeals to\npatriotism. Every realist knows that \u201cthe people\u201d is a political\nfiction. Society is made up of individuals, each with his particular\ninterest. The total interests of the subject-citizens are necessarily\ncomplex. Group and classify them as he may, the political philosopher\ncan never merge the parts in a coalescing whole, but must recognize\nthat the problem remains one of adjustments and compromises. It follows\ntherefore that any facile assumption that government represents the\npeople or rests on the will of the people is a disastrous fallacy.\nPopular government rests on the will of the majority; aristocratic\ngovernment rests on the will of the aristocracy; and despotic\ngovernment rests on the will of the despot. It is an axiom that the\npolitical state is partisan to those who administer it. The stakes of\nrulership are high; the game of politics never lacks its devotees; the\nbusiness of deceiving the people in order to pluck the goose has long\nbeen one of the respectable professions.\n\nThe perennial problem of constitutional government, then, in Calhoun\u2019s\nphilosophy, remains what it was seen to be by the Federalist followers\nof Montesquieu--the problem of restraining government by constitutional\nchecks to the end that it be kept just. Existing machinery having\ndemonstrated its inadequacy, it remained to provide more effective.\nFreedom Calhoun regarded as the crown jewel of civilization, hardly\nwon, easily lost. But freedom was not to be measured by _habeas corpus_\nacts and similar legal restraints on tyranny; it was freedom from legal\nexploitation and statutory dictatorship. \u201cThe abuse of delegated power,\nand the tyranny of the stronger over the weaker interests, are the two\ndangers, and the only two to be guarded against; and if this be done\neffectually, liberty must be eternal. Of the two, the latter is the\ngreater and most difficult to resist\u201d (_Works_, Vol. VI, p. 32). In\nmore definite terms the problem is thus stated:\n\n Two powers are necessary to the existence and preservation of\n free States: a power on the part of the ruled to prevent rulers\n from abusing their authority, by compelling them to be faithful\n to their constituents, and which is effected through the right of\n suffrage; and a power to compel the parts of society to be just to\n one another, by compelling them to consult the interest of each\n other--which can only be effected ... by requiring the concurring\n assent of all the great and distinct interests of the community to\n the measures of the Government. This result is the sum-total of all\n the contrivances adopted by free States to preserve their liberty,\n by preventing the conflicts between the several classes or parts of\n the community. (_Ibid._, Vol. VI, pp. 189-190.)\n\nIn elaboration of the second phase of the problem Calhoun contributed\nthe principle on which his reputation as a political thinker must\nrest--the doctrine of a concurrent majority. He found his solution\nin an expansion of the principle of democracy--recovering the\ntrue principle, he was fond of insisting--by superimposing upon\nthe consolidated, indiscriminate numerical majority the will of\na geographical majority; or in other words, by a special form of\nsectional referendum.\n\n It results, from what has been said, that there are two different\n modes in which the sense of the community may be taken: one,\n simply, by the right of suffrage, unaided; the other, by the\n right through a proper organism. Each collects the sense of the\n majority. But one regards numbers only, and considers the whole\n community one unit, having but one common interest throughout; and\n collects the sense of the greater number of the whole, as that\n of the community. The other, on the contrary, regards interests\n as well as numbers;--considering the community as made up of\n different and conflicting interests as far as the action of the\n government is concerned; and takes the sense of each, through its\n majority or appropriate organ, and the united sense of all, as\n the sense of the entire community. The former of these I call the\n numerical, or absolute majority; and the latter, the concurrent,\n or constitutional majority. (\u201cA Disquisition on Government,\u201d in\n _Works_, Vol. I, p. 28.)\n\nIn such speculation on the possibility of achieving political justice\nby the machinery of representation, Calhoun was face to face with a\nrevolutionary conception--the conception of proportional economic\nrepresentation. The idea was implicit in his assumption of an\nexisting economic sectionalism that must find adequate expression\nthrough political agencies. He had come to understand the futility\nof a miscellaneous numerical majority; he had only to go back to\neighteenth-century philosophy and substitute economic classes for\neconomic sectionalism, finding his social cleavages in economic\ngroups instead of geographical divisions, to have recast the whole\ntheory of representation. Clearly, he had made enormous strides in\nhis thinking. He had long since put behind him the philosophy of\nJefferson. He had subjected the principle of democracy to critical\nscrutiny. But instead of rejecting it as an unworkable hypothesis, as\nthe Hamiltonian Federalists had done, he proposed to establish it on a\nsound and permanent basis. The ideal of democracy he conceived to be\nthe noblest in the whole field of political thought, but misunderstood\nand misapplied as it had been in America, it had become the mother of\nevery mischief. This betrayal of democracy he laid at the door of the\nJeffersonians. They had accepted too carelessly the romantic dogmas\nof the French school, and had come to believe that democracy was\nsynonymous with political equalitarianism.\n\nIt was this false notion that had debased the noble ideal, and\ndelivered it over to the hands of the mob. To assert that men are\ncreated free and equal is to fly in the face of every biological and\nsocial fact. The first business of the true democrat, therefore,\nwas to re\u00ebxamine the nature of democracy and strip away the false\nassumptions and vicious conclusions that had done it incalculable\ninjury. The Greeks, he pointed out, understood its essential nature\nbetter than the moderns. Democracy assumes a co-partnership among\nequals. Its only rational foundation is good will, and it can function\nonly through compromise. From this it follows that in a society\ncomposed of high and low, capable and weak, worthy and unworthy--as\nevery historical society has been composed--a universal democracy is\nimpractical. The numerous body of social incompetents will suffer one\nof two fates: they will be exploited by the capable minority under the\nguise of free labor, or they will be accepted as the wards of society\nand protected by the free citizens--they must inevitably become either\nwage slaves or bond slaves, in either case incapable of maintaining\nthe rights of free members of the commonwealth. Democracy is possible\nonly in a society that recognizes inequality as a law of nature, but in\nwhich the virtuous and capable enter into a voluntary co-partnership\nfor the common good, accepting wardship of the incompetent in the\ninterests of society. This was the Greek ideal and this ideal had\ncreated Greek civilization.\n\nCalhoun was thus brought face to face with the natural-rights theory,\nwhich the glowing rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence had\ndisseminated throughout America, and which lay as a virus at the heart\nof Jacksonianism. To destroy that theory, he believed, was a necessary\npreliminary to any rational theory of democracy, and he turned to the\nbusiness with characteristic frankness. Upon the venerable dogmas he\nthrew the light of his realism, subjecting them to critical analysis.\nThe origin of government in compact was only a myth. The amiable being\nknown as man in a state of nature, whose portrait had been drawn by\nthe French romantics, he discovered in neither social nor biological\nhistory. The true origin of government, he asserted in common with John\nAdams, is to be found in practical necessity; government arises, as\nHobbes had pointed out, from the universal fact of human selfishness.\nIt has always been found necessary to lodge coercive powers in certain\nhands as a social protection against individual aggression; and since\nall men are impelled by self-interest, political systems are determined\nin form and scope by this universal instinct. Without government there\nis anarchy; with government there is potential tyranny. The crucial\nproblem to be solved by the political philosopher, hence, is to\ndetermine the just delimitation between sovereign power and individual\nliberty; the one protecting the rights of the whole, the other keeping\nopen fresh opportunity to advance.\n\nHaving thus established government on the firm basis of social\nnecessity, he proceeded to examine the romantic dogmas of liberty and\nequality.\n\n It follows, from what has been stated, that it is a great and\n dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled\n to liberty. It is a reward to be earned, not a blessing to be\n gratuitously lavished on all alike;--a reward reserved for the\n intelligent, the patriotic, the virtuous and deserving;--and not\n a boon to be bestowed on a people too ignorant, degraded and\n vicious, to be capable either of appreciating or of enjoying\n it. Nor is it any disparagement to liberty, that such is, and\n ought to be the case. On the contrary its greatest praise,--its\n proudest distinction is, that an all-wise Providence has reserved\n it, as the noblest and highest reward for the development of our\n faculties, moral and intellectual. A reward more appropriate than\n liberty could not be conferred on the deserving;--nor a punishment\n inflicted on the undeserving more just, than to be subject to\n lawless and despotic rule. This dispensation seems to be the result\n of some fixed law;--and every effort to disturb or defeat it, by\n attempting to elevate a people in the scale of liberty, above the\n point to which they are entitled to rise, must ever prove abortive,\n and end in disappointment....\n\n There is another error, not less great and dangerous, usually\n associated with the one which has just been considered. I refer\n to the opinion, that liberty and equality are so intimately\n united, that liberty cannot be perfect without perfect equality.\n That they are united to a certain extent,--and that equality of\n citizens, in the eyes of the law, is essential to liberty in a\n popular government, is conceded. But to go further, and make\n equality of _condition_ essential to liberty, would be to destroy\n both liberty and progress. The reason is, that inequality of\n condition, while it is a necessary consequence of liberty, is, at\n the same time, indispensable to progress.... It is, indeed, this\n inequality of condition between the front and rear ranks, in the\n march of progress, which gives so strong an impulse to the former\n to maintain their position, and to the latter to press forward\n into their files. This gives to progress its greatest impulse. To\n force the front rank back to the rear, or attempt to push forward\n the rear into line with the front, by the interposition of the\n government, would put an end to the impulse, and effectually arrest\n the march of progress. (\u201cA Disquisition on Government,\u201d in _Works_,\n Vol. I, pp. 55-56.)\n\nIt was the persuasive ideal of a Greek democracy in the plantation\nstates that lay back of Calhoun\u2019s defense of slavery--a defense that\nthrusts into sharp relief the change of southern attitude in the\ndecade of the thirties. The earlier Jeffersonian attitude had been\nfairly expressed by a Georgia representative in the debate on the\nMissouri question:\n\n Believe me, sir, I am not a panegyrist of slavery. It is an\n unnatural state; a dark cloud which obscures half the lustre of our\n free institutions!... Would it be fair; would it be manly; would\n it be generous; would it be just, to offer contumely and contempt\n to the unfortunate man who wears a cancer in his bosom, because he\n will not submit to cautery at the hazard of his existence? (Quoted\n in Hunt, _John C. Calhoun_, p. 53.)\n\nBut with slavery put upon its defense, the southern spokesmen passed\nfrom apology to praise. From the first, Calhoun accepted the system\nimplicitly, but now he subjected it to critical analysis in the light\nof his theory of a Greek democracy. Over against it he set the northern\nsystem of wage labor, and he came to the conclusion that the latter\nwas more brutal and inhumane than the former. He was convinced that\nheretofore the South had made a serious mistake in apologizing for its\npeculiar institution, and in expecting its eventual extinction. In\nthis matter the fathers had been wrong. No serious-minded Southerner\nany longer believed that slavery was on the way to natural extinction.\nIt was spreading daily and must be permitted to spread. The hopes of\nsouthern civilization were bound up with it. The North must be brought\nto recognize it as a beneficent institution, necessary to a free,\ncultivated democracy, the only alternative to those fierce conflicts\nbetween wage labor and capital which already in the manufacturing\nstates were threatening the permanence of American institutions. In\na speech delivered in 1838, Calhoun thus sketched the new southern\nconception:\n\n Many in the South once believed that it [slavery] was a moral and\n political evil. That folly and delusion are gone. We see it now in\n its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis\n for free institutions in the world. It is impossible with us that\n the conflict can take place between labor and capital, which makes\n it so difficult to establish and maintain free institutions in\n all wealthy and highly civilized nations where such institutions\n as ours do not exist. The Southern States are an aggregate, in\n fact, of communities, not of individuals. Every plantation is a\n little community, with the master at its head, who concentrates\n in himself the united interests of capital and labor, of which he\n is the common representative. These small communities aggregated\n make the State in all, whose action, labor, and capital is equally\n represented and perfectly harmonized. Hence the harmony, the union,\n the stability of that section, which is rarely disturbed, except\n through the action of this Government. The blessing of this state\n of things extends beyond the limits of the South. It makes that\n section the balance of the system; the great conservative power,\n which prevents other portions, less fortunately constituted,\n from rushing into conflict.... Such are the institutions which\n these deluded madmen are stirring heaven and earth to destroy,\n and which we are called on to defend by the highest and most\n solemn obligations that can be imposed on us as men and patriots.\n (\u201cRemarks on the State Rights Resolutions in Regard to Abolition.\n January 12, 1838,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. III, p. 180.)\n\nThus in the end the political philosopher turns partisan to a cause.\nHis fruitful speculations on the theory of representation, his\ninquiry into the economic basis of politics, remained incomplete, the\nlarger reaches only half explored. Espousing the ideal of democracy,\nhe yielded to the seductions of a Greek republic. Beginning as a\nJeffersonian, he ended as the philosopher of a slave aristocracy, from\nwhose principles men like Governor McDuffie of South Carolina deduced\nthe dictum that \u201cthe laboring population of no nation on earth are\nentitled to liberty, or capable of enjoying it.\u201d It was a curious\ndream, yet no more curious than his faith in an obsolete article in\nthe Constitution to withstand the advance of a hostile economy. There\nis something almost tragic in the self-deception of this clear-minded\nrealist in his appeal to a paper defense against economic forces.\n\u201cThe Constitution--no interference--no discrimination,\u201d he cried\npassionately in repudiating the right of Abolition petition. \u201cThese are\nthe grounds on which the battle may be safely fought.... You must tell\nthese deluded fanatics, you have no right to intermeddle in any form or\nshape.... Expediency, justice, plighted faith, and the Constitution:\nthese, and these only, can be relied on to avert conflict\u201d (_Works_,\nVol. III, p. 190).\n\nLost faiths and repudiated prophets go down to a common grave. The\nliving have little inclination to learn from the dead. The political\nprinciples of Calhoun have had scant justice done them by later\ngenerations who incline to accept the easy opinion that the cause which\ntriumphs is altogether the better cause. What Calhoun so greatly feared\nhas since come about. He erected a last barrier against the progress of\nmiddle-class ideals--consolidation in politics and standardization in\nsociety; against a universal cash-register evaluation of life: and the\nbarrier was blown to pieces by the guns of the Civil War. Historically\nhe was the last spokesman of the great school of the eighteenth\ncentury, the intellectual descendant of John Adams. The two men were\nmuch alike in the broad principles of their political philosophy, and\nidentical necessities brought them to identical conclusions. They\nagreed in the fundamental principle that property will rule by reason\nof its inherent power, and that political justice is attainable only by\na nicely calculated system of checks and balances, which provides each\nimportant group with a defensive veto. But in the social experience on\nwhich Adams founded his doctrine, political antagonism was potential\nin rival classes, and justified a division of powers on the model\nof the British constitution. In the intervening years, however, the\neconomic alignment had become sectional, the rise of party government\nhad created a new problem, and the earlier division of powers seemed\nto demand a supplementary veto if the nice balance contemplated in\nthe Constitution were to be maintained. This was the kernel of the\nstates-rights doctrine which Calhoun elaborated with such skill. That\nhe should have associated the principle with a cause that was doomed\nwas disastrous to the just fame of Calhoun. More, it was disastrous to\nthe vital democratic principle of decentralized powers. In championing\na Greek democracy Calhoun affronted the latent idealism of America, and\nthe harm he did to agrarian democracy was incalculable.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Alexander H. Stephens \u2022 Constitutionalist\n\nSouthern scholars are pretty well agreed that the ablest defender\nof the doctrine of secession was Alexander H. Stephens, the Georgia\ncommoner. He was sprung from the plain people. Brought up in severe\npoverty, self-taught, the friend of the poor, he was no child of an\nexclusive planter aristocracy, and was never quite trusted by them.\nThe victim of a slight, ramshackly physique, never weighing a hundred\npounds, never knowing a well day, fearfully handicapped in the everyday\nmatter of living, it is amazing that soul and body held together for\nseventy-one years and more amazing that he accomplished what he did.\n\u201cThroughout life,\u201d says one of his biographers, \u201che was practically\na brain without a body.\u201d Temperamentally despondent, he was driven\ninto restless activity to forget self. His will was fine-tempered\nsteel and ill health never broke his courage even when it laid him on\nhis back. He feared nothing, but took a position and argued a cause\nwithout regard to personal consequences. He never flinched from the\npersonal encounters which the lawless code of Georgia politics invited.\nA morbid consciousness of his feeble physique sometimes drove him\ninto truculence, and on one occasion he was stabbed eighteen times by\na certain ornament of the Georgia bench, and saved his life only by\ngrasping the blade that was driven at his throat. But such encounters\ncan be explained on the ground of overcorrection; the real Stephens was\ngentle, peace-loving, hating all swaggerers military or civilian, \u201ca\nman of generous sympathies, of broad humanity, a democrat of democrats,\na friend of all the world\u201d (Pendleton, _Alexander H. Stephens_,\np. 253). The words _Non sibi sed aliis_, cut in his tombstone at\nCrawfordville, come nearer the truth than epitaphs usually do. He was\nnever selfishly ambitious and he could justly say after the fall of the\nConfederacy, \u201cI am old and weak in bodily infirmity, but I have done\nmy duty to God and my country, and I am ready for whatever fate may be\nassigned me\u201d (_ibid._, p. 393).\n\nStephens was a lifelong student of politics, regarding it as \u201cone\nof the most intricate, as well as interesting subjects that can\nengage the attention of reflecting minds.\u201d He was not a political\nphilosopher like Calhoun, concerned with principle and theory, but a\nconstitutional historian concerned to trace the genesis and development\nof the fundamental law of the land. He was probably more widely read\nin the early literature of the Constitution than any other man of his\ngeneration. He had thumbed and dog-eared Elliot\u2019s _Debates_, and could\ncite dates and explain circumstances for the elucidation of doubtful\npoints or the correcting of an unhistorical interpretation. He knew the\ngenesis of every article, of almost every word in the Constitution, and\nthe reasons which determined the special form which each assumed; and\nthis exact knowledge equipped him for the task of critical commentator\non earlier commentators. Unfortunate was the theorizer who fell into\nhis hands. Federalist expositors like Story and Motley, given to rash\ngeneralization from inadequate data, suffered disaster under his\ncritical inspection. With his fund of historical knowledge he was amply\nprepared for the labor of love to which he turned after the war, and in\nhis _Constitutional View of the War between the States_ he produced\none of the most notable studies in the origin of the Constitution that\nwe have.\n\nCertain deep personal needs, taking form in passionate conviction,\ndetermined the bias of Stephens\u2019 political philosophy, which was\nquite simple, consistent and inflexible, from his first entry into\npublic life until his death. There was no subtlety in his intellectual\nprocesses, no balancing uncertainly between diverse appeals, but\na clear faith which he expounded to the common voter in confident\nexpectation that it would awaken sympathetic response. His extensive\nreading was not so much a disinterested search for light on the\nideal relations of men in society, as for confirmation of certain\nprepossessions. That those prepossessions were shared by his fellow\nGeorgians, that they were the natural product of existing social\nconditions, gave to them an added sanction. The creative source of\nhis philosophy was a passionate love of freedom; and his meditations\nconvinced him that the only freedom worth a tuppence is civil liberty\nunder civil law--that the test of any civilization is the concern it\nmanifests for the safeguarding of such liberty by exact and adequate\nconstitutional provisions. His reverence for law was a religion with\nhim, and his love of the Constitution as the fostering mother of the\nlaw was only this side idolatry. \u201cNo stronger or more ardent Union man\never lived than I was,\u201d he asserted late in life. Intense loyalty was\nalmost commonplace amongst the people from whom he sprang. Love of the\nUnion, and of the Constitution as a guarantee of that Union, was far\nstronger in the South before the Civil War than in the North. But it\nwas the Constitution of the fathers, not a newfangled consolidating\ninstrument that drew all power to Washington, that they loved. Pride\nof locality--na\u00efve though it might be and provincial--the spontaneous\npride of a simple untraveled people--was rooted in the southern\nheart. It was nourished by a deep love of homestead and neighborhood,\nnatural to an agrarian society; and it came to political expression\nin the doctrine that the commonwealth must be free to manage its own\naffairs in its own way. The theory of states rights, amongst such\na people, was not an abstract principle but an expression of the\npsychology of localism created by everyday habit. This explains the\nintensity of conviction which colors the thought of Stephens. The\nprinciple of local sovereignty was inbred. He rarely deigns to argue\nthe question. He never concerned himself with abstract argument--as\nJefferson had done--to prove the superior excellence of local home\nrule. This failure, indeed, may perhaps be accounted his greatest\nweakness as a political thinker. Rather he was concerned to prove that\nstate sovereignty existed prior to the Union, that it was jealously\nguarded at the making of the Constitution, that it had never been\nsurrendered, and hence was the constitutional order until destroyed by\nthe Civil War. But if he refrained from abstract argument touching the\ndesirability of localizing political power, he exhibited a Jeffersonian\nfear of unregulated power which consolidation makes possible.\n\nThis passionate love of freedom he exemplified in his own career. He\nfollowed his convictions and spoke his own mind, regardless of occasion\nor circumstance. He was no man\u2019s tool. He hated a demagogue and never\ncurried favor with his constituents or calculated popular response. In\nhis public life he considered himself a representative of the people\nof Georgia, and the one object of his labors was the preservation of\nthat constitutional liberty in which they had grown up. In furtherance\nof this policy he found himself not infrequently at odds with other\nsouthern leaders. He vigorously opposed his party in its Mexican war\npolicy, looking upon it as no other than imperialistic vandalism aimed\nat a weaker neighbor for the purpose of extending slave territory.\nThere was no glamor for him in military victories; he would not concede\nthat a republic might plead manifest destiny in extenuation of armed\naggression, or that the ends of civilization may be furthered by war.\nIn a speech opposing the policy of his fellow Whigs, he thus expressed\nhis conception of national progress:\n\n I am no enemy to the extension of our domain, or the enlargement\n of the boundaries of the republic. I trust the day is coming,\n and not far distant, when the whole continent will be ours; when\n our institutions shall be diffused and cherished, and republican\n government enjoyed, throughout the length and breadth of this\n land.... That this is our ultimate destiny, if wise counsels\n prevail, I confidently believe. But it is not to be accomplished\n by the sword.... Republics never spread by arms. We can properly\n enlarge only by voluntary accessions....\n\n There is much said in this country of the party of progress. I\n profess to be of that party; but I am far from advocating that kind\n of progress which many of those who seem anxious to appropriate\n the term exclusively to themselves are using their exertions to\n push forward. Theirs, in my opinion, is a downward progress. It\n is a progress of party, of excitement, of lust of power; a spirit\n of war, aggression, violence and licentiousness. It is a progress\n which, if indulged in, would soon sweep over all law, all order,\n and the Constitution itself.... It is to progress in _these_\n essential attributes of national greatness that I would look: the\n improvement of mind, the \u201cincrease and diffusion of knowledge among\n men,\u201d the erection of schools, colleges and temples of learning;\n the progress of intellect over matter; the triumph of mind over the\n animal propensities; the advancement of kind feeling and good will\n among the nations of the earth; the cultivation of virtue and the\n pursuits of industry; the bringing into subjection and subservience\n to the use of man of all the elements of nature around us; in a\n word, the progress of civilization, and everything that elevates\n and ennobles man. This ... is not to be done by wars, whether\n foreign or domestic. Fields of blood and carnage may make men brave\n and heroic, but seldom tend to make nations either virtuous or\n great. (Quoted in Pendleton, _Alexander H. Stephens_, pp. 79-80.)\n\nA man of peace, Stephens was greatly agitated over the movement of\nsecession. He fought the Fire Eaters to the bitter end in his native\nstate, but like other high-minded Southerners he went out with his\ncommonwealth. Loyalty to Georgia was stronger than loyalty to the\nnation. But in the new order he preserved his old principles. The\nJeffersonian democrat could not forget his teachings. When the\nConfederacy was discussing its proposed Constitution, he took alarm\nat some loose talk about the desirability of setting up a monarchy.\nHis old friend Bob Toombs, one of the ablest of the southern leaders,\nquite frankly preferred the English system to the American.[404] There\nseems to have been considerable comment to like effect amongst the Tory\nhot-heads; but the wind was not blowing in that direction and such\nstraws were only the stirrings of vagrant eddies. The Constitution as\nadopted was more democratic than the older instrument--an outcome to\nwhich Stephens contributed greatly.\n\nAs Vice President of the Confederacy he constituted himself the special\nguardian of constitutional liberty, and his jealous concern at what\nhe regarded as administrative usurpations of power brought on grave\ndifferences with President Davis. Even in the urgent crises of war he\nwould not sanction the use of extra-constitutional powers. He knew\nbetter than most that power grows by what it feeds on, that too often\nwar destroys the liberty it professes to be serving. To win the war\nand lose the peace, to secede in defense of constitutional rights and\nthen tamely yield them up, seemed to him a pitiful ending, and when\nPresident Davis suspended the right of _habeas corpus_ and his generals\nproclaimed martial law, he took alarm. \u201cAll such orders,\u201d he said,\n\u201care palpable and dangerous usurpations, and if permitted to continue\nwill end in military despotism.... Better in my judgment that Richmond\nshould fall, and that the enemy\u2019s armies should sweep our whole country\nfrom the Potomac to the Gulf than that our people should submissively\nyield obedience to one of these edicts of our own generals\u201d (Pendleton,\n_Alexander H. Stephens_, p. 292). Freedom of speech he would not have\ninterfered with under any excuse. The suspension of civil law he\nconsidered a threat aimed at every citizen of the South. He had heard,\nhe said, that one purpose of the act was \u201cto control certain elections\nand certain expected assemblages in North Carolina\u201d--where there was a\ngood deal of disaffection--\u201cto put a muzzle upon certain presses, and\na bit in the mouth of certain speakers of that State. If this be so, I\nregard it as the more dangerous to public liberty\u201d (_ibid._, p. 313).\nTo the question, \u201cCan you not trust the President?\u201d he replied in words\nthat deserve to be remembered:\n\n To the question of whether I would not or cannot trust him with\n these high powers not conferred by the Constitution, my answer is:\n I am utterly opposed to everything looking to or tending toward\n dictatorship in this country. There is no man living and not one of\n the illustrious dead, whom, if now living, I would so trust.... I\n would not turn on my heel to choose between masters. I was not born\n to acknowledge a master from either the North or the South. I shall\n never choose between candidates for that office. I have no wish\n or desire to live after the degradation of my country, and have\n no intention to survive its liberties, if life be the necessary\n sacrifice of their maintenance to the utmost of my abilities.\n (_Ibid._, pp. 313-314.)\n\nNo argument of expediency, no appeal to military necessity ever moved\nhim from the belief that the sole justification of government is the\nmaintenance of liberty, and that the sole guarantee of such liberty is\nthe orderly process of civil law. He was harassed by the encroachment\nupon individual freedom demanded by war, north as well as south. \u201cThe\nNorth to-day,\u201d he said, \u201cpresents the spectacle of a free people having\ngone to war to make freemen of slaves, while all they have as yet\nattained is to make slaves of themselves\u201d (_ibid._, p. 293). Perhaps no\nother public man in America kept his head amidst the passions of the\ntime so completely as Stephens. He was utterly beyond reach of jingo\nappeal, and he suffered what the individual must expect to suffer who\npits his single conscience against the mass will. He was branded as a\ntraitor, and only his extraordinary hold on the affections of the plain\npeople of Georgia saved him from the bitterest experience.\n\nDuring the black period following the southern collapse, when he\nwas disfranchised, broken in health past mending, and hated by the\nfollowers of President Davis, Stephens sought distraction in writing\nAmerican history. Three and a half years, from 1867 to 1870, he devoted\nto his _Constitutional View of the Late War between the States_. The\ncase for states rights has never been more convincingly put than in\nthis monumental study. The first volume in particular, which deals\nwith the history of the Constitution, is an acute and able work. The\nthesis on which it rests is the doctrine which Paine and Jefferson\nderived from the French school, namely, that a constitutional compact\nis terminable. Elaborated by Stephens and applied to the case in\nquestion, the doctrine becomes this: that the right of secession is\na civil as well as a revolutionary right; that it is implied in the\ncompact originally entered into by the several states; that any state\nmay rightfully take back what it had peacefully granted, when such\naction shall seem to it desirable. The sovereign commonwealth has\nnever abrogated its sovereignty; the Constitution is a Federal compact\namongst equals; the United States is a federated Union, not an organic\nnation. To conceive of the organic law as a consolidating instrument\nbinding the individual citizen immediately to the central government,\nas Webster and Judge Story had done, was not only unhistorical but\ncontrary to every fact and every tradition. To arrive at the principle\nof consolidation, and hold that the right of secession is only a\nrevolutionary right, one must deliberately shut one\u2019s eyes to the early\nhistory of the Constitution.\n\nNot content to prove the original compact nature of the\nConstitution--an argument that runs through fourteen hundred pages,\nbuttressed by a mass of citations from all sources and wholly\nconvincing in its evidence--Stephens undertakes to prove the wisdom of\nthe fathers in establishing the federal union in compact. In respecting\nexisting loyalties to the several commonwealths, they not only\npreserved the local democracies--which, as a Jeffersonian, Stephens\nbelieved were the foundation of good government--but they established\nthe federal state on a strong and enduring foundation. The Hamiltonian\nconsolidationists had asserted that a strong state must rest on the\nprinciple of coercive sovereignty, that it can he held together only\nthrough the exercise of authority. Stephens replied by laying down the\ncounter principle that the secret of a strong and enduring state is to\nbe discovered in the spontaneous loyalty of its citizens, and that in\nconsequence a democracy which rests on the good will of the people as a\nwhole is the most enduring of all forms.\n\n A Government, to be worth anything, ... must be strong. Its parts\n and members must be held together by force of some sort. This I\n cordially admit. We do not differ as to the force or its extent; we\n differ only as to its nature and character. Should it be a physical\n or moral force? In my judgment, the strongest force that can hold\n the parts or constituent elements of any Government together is the\n affection of the people towards it. (_Constitutional View, etc._,\n Vol. I, p. 526.)\n\nAffection, he reasoned, cannot be coerced. It must spring spontaneously\nfrom the recognition that government is useful, that it is just, that\nit treats all its parts and members equally, that it is an agency\nerected by a free people to serve the ends of freedom. Allegiance is\nan individual compact between the citizen and government. Destroy the\nprinciple of voluntary allegiance, seek to coerce the citizen, impose\nupon minorities the ruthless will of majorities, subjugate individual\ncommonwealths, and the federal Union which Jefferson believed to be\n\u201cthe strongest Government on Earth,\u201d would indeed become what Hamilton\nin his blindness to the secret of power believed that it was--\u201ca frail\nand worthless fabric.\u201d \u201cBut the indissoluble union between the several\nstates of this Confederated Nation is, after all, not in the _right_,\nbut in the _heart_\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 527). So long as the rights of\nall are respected, the common interest and common loyalty will preserve\nthe union. Injustice alone is to be feared, for no political bonds can\nlong resist the action of this most potent of social dissolvents.\n\nModern as Stephens was in the assertion of the principle of good will\nas the source of sovereignty in democratic government, he belonged to\nhis own generation in his blindness to economic motives. He thought\nexclusively in legal and constitutional terms; he remained wholly a\nlawyer. It is hard to understand how one so profoundly read in our\npolitical history should have failed to discover the workings of\neconomic forces beneath the surface of politics. Calhoun, bred in\nthe same Jeffersonian school, had found his way through the mist of\nequalitarianism to the solid realism of an earlier day; but to the last\nof his fourteen hundred pages of exposition Stephens retained the\nillusion that the political state is something apart from economics and\nsuperior to it. He conceived of government as an end in itself, and\nthis lends an air of unreality to his thinking. An ardent Jeffersonian,\nhe reduced the philosophy of his master to the compact theory of\ngovernment. The economic basis of Jefferson\u2019s philosophy, his love of\nan agrarian order and hatred of capitalistic exploitation--motives\nwhich serve to explain and justify his theory of local self\ngovernment--Stephens wholly ignores. The result is a grotesque\nperversion of a philosophy which John Taylor had elaborated clearly.\nJefferson was a much greater political thinker than Stephens conceived,\nalthough he called him the \u201cgreatest philosophical statesman\u201d America\nhas produced. In his estimate of Andrew Jackson he falls into the same\nmistake. He attempts to reduce the confused career of Jackson--half\nmiddle-class in his earlier years and later returning to agrarian\nprinciples--to the same narrow compass of the compact theory. Even\nWebster, for whom he entertained \u201cthe highest esteem and admiration,\u201d\nand in praise of whose moral qualities he is almost fulsome,[405] he\nquite failed to understand. Webster\u2019s theory of the Constitution, he\nclearly demonstrated, was utterly unhistorical; but Webster\u2019s economic\nalliances he ignored. What havoc was wrought in current politics by\nsuffering political theory to obscure economic reality is suggested by\nthe fact that Stephens, a Jeffersonian in every instinct, turned Whig\nand voted for Webster in 1852--after the latter\u2019s death. Politics makes\nstrange bedfellows, yet it must have been an ample bed that could sleep\nthe spokesman of an agrarian economy and the spokesman of capitalism\nside by side.\n\nIn his attitude towards slavery Stephens was a product of his Georgia\nenvironment. His views were ready-made, out of the common southern\nstorehouse. The economic determinism which he ignored in politics had\nits revenge, and the man who often differed with his constituents on\npolitical issues fell victim to the subtle power of economics. As the\nSouth Carolina philosophy took form, issuing finally in the romantic\nconception of a Greek democracy, it imposed itself imperiously on the\nsouthern mind, on the commoner equally with the aristocrat. It was\nimpossible to escape, unless, like Moncure Conway, one were of an\nidealistic temper far different from the common run. For Stephens it\nproved impossible. In this matter of slavery he had no individual\nopinion; his mind was molded by the common psychology and became a\nrepository of the common prejudice. He followed his fire-eating friend\nBob Toombs into the camp of Calhoun, and talked about a Greek democracy\nin true Charleston style. In a speech delivered on March 21, 1861,\nshortly after he was chosen Vice President of the Confederacy, he gave\nexpression to the new philosophy in these words:\n\n The prevailing ideas entertained by ... most of the leading\n statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution\n were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the\n laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally,\n and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal\n with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that,\n somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution\n would be evanescent and pass away.... Those ideas, however,\n were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of\n the equality of races. This was an error. Our new government is\n founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid,\n its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not\n equal to the white man; that slavery--subordination to the superior\n race--is his natural and normal condition ... in conformity with\n the ordinance of the Creator.... Our Confederacy is founded upon\n principles in strict conformity with these [Divine] laws. This\n stone which was rejected by the first builders \u201cis become the\n chief of the corner\u201d--the real \u201ccorner-stone\u201d in our new edifice.\n (Pendleton, _Alexander H. Stephens_, pp. 251-254.)\n\nTo the end of his life Stephens saw no reason to change his opinion\non negro slavery. He regarded it as more humane than wage slavery\nbecause of the patriarchal responsibility devolving upon the master.\nThe institution was not founded, he said, on \u201cthe erroneous dogma of\nthe greatest good to the greatest number,\u201d but on the broader principle\nof securing \u201cthe greatest good possible, morally, intellectually, and\npolitically, to all classes of persons ... without necessary wrong or\ndetriment to any\u201d (_Constitutional View, etc._, Vol. I, pp. 539-542).\nIn his relations with his own slaves he followed the best traditions\nof the South. His kindness won their loyalty and affection. \u201cEf he\nain\u2019t in heaven,\u201d said a house servant after his death, \u201c\u2019tain\u2019t no\nuse for anybody else to try to git dere\u201d (Pendleton, _Alexander H.\nStephens_, p. 100). To the argument of Hinton Helper that the system\nwas economically ruinous to the poor white, he seems to have given no\nconsideration; but to the argument of the Abolitionist that it was\nimmoral, he replied with deep conviction. On that point he would not\nyield an inch. After quoting a miscellany of Biblical texts from the\nearliest Hebraic times down to Paul, he comments na\u00efvely:\n\n To maintain that Slavery is _in itself sinful_, in the face of all\n that is said and written in the Bible upon the subject, with so\n many sanctions of the relation by the Deity himself, does seem to\n me to be little short of blasphemous! It is a direct imputation\n upon the wisdom and justice, as well as the declared ordinances of\n God, as they are written in the inspired oracles, to say nothing of\n their manifestation in the universe around us. (_Ibid._, Vol. II,\n p. 83.)\n\nIt is doubtful wisdom for the layman to meddle with Scripture. Stephens\nwas a sounder interpreter of the writings of the constitutional fathers\nthan of the will of God.\n\nA careful historian devoted to a single idea rather than a creative\npolitical thinker; a thorough democrat of the Jeffersonian school,\nhumanitarian, liberty-loving, courageous; a man who devoted his life\nto the preservation of constitutional liberty as it had taken shape\nbefore the industrial revolution unsettled the basis of modern life,\nAlexander H. Stephens was an honest gentleman who bravely defended\nthe traditions of the South in the face of a new order. He was of\nan earlier generation, instinctively hostile to all consolidation,\nwhich, under the impulse of economic evolution, was obliterating state\nlines, gathering financial power in great reservoirs, and creating a\nnew alignment between labor and capital. With such evolution it was\naxiomatic that political practice should follow economic fact; that\na consolidating wealth should create a consolidated political state.\nGreat enterprises with ramifications in every section would not long\ntolerate a multitude of state sovereignties; sovereignty must be\ncentralized at Washington where it could be guided and controlled.\nThe war only hastened what in the nature of things was inevitable.\nStephens rightly insisted that slavery was only the immediate _casus\nbelli_. The deeper cause was the antagonistic conceptions of the theory\nand functions of the political state that emerged from antagonistic\neconomic systems. That the principle of local self-government should\nhave been committed to the cause of slavery, that it was loaded with\nan incubus certain to alienate the liberalism of the North, may be\naccounted one of the tragedies of American history. It was disastrous\nto American democracy, for it removed the last brake on the movement\nof consolidation, submerging the democratic individualism of the\nSouth in an unwieldy mass will, and surrendering the country to the\nprinciple of capitalistic exploitation. Stephens never seems to have\nrealized this grave mistake in strategy. He never realized that the\nprinciple of democracy, in the cause of which he believed that he was\nfaithful to the end, received a staggering blow from the enlistment of\nnorthern liberalism under the banners of a consolidating nationalism.\nHe remained to the last an unreconstructed Jeffersonian, convinced that\nthe lost cause was the cause of liberal democracy.\n\n\nIV \u2022 Francis Lieber \u2022 A New-Modeled Federalism\n\nTo turn from Calhoun and Stephens to Francis Lieber is to pass from the\nSouth to the North, from an obsolescent political theory to a prophetic\nconception, from the doctrine of states rights to the principle of an\nevolving state that draws all lesser sovereignties into its orbit by\nthe law of attraction. Joseph Story had educed the legal conception\nof the organic nature of the federal union from the terms of the\nConstitution; Francis Lieber provided a philosophical background\nthat justified the same conclusion; and under the combined legal\nand philosophical attack the compact theory found its philosophical\nbreastworks leveled, its natural-rights theory undermined, and its\ncommanding position effectively turned.\n\nThe figure of our first academic political philosopher appears oddly\nout of place in the midst of South Carolina politicians, yet fate\nset the studious German in the thick of the Fire Eaters, to cogitate\na philosophy of freedom in the land of slavery, and to justify the\nspirit of nationalism amongst the advocates of particularism. For\ntwenty-one years he lived quietly in his southern classroom and study,\ndisregarding the passions that buzzed about him, elaborating ideas\nthat in later years came to exercise a determining influence upon\nour academic political thinkers, and publishing ponderous volumes\nthat marked the beginning of the swing away from the natural-rights\nphilosophy and towards the conception of an engrossing political\nstate. Applying German liberalism to American constitutionalism, he\nsucceeded in new-modeling the Federalism of Hamilton and sending it\nforth to meet the needs of an imperializing generation. He agreed\nwith Calhoun in the latter\u2019s attack on French romantic theories; he\nagreed with Webster in the conception of the organic nature of the\nfederal compact; but he went further and elaborated a theory of the\nstate as an historical development that receives its form and spirit\nfrom the impress of social needs. Building on a foundation provided by\nMontesquieu and Burke, guided by Hamilton and Marshall, he set about\nerecting a structure that in the hands of Theodore Woolsey and John W.\nBurgess came to overtop all local and state sovereignties--an imperial\nauthority that, in the words of Burgess, must become \u201cthe organ of\ninterpretation in last instance of the order of life for its subjects\u201d\n(Merriam, _American Political Theories_, p. 299). In that subtle shift\nof vocabulary from citizen to subject appears the final result of the\nspeculations begun by Lieber, which in rejecting the natural-rights\nphilosophy overthrew the defenses erected by the eighteenth century\nagainst an engrossing political state, and set the individual citizen\nat the mercy of a new divine-right sovereignty. \u201cReally the state\ncannot be conceived,\u201d according to Burgess, \u201cwithout sovereignty,\n_i.e._ without unlimited power over its subjects; that is its very\nessence\u201d (Merriam, _American Political Ideas: 1865-1917_, p. 380).\n\nBetween the democratic Stephens and the imperializing Burgess stands\nthe work of Francis Lieber. Born in Germany in the year 1800, son of\na well-to-do Berlin family, Lieber\u2019s youth and young manhood fell in\nstirring times. When only fifteen he served in the Waterloo campaign\nunder Bl\u00fccher, was wounded, stricken with typhus, and nearly lost his\nlife. From those perilous experiences he emerged a pronounced liberal.\nDuring the Metternich reaction he fell under suspicion, served a\nprison term for his political opinions, graduated from the University\nof Jena, and in 1822 went to Greece with a group of young German\nidealists to serve the cause of revolution. Disgusted with the Greek\ncharacter he made his way to Italy, fell in with the historian Niebuhr,\nbecame tutor to the latter\u2019s son for a year, continued his university\nstudies, was a second time imprisoned, and finally in 1826 quitted\na hopelessly reactionary Germany, spent a year in England, and then\nemigrated to America, following the example of Prof. Charles Follen.\nIn Boston he taught gymnastics for a time, edited the _Encyclopedia\nAmericana_, and in 1835 was appointed to the professorship of history\nand political economy in South Carolina College. Here he remained\ntill 1856, teaching, writing, and acquiring academic fame. In 1855\nhe aspired to the presidency of the college, a post then vacant, but\nhis political theories were in disrepute with the legislature, and his\nviews on slavery were under general suspicion. Becoming embroiled with\nthe politicians, he lost the post, resigned his professorship, and went\nto New York City, and in 1857 he was called to the new chair of history\nand political science at Columbia, where he remained till his death in\n1872.\n\nThe two books on which rests his reputation, _Political Ethics_\n(1838-1839) and _Civil Liberty and Self-Government_ (1853), are\nsubstantial volumes quite lacking the genial note that marks his\n_Stranger in America_ (1834), a series of sketchy letters that\namong other things contains an extraordinarily vivid account of his\nexperiences at Waterloo (_Letters VI, VII_). To a casual reader these\nexcursions into the philosophy of politics are as soberly respectable\nas a judge\u2019s wig, as studiously conventional as a professor\u2019s gown.\nHe went about the business of blowing up the accepted Jeffersonian\nphilosophy decently, in the name of the law and under the high sanction\nof liberty. There can be no doubt that this German liberal was a\npassionate lover of liberty, and no doubt of his conviction that\nfreedom is possible only in a society under the reign of law. Like\nHamilton, he had no local ties or state loyalties to circumscribe his\npolitical allegiance. It was natural for him to think in terms of\nnationality. His bitter experience in Germany had laid open to him the\nfatal weakness of petty states, and he was loath to see repeated in\nAmerica the history of warring antagonisms that disrupted the German\npeople. He was a profound admirer of the British constitution, more\nEnglish than German in his conception of liberty.\n\nThe nationalism of Lieber was identical with that of John Adams. It\nwas, in a phrase, government by law. But this government by law was\nboth political and legal. The former, he believed, was admirably\nprovided for by the federal Constitution; the latter was equally\nprovided for by the body of the Common Law; with these twin safeguards,\nhe was convinced, the liberty of the citizen was assured. In his\ninterpretation of the Constitution Lieber added little that was new.\nHe followed the older Federalists back to Montesquieu, and accepted\nthe existing system of constitutional checks as the final word of\npolitical wisdom. In _Civil Liberty and Self-Government_ he glorifies\nthe federal system as the apotheosis of representative republicanism,\nquite unconcerned at its undemocratic features. The sufficiency of\nthe Common Law to all social needs and the implicit sovereignty of\nthe judiciary, he regards as equally axiomatic. \u201cThe law,\u201d he says,\n\u201cmust be the lord and our \u2018earthly god,\u2019 and not a man, a set of men,\nor the multitude\u201d (_Civil Liberty and Self-Government_, p. 208). Yet\nwith the common blindness of the legalist, he proceeds to erect a\nprofession above society, and exalts a group of judges, appointive and\nnot elective, preferably holding office for life, as the embodiment of\nimpartial justice. That it is a presumption contrary to fact seems not\nto have entered his mind. That judicial interpretation implies judicial\nlegislation, and that judicial legislation implies the sovereignty\nof lawyers, are logical deductions of which his philosophy made no\naccount. Unfriendly to a democracy, he was content to yield authority\ninto the hands of the judiciary.\n\nBut if in his exaltation of the Common Law he was as extreme a legalist\nas Hugh Legar\u00e9, in his doctrine of historical evolution he discovered\nthe seeds of freedom in what he calls institutions. By these he means\nthe organic expressions of daily life, or the customs of society which\ntake spontaneous form from its needs. It is no other than the social\nfabric that Tom Paine was fond of contrasting, in its pervasive and\nbeneficent co\u00f6peration, with the repressive tyrannies of the political\nstate. Where liberty reposes thus in the social fabric, Lieber argues,\nthe sovereign power is held in check; and where institutional freedom\nhas not taken root, the political state will run into absolutism.\n\n\u201cLiberty,\u201d he argues, \u201cis a thing that grows, and institutions are its\nvery garden beds. There is no liberty which as a national blessing has\nleaped into existence in full armor like Minerva from the head of Jove.\nLiberty is crescive in its nature. It takes time, and is difficult,\nlike all noble things.... It must be defended, developed, conquered,\nand bled for. It can never be added, like a mere capital on a column;\nit must pervade the whole body\u201d (_Civil Liberty and Self-Government_,\npp. 334-335, third edition). \u201cLiberty stands in need of character,\u201d and\nthis character is received from social institutions. He then proceeds:\n\n ... An institution is a system or body of usages, laws, or\n regulations of extensive and recurring operation, containing within\n itself an organism by which it effects its own independent action,\n continuance, and generally its own farther development. Its object\n is to generate, effect, regulate, or sanction a succession of\n acts, transactions, or productions of a peculiar class or kind.\n The idea of an institution implies a degree of self-government.\n Laws act through human agents, and these are, in the case of\n institutions, their officers or members. (_Ibid._, p. 300.)\n\nIt was the deep-rooted _civisme anglais_, he believed, that had\ndeveloped the orderly liberty of the English race; and it is this same\ninstitutional spirit that provides the surest check upon the augmenting\npower of the political state. There can be no tyranny where society is\ntrained and disciplined in liberty.\n\nThe creative source and origin of this excellent _civisme anglais_\nLieber discovered in the principle of local self-government; in\nthe exercise of local control of local interests; the enjoyment of\ninnumerable lesser sovereignties within the larger national organism.\nThese lesser sovereignties are both civil and social, and the amount\nof liberty enjoyed in a given society is measured by the independent\nvigor with which they function. The exercise of definite rights by the\nseveral states is clearly one of the important institutional functions\nof self-government, but it is only one. The New England town-meeting,\ncounty and city governments, are even more important, while outside\nthese civil organisms are innumerable social organisms, exercising\ntheir common right of establishing by-laws for their own governance,\nand spreading the spirit of liberty through all the practices of\nsociety.\n\n According to the Anglican view, institutional self-government\n consists in the fact that all the elementary parts of the\n government, as well as the highest and most powerful branches,\n consist in real institutions ... [but it] consists, farther,\n in the unstinted freedom and fair protection which are granted\n to institutions of all sorts, commercial, religious, cultural,\n scientific, charitable, and industrial, to germinate and to\n grow--provided they are moral and do not invade the equal rights\n of others. It receives its aliment from a pervading spirit of\n self-reliance and self-respect--the real afflatus of liberty.\n (_Ibid._, p. 320.)\n\nThis, quite evidently, is the spirit of _laissez faire_ applied\nto political philosophy. A people thus used to order their social\naffairs, as the English people have long done, will prove competent\nto manage their political affairs; and the widespread spirit of\nindividual independence will prevent the drift towards unregulated\ncentralism with its corollary of tyrannical power. The conception of\ninstitutional liberty embodies much of the spirit of Jeffersonianism,\nand it goes back in its origins as far as Roger Williams. The\nstates-rights advocates, Lieber implies, were mistaken in seeking\nthe principle of liberty through particularism. In magnifying the\nindividual commonwealth they overlooked the more vital units of\nself-government. To erect the state above the nation was no lasting\nsolution of the most difficult problem in political philosophy, namely,\nthe co\u00f6rdination of sovereign power with individual liberty; it was\nonly to substitute one sovereignty for another, whereas to encourage\nthe spread of self-governing bodies through society was to provide the\nnecessary countercheck to centralizing power and co\u00f6rdinate liberty and\nsovereignty under the reign of law.\n\nA stimulating thinker was this German liberal with his historical\nmethod and his conception of an evolutionary freedom rooted in the\ninstitutions of the English people. He gave a new turn to speculation\non the origin and nature of the political state, the immediate\nconsequence of which was the repudiation of the compact theory and\nnatural-rights philosophy by our academic political scientists. The\norganic conception of the political state fell in with the centralizing\nmovement that followed the Civil War, a movement which the forces of\ninstitutional self-government have been powerless to prevent. On the\nwhole the influence of Lieber has been rather against than for that\nliberty which was so dear to him, and the explanation is to be found\nin the tragic divorce, in his thinking, of politics and economics. His\ninveterate legalism and his failure to investigate the economics of\npolitics proved in the end the undoing of his liberalism.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[402] See Merriam, _American Political Theories_, p. 231; Gaillard\nHunt, _John C. Calhoun_, p. 64.\n\n[403] See \u201cA Disquisition on Government\u201d in Calhoun\u2019s _Works_, Vol. I,\npp. 41-42.\n\n[404] See Pendleton, _Alexander H. Stephens_, p. 231, note.\n\n[405] See _A Constitutional View, etc._, Vol. I, pp. 406-408.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 The Dream of a Greek Democracy\n\n\nI\n\nThe pronounced drift of southern thought, in the years immediately\npreceding the Civil War, towards the ideal of the Greek democracy, has\nbeen too carelessly forgotten by later times. It was no vagrant eddy\nbut a broadening current of tendency. In its blend of romanticism and\nrealism it fitted exactly the temper of the plantation mind, imparting\na fine idealism to shiftless realities and setting a generous goal to\nbe achieved by somewhat inadequate agencies. A humane and cultivated\ndemocracy, set free from the narrow exactions of economics to engage\nin the higher work of civilization, was a conception worthy of the\ngenerous southern mind, a conception that does not suffer by contrast\nwith the northern dream of an exploitative industrialism. That it was\nan impossible dream does not lessen its significance as an expression\nof the best southern aspiration in the days when slavery was on the\ndefensive.\n\nIt is plain enough now that this drift of thought resulted from the\nneed of clarifying the logic of the situation, by bringing into harmony\ntwo seemingly irreconcilable facts, the system of negro slavery and the\nrising spirit of white democracy. The feudal principle, which lurks in\nthe background of all slave systems and which was peculiarly congenial\nto the plantation temper, was confronted on every side by the stubborn\ndemocracy of the yeomanry. A hundred miles beyond Charleston the feudal\nspirit encountered the leveling individualism of the frontier; and this\npassion for equality, that grew fiercer with every remove westward,\nwas a stumbling-block in the way of the planter aristocracy. Caught\nthus between the two forces of a Jeffersonian democracy and a slave\neconomy, southern thought found in the Greek ideal the most natural\ncompromise. Since manual labor was black, a white skin was a guarantee\nagainst serfdom, and the common race prejudice was accounted sufficient\nto draw even the poor whites to the support of slavery. The sharp\ncleavage between the races provided the basis for the conception of\na common white democracy of the master class, every member of which\nshared in the supremacy of the race and was free to enjoy the profits\nof negro exploitation. The enterprising small farmer might rise to\nbe a gentlemanly planter, providing his children with leisure to fit\nthemselves for citizenship in the commonwealth and assist in the great\nwork of creating a southern civilization. The Greek ideal, in short,\nmet the double need of southern economics and southern prejudices, and\nmade its appeal even to the frontier spirit of equalitarianism.\n\nA native growth and rooted deep in southern realities, the new\nconception emerged in response to the changing times. It may be\nconsidered the plantation counterpart of northern industrialism,\nmarking the reaction of the southern mind to the economic revolution\nin western civilization. With their diverse economics, North and South\nwere facing in different directions, and the Greek ideal was as natural\nin Charleston as industrial feudalism was natural in Lowell. Created\nin part as an ingenious measure of defense, it provided an excellent\ncounter offensive against alien critics by turning the light of\ninquiry upon the bases of capitalism and thrusting upon the attention\nof godly Puritans the dependence of culture upon exploitation. The\nnew industrialism was creating a new philosophy of labor, and this\nphilosophy the southern apologists seized upon and turned to their\nspecial ends. They accepted certain of the capitalistic premises,\nbut they interpreted those premises in a spirit of drastic realism,\ndeducing conclusions disconcerting to the apologists of industrialism.\nIn defending the plantation system they attacked the factory system; in\nupholding black slavery they attacked wage slavery; and in this game\nof the pot and the kettle the exploitative root of both systems was\nnakedly exposed.\n\nThe major premise of the new southern philosophy was identical with\nthat of northern capitalism, namely, that every civilization rests\non labor exploitation. However quaintly they might embroider this\nfact with romantic patterns, they saw it clearly and deduced from\nit the conclusion that the North was indulging in a vicious fallacy\nin confusing wage labor with free labor. In every industrialized\nsociety, they pointed out, free labor is an anachronism; where it\nexists it is a hold-over from a simpler social order. The development\nof industrialism tends to draw all labor into its capacious maw, and\nthe labor surplus that results from evicting the peasant from the\nland creates a competitive labor market that speedily reduces the\nlaborer to the status of a wage-slave. Since slavery, then, in some\nform is the inevitable counterpart of modern civilization, the question\nthat presses on the conscience of every enlightened and generous\nobserver is the question of the relative well-being of the slave under\nthe different systems. Upon this question the southern apologists\nturned their shrewdest analysis. They examined the condition of the\nproletariat in the English mill towns; they commented on the callous\nexploitation of the textile workers in Massachusetts; they assessed the\nwaste in the labor turnover under the factory system; they considered\nthe seeds of class war sown by industrialism and pointed out the\ninsecurity of society under a system of capitalistic irresponsibility.\nIn their estimate of the social evils of industrialism they concurred\nin the findings of Carlyle and antedated much of the criticism of\nRuskin. The huge mass of unpalatable fact which they uncovered was the\nsame mass that inspired George Ripley and Albert Brisbane and Horace\nGreeley to seek a way out by the path of co\u00f6perative commonwealths.\n\nBut in the hands of these apologists the argument was turned to the\nnarrower end of proving that the southern field-hand fared better than\nthe northern mill-hand. They recognized both systems as capitalistic,\nestablished in labor exploitation; but they proved to their own\nsatisfaction that the southern was far humaner, more truly social. In\nthe South, they pointed out, there was no waste in the labor turnover,\nno ugly labor scrap-heap, no ruthless efficiency in using up the human\nmaterial. The master was responsible to society for the treatment and\nconduct of his slaves, and the southern conscience was far tenderer\nin the matter than the northern. The workers were never troubled by\nuncertain means of subsistence. The young were free from care, the\nold and infirm were adequately provided for. Living conditions were\ncommonly pleasant, and the personal relations between master and\nslave kindly and loyal. When every argument against slavery had been\nurged it still remained true that the patriarchal tie that existed\non the plantation was more humane than the cash-nexus of capitalism.\nIn this fundamental matter Carlyle was right; and right also in his\ninsistence on the need of capable masters. The South was fortunate in\nits system. On the self-sufficient plantations there was many an Abbot\nSampson directing his little world wisely and humanely; collectively\nthese Abbot Sampsons formed a capable and socially responsible ruling\nclass worthy of their trust. The economic returns of a wage-slave\nindustrialism might be greater, but the returns in civilization were\nfar less.[406]\n\nSuch, in brief, was the reaction of the southern mind in the early\nfifties to the challenge of an industrializing generation. It was not\ntill the publication of _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_ in 1851 that southern\napologists were fully aroused to the need of counter propaganda. They\nhad been moving slowly towards the conception of a Greek democracy\nunder the leadership of Calhoun, but now under the sharp prod of\nAbolitionism they turned militant. Facts were collected and arguments\nclarified, and the war was carried home to New England. In three\nyears following _Uncle Tom_, according to a recent student, fourteen\npro-slavery novels appeared together with other matter.[407] Much of\nthe material made use of in these stories was conveniently assembled\nin a work entitled _Pro-Slavery Argument_, published in 1852, a\ncollaboration by Professor Dew of William and Mary College, Chancellor\nHarper of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, Governor Hammond of\nSouth Carolina, and Gilmore Simms. The first reviewed the Scriptural\nauthority for slavery; Chancellor Harper drew from Hobbes the familiar\nargument that \u201ca state of nature is a state of war\u201d; Simms elaborated\nthe patriarchal theory; but Governor Hammond developed the more\nsignificant argument of the degradation of the wage-slave, an argument\nelaborated at considerable length in another work entitled _Letters\non Slavery_, in which he presented the results of his investigation\nof English factory conditions. The novels that Miss Tandy comments\nupon have been pretty much forgotten, but the titles of some of them\nsufficiently reveal the lines of attack. L. B. Chase\u2019s _English Serfdom\nand American Slavery_ (1854), J. W. Page\u2019s _Uncle Robin in His Cabin\nin Virginia and Tom without One in Boston_ (1855), and S. H. Elliott\u2019s\n_New England Chattels_ (1858) quite evidently reflect the new southern\nphilosophy. If the South were attacked, it was not without weapons to\ndefend itself.\n\n\nII \u2022 William J. Grayson\n\nOf this very considerable literature of defense, _The Hireling and\nthe Slave_ presents in convenient compass the most telling southern\narguments, and reveals in its sharp contrast of realism and romanticism\nthe common southern temper. Its author, William J. Grayson, was a\ncultivated South Carolinian who had served two terms in Congress and\nfor years was collector of the Port of Charleston. He was widely\nread, was familiar with contemporary English writers on economics,\nand possessed a fluent pen. He had published \u201can elaborate heroic\npoem entitled _The Country_,\u201d in which he had sung \u201cthe praises of\nrural life and agricultural pursuits\u201d (Introduction to Grayson\u2019s\n_Life of James L. Petigru_), and a volume entitled _Chicora and other\nPoems_, the title work of which was a romantic poem celebrating the\nprimitive virtues of the Indian. Politically he was affiliated with\nthe anti-Calhoun party of Unionists. His closest friend was James L.\nPetigru, a sketch of whose life he wrote as a last labor of love,\nduring the unhappy days of the Charleston siege. He did not go so far\nas Petigru in refusing to have any part in a war that he opposed, but\nthe tragedy of it cut him to the quick. He was no Fire Eater, but a\nsouthern moderate--a gentleman of old-fashioned tastes whose views\nmay be taken as those of the cultivated Charleston group to which he\nbelonged, of Petigru, of Legar\u00e9, of Alfred Huger.\n\n_The Hireling and the Slave_, published in 1856 when Grayson was\nsixty-eight and dedicated to Petigru, is a poem in heroic couplets of\napproximately 1600 lines, divided into two parts. The first part draws\na realistic picture of the life of the wage-slave, the second paints an\nidyllic picture of the life of the bond-slave. In this second part the\nspirit of romance holds high carnival; the descriptions are done with\ngusto and the rural pleasures that fall to the lot of the negro provide\na striking contrast to the mean environment of the factory worker.\nAbout this contrast are grouped the lesser arguments: the hypocrisy of\nthe Yankee Abolitionist, the sentimentalism of English humanitarians,\nthe wisdom of providence in providing masters to protect the negro from\ndestruction by a superior race and train him through apprenticeship\nin slavery to carry the blessings of civilization to Africa. The\nheroic couplet was deliberately adopted to offer \u201csome variety to\nthe poetic forms that are almost universally prevalent.\u201d \u201cThe poetry\nof the day is, for the most part,\u201d Grayson remarked, \u201csubtile and\ntranscendental in its character\u201d; yet \u201cthe school of Dryden and Pope is\nnot entirely forgotten,\u201d and \u201cthe most fastidious appetite may tolerate\nan occasional change of diet, and exchange dainties now and then for\nplainer fare\u201d (_The Hireling and the Slave_, Preface, pp. xiv-xv). The\npoem seems to have been popular in the South, and a southern reviewer\ndeclared that \u201cit ought to be on every man\u2019s mantel\u201d (_Life of James L.\nPetigru_, p. vii).\n\nIn the preface Grayson discusses the subject of slavery with a\ncandor somewhat unusual, acknowledging its evils, yet discovering\ncompensations. As an expression of intelligent southern opinion on a\nquestion in which the passions of the country were becoming deeply\nengaged, his views deserve quotation. Slavery, he says,\n\n ... is that system of labor which exchanges subsistence for work,\n which secures a life-maintenance from the master to the slave, and\n gives a life-labor from the slave to the master. The slave is an\n apprentice for life, and owes his labor to his master; the master\n owes support, during life, to the slave. Slavery is the Negro\n system of work. He is lazy and improvident. Slavery makes all work,\n and it insures homes, food, and clothing for all. It permits no\n idleness, and it provides for sickness, infancy, and old age. It\n allows no tramping or skulking, and it knows no pauperism.\n\n This is the whole system substantially. All cruelty is an abuse;\n does not belong to the institution; is now punished, and may be in\n time prevented. The abuses of slavery are as open to all reforming\n influences as those of any civil, social, or political condition.\n The improvement in the treatment of the slave is as marked as in\n that of any other laboring class in the world.... If slavery is\n subject to abuses, it has its advantages also. It establishes\n more permanent, and, therefore, kinder relations between capital\n and labor. It removes what Stuart Mill calls \u2018the widening and\n imbittering feud between the class of labor and the class of\n capital.\u2019 It draws the relation closer between master and servant.\n It is not an engagement for days or weeks, but for life. There\n is no such thing with slavery as a laborer for whom nobody cares\n or provides. The most wretched feature in hireling labor is the\n isolated, miserable creature who has no home, no food, and in whom\n no one is particularly interested. _This is seen among hirelings\n only._ (_Ibid._, Preface, pp. vii-viii.)\n\nThe principle on which Grayson bases his argument is the principle that\ncivilization rests on labor exploitation, but as a good churchman he\nattributes the evil to God and discovers the children of Adam to be\nsuffering from the primeval curse--\u201cSlave, hireling, help--the curse\npursues him still.\u201d More specifically the thesis which he defends\nis this, \u201cThe state of the hireling and the slave [is] the same\nsubstantially--the condition hard labor, the reward subsistence;\u201d and\nthe conclusion which he draws is that the slave obtains a larger return\nfor his labor than the factory hand. The picture he paints of the\ncondition of the wage slave of England is Hogarthian in its details:\n\n There, unconcerned, the philanthropic eye\n Beholds each phase of human misery;\n Sees the worn child compelled in mines to slave\n Through narrow seams of coal, a living grave,\n Driven from the breezy hill, the sunny glade,\n By ruthless hearts, the drudge of labor made,\n Unknown the boyish sport, the hours of play,\n Stripped of the common boon, the light of day,\n Harnessed like brutes, like brutes to tug, and strain,\n And drag, on hands and knees, the loaded wain:\n There crammed in huts, in reeking masses thrown,\n All moral sense and decency unknown,\n With no restraint but what the felon knows,\n With the sole joy that beer or gin bestows,\n To gross excess and brutalizing strife,\n The drunken hireling dedicates his life:\n Starved else, by infamy\u2019s sad wages fed,\n There women prostitute themselves for bread,\n And mothers, rioting with savage glee,\n For murder\u2019d infants spend the funeral fee;\n Childhood bestows no childish sports or toys,\n Age neither reverence nor repose enjoys,\n Labor with hunger wages ceaseless strife,\n And want and suffering only end with life;\n In crowded huts contagious ills prevail,\n Dull typhus lurks, and deadlier plagues assail,\n Gaunt Famine prowls around his pauper prey,\n And daily sweeps his ghastly hosts away;\n Unburied corses taint the summer air,\n And crime and outrage revel with despair.\n\n (_Ibid._, pp. 24-25.)\n\nGrayson does not stint his facts but traces the wretchedness of the\nwage-slave through all the phases of his misery to provide a background\nfor the happier lot of the bond-slave. It is an unlovely picture, done\nwith considerable vigor, from which one turns gladly to contemplate\nlife on the southern plantation.\n\n And yet the life, so unassailed by care,\n So blessed with moderate work, with ample fare,\n With all the good the starving pauper needs,\n The happier slave on each plantation leads;\n Safe from harassing doubts and annual fears,\n He dreads no famine in unfruitful years;\n If harvests fail from inauspicious skies,\n The master\u2019s providence his food supplies;\n No paupers perish here for want of bread,\n Or lingering live, by foreign bounty fed;\n No exiled trains of homeless peasants go,\n In distant climes, to tell their tales of woe:\n Far other fortune, free from care and strife,\n For work, or bread, attends the Negro\u2019s life,\n And Christian slaves may challenge as their own,\n The blessings claimed in fabled states alone--\n The cabin home, not comfortless, though rude,\n Light daily labor, and abundant food,\n The sturdy health that temperate habits yield,\n The cheerful song that rings in every field,\n The long, loud laugh, that freemen seldom share,\n Heaven\u2019s boon to bosoms unapproached by care,\n And boisterous jest and humor unrefined,\n That leave, though rough, no painful sting behind;\n While, nestling near, to bless their humble lot,\n Warm social joys surround the Negro\u2019s cot,\n The evening dance its merriment imparts,\n Love, with its rapture, fills their youthful hearts,\n And placid age, the task of labor done,\n Enjoys the summer shade, the winter sun,\n And, as through life no pauper want he knows,\n Laments no poor-house penance at its close.\n\n (_Ibid._, pp. 50-51.)\n\nConvinced of the righteousness and humanity of slavery Grayson turns\nwith scorn upon the Abolitionists and their meddlesome interference\nwith the beneficent ways of Providence. With a few dexterous turns\nof the spit he browns each one nicely like a roasted goose. His\ndescriptions strip off the gay plumage and reveal the naked fowl. He\nmakes a good job of it, as witness these bits:\n\n There supple Sumner, with the Negro cause,\n Plays the sly game for office and applause;\n What boots it if the Negro sink or swim?\n He wins the Senate--\u2019tis enough for him....\n He heeds nor court\u2019s decree nor Gospel light,\n What Sumner thinks is right alone is right....\n\n There Greeley, grieving at a brother\u2019s woe,\n Spits with impartial spite on friend and foe....\n To each fanatical delusion prone,\n He damns all creeds and parties but his own,\n Brawls, with hot zeal, for every fool and knave,\n The foreign felon and the skulking slave; ...\n And faction\u2019s fiercest rabble always find\n A kindred nature in the Tribune\u2019s mind;\n Ready each furious impulse to obey,\n He raves and ravens like a beast of prey....\n\n There Seward smiles the sweet perennial smile,\n Skilled in the tricks of subtlety and guile;\n The slyest schemer that the world e\u2019er saw;\n Peddler of sentiment and patent law;\n Ready for fee or faction to display\n His skill in either, if the practice pay....\n\n (_Ibid._, pp. 38-40.)\n\nAs he contemplates Mrs. Stowe his full wrath is stirred. He does not\nspare her sex. Southern chivalry serves the pure and good in lovely\nwoman, not the malignant and selfish. An unsexed woman is hateful to\nit, and after extolling the true womanliness of Florence Nightingale,\nangel of mercy, Grayson pays his compliments to the Yankee propagandist\nthus:\n\n Not such with Stowe, the wish or power to please,\n She finds no joy in gentle deeds like these;\n A moral scavenger, with greedy eye,\n In social ills her coarser labors lie;\n On fields where vice eludes the light of day,\n She hunts up crimes as beagles hunt their prey;\n Gleans every dirty nook--the felon\u2019s jail,\n And hangman\u2019s mem\u2019ry, for detraction\u2019s tale,\n Snuffs up pollution with a pious air,\n Collects a rumor here, a slander there;\n With hatred\u2019s ardor gathers Newgate spoils,\n And trades for gold the garbage of her toils.\n\n In sink and sewer thus, with searching eye,\n Through mud and slime unhappy wretches pry;\n In fetid puddles dabble with delight,\n Search every filthy gathering of the night;\n Fish from its depths, and to the spacious bag\n Convey with care the black, polluted rag;\n With reeking waifs secure the nightly bed,\n And turn their noisome stores to daily bread.\n\n (_Ibid._, pp. 42-43.)\n\n_The Hireling and the Slave_, is vigorous propaganda, carefully\ndocumented and pointed with modern instances, the work of an\nintelligent and humane writer who might be blind to certain evils in\nslavery but whose eyes were open to the social ills that grew rankly\nin the muck of industrialism. Outside of the South few in America had\nas yet come to understand so much--a handful of New England idealists,\nParker and William Henry Channing and Emerson and Wendell Phillips,\nand Orestes Brownson, and a handful of Utopians, Albert Brisbane and\nGeorge Ripley and Horace Greeley. The inadequacy of southern thought\nwas identical with that of northern: blinded by sectional economic\ninterests, they saw only half the truth. They beheld the mote in a\nbrother\u2019s eye, but considered not the beam that was in their own.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[406] The same argument was made use of by northern supporters of\nslavery. Gordon Bennett\u2019s _New York Herald_, for example, \u201cprinted a\ndescription of slum life in Liverpool, remarking that compared with the\nEnglish laborer, \u2018the slave lived like a prince.\u2019 He had his cabin,\nneat, clean, and weather-proof: he had his own garden patch, over which\nhe was lord paramount; he was well fed, well lodged, well clothed, and\nrarely over-worked; sleek, happy, contented, enjoying his many holidays\nwith gusto, he lived to a great age\u201d (quoted in Allan Nevins, _The\nEvening Post: A Century of Journalism_, p. 271).\n\n[407] See Jeannette Reid Tandy, \u201cPro-Slavery Propaganda in American\nFiction in the Fifties,\u201d _South Atlantic Quarterly_, January-March,\n1922. See also Francis Pendleton Gaines, _The Southern Plantation_,\nChapter III.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 Adventures in Belles Lettres\n\n\nI \u2022 Old Charleston\n\nIn the year 1825 the little city of Charleston, with its fourteen\nthousand whites and more than fourteen thousand blacks, was perhaps the\nmost delightful spot in America. The Mecca of plantation fashion and\nthe capital of plantation politics, it prided itself on its genial and\ndistinguished society. It was the last stronghold in America of the\nolder pride of aristocracy. The tone of society still remained pretty\nmuch what it had been before the schism of \u201976. Social lines were rigid\nand an old-fashioned conservatism of temper marked the upper class.\nDespite the large admixture of French Huguenot blood the manners and\nprejudices of the aristocracy retained the pronounced British cast\nthat came down from pre-Revolutionary times, and if Dr. Johnson could\nhave stepped from the Fleet Street of 1780 to the Charleston of 1825\nhe would have felt almost at home. \u201cWe are decidedly more English than\nany other city of the United States,\u201d said Hugh Legar\u00e9, whose love of\nthe English character was second only to his love of Charleston. It was\na gay world with its country squires and their horses and racing, its\nMadeira drinking, its promenades and dancing and assemblies; one to win\nthe affection of all who liked lighthearted ways.\n\nBut underneath this gay life was a more serious Charleston, which in\ncertain of its aspects was not unlike Boston. From both the Huguenot\nand Scotch-Irish strains came a sobering Puritanism that gave a serious\ncast to thoughtful natures and disciplined them in a strict morality.\nCalhoun was far more Puritan than Fisher Ames, and Hugh Legar\u00e9 than\nEdward Everett. Life was likely to be a serious business to these\nsouthern Puritans, filled with weighty responsibilities, to be lived,\nlike Milton\u2019s, as ever in the great Taskmaster\u2019s eye. Aristocrat though\nhe was, young Hugh Legar\u00e9 was no gay cavalier treading the primrose\npath, but as serious-minded as any Roundhead. Victorian in manners, he\nwould have found the bluff speech of the old revolutionary, General\nCharles Cotesworth Pinckney--\u201cmore pregnant with meaning than prudish\nin dress\u201d--somewhat too \u201csalt\u201d for refined ears. It was this note of\nPuritanism that marked the finest characters in Charleston and gave its\ntone to society; but it was a Puritanism of conduct rather than dogma.\nCharleston gentlemen were of the English church, and their Puritanism,\nunwarped by Calvinism, assumed a moral rather than a theological cast.\n\nThe lawyer came to assume the position of intellectual leadership\ntaken by the minister in New England. A profound respect for law\ndominated the Charleston mind. Blackstone was the Charleston Bible,\nand the lawyer who was master of dignified oratory was looked upon\nwith high regard. The aristocracy opened its doors to young James\nLouis Petigru, an Irish-Huguenot lawyer with his own way to make, but\nit closed them tightly against young Gilmore Simms, apprentice to an\napothecary and unread in the classics. Ambitious youths therefore\nturned to the law as a congenial career, for there reputations lay,\nand political influence. A pronounced cult of the law, and regard for\norderly procedure, went hand in hand with the old English respect for\nindividual rights. Charleston gentlemen could not be coerced, even by\ntheir own politicians, and Legar\u00e9 was bitter against the Nullifiers\nbecause the spirit of dictation was \u201calien to our old habitudes, to the\ngentle courage, the courteous hostility, the mild and merciful justice,\nthe proud submission to _law_ and respect for right, which once\ndistinguished our low country society from and above all other American\nsociety\u201d (_Writings_, Vol. I, p. 211).\n\nPolitically Charleston was of the old Federalist tradition, as that\nFederalism was embodied in the picturesque figure of General Pinckney.\nOutside the narrow circle of the aristocracy, Federalism had long since\ngiven way to a democratic faith with its background of states-rights\nJeffersonianism; but it lingered amongst the gentry and provided the\nnucleus of the later Union party. Grayson tells a story of Petigru\nthat suggests the bitterness of the back-country democracy towards the\nold Federalism. The latter one day was being abused by a swamp-sucker\n\u201cwho lavished on him all the foul epithets and appellations he could\nremember or invent, of which rogue and scoundrel were among the most\nmoderate.\u201d At last he hit upon a term of reproach \u201cwhich at that day\ncomprised everything hateful--he called him a \u2018damned Federal,\u2019\u201d and\nwas promptly knocked down for the insult (William J. Grayson, _James\nLouis Petigru_, pp. 83-84). But the Charleston vintage of Federalism\nwas little more than a stout conservatism that idealized the Union\nand preached the sufficiency and sacredness of the law. It was social\nrather than political or economic--the assertion of the prescriptive\nright of gentlemen to govern the state. Jeffersonianism never took\npossession of the first circles of Charleston as it did in Virginia,\nand French revolutionary philosophy found there an uncongenial soil.\nThe profound conservatism of the aristocracy is sufficiently expressed\nin a comment of Hugh Legar\u00e9--\u201cThe politics of the immortal Jefferson!\nPish!\u201d (_Writings_, Vol. I, p. 207.) Physiocratic agrarianism found\nfew advocates amongst Carolina gentlemen. The Charleston mind was\npolitical and legal rather than economic in its interests, and as a\ncommercial port Charleston was more sympathetic with capitalism than\nwith agrarianism. Its politics, in which it found much diversion, it\npreferred highly seasoned, and when Nullification divided the state\ninto hostile camps, the Nullifiers and Unionists brought Charleston\nto the verge of civil war. Respect for law and the amenities vanished\nbefore the hot demands of partisanship.\n\nThe culture of Charleston was as conservatively old-fashioned as\nits politics. Such a renaissance as it enjoyed before the Civil War\nwrought its destruction was delayed by its rejection of French romantic\nthought until the beginning of the thirties, and synchronized with the\nrenaissance of New England. When the romantic spirit appeared about\n1825, it was primarily English, of the school of Tom Moore. There had\nnever been any literature in Charleston worthy of the name, except\nsuch as had come from London, bound in calfskin and tooled morocco.\nThose who affected a love of letters were still enamored of the heroic\ncouplet and the Addisonian essay. Not until he went to Brussels in\n1832 did Legar\u00e9, the most brilliant southern linguist, take up the\nstudy of German. The classics still dominated education, and literary\ntaste inclined to a mingling of wit and sentiment. Young and Ossian\nand Mrs. Radcliffe held honored places on Charleston bookshelves. The\nyoung poets were deep in Byron, and Sir Walter was in high repute.\nBut Wordsworth and Shelley and Keats were scarcely mentioned, and\nCarlyle could not hope to gain a hearing. Nevertheless by the year\n1828 the example of the _North American Review_ proved so stimulating\nan incentive that the scholarship of Charleston collaborated to\nestablish the _Southern Review_, which ran a sober course for four\nyears, providing a medium for learned articles on law, letters and\npolitics. It was a serious venture that concerned itself little with\n_belles lettres_, but the intellectual resources were inadequate, and\non Legar\u00e9\u2019s departure for Europe _The Review_ came to an end. Later,\nGilmore Simms labored to the same purpose, but even his enormous\nenergy was insufficient to sustain a magazine esteemed worthy of\nsouthern genius, and the work languished. Facile writers were fewer in\nCharleston than in Boston.\n\nBut despite any shortcomings in the way of letters, to members of its\npolite circles Charleston was the most delightful of American cities,\nand its society the most distinguished. \u201cI have never, since I could\nform an opinion on such matters,\u201d wrote Legar\u00e9 from Brussels, where\nhe mingled with the most cultivated society, \u201cdoubted of the immense\nsuperiority of Carolina society over all others on that continent, and\nnow feel it more than ever\u201d (_Writings_, Vol. I, p. 218). It was a\ncommon opinion of southern gentlemen, who, with their English notions\nof a landed aristocracy, believed that \u201cfixed landed property is of\nthe essence of civil society, properly so called.\u201d It embodied the\nplanter ideal of a social capital, uncorrupted by a vulgar plutocracy.\nIts highways ran out to the plantations; the free citizen of the Greek\ndemocracy drew his wealth from the soil; the slave labored while the\nmaster rode to and fro from the city. Law and politics were regarded\nas respectable vocations for sons of gentlemen, but the ideal life was\nacknowledged to be that of the planter, with his three thousand acres,\nhis three hundred negroes, his ricks of rice and bales of tobacco and\ncotton. The profits that came from the law were certain to be invested\nin land, and the young attorney dreamed of retiring in middle life to a\nwell-stocked plantation. To become a member of the ruling squirearchy\nwas an ambition that filled and satisfied the Charleston imagination.\n\n\nII \u2022 William Crafts \u2022 Charleston Wit\n\nThe slightness of literary achievement in the Charleston of 1825 is\nsufficiently attested by the considerable local fame that rewarded the\nefforts of the volatile William Crafts. Born in Charleston in 1789,\nthe son of a well-to-do Yankee father and a southern mother, he was\nsent to Harvard to complete his education, distinguished himself in the\nclassics and in declamation, achieved a gownsman\u2019s fame for the brisk\ninformality of a Latin oration, and carried back to Charleston a great\nreputation as a wit and scholar. He went into the law but burnt too few\ncandles at the shrine of Blackstone; was seized with political ambition\nand proposed to make a great name for himself as a statesman, but his\npolitics were not agreeable to his constituents and his career failed\nto arrive. He was a graceful orator in the florid southern style, an\nagreeable fellow with a pleasant wit, who loved society, dabbled in\nprose and verse, but proved to be unstable. He spread too much canvas\nto the uncertain winds and his unballasted bark came to grief. He died\nat the age of thirty-seven, leaving his writings to be gathered up and\npublished by his family--a miscellany that brought down upon it the\nsevere judgment of Hugh Legar\u00e9.\n\nWilliam Crafts was a transplanted Bostonian who essayed to domesticate\nHarvard culture among the polite circles of Charleston. As an\nundergraduate he admired the graceful preaching of Buckminster and the\nacrid eloquence of Fisher Ames. The latter he seems to have adopted as\nhis political godfather, and from him he accepted a decadent Federalism\nthat got him into trouble when later he entered politics. But the chief\nmodel on whom he shaped his life seems to have been Robert Treat Paine,\nin the declining sun of whose fame the young Harvard undergraduate\nwarmed himself. With a less pregnant wit, a less trenchant prose style,\na less masculine oratory, he succeeded in becoming a smaller edition of\na petty master. The parallelism in the lives of the two apostles of wit\nis striking. They were both dabblers, but Crafts possessed less skill\nand dabbled less felicitously. They both broke with the rigid decorum\nof their circles, but Paine achieved a more tragic shipwreck. They both\nmarked the last ebbing of the eighteenth century before the wit ideal\nwas submerged by the incoming tide of romanticism, and the reputations\nof both have been forgotten.\n\nIn Crafts\u2019 case, certainly, no injustice has been done. Such literary\nwealth as he displayed would seem notable only in an indigent society.\nHis prose is vapid and feeble in the essay, and stilted and artificial\nin the oration. His verse is insignificant in quantity--two formal\npoems and a handful of occasional pieces--and wanting in distinction\nof phrase or imagery. It is the work of a graceful imitator of doubtful\nmodels. He wrote at the moment when the long supremacy of Pope was\nyielding to the popularity of Moore, and his verse wavered between\nthe old loyalty and the new love. _Sullivan\u2019s Island_, a carefully\nelaborated descriptive poem, applies the structure and method of\n_Windsor Forest_ to a local theme, following the original so closely as\nto imitate the detail. His skill in the grand manner may be judged by a\nsingle passage that phrases feebly what Pope had done vigorously:\n\n When cooler gales foretell departing day,\n The plaintive curlew homeward wings his way--\n Now stoops, then soars, and fearing danger nigh,\n To guardian heaven pours forth its piteous cry.\n Alas! in vain. The fowler\u2019s fond reply,\n Still deemed its own, but tells it where to die.\n\n_The Raciad_ is less crudely imitative. It is a brisk and rather\namusing account of the outpouring of Charleston society to the races,\nthe great event of the year in the gay southern capital. It is done\nwith some sprightliness, it is an amiable historical document, but it\nis not important. When Crafts died in 1826 Charleston had done little\nin the way of creative literature, but the stirring of the waters was\nbeginning. The following year a young apothecary just admitted to the\nbar published a volume entitled _Lyrical and Other Poems_, first fruits\nof the colossal labors of Gilmore Simms. In 1828 Hugh Legar\u00e9 got _The\nSouthern Review_ on its feet, a substantial magazine that aspired to be\nthe mouthpiece of southern culture. With the beginning of the thirties\nthe Charleston renaissance was under way.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Hugh Swinton Legar\u00e9 \u2022 Charleston Intellectual\n\nA far solider nature than the ebullient Crafts was Hugh Swinton Legar\u00e9.\nOf distinguished social position, the most cultivated mind in the South\nbefore the Civil War, and one of the most cultivated in America, he was\nan embodiment of the serious Charleston that served as counterweight\nto the gayer. In Legar\u00e9 the moral earnestness of the South came to its\nmost attractive expression. The repository of two streams of ethical\nidealism, he was as Puritan as Calhoun. Natively aristocratic,\nwith a high sense of personal integrity and civic responsibility, a\nprofound student of law and letters, with the Charleston parochialism\nbrushed away by wide travel and intimate acquaintance with old-world\ncivilizations and classical cultures, he represented the excellent\nseriousness that came to flower on the Carolina plantation as well as\nin the New England meetinghouse. Southern Puritanism might be less\nungainly than that of Massachusetts, but it was equally introspective,\ngiven to melancholy; and Hugh Legar\u00e9 found his life as serious an\naffair, and as laborious, as any New England Calvinist discovered his\nto be. It is no holiday business to serve righteousness; wisdom does\nnot flower in the primrose path of dalliance; and this Charleston\ngentleman emerged from a prolonged and arduous self-discipline as\ncomplete a Puritan as Theodore Parker.\n\nDescended in the fifth generation from a Huguenot ancestor who settled\nin Charleston about 1695, he was French in name and by cherished family\ntradition, but in little else. Through successive intermarriages,\nthe original French strain was pretty much diluted by the Scotch and\nEnglish, and few Gallic traits came down to him. In temperament and\nsympathies he was the child of his mother, Mary Swinton, of Scotch\nCovenanter blood. The native seriousness that came to him by right\nof inheritance was intensified by fate. Inoculated for the smallpox\nin his fourth year, the poison lingered in his system, keeping him\nsickly for years and permanently stunting the lower half of his body.\nThus set apart from active life, he turned to books and entered upon\nthe career of a scholar. At the time of his death in 1842, at the\nage of forty-five, he was perhaps the best linguist and the most\nwidely read man in America. A mature student of the classics, he\nwas intimately acquainted with French, Spanish, Italian and German,\nand had added Romaic as a help to his Greek. This may seem a meager\nlist in comparison with Theodore Parker\u2019s nineteen languages, but\nthe substantial acquisitions he gathered from the several bodies of\nliterature were far from meager.\n\nYet immense as were those acquisitions they were only supplementary to\nhis professional studies. The Charleston Puritan gave to the study of\nlaw the same intensity that the Boston Puritan gave to theology. Not\ncontent with a three years\u2019 reading course in a law office, he went to\nEurope to pursue his studies more comprehensively. At the University\nof Edinburgh he plunged into an investigation of the Roman and Civil\nLaw, which henceforth was to be his major intellectual interest.\nHe found in the continental systems, he believed, a body of legal\nprinciples more comprehensive and philosophical than the English Common\nLaw, and the ambition grew upon him to ingraft certain features of the\nCivil Law upon American practice. After two years\u2019 intense study he\ncame home, engaged in active practice of his profession, and ten years\nlater, at the age of thirty-five, was appointed _charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires_ at\nBrussels, where he spent four rich years. His diplomatic and social\nlife was subordinated to his studies, into which he threw himself\nwith the keenest zest, enlarging his knowledge of modern letters and\nadding to his encyclopedic knowledge of legal systems. In 1841 he was\nappointed Attorney-General of the United States in the cabinet of\nPresident Tyler, and upon Webster\u2019s retirement was given the additional\nportfolio of Secretary of State _ad interim_. While on a visit to\nBoston with President Tyler to assist in the Bunker Hill Monument\ncelebration, he was taken suddenly ill and died at the home of his\nfriend Professor Ticknor.\n\nThe man thus prematurely cut down was a nature of vast solidity.\nProfoundly serious, inclined to the blackest melancholy, as pessimistic\nas Fisher Ames, with no leaven of humor, no romance, no careless\nidling, he was a hard taskmaster to his days. He toiled prodigiously at\nhis self-appointed tasks. His standards were severe, whether in letters\nor law or politics or morals. As a critic he dealt with substantial\nsubjects: _The Constitutional History of Greece_; _The Origin,\nHistory and Influence of Roman Legislation_; _Early Spanish Ballads_;\n_Jeremy Bentham and the Utilitarians_; _Lord Byron\u2019s Character and\nWritings_--solid dissertations done with German thoroughness--reviews\nof huge compass that provided opportunity for independent treatises.\nAs a lawyer he was rather a philosophical historian than a special\npleader. He was far more given to exploring the labyrinths of ancient\ncodes than to arguing cases. His legal erudition appalls the layman.\nHe had sat at the feet of black-letter philosophers; he had been\ninstructed by sages long since forgotten. His mind was an ample\nstorehouse of archaic legal maxims. He delighted in the crabbed law\nLatin--its sententious phrases worn to the quick, the residuum and\nrepository of the wisdom bequeathed by past generations. Richer in\npoetry than any verses of Byron were the Latin words _habeas corpus_\nto one who, like this scholar, understood how packed they were with\nEnglish history, how rich in suggestion to all who love English\nfreedom. From this immense erudition came his love for old books and\nvenerable authorities. Blackstone he looked upon as a modern--\u201ca\ngentleman\u2019s law book, clear, but not deep\u201d; and the wisdom of my Lord\nCoke seemed to him not so mellow as that drawn from the more capacious\nvats of earlier days. He quoted Grotius and Vattel and Pufendorf and\nBourlamaqui more readily than the South Carolina Digest, and the names\nof Papinian and Ulpian and Modestinus and Voet and Cujacius, of the\n_Corpus Alaricianum_, of the Justinian, Gregorian, Hermogenian, and\nTheodosian codes, slipped familiarly from his pen. How many outlandish\nauthorities were contained in the huge inkwell on his desk it is\nidle to conjecture. Probably not three men in America comprehended\nthe significance of half the references that he offered for the\nconsideration of his fellow lawyers, or were competent to question his\ndeductions. Even the learned Judge Story and Chancellor Kent seem mere\ndabblers in comparison with this philosophical historian.\n\nSuch learning must inevitably mold one\u2019s thinking in kindred fields,\nand he came naturally to espouse what for want of an exacter term\nmay be called the Common Law theory of politics. It is a conception\nof law as an organic growth, the result of man\u2019s laborious search\nfor a rational freedom in the social body, the single and avowed\nend of which is justice. It has taken form not by the decrees of\nlegislatures, but by decisions of the judiciary, tested and re\u00ebxamined\nand reargued generation after generation; built up code by code through\nslow evolution, the wisdom of the past serving as counselor to the\npresent; continuously expanding its jurisdiction from the community\nto the nation, and from the nation to a world society; the one\nguarantee of a sober and rational progress. Theorists and philosophers\ncome and go; revolutions succeed and fail; foolish statutes and\ntemporary constitutions have their day; but the organic body of the\nlaw survives all surface change, building into the fabric of society\nwhat experience proves to be good, sloughing off what experience has\noutgrown--the tempered rule of social justice; the exact measure of\nevery civilization compared with which the majority will is a crude and\ninadequate makeshift.\n\nFrom such a conception it follows that government is little more than\nancillary to the law, and political principles are sound in the measure\nthat they are founded on legal principles. Thus by following the musty\npath of jurisprudence Legar\u00e9 arrived at the same goal that John Cotton\nhad reached two hundred years before--the apotheosis of magistracy.\nWith the older Puritan he could assert, _Scripturae plenitudinem\nadoro_. The sufficiency of the law to social justice was axiomatic in\nhis thinking. But the scriptures which he adored were the words of\nthe judges, whose decisions were above the authority of legislator\nor governor and little concerned with a transient majority will. The\nold theocrat had set up his theocracy; the modern lexolater would set\nup his lexocracy; but the end was pretty much the same. Very likely\nLegar\u00e9, like the present-day lexolater, would deny the conclusion, yet\nit was implicit in his premises, and his scorn of political theory was\nsufficient proof. Practical politics he regarded as rather a trumpery\nbusiness that achieves no solid results.[408] The political philosopher\nhe was profoundly suspicious of. The flood of speculation let loose\nupon the world by the revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth\ncenturies seemed to him to have invited disaster, and the political\nclassics of those revolutions he cared little for. He distrusted the\n\u201cera of illumination\u201d that sacrificed use and wont to abstract theory.\n\u201cWe have not too much faith in the \u2018march of intellect,\u2019\u201d he remarked\ndryly, \u201cand would not ... pitch our anticipations in too high a key\u201d\n(_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 264). But his greatest contempt he reserved for\nthe intellectual revolutionaries--\u201chair-brained metaphysicians and\nempirical demagogues\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 216), who would upset the\nnice balance of the law. To this matter he returned again and again,\nwith the scorn of the legal mind for ambitious political systems.\n\u201cInnovators or Revolutionists, who go only for an imaginary abstract\nrectitude and symmetry of government,\u201d he said, \u201care always dangerous,\nand sometimes the greatest curse with which heaven in its wrath can\nvisit an offending people\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 286).\n\n I have no faith at all in speculative politics. A theorist in\n government is as dangerous as a theorist in medicine, or in\n agriculture, and for precisely the same reasons--the subjects\n are too complicated and too obscure for simple and decisive\n experiments. I go for undisputed results in the long run. (_Ibid._,\n Vol. I, p. 303.)\n\n Man begins a revolution, but its issues are with God alone. The\n voluntary revolutions of man have always been abrupt, violent and\n for the worse: so that the wisdom of antiquity laid it down, as a\n maxim, that every fundamental change in the State must needs be\n bloody and deadly. (_Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 297.)\n\nThis inherent conservatism of the legal mind explains Legar\u00e9\u2019s\nintellectual sympathy with Federalism and his contempt for Jefferson.\nThe latter to him was the prince of demagogues, and his ink was vitriol\nwhen he wrote of him, as thus in one of his letters: \u201cThe immortal\nsayings and doings of the holy father in democracy--the servant of the\nservants of Demos (whose nose of wax he knew better than anybody how to\nshape to his own convenience,)--the infallible, though ever-changing,\nSt. Thomas of _Canting_-bury. And here, you may be sure, I _cross_\nmyself devoutly and cry out, with an all-fervent benediction to that\ncanonized worthy, _pax tecum_ (pronounced, you know, _Scottice, pox\ntacum_)\u201d (_Writings_, Vol. I, p. 208). Modern political theories seemed\nto him mere upstart doctrines compared with the venerable principles of\nthe law, and he came to look with suspicion on all political liberalism\nnot sponsored by lawyers and supported by briefs. A passionate lover\nof liberty, he was as distrustful of democracy as John Adams, and\nhis condemnation was as frank--\u201cthat scene of wild impulse, and\ntyrannical misrule--a pure democracy\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 271). No\nstate, Beverley Tucker pointed out, was so little democratic as South\nCarolina, and Legar\u00e9 shared the common Charleston distrust of it. As he\nwatched England and France during the tumultuous thirties, and saw the\nstruggle over Nullification at home, his concern for the future became\nacute and his pessimism as black as Fisher Ames\u2019. In a letter from\nBrussels, in the year 1833, shortly after the passage of the English\nReform Bill, he wrote:\n\n Mankind have too little sense to maintain, for any length of time,\n a well-tempered democracy, and a great deal too much to bear an\n unlimited one--the most dreadful form of \u201cState sovereignty,\u201d\n beyond all doubt, in which the descendants of the father of the\n first murderer have ever given loose to their ruffian instinct\n of violence and oppression. If they have a moderate policy of\n the kind, which happens (as all complicated machines will) to be\n occasionally a little out of order, their only idea of a remedy\n is to pull it down, and along with it every thing that makes a\n civil society worthy of its name. Who could ever have dreamed\n that the law of brute force which now crushes Europe ... should\n be deliberately adopted in America, instead of the really sublime\n institutions of a federal jurisdiction, (fallible, of course, but\n generally right) and that this relapse into downright barbarism\n should be vaunted, by the most enlightened men in the Southern\n States, as a _grand_ improvement and the only thing wanting to\n make our government as perfect as we have been swearing it was all\n along. (_Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 210.)\n\nBack of this ingrained conservatism was a tender Puritan conscience\nthat must twist his legal studies to ideal ends. After all it was no\nother than a juridical romanticism that Hugh Legar\u00e9 discovered in the\nbottom of his scholar\u2019s cup. As medieval as Sir Walter, he sought his\nromance in old law-courts rather than in feudal castles, in black-robed\nadvocates rather than in knights and ladies; and he persuaded himself\nthat those old litigations, preserved in scraps of Latin and law\nFrench, were dramatic episodes in the ceaseless battle for human\nrights, whereof the single objective was justice. Slowly, stone upon\nstone, the lawyers were erecting an impregnable citadel, within which\njustice kept her inviolable court. It is a pleasant fiction still\nbelieved in by lawyers of the old school, and to Legar\u00e9 in his study\nit bore the very semblance of truth. He had read too many law books;\nhe had speculated too little on politics; immersed in his codes, he\nhad forgotten to inquire into the hidden springs of sovereignty.\nIn his contempt for practical politics he had neglected to study\neven the primer of economic determinism. To the economic historian,\nLegar\u00e9\u2019s boundless faith in the sufficiency of legal processes is\nincomprehensible. A few lessons from the wiser Jefferson would have\ntaught him much that he needed to know concerning the economic sources\nof power. In his attitude towards the law Jefferson was a suspicious\nrealist. He had no faith in legal codes that had grown up under\nmonarchical and aristocratic systems, and he put no trust in government\nby lawyers. He could not understand how the Common Law, interpreted\nby the Tory Blackstone, and applied by Federalist lawyers, should\nserve the needs of a democracy. Democratic America, he was convinced,\nmust create a new democratic law, and hold its judiciary in strict\nsubjection to its will; to surrender sovereignty to an aristocracy of\nthe bench would mean the abdication of democracy. But Legar\u00e9 refused\nto go to school to Jefferson. He clung to his romantic conception of\nthe law with the same passionate conviction that Calhoun clung to\nhis romantic dream of a Greek democracy; and with the ebbing of the\nromantic tide they were both left stranded.\n\nBut if Legar\u00e9 was unsympathetic towards the new political theory\nthat came from the French intellectuals, and frankly hostile to the\nnew political practice that came in with the Jacksonians, he warmly\napproved the new economics that came with the Industrial Revolution. In\nhis whole-hearted acceptance of Adam Smith he seems not a Carolinian\nat all, but an English liberal of the Cobden-Bright school. He adopted\nthe principle of _laissez faire_, the gospel of progress, the attitude\nof optimism. He accepted the theory of the beneficence of commerce as\na universal civilizing agency, and he looked forward confidently to an\neventual parliament of man, a future federation of the world. Commerce\nin the end must outlaw war, and peace with freedom would spread the\nblessings of civilization to the ends of the earth.[409]\n\nA convincing object-lesson in the sufficiency of the principle of\n_laissez faire_, he discovered in the amazing progress of America. The\nmainspring of that progress he found in economic freedom--freedom \u201cfrom\nthose undue restraints and that impertinent interference of government\nin the interests properly belonging to individuals.\u201d \u201cI know,\u201d he said,\n\u201cthat the cardinal spring and source of our success is freedom--freedom\nof thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action, freedom of commerce\u201d\n(_Writings_, Vol. I, p. 306). The greatest of these was free trade\nbetween the states. His travels in England and the contrast between\nEnglish progress and continental backwardness confirmed him in this\nbelief. \u201cThe doctrine of Free Trade,\u201d he asserted, \u201cis a great\nfundamental doctrine of civilization. The world must come to it at\nlast, if the visions of improvement in which we love to indulge are\never to be realized\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 272). He went further and\naccepted the Industrial Revolution with its division of labor as a\nnecessary agency of social amelioration. \u201cIt is evidently in the order\nof nature, and we must take it with all its good and all its evils\ntogether.\u201d In forecasting the effect of that revolution he was troubled\nby no fears.\n\n Sir, it is a favorite phrase of those who boast of what is called\n \u201cthe march of intellect,\u201d that things are thus changed because\n the \u201cschoolmaster is abroad.\u201d But I tell you that something far\n more effective than the schoolmaster, a mightier than Solomon, is\n abroad. It is the +STEAM-ENGINE+--in its twofold capacity of a\n means of production and a means of transport--the most powerful\n instrument by far of pacification and commerce, and therefore of\n improvement and happiness that the world has ever seen; which,\n while it increases capital, and multiplies beyond all imagination\n the products of industry, brings the most distant people into\n contact with one another ... effaces all peculiarities of national\n character, and promises, at no distant period, to make the whole\n Christian world, at least, one great family....\n\n A people well clad and well housed will be sure to provide\n themselves with all the other comforts of life; and it is the\n diffusion of these comforts, and the growing taste for them, among\n all classes of society in Europe--it is the desire of riches as\n it is commonly called, that is gradually putting an end to the\n destructive and bloody game of war, and reserving all the resources\n hitherto wasted by it, for enterprises of industry and commerce,\n prosecuted with the fiery spirit which once vented itself in scenes\n of peril and carnage. (_Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 285-286.)\n\nRemembering how dependent were southern cotton interests on English\nindustrialism and commerce, one can understand Legar\u00e9\u2019s acceptance\nof _laissez faire_ economics. His idealism, his local pride, his\nromanticism, were all enlisted in its behalf, and he painted in glowing\ncolors. But his frank advocacy of capitalism is harder to understand,\nexcept perhaps on the ground that Charleston was a considerable\nshipping port and his clients were engaged in commerce. In the bitter\ndispute with Jackson over the Bank, Legar\u00e9 adopted northern views on\nnational finance. Although nominally a Democrat, he had never been an\nagrarian, and he went with Webster and Clay against the subtreasury\nscheme and a metallic currency. His thoughtful speech on _The Spirit of\nthe Sub-Treasury_, delivered in 1837, was thoroughgoing Whig doctrine,\nasserting the excellence of the modern banking system and extolling the\neconomic fruitfulness of credit. He repudiated every principle of John\nTaylor; denied every dogma of agrarian economics; and eulogized the\nEnglish financial system as the germinal source of English greatness.\nApplying the principle of credit to American conditions, he discovered\nthe secret of American expansion in the principle of speculative\nborrowing, and expanded his doctrine of economic freedom by asserting\nthat freedom to borrow was a necessary preliminary to freedom to work.\n\u201cA people have been enriched by debt,\u201d he argued, overlooking the\npossible fallacy of a _post hoc ergo propter hoc_, \u201cand \u2018by owing,\nowe not.\u2019\u201d As he contemplated the amazing progress of the nation, his\nlyric enthusiasm becomes prologue to a somewhat lame conclusion that\nenthrones the banker as the fairy godmother of the hardy pioneer.\n\n There is a grandeur and a majesty in this irresistible onward\n march of a race, created, as I believe, and elected to possess and\n people a continent.... We may become so much accustomed to such\n things that they shall make as little impression upon our minds as\n the glories of the Heavens above us; but, looking on them, lately,\n as with the eyes of the stranger, I felt, what a recent English\n traveller is said to have remarked, that far from being without\n poetry, as some have vainly alleged, our whole country is one\n great poem. Sir, it is so; and if there be a man that can think of\n what is doing, in all parts of this most blessed of all lands, to\n embellish and advance it, who can contemplate that living mass of\n intelligence, activity and improvement as it rolls on, in its sure\n and steady progress, to the uttermost extremities of the west; who\n can see scenes of savage desolation transformed, almost with the\n suddenness of enchantment, into those of fruitfulness and beauty;\n crowned with flourishing cities, filled with the noblest of all\n populations; if there be a man, I say, that can witness all this\n passing under his very eyes, without feeling his heart beat high,\n and his imagination warmed and transported by it, be sure, sir,\n that the raptures of song exist not for him....\n\n But of this rational, diffusive liberty, among a people so\n intelligent as ours, the credit system is the natural fruit, the\n inseparable companion, the necessary means and instrument. It is\n part and parcel of our existence. Who ever heard of +CREDIT+ in\n a despotism, or an anarchy? It implies _confidence_--confidence\n in yourself, confidence in your neighbor, confidence in your\n government, confidence in the administration of the laws,\n confidence, in a word, in your destiny, and your fortune, in the\n destinies and the fortunes of the country to which you belong;\n as, for instance, in the case of a great national debt. It is the\n fruit, I say, of all that is most precious in civilized life, and\n to quarrel with it is to be ungrateful to God for some of the\n greatest blessings he has vouchsafed to man. (_Writings_, Vol. I,\n pp. 306-307.)\n\nSuch ebullient rhetoric fits the mouth of the politician rather than\nthe scholar, and such careless logic comes oddly from a southern\nintellectual. In his ignorance of the economics of John Taylor, Legar\u00e9\nwas unprovided with principles to reply to his own arguments, and\nunaware of the lameness of his confident conclusions. But though he\nmight glow with optimism as he contemplated the westward expansion, for\nthe future of the South and of his own beloved state he was deep in\npessimism. From the first he had dissented vigorously from the program\nof Nullification. An ardent Union man, he believed with his friend\nJames Petigru that secession meant ruin for South Carolina. Calhoun\nseemed to him a monomaniac, consumed by a single idea. He feared the\nhot passion of the states-rights party and he was troubled over\nslavery. His travels abroad had acquainted him with European views on\nthe subject; he watched the spread of English humanitarianism and he\nhad come to recognize the institution as an anachronism. It seemed to\nhim impossible for the South to withstand much longer the augmenting\npressure of civilized opinion. He could justify slavery in his own eyes\nboth by ancient law--_servitus est constitutio juris gentium_--and by\ncomparison of the condition of the negro with that of the English wage\nworker. The ideal of a Greek democracy was vastly congenial to his\naristocratic temperament, but he knew that it was a romantic dream, and\nhe was oppressed by the shadow of impending ruin. Writing from Brussels\non April 8, 1833, he concluded an anxious letter thus:\n\n It ends in my not knowing what to think, except that dangers are\n around and above and below and within our poor little State,--which\n may God preserve us from! I ask of heaven only that the little\n circle I am intimate with in Charleston should be kept together\n while I live,--in health, harmony and competence; and that, on my\n return, I may myself be enabled to enjoy the same happiness, in my\n intercourse with it, with which I have been hitherto blessed. _We_\n are (I am quite sure) the _last_ of the _race_ of South-Carolina;\n I see nothing before us but decay and downfall,--but on that very\n account, I cherish its precious relics the more.... Yet my heart\n sinks within me often when I think of what may too soon be, and I\n say, in those touching words, \u201cWhy should not my countenance be\n sad, when the city, the place of my fathers\u2019 sepulchres, lieth\n waste, and her gates are burnt with fire.\u201d (_Writings_, Vol. I, p.\n 215.)\n\nThus like old John Winthrop two hundred years before, this descendant\nof southern Pilgrims, this Charleston lawyer and intellectual, found\nthe words of the Hebrew Scriptures rising to his lips in moments of\ndeep emotion. In spite of travel and many books and ripe culture and\ncatholic sympathies, Hugh Legar\u00e9 remained Puritan at heart, sorely\npuzzled with life, the burden of his days heavy upon him, walking\nsoberly in the way of duty. North or south, the Puritan was still\nPuritan, whether he were Theodore Parker, the Boston radical, or Hugh\nSwinton Legar\u00e9, the Charleston conservative.\n\n\nIV \u2022 William Gilmore Simms \u2022 Charleston Romancer\n\nFrom the background of old Charleston emerged, about the year 1825,\nthe figure of Gilmore Simms, lately a drug clerk but now come to the\ndignity of admission to the bar; a tall, vigorous young fellow, with\nlittle formal schooling, no Latin or Greek, without land or slaves, but\nheavily involved in Byronic odes and like unprofitable investments;\na social nobody soon to be married at the age of twenty to a girl of\nno better station than his own, who offered himself as candidate for\nthe poet laureateship of the South. A somewhat presumptuous proceeding\non the part of a plebeian quite outside the cultivated circle of the\nPetigrus and Grimk\u00e9s and Hugers and Legar\u00e9s, who were the accepted\ncustodians of Charleston culture and who did not take kindly to\nambitious newcomers. They regarded literature as a polite art that\ncould flourish only in polite circles, and they turned a cold shoulder\nupon a young man whose ways suggested the Carolina buckra.\n\nAfter all these years one may well cherish a grudge against the amiable\nlittle city for its shabby treatment of Gilmore Simms. The most richly\nendowed of any son she ever gave birth to, he was snubbed for years\nby the social oligarchy and suffered keenly from the ostracism. His\nextreme parochialism made him the more sensitive to the slight. An\nardent Southerner, loyal to all the Carolinian totems and taboos, he\naccepted the Charleston judgment in literature and politics as the very\nlaw and the prophets. He loved the soil of South Carolina, he loved the\npeople and the way of life, and he was steeped as no other Carolinian\nin local history and tradition. He could perceive no shortcomings\nin a society he warmly admired, and he accepted the Charleston\nprovincialisms as the lover accepts the mole on his mistress\u2019 cheek.\nThe more Charleston snubbed him, the more admirable he professed\nto believe was an aristocracy that so jealously guarded its fine\nexclusiveness. His lifelong ambition was to receive recognition from\nhis native city, and when after the death of his first wife and his\nmarriage to the daughter of a prosperous planter, he gained admission\ninto the ranks of the lesser gentry, he eagerly made common cause\nwith them. He accepted the Carolinian standards and conventions; he\nadvocated social caste: he honored the southern gentleman as God\u2019s best\nhandiwork; he unconsciously reflected an aristocratic arrogance towards\nall social inferiors. He abandoned the Jeffersonian philosophy of his\nyouth and adopted the revised gospel of Calhoun. He became, in short,\na Carolina Fire Eater. He set up as a militant defender of slavery and\ncollaborated with other eminent Carolinians to develop the pro-slavery\nargument.[410] He could have escaped the subtle compulsions of the\nsouthern system only by emptying his mind of his dearest prejudices,\nand this he had neither the will nor the wish to do. And so in spite\nof the fact that his every instinct was democratic, and every natural\nimpulse generous and manly, he fought the battles of the peculiar\ninstitution as stoutly as if he had been born to his three hundred\nslaves; and he suffered in consequence the loss of pretty nearly\neverything, including his art. After his death, his friend Paul Hayne\nwrote of him: \u201cSimms\u2019s genius _never had fair play!_ Circumstances\nhampered him!\u201d The judgment is just. Parochial Charleston brought about\nhis literary undoing.\n\nIn taste and temperament Simms was a pronounced realist, but his\ncareer took shape from a generation given to every romantic excess.\nHis genius, in consequence, was always at cross purposes with the\npopular taste. His realism turned naturally to low-life adventure;\nhis upper-class romance became stilted and posturing, and his love\nof action degenerated into swashbuckling. That he survived such\nmishaps at all, suggests the enormous vitality of the man. If there\nhad only been a little more of the intellectual in him, if he could\nhave detached himself as an artist from the immediate and present,\nhe might have risen superior to his unfortunate environment. But he\nwas constitutionally incapable of aloofness, and hence incapable of\ncriticism. To analyze, compare and judge was impossible to so ardent a\nnature. He must be partisan to a people and a cause, rather than to his\nart. The South that he loved was romantic, and he would appeal to the\nworld as a Southerner. He wore his sectional prejudices as the southern\npolitician wears his rumpled Prince Albert coat, broad-brimmed hat and\nblack string tie. He never realized what a clutter of useless luggage\nhe carried into his study. It is a pity that he constricted himself to\nthe shell of an outworn order, instead of realizing that social orders\nand institutions are significant to the novelist only as he stands\napart from them, observing their ways and considering their interplay\nin the lives of men and women. It was a major loss to American letters\nthat he should not have striven to be an artist first, and a southern\nromantic only at a later and more convenient season. If he had served\nhis art more jealously, if he had learned from Poe to refuse the\ndemands of inconsequential things, he would have viewed his beloved\nCharleston with keener eyes and portrayed it more adequately.\n\nBut he would not serve his art alone. Unhappily he conceived that\nhe owed an imperative duty to his native commonwealth, and in\nfulfillment of that duty he frittered away his enormous vitality in\ndelivering patriotic orations and occasional addresses, serving in\nthe Legislature, pottering over politics, lecturing upon literature,\nfounding and editing magazines and essaying to bring culture to\nCharleston by fiery impetuosity of appeal. He struggled as few other\nAmericans have done to further the cause of letters in a desperate\nenvironment; but creative literature could neither be cajoled nor\ncoerced to take up an abode in the indolent little city, and Simms wore\nhimself out in a fruitless undertaking. Our literature has suffered\nfew greater losses than this wasting of the genius of Gilmore Simms\nin trumpery fields that belong to the literary dray horse. It was the\ninevitable outcome of the conflict between the creative artist and the\ncitizen of South Carolina.\n\nLittle as he is known to later readers Simms is by far the most virile\nand interesting figure of the Old South. He was built on a generous\nplan. He was endowed with a rich and prodigal nature, vigorous,\nspontaneous, creative. There was in him much of Whitman\u2019s largeness\nand coarseness, much of his delight in the good things of earth. He\nwrote with extraordinary gusto, and his fine strong face suggests that\nhe lived with equal gusto. As a professional man of letters he turned\nout an incredible amount of work, by ordinary two tales a year--solid\nworks of five hundred pages each--together with poems and plays and\npot-boiling stuff to tax the capacity of two or three hack writers. He\npoured out his material copiously, lavishly, with overrunning measure.\nHis stories flow as generously as his Jamaica rum. He is a veritable\ngeyser of invention, an abundant sea of salty speech. He has no sense\nof restraint; he does not stop to prune the tangle of his imagination;\nhe refuses to strip the plot of extraneous incident to hasten its\naction. He is as episodic as Dickens at his worst, piling up action\nand multiplying threads till the story bogs down. The major plot is\nalways struggling from hummock to hummock in the endless swamp where\nhis characters slip in and out, rarely getting to firm ground, yet\nnever quite submerged. Prodigal of adventure and loving action, clumsy\nas the natural man when confronted with sentiment, he is an American\nFielding with a dash of Smollett. He is at ease only out of doors, in\nthe fields and swamps and highways; there his speech becomes racy, and\nthere the rich poetry of his nature, which somehow rarely got into his\nverse, comes to abundant and spontaneous expression. When he enters the\ndrawing-room his stilted language betrays his lack of ease. He writes\nwith his pen and not with his heart. The plantation tradition has him\nin its grip and his fine ladies and gentlemen are done up with much\nliterary starch. But let him come upon a happy-go-lucky blackguard\nand he loves him as Fielding would have loved him. The amusing scene\nin which Lieutenant Porgy heaves a pot of hot hominy in the face of a\nScotch dragoon is quite evidently reminiscent of Parson Adams\u2019 recourse\nto a dish of hog\u2019s blood in a certain tavern brawl.[411] Like Fielding\nalso is his criterion of morality. A frank and generous nature is his\ninfallible test of worth, and if his patriotism led him to bestow a\nlarge share of generosity on the patriots, and a correspondingly meager\nshare on the Loyalists and British, he was but exercising an ancient\nprerogative of the romancer.\n\nContemporary romanticism engrafted on a nature fundamentally realistic\ndeveloped a pronounced strain in his work which, for lack of an exacter\nword, we may call picaresque. This comes out at its worst in the crude\nborder tales of _Richard Hurdis_ and _Border Beagles_, stories marked\nby the coarseness of the eighteenth century, backwoods versions of\n_Jonathan Wild_. At its best it created a goodly company of blackguards\nthat are an asset to American literature. Simms dearly loved a rogue,\nand the more picturesque the latter\u2019s knavery the more he loved him. A\ngentleman villain turns to a thing of wood in his hands, but a low-born\nrascal he creates out of living flesh and blood. A surprising number\nof low figures, both rogues and honest men, enliven his cluttered\npages, individual, racy, often poetic. Realistic in speech and action,\nthey are men of special gifts, nimble of wit and rich in imagination,\nsometimes fallen to base uses and sometimes ennobled by affection for\ntheir superiors. Thumbscrew, Supple Jack Bannister, and Joe Ballou, the\npartisan scouts; Isaac Muggs, mine host of the Black Riders; Goggle\nthe half-breed; Hell Fire Dick of Tophet, the blackguard converted by\n_Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_; Sam Bostwick the Squatter--these are admirable\nfigures, done with inimitable spirit, the choicest collection of\nhomespun in American literature. They impart life and drama to Simms\u2019s\ntales. Remove them, and his romances are only a welter of stilted\nlanguage and starchy situations. The scene, for example, between Jack\nBannister and Isaac Muggs, in which the latter is converted to true\nrepublican principles by appeal to a backwoods ordeal by battle, is\nmagnificent in its broad humor, and it is a pity that Simms did not\ngive freer rein to his genius for such work. It is incomprehensible\nthat a man who could put into the mouth of Thumbscrew such language as\nthe following could have stooped to scribble the love scenes between\nErnest Mellichampe and Janet Berkeley:\n\n When it so happens that the things a man\u2019s got to love gits fewer\n and smaller, they gits more valuable, Airnest, in his sight; for\n he knows mighty well, if he loses them, that he\u2019s jist like an old\n bird that comes back to the tree when the blossoms and the flowers\n have all dropped off, and are rotting under it. It\u2019s mighty nigh to\n winter in his heart then, Airnest--mighty nigh--and the sooner he\n begins to look out a place to sleep in, the wiser man you may take\n him to be. (_Mellichampe_, Chapter IX.)\n\nBut Simms was too inveterately episodical to construct a pretty plot,\nand too careless in his generous southern hospitality to discriminate\nbetween guests at his board. He throws a huge miscellany on the table\nfrom which each may choose what pleases his taste.\n\nHere again romanticism did him an evil turn. Southern taste was too\naristocratic to like coarse fare. Gentlemen must dine like gentlemen\neven though black rascals served as waiters. Common fellows were well\nenough in the background, but they must not presume to crowd their\nbetters from the table. In such matters Simms was constrained to follow\nthe orthodox literary tradition. From Shakespeare to Scott the notion\nprevailed that legitimate romance must be conceived of as a flitch of\nbacon, the lean of vulgarity alternating with the fat of gentility.\nHence Simms was forced to keep a weather eye on the popular taste\nlest it be offended by too free an offering of the low. His negroes,\nsuch as Scipio and Bram and Benny Bowlegs, are more worth while than\ntheir masters, and his swamp-suckers are done with more gusto than\nthe officers; but when the plot demands the appearance of the gentry\nhe sends his black-bottle rapscallions about their business. Except\nin occasional instances, as in the case of old Colonel Sinclair,\nthe Carolinian baron--a testy old gentleman done in the best gouty\nmanner--Simms does the \u201cquality\u201d badly and the canny reader soon learns\nto skip the genteel passages in order to visit with Lieutenant Porgy or\nfollow the adventures of Hell Fire Dick or Supple Jack Bannister. There\nis ample fare at his generous board, but one must pick and choose.\n\nThe critics have made quite too much of the Gothic extravagancies\nthat mar so many of his pages. It is true that Simms was a generous\npurveyor of \u201cblood-pudding\u201d romance with its gory exploitation of\ncrime and mystery. Nothing can excuse or extenuate such folly in\nthe abstract; but it is easily comprehensible. It was a part of the\nprice which the professional man of letters had to pay as caterer to\na provincial reading public. After the surprising success of _Guy\nRivers_, Simms deliberately tested the taste of his readers by sending\nforth _Richard Hurdis_ under a pen name; and the equal success of the\nlatter convinced him that American readers liked such fare. He had a\nliving to make; the market was limited, and he resolved to give the\npublic what it wanted. This accounts for his major sins. An enormous\nnumber of chapters, together with whole volumes such as _Charlemont_\nand _Beauchampe_--preposterous accounts of a notorious murder case in\nKentucky--deserve no better fate than the rubbish heap. They are in no\nsense literature; yet unfortunately the very great powers of Simms are\ntoo commonly measured by such trash, instead of by his Revolutionary\ntales.\n\nSimms was a loving student of older English literature and drew much\nof his water from excellent wells. A happy instinct led him back to\nthe robust time of Elizabeth and those masculine playwrights whose\nample natures were so like his own. Shakespeare may be reckoned his\nparticular master--especially the prose of Shakespeare with its\nCheapside colloquialisms and racy idiomatic rhythms. No better training\nschool could be desired, and his loving apprenticeship to the older\nvernacular serves to explain the source of Simms\u2019s greatest literary\nvirtue. From long familiarity with the Elizabethans he derived his\nmastery of English idiom that sets him widely apart from most other\ncontemporary Americans. In easy outpouring of picturesque speech, of\nthe lithe and muscular idiom of the older literature, he was without\na rival in his generation. Many an old Elizabethan phrase lingered\nin the southern backwoods, and many an indigenous turn of speech had\nsprung from homely new-world experience. All such Simms seized upon\nwith the relish of a gourmand, stirring them into the great pot from\nwhich he ladled such generous spoonfuls. Later critics have been\nsingularly obtuse in their failure to do justice to his rich linguistic\nequipment. Quite too much comment has been devoted to his careless\nslips in rhetorical construction, and quite too little to his command\nof masculine English prose. It is absurd to couple him with Cooper in\nsinning against good writing. They are as unlike as two men could well\nbe. Simms is incomparably the greater master of racy prose, as he is\nmuch the richer nature. The only contemporary indeed who approaches him\nis Melville in _Moby Dick_. He is careless and slovenly enough in all\nconscience; when he goes on a rampage he mouths his lines like any town\ncrier. But though he keeps a sharp eye on the groundlings, though he is\noften preposterous, he is rarely wooden, never feeble.\n\nThe Elizabethan influence comes out strikingly in the character of\nLieutenant Porgy, the spoilt child of his imagination, who runs through\nthe Revolutionary romances as a sort of comic chorus. Despite Professor\nTrent\u2019s opinion to the contrary, Porgy is a South Carolinian Falstaff,\nquite evidently done with a close eye to the original. He is a very\nmountain of a fellow, with huge paunch and spindling shanks from too\nmuch sitting at the table and in the saddle--the most amusing and\nsubstantial comic character in our early fiction. As a South Carolina\ngentleman, Porgy of course was no liar or coward or woman cheater. In\nbattle he is an avalanche of patriotic valor, and in his deference to\nthe weak and dependent, in his free-handed generosity that encumbers\nhim with penniless hangers-on, he is model of southern chivalry. But\nin the far greater matters of the belly, he is strikingly Falstaffian.\nHe is not so much a valiant trencherman, as an artist in food and\ndrink. He lived to eat and he ate to speculate on the virtues of a\ngood dinner. \u201cHe took philosophy with him to the table, and grew wise\nover his wine\u201d (_Woodcraft_, Chapter XVIII). He is an epicure in\nwords, a gourmand of wit. The copious stream of his speech runs on in\nan endless flow, sometimes roily but never stagnant. A pat aphorism\nor a picturesque phrase is as succulent to him as Carolina terrapin.\nWhen philosophy fails he stoops to horseplay, but his practical jokes\nare carried off with theatrical splendor, with colossal assurance.\nLike Falstaff he is fond of practicing his wit on his followers. His\nBardolph is a certain Geordie Dennison, the swamp poet of the troop;\nand Porgy honors him as one artist honors the craft of another.\n\nBut the most satisfying comradeship lies between Porgy and Black Tom,\nfellow practitioners of the gentle art of cookery, sworn liegemen to\nroasts and soups and stews. Together they make the swamp commissariat\nbloom like a Covent Garden market. They are master foragers untroubled\nby an overnice conscience. \u201cDo as much stealing in an honest way as\nyou can,\u201d the lieutenant remarks to Tom. \u201cD--n the patriotism that\ncan\u2019t eat stolen fruit!\u201d At a pinch the native resources of the swamp\nare boldly commandeered. The creative masterpiece of the valiant Porgy\nwas a notable banquet which he proffered General Greene and his staff\nin their swamp quarters. His infinite resourcefulness in this great\naffair, his huge inventiveness, elevate the dinner to the rank of a\nculinary epic. The swamp frogs that he speared by moonlight, and the\nyoung alligators that he took by subtle stratagem, were transmogrified\ninto delectable dishes served to his guests under the alluring names\nof _alerta_ and _lagarta_.[412] The scene is done with a gusto that\nonly the worshiper of fleshpots could achieve. Simms delighted in\nPorgy because he was himself something of a Porgy. There is good fare\nfor those who sit at table with the fat humorist of _The Forayers_;\nthe ready talk does not lack the salt of wit. The later Porgy of\n_Woodcraft_ scarcely comes up to the earlier. His debts weigh too\nheavily on his spirits for the easy play of his fancy; he is less\nredoubtable as a wooer than as a warrior; nevertheless there is\nexcellent humor to be enjoyed at Glen Eberle, and some extraordinary\npranks.\n\nThe two major themes with which his romances deal, as has been\noften pointed out, are the frontier and the Revolution; but the\nintimate connection between them has not been so commonly remarked.\nIn much of his better work the two themes blend into one. The\nconditions of civil war in the South thrust into sharp relief the\ncultural and psychological frontier that clung to the outskirts of\nthe plantations--the ragged edges of a society that kept the poor\nwhites submerged and bred a numerous progeny of coarse and primitive\ncreatures, little better than social outcasts. Not the least of the\ncurses of slavery--as Helper pointed out--was its blighting effect\non the less prosperous whites who environed every plantation with\nits special frontier. With his strong bias towards realism Simms\nrefused to romanticize what was inherently unlovely. Like Baldwin\nin his _Flush Times of Mississippi and Alabama_, he discovered an\nample supply of blackguards and sharpers in the no man\u2019s land beyond\nthe settlements. The log cabins of the swamp country harbored their\nmotley crew in no wise different from their fellows of the farther\nfrontier along the Mississippi; and these precious rascals he drags\nfrom their lurking-places to exhibit in the light of day. The frontier\nin consequence is rarely absent from his stories, and it is this\npicaresque interpretation that sets him so sharply off from Cooper.\nA recent student, in commenting on the contrast between the frontier\nof Cooper and Simms, suggests that \u201cperhaps the earlier frontier had\nbeen intrinsically more dignified than that which Simms had observed;\nperhaps the difference is that Cooper\u2019s had lain deeper under the\nsoftening shadow of the past\u201d (Van Doren, _The American Novel_, p.\n65). But this is quite to miss the point, both of Cooper and Simms.\nThe real explanation is to be sought in the different interpretations\nof the romantic and the realist. Cooper\u2019s frontier existed only in his\nimagination. When he came face to face with the reality, as in the\ncase of old Aaron Thousandacres and his lawless brood, he hated it\ntoo frankly to portray it justly. The stern Puritan squatter and his\nfiercer wife are magnificent caricatures, drawn to serve a partisan\npurpose. They provide a romantic contrast to the honest Chainbearer,\nspokesman of the psychology of the settlements; but set beside Simon\nSuggs, master of the frontier technic of easy money, as depicted by\nJoseph Baldwin, they are as romantic as Cooper\u2019s Indians.\n\nThe picaresque note is frankly emphasized in Simms\u2019 Revolutionary\ntales. All the swamp-suckers and rapscallions found their heaven-sent\nopportunity in the disorders of civil war. No realist could write about\nthe Revolution in South Carolina without noting the flocks of buzzards\ngathering to fall upon the carrion. War is not a heroic thing in\nthese stirring pages. It invites debauchery and encourages brutality.\nBlackguards put a black stain on military glory. In the preface to _The\nScout_, Simms remarks:\n\n To burn and slay were not the simple performances of this reckless\n period and ravaged country. To burn in wantonness and to murder\n in cold blood, and by the cruellest tortures, were the familiar\n achievements of the time: ... The face of the country was overrun\n by outlaws. Detached bands of ruffians, formed upon the frontiers\n of Georgia, and in the wilds of Florida--refugees from all the\n colonies--availed themselves of the absence of civil authority to\n effect a lodgment in the swamps, the forests, and the mountains.\n These, mounted on swift horses, traversed the state with the wind;\n now here, now there; one moment operating on the Savannah, the next\n on the Peedee; sometimes descending within sight of the smokes of\n the metropolis; and anon, building their own fires on the lofty\n summits of the Appalachian ridge.\n\nNow and then in his pages war flashes out in romantic or heroic\nepisodes, but for the most part it is mean and degrading, a thing to\nbe hated. Simms loved action too keenly not to make the most of the\ncountless onsets and forays, the ambushing of Hessians and the cutting\noff of wagon trains; he found in them material for many a brisk page\nand stirring adventure; but in the end it is the brutality of it all,\nthe unhappy loosing of evil passions, that gives him most concern. It\nwas a hard world, and the soft-hearted Jack Bannister, speaking with\nthe tongue of Simms, could find comfort only in stoicism. \u201cA man ought\nnot to be too soft about the heart, in a world like this, so full of\nrascals that need the knockings of a hard and heavy hand.\u201d\n\nIt is this strong seasoning of the picaresque, perhaps, that accounts\nfor the neglect that has befallen the work of Simms. Many blackguards\nand generous potations of Jamaica rum consorted ill with the genteel\ntradition in letters that grew up in the days following the Civil\nWar; and romantic memories of a lost cause threw an idyllic haze over\nearlier times. The Revolutionary War lay too far in the past for a\ngeneration suffering from a great tragedy to concern itself with, and\nthe vivid and vital work of Simms scarcely outlived its creator. The\nRevolutionary tales have been largely forgotten, and from his abundant\nwork only _The Yemassee_ has survived in popular affection, and this\npartly from the vogue of Cooper. The winnowing has been severe and\nscarcely just. The best of Simms is not in _The Yemassee_, but in those\nstirring tales of Marion\u2019s men who carried on a bushwhacking campaign\nunder the hot sun of the dog days. _The Partisan_ and _The Forayers_\nand _Woodcraft_ deserve a better fate than has befallen them. The ghost\nof Cooper does not haunt their pages to challenge comparison, as it\ndoes _The Yemassee_, and bring into question their relative merits.\nThere Simms is at home, in the swamps and fields and villages, with men\nwhose ways he knew and loved, and his generous nature followed its own\nimpulses.\n\nBut in dealing with the Indians he entered a domain pre\u00ebmpted by the\nromantic, and his picaresque realism suffered a disastrous rivalry.\nLike Robert Montgomery Bird\u2019s _Nick of the Woods, The Yemassee_\nis heavily marked by the frontier psychology. It was unfortunate,\nperhaps, that Simms did not follow Cooper\u2019s example and plunge into\nthe wilderness, leaving behind him the squatter and settler with their\nsordid prose. Instead, his Indians are encompassed by a dark background\nof civilization, and their tragic destiny is poignantly dramatized in\nthe fate of young Occonestoga, besotted with the white man\u2019s rum, and\ndoomed to a destruction far less poetic than befalls Uncas fighting\nhis hereditary foes. Nevertheless a wealth of romantic material is\ncrowded into the volume, enough to serve Cooper for half a dozen tales.\nIn simplifying his plots to the uncomplicated problem of flight and\npursuit, the latter gains in dramatic swiftness of movement, but he\nloses in abundance of accompanying action--the sense of cross purposes\nand many-sided activities, which _The Yemassee_ so richly suggests.\nThe latter is an elaborately carved and heavily freighted Spanish bark\nthat is left far astern by the trim Yankee clipper ship; yet its cargo\nof the gold of the Indies is far richer. It is the familiar story of\nsouthern prodigality and wastefulness--an exuberant nature pouring out\nits wealth in spendthrift fashion, and failing to achieve the greater\nresults attained by a simpler nature held in closer restraint. After\nall it is idle to compare Cooper and Simms, and even more futile to\ncatalogue the latter as a disciple of the Cooper school. Simms was\nfar too rich in his own right to live as a dependent on anyone, and\ncertainly far too original to be an imitator. Nature was lavish in\nher gifts to him, and as if his fame as a story-teller is less than\nCooper\u2019s, the debit must be charged against his unfortunate environment.\n\nThe later years of Simms were utterly devastated by the unhappy war,\nin which, as was to be expected, he was a stalwart and uncompromising\npartisan. His native commonwealth that had long treated him shabbily,\nsacrificed him in the end to her folly. It was his own fault of course,\nbut how could one warped by the pervasive southern provincialism hope\nto escape? Scratch a Carolinian of the Calhoun school and you find a\nFire Eater. In this respect Simms was not different from the McDuffies\nand Hamiltons from whom he took his cue--gentlemen whom, because they\nwere politically prominent, he regarded as socially intelligent. That\na man of such native powers as Simms should have taken seriously\nthe Charleston politicians--blown up like a pig\u2019s bladder after\nbutchering; that he should himself have aspired to become another such\nbladder--these are sobering facts to remind us that the man of letters\nis very likely to be a child outside his study walls. What was wrong\nwith Simms that he read the signs of the times so badly? This, that\nhe lived in a world of unreality, of social and economic romanticism,\nthat was forever benumbing his strong instinct for reality. His\nfather-in-law owned seventy slaves; his neighbors and acquaintances\nowned slaves; all South Carolina gentlemen owned slaves; and in\njudging this matter of slavery Gilmore Simms went unquestioningly with\nhis little world. He who had drunk of the rich wine of Elizabethan\nculture came at last to drink himself under the table with his drafts\nof Charleston Jamaica. The dream of a Greek civilization based on\nblack slavery was discovered in the bottom of the cup of southern\nromanticism. And Simms emptied his bottle with the rest. Charleston,\nno doubt, has paid a sufficiently heavy price for her too copious\npotations, but she can never atone for the undoing of her greatest\nson--for the foolish intoxication that befuddled the generous mind of\nGilmore Simms. The loss is not Charleston\u2019s alone; it is a loss to our\ncommon American literature. There is food for thought in the words of\nthe epitaph which he composed for himself: \u201cHere lies one who, after a\nreasonably long life, distinguished chiefly by unceasing labors, has\nleft all his better works undone.\u201d Juster words could not have been\nwritten, nor more tragic.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[408] See _Writings_, Vol. II, p. 104.\n\n[409] See \u201cThe Arbitrament of National Disputes,\u201d in _Writings_, Vol.\nI, pp. 355-357.\n\n[410] See above, page 102.\n\n[411] See _Katherine Walton_, Chapter XLI.\n\n[412] See _The Forayers_, Chapters XLIII-XLVI.\n\n\n\n\nPart Three: The Romance of the West\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 New Worlds\n\n\nI\n\nWhile Calhoun was instructing the South in the theory of a Greek\ndemocracy, other sons of the South were learning, in the new world\nto which they had removed, the ways of a very different democracy--a\ndemocracy native to the frontier and quite unconcerned with Greek\nideals. In the Ohio valley was gathering a multitude of rough\nlibertarians who had exchanged the restrictions of the old settlements\nfor the freedom of the new. To these bumptious levelers rulership by\nestablished authorities made no appeal. They attached no respect to\nbroadcloth, but preferred to manage their affairs in their own way\nby appeal to the majority. Taught by experience the worth of certain\nJeffersonian principles, they took seriously the doctrine of equality\nand proposed to put it into practice. They were coonskin apostles of\nliberty and equality--if not of fraternity--backwoods democrats who\nby virtue of numbers established in common practice the principle of\nthe sovereignty of the popular will. Springing up naturally on the\nfrontier, the practice of democracy received from it a new validity\nand became the determining factor in the nationalism that America\nwas creating in the early years of the nineteenth century. That it\nwas a crude and often shoddy democracy, that it never justified its\npretentions in the eyes of a critical realism, did not lessen the zeal\nwith which men clung to it or weaken their loyalty. Democracy became\nthe common faith of the West, and in becoming the common faith of the\nWest it was put in the way of becoming the common faith of America.\n\nIf the romantic temper is a spontaneous by-product of social change,\nthat temper found in the upheaval attending the western migration\na plentiful aliment that had been wanting in the static eighteenth\ncentury. In that older world men had been held fast in the grip of the\ncustomary and familiar; but in the free West all was new and strange.\nThe crossing of the Appalachian barrier that had long held back the\nsettlements was an adventurous undertaking that fired the imagination.\nRomantic in spirit and scope, it was meanly picaresque in a thousand\nunlovely details. Plain men engaged in it, provident and improvident,\nhard-working and shiftless; heroes had a share in it, but blackguards\nand outlaws and broken men--the lees and settlings thrown off from the\nolder communities--had a share as well. The world that provided a stage\nfor the courage of Daniel Boone and the fighting qualities of George\nRogers Clark bred also the Davy Crocketts and Mike Finks and Col.\nWilliam Suggses, who discovered there opportunities for the development\nof less admirable qualities; and it engulfed in its depths a host of\nnameless adventurers who drifted into the wilderness settlements, drank\nand quarreled and begot children, suffered from the chills and ague,\nspread a drab poverty along the frontier, and were put away under\nground and forgotten by the more fortunate who salvaged prosperity from\nthe abundant wreckage.\n\nFrom this crude society emerged the new states with governments\ndesigned to serve simple ends. Jealousy for his sovereign right to\ndo as he pleased was the chief concern of the free western voter;\nas a sovereign citizen he refused to be subject to the creature\ncommonwealth. If governors and legislators and judges got uppish he\nwould throw them out of office and put in others who better understood\nthe rights of free Americans. It was this rude equalitarianism that\nmarked the early stage of western commonwealth building. Na\u00efve\nJeffersonians, these frontier citizens had not learned from Hamilton\nhow useful the political state may become to those who know how\nto control its policies to their particular ends; but that lesson\nthey were soon to learn. The citizens of Georgia received excellent\ninstruction from no less a man than Chief Justice Marshall in the\nmatter of the Yazoo frauds; and as such lessons sank into their minds\ntheir political philosophy underwent a silent change. The coonskin\nindividualism that created Jacksonian democracy was gradually\nundermined by a middle-class individualism that inclined to the\nWhiggery of Henry Clay. The former was a spontaneous expression of the\nfrontier spirit, the latter a calculating expression of the maturing\nsettlement. The one discovered its native habitat on the backwoods\nfarm, the other in the county seat town. The one was agrarian _laissez\nfaire_, the other was exploitative paternalistic. The followers of\nJackson wanted the state kept simple and frugal, the followers of Clay\nwanted it to engage in ambitious programs of internal improvement;\nand from these antagonistic principles emerged a bitter feud between\nDemocracy and Whiggery that in western townships revived the old\nalignment of agrarian and Federalist of earlier times.\n\nIn such a contest the principle of Whiggery must eventually triumph.\nIt was an expression of \u201cthe genius of the times.\u201d Economics and\npsychology were daily arguing in its behalf. From the first early\nsettlements of the Ohio valley, it must be remembered, circumstances\nwere creating a new middle class that was to stamp itself indelibly on\nwestern life and institutions. The spirit of speculation had entered\nthe wilderness with the early surveyors. With its vast resources the\nInland Empire offered the first opportunity to exercise the newly\nwon right to exploit the western hinterland, and it was seized upon\ngreedily. Agriculture was still the common business and land hunger\nthe common passion. The irruption of the land-hungry hordes upon\nthe fertile Ohio valley, it will be recalled, synchronized with the\nspeculative debauch that followed the conclusion of the peace of\n1783, and this in turn was a by-product of the sudden expansion of\nthe new capitalistic finance. Speculation had suddenly become every\nman\u2019s business, and wild lands and wild-cat banks, joining fortunes\nfor better or worse, brought forth a characteristic progeny. The new\ngospel of progress found more willing hearers than the old gospel of\nrighteousness. Every adventurer into the Ohio valley was a potential\nspeculator, and every settler was eager to sell out to a later comer\nat an advance. The real estate agent followed close on the footsteps\nof Daniel Boone, quick to profit from the explorations. Land was the\nstaple commodity and such a turnover had never before been known in\nAmerica. Every clearing in the woods was speedily capitalized, and\nevery townsite was reckoned rich in potential values. The new cities\nwere founded in unearned increment and prospered with its increase.\nWith European peasants flocking to the West from their poverty-stricken\ncountries, and the exploited of the East seeking new openings there,\nit was an unlucky speculator who could not exchange his paper values\nfor substantial equivalents. Law, religion, education, culture,\nwere pressed into the service of speculation. How widely the spirit\npermeated the West is suggested in the experience of Timothy Flint,\nfrontier missionary. Writing from Saint Charles, Missouri, in 1818, he\ncommented somewhat bitterly:\n\n Religion, when I came here was considered contemptible. The phalanx\n of opposition was in array from one end of the street to the\n other. Why did they invite me here? On speculation. A minister--a\n church--a school--are words to flourish in an advertisement to sell\n lots. (John Ervin Kirkpatrick, _Timothy Flint, etc._, Appendix B,\n p. 293.)\n\nFrom the determining factors, then, of abundant wild lands, rapid\nincrease in population, and an elastic credit, operating on a vast\nscale, came the optimistic, speculative psychology of the new West.\nIt is the common disease of every period of unstable economics. It\nhad traveled west with every extension of the frontier; and it became\nacute in the Ohio valley in the romantic days following the War of\n1812. In colonial times before the upheaval of the Revolution, prices\nof land and commodities had been stable. The basic silver currency\nvaried little in quantity or value; coin was scarce, but the occasional\nemission of paper money produced little disturbance, for the reason\nthat the farmer habitually reckoned his income in the produce of his\nfarm and fireside. But with the unsettling of exchange values by\nthe wide use of bank notes, prices at once shifted to a speculative\nbasis. The familiar commodities ceased to have a fixed use value, and\na cash psychology superseded the traditional commodity value. The old\nstability was gone. The familiar domestic economy that functioned\nprimarily in terms of consumption rather than profit disintegrated\nunder the workings of a paper system and gave place to a speculative\neconomy.\n\nIt was this revolution that set apart the new West from the older\ntraditional America and made it the special repository of the new\nmiddle-class spirit of progress. The change had been long preparing.\nWriting from Boonesborough in January, 1776, the agent of the\nTransylvania Land Company pointed out that the western country\n\u201cabounded with land mongers,\u201d and that his company had already issued\nnine hundred patents.[413] These adventurous spirits were only pioneers\npointing the way for later hordes that after 1815 pushed eagerly\nonward. \u201cOld America seems to be breaking up, and moving westward,\u201d\ncommented a traveler in 1817 as he watched the long line of Conestoga\nwagons moving towards Pittsburgh; and in the fall of the same year\nTimothy Flint said of Saint Charles, Missouri, that \u201cthere was an\naverage of one hundred people every day coming to the town, or passing\nto near-by points. Nearly all were poor and not one family in fifty had\na Bible\u201d (Kirkpatrick, _Timothy Flint, etc._, p. 102). \u201cThis western\nfever has seized old and young,\u201d remarks a character in Cooper\u2019s _Home\nas Found_, \u201cand it has carried off many active families from our parts\nof the world.... Most of the counties adjoining our own have lost a\nconsiderable portion of their population.\u201d One reason for this vast\nexodus from the East is suggested by a recent student who remarks:\n\u201cA considerable part of the significance of the frontier lies behind\nthe frontier. In one sense, the westward expansion of the American\npeople was a flight from the new industrialism\u201d (Norman Ware, _The\nIndustrial Worker_, p. xx). To these adventurers from the East was\nadded an increasing immigration. During the period from the close of\nthe Revolution to the War of 1812, the annual immigration averaged no\nmore than four or five thousand. In the year 1817 it rose to 22,000,\nand thereafter an augmenting stream poured into America and filtered\nwestward. They were natural prey to shrewd promoters, and in _Martin\nChuzzlewit_ Dickens has drawn a picture--not wholly caricature--of what\nbefell some of them. But whatever might be their individual fate, they\nprovided fuel to the fire that was consuming the old agrarianism and\nclearing the ground for the western middle class.\n\n\nII\n\nWith land as its staple commodity the West naturally interpreted\nprogress in terms of increasing land values; and these in turn were\ndependent on better markets, better roads, and a freely flowing tide of\nimmigration. In a country of such vast distances internal improvements\nwere an everyday necessity. With every mile that a turnpike was driven\ninto the wilderness new opportunities were opened up. Monies paid for\nwild land went into the Federal treasury; it was only just, according\nto the western view, that such monies should return to the West in the\nform of public improvements, for with such improvements tax values were\nincreased, prices of all commodities rose, and progress was furthered.\nThe Federal government could not fairly leave its offspring to shift\nfor themselves, but must consider itself _in loco parentis_ to the\nrising commonwealths. It was a persuasive argument, appealing alike to\nfarmer and speculator, to town and country, but it played havoc with\nthe older Jeffersonianism. Jefferson thought always in terms of the\nagrarian producer functioning in a stable economic world; speculation\nwas not in his philosophy; unearned increment was a crop he never\ncalculated on; and in sympathy with an older liberalism he would reduce\nthe state to the narrow r\u00f4le of policeman. But the new West, thinking\nin terms of its immediate needs, desired a broad and benevolent\npaternalism. It wanted the Federal government to butter its bread\nregardless of the ultimate cost of the butter.\n\nThe complete embodiment of this spirit of paternalistic progress was\nthe master politician of the times, whose dramatic career, beginning\nas a Jeffersonian and ending as a Hamiltonian, suggests the confusions\nof a world in transition. Henry Clay was the hero of the new West, the\nspokesman of the new ambitions. A man of great personal charm, engaging\nmanners, buoyant temperament, exuberant patriotism, and persuasive\ntongue, he migrated in 1797 at the age of twenty-one from Richmond,\nVirginia, to Lexington, Kentucky, then a booming county-seat town only\ntwenty-two years removed from the building of its first blockhouse. The\npopulation of the state had more than doubled in seven years, and by\n1797 it had risen above 180,000. Of this aggressive little world Clay\nsoon became the accredited representative at Washington. He had been\nbrought up under the old domestic economy and carefully tutored in the\nJeffersonian philosophy. For four years he had been private secretary\nto George Wythe, a distinguished Virginian of the older generation,\na profound lawyer and teacher, a scholarly political thinker, a\nhumanitarian, and a confirmed agrarian. When Clay left Virginia he\ncarried with him the Jeffersonianism of Wythe; but he was wanting in\nthe trained intellect of his preceptor and his views were inadequately\ngrounded. His subsequent career revealed him as an impressionable\nnature modifying his convictions with his environment. In Kentucky the\nspirit of speculative expansion seized him and inoculated his mind with\nthe new gospel of progress. He early convinced himself that government\nwas not doing its full duty unless it helped its citizens to make\nmoney, and he persistently pressed on Congress the need of federal aid\nto develop the West. In 1812 he fell victim to the war psychology,\nturned jingo, and substituted an ardent patriotism for sober reason.\nThereafter he became increasingly nationalistic, demanding a strong\narmy and navy, pleading for a loose construction of the constitution,\narguing for paternalism. His Jeffersonianism was quietly put away\nlike a garment out of style. Grossly ignorant of the schools of\neconomic thought, he was an opportunist who shifted from the older\ndomestic economy to the later capitalistic, without comprehending the\nsignificance of the change. Unread in history and political theory,\nhe trusted his fluency to get him out of any inconsistencies he might\nblunder into. In the course of his long career he found himself\nat different times on both sides of every important question; yet\ngravitating to the middle-class position, the exponent of exploitation\nin the name of progress, spokesman of the commercial, financial and\nmanufacturing interests, a new-model Federalist passionately defending\nthe new money economy--a curious ending for one who began as a pupil of\nGeorge Wythe.\n\nAnd yet not curious when one considers the ambitions of the world that\nmolded him. Clay was a born politician who rarely came to grips with\nreality. Devoted to the principles of republican liberty as he found\nthem in the Constitution, he professed to believe that government\ncould be trusted to distribute favors with impartial hand. Personally\nhonest, he never realized how often he allowed himself to become the\nunconscious tool of powerful economic interests. With his desire to\nplease everybody he was an easy prey for skillful lobbyists. He had\nbeen at one time attorney for the Bank, yet he denied vehemently\nthat his defense of the institution had been influenced by such\nconnection. He had become a Hamiltonian without gaining Hamilton\u2019s\nclear understanding of the economic basis of politics. A brilliant\nopportunist, he was guided by no fixed political principles but tacked\nwith the shifting winds. A brilliant romantic, he was the persuasive\nprophet of an age that was dreaming of a prosperity that should gather\nin certain favored reservoirs through the agency of subsidies and\ntaxes, and trickle thence through all the land to water the roots\nof industry. It was fitting that such a man should be the father of\nWhiggery, and fitting also that he should stand as the embodiment of\nthe spirit of compromise. One great lesson, at least, he had learned,\nthat greater men too often do not learn, the lesson that republican\ngovernment rests on good will and that such good will demands a\npolicy of give and take among rival interests. Compromise may be\ndispleasing to earnest souls, but it is implied in any workable system\nof democratic rule.\n\nLike Calhoun and Webster, Clay was a victim of changing times. If he\nhad lived a generation later, when the middle-class revolution had been\naccomplished and the principle of capitalism was in undisputed control,\nhe would have achieved a far greater personal success. But capitalism\nwas not yet strong enough to uphold him against rival economies, and\nhe failed of his lifelong ambition to be President. He was broken by\nthe Jacksonian revolution, in spite of the fact that no other American\npolitician has been so loved by a hero-worshiping electorate--and it\nshould be added, has been so lovable.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[413] See James Hall, _Romance of American History_, Appendix.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Two Spokesmen of the West\n\n\nI \u2022 Andrew Jackson \u2022 Agrarian Liberal\n\nClay\u2019s pleasant dream of a paternalistic prosperity for America got\nits first rude awakening from General Jackson and his motley following\nof western equalitarians and eastern proletarians. Gentlemen were\nsuddenly reminded that the plain people had been overlooked in the\ndistribution of benefits. The waters of prosperity, it would seem, had\nbeen trickling somewhat too scantily to them from the great reservoirs\nwhere they were impounded; and as they saw the wealth pouring into\nprivate ponds through governmental pipe lines, a natural human envy\ntook possession of them. In theory the pipe lines belonged to them,\nand the impounded waters were to be used for common irrigation; but\nin practice the mains seemed to conduct only to Lowell industrialists\nand Philadelphia and New York capitalists, and the waters turned out\nto be privately owned. As the recognition of this fact came home to\nthe producing mass it provided a rallying point for an anti-monopolist\nmovement and determined the great objective of the Jacksonian attack,\nthe assault on the Bank.\n\nThe driving force of the new Democracy was the same class-feeling\nthat had done service a generation before, the will to destroy the\naristocratic principle in government. This conscious class-feeling\nhad been strengthened by the spread of the dogma of equalitarianism\nthrough the frontier, and this in turn had brought about an extension\nof manhood suffrage which enfranchised a numerous body of voters who\nturned against an aristocracy that had long resisted their demands for\nthe vote. The spirit of 1798 was rising afresh, and the re-alignment\nassumed the form of a democratic-aristocratic struggle, which for\nthe moment obscured the more significant fact of an emerging middle\nclass. The battle seemed to lie between homespun and broadcloth for\ncontrol of government, and this serves to explain the odium that\nquickly attached to Jacksonian Democracy in polite circles. In drawing\ntogether mechanics and frontiersmen, the new party inevitably became\na lower-class instrument, offensive to gentlemen of the old school\nof politics. The records of the times carry abundant evidence, often\namusing, of this aristocratic contempt. In the early forties a girl\nof seventeen living on a Mississippi plantation, describing Jefferson\nDavis--whose wife she afterwards became--was surprised at the contrast\nbetween his politics and his manners. \u201cWould you believe it,\u201d she\nwrote, \u201che is refined and cultivated, and yet he is a Democrat!\u201d\n(_Jefferson Davis, A Memoir by his Wife_, Vol. I, p. 192.)\n\nThere were quite evident reasons for this aristocratic contempt. The\nnew Democracy was heavily weighted with what gentlemen were pleased to\ncall the rabble. Fresh Democratic recruits had been gathering since\nJefferson molded the first party of protest. Industrialism was creating\na city proletariat, and the frontier was producing the coonskin voter;\nneither as yet possessed any adequate political philosophy, but they\nneeded no philosophy to enlist against the traditional privileges and\nperquisites of broadcloth. They had had their fill of such rule. The\nstake-in-society theory was worn threadbare, and other philosophies\nwere preparing. Meanwhile in the person of Old Hickory they saw the\nvisible embodiment of their vague aspirations, and they turned to\nhim with an unquestioning loyalty that nothing could weaken. He was\nour first great popular leader, our first man of the people. If he\naroused a wild enthusiasm in breasts covered by linsey-woolsey, it\nwas because he believed that linsey-woolsey had its stake-in-society\nequally with broadcloth. He was one of our few Presidents whose heart\nand sympathy were with the plain people, and who clung to the simple\nfaith that government must deal as justly with the poor as with the\nrich. Believing so, he could not be turned aside from his course by\npaid clamor, but with a courage rare in the White House he dared make a\nfrontal attack on the citadel of exploitation in the face of an army of\nmercenaries.\n\nThe dramatic career of Andrew Jackson, so unlike that of Jefferson,\nwhich was determined by a speculative temperament and founded on a\ncritical examination of diverse systems of society and politics, was\nshaped in large measure by prejudice and circumstance. A man of iron\nwill and inflexible purpose, he was almost wholly lacking in political\nand social philosophy. His conclusions were the reactions of a simple\nnature of complete integrity, in contact with plain fact. Fundamentally\nrealistic, he cherished few romanticisms. There was no subtlety in his\nmental processes and this lack kept him free from the temptation to\nfollow devious paths beloved of politicians. He must take the shortest\nway to his objective, crashing through such obstacles as lay in his\npath. He was never a bookish man. He was surprisingly ill read, and his\ngrammar and spelling were those of the plain people. He loved horse\nracing and was a master of profanity; yet in spite of characteristics\nthat link him with Davy Crockett, he possessed an innate dignity and\nchivalry that set him far above the wag of the canebrakes. He was a\nborn leader whose headlong onslaughts and rash mistakes might imperil\nthe cause but could not shake the confidence of his followers. All\nwho knew a man when they saw one respected Andrew Jackson. Imperious\nand dictatorial, he knew how to command but not to obey; he took\norders from no one, not even his superiors, unless such orders fell\nin with his own plans. In short General Jackson represented the best\nwhich the new West could breed in the way of capable and self-reliant\nindividualism, and the backwoodsmen loved him for the enemies he made,\nand backed him loudly in his fight against the aristocratic East.\n\nWhen Jackson settled in Nashville in 1788, at the age of twenty-one,\nthe Cumberland valley had somewhat under five thousand inhabitants\nscattered a distance of eighty-five miles along the river. The first\nsettlements had been made only nine years before, and Nashville was a\nfrontier post with frontier manners. Into this rough society the young\nScotch-Irishman fitted easily. His smattering of the law sufficed to\ngain him clients and he soon became a local political leader. When\nhe was only twenty-nine he was sent to Philadelphia as the first\nCongressman from the state of Tennessee, where he came in contact with\nthe \u201caristocratic Neebobs\u201d of the government and heartily disliked\nthem. The next year he was sent to the Senate, but a single session\nsatisfied him and he resigned to accept a judgeship in the state\nSupreme Court, which post he held for six years. During these early\nyears he was unconsciously following the path that conducted straight\nto a middle-class philosophy. He threw himself into speculation,\nbought and sold land in great blocks, traded in horses and slaves,\nset up a general store, and was well on the road to wealth when the\npanic of 1795 caught him unprepared. He lost most of his extensive\nholdings, including his homestead and many of his slaves, and removed\nto a six hundred and forty acre tract eight miles from Nashville--the\nHermitage--which was to become one of the famous places of America.\nWith this removal his middle-class ambitions fell away and he became a\nplanter with a simple agrarian point of view; and this old-fashioned\nagrarianism became in later years the determining force in all his\npolitical thinking.\n\nHe was fifty-eight when he emerged as a potential candidate for the\nPresidency in 1822, and for years his sole interests, other than those\nof his plantation, had been military. He was singularly wanting in any\nformulated political philosophy, and his re\u00eblection to the Senate two\nyears later did little to supply the lack. He had picked up some shreds\nof the protectionist theory and in a letter written in 1824 he went so\nfar as to declare for a \u201cjudicious\u201d protective tariff, basing his view\non the grounds of the country\u2019s economic unpreparedness at the time\nof the War of 1812, on the lack of markets for the produce of western\nfarms, and on the desirability of drawing labor from the farm to the\nfactory. But he added a significant passage that reveals the agrarian\nbias of his mind. To the end of his life he insisted that he was an old\nRepublican of 1798, and this comment of 1824 suffices to connect his\nlater attack on the Bank with Jefferson\u2019s attack on Hamilton\u2019s fiscal\npolicy.\n\n Beyond this, I look at the Tariff with an eye to the proper\n distribution of labor and revenue; and with a view to discharge our\n national debt. I am one of those who do not believe that a national\n debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic;\n inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration\n a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.\n (Quoted in Bassett, _Life of Andrew Jackson_, Vol. I, p. 346.)\n\nThe tariff was the only question on which he was receptive to Whiggish\narguments, and although he never openly repudiated a protectionist\npolicy he soon grew lukewarm in its support. Such other fragments of\nWhiggery as found accidental lodgment in his mind were swept away in\nthe fierce struggles that marked his years in the White House. During\nthose eight years Jackson found himself, and the man who emerged from\nthe struggle was an agrarian of the old Virginian school. As he came to\nunderstand the significance of the principle of exploitation he learned\nto interpret social classes in terms of economics. He instinctively\nhated all aristocrats, extending his dislike to the circle that\npretended to social pre\u00ebminence in Tennessee, speaking of them\ncontemptuously as the \u201caristocrats of Nashville.\u201d But in these later\nyears a change in his vocabulary appeared; his favorite phrases became\n\u201cthe monied capitalists\u201d and the \u201chydra of corruption.\u201d He had come to\nassociate aristocracy with the control of the economics of society. He\nwas learning how aristocracies are built up through the instrumentality\nof the state; and as that lesson sank into his mind his opposition to\nsuch class favoritism hardened into adamant. He would put a stop to\nsuch practices, cost what it might. His attack on the Bank was perhaps\nthe most courageous act in our political history; he knew how fiercely\nit would be defended; yet he was amazed at the number of hornets that\nissued from the shaken nest. \u201cSuch has been the scenes of corruption\nin our last congress,\u201d he wrote in 1833, \u201cthat I loath the corruption\nof human nature and long for retirement, and repose on the Hermitage.\nBut until I can strangle this hydra of corruption, the Bank, I will\nnot shrink from my duty.\u201d And a little later, \u201cI want relaxation from\nbusiness and rest, but where can I get rest; I fear not on this earth\u201d\n(Bassett, _Life of Andrew Jackson_, Vol. II, pp. 635, 637).\n\nAs his policy unfolded it became clear that Jackson had not changed\nwith the changing times. He remained to the last the product of an\nearlier domestic economy, with an old-fashioned horror of debt. He\nwas too generous to be frugal, too kind-hearted to be thrifty, too\nhonest to live above his means. He desired a simple independence for\nhimself and for his country. He believed that the government should\npay its debt, reduce its revenues, and live simply. In his austere\npersonal rectitude he exhibited a Puritan conviction of the sacredness\nof stewardship; he must return to the common people, who had put their\ntrust in him, an honest reckoning of that trust. It was not in his\nnature to betray their faith. He would have nothing to do with the\nnew theory that government is an agency to help business. To take\nprofits from an instrument erected supposedly for the common good was\nabhorrent to his old-fashioned views; it was impossible for him to\nlend the sanction of his office to particular or special interests;\nand when circumstances made the Bank the central vexing problem of his\nadministration, his position was predetermined by every conviction of\nhis mind. While he was President he would not allow the government to\nbe used for business ends; he would not permit its funds or credit to\nbe turned to private profits; he would not tolerate a money monopoly,\nno matter how conventionally correct its operations might be proved to\nbe, that challenged the sovereignty of the national government. The\ntwin powers of the purse and sword--to recall Clay\u2019s famous phrase\nthat every Whig orator used on the stump--were in Jackson\u2019s opinion\nthe ultimate tests of sovereignty; and to turn over the money of the\ngovernment to private hands for private use, he believed, was as grave\nan abrogation of sovereign rights as would be the use of the army and\nnavy by private interests for private ends.\n\nIn the judgment of many critics Jackson, in his ignorance of the\nintricacies of capitalistic finance, wantonly destroyed a necessary\ncredit system, thereby bringing a devastating panic on the country.\nWhether or not that judgment is true is of little importance today.\nMore interesting historically is the fact that in his attitude towards\nthe Bank, as in his attitude towards internal improvements, Jackson\nreturned to the agrarian position of Jefferson and John Taylor,\nnullifying for a time the victories gained by the middle class\nduring the boom period of nationalism. The more he learned about\nthe methods of capitalistic finance, the more he distrusted it. His\nprejudices were his strength. He disliked speculation and he could\nsee nothing permanently wise or sound in a speculative economy that\nput American industry at the mercy of bankers to expand or contract\ncredit. With an old-fashioned love of a stable currency he gave his\nwarm support to the project to return the country to a specie basis.\n\u201cThe great desideratum, in modern times,\u201d he said in his message to\nthe twenty-fourth Congress, \u201cis an efficient check upon the power of\nbanks, preventing that excessive issue of paper whence arise those\nfluctuations in the standard of value which render uncertain the\nrewards of labor.\u201d The establishment of additional mints to provide an\nadequate coinage of gold or silver became therefore a natural corollary\nof his attack upon bank currency. It was John Taylor\u2019s economics\nwritten into the law of the land.\n\nIn his attitude towards the state Jackson followed the nationalistic\ntendencies of the West. He was as patriotic as Clay, and in spite of\nstrong states-rights sympathies he contemptuously rejected Calhoun\u2019s\ntheory of nullification. But he had no love for an omnicompetent\nstate. More and more he drifted back to the Jeffersonian position in\nhis conception of the powers and duties of the federal government.\nReplying to the vote of censure of 1834, he stated his ideal of\ngovernment in words that would have become Jefferson\u2019s first inaugural\nspeech. He had been charged with being ambitious, to which he replied:\n\n The ambition which leads me on, is an anxious desire and a fixed\n determination, to return to the people, unimpaired, the sacred\n trust they have confided to my charge--to heal the wounds of the\n constitution and preserve it from further violation; to persuade\n my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid\n government, supported by powerful monopolies and aristocratical\n establishments, that they will find happiness, or their liberties\n protected, but in a plain system, void of pomp--protecting all, and\n granting favors to none--dispensing its blessings like the dews of\n heaven, unseen and unfelt, save in the freshness and beauty they\n contribute to produce. It is such a government that the genius of\n our people requires--such a one only under which our States may\n remain for ages to come, united, prosperous, and free. (Benton,\n _Thirty Years\u2019 View_, Vol. I, p. 427.)\n\nThe evils entailed on America by the Jacksonian revolution were many,\nbut they cannot properly be charged against Andrew Jackson. They\ncame in spite of him, and they came as a result of the great object\nlesson in the manipulation of the majority will that his popularity\nhad laid bare. His instincts and the main outline of his policy were\nJeffersonian; but neither he nor any other man was strong enough\nto stop the current of middle-class individualism then running.\nThe American people were wanting in an adequate democratic program\nsuited to the changing times, as they were wanting in desire for a\nsocial democracy. And when his capable hands fell from the machine\nhe had created, it was seized by the politicians and used for narrow\npartisan ends. Yet one far-reaching result survived the movement, the\npopularization of the name of democracy and the na\u00efve acceptance of the\nbelief that the genius of America was democratic. In choosing a party\nname the Jacksonians were shrewder politicians and better prophets than\nthe Whigs. For better or worse the American masses, and in particular\nthe nationalistic West, had espoused the principle of democracy, and\ninterpreted it in terms of political equalitarianism--a principle that\nhad inspired a fanatical hatred in the breasts of old Federalists.\nTo gentlemen of that earlier school democracy had meant the right of\nthe propertyless majority to plunder the minority in the name of the\nlaw. The later Whigs did not make so blundering a mistake. Instead of\nproclaiming democracy the mother of all mischiefs, they welcomed it as\nan effective aid in vote-getting. Learning their lesson from Jackson,\nthe Whig politicians outdid him in democratic professions. They had\ndiscovered that business has little to fear from a skillfully guided\nelectorate; that quite the safest way, indeed, to reach into the public\npurse is to do it in the sacred name of the majority will. Perhaps the\nrarest bit of irony in American history is the later custodianship\nof democracy by the middle class, who while perfecting their tariffs\nand subsidies, legislating from the bench, exploiting the state and\noutlawing all political theories but their own, denounce all class\nconsciousness as unpatriotic and all agrarian or proletarian programs\nas undemocratic. But it was no fault of Andrew Jackson if the final\noutcome of the great movement of Jacksonian democracy was so untoward;\nit was rather the fault of the times that were not ripe for democracy.\n\n\nII \u2022 Lincoln \u2022 Free-Soil Liberal\n\nThe equalitarian West that bred Andrew Jackson bred Lincoln also,\na man with the same homespun mind, the same sterling integrity of\nnature, the same instinctive democracy, but shaped by an environment\nin which the new philosophy of progress had displaced the older\nagrarianism. The road of middle-class ideals he traveled further\nthan Jackson, but in the end he also turned back to pick up once\nmore the democratic faith then being repudiated by the proponents\nof slavery, north as well as south. Long an ardent Whig of the Clay\nschool, and thoroughly indoctrinated in a paternalistic nationalism,\nhe was brought, as every thoughtful American of the times was brought,\nto weigh the program of slave imperialism in the scales with the\nDeclaration of Independence. The doctrines of that great document lay\nbefore every man\u2019s feet in those uncertain days, to get over as one\ncould. They could not easily be evaded or got round; they must be\ndealt with. Rufus Choate, representing Boston Toryism, had come upon\nthem and dismissed them as \u201cglittering and sounding generalities.\u201d\nCalhoun, representing southern imperialism, had come upon them and\nessayed to destroy them by a critical realism. Lincoln, embodying the\nspontaneous liberalism of the West, came upon them and paused to take\nhis bearings afresh. He could neither wave them aside nor destroy\nthem. The deep-rooted equalitarianism of his simple social philosophy\nfound in them an eloquent pronouncement of its democratic faith, that\nset him upon considering how such doctrine might be squared with the\nreality of slavery. The agrarianism of John Taylor and the Whiggery of\nHenry Clay could tell him nothing about that; he must seek elsewhere;\nand the solution he found in an amalgamation of equalitarianism and\nfree-soilism, in an adaptation of western Whiggery to Jeffersonian\nprinciples.\n\nWhatever party name he might call himself by, in his love of justice\nand his warm humanity Lincoln was essentially Jeffersonian. He\nrespected property rights, but other rights he believed more sacred.\nAnd as he watched the emergence in the South of the ideal of a Greek\ndemocracy, as he considered how the party of Jackson had become\nthe party of Calhoun and Douglas, bent solely on strengthening and\nspreading the institution of slavery, his equalitarianism took alarm.\nHe could not sit quiet while the principles of the Declaration of\nIndependence were being openly flouted; he must speak out; he must\narouse the idealism of the people to deal with the iconoclasts. In an\nimportant pronouncement written in 1859, he set the problem before them\nthus:\n\n Remembering ... that the Jefferson party was formed upon its\n supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding\n the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior\n ... it will be ... interesting to note how completely the two\n [parties] have changed hands as to the principles upon which they\n were originally supposed to be divided. The Democracy of today hold\n the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict\n with another\u2019s right of property; Republicans, on the contrary,\n are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the\n man before the dollar.... But, soberly, it is now no child\u2019s play\n to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this\n nation.... The principles of Jefferson are the principles and\n axioms of free society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with\n no small show of success. One dashingly calls them \u201cglittering\n generalities.\u201d Another bluntly calls them \u201cself-evident lies!\u201d\n And others insidiously argue that they apply to \u201csuperior races.\u201d\n These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and\n effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and\n restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy.... They\n are the vanguard, the miners and sappers of returning despotism.\n We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. (Letter to H. L.\n Prince and Others, April 6, 1859, in _Works_, Vol. V, pp. 125-126.)\n\nTwo conceptions were here competing in Lincoln\u2019s mind, the older\nequalitarianism that sprang from French humanitarianism and the newer\neconomics that came from English _laissez faire_; and the attempt to\nreconcile them suggests how far he had traveled along the path of\nwestern Whiggery. With the spirit of enterprise he had no complaint;\nthe ideal of progress was associated in his mind with a fluid economics\nthat permitted the capable to rise through skillful exploitation. He\nhad no love for the stable economics of the eighteenth century that\nJackson preferred; the profit motive, functioning freely, he regarded\nas the legitimate driving force of society; but he was concerned that\ncompetition should be open to all on equal terms. As he watched the\ntransition from an agrarian to an industrial order, he found himself\nmore in sympathy with the new than the old. Accepting the principle\nof exploitation he came to the position of the little capitalist who\nbelieved that in America capitalism could be democratized by the simple\nmethod of keeping the opportunities for exploitation open to every\ncitizen. It was common view of western Whiggery, and in so far Lincoln\nremained a Whig, content with a system which he accepted as peculiarly\nsuited to the genius of the American people. In a late speech he summed\nit up thus:\n\n What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is\n best to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he\n can. Some will get wealthy. I don\u2019t believe in a law to prevent a\n man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while\n we don\u2019t propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the\n humblest man an equal chance to get rich with anybody else. When\n one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is\n such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that\n there is no fixed condition of labor for his whole life.... I want\n every man to have a chance--and I believe a black man is entitled\n to it--in which he can better his condition--when he may look\n forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work\n for himself afterwards, and finally to hire men to work for him.\n That is the true system. (Speech at New Haven, March 6, 1860, in\n _Works_, Vol. V, pp. 360-361.)\n\nBut as a western man Lincoln was far more concerned over the\napplication of _laissez faire_ to the problem of western lands, and as\nhe contemplated the practical workings of \u201csquatter sovereignty\u201d he\nlearned how the free functioning of _laissez faire_ may be interfered\nwith by economic imperialisms. That lesson determined his final stand.\nThe virgin prairies beyond the Mississippi were coveted equally by\nnorthern and southern exploiters; and who should finally possess them,\nwhether the small freeholder or the slave-master, was a question that\ncould not be put off forever. None knew this better than the small\nfarmers who were already staking out homesteads there. If Congress\nyielded to the pro-slavery demands their economic future would be\nendangered. It was the free-soil West that sent the first anti-slavery\nmen to Washington and provided the backbone of the new party. Not the\nrespectable West, but the plain people, Whig as well as Democrat. \u201cMuch\nof the plain old Democracy is with us,\u201d said Lincoln in 1858, \u201cwhile\nnearly all the old exclusive silk-stocking Whiggery is against us. I\ndon\u2019t mean nearly all the old Whig party, but nearly all of the nice\nexclusive sort\u201d (Letter to A. C. Henry, in _Works_, Vol. V, p. 95). It\nwas no humanitarian regard for the rights of the negro that welded them\ninto a militant party. Racially and economically the free-soiler was\nhostile to the black, whether slave or free. The Topeka constitution\nadopted by the Kansas free-soilers barred all negroes from the new\nstate; Kansas was to be a white man\u2019s country. The free labor of the\nWest wanted no competition with an alien race, and was prepared to\nfight both the white master and free black for exclusive possession of\nthe national domain. There were few John Browns among these western\nhomesteaders--uncompromising idealists who rebelled at the injustice\ndone the negro. The free-soiler hated slavery because it threatened\nhis immediate interests; nevertheless as the great struggle developed,\nthe moral injustice of slavery was thrust to the fore and imparted a\nhumanitarian motive to the free-soil argument. This humanitarian motive\nLincoln seized upon, wedded it to the ideal of national union, and thus\ndoubly armed went forth to the fight.\n\nTo amalgamate idealism and economics is no easy task. \u201cPublic opinion,\u201d\nhe said in a speech at Hartford, \u201cis founded, to a great extent, on a\nproperty basis.\u201d But it is not the sole basis. The ideal of justice\ncomes in to upset all purely economic calculations. \u201cThe property basis\nwill have its weight. The love of property and a consciousness of right\nand wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often make\na man\u2019s course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle\u201d (_Works_, Vol. V, p.\n330). Beyond question it was this recognition of the perennial conflict\nbetween economics and justice, between realism and idealism, that\nexplains the hesitancies and harassing doubts that marked Lincoln\u2019s\ndevelopment. To reconcile the principle of exploitation with the\nDeclaration of Independence it was necessary to stick like a flea to\n_laissez faire_--to eliminate slave labor and accept only free labor.\nLincoln was a slow man and cautious, and he pulled himself forward\nto such a position by main force. He was not a rare intellect like\nThoreau, to think swiftly to a conclusion and abide the consequences.\nHe was a political leader rather than an intellectual, and he could\nadvance only a little ahead of the slow-moving mass he sought to draw\nafter him. A hundred invisible ties held him back--his belief in\nthe rights of local democracies, his respect for law and order, his\ndevotion to the Constitution, his recognition of property interests in\nthe slave, his understanding of the complexity of the problem, with\nthe entire economy of the South resting on a slave basis. Here were\ndifficulties enough to trouble an honest mind. His practical sense,\nwhich is only another name for political realism, restrained his\nidealism and made him of necessity an opportunist, willing to yield\nmuch if he might save the Union. A simple, tolerant, easy-going man,\nhe was at bottom a realist who had come to understand what may be\nconsidered the greatest truth in political science, namely, that an\nenduring state must rest on willing allegiance. Force cannot compel\nloyalty; authority may put down revolt but it cannot destroy the\nseeds of discontent; for that only the sovereignty of good will is\ncompetent, and in free states the sovereignty of good will must rest\nupon compromise. Lincoln was a better democrat than Jackson, for he\nwould rather persuade than drive. If Hamilton embodied the aristocratic\nprinciple of coercive government, Lincoln embodied the democratic\nprinciple of give and take, that prefers compromise to bayonets. With\na cause resting on the common good will it might safely be trusted to\nmuddle through.\n\nSlowly pushed forward by his cautious realism, Lincoln was forty-nine\nbefore he reached the \u201cdivided house\u201d position of the Douglas debates,\nthat was to entail such consequences. It was a bold pronouncement to\naddress to a generation desperately engaged in erecting sham defenses\nagainst reality, in fleeing from the truth that cried aloud to be\nheard. But he would not let men stop their ears longer; the truth must\nbe spoken to their understanding.\n\n In my opinion [he said] agitation will not cease until a crisis\n shall have been reached and passed. \u201cA house divided against\n itself cannot stand.\u201d I believe this government cannot endure\n permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to\n be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect\n it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all\n the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further\n spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the\n belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its\n advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in\n all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. (Speech\n at Springfield, June 16, 1858.)\n\nThe situation could not have been put more neatly. It was an appeal of\nhonest realism to put away all shoddy romanticisms, all mean evasions,\nand to face the situation fairly; and it cut across the murky clouds\nlike a flash of lightning. Thenceforth there could be no longer a\nconspiracy of silence; the problem of slavery had been brought home to\nthe common mind and common conscience, the question of its relation to\nour national unity and national well-being had been brought out into\nthe realm of homely discussion. It is the democratic way, and as an\nhonest democrat, Lincoln stripped away all the protective coloring of\nlies that politicians use and appealed to the honesty of plain men. The\nsame method he applied to the Dred Scott decision. He proposed to bring\nto the bar of the majority opinion the stale legal romanticisms of the\nSupreme Court. He refused to accept the divine right of the courts to\nrulership, he denied the sovereignty of the judiciary, and proposed\nto make a political issue of the matter. He would have it settled\nin town-meetings and at the polls, by the plain people, and not by\nlawyers and judges. It was a reversion to Jeffersonian principles, to\nthe simple democratic creed that fundamentals of public policy must be\ndetermined by the people themselves.\n\nLincoln had thought his way slowly to the \u201cdivided house\u201d position,\nbut he could not pause there. Those were hurrying times, and the\nliberalism of yesterday was inadequate for the liberalism of today. A\nweak man or a time-server would have gone upon the rocks, and a man of\nunyielding policy must have broken; to be certain of one\u2019s conclusions\nwas possible only to one who saw less than the whole. Patience and an\nopen mind alone could be relied on, an intelligent opportunism alone\nwould serve during the months the country was fiercely debating with\nitself; and the heart-breaking hesitation of Lincoln, the troublesome\ndoubts and perplexed questionings, reveal as nothing else could the\nsimple integrity of his nature. He must go forward, but he must carry\nthe people with him, the North as a whole, the border states it\npossible, even the rebellious South if charity might suffice. Though in\narms, they were Americans, and their hearts must be brought to willing\nallegiance; how otherwise could a democratic people emerge from the\nbitterness of civil war? He was not made for a dictator, and blood and\niron he accounted poor cement to mend the sundered democracies. He\ntrusted the better impulses of men to prevail in the end, because with\nJefferson he believed in the essential justice of the plain people. In\nthis faith he exemplified his democracy. Not a great political thinker,\nhe was a great leader because he never forgot that he was one with\nthose he led.\n\nThe slow unfolding of Lincoln\u2019s mind is sufficiently revealed in the\nchanging quality of his speeches. He was rarely eloquent--never after\nthe ornate fashion of the time; and the bits of Hebraic poetry that\nhave come to be associated with his name are singularly few and belong\nto the last years of his life. His usual style was plain homespun,\nclear and convincing, but bare of imagery and lacking distinction of\nphrase. The thought seems to break into speech hesitatingly, in the\nway of a man visibly seeking to adapt his words to his meaning. Matter\nhe judged to be of greater significance than manner. Few men who have\nrisen to enduring eloquence have been so little indebted to rhetoric.\nVery likely his plainness of style was the result of deliberate\nrestraint, in keeping with the simplicity of his nature. When he let\nhimself go he discovered a well of poetry in his heart. When he chose\nhe could even play the rhetorician. In those rare moments when he put\ncaution behind him, his words fell into a stately rhythm that suggests\nthe orator. Witness such a passage as this:\n\n In those days our Declaration of Independence was held sacred\n by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making\n the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed\n and sneered at and construed, and hawked at and torn, till, if\n its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all\n recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining\n against him. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy\n follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry.\n They have him in his prison-house; they have searched his person,\n and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they\n have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have him,\n as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can\n never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key--the keys\n in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a\n hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to\n what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be\n produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than\n it is. (Speech at Springfield, June 27, 1857, in _Works_, Vol. II,\n pp. 327-328.)\n\nBut he did not often let himself go. As one reads his speeches one\nfeels that an English diffidence held him back--this and the strong\nprose of his environment. Like a true Anglo-Saxon he was reluctant\nto speak out, afraid to let his emotions seize upon his speech. Only\nat the last did that diffidence yield to complete unconsciousness.\nThe Gettysburg speech and the Second Inaugural are marked by the\nsincerity and self-effacement that ennobled the words of John Brown\nin the Virginia court-room--it is the eloquence which rises from the\nheart when life has been felt in its tragic reality, an eloquence that\nWebster could not rise to. Such words come only to those who have been\npurified by fire; they are the distillation of bitter experience.\nBut the mass of his speeches are in quite another manner--that of\nthe simple, everyday world that bred him. He had none of the itch of\npublicity that afflicts the second-rate mind. Webster was a magnificent\nposeur; Edward Everett repeated the same academic oration a hundred\ntimes; but Lincoln was too modest to pose and too honest to turn parrot\nand speak by rote. He was a man who loved to talk with his neighbors\nin homely metaphor, and it was then that his thought clothed itself in\nwhimsical humor. He did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but like Mark\nTwain he let it slip out in a witticism.\n\nEven more than Washington has Lincoln suffered at the hands of the\nmyth makers. Of late years he has come to be looked upon too often as\nthe invaluable asset of the political party that he honored in its\nfounding, and too rarely as the embodiment of the kindly, liberal soul\nof our native democracy in the simpler days of a fluid economics and\nan unsophisticated equalitarianism. With his instinctive kindliness,\nhis abiding faith in the good will of men, his dislike of coercion,\nhis readiness to compromise, he may seem old-fashioned to a generation\nthat has grown intolerant--but that is a reflection on our own times\nrather than on Lincoln. The real Lincoln can grow old-fashioned no\nmore than Jefferson. As he went back in a day of sordid imperialisms\nto the earlier liberalism of the great Virginian, seeking to rescue\nthe idealism of the Declaration of Independence from the desecration\nof the market place where it was openly flouted, so in a day of vaster\nimperialisms and greater complexity we may take counsel of his\nhumanitarianism, his open-mindedness, his trust in tolerance and good\nwill, his democratic faith that held firm in spite of disappointment.\nThe market place is mighty now as it was then, and liberalism finds as\nfew friends there; but when did its gods become immortal?\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 The Frontier in Letters\n\n\nWhen the West began to appear in literature in the late twenties and\nearly thirties, it was the Ohio valley that became the beneficiary of\nthe new interest, and over the vast region through which flowed the\nBeautiful River--as far as the Mississippi and beyond--was thrown the\nromance of the settlement. It was a beguiling theme with its background\nof dark forests and bloody Indian fights, with its venturesome\nflatboats that drifted with the current, its picturesque rivermen,\n\u201chalf horse, half alligator,\u201d who towed their heavy crafts upstream,\nits rude miscellany of settlers who intrusted their families and goods\nand cattle to great rafts and set forth hopefully on waters that were\nto bear them presumably to the Promised Land--a theme to appeal to\nimaginations easily stirred to romance. There was a darker side to\nbe sure; wrecks in plenty littered the shores, wrecks of fortune and\ncharacter and life; outlaws and blackguards thronged the river and\npreyed on the adventurers; but in spite of such misadventures the great\nmovement was invested with dramatic interest, and the Ohio valley\nbecame the particular repository of the romance of the frontier, a\nmonopoly which later times never despoiled it of and which only the\nGolden Coast of California ever remotely rivaled. It was fortunate\nin that its early history was recorded by a romanticizing generation\nthat wove its myths about the wilderness scouts, that delighted in the\npicturesque talk of river boatmen and discovered themes for epics in\nthe founding of new commonwealths.\n\nFrom the first, therefore, the literature of the new West fell\nnaturally into the romantic note. The early writers who essayed to deal\nwith frontier materials were eastern men who proposed to exploit the\nromance of the Inland Empire as frankly as their fellow adventurers\nwere exploiting the material resources. Gradually in their work two\nmain conceptions crystallized, which came to overshadow all lesser\nthemes: one localized itself in Kentucky and took form in the poetic\nconception of the Dark and Bloody ground; the other associated itself\nfirst with the rivermen but quickly diffused its spirit through the\nbackwoods and took form in the conception of western humor. The first\nwas a heritage from the early days when the Indian tribes fought for\ntheir ancient hunting grounds and fell upon the isolated stations with\nknife and tomahawk; the second grew up with a later generation that had\npenetrated far into the wilderness, where, stimulated by much whisky,\nits rough vigor found issue in exaggerated boasting. Each created its\nlegendary hero about whom popular imagination wove its myths: the\nfigure of Daniel Boone came to symbolize the heroic qualities of a race\nof scouts and backwoodsmen who matched their wits in woodcraft with\nthe Indians and proved the quality of their Kentucky rifles in many a\nbrush with the warriors; and the figure of Davy Crockett came to embody\nin the popular mind the loquacious eccentricities and exaggerated\nwit that were already passing into a literary tradition. Many hands\ncontributed to the common work: writers as different as James Kirke\nPaulding with his _Westward Ho!_, Robert Montgomery Bird with his _Nick\nof the Woods_, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker with his _George Balcombe_,\nAlbert Pike with his _Prose Sketches and Poems_, Augustus Longstreet\nwith his _Georgia Scenes_, and Joseph G. Baldwin with his _Flush\nTimes of Alabama and Mississippi_--to name only a few. From such\ndiverse elements was created the new literature of the West that was\ncontemporary with the rise of Jacksonian democracy and that gave wide\ncurrency to certain romantic conceptions.\n\n\nI \u2022 The Romantic Frontier\n\nOf this very considerable group of writers the two who earliest\nwrote from immediate first-hand knowledge of frontier life were\nTimothy Flint, Harvard graduate and missionary, and Judge James Hall,\nPennsylvania lawyer, both of whom spent a considerable portion of their\nmature lives in the West. Of Timothy Flint\u2019s restless wanderings and\nperiodic settlements, at Saint Charles, Missouri, at New Orleans, at\nAlexandria on the Red River in Louisiana, at Cincinnati, with frequent\nreturns to his native Massachusetts and a short editorial experience\nin New York City, it is impossible to speak in detail; they suggest,\nhowever, the breadth and intimacy of his knowledge of the West got from\ntwenty-five years\u2019 experience there from 1815 to his death in 1840.\nFew men traveled so widely through the frontier, or carried with them\nsuch keenly observant eyes. He wrote much, conducted for several years\na literary magazine in Cincinnati, was for a short time editor of _The\nKnickerbocker Magazine_ on the withdrawal of Charles Fenno Hoffman, and\nestablished a considerable reputation as a representative of western\nletters. Much of his work was frankly casual, but his _Recollections\nof the Last Ten Years, Passed in Occasional Residences and Journeyings\nin the Valley of the Mississippi_, published in 1826, and his four\nnovels published between 1826 and 1830, make up the first important\ncontribution to the new literature of the West.\n\nIn temperament Timothy Flint seems to have been something of a realist.\nIn his daily life he was frankly outspoken and critical, often to his\nown hurt, and some of the many troubles he met with in his honest\npreaching to frontier heathen, resulted from this plain speaking. He\nrefused to measure life and conduct by the crude western standards,\nand the enmities resulting from such refusal brought about a rupture\nwith the home society that had supported his missionary undertaking.\nIt was this intellectual honesty that filled his _Recollections_ with\nan invaluable body of observation and criticism, and constituted\nit an important source-book for later historians. Paulding early\nmade use of it writing his _Westward Ho!_--published in 1832--and\nin his introduction, after paying tribute to Flint\u2019s \u201cpicturesque\ndescription,\u201d he went on to say that the work \u201chas not met its deserts,\nand he should be highly gratified if this passing notice served in any\nway to call public attention to its interesting details.\u201d Unfortunately\nthe occasional realism of the _Recollections_ gave place in his novels\nto romance saturated with sentiment and heavily coated with moralizing.\nWith a fund of exact information at his disposal he chose to turn\naway from reality and project his stories into regions he had visited\nonly in imagination. _Francis Berrian, or the Mexican Patriot_, deals\nwith a Southwest far beyond his extremest journeyings; _The Life and\nAdventures of Arthur Clenning_ is a romanticized version of Robinson\nCrusoe; and _The Shoshonee Valley_ is a romance conceived out of tales\ntold him by far western travelers, woven into an extravagantly romantic\nplot. The only one of his tales that makes use of familiar settings is\n_George Mason, the Young Backwoodsman; or \u201cDon\u2019t Give up the Ship,\u201d_\nin which he put some of the materials gathered in his journeyings up\nand down the Mississippi, but sentimentalized and moralized out of\nall realism. It is a pity that Flint should have fallen in with the\nextremest mode of the times, for in many essential respects he was the\nbest qualified man of the West to write an honest account of a world\njust taking form.\n\nThe literary reputation of Timothy Flint soon came to be overshadowed\nby that of Judge Hall. \u201cAmong writers of short narratives, the most\ncharacteristically Western fiction of the time,\u201d remarks a recent\nstudent, \u201cJames Hall was clearly pre\u00ebminent; and he became the\ncentral figure in a kind of school of experimenters in the materials\nof frontier life\u201d (Ralph Leslie Rusk, _The Literature of the Middle\nWestern Frontier_, Vol. I, p. 274). In the early twenties he had ridden\nthe circuit in Illinois as a very young lawyer, when the settlements\nwere scattered thinly through the southern portion of the state. At\nVandalia he started the _Illinois Monthly Magazine_, which survived for\ntwo years, when he removed to Cincinnati and established _The Western\nMonthly Magazine_, which in the four years from 1832 to 1836 became\none of the \u201cmost important of the pioneer period.\u201d \u201cThe purpose,\u201d says\nthe student above quoted, \u201cwas not so much to introduce the East to\nthe West as to make the West conscious of itself\u201d (Rusk, _ibid._, Vol.\nI, p. 173). To this end Hall was writing and publishing short tales\nand descriptions, and he had already collected a miscellany of prose\nand verse by several hands which he issued as an annual, _The Western\nSouvenir, a Christmas and New Year\u2019s Gift for 1829_. Thus launched on a\nliterary career, he wrote in the next twenty years a very considerable\namount, including tales, sketches of manners, history and casual\ncomment.\n\nHis best-known story is probably _Harpe\u2019s Head_, which he later\nincorporated with other tales in a volume entitled _Legends of the\nWest: Sketches Illustrative of the Habits, Occupations, Privations,\nAdventures and Sports of the Pioneers of the West_, and published\nin 1832. The work proved popular and passed through half a dozen\neditions. Sketchy and loose in construction, it belongs to the school\nthat hovered between the essay and the romance, delighting in the\npicturesque, exuding sentiment, and going out of its way to exploit the\npleasantly horrible. It is a mingling of Virginia chivalry and frontier\nbravery, woven about a central plot of a daughter of a Virginia house\nwho removes to Kentucky under tragic circumstances, is abducted by a\nroving band of Indians, and subsequently rescued. Additional romantic\ninterest is sought in the melodramatic deeds of the title hero--a\nwell-known border ruffian with an insatiable blood-lust who murders his\nunsuspecting victims wherever he comes upon them--and in the curious\nexploits in rattlesnake killing of Hark Short, a waif from the Carolina\nswamps who lives like a fox in his den. The interest of the story\ntoday lies in the pleasantly idealized descriptions of such scenes as\nthe barbecue and the camp meeting, rather than in the portrayal of\nbackwoods characters. Although Hall frequently professed his devotion\nto realism, there is little evidence of it; occasional figures like\nPete Featherton, whose rifle had been bewitched, and occasional\nindulgence in a conventionalized backwoods dialect, serve only to\nheighten the somewhat gaudy romance of the whole. Yet even such timid\nventures brought on his head criticism from a Cincinnati editor \u201cfor\ntiring the reader with vulgar backwoods expressions\u201d (Rusk, _ibid._,\nVol. I, p. 282).\n\nThat Hall\u2019s interest in backwoods eccentricities of speech and manner\nsuffered a heavy handicap from the romantic taste of his readers may\neasily be believed. Matter excluded from his tales he sometimes put\ninto his introductions. Thus in the third edition of _Harpe\u2019s Head_\nhe analyzed at some length certain characteristics of the crude\npioneers who were creating the psychology of the West--their fondness\nfor drinking, betting, horse-trading, stump-speaking, swearing.\nParticularly it is the exuberance of their picturesque language that\nhe emphasized, an exuberance that was already becoming a literary\ntradition and that flowered in the cento of western folk ways that were\ngathered into the Davy Crockett myth. A single passage will suffice to\nsuggest some of the elements from which Davy was created:\n\n Though usually taciturn in the presence of strangers, [the\n frontiersman] is communicative to his friend or guest, has often\n strong colloquial powers, with quaint, singular, figurative,\n and even eloquent forms of expression. His language, which is\n commonly brief, sententious, and abrupt, becomes, when excited by\n the interest of the subject or by passion, highly expletive, and\n redundant with exaggerated forms and figures of comparison. When\n he swears--and he is probably not more given to this exceedingly\n vulgar vice than other men--but when he does swear in earnest, his\n philology becomes concentrated, and explodes with an appalling\n energy, which would have astonished even the celebrated army in\n Flanders. (_Ibid._, Introduction, p. xii.)\n\nIn his last collection, _The Wilderness and the War Path_, published\nin 1846 and including some earlier tales, Hall contributed little that\nwas new. There is the same heavy romance with touches of realism, and\nby way of reply to Bird\u2019s interpretation of the Indian character he\nexploits the romantic qualities of the red man; but his failures are\ncommoner than his successes, and his work as a whole must be regarded\nas a sacrifice to the bad taste of his generation. From this judgment,\nperhaps, should be excepted his _Romance of American History_, which is\nstill pleasantly readable.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Realistic Frontier\n\nFar more vital than these literary tales with their heavy coating\nof romance are the few realistic sketches--only too rare in those\nexuberant days of the high-flown--that preserve the authentic ways\nof backwoods life in their rude vernacular. Of such sketches those\nthat most faithfully reveal the impress of the frontier, preserving\ndown to the present the note of verisimilitude, are _Georgia Scenes_\nby Augustus B. Longstreet, and the _Autobiography of Davy Crockett_,\nto which may be added, perhaps, Joseph G. Baldwin\u2019s _Flush Times of\nAlabama and Mississippi_.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Augustus Longstreet \u2022 The Georgia Frontier\n\nFor some reason no glamour has ever gathered about the Georgia\nfrontier. It may be that fate conspired against it in bestowing\nno idealizing historian to throw a romantic haze over life in the\npine woods. Or perhaps it was the Georgians themselves who did the\ncommonwealth an evil turn. As a matter of sober fact what could even\nromance do with the raw materials that went to the making of this\ncrude southern Yankee state? How could the most confirmed romantic\ndiscover rare graces in the indigenous Cracker, or weave poetry about\nthe ubiquitous peddler with his pack of Yankee notions? Any honest\nhistorian could hardly avoid taking into account the ungainly throng\nthat attended a gander pulling, or depict Ransy Sniffle as other than\na pallid, pot-bellied, clay-eating grotesque. Crude, uncouth, drab,\nwith primitive passions and unlovely manners, Georgia offered scanty\nmaterials for the most ardent eulogist. Frontier life there ran a\npetty round between fist fights and horse races, between politics and\nreligion. These were the staples of everyday existence, as necessary\nto the natural man as whisky and salt pork; and the honest Georgian\npreferred his whisky straight and his politics and religion red-hot.\nThe Jeffersonian hated the Federalist vindictively; and Presbyterian,\nBaptist, and Methodist regarded each other malignantly, convinced that\nthe devil was stoking his fires for the lost neighbor who persisted in\nsitting under the wrong preaching. Denominationalism on the Georgia\nfrontier was as harsh and unforgiving as political partisanship.\nAlexander H. Stephens believed that the plain people of Georgia were\nthe most democratic on the face of the earth, and the kindliest;\nyet the pugnacious little democrat was himself nearly butchered by\na democratic neighbor. In depicting such a society realism was the\nonly honest method; but to make it palatable it must be well seasoned\nwith humor. If it were garnished with moralizing, so much the better.\nThere must be no subtleties in the treatment, no literary touches. The\nhumor must be in the backwoods vernacular, and the preaching open and\naboveboard--frank pulpit-thumping lessons to awaken the surliest sinner.\n\nFor such business Gus Longstreet was ideally fitted. A true child of\nthe Georgia border, he never quite outgrew his early environment.\nBorn in Augusta in 1790 of New Jersey parents, Holland Dutch but with\na large admixture of English blood,[414] he came of plain stock. A\ndriving, robust, energetic fellow, never squeamish, with a ready\nwit, he was at home amongst the plain people, the greatest wag in\nevery gathering. He could knock a man down or shoot out a squirrel\u2019s\neye with any champion of them all; he could enter into a dance or a\nrevival meeting with equal ardor, or take the stump against a seasoned\ncampaigner. A fellow must be simple-minded who would expect to get the\nbest of him in swapping horses, or in the way of a practical joke. It\ncame hard for so vigorous a plebeian to settle down as a substantial\ncitizen, and the dignified titles that he gathered in the course\nof a long and prosperous career--judge, doctor of laws, doctor of\ndivinity--fitted him somewhat incongruously. On the whole one prefers\nthe plain Gus Longstreet to Judge Longstreet, but his neighbors, who\nthought they knew a man when they saw one, thrust his titles upon him.\nBesides he had gone to college and was thereby lifted to a place of\ndistinction which he could not avoid. The process of scraping off the\nbark of the frontier followed orthodox southern lines. A few years\u2019\nschooling at Dr. Moses Waddell\u2019s celebrated Academy, where at different\ntimes Calhoun, Crawford, McDuffie, Petigru and Legar\u00e9 prepared for\ncollege, and two years at Yale, provided him with a stock of rusty\nLatin to suffice a college president; and a winter or two at the law\nschool in Litchfield, Connecticut, following Calhoun\u2019s high example,\nfurnished him with enough Blackstone to meet the demands of Georgia law\ncourts. Thus provided intellectually, he went forth boldly to cope with\nthe Georgia world as he found it.\n\nIt was a plebeian world that approved his plebeian qualities. There was\nnothing of the southern patrician in Gus Longstreet, nothing of the\nascetic Puritan that marked so deeply men like Calhoun, Legar\u00e9, and the\nGrimk\u00e9s. In his strong instinct of acquisitiveness, his canny thrift\nthat never failed to seize advantage by the forelock, his desire to\nget on in the world while serving God, he was a Georgia Yankee, with\nan emotional religion that took comfort in discovering that God was\nalways on his side of any controversy. Yankee also was his knack of\ndoing many things well enough to impress his less capable neighbors. He\nwas a frontier jack-of-all-trades, passing easily from one profession\nto another, lawyer, newspaper editor, writer, minister, politician,\nteacher, and between times busying himself with all sorts of odd jobs,\ndoing everything readily and nothing thoroughly well. A good talker,\nhis chief interests were politics, religion, and money-making. He wrote\nmuch in careless haste, apologizing always for the lack of finish; but\nexcept for the sketches which were gathered under the title of _Georgia\nScenes_, he produced nothing that needs to be remembered. At the age of\nforty-eight he quitted the law for the Methodist ministry, proved to be\na mediocre preacher, and was soon given the berth of president of Emory\nCollege, a denominational school then recently established at Oxford,\nfor which his literary reputation and his reputed scholarship seemed to\nfit him. Later he was president for a few months of Centenary College,\nLouisiana, but found the place uncongenial, resigned, and was chosen\npresident of the University of Mississippi, where he served seven years\nand made full use of the opportunity to speculate in real estate. At\nthe age of sixty-six he was made president of the University of South\nCarolina, where he ruled patriarchally till the school was closed by\nthe war.\n\nHow great a man he was judged to be by his fellow Georgians is hard\nfor us to realize today. Throughout his later years he was regarded\nby his friends as the brightest ornament of Georgia society, a\nChristian gentleman who was a model to southern youth, a scholar who\nhad brought honor to the commonwealth, an author who had silenced\nthe reproach that the state had produced no literature. Yet it must\nbe confessed that the Judge shrinks in compass when taken out of his\nnative environment. Beside John P. Kennedy or Hugh Legar\u00e9, he lacks\ndistinction either of mind or manner; compared with Gilmore Simms he\nis only an amateur in letters. His latest biographer[415] has sifted\na mass of material to prove the solid and eminent worth of the man;\nyet no impression of intellectual vigor emerges from the analysis;\none must take it on the authority of somewhat incompetent witnesses.\nThe figure that emerges from the clutter of contemporary estimate is\nthat of a capable, expansive, middle-class soul, disputatious in the\nlordly southern manner, genially domineering, magnificently superior\nto logic, given to erecting an imposing structure of convictions on\nthe slightest of foundations, impatient of contradiction and inclined\nto lose his temper when the argument went against him--a witty,\nagreeable gentleman, at home amongst mediocre preachers, and an oracle\nto admiring friends. He was on terms of intimacy with not a single\nfirst-class mind. He had no intellectual curiosity and was incapable of\nrigorous intellectual processes. Yet good fortune had marked him for\nher own. A small investment in letters, made at odd moments between\nlaw cases and farming operations, returned him such dividends in the\nway of contemporary fame that for forty years thereafter he lived in\nthe sunshine of a literary reputation. No other American, unless it\nwere William Wirt, ever drew such ample revenues of popular praise from\na casual investment, and certainly none ever expanded with greater\nself-satisfaction. To the end of his life he was the much-sought-after\nauthor of _Georgia Scenes_, and the most ambitious southern magazines\nwere glad to publish his frequent effusions; in all of which the Judge\ndelighted, for he was a simple soul and accounted himself an apostle of\nsouthern culture, a mentor of southern taste, and he loved to see his\nname in print.\n\nAs a man close to the people Longstreet reflected the current Georgia\nviews on politics. He was an idolatrous admirer of Calhoun and George\nMcDuffie. The former he rated \u201cabove William Pitt, or any other premier\nwho ever lived before or since his day\u201d (Wade, _Augustus Baldwin\nLongstreet_, p. 124) and the latter he regarded as \u201chardly inferior to\nhim in anything.\u201d Calhoun\u2019s innate Hebraisms, so deeply imbued with a\npatriarchal spirit, fitted to a nicety his own Hebraized conception of\na Jeffersonian order. Writing of Calhoun, in after years, Longstreet\nremarked with evident approval:\n\n I believe that he regarded the government of the children of\n Israel in the wilderness, the most perfect that ever existed on\n earth. Be that as it may, he called my attention to it more than\n once as exactly the government ours ought to be, or was intended\n to be. \u201cThere,\u201d said he, \u201ceach tribe had its place on the march\n and in the camp, each managed its own concerns in its own way,\n neither interfered in the slightest degree, with the private\n affairs of another, nor did their common head interfere with any of\n them in any matters, save such as were of equal interest to all,\n but unmanageable by them as separate and distinct communities.\u201d\n (_Ibid._, p. 60.)\n\nThe background of his political thought was Jeffersonian agrarian.\nHe was always a countryman at heart, and his dearest interests were\nagricultural. But he seems to have been quite unread in political\ntheory, and probably had never heard of John Taylor\u2019s economic\nprinciples. Suffering from an incurable political itch, he was one of\nthe earliest and most ardent of states-rights advocates. He went for\nNullification before either Calhoun or McDuffie had espoused it; and\nhe followed his premises through to the logical end of secession. But\nwith the growth of northern Abolitionism his Jeffersonianism began\nto disintegrate. Garrison\u2019s appeal to equalitarianism and the rights\nof man aroused all his southern prejudices. A philosophy that could\nbe turned against the sacred institution was no philosophy for a\nsouthern gentleman, and like Calhoun he repudiated the whole French\nliberal philosophy that he had imbibed in his youth. He even went so\nfar as to play with Calhoun\u2019s doctrine of economic representation.\nWriting to President Lamar, of Texas, in the late thirties, he said,\n\u201cA government should have a legislative assemblage to represent\neach of its large economic interests, one, say, agricultural, one\nmanufacturing, one commercial. No bill not acceptable to all three\nof these assemblages should become a law\u201d (_ibid._, p. 138). But in\ndefense of slavery he argued as a minister rather than an economist. He\ndeclined to consider it an economic question; he would not discuss it\nas a social question; political theories, he believed, had nothing to\ndo with it. The right to hold slaves he regarded as a moral question\nto be determined exclusively by the authority of the Bible, and on\nsuch a question he professed to speak with assurance. He was vastly\nannoyed at the Abolitionists\u2019 unchristian appeal to the old doctrine\nof equalitarianism, and in 1845 he wrote angrily, \u201cWill not some\nof you accept my ideas and then argue through the question on that\nbasis, without taking recourse to the Declaration of Independence or\nthrowing up a breastwork out of the long-forsaken rubbish of the Social\nContract, or bewildering your pursuers in the mazes of metaphysical\nsubtlety?\u201d (_ibid._, p. 282). His religion was deeply involved in\nthe institution of slavery, and it seemed to him uncharitable for\nan intellectual like Theodore Parker to question the sufficiency of\na southern minister\u2019s texts, or to drag him beyond his intellectual\ndepths. So exasperated did he grow that finally he would have no\nfellowship with northern Methodists, and was a prime mover in the great\nschism that rent the church into sectional branches. Abolitionism\nseemed to him hypocrisy and blasphemy and as a minister of Christ\nhe could not hold fellowship with those who rejected the Master\u2019s\nword. After the war, in reviewing the long controversy, his Christian\npugnacity flared up anew, and he flung at the northern churches the\naccusation that they had been \u201cthe most man-astounding, God-offending\nfoes that we had\u201d (_ibid._, p. 367).\n\nThere could be no more telling commentary on the literary poverty of\n_ante-bellum_ Georgia than the extraordinary popularity of Longstreet\u2019s\nsketches. Written for the most part between the years 1832 and 1836,\nwhile he was publishing the _State Rights Sentinel_, they profess to\nbe authentic documents of frontier life in Georgia in the early years\nof the century, and the deliberate note of realism contributes to the\nimpression of authenticity. The love of the romantic that spread like\nthe plague among southern men of letters during the long reign of Sir\nWalter, fortunately did not infect the robust nature of Longstreet.\nThe best of the sketches are spun out of the vernacular; they are\nas objective as Longstreet could make them--conscious studies in\nthe local, done with obvious delight in butternut ways and frontier\ndialect. The quality of the work improves as he draws nearer the\nbackwoods, and comes upon the unregenerate Cracker in his native\nhabitat. There his humor has free play, exuding in practical jokes and\nready repartee, in boyish pranks and homely idiom. And there he finds\ncharacters to his liking and bits of realistic drama. If one were to\nsingle out the sketch that is most indigenous to the Georgia frontier,\nthe truest local document, the choice might well fall on _The Fight_,\nan account of a bloody meeting between backwoods gladiators brought\non by skillful diplomacy of Ransy Sniffle, a grotesque clay-eater and\nLongstreet\u2019s favorite character. Other excellent sketches are _The\nGander Pulling_, _The Shooting Match_, _Georgia Theatrics_, _The Horse\nSwap_, _The Militia Company Drill_--stories that throw an unromantic\nlight on the ways of the Georgia Cracker. Longstreet was as uncritical\nas his readers and his frequent failures are glaring in their badness.\nPerhaps the worst of the sketches are the absurd _The \u201cCharming\nCreature\u201d as a Wife_, a crude sermon on the folly of marrying a lazy\nwoman; _The Song_, an overdone burlesque, and the puerile _The Debating\nSociety_, a heavy practical joke which for some inexplicable reason Poe\nthought the best of the whole.\n\nSlight though the sketches in _Georgia Scenes_ are, they embody\nsolid merits; they are not literary and they are quite unaffected by\nIrving and the exploitation of the picturesque. Realism was only too\nrare in those days of high-flown romance, and how honestly realistic\nwas Longstreet\u2019s work is revealed by a comparison with James Hall\u2019s\ncontemporary stories of the West, such as _Harpe\u2019s Head_, or even with\nKennedy\u2019s _Swallow Barn_. After all Gus Longstreet was an original,\nand he set the style that was followed in a long series of frontier\nsketches, and established the tradition of frontier humor that flowered\nat last in Mark Twain.\n\n\n2 \u2022 The Davy Crockett Myth\n\n_The Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee_\nwas woven from the same stuff that Longstreet made use of, but the\nfabric is of far better texture. It is the great classic of the\nsouthern frontier, far more significant than _Georgia Scenes_, far\nmore human and vital. Realistic in method, it is romantic in spirit.\nIn its backwoods vernacular it purveys the authentic atmosphere of\nthe cabin and the canebrake; it exhibits the honesty, the wit, the\nresourcefulness, the manly independence of a coonskin hero; it\nreveals, in short, under the rough exterior of a shiftless squatter and\nbear-hunter, qualities that are sterling in every society where manhood\nis held in repute. It is an extraordinary document, done so skillfully\nfrom life that homespun becomes a noble fabric and the crudest\nmaterials achieve the dignity of an epic.\n\nThe thing had long been waiting to be done. The literary romantics had\ntried their hand at the frontier materials and had failed, and then\ncame a realist of the Georgia school who used the stuff as he found it\nand created a lasting document. A practiced writer collaborated with a\npicturesque talker, and the fame of the Tennessee Congressman was made.\nRomantic America found a new hero and Davy Crockett reaped a surprising\nreward. He had the good fortune to pre\u00ebmpt the romance of the\nbackwoods, to file on an unsurveyed tract of western life, and when the\nlines were run it was found that his claim embraced all that was native\nand picturesque along the Mississippi frontier. Popular imagination\nseized upon him and endowed the mighty hunter of the canebrakes\nwith the fugitive romance that had been gathering for years. He was\nerected into a mythical figure that drew to itself the unappropriated\npicturesque that sprang spontaneously from the crude western life. How\nthis astonishing result came about, how good fortune came to single out\nDavy Crockett for her smiles, offers a somewhat amusing commentary on\nthe ways of an unsophisticated generation.\n\nThat in its later development, if not in the beginning, the Davy\nCrockett myth was a deliberate fabrication scarcely admits of doubt,\nnor that its immediate purpose was frankly partisan. It did not\nspring from the soil of the Tennessee canebrakes; it was created at\nWashington. It was not the spontaneous product of popular imagination;\nit was the clever work of politicians. The successive stages through\nwhich it passed in its triumphant progress can be traced fairly\naccurately with the aid of a little historical imagination. Roughly\nthey were three; the exploitation of Davy\u2019s canebrake waggery, the\nexploitation of his anti-Jackson spleen, and the exploitation of\nhis dramatic death at the Alamo. The first phase is embodied in the\n_Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett, of West Tennessee_\n(1833); the second, in _An Account of Col. Crockett\u2019s Tour to the North\nand Down East_ (1835), and _The Life of Martin Van Buren_ (1835); and\nthe last, in _Col. Crockett\u2019s Exploits and Adventures in Texas_ (1836).\nMidway between the first and second stages stands _A Narrative of the\nLife of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee_ (1834), which may\nbe accepted in the main as authentic autobiography. None of the five\nwas written by Crockett. He probably had a hand in the first in spite\nof his repudiation of the work, for most of the important facts of his\nlife and the language of many of the picturesque episodes were taken\nfrom its pages to be reproduced in the _Narrative_. The _Tour_ and\n_Martin Van Buren_ were claimed by him and were certainly done under\nhis eye and with his help, but the _Exploits_ is quite as certainly\nsheer fabrication, done by a hack writer after Davy\u2019s death. It was\nthe politicians who contributed most to the success of the myth. They\nexploited Davy as a convenient weapon against Jackson, saw their work\nprosper beyond all expectation, get out of their hands, enlarge itself\nto a cento of backwoods romance and pass into folklore. It was an\nunforeseen outcome that must have been vastly amusing to those who set\nthe thing going.\n\nThe early thirties, it will be remembered, were robustious times when\nbroadcloth in politics had suddenly gone out of style and homespun had\ncome in. The new coonskin democracy had descended upon Washington,\nand picturesque figures provided with ample plugs of tobacco were\nmaking themselves free with Congressional perquisites. Nothing like\nit had been seen before in the city of dignified politicians, and the\nspectacle must have delighted the wags of the capital. But to the\nmembers of the overthrown dynasty the Jacksonian votes which these\npicturesque backwoodsmen represented were very far from amusing. The\nloss of desirable offices was a hard lesson that taught them the need\nof catering to this new element of the great American democracy. In\ntheir remunerative occupation as representatives of the prosperous and\ngenteel constituencies of the East, the old-school politicians had too\nlong overlooked the power of the plain voter which the progress of\nmanhood suffrage was daily increasing. Hence began a desperate campaign\nto counteract the Jacksonian appeal. The coonskin vote could no longer\nbe ignored and shrewd plans were laid to capture the backwoods for the\nnew Whig party. The program of internal improvements was well enough\nin its way, and the old Revolutionary cry of the sword and the purse\nmight prove useful; but the party needed a picturesque figure to draw\nthe coonskin democracy to its standard. Men rather than principles\nappealed to the West, self-made men, speaking the western vernacular,\nimbibing western views with their whisky, uncorrupted by broadcloth.\nThis explains the tremendous Whig hurrah over log cabins and hard cider\nthat marked a later campaign; and this explains likewise the singular\nfate that overtook Davy Crockett, the bear-hunter from the canebrakes.\n\nDavy had first come to Washington during Adams\u2019 administration, and in\nfour years\u2019 loafing and boasting at the Congressional bar had achieved\nsome distinction as a picturesque original with the tongue of a wag.\nHe spoke rarely in the House and the few records in the _Congressional\nDebates_ are sadly commonplace. Until after he broke with Jackson his\npolitical influence at Washington was negligible. But that fortunate\nbreak was the beginning of his fame. He had unwittingly made himself.\nHe had become a valuable asset to the Whig party. To find a native\nTennesseean, a real coonskin democrat, one who had served under Jackson\nand been sent to Congress as a Jacksonian, as authentic a Westerner as\nthe General himself, at bitter personal odds with Old Hickory, ready to\ntalk out in meeting and eager to repudiate the latter\u2019s attack upon the\nBank, was a find indeed to the hard-pressed Whigs; and they would have\nbeen no politicians if they had not used what God sent. In consequence\nDavy soon found himself talked about. His picturesque eccentricities\nbegan to be exploited. His rugged western honesty was applauded; his\nshrewd backwoods intelligence was praised; his frontier humor was\nskillfully touched up; his characteristic motto, \u201cgo ahead,\u201d was seized\nupon as an expression of the progressive spirit of the lusty young Whig\nparty. In short he was speedily turned into a myth by ways not unknown\nin our time, and sent forth as useful campaign material in the fight\nfor political righteousness. Davy was vastly surprised at his sudden\nrise to fame. He had never realized how great a man he was; but he\naccepted it as an agreeable fact and went ahead.\n\nThe work had already begun with the publication of the _Sketches and\nEccentricities of Col. David Crockett_, that came from the clever pen\nof some journalist with a liking for the new vein of backwoods humor.\nA Whig bias runs through the pages, but the book is more a character\nsketch than a political document. The first embroiderings laid upon\nthe original homespun are seen in an extravagance of picturesque\nlanguage--an extravagance quite lacking in the more realistic\n_Narrative_. A well-known passage professing to relate an occurrence\non Davy\u2019s first trip to Washington will serve to reveal an early stage\nof the myth-making process--the fathering upon Davy of a type of humor\nthen being exploited by clever young writers:\n\n I was _rooting_ my way to the fire, not in a good humour, when some\n fellow staggered towards me, and cried out, \u201cHurrah for Adams!\u201d\n Said I, \u201cStranger, you had better hurrah for hell, and praise your\n own country.\u201d Said he, \u201cAnd who are you?\u201d\n\n \u201cI\u2019m that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods,\n half-horse, half-alligator, a little touched with the\n snapping-turtle; can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon\n a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey\n locust; can whip my weight in wild-cats--and if any gentleman\n pleases, for a ten-dollar bill, he may throw in a panther--hug a\n bear too close for comfort, and eat any man opposed to Jackson.\u201d\n (_Ibid._, Chapter XIII.)\n\nThe touching up of the picturesque in the _Sketches_ seems to have been\na little too much for Davy, who resented the note of clownishness; but\nhe was not the man to permit undue modesty to blight so agreeable a\nmyth in its tender stage. He loved to swagger in the public eye too\nmuch for that, and he joined heartily with his new political friends\nto clothe it in more dignified dress. His incredible egotism was\naroused and he swallowed the Whig bait, hook, line and sinker. He began\nto take himself seriously and set about the business of propagating\nthe myth. He conceived the plan of issuing in his own name books\nwhich he humorously claimed to have written in the same way that the\nPresident wrote his state papers. Some wag having suggested his name\nfor the presidency to succeed Jackson, Davy was at great pains to\nadvertise the fact to the world. To link himself with Jackson in the\npublic eye and to contrast his own rugged honesty with the latter\u2019s\nreputed abandonment of democratic principles, was the single purpose\nof these Whig documents. The autobiography was quickly followed by\nthe _Tour_, and this by the _Life of Martin Van Buren_, each more\nobvious propaganda than the last, and frankly designed to undermine\nthe popularity of the President and his advisers with the coonskin\ndemocracy. Who the writer was that lent his pen to the work has never\nbeen determined. A recent student has adduced testimony to prove that\nit was Augustin S. Clayton, a Georgia Congressman, a ready talker and\nwriter, a man of sound culture, a close friend of Longstreet and fond\nof the backwoods vernacular. The argument is plausible, but the case\nis not established.[416] In the _Life of Martin Van Buren_ the mask\nis dropped and all the malicious gossip of the Congressional lobby is\npoured out on \u201clittle Van,\u201d the \u201cheir-apparent to the \u2018government.\u2019\u201d\nThe backwoods character is retained only in an occasional coarseness\nor deliberate lapse of grammar inserted in a text that is written\nwith vigor and skill. The book is far less amusing than Kennedy\u2019s\n_Quodlibet_. Davy is pretty much lost out of its pages and its\ncontribution to the myth was probably slight.\n\nIt is in the _Tour_, on the title page of which Davy formally accepts\nthe brevet dignity of Colonel conferred upon him by the writer of the\n_Sketches_, that the myth expands more genially. A clever and amusing\ncampaign document, it is a masterpiece of Whig strategy to gull the\nsimple. The loquacious Davy joined heartily with his managers to cash\nin on his reputation. His egotism was played upon at every turn and\nhe was quite unconscious that he had become a mere cat\u2019s-paw to pull\nWhig chestnuts out of the coals. He was paraded at meetings with\nDaniel Webster, given great dinners, applauded for his rustic wit and\nhomespun honesty, presented with a fine rifle; and he seems never to\nhave realized how grossly he was being exploited. His self-esteem was\nproof against disillusionment and he accepted the applause greedily.\nWherever he went he was taken in charge by the young Whigs. Everything\nwas carefully arranged beforehand. News was sent forward that he was\ncoming; crowds were gathered to greet him; publicity was attended to;\nmorning, noon, and night he was invited to speak, and the speeches were\ncarefully reprinted--not the authentic speeches, probably, but good\ncampaign material nevertheless. It was a gratifying experience and Davy\nswelled up like a turkey cock.\n\nAs a result of his tour he was immensely strengthened in his new\npolitical faith and became a staunch nationalist. When he first went\nto Congress he was anti-tariff and had won his seat on that issue; but\nhe was invited to Lowell, shown an idyllic picture of contented and\nprosperous mill-hands, dined, given a prepared table of statistics\nproving how industrialism \u201cis calculated not only to give individual\nhappiness and prosperity, but to add to our national wealth and\nprosperity,\u201d and bidden Godspeed in the work of spreading the true\ngospel among the honest, simpleminded and patriotic frontiersmen.\nAfter having been presented by Mr. Lawrence with a fine suit of\ndomestic broadcloth, Davy would have been an ingrate not to vote for a\nprotective tariff. But alas! the opportunity never came. A backwoods\nconstituency that had never been dined by Lowell capitalists and\nhad little use for fine broadcloth, a constituency that persisted\nin throwing up coonskin caps for Old Hickory in spite of Lowell\nstatistics, resented his apostasy from the Democratic faith and at\nthe next election invited him to stay in the canebrakes. The gorgeous\nbubble was pricked. Davy had expanded under prosperity and could not\nnow endure adversity. In a fit of anger he quitted his family and the\nstate of Tennessee, went off on the mad chase to Texas and in March\nof the next year fell at the Alamo. Vain, ignorant Davy Crockett! A\nsimple-minded frontiersman, he went down to Jericho and fell among\nthieves, and when they were done with him they left him despoiled\npolitically but invested with a fame that has grown to this day. After\nhis death other hands took up the work, wove around his name the humor\nand romance of the frontier, and made of him a legendary figure. It\nwould have pleased Davy to know how the myth had prospered.[417]\n\nYet from this crude romanticism, this picturesque propaganda of\ncoonskin days, one solid contribution remains--the autobiography. It\nis a striking bit of realism, done after the manner of the Longstreet\nschool. There is politics in it, of course. Written just after Davy had\ngone through a bitter campaign from which he had emerged triumphant, it\nis a bold pronouncement that he wears no collar marked \u201cMy dog--Andrew\nJackson.\u201d In the campaign of 1830 he had been defeated by the\nJacksonians, but two years later he \u201cmade a mash\u201d of his opponents, and\nthe elation of that victory adds a certain cockiness to his habitual\nswagger. But it is much more than a political tract; it is a vital\nfrontier document. The main facts of his biography, as set down there,\nmay be accepted as true, and the general picture of backwoods existence\nin Tennessee; but the humor has been elaborated and the effect of the\npicturesque heightened by his collaborator. Such added touches were\nonly natural. The real Davy was very far from romantic. An honest\npicture of the Tennessee democracy in its native habitat would reveal\nfew idyllic features. It was a slovenly world and Davy was pretty\nmuch of a sloven. Crude and unlovely in its familiar details, with its\nprimitive courtships and shiftless removals, its brutal Indian campaign\nand fierce hunting sprees, its rough equality, its unscrupulous\npolitics, its elections carried by sheer impudence and whisky, the\nautobiography reveals the backwoods Anglo-Irishman as an uncivilized\nanimal, responding to simple stimuli, yet with a certain rough vigor of\ncharacter. Wastefulness was in the frontier blood, and Davy was a true\nfrontier wastrel. In the course of successive removals he traversed the\nlength of Tennessee, drinking, hunting, talking, speculating, begetting\nchildren, scratching a few acres of land to \u201cmake his crap,\u201d yet living\nfor the most part off the country; and his last squatting place on the\nObion River, seven miles from the nearest neighbor, was as primitive\nas the first. Willing to endure almost incredible hardships to obtain\na keg of gunpowder to celebrate Christmas, risking his skin to kill a\nbear with a butcher knife, he was never much given to mending fences\nor enlarging his plow lands. He was a hunter rather than a farmer,\nand the lust of killing was in his blood. With his pack of hounds he\nslaughtered with amazing efficiency. A later generation would call\nhim a game-hog. His family must have had Gargantuan appetites to have\nconsumed one-tenth of the meat that fell before his beloved Betsy; the\nrest went to the dogs and hogs and buzzards. His hundred and five bears\nin a single season, his six deer shot in one day while pursuing other\ngame--two of which were left hanging in the woods--serve to explain\nwhy the rich hunting grounds of the Indians were swept so quickly\nbare of game by the white invaders. Davy was but one of thousands who\nwere wasting the resources of the Inland Empire, destroying forests,\nskinning the land, slaughtering the deer and bear, the swarms of\npigeons and turkey, the vast buffalo herds. Davy the politician is a\nhuge western joke, but Davy the wastrel was a hard, unlovely fact.\n\nStrip away the shoddy romance that has covered up the real man and the\nfigure that emerges is one familiar to every backwoods gathering, an\nassertive, opinionated, likable fellow, ready to fight, drink, dance,\nshoot or brag, the biggest frog in a very small puddle, first among the\nSmart Alecks of the canebrakes. Davy was a good deal of a wag, and the\nbest joke he ever played he played upon posterity that has swallowed\nthe myth whole and persists in setting a romantic halo on his coonskin\ncap. Yet in spite of the romantic machinery the play turns out to be\nbroad farce.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[414] The family name of Langestraet was given an English form by his\ngrandfather.\n\n[415] John Donald Wade, _Augustus Baldwin Longstreet_.\n\n[416] See John Donald Wade, \u201cThe Authorship of David Crockett\u2019s\n_Autobiography_,\u201d _Georgia Historical Quarterly_, September, 1922.\n\n[417] Among the miscellaneous material gathered together in the\n_Exploits and Adventures in Texas_ and attributed to Davy is\nLongstreet\u2019s _Georgia Theatrics_, lifted verbatim from _Georgia Scenes_.\n\n\n\n\nBook Two \u2022 The Mind of the Middle East\n\n\nThe literature of the Middle East during the years of the romantic\nrevolution, unlike contemporary letters north and south, revealed\nno coalescing unity of spirit and purpose; it was rather the casual\nand somewhat fortuitous expression of two cities, both of which were\ndivided by language and custom into fairly equal groups, and neither\nof which had developed a homogeneous native culture. There were no\nintellectual hinterlands to Philadelphia and New York, as there were\nto Boston and Charleston and Richmond; no common ideals spread over\nbroad areas, no dominant schools of thought, no branching roots by\nwhich a common literature might be nourished. In consequence it may,\nperhaps, be reckoned a misuse of terms to speak of the mind of the\nMiddle East, as one may speak of the mind of New England or of the\nOld Dominion, where in spite of pronounced variations of individual\ntemperament a common culture had set its mark on the literature. There\nwere few common ties and few intellectual sympathies to bind together\nthe men of letters of New York or Philadelphia. Certainly Irving and\nPaulding and Cooper and Melville and Whitman reveal none of that strong\ncommunity of taste and purpose that marks the Concord group, or the\nBoston-Cambridge group, or even the Charleston group. They expressed\nno common culture, they had been disciplined in no common faith,\nand they were held together by no common economic or political or\nintellectual interests; as a result their writing is a frank expression\nof individual temperament and taste, unfettered by schools, drawing its\nnourishment from no common soil. They stand on their own feet, and to\nunderstand them requires no critical examination of a complex cultural\nbackground. And yet this very diversity may prove to be symptomatic of\nthe hurrying changes that the rise of the middle class was bringing\nto America--to the city perhaps even more dramatically than to the\ncountry. The confusions and diversity of thought that mark the\nliterature of Philadelphia and New York may, perhaps, most adequately\nsuggest the mercurial temper of the revolutionary transition from the\neighteenth century to the nineteenth, of which the romantic spirit was\nthe natural expression.\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Old Capital\n\n\nI\n\nIn the year 1800 one might well have expected Philadelphia to retain\nindefinitely its proud ascendency as the cultural capital of America.\nFor decades no other colonial city had come near to rivaling it as a\npleasant center of wealth and refinement. Its society was accounted the\npolitest and most agreeable in America, and during the Revolutionary\nWar young British officers had found its hospitable drawing-rooms\nan agreeable substitute for London clubs. It had long prided itself\non its culture and it was on chatty terms with the fine arts, with\nbooks and music and painting, with actors and plays and playhouses.\nIt was the recognized center of the publishing business, and its busy\npresses turned out books and magazines and newspapers for remote\ncolonial readers. Ambitious young men were drawn to it as by a magnet,\nand Matthew Carey from Ireland and William Cobbett from England\nwere outstanding figures amongst the many who found Philadelphia as\nattractive as Franklin had earlier found it. Certainly it was the least\nprovincial spot in America in 1800, managing to keep abreast of the\nlatest English fashions in letters as well as smallclothes; and when\nthe supercilious Tom Moore favored the city with his presence in the\nsummer of 1804, he found there the companionship which in some measure\ncompensated for the meanness of the rest of America, where he professed\nto see:\n\n One dull chaos, one unfertile strife,\n Betwixt half-polish\u2019d and half-barbarous life,\n Where every ill the ancient world can brew\n Is mixed with every grossness of the new.[418]\n\nThe pronounced intellectual stir expressed itself not only in\n_belles lettres_, and in the scientific experiments of Franklin\nand Rittenhouse, but more adequately still in politics. Political\ndisputation would seem, indeed, to have been the common Philadelphia\npassion. Party forces were more equally divided than in Boston. From\nthe beginnings of the Revolutionary disputes Philadelphia had produced\nnotable disputants on both sides--pamphleteers like Joseph Galloway\nand John Dickinson, and satirists like Joseph Stansbury and Francis\nHopkinson. In the succeeding decades partisan pens had augmented rather\nthan abated their vigor. During Washington\u2019s administration the French\nRevolution shook Philadelphia as it shook no other American city, and\nthe fierce battle between Federalist and Jacobin was waged with amazing\nfury and limitless invective. The deadly journalistic duel between\nFreneau and Fenno in their two _Gazettes_ was reflected in the equally\nbitter duel of couplets between Matthew Carey and William Cobbett. If\nPhiladelphia was not more catholic than Boston, it was at least better\ninformed on party questions, for clever writers were daily flinging\ntheir arguments at its head. So long as the political capital of the\nnation remained in Philadelphia the city was clearly the place for the\nyoung American to sharpen his wits, inform his mind, and quicken his\nliterary enthusiasm.\n\nEconomically the future of the city seemed equally bright. A younger\ngeneration of speculative merchants had taken the place of the older\nconservatives, and great fortunes were being made with a rapidity\nbefore unknown. When title to the western lands passed from the crown\nto the new republic, Philadelphia merchants took the lead in land\nspeculation, and Robert Morris entered upon a spectacular career that\nprofoundly impressed his generation. The city became the chief center\nof land speculation to which western and southern investors looked.\nEconomic opportunities increased with the setting up of the new\ngovernment, and the stir of national politics increased the general\nactivity. With the establishment of the Bank, Philadelphia became the\nfinancial capital of the country, receiving and disbursing the monies\nof the government and attracting outside funds for investment. The\ndecade of the nineties was its golden age. Then came the removal of the\nseat of the Federal government to Washington, and the gay little city\nunderwent a swift eclipse. It was an unwilling victim to the topography\nof the North American continent. Between it and the Inland Empire,\non which rested its future economic expansion, lay the Appalachian\nmountain range. To be sure, the opening of the Pittsburgh turnpike\nseemed to promise that Philadelphia should become the shipping port\nfor the Ohio valley; but the law of gravity sent the produce of the\nback-country downstream to New Orleans, rather than upstream to the\nEast. Mountains were a serious barrier then to cheap transportation,\nand in consequence the contributory hinterland to Philadelphia was\nnarrowly restricted, and with the rise of the more fortunately situated\nNew York her economic ascendency was lost past recovery.\n\nA like unforeseen fate overtook the cultural aspirations of the\nambitious little city. In the year 1799 Timothy Pickering, Secretary\nof State in Adams\u2019 cabinet, invited to Philadelphia as his secretary\nJoseph Dennie, a young Boston lawyer who had achieved a wide reputation\nas a writer of Addisonian essays; and with his coming the literary\nvigor of Philadelphia flared up in a last brilliant blaze. He\nestablished _The Port Folio_, gathered a club of congenial spirits, and\ngained an extraordinary reputation throughout the country at large.\nDennie was a fierce Federalist who hated French Jacobinism with more\nthan the ardor of his party, and he was encouraged by Tom Moore, who\nwrote,\n\n Long may you hate the Gallic dross that runs\n O\u2019er your fair country and corrupts its sons.\n\nBut with the swift decay of Federalism Dennie\u2019s own fortunes fell into\na like decay, and with the suspension of _The Port Folio_ in 1809 the\ngolden age of Philadelphia came to a definite end. Though it long\nretained its primacy as a publishing center, and though later _Godey\u2019s\nLady\u2019s Book_ became almost a national institution, its intellectual\nvigor lessened, and its literary leadership passed to other cities. It\nsuccumbed to the tastes of Victorianism and became the acknowledged\nhome of \u201cfemale genius\u201d that for years fed the American reading public\non cambric tea. It enjoyed no such renaissance as came to Boston and\nCharleston, and ambitious young writers abandoned it for more promising\nfields. While other cities were caught up in the swirl of romantic\nexpansion that followed the War of 1812, Philadelphia remained content\nwith the ways of the eighteenth century, immersed in an old-fashioned\nculture. With its geographical position disqualifying it to reap the\nharvest of the westward movement, and with no Merrimac falls to invite\nindustrial development on a great scale, its fate was sealed. It had\nbeen a delightful capital for an older America, but it was too narrowly\nenvironed, too straitened in potential resources for exploitation, to\nbecome the capital of a more expansive and ambitious generation.\n\n\nII\n\nYet it enjoyed a brief moment of literary creativeness before the hand\nof fate finally settled upon it. In the twilight of the eighteenth\ncentury the new liberalisms that were turmoiling Europe found their\nway to Philadelphia, and for the moment it seemed as if the city were\nto lead the thought of America in its venture into new fields. It was\na convenient port for the unloading of foreign romanticisms, and under\nthe stimulus of national politics the demand for such commodities was\ngreatly increased. Certainly in no other American city did the French\nupheaval quicken so sympathetic a ferment, and with this ferment came\na more romantic spirit in letters. The English pre-romantics found\nthere responsive readers. In the verse of young Philadelphians began to\nappear a note of the vague, the mysterious, the melancholy, echoes of\nGray and Cowper and Ossian, as a pleasant relief from vigorous satire\nas practiced by the Hartford Wits. But it was in the field of fiction\nthat the new spirit most adequately revealed itself, and particularly\nin the work of a young Philadelphian who had broken wholly with the\nFederalism that immured the sympathies of young poets like William\nCliffton, and welcomed the romantic philosophies then being formulated\nby radical thinkers in France and England.\n\nBrockden Brown was fortunately spared the fate that might well have\nbeen his if circumstances had not determined otherwise. As a boy he\nhad meditated epics on romantic historical figures, inspired perhaps\nby Dwight and Barlow; but from so profitless a career he was saved by\nan early introduction to overseas fashions. By William Godwin and Mary\nWollstonecraft he was influenced as profoundly as was young William\nEllery Channing a few years afterward, and with like results. Later\ngenerations have too carelessly forgotten how persuasive to young\nintellectuals, a century or more ago, was the philosophy of Godwin. To\ngenerous minds there was something vastly attractive in his confident\nappeal to reason and justice; and to a new world and a new venture\nin government it came with double appeal. How could the republican\nexperiment better justify itself than by establishing justice in\nthe new social order--justice for men and justice for women who had\ntoo long suffered under narrow handicaps? It was certainly an ideal\nworth serious consideration--particularly since the French school had\nsuggested that the germinal source of social injustice must be sought\nin institutions rather than in the nature of man. It was natural enough\nfor gentlemen who profited by social wrong to charge that injustice was\ninherent in human nature--that man\u2019s innate selfishness was to blame\nfor the ills of society. But the new thinkers were of an inquiring turn\nof mind, and under their critical scrutiny the old conception was seen\nto rest on a perversion of fact. Gentlemen had got the cart before the\nhorse. The crying evils of civilization, when analyzed, were traceable\nto vicious environment, to social and political maladjustments; not\nto human nature. The mind of the infant is plastic. Very well. If it\nis molded by social environment, why is it so often misshapen and\nperverted to base purposes, if institutions are not at fault? why may\nit not be molded to nobler ends under more beneficent institutions?\nReason is a common possession; the ideal of justice is a common ideal.\nThe evil genius that has hitherto thwarted their benevolent work is\nthe overgrown political state, debased to selfish ends. Once let the\nbeneficent sway of social instincts supersede the exploiting machinery\nof the political state, and reason must conduct to justice. The heart\nof man is sound. Let it be free to follow its natural promptings and\nwar must give way to peace, the selfish struggle of classes disappear\nin a common brotherhood.\n\nTo an ardent young American like Brockden Brown, with the Hamiltonian\nstruggle for power before his eyes, such a philosophy must have come\nwith immense appeal. America confronted a future unmortgaged to the\npast; why should it repeat the old follies and mistakes that had\nreduced Europe to its present level? Here the pressure of vicious\ninstitutions was light as yet. Here the appeal to reason and justice\nwas less hampered by selfish pre\u00ebmptions. Let social commendation be\nbestowed on the uncorrupted heart, on generous impulses, on native\nintegrity of character. Let education be a natural unfolding of humane\ninstincts, not a sharpening of wits to overreach one\u2019s fellows. Let\nrewards go to frank, outspoken truth, rather than to chicanery and\ndeceit. Inspired by such sentiments, Brockden Brown proposed to\nmake fiction serve social ends. He would spread the gospel of Mary\nWollstonecraft and Godwin by means of popular tales. The views of\nthe former he elaborated in _Alcuin; A Dialogue_, which in the year\n1798 presented for the consideration of the American people the\nWollstonecraft feminism in such passages as this:\n\n Marriage is an union founded on free and mutual consent. It\n cannot exist without friendship. It cannot exist without personal\n fidelity. As soon as the union ceases to be spontaneous, it ceases\n to be just. This is the sum. If I were to talk for months I could\n add nothing to the completeness of the definition.\n\nBut it is in _Arthur Mervyn_ that he gives his fullest pronouncement\nof what he conceives must be done in America. He takes his hero fresh\nfrom the plowtail, one of nature\u2019s noblemen, and traces his triumphant\ncourse through the thick of sordid intrigue to a happy end. Generous\nin instincts, impulsive in sociability, responsive to suffering,\nhating injustice, loving the pure and disinterested, Arthur Mervyn\nis a Godwinian figure drawn to captivate the imagination with the\nsocial ideal. It is not so much the plot of the story that reveals\nthe enormous influence of Godwin--patent as the likeness is to _Caleb\nWilliams_, but rather the expansive nature of the title hero, whose\ninstincts bid him espouse justice, and whose life is an implied\ncriticism of all that is sordid and mean.\n\nWith the political romanticism of his work was joined a literary\nromanticism that likewise came from England, where it was muddying\nthe stream of English fiction and turning it aside from the vigorous\nrealism of the middle eighteenth century. The movement that Paulding\ndubbed the \u201cblood-pudding school\u201d was one of the by-products of the\nromantic development that ran a far more disastrous course in America\nthan in England, distorting the growth of native fiction for half\na century. It was perhaps unfortunate for the American novel that\n_Wieland_ should have been Brockden Brown\u2019s most finished work, for\nit contributed in consequence more powerfully to the spread of the\nmelodramatic. Lacking his strain of rationalism, other writers reveled\nincreasingly in the luridly picaresque, till the popular taste was so\ndebauched that Gilmore Simms found it well-nigh impossible to struggle\nagainst it. For this of course Brown was not to blame; yet his gross\nromanticisms of manner persisted long after his Godwinian romanticisms\nhad faded out of the popular mind, if indeed they ever found lodgment\nthere.\n\n\nIII\n\nBrockden Brown\u2019s career was in a sense symbolic of the fate of his\nnative city--a few brilliant years and then a swift decline. Death cut\nhim down before he fulfilled his promise. Something of a like fate\nbefell his most brilliant successor, Robert Montgomery Bird, probably\nthe ablest man of letters that Philadelphia produced. Caught up by\nthe romantic movement at the beginning of his precocious career, he\nplunged into dramatic writing and from 1830 to 1834, between the ages\nof twenty-four and twenty-eight, he wrote four plays for Edwin Forrest,\none of which, _The Gladiator_, met with extraordinary success, both\nin this country and in England; and another, _The Broker of Bogota_,\nkept the stage for years. At the age of thirty he gave over the writing\nof plays and turned to other fields. The explanation of so unusual a\ncourse, according to a recent historian, is not far to seek. He had\nbeen overreached by Forrest, and after parting with his manuscripts\nto the actor, the playwright found himself in the condition of the\nfarmer who after shipping his potatoes to market discovers himself to\nbe in debt to the commission merchant.[419] That he determined to try\na different crop was natural enough, but unfortunate for the American\ndrama.\n\nOf his subsequent ventures into the field of romantic fiction, one at\nleast was an extraordinary success, rivaling if not surpassing _The\nGladiator_ in popular favor. _Nick of the Woods, or the Jibbenainosay_\nstill remains one of the few outstanding tales of the Kentucky\nsettlement. Published in Philadelphia in 1837, it has been reissued in\nsuccessive editions, more than twenty in all down to the present. It\nwas translated into German in 1838, into Dutch in 1877, and into Polish\nin 1905. There is abundant reason for its popularity. It is a story of\ncalculating revenge, done with extraordinary vividness and set against\na romantic background. A frontier Quaker, trusting in the spirit of\ngood will, finds his non-resistance futile; he is set upon by Indians,\nhis family murdered before his eyes, and himself scalped and left for\ndead beside his burnt cabin. Recovering, he sets forth on a fierce\ncareer. Under the mask of a non-resistant, so effectively worn as to\nawaken the contempt of the frontier Indian-haters, he became a hunter\nof men, and his secret passages through the wilderness leave no other\ntrail than the marked bodies of slaughtered warriors. The Jibbenainosay\nis an uncanny figure who strikes with appalling suddenness, a Nemesis\nthat fills the hearts of border Indians with terror and turns their\ndreams to nightmares--one of the most striking and fearful figures\nin our early fiction. The Indians whom he pursues so remorselessly\nare depicted as thorough savages. In describing them Bird has put all\nhis romanticisms aside. There is no sentimentalizing of the noble\nred man in the brisk pages of _Nick of the Woods_; the warriors are\ndirty drunken louts, filled with an unquenchable blood-lust, whom\nthe frontiersman kills with as little compunction as he would kill a\nrattlesnake. The ugly feud that so long soiled the Border is depicted\nwith almost startling frankness, and through its worst phases moves the\nfigure of Bloody Nathan, professing to be a man of peace whilst cutting\nan appalling lot of notches in his gun, an epileptic who perhaps\ndeceives even himself.\n\nIf one likes stirring action that is certain to end in blood-letting,\nthere is good foraging in _Nick of the Woods_, despite its excesses\nof conventional romance. And there is much else as well. Bird had\nevidently studied his western materials with some care, and he did\nhis part to popularize certain conceptions that literature had come\nto associate with the Ohio valley. The character of Ralph Stackpole\nis clearly suggestive of the wild antics supposed to be common to the\nriver boatmen. \u201cThe history of this wild scape-gallows,\u201d says Bird,\n\u201chis prowess in the pin-fold and the battle-field, his adventure on\nthe beech-tree, and his escape from the meshes of the law, with other\ncharacteristic events not included in our relation, are recollections\nstill cherished in some parts of Kentucky, and made the theme of many\na gleesome story.\u201d But what seems more suggestive today is Bird\u2019s\nconscious attempt to reproduce the new type of western humor that\nfound its expression in the Davy Crockett myth. Perhaps the wild\nextravagance of Ralph Stackpole\u2019s vocabulary goes back to Mike Fink,\nperhaps it derives from Davy himself; at any rate the mode had spread\nso widely by 1837 that this Philadelphia man of letters had come to\nbelieve that such was the indigenous form of humor in the new West of\nthe Ohio valley, and he took particular pains to draw the irrepressible\nRalph with vigorous touches. A pronounced romantic, Bird unconsciously\ncontributed his mite to the myth of western humor.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[418] Quoted in Oberholtzer, _Literary History of Philadelphia_, p. 178.\n\n[419] See A. H. Quinn, _A History of the American Drama, etc._, pp.\n244-248.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The New Capital\n\n\nI\n\nVery different from the gay and cultivated Quaker City was the\ncommercial port of Manhattan, with its Yankee energy ingrafted on the\nstolid Dutch stock, which fate seized upon and transformed into the\ngreatest of our new cities, the favorite home of the genius of American\nenterprise. Never a cultural capital as Philadelphia had been, and\nas Charleston was becoming--a fact which Fenimore Cooper untactfully\nannounced to the world--it was ambitious to acquire commercial and\nfinancial ascendency; and this ascendency of the economic over the\ncultural, this frank evaluation of progress in terms of exploitation,\nmarks the definite transition from the eighteenth century to the\nnineteenth, the triumph of an aggressive middle class over the\nleisurely ways of an older landed aristocracy. The romance of expansion\nwas creating there a new psychology, and this new psychology was\npreparing the city for leadership in the new age that was rising. Its\nstrategic position brought to it the produce of the new settlements\nthat were pushing west to the great lakes and beyond; its aggressive\ntraders were reaching out for a share in the markets of the world;\nthe plodding methods of money-getting that had satisfied an earlier\ngeneration no longer satisfied men who had discovered the richer\npossibilities of capitalistic manipulation. The potentialities that lay\nin the capitalistic system were shrewdly explored, and the necessary\nmachinery of the new finance was devised. The acquisitive spirit of the\ncity found itself in a position to profit from the rage of speculation\nthat was running through the country, and it quickly outdistanced its\nrivals in the race for financial supremacy.\n\nThe changes that came to New York in the last years of the old century\nwere enough to muddle a head stronger than Rip Van Winkle\u2019s. The quiet\nways of colonial times were gone, and in their stead was a restless\nactivity that had no leisure for its pipe and mug in the sleepy tavern.\nBusiness and politics could not wait on men who like Wouter Van Twiller\npickled their dreams in tobacco smoke. The bewilderment of old Rip\non his return from the hills was the bewilderment of the colonial\nmind in the presence of a new order. When Washington came to New York\nto assume the presidency, the town contained approximately 29,000\ninhabitants, some two thousand of whom were slaves. Fifty years later\nthe census of 1840 set down its population as 312,710. In 1789 Albany\nwas a Dutch village of four or five thousand, and a few miles to the\nWest lay an unbroken wilderness. Within the narrow zone of the quiet\nsettlements old and new dwelt in close proximity. The most feudal of\nAmerican aristocracies fringed the banks of the Hudson from Albany to\nManhattan; and reaching out through the Mohawk valley that aristocracy\nwas laying a network of speculative land-holdings through which a flood\nof Yankee pioneers was making its way from the long-settled lands of\nConnecticut and Massachusetts. The frontier was close at hand; the\nleveling spirit was near neighbor to the feudal; potential economic\nrivalries were becoming actual, and the days of a static, power-proud\nDutch aristocracy were numbered. The spirit that had dominated the\ncommonwealth from its founding was tenacious of life, but on January\n26, 1839, died Stephen Van Rensselaer, last of the Patroons, courteous,\ndignified, a worthy embodiment of the old patriarchal virtues, who\nhad outlived his age; and hard upon his death came the final break-up\nof the traditional order. The small men got the land they had long\ntilled and the influence of the Dutch gentry slowly disintegrated.\nA new order was rising that had discovered shorter roads to wealth\nthan feudal rents. While the more energetic of the old order, men\nlike Gouverneur Morris and Judge William Cooper, were deep in land\nspeculation, in Manhattan a new aristocracy of capitalism was rising.\nWall Street was losing the distinction of housing the most exclusive\nof the landed gentry, to gain a greater distinction as the home of\nthe new aristocracy of credit. By 1825 the rise of industrialism, the\ndevelopment of banking, the completion of the Erie Canal, the influx\nof proletarian immigrants, and the drift of population to the towns\nhad fixed the destiny of the city. In becoming the chief repository of\nthe new capitalism New York had become the first and greatest of our\nmiddle-class capitals.\n\nOf this new Manhattan the representative citizen was a man whose\naggressive ambitions differentiated him sharply from Stephen Van\nRensselaer, and whose dramatic career of exploitation seemed to\nWashington Irving to embody the romantic potentialities of America.\nJohn Jacob Astor was to the New York of 1825 what Robert Morris had\nbeen to Philadelphia a generation before--an evidence of the wealth\nthat was to be got by those who would boldly exploit the vast resources\nof America. A German immigrant who landed in America with small funds,\nimmediately following the Peace of Paris, Astor embarked in the fur\ntrade, acquired a fortune which he invested in Manhattan land, and\nthen laid his plans to engage in a great venture in imperialism.\nStirred by the Lewis and Clarke expedition, he proposed to explore\nthe virgin resources of the far Pacific Northwest. With the tacit\napproval of the government he undertook the hazardous project of the\nAstoria settlement, sent his agent to the Russian posts of Alaska, and\nby subsidizing an army of trappers proposed to gather the peltries of\nthe entire Northwest for the rich Canton market. It was a grandiose\nconception worthy of a feudal baron of commerce. It was knit up\nwith dreams of conquest; it necessarily entailed open warfare with\nthe English companies whose ambitions were equally grandiose; it\nwas certain to be attended by bitter hardships on the part of the\nventuresome agents to whom it was intrusted; and the outcome was\nuncertain as a gambler\u2019s chance. Irving has thrown over his narrative\nof the great venture a glamour of patriotism; to him it appeared as\na plan of empire building; but whether patriotism or profit was the\ndetermining impulse in the mind of John Jacob Astor, the settlement of\nAstoria suggests the romantic aspirations that were making over the\nlethargic world of Dutch Manhattan, in the venturesome days of the new\ncapitalism. Stephen Van Rensselaer and John Jacob Astor would have had\ndifficulty in understanding each other.\n\n\nII\n\nIn sharp contrast with Boston, New York was wanting in intellectual\nbackground and intellectual stimulus. It had never gone to school to\ndogmatic theology and neither clergy nor laity had been disciplined by\na severe Puritan regimen. Gentlemen were little given to metaphysical\nspeculation and the subtleties of creed never provided the staple of\ntalk in the farmer\u2019s kitchen. The terrors of hell rarely troubled the\nsluggish imagination of the Dutch, and the extraordinary stimulus that\ncame to the serious-minded New Englander from long contemplation of\nthe ways of God, was lacking amongst a more prosaic people. No other\nstimulus supplied the want and in consequence ideas and books were\nheld in low esteem and the things of the mind suffered. The English\ngentry commonly sent their sons to the English universities, but the\nDutch by common report seem to have been indifferent to schooling\nand opportunities for education were sadly inadequate. The result\nwas a low plane of intellectual life, which even in Cooper\u2019s time\nwas remarked by him. There were brilliant and cultivated intellects,\nwits like Gouverneur Morris and statesmen like John Jay; yet even\nunder the stimulus of Revolutionary and Constitutional controversy\nthe contribution of New York to political theory was far slighter\nthan that of New England or Virginia. _The Federalist_ was its single\nnotable production, and even in that the papers of Madison were no\ninconsiderable part. As a commercial port it attracted young men\nambitious to rise in the world of affairs rather than in the world of\nletters. Unlike Philadelphia it had never been a cosmopolitan meeting\nground for aspiring young intellectuals and purveyors of polite\nculture, nor an important center of printers, publishers and book\ndealers. Aside from Philip Freneau, who had long since established\nhimself in New Jersey when he was not at sea, it had contributed little\nto pure literature, or even to the political satire that deluged\nPhiladelphia. As a creative center it ranked far below Hartford,\nConnecticut, where in the seventeen-eighties and nineties wit had\nbecome a staple commodity for export. And yet despite its intellectual\nlethargy it was a pleasant little town, with a note of cosmopolitanism\nthat rendered life amongst the upper classes genial and urbane. The\nspirit of aristocracy was as yet little weakened by alien newcomers\nfrom the more republican New England, and city and commonwealth were\nruled by a little group of old-fashioned gentlemen who upheld the rigid\nFederalism of the tie-wig school.\n\nIn the year 1800 the political leaders of the state were men of long\nestablished reputations, Hamilton, Jay, Gouverneur Morris, Rufus\nKing, with whom was closely associated the brilliant lawyer James\nKent, afterward Chancellor. Only two of the five were of the older\nNew York stock: Rufus King was from Maine, Hamilton from the West\nIndies, and Kent was of Yankee Presbyterian ancestry. Politics were\nalready becoming turmoiled by faction, with bitter cleavages and\nvindictive struggles for the spoils of office that sadly confused the\nlogic of the earlier alignment. The old Federalist party was led by\nthe distinguished gentlemen named above; the Democratic party was led\nby the Livingstons and Clintons; and outside both was the ambitious\nAaron Burr who played a lone hand against the field. After the death of\nHamilton the disintegration of the old parties went forward rapidly.\nThe Livingstons and Clintons broke, and a fierce political feud arose\nbetween them. The former were accounted the true Jeffersonians, but\nunder the name of Lewisites they drifted towards the Federalist\nremnant; the Burrites went to pieces after the disgrace of their\nleader; and the Clintonians remained masters of the field, with a\nmotley support drawn from Tammany Hall Irish, Wall Street bankers, and\nodds and ends of all factions. From this sordid situation, rendered\nconspicuous by the extension of suffrage under the new constitution,\nemerged two master politicians, adepts in all the arts of party\nmanipulation, who exploited the prejudices of the voting masses in a\nway to justify the gloomy fear of demagoguery that haunted the minds of\nthe old Federalists. Martin Van Buren and Thurlow Weed, Democrat and\nWhig, were finished products of the new school of practical politicians\nwho held that office-holding was the great end of partisan struggle,\nand that principles must not stand in the way of success.\n\n\nIII\n\nThrough this fierce scramble of rival politicians moved a scholarly\nfigure who preserved to the last the dignity and distinction of an\nearlier age. James Kent, whose long life and ripe legal learning were\ndevoted to upholding what he conceived to be the ultimate principles\nof law and politics, was the chief political thinker of the transition\ndays of New York. A disciple of Locke and Blackstone, remodeling\nseventeenth-century liberalism into eighteenth-century conservatism,\nhe was concerned to erect the barriers of the Common Law about the\nunsurveyed frontiers of the American experiment, assigning exact\nmetes and bounds beyond which it should not go. Like John Marshall\nand Joseph Story he was expert in devising legal springes to catch\nunwary democrats, and while the Jeffersonians were shouting over their\nvictories at the polls, he was engaged in the strategic work of placing\nthe Constitution under the narrow custodianship of the English law.\nAn ardent Federalist and later an equally ardent Whig, he reveals in\nhis precise thinking the intimate relations that everywhere exist\nbetween economics, politics, and legal principles. With John Adams he\naccepted the dictum of Locke that \u201cthe great and chief end ... of men\u2019s\nuniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government,\nis the preservation of their property\u201d; and believing that the English\nCommon Law was the securest of all agencies devised to safeguard the\nsubject in the enjoyment of his property rights, he made no difficulty\nin imposing that law upon the Constitution, circumscribing the\nwritten document by Common Law fences. Government he conceived to be\na patriarchal institution erected for the single purpose of coercing\nthe vicious, and as such it must remain in the hands of the good, the\nwise and the wealthy. It did not need the authoritative pronouncement\nof his great master to convince him that the wealthy included the good\nand wise. Observation of the \u201cbarbarian Jackson\u201d and his rude followers\nwas enough to convince him of the truth of the fact. \u201cAll theories of\ngovernment that suppose the mass of the people virtuous,\u201d he wrote to\nWebster, \u201cand able and willing to act virtuously, are plainly utopian,\nand will remain so until the Saturnian age\u201d (William Kent, _Memoirs and\nLetters of James Kent_, p. 207). Profoundly distrustful of democracy,\nhe brought all his wide reading in the history of ancient and medieval\nrepublics to demonstrate the favorite Federalist conviction--a\nconviction that Paulding in his _Letters from the South_ paid his\nrespects to[420]--that democracy is only a euphemism for mob-rule and\nthat it must speedily conduct to anarchy and despotism. All leveling\nprinciples he repudiated without waiting to hear cause. Until necessity\ncounseled otherwise he looked with suspicion on the holders of liquid\nwealth, as likely to prove wanting in the wisdom and goodness that came\nnaturally to the landed proprietor. He would have the many ruled by the\nfew, but those few he would have owners of great estates.\n\nAfter all, the learned Chancellor was only a transplanted Yankee of the\nFisher Ames school, with something of the austerity and intellectual\nvigor of his two Puritan grandfathers. An ardent admirer of Hamilton,\nhe early broke with the more liberal faith of his family and joined\nhimself to the extreme Federalists. He was advanced rapidly by Governor\nJay, enjoyed for years both office and distinction, and ably defended\nthe party of his choice. Fearful of agrarian laws and the sequestration\nof property by the enfranchised poor, he fought stubbornly every\nproposal for an extension of suffrage or a larger measure of\nself-government for the cities. Defeated in the great constitutional\nconvention of 1821 he soon after lost his office and retired to write\nhis _Commentaries on American Law_, a work that was to exercise a\ncreative influence on the later development of our jurisprudence. That\nAmerican law came to be deeply colored by Federalist political theory,\nthat it upheld from the bench principles that had been repudiated at\nthe polls, was due in no little measure to the legal scholarship of\nthis last of the New York Federalists. What a recent historian has\nborrowed to describe another applies with equal felicity to Chancellor\nKent--\u201chis pigmy hope that life would some day become somewhat better,\npunily shivered by the side of his gigantic conviction that it might be\ninfinitely worse\u201d (Fox, _Decline of Aristocracy in New York Politics_,\np. 243). As he contemplated the ways of the triumphant Jacksonians, he\nfound such consolation as he could in turning back to an older century\nwith its narrow outlook and sober culture. Writing to his brother in\n1835, he said:\n\n There never was such misrule. Our Tory rich men are becoming\n startled and alarmed at our downhill course. My opinion is that\n the admission of universal suffrage and a licentious press are\n incompatible with government and security to property, and that the\n government and character of this country are going to ruin. This\n suffrage is too great an excitement for any political machine. It\n racks it to pieces, and morals go with it. It is probable England\n is going the same way. We are becoming selfish, profligate,\n crazy.... Give me the writings of Addison and Locke, and the\n Presbyterianism of Dr. Ripley, Dr. Stiles, and old Dr. Rogers.\n (Kent, _Memoirs and Letters of James Kent_, pp. 218-219.)\n\n\nIV\n\nWith the extraordinary upheaval in economics and politics New York\nunfortunately underwent no corresponding intellectual revolution. The\nrenaissance that a generation earlier had created a new Virginia, and\nthat was awakening in Massachusetts a many-sided intellectual activity,\ntouched the mind of New York only lightly. The ground was unprepared\nfor the new philosophies. To Virginia, French romantic theory had\ncome with the appeal of a new gospel for the reason that plantation\neconomics fell in with the major premises of Physiocratic liberalism,\nand the old-world dogmas seemed to find new-world justification. To\nNew England, German idealism had come likewise with the appeal of a\nnew gospel, after Unitarianism had broken the fetters of Calvinism and\nset free its traditional idealism. But among the young men of New York\nin 1825 neither France nor Germany was a determining influence. With\nan inadequate cultural background and no responsive economics, they\nwere attracted only casually to the current European liberalisms. They\nwere wanting in idealism and in consequence the major intellectual\nand social movements of the times influenced the form and content of\nthe new Knickerbocker literature far less profoundly than was the\ncase in New England. New York was as insular as Charleston. That\nthe growing economic unrest would ultimately find expression in a\ncontroversial or Utopian literature, was a matter of course; and that\nthe cosmopolitanism of the city should make for vigorous discussion,\nwas equally a matter of course. Nevertheless Albert Brisbane, William\nLeggett, Parke Godwin and Horace Greeley were far less representative\nof the dominant literary spirit than Irving and Halleck and Willis of\nthe earlier group, or Stedman and Stoddard later.\n\nThe Knickerbocker movement was inaugurated by four young men whose\nclever sketches caught the provincial ear of polite society and set the\nnew fashion in prose and verse. Irving and Paulding in _Salmagundi_,\nand Halleck and Drake in the _Croaker Papers_, were lucky adventurers\nwhose slight crafts made the most prosperous of voyages. Bright young\nfellows with a charming literary swagger, they aspired to be wits and\nexploit the amusing foibles of Broadway. Twelve years separated the\ntwo ventures, and in the interval Byron and Scott had been supplanting\nMoore and Campbell in the esteem of the Town, and the literary mode of\nNew York was changing. From their gay provincialism, happily Irving and\nPaulding later freed themselves; Drake died at the age of twenty-five;\nbut Halleck retained to the end of a leisurely life the mannerisms of\nthe Croaker period--a crochety wit who affected persiflage, a brisk\nyoung buck who gently slid into a _blas\u00e9_ old buck, a free lance in\nverse who lived in state on the income of a small literary investment\nmade in his twenties.\n\nThe very considerable reputation of Fitz-Greene Halleck resulted in\npart from the literary sterility of New York in his early days, and in\npart from the personal popularity of the man. A Connecticut Yankee,\ndescended on his mother\u2019s side from old John Eliot, he was drawn to\nthe city as a promising field for an accountant, and eventually found\nhis way into the office of John Jacob Astor by whom he was later\npensioned. He accepted the views and shared the antipathies of his Wall\nStreet associates, but with a certain affectation of individuality that\ntook delight in shocking them by whimsical pronouncements in favor of\nthe Catholic church and the monarchical system. There is perhaps a\nsuggestion of seriousness in the remark that Bryant has preserved: \u201cThe\nship of state,\u201d so he reports Halleck as saying, \u201cmust be governed and\nnavigated like any other ship, without consulting the crew. What would\nbecome of the stanchest bark in a gale, if the captain were obliged to\ncall all hands together and say: \u2018All you who are in favor of taking\nin sail, will please to say ay\u2019\u201d (_Orations and Addresses_, p. 186).\nHis political affiliations were Federalist-Whig, and his satire exudes\nmuch of the old prejudice against the democratic mass. The pompous\nlong-winded DeWitt Clinton was a fair mark for his shafts;[421] the\ndemagoguery of office-seeking politicians was a fruitful theme for\nhis wit;[422] and Halleck\u2019s satire plays upon them with good-natured\nraillery. But his gayety cannot hide a certain animus in dealing with\nthe tousled-headed democracy. When the labor movement was painfully\ngetting under way in New York Halleck contemplated the curious\nphenomenon with a tolerant contempt--in something of the spirit of a\nwit of pre-Revolutionary times who amused the Town with his couplet:\n\n Down at night a bricklayer or carpenter lies,\n Next sun a Lycurgus or Solon doth rise.\n\nAs an illustration of the attitude of polite society in New York a\nhundred years ago towards the aspirations of the proletariat, Halleck\u2019s\nforgotten _Epistle to Robert Hogbin, Esq., Chairman of the Committee of\nWorking-Men, etc._, deserves quotation:\n\n Mr. Hogbin,--I work as a weaver--of rhyme--\n And therefore presume with a working-man\u2019s grace,\n To address you as one I have liked for some time.\n Though I know not (no doubt it\u2019s a fine one) your face.\n\n There is much in a name, and I\u2019ll lay you a wager\n (Two ale-jugs from Reynolds), that Nature designed,\n When she formed you, that you should become the drum-major\n In that choice piece of music, the Grand March of Mind.\n\n A Hogbin! a Hogbin! how cheering the shout\n Of all that keep step to that beautiful air,\n Which leads, like the treadmill, about and about,\n And leaves us exactly, at last, where we were!\n\n Yes, there\u2019s much in a name, and a Hogbin\u2019s so fit is\n For that great moral purpose whose impulse divine\n Bids men leave their own workshops to work in committees,\n And their own wedded wives to protect yours and mine!...\n\n When the moment arrives that we\u2019ve won the good fight,\n And broken the chains of laws, churches, and marriages,\n When no infants are born under six feet in height,\n And our chimney-sweeps mount up a flue in their carriages--\n\n That glorious time when our daughters and sons\n Enjoy a _blue Monday_ each day of the week,\n And a clean shirt is classed with the mastodon\u2019s bones,\n Or a mummy from Thebes, an undoubted antique--\n\n Then, then, my dear Hogbin, your statue in straw,\n By some modern _Pig_malion delightfully wrought,\n Shall embellish the Park, and our youths\u2019 only law\n Shall be to be Hogbins in feeling and thought.\n\nIn Halleck\u2019s better work there is sometimes evident a certain critical\ndetachment that permitted him to see both sides of his theme. In\nthe lines to his native Connecticut he has taken pretty accurately\nthe measure of the Puritan and the Yankee. He rests under no awe\nin presence of the old worthies, and he throws overboard the pious\nfairy-tales of Cotton Mather--\u201cthat slanderer of the memory of our\nfathers\u201d--only to forgive the preacher who scolded his friends\n\u201cup from earth to heaven\u201d because of the \u201csour grapejuice in his\ndisposition.\u201d Unfortunately little of his work possesses the virility\nof _Connecticut_. His most ambitious poem, _Fanny_, is a feeble and\ndiscursive satire on the social climber. It was a great favorite at\nthe time and passed through several editions, but the sparkle is gone\nout of its affected jauntiness and little has been lost in its being\nforgotten. Halleck\u2019s casual literary activity continued only for the\nbrief period between the years 1819 and 1828; thereafter for close on\nforty years he was content to turn out an occasional _jeu d\u2019esprit_,\nenjoy the deepening twilight of his reputation, and watch his fellow\nYankee, Willis, invest his talents in the ephemeral. The day of the wit\nwas past in New York.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[420] See _Letters_, etc., Vol. I, p. 207.\n\n[421] See _Governor Clinton\u2019s Speech_.\n\n[422] See _The Recorder_.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Two Knickerbocker Romantics\n\n\nI \u2022 Washington Irving\n\nFortunately the stolid New York of earlier days was not to pass away\nwithout bequeathing to posterity some fragments of its chronicles.\nIn the midst of a pleasant society of smallclothes and tie-wigs, of\nfeudalism and Federalism, appeared young Washington Irving at the\nprecise moment when Sansculottism was beginning to make a stir in\nthe land, and gentlemen were putting away their knee-breeches to\ndon a republican dress--a decline in taste to which he would not\neasily reconcile himself. A boyish wit from the eighteenth century,\na genial loiterer in the twilight of the old, he found himself out\nof humor with the ambitions that were making over the little city he\nloved. The present seemed to him not so amusing as the past, nor so\npicturesque. That he had any business with the world of trade and\nspeculation he could not believe. Its concerns were not his. Its\nnew Wall Street counted for less in his eyes than the pipe of old\nDiedrich Knickerbocker. Its decadent Federalism that was clinging\nto the wreck of its hopes, and its roistering Democracy that wore\ngreasy clothes, spoke with an Irish accent, and was marshaled to the\npolls by Tammany Hall, were of less consequence to him than the black\nbottle that brought such curious adventures to Rip Van Winkle. The\nwit and romance he took pleasure in were of another sort than the\nkind his generation was getting drunk on--more insubstantial, less\nheady, picturesque rather than profitable. So Irving gently detached\nhimself from contemporary America, and detached he remained to the end\nof a loitering life, untroubled by material ambitions, enjoying the\nabundance of good things that fell in his way, mingling with prosperous\nfolk and liking everybody--men as diverse as John Jacob Astor and\nMartin Van Buren and John P. Kennedy--and unconsciously taking the\ncolor of his environment, careful to turn into limpid prose such\nromantic tales as he came upon and achieving thereby both reputation\nand profit--a pleasant blameless way of living, certainly, yet\ncuriously unrepresentative of the America in which chance had set him\nand which was to claim him as its first man of letters.\n\nAn incorrigible _fl\u00e2neur_, Irving\u2019s business in life was to loaf\nand invite the picturesque. A confirmed rambler in pleasant places,\nin the many lands he visited he was a lover of the past rather than\nthe present, seeking to recreate the golden days of the Alhambra or\nlive over the adventurous mood of the fur trader. The immediate and\nthe actual was an unsatisfying diet for his dreams. There was in him\nnothing of the calm aloofness of the intellectual that stands apart\nto clarify its critical estimate, and none of the reforming zeal of\nthe Puritan that is at peace only in the thick of a moral crusade. The\nduty of saving the world was not laid on his untroubled soul. No man\nof his generation was less of a rebel than Irving, and he went his\nway unconcerned at things that quite upset Fenimore Cooper\u2019s peace of\nmind. In his early days, to be sure, he broke with the ambitious middle\nclass--if gently drawing away can be called breaking--because he could\nnot bring himself to like its ways and the devastation those ways were\nentailing on the leisurely world he loved. Revolutions seemed to him\nsomewhat vulgar affairs. The French Revolution had brought destruction\non too many lovely things, and the industrial revolution was taking\ntoo heavy a toll of the picturesque, to please him. He thought it a\npity that steam should drive the clipper ship from the seas and put\nan end to snug posting in the tally-ho. Progress might be bought at\ntoo dear a price. The bluff squire with his hounds, the great hall\nwith its ancient yuletide customs, the patriarchal relations between\nmaster and man, seemed to him more worth while than the things progress\nwas substituting for them; so he turned away from the new and gently\ningratiated himself into the past in order to gather up such fragments\nof the picturesque as progress had not yet destroyed.\n\nBut only for a time. His dislike of capitalism rested on no more\nsubstantial basis than its substitution of vulgar trousers for\ngentlemanly smallclothes. It was too new to have achieved dignity or\nthe charm of assured position. When that time should come and masters\nof finance should stand before the world as generous dispensers of\npatronage, when the development of business should have produced its\nnew barons, Irving\u2019s dislike would lessen and he would associate with\nthe new capitalism on the same easy terms that he associated with the\nold feudalism. In the meantime he stood apart, unconcerned with praise\nor blame. The industrial revolution might work itself out as it would.\nThe seventeen years he spent abroad on his great pilgrimage were black\nyears for England. Wretchedness and poverty were all about him if he\nchose to see. The \u201ccondition of England\u201d question was rising out of the\nfactory smoke to challenge the conscience of England. But he did not\nchoose to see and his conscience was untroubled. As he idled about the\ncountryside or visited the hospitable manor houses, his eye was caught\nby the grace of medieval spires rising from parish churches rather than\nby the condition of the proletariat. He saw no children working in the\ncoalpits, for he did not choose to visit the collieries. He sympathized\nvaguely with the new social movements then getting under way, but it\nwas not in his nature to be partisan to a cause. He may not have been\na Tory but he had lived so long with Tories and enjoyed so frankly\nthe charm of upper-class society, that his outlook was unconsciously\ndetermined by such intimate contacts. While Secretary to the Legation\nat London in the reform years from 1829 to 1831, he was aware of the\ntremendous stir all about him, but his infrequent references to the\nReform Bill in his letters turned usually on its disastrous effects on\nthe publishing business. Only once during his long residence abroad\ndoes he seem to have felt deeply the significance of the current\nrevolutionary unrest, and the mood that swept him away from his\nhabitual indifference bears the marks of a sudden awakening. Writing\nfrom London on March 1, 1831, he said:\n\n We are in the beginning of an eventful week.... However, _the great\n cause of all the world_ will go on. What a stirring moment it is\n to live in. I never took such intense interest in the newspapers.\n It seems to me as if life were breaking out anew with me, or\n that I were entering upon quite a new and almost unknown career\n of existence, and I rejoice to find my sensibilities, which were\n waning as to many objects of past interest, reviving with all their\n freshness and vivacity at the scenes and prospects opening around\n me. I trust, my dear Brevoort, we shall both be spared to see a\n great part of this grand though terrible drama that is about to\n be acted. There will doubtless be scenes of horror and suffering,\n but what splendid triumphs must take place over these vile systems\n of falsehood in every relation of human affairs, that have been\n woven over the human mind, and for so long a time have held it down\n in despicable thraldom. (Pierre M. Irving, _Life and Letters of\n Washington Irving_, Vol. II, p. 199.)\n\nIrving lacked a month of being forty-nine when he wrote this confession\nof interest in matters political. It marks the first appearance of\nliberalism in his thinking, and the last--somewhat vague to be sure,\nunduly bottomed on romantic expectations, yet significant in so placid\na life and explanatory of his course, when a year later he returned to\nAmerica to knit up once more the raveled threads of his interests. It\nwas as an incipient liberal that he came back to a land then in the\nfirst flush of the Jacksonian victory, eager to discover a romantic\ncharm in the vast changes that had come during the seventeen years\nhe had been abroad. He plunged into the business of re-discovery\nwith enthusiasm. He was in want of new literary materials, and as\nhe took his bearings, his creative interest was stirred to write on\nAmerican themes. He went to Washington and for three months listened\nto the great debate on Nullification. He talked with business men\nand politicians, with those who were prosperous and prominent, and\nhe drifted easily with the tide of liberalism. To be sure he could\nscarcely be called a Jacksonian. Parties and causes did not greatly\ninterest him even then. An intelligent man, indeed, could hardly be\nless concerned about political principles. Thirty years before, as a\nclever young man about town, he had gone with the dominant Federalism\nof the times, and had amused himself with political ambitions. His\nbrother Peter was editor of the Lewisite paper the _Chronicle_, but\nJosiah Ogden Hoffman, with whose firm Irving was connected during his\ndesultory incursion into the law and to whose daughter Matilda he\nwas betrothed, was an old Loyalist and ardent Hamiltonian. His wife,\nto whom Irving was warmly attached, was a daughter of John Fenno,\nHamilton\u2019s editor. Under such tutelage it was natural for Irving to\npoke good-natured fun at President Jefferson\u2019s red velvet breeches in\n_Salmagundi_; but his venture into practical politics proving little to\nhis taste, he quickly gave over such ambitions. In a letter to a clever\nyoung lady of Republican sympathies, he thus announced his abandonment\nof political hopes:\n\n I am as deep in mud and politics as ever a modern gentleman would\n wish to be; and I drank beer with the multitude; and I talked\n hand-bill fashion with the demagogues; and I shook hands with the\n mob, whom my heart abhorreth.... Truly this saving one\u2019s country\n is a nauseous piece of business, and if patriotism is such a dirty\n virtue,--prythee, no more of it. (_Life and Letters_, Vol. I, Chap.\n XI.)\n\nYears now separated him from that youthful experience. His long\nabsence from his native land had completely alienated him from\nthe fierce partisanship of contemporary America and he could view\nmatters political with calm detachment. Inclined to make the best\nof any government _de facto_, he found it easy on his return to\naccept Jacksonianism, and he soon discovered a genuine liking for Old\nHickory. \u201cThe more I see of this old cock of the woods,\u201d he wrote\nfrom Washington, \u201cthe more I relish his game qualities\u201d (_ibid._,\nVol. II, p. 255). No doubt his early friend Paulding had much to do\nwith his ready acceptance of the new order, although he had come\nin close contact with Martin Van Buren at the London legation and\nwas drawn to him. \u201cHe is one of the gentlest and most amiable men I\nhave ever met with,\u201d he wrote to his brother, \u201cwith an affectionate\ndisposition that attaches itself to those around him, and wins their\nkindness in return\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 220). Although distrustful\nof some of the \u201celbow counsellors\u201d of the Democracy he found little\ncause for criticism and soon came to be regarded as one with them. The\nJacksonians were eager to make political capital out of his literary\nreputation, and he was urged by Tammany Hall to stand for Congress and\nlater to accept a mayoralty candidacy. In 1837, probably through the\nintervention of Paulding, he was offered a post in Van Buren\u2019s cabinet.\nThese partisan offers he had the good sense to decline, but when in\n1842 he was tendered the post of Minister to Spain he gladly seized the\nopportunity to revisit a land he loved. His nephew is explicit in his\nstatement that the offer came wholly unsolicited, but Fenimore Cooper\nwas of another opinion.[423] Very likely Cooper was misinformed, but\nwhatever the truth the appointment was a godsend to Irving. His affairs\nwere in a bad way. The popularity of his writings was on the wane, the\npanic had caught him with much of his capital invested in unprofitable\nland speculations, and the \u201cRoost\u201d at Tarrytown was a heavy drain,\nalthough he wrote whimsically, \u201cI beat all the gentlemen farmers in\nmy neighborhood, for I can manage to raise my vegetables and fruits\nat very little more than twice the market price\u201d (_Life and Letters_,\nVol. II, p. 320). Only a severe nature like Cooper, sorely wounded\nby the angry reception of his own honest criticism, would cavil at an\nappointment so honorable to the government.\n\nA friendly nature, Irving discovered friendliness wherever he went. His\nown generosity appealed to the generosity of others, and he found it\neasy in consequence to take a kindly view of men and parties. He was\nharassed by none of Cooper\u2019s quick suspicions and rigid principles, and\nit must be added he had none of Cooper\u2019s intuitive penetration into the\nsecret springs of human action that made the latter so acute a critic\nof contemporary America. The sharp contrast in moods in which the two\nmen returned to America from their travels, the one harshly critical\nof middle-class economics and frontier leveling, the other responding\nna\u00efvely to the enthusiasm for speculative expansion and eager to\nexploit the romance of the westward movement, sufficiently reveals\nthe difference between them. The one was a dogmatic Puritan with the\ndictatorial ways of the quarter-deck, the other was a play-boy of\nletters temperamentally incapable of critical analysis. There was not a\ngrain of realism in Irving\u2019s nature. His cheerful optimism was little\nmore than the optimism of the prosperous. Wholly ignorant of economics,\nhe never comprehended the significance of the revolutions in process\nall about him, and this _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ blinded him to the motive of John\nJacob Astor in financing Astoria, as it blinded him to all the major\nforces of the times. He was easily brought to see the romance of the\ngreat struggle between rival companies for mastery of the fur trade,\nbut he did not comprehend how the glamour he threw about the venture\nmust inevitably strengthen his patron\u2019s investment in imperialism.\nGullible as a child, he discovered nothing more significant in the\ngreat struggle between agrarianism and capitalism for control of\ngovernment than the ungenerous suspicions and novel theories it bred.\nFor the outstanding liberals of New York he had scant sympathy. William\nLeggett, Horace Greeley, Albert Brisbane, William Cullen Bryant,\ninfluenced his views far less than did the masters of Wall Street; and\nfrom the courageous movement of Locofocoism he drew back in distrust.\nThe one letter in which he elaborated such political convictions as he\nhad come to hold, is an interesting document that deserves quotation.\n\n As far as I know my own mind, I am thoroughly a republican,\n and attached, from complete conviction, to the institutions of\n my country; but I am a republican without gall, and have no\n bitterness in my creed. I have no relish for puritans either in\n religion or politics, who are for pushing principles to an extreme,\n and for overturning everything that stands in the way of their own\n zealous career. I have, therefore, felt a strong distaste for some\n of those locofoco luminaries who of late have been urging strong\n and sweeping measures, subversive of the interests of great classes\n of the community. Their doctrines may be excellent in theory, but,\n if enforced in violent and uncompromising opposition to all our\n habitudes, may produce the most distressing effects. The best of\n remedies must be cautiously applied, and suited to the taste and\n constitution of the patient.... Ours is a government of compromise.\n We have several great and distinct interests bound up together,\n which, if not separately consulted and severally accommodated, may\n harass and impair each other.... I always distrust the soundness\n of political councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and\n disparaging attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens.\n Such are those urged to the disadvantage of the great trading\n and financial classes of our country. You yourself know ... how\n important these classes are to the prosperous conduct of the\n complicated affairs of this immense empire. You yourself know,\n in spite of all the common-place cant and obloquy that has been\n cast upon them by political spouters and scribblers, what general\n good faith and fair dealing prevails throughout these classes.\n Knaves and swindlers there are doubtless among them, as there are\n among all great classes of men; but I declare that I looked with\n admiration at the manner in which the great body of our commercial\n and financial men have struggled on through the tremendous trials\n which have of late overwhelmed them, and have endeavored, at every\n pecuniary sacrifice, to fulfill their engagements. (_Life and\n Letters_, Vol. II, pp. 312-313.)\n\nThis persuasive presentation of the philosophy of compromise, with its\nimplicit defense of capitalism, marks Irving\u2019s drift back to the middle\nclass with which he had long before broken. In the six years since his\nreturn he had watched the country react to the great panic, and he went\nwith it in its veering towards the Whiggery of Henry Clay. The fragile\nbonds of his attachment to the Democracy were becoming tenuous; other\nattachments were insensibly drawing him towards the more congenial\nrepresentatives of wealth. He had all his life associated with the\nTory classes and it was easy for him to transfer his loyalty to the\nAmerican Tories. Under such influences began a slow _rapprochement\ncordial_ towards the new philosophy of progress. He was seized with\nthe common mania of speculation and made some unfortunate investments\nin wild lands and railways that seriously hampered him later, and he\ncommercialized his literary reputation by such money-making ventures as\n_Astoria_ and the _Adventures of Captain Bonneville_. He discovered a\nnew romance in the great business of exploitation, and found the hand\nof God in the profits of unearned increment. In the letter above quoted\nfrom, he justified the ways of speculation thus:\n\n There are moral as well as physical phenomena incident to every\n state of things, which may at first appear evils, but which are\n devised by an all-seeing Providence for some beneficent purpose.\n Such is the spirit of speculative enterprise which now and then\n rises to an extravagant height, and sweeps throughout the land....\n The late land speculations, so much deprecated, though ruinous to\n many engaged in them, have forced agriculture and civilization\n into the depths of the wilderness; have laid open the recesses of\n primeval forests; made us acquainted with the most available points\n of our immense interior; have cast the germs of future towns and\n cities and busy marts in the heart of savage solitudes, and studded\n our vast rivers and internal seas with ports that will soon give\n activity to a vast internal commerce. Millions of acres which might\n otherwise have remained idle and impracticable wastes, have been\n brought under the dominion of the plough, and hundreds of thousands\n of industrious yeomen have been carried into the rich but remote\n depths of our immense empire, to multiply and spread out in every\n direction, and give solidity and strength to our confederacy.\n All this has in a great measure been effected by the extravagant\n schemes of land speculators. I am, therefore, inclined to look upon\n them with a more indulgent eye than they are considered by those\n violent politicians who are prescribing violent checks and counter\n measures, and seem to have something vindictive in their policy.\n (_Life and Letters_, Vol. II, p. 314.)\n\nThus did Irving become completely domesticated in the new world that\nRip Van Winkle had found so disconcerting when he came upon it out\nof the quiet colonial past. The rediscovery of America proved to be\nan agreeable business, and profitable in a professional way. His\nenthusiasms, which in 1831 he felt were \u201cwaning as to many objects of\npast interest,\u201d were stimulated by the vast stir of the country, and\nthe spirit of romance once more ran briskly in his veins. The better\npart of a year he rambled widely about the country, in order, as he\nsaid, to get at home \u201cupon American themes.\u201d He visited Boston and the\nWhite Mountains, then West to Ohio and St. Louis, then with an Indian\ncommissioner he penetrated the southwest prairies as far as the wild\nPawnee country beyond the South Canadian River, then to New Orleans and\nCharleston, finally settling down in Washington to immerse himself in\npolitics. From there he passed over the Potomac for an extended trip\nthrough the Old Dominion, returning to New York where he spent some\ntime with Astor at Hell Gate, finally in 1835 settling at Tarrytown\nwhich was to be his home to the last. He had definitely determined on\nhis new field of work. His imagination had been stirred by his visit\nto the prairies; the romance of the westward expansion was beginning\nto find expression in the works of Timothy Flint and James Hall; the\npublic interest was ripe and John Jacob Astor was at hand to encourage\nhim. Thus stimulated Irving proposed to make the field of western\nromance his own, with the result that he published in quick succession\n_A Tour of the Prairies_, _Astoria_, and _The Adventures of Captain\nBonneville_.\n\nOn the whole the new venture did not prosper. The spirit of the\nWest was not to be captured by one whose heart was in Spain. In\n_A Tour of the Prairies_ there is a certain homely simplicity and\nstraightforwardness that spring from a plain recital of undramatic\nexperience; and in _Astoria_ there is an unembellished narrative of\nappalling hardship and heroic endurance, with none of the tawdry\nromantics that mar the work of Flint and Hall. Yet neither is\ncreatively imaginative, neither stirs one with a sense of high drama.\nThe atmosphere of Snake River could not be created in the quiet study\nat the \u201cRoost\u201d; it needed the pen of a realist to capture the romance\nof those bitter wanderings in mountain and sagebrush. It is journeyman\nwork, and on every page one is conscious of the professional man of\nletters faithfully doing this day\u2019s allotment. It is much the same\nwith his _Life of Washington_. In this last great undertaking Irving\nno longer writes with gusto. The golden days of Diedrich Knickerbocker\nand Rip Van Winkle are long since gone; the magic is departed from\nhis pen; and a somewhat tired old gentleman is struggling to fulfill\nhis contract with his publisher. It was a mistake to venture on\nthe work, despite the fact that he had long been planning it. His\nhistorical equipment was inadequate. He might make a pretty story out\nof Washington\u2019s early life and his days with the army, but he was far\ntoo ignorant of politics, too credulous in judging his materials, to\ninterpret justly the fierce party struggles that seethed about the\nPresident. Quite unconsciously in this last work he returned to the\npolitical prejudices of his youth, and wrote an account of Washington\u2019s\nadministrations deeply colored by his Federalist sources.\n\nThe most distinguished of our early romantics, Irving in the end was\nimmolated on the altar of romanticism. The pursuit of the picturesque\nlured him away into sterile wastes, and when the will-o\u2019-the-wisp was\ngone he was left empty. A born humorist, the gayety of whose spirits\noverflowed the brim, he was lacking in a brooding intellectuality,\nand instead of coming upon irony at the bottom of the cup--as the\ngreater humorists have come upon it after life has had its way with\nthem--he found there only sentiment and the dreamy poetic. As the\npurple haze on the horizon of his mind was dissipated by a sobering\nexperience, he tried to substitute an adventitious glamour; as romance\nfaded, sentiment supplied its place. So long as youth and high spirits\nendured, his inkwell was a never-failing source of gayety, but as the\nsparkle subsided he over-sweetened his wine. This suffices to account\nfor the fact that all his better work was done early; and this explains\nwhy the Knickerbocker _History_ remains the most genial and vital of\nhis volumes. The gayety of youth bubbles and effervesces in those magic\npages, defying time to do its worst. The critic may charge the later\nIrving with many and heavy shortcomings, but the romantic smoke-clouds\nthat ascend from Wouter Van Twiller\u2019s pipe cannot be dissipated by the\nwinds of criticism.\n\n\nII \u2022 James Kirke Paulding\n\nFar more native to the limitations and hardships of American life and\nfar more loyal to its homely aspirations was James Kirke Paulding,\nwhose literary reputation came to be so deeply overshadowed by that\nof his early friend. Sprung from plain stock--whether English or\nDutch his son remained in doubt, although inclining to believe the\nformer--and cradled in the fierce partisanship of the Revolutionary\nstruggle, he never abandoned his inherited liberalism or found his\nlove of country growing less. To the end of his life he remained a\nprimitive American of an earlier generation, somewhat puzzled by the\nways of another age that speculated in prosperity by running in debt,\nand measured a man\u2019s wealth by the amount he owed. His father had been\nan active Whig in a Tory neighborhood who did not stint his service\nto the Revolutionary cause. He was a member of the local Committee of\nSafety, and acted as State Commissary to the Revolutionary forces, a\npost which in the end brought him to ruin. In the dark days of the\nstruggle he pledged his private credit for supplies, and was never\nreimbursed by a negligent commonwealth. The outcome was financial\ndisaster. The father was imprisoned for debt and his courage broken,\nand the family long suffered from want. \u201cWe were not only poor,\u201d the\nson wrote later, \u201cbut steeped in poverty.\u201d But there was excellent\nstuff in the awkward, dreamy country boy. He was \u201cbuilt of stubborn\noak,\u201d he remarked whimsically, \u201cseasoned in the school of poverty,\nlike an old chimney-piece in a log cabin.\u201d When at the age of nineteen\nhe was suddenly plunged into the world of New York City, he was shy,\nuncouth, self-educated, and felt himself an alien in Wall Street and\nBroadway. For the Federalist upper class he seems to have felt the\ninstinctive hostility of the outsider; but through the agency of the\nIrvings--an elder sister having married William Irving--he was brought\ninto the companionship of a group of clever young men, and under the\nstimulus of high talk and exuberant pranks, the latent idealism of his\nnature expanded freely. This was his university, and while it left\nsomething to be desired in the way of discipline, suffering too free\na rein to his discursive fancy, it quickened his native wit, awakened\nhis creative imagination, and put him to school to the pleasant craft\nof writing. The _Salmagundi Papers_ were the first fruits of the\nliterary apprenticeship of the group, and although Irving has come to\nreceive the chief credit for them, the wit of Paulding seems quite as\nsprightly, and his gayety as fresh.\n\nThat his later career in letters was less notable resulted in part from\nthe fact that he was an inveterate rambler by nature, and partly from\nthe fact that writing with him was occasional, a pleasant relief from\nhumdrum duties, and he did not choose to lay a curb on his vagrant\nways. In letters as in life he was always discursive, forgetful of his\nobjective in his delight at the beauty of the countryside, loading\nhis pages down with nature descriptions and clogging the action\nof his tales with somewhat tedious homilies. After forty years of\nwriting he remained still an amateur, incapable of pruning the wilful\ntangle of his fancy--an essayist of the leisurely school who ventured\nincautiously into the realms of verse and fiction without mastering the\ntechnic of the business. There was perhaps too much of the homespun\nin him to permit him to become an artist. The experience of his youth\nmarked him too deeply, and all his life he remained as conscious a son\nof the people as Hamlin Garland was later, delighting to chronicle the\nways of the obscure, somewhat militant in proclaiming the excellence\nof homely virtues. Formed in an environment that bred a spontaneous\ndemocracy, he was a confirmed equalitarian, untroubled by the itch to\nrise in the world or exploit his fellows. Alone among the Knickerbocker\ngroup, he was a Jeffersonian in the fundamentals of his social creed;\nnot in the lesser matters of Kentucky Resolutions and the like, but in\nhis Physiocratic leanings, in his profound distrust of all middle-class\nprograms and his preference for the simple country ways over the city\neconomy; and it was this deep-rooted agrarianism that set him against\ncapitalism and made him a later Jacksonian. In him there spoke out the\nauthentic New York, not of Broadway merchants or Wall Street bankers,\nbut of the plain rank and file of the people. Untouched by foreign\ntravel but widely acquainted with his native America, he was fashioned\nout of the wool from the fireside loom and domestic dye-pot.\n\nA writer so consciously and completely American would find abundant\noccasion to put his pen to the service of his country at a time when\nevery English traveler turned critic and on his return home published a\nvolume of truculent disparagement of ways and things American. For the\nmost part those volumes were a defense of Toryism by the easy method\nof attacking democracy, and they annoyed Paulding beyond measure. He\nwould not let them go unanswered, and from _The Diverting History\nof John Bull and Brother Jonathan_ (1812) to _John Bull in America_\n(1825), he published five different replies, varying his attack from\nargument to burlesque. Something more than loyalty to his country\nseems to have spurred him on. His dislike of England was inveterate,\npartly because of the old Revolutionary feud, partly because of later\nantagonisms. Almost at the hour of his birth the Paulding family had\nbeen forced to quit their home for fear of the British and Tories who\ndaily threatened them; and a deep hatred of the British Tory he drew\nin with his mother\u2019s milk. To him England was a Tory country, reeking\nwith social injustice, the home of ancient abuses, and necessarily the\nimplacable enemy of democratic America. He was convinced that want and\ntyranny and subserviency dogged the daily life of the English common\npeople; and the English Reviews that attacked the ways of democracy\nwith caustic British superiority, filled his honest republican heart\nwith wrath, and he jabbed his quill into the tough skin of John Bull\nwith patriotic vigor. The shame of the burning of the capitol rankled\nin the American heart, and Paulding discovered fresh grievances in\nremembering that from England had come the banking system and the\n\u201cshin-plaster dynasty\u201d that would breed in the new country the evils\nof the old if they were not looked to. He was convinced that the mother\ncountry wished ill to her offspring, and he thanked God in successive\nvolumes that democratic America was not what Tory England was.\n\nFor despite the English travelers--Weld, Parkinson, Ashe, Bradbury,\nHall, Trollope, and all the rest of the loquacious tribe--Paulding was\npersuaded that America constituted the hope of the future. Here in\nthis land he believed that men should eventually achieve a measure of\nwell-being undreamed of in the old world; already the old tyrannies\nhad been destroyed, the ancient poverty abated. From this stubborn\nidealism nothing could turn him aside. It finds expression in an early\npoem, and it provides the theme for his last novel. _The Backwoodsman_,\npublished in 1818, is a rambling and somewhat plethoric idyll of the\nWest, the hero of which is an archetype of the oppressed and exploited,\nwho finds a generous asylum in the free land beyond the Alleghenies,\nand like Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur\u2019s Andrew the Hebridean, expands the horizons of\nhis mind under the beneficent touch of freedom. _The Puritan and His\nDaughter_, written over thirty years later, deals with a different\nphase of the same general theme. It is a vivid picture of the strife\nengendered in America by immigrant families who bring hither their\nold-world feuds and animosities, and the curative influence of the\nfree environment that, in discovering the good rather than the bad in\nneighbors, draws together the younger generation despite the jealous\nparental authority that would keep them apart. The bigoted fathers make\ntrouble enough--the fanatical Puritan who fought with Cromwell and the\nheadstrong Cavalier who defended divine right--wilful men whom even\nthe common frontier perils cannot reconcile or make tolerant; but they\nare powerless to thwart the ways of nature. The son of the Cavalier\ndiscovers an attractive woman in the daughter of the Puritan, and when\nlove walks in the twilight what matters theology or politics. Youth has\nits own notions of divine right; in its creed the dogmas of John Calvin\nand Robert Filmer have no place; and if the lovers are more tolerant\nthan the fathers it only proves that a freer environment will manage\nto soften the traditional animosities and beget a kindlier race from\nthe merging of classes. Such at least is the characteristic thesis\nthat Paulding elaborates through two volumes of discursive narrative\ninterspersed with bits of vigorous action.\n\nOf this kindly melting pot Paulding himself was a product. He had\nrid himself wholly of all ties that would bind him to Europe. He was\npartisan to no cause or party, literary or political, of the old world.\nHe was content to be American and suffer his native land to bound his\nloyalties. In his own literary practice he refused to imitate the\ncurrent English fashions and he spoke his mind freely to the American\nreading public for its greedy swallowing of cheap imported food. He did\nnot take kindly to the English romantic writers, and went often out of\nhis way to have a dig at his two pet aversions, Scott and Byron.[424]\nHis amusing tale of _Koningsmarke, the Long Finne_, is a good-natured\nburlesque of certain romantic mannerisms of the Waverley novels, and\na defense of Cooper\u2019s _Pioneers_ for its homely realism. Paulding\u2019s\ndislike of the \u201cblood-pudding\u201d fiction that had come over from England,\nand that proved so disastrous to the genius of Gilmore Simms, was\ninveterate, and in his whimsical dedication of _The Puritan and His\nDaughter_ to the sovereign people he comments on the public taste thus:\n\n I am not ignorant of your preference for high-seasoned dishes\n of foreign cookery, most especially blood-puddings, plentifully\n spiced and sauced with adultery, seduction, poisoning, stabbing,\n suicide, and all other sublime excesses of genius. I am aware also\n that Your Majesty, being yourself able to perform impossibilities,\n believed nothing impossible. Possessing this clew to Your Majesty\u2019s\n royal approbation, I solemnly assure you I have gone as far as I\n could to secure it, with a safe conscience. I have laid about me\n pretty handsomely, and sprinkled a good number of pages with blood\n enough, I hope, to make a pudding. If I have any apology to make\n to Your Majesty, it is for permitting some of my people to die a\n natural death, a thing so unnatural that it has been banished from\n all works of fiction aiming at the least semblance to truth....\n But, may it please Your Majesty, I am troubled with weak nerves,\n and my great grandfather was a Quaker. I am, therefore, naturally\n averse to bloodshed, and have more than once nearly fallen into\n convulsions over the pages of Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, whom\n I consider a perfect Guillotine among authors. In short, may\n it please Your Majesty, I abjure poisoning, or smothering with\n charcoal, and confess myself deplorably behind the spirit of this\n luminous age, which is as much in advance of all others, as the\n forewheel of a wagon is ahead of the hind ones.\n\nIn his politics--and as a good American of the times he took his\npolitics seriously--Paulding found in the popular drift towards\nJacksonian democracy an expression of his deepest convictions. It\nwas moving in the direction he had long faced, and he went with\nit whole-heartedly, enjoyed some of the emoluments of office, and\neventually served as Secretary to the Navy in the cabinet of Van Buren.\nWith Jackson\u2019s attack on the Bank he must have been in deep sympathy,\nfor his dislike of the new financial system was of long standing. His\nfather had suffered heavily from a depreciated Continental currency,\nand he early came to distrust all banks and banking. His political\nviews, indeed, were pretty much determined by the Physiocratic\nconvictions that underlay his thinking. He had been a Jeffersonian\nlong before the rise of Jacksonianism. Portions of his _Letters from\nthe South_, published in 1817, seem like excerpts from the agrarian\nwritings of John Taylor of Caroline. There is the same contemptuous\nanalysis of the \u201cshin-plaster dynasty,\u201d the same concern at the growth\nof trading towns, the same conviction that cities and poverty and low\nmorals go hand in hand, the same trust in the perennial wholesomeness\nof country life. Such a passage as this will suffice to reveal his\nleanings towards a Physiocratic economy:\n\n I was saying, that we have too many people living in cities,\n in proportion to our farmers, who, after all, are the backbone\n of every country, whence originates its riches and its solid\n strength.... Yet our people cling to the towns and cities,\n attracted by the hope of sudden wealth, and despising the slow,\n yet sure, rewards of agriculture, which, without leading a man to\n inordinate riches, secure him for ever from the chances of sinking\n into beggary or want. The race of paupers receives no recruits\n from them; for in all my sojournings, I may say with truth, that\n I never saw an industrious farmer forsaken, \u201cor his seed begging\n bread.\u201d One great cause of the disproportion of numbers ...\n between the agricultural and other classes of the community, is\n the great system of paper money, which has struck at the root of\n regular, persevering industry, whose rewards, though slow, are\n always certain. For some years back, hardly a tradesman in our\n cities, and of late in our little towns (each of which, however\n insignificant, has now its snug little bank) thinks of growing rich\n by his industry. No; he must get accommodations at some bank, and\n plunge into speculations: nor can you now go into a cobbler\u2019s stall\n without seeing a bank notice, or perhaps two or three, stuck up\n with an awl at the chimney-piece, to remind the honest gentleman\n that he owes a great deal more than he can pay. Thus is the axe\n laid to the very root of national morals, and consequently national\n prosperity, and the whole American people, farmers excepted, sunk\n into an abject subjection to banks and their directors. (_Letters\n from the South_, Vol. I, pp. 100-102.)\n\nSo confirmed an agrarian would easily arrive at agrarian conclusions in\nhis meditations on the nature and functions of the political state.\nUnlike Irving, who, having no political convictions, was equally\npleased with Whig or Democrat if he happened to be a gentleman,\nPaulding was something of a political philosopher with clear-cut\ndoctrines. He was too shrewd an observer of ways political to be\ncaught by party cries, or to ignore the class selfishness that would\nmake government a party to its ends. As a Jeffersonian he retained an\nold-fashioned distrust of the political state. As an eighteenth-century\nliberal he would keep the state within narrow bounds. Jealous for a\nfreedom worthy of free citizens, he wanted government to keep hands\noff what did not concern it. He would not have the state used as a\ncat\u2019s-paw to pull anybody\u2019s chestnuts out of the fire, whether in the\nform of Clay\u2019s American System, or what not. For protective tariffs\nand internal improvements--those grandiose schemes for hastening\nprosperity--he felt an old-fashioned repugnance that found issue\nin amusing caricature. In _Westward Ho!_ he introduces a French\npublican of a Mississippi River village who does not care for Yankee\nimprovements and describes them thus:\n\n Diable! monsieur, another improvement; last year they assess me for\n one grand public improvement! one road to go somewhere, I don\u2019t\n know. Eh bien! I pay the money. Well, this year they assess me for\n one other grand public improvement--very grand--voil\u00e0, monsieur,\n one other road, right alongside the other, both going to the same\n place. Diable! I no want to travel on two turnpike roads. Ah!\n monsieur le colonel, I shall be very rich, O! very rich indeed,\n by these grand improvements. They take away all my land to make\n room for the grand improvement; they take away all my money to\n pay for him, and then they tell me my land worth four, six time\n so much as before. Peste! what that to me when my land all gone\n to the dem public improvement, hey? I shall be very rich then.\n Diable! I wish myself gone to some country where every thing was\n go backwards--what you call tail foremost, instead of forwards,\n for the dem march of improvement shall ruin me at last. (Vol. II,\n Chapter XVI.)\n\nSatire aimed at the new gospel of progress is not infrequent in\nPaulding. In _Koningsmarke_ he drew the picture of a politician that\nwas perhaps intended for a burlesque of Henry Clay. The worthy Wolfgang\nLangfanger, member of the council of Elsingburgh, having \u201cbrought\nhis private affairs into great confusion, by devoting too much time\nto the public good,\u201d began \u201cto think it high time the public good\nshould repay some part of its weighty obligations. He had accordingly\ninvented, and persuaded the Heer Piper to put into practice, a system\nof internal improvement, which has been imitated, from time to time,\nin this country ever since with great success. The essence of his plan\nconsisted in running in debt for the present, and living afterwards\nupon the anticipation of future wealth\u201d (Book Second, Chapter VI). Big\nwith his wonderful idea the busy councilor projected great docks and\nwharves for the commerce that was to be invited to come, a fine canal\nthat would cut off a full six miles for barges that were not yet on\nthe stocks, and a magnificent plan of new streets that led through\nhouses that must be pulled down and fields that must forego their\nusual harvests. Such goodly improvements naturally cost money, and to\nmaintain the public credit taxes were levied, and still more taxes,\nuntil, like the French tavern-keeper, the good people of Elsingburgh\nwere brought to doubt the wisdom of investing in future prosperity at\nso high a present cost.\n\n But the masterpiece of Langfanger\u2019s policy was that of pulling\n down an old market, and building a new one in another part of the\n village, in the management of which business he is supposed to have\n laid down the first principles of the great and thriving science of\n political economy, or picking people\u2019s pockets on a grand scale.\n He caused the people living near the old market to pay roundly\n for its removal as a nuisance; and then he caused the people that\n lived about where the new one was to be built, to pay roundly for\n the vast pleasure and advantage of its neighbourhood. Thus he\n pinched them through both ears, and got the reputation of a great\n financier. (Book Seventh, Chapter III.)\n\n_Koningsmarke_ is Paulding\u2019s most interesting work, and the utter\nneglect that has overtaken it is far from deserved. It is native and\noriginal, full of shrewd comment and sly satire, and it embodies most\nof Paulding\u2019s pet theories and aversions. Few books of the time are\nmore amusing than this tale of the Long Finne who moves in a dark cloud\nof mystery woven by Bombie of the Frizzled Head, barks his sturdy\nshins on many a blood-curdling adventure, proves a true knight to his\nlady, and in the end turns out to be a very ordinary fellow who has\nbeen blown up to heroic size by the black art of romance. Paulding\nmust have had great fun writing it, for his wit still preserves its\nfreshness after a hundred years. It is a whimsical satire on the ways\nof the hour, literary and other, set against the background of an\nold Swedish settlement on the banks of the Delaware; but the chief\npurpose of its quizzical pages is the pouring of a broadside into\nthe picturesque hull of contemporary fiction. It is an attack on the\nabundant extravagance of current romance that had been inflated by\n\u201cMonk\u201d Lewis and Sir Walter. Paulding cleverly hits off the high-flown\nand ghostly, the love of blood pudding, the snobbish contempt for the\nhomely and native. Written in 1823, the year of Cooper\u2019s _Pioneers_,\nit defends the realism of characters and setting in that work against\nthe charge of vulgarity and commonplace, but it takes pains to satirize\nCooper\u2019s noble red man of the forest. Paulding\u2019s Indians are more like\nBird\u2019s than Cooper\u2019s, material for burlesque rather than romance, but\nas he runs over the names of the warriors--\u201cthe Big Buffalo, the Little\nDuck-Legs, the Sharp-Faced Bear, the Walking Shadow, the Iron Cloud,\nthe Jumping Sturgeon, the Belly Ache, and the Doctor, all legitimate\nsovereigns, with copper rings in their noses, blanket robes of state,\nand painted faces\u201d--amusement at their childishness is tempered by the\nrecognition that they have been overreached and dispossessed by the\ngrasping white men.\n\nIn some of his later work the line between burlesque and serious is not\nso clearly marked, and one hesitates to pronounce whether _Westward\nHo!_ is a sober attempt at popular romance or a _reductio ad absurdum_\nof the current romantic flummery. Certainly it is a preposterous story\nwith its melancholy hero driven mad by fear of madness and indulging in\ngibberish that comes straight out of Shakespeare, and with its ample\ncrop of stock characters--Master Zeno Paddock and Mrs. Judith Paddock\nwith their prying inquisitiveness, Colonel Dangerfield the easy-going\nVirginia gentleman who in staking his estate on a horse race embodies\nthe plantation tradition, and Bushfield the backwoodsman who cannot\nlive in a world that has left off its moccasins, and removes to a place\nwhere there are no laws and no lawyers and where constables do not\nvisit a man who has thrashed his neighbor. _Westward Ho!_ is not an\namusing book; it is quite lacking in local color, and its casual bits\nof realism and occasional satire are too inconsequential to signify.\n_The Dutchman\u2019s Fireside_, written at about the same time, is far more\nsuccessful. It purports to be an account of the Knickerbocker society\nin the days of the Old French war, and it contains some lovely pictures\nof old times that one reads with pleasure; but it indulges somewhat\nfreely in adventure amongst the Indians and in the war, and its love\nstory is needlessly romantic. Although Paulding still protests against\na blood-pudding diet, he indulges occasionally in the high-flown, to\nthe detriment of the idyllic note. Romance was all about him and\nhe could not wholly escape its compulsions. Too casual in his work,\ntoo undisciplined in the craft of writing, he remained to the end an\namusing amateur, a homespun man of letters who never took the trouble\nto master his technic. There was excellent stuff in him, solider\nperhaps than in Irving, but his failure suggests the difference between\nthe journeyman and the artist.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[423] Writing to his wife a month afterwards, Cooper said: \u201cBy the\nway, Mrs. Willing has let out the secret of Irving\u2019s appointment. He\nwrote to Webster to remember him _if any good thing offered_. So that\ninstead of not asking for the office, he asked for anything that was\ngood. There has been more humbug practised concerning this man than\nconcerning any other now living\u201d (Cooper, _Correspondence of James\nFenimore-Cooper_, Vol. II, p. 469).\n\n[424] See _Letters from the South_, Vol. I, _Letter XXII_.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 James Fenimore Cooper \u2022 Critic\n\n\nFenimore Cooper is one of the puzzling figures of his generation.\nIn his substantial character was embodied what may well appear no\nmore than a bundle of contradictions. Romancer and social critic,\nfeudal-minded yet espousing a republican faith, he pretty much baffled\nhis own generation in its testy attempts to understand him, as he has\npretty much baffled later times. No other major writer, unless it be\nWhitman, has been so misunderstood, and no other offers a knottier\nproblem to the student of American letters. The stubborn clay of\nhis nature was molded to a pattern unlike that of his fellows, and\nthe difference was long accounted to him as a grave shortcoming.\nHis outspoken individualism was a constant irritant to a sensitive\nmajority, and his aloofness from the common enthusiasms was reckoned\nno better than treason to his native land. The right of the individual\nto question the herd pronouncements was a right not acknowledged by\nthe herd, and the more it tried to silence Cooper\u2019s tongue the more\ncaustic and loquacious it became. He refused to be silenced though\nit should come to open warfare. His later years in consequence were\nrendered unhappy by a thousand petty vexations, and his creative work\nwas brought only this side of shipwreck.\n\nHow and why so great a misadventure befell him are questions of\nprime importance to which little attention has been given. That his\ntactlessness was at fault is commonly believed--his tactlessness and a\ncertain pugnacious virtue that would inculcate righteousness by means\nof a broken head. But such an explanation, true enough so far as it\ngoes, does not go far enough. The trouble lay deeper than that; it lay\nin the mind of Cooper himself, in the doubts and uncertainties that\ndwelt side by side with stubborn dogmatisms, troubling his speculations\nand perplexing his plainest counsels. And that trouble must be traced\nto an underlying conflict between the man and his age, between the\nideal and the real, between high loyalties and petty fact. Fenimore\nCooper was the barometer of a gusty generation, sensitive to every\nstorm on the far horizon. No other observer of that changing generation\nsuffered so keenly in mind and conscience from the loosening of ancient\nties, and none labored so hard to keep his countrymen to the strait\npath of an old-fashioned rectitude. His busy life covered the middle\nyears of the great shift from an aristocratic order to a capitalistic\norder, and this revolutionary change provided him ample materials for\nbrooding speculation. At every turn in the road fresh doubts assailed\nhim. The perplexities and dogmatisms that clutter so many of his later\npages, playing havoc with his romantic art, are a testimony to the\nconfusions of a generation in the midst of epic changes. As honest a\nman as ever spoke his mind frankly, he endeavored to reconcile the\nirreconcilable, and establish sure standards amid the wreck of all\nstandards. He could not drift. He must discover some working agreement\nbetween the old America and the new, between the reputed excellencies\nof the traditional aristocratic order, and the reputed justice of the\ndemocratic ideal. But unfortunately for this difficult business he was\ntemperamentally ill-equipped. He was always at war with himself. His\nloyalties and his conscience ran at cross-purposes. His mind was packed\nwith prejudices as an egg with meat. He was too partisan to compromise,\nand too honest to be content with the shoddy. His instinctive\nromanticisms were always being buffeted by fact, and his troubled mind\nin consequence was forever constructing laborious defense-mechanisms.\n\nFor those deep confusions that marred his later work and brought\nsuch bitter misunderstanding upon him, his heritage was much to\nblame. A romantic at heart, he was out of sympathy with the dominant\nromanticisms of his generation. Certain hold-overs from the past held\nhim back from hearty participation in the present. He loved the world\nthat was falling into decay too much to put away its virtues with its\nsmallclothes; he would preserve what was excellent in the old to enrich\nand dignify what was excellent in the new; he would have the young\ndemocracy learn the decorum of a staid aristocracy. It is this fond\nlingering between worlds that sets Cooper apart from his fellows. He\nwas an English squire of the old school turned republican, who did not\nquite like the company he found himself in. He was equally puzzled at\nthe bumptious leveling of the coonskin democracy, and the exploitative\nspirit of Wall Street Whiggery. But though he railed at the newfangled\nways with the testiness of a squire, he was too confirmed a republican,\ntoo deeply concerned that the great venture in republicanism should\ndemonstrate its wisdom, to overlook its shortcomings. He would have\nit be so true to its ideal that the world would acknowledge its\nexcellence. He could not circumscribe his duties to election-day\nhurrahs; he must ferret out treason in the market place; he must be\nfaithful in counsel though he utter unwelcome truths. It was the very\nfaithfulness of Cooper to his conception of an ideal republic that\nbrought him into collision with his fellows and filled his later days\nwith bitterness.\n\nIt is easy to see where Cooper got those stubborn notions that marked\nhim as the last of our eighteenth-century squires and left him obsolete\nafter the adoption of the Constitution of 1821. From his father, from\nthe Tory rector of St. Peter\u2019s, Albany, who first schooled him, from\nthe Loyalist family of De Lancey into which he married, from Governor\nJay and the old gentry with whom he was brought up, he imbibed certain\nstalwart conservatisms--political, religious, social, economic--that\nmingled in his blood and nourished the tissues of caste prejudice\nfrom which his maturer social philosophy struggled in vain to escape.\nIn spite of his deliberate acceptance of the democratic principle,\nas he understood that principle, he remained at heart as sturdily\neighteenth-century as any fox-hunting master of English acres. He\nhad early been bred in the old traditions at Otsego Hall where he\nspent his boyhood. His father, Judge William Cooper, \u201ca testy and\ncholeric gentleman easily wrought into passion,\u201d--whom he idealized as\nJudge Temple in _The Pioneers_--was an old-school politician of high\nFederalist persuasion, a vigorous, not to say truculent, embodiment of\nthe stake-in-society principle of statecraft. Smitten with the common\nitch for large land holdings, he had got his hands on a huge virgin\ntract which he managed in the old baronial fashion. He was a real lord\nof the manor and late in life he recalled that \u201cthere were 40,000 souls\nholding land, directly or indirectly, under me\u201d; and in the year 1800\n\u201che set up a claim to having placed the plough upon more acres than any\nother man in America\u201d (quoted in D. R. Fox, _The Decline of Aristocracy\nin the Politics of New York_, p. 136). Otsego Hall in Cooperstown was\na frontier citadel of Federalism defending the western marches against\nJeffersonian democracy, and Judge Cooper used his economic power\nover tenants with telling effect. He \u201crode far and wide in the cause\nof Jay and later Aaron Burr, always preaching the musty doctrine that\ngovernment had better be left to gentlemen, and that simple folk should\nvote as they were told\u201d (_ibid._, pp. 136-137). When persuasion failed\nhe resorted to threats, and in 1792 he was before the legislature on\nimpeachment charges. From the testimony it appears that the patriarchal\nJudge used direct methods with tenants in arrears; he \u201chad been round\nto the people and told them that they owed him, and that unless they\nvoted for Mr. Jay, he would ruin them\u201d (_ibid._, p. 140). By such\narguments it was thought some seven hundred votes had been brought into\nthe Federalist column by this exemplar of the old virtues.\n\nBut Cooper had drifted with his age far from such old-fashioned methods\nof class domination. In spite of his great love for his father he\nseems never to have espoused the latter\u2019s political creed. With the\ndisintegration of Federalism the young man went with the country in\nits turning towards French romanticism. When and why he adopted the\ndemocratic faith is not apparent, but until middle life it would seem\nthat he concerned himself little with political theory. He remained a\nprovincial American with an intense pride of patriotism. But his long\nstay in Europe, lasting from June, 1826, to November, 1833, and the\nJacksonian revolution that took place during his absence, put him upon\nan anxious examination of first principles, and thereafter to the end\nof his life the social and political problems of America were a burden\non his conscience. He arrived late at a reasoned political faith, as\nhe arrived late at his literary art, and it is impossible to trace the\nsteps of his intellectual development; yet confused though his thinking\nwas, and shot through with narrowing prejudices, he persistently sought\nfor the light; and the germinal source of his dissatisfactions was the\ndeepening conviction that, in Franklin\u2019s phrase, the affairs of this\nworld are preposterously managed. From this conviction Cooper never\nswerved. The contrast everywhere between the real and the ideal took\nhold of his mind as an obsession, and put an end to his contentment.\nHis romantic art suffered from the intrusion of realism; the romancer\nwas constantly impelled to turn critic. It was his travels more than\nanything else that destroyed his provincial contentment. The perturbing\ninfluence of that experience abroad has never perhaps been adequately\nconsidered by his critics. No other American was so unsettled by\ncontact with European civilization. It was a Europe in the throes\nof revolution and Cooper threw himself with enthusiasm into French\npolitics, hoping for a wise republican issue from the overturn. But\nit was a Europe also of dignified and generous culture that was a\nchallenge to his Americanism. It made a critic of him and turned his\nmind to political and social problems. Europe appealed to his native\naristocratic prejudices, but repelled his democratic; Jacksonian\nAmerica appealed to his democratic prejudices, but rode roughshod\nover his aristocratic. He found himself nowhere at home. Puzzled and\nperturbed, he leveled his shafts at both worlds and sought a haven of\nrefuge in vicarious existence, at times in the wilderness beyond the\nsoil and smutch of the Jacksonian frontier, at times in the Utopian\nworld of _The Crater_ where an honest man could find free play for his\ncreative energy, until the trouble makers came upon him.\n\nIn temperament and outlook this later Cooper was another John Adams\nmodified by changing times. A realist in his long brooding over social\nand political evils, he was at heart an idealist greatly concerned\nwith justice amongst men, with a romantic fondness for dwelling on\nthe virtues of earlier days. Like Adams he understood very well that\nequality is a Utopian dream; that social classes exist in every society\nthat has accumulated property, and that sovereignty in the long run\nwill fall into the hands that control the social economics.[425] The\nproblem he set himself to consider was the problem of reconciling this\nuniversal fact with his own predilection in favor of democracy. That\nhe regarded himself as a democrat his emphatic assertions suffice\nto prove; but no more than Emerson was he deceived by the spurious\ndemocracy of the times. \u201cThe writer believes himself to be as good a\ndemocrat as there is in America,\u201d he said in the Introduction to _The\nAmerican Democrat_. \u201cBut his democracy is not of the impracticable\nschool. He prefers a democracy to any other system, on account of its\ncomparative advantages, but not on account of its perfection. He knows\nit has evils; great and increasing evils, and evils peculiar to itself;\nbut he believes that monarchy and aristocracy have more. It will be\nvery apparent to all who read this book, that he is not a believer in\nthe scheme of raising men very far above their natural propensities.\u201d\nHe would lift his voice in no hurrah for the majority, for he knew\nthat the majority was very likely to be the tool of the demagogue. He\nsaw no peculiar virtue or special intelligence in a coonskin cap, and\nhe discovered no advantage in log cabins and hard cider as a training\nschool for statesmen. He had watched the disgraceful campaign of 1840\nwith concern that gentlemen should stoop to the demagoguery that marked\nthat electoral debauch; and it confirmed him in the conviction that\n\u201cold-fashioned, high principled gentlemen\u201d of an earlier age would\nnever have been guilty of such traffic in votes--men like Chancellor\nLivingston who devoted his later years to raising Merino sheep, or John\nJay who after filling with dignity many high offices retired to his\nestate to concern himself with new varieties of melons.\n\nHating all humbug, Cooper made it his business to free his mind from\nthe several varieties of cant that were overrunning America like\npigweed. \u201cHad a suitable compound offered,\u201d he said of _The American\nDemocrat_, \u201cthe title of this book would have been something like\n\u2018Anti-cant.\u2019\u201d Roughly, the history of his essays in criticism falls\ninto two broad phases: the struggle to pull himself out of the bog\nof eighteenth-century caste philosophy--from that stake-in-society\ntheory which his father upheld; and the struggle to escape the\nfallacies of the nineteenth-century philosophy rising about him--from\nthe rude equalitarianism of Jacksonian democracy, and the materialism\nof capitalistic exploitation. His abandonment of the principle of\ngentleman-rule marks his definite break with the philosophy of\nFederalism and the substitution of democracy. It cost him a prolonged\nstruggle, for the social-stake theory ran with many of his oldest\npredilections, and the evidence of that struggle is scattered broadly\nthrough the pages written in the late thirties; but having convinced\nhimself of the social wrong involved in the principle, he was tireless\nin refutation. In _The American Democrat_ he laid down the principle\nthat \u201cA government founded on the representation of property, however\ndirect or indirect, is radically vicious.... It is the proper business\nof government to resist the corruptions of money, and not to depend\non them\u201d (_On Property_, p. 141). But it is _The Monikins_, a strange\nbook much laughed at by the critics, rarely read and little understood,\nthat concerns itself most largely with the theory. Sadly bungled though\nthe satire quite obviously is, it is nevertheless a spirited attack on\nthe social-stake principle that reveals how far Cooper had traveled\nfrom the doctrines of Hamilton and Webster, of Federalist and Whig.\nBoth England and America--Leaphigh and Leaplow--show meanly under his\ncaustic analysis, the former perhaps more meanly than the latter; their\ninstitutions, societies, politics, manners, are an unlovely compound of\ncant and hypocrisy; and the root of the common meanness he discovers\nin human selfishness. He conceives of man as a queer mixture of good\nand evil from whom much is not to be expected; something nearer to\nSwift\u2019s conception than William Ellery Channing\u2019s; with too much of the\nMonikin in him to pass for a child of God; prone to error even under\na republican system; insolent, tyrannical, loving fetishes, given to\nbrag, too poor-spirited to be free, gilding his fetters and belying\nLocke\u2019s saying that chains are an ill wearing. There are depths of\nbitterness in _The Monikins_ that startle the reader. It is a tale of\ndoubt and disillusion, Gulliver-like in its fierceness of attack, that\nstrikes through all the shoddy romanticisms of the times and reduces\nthe current democracy to humbug. Subjected to such analysis the old\nFederalist shibboleth of men of principle and property is no more than\nthe East wind in empty bellies. The possession of money does not change\nhuman nature; rich as well as poor are driven by selfish interest, and\nto give a loose to property power is to invite political disaster.\n\n Your social-stake system supposes that he who has what is termed a\n distinct and prominent interest in society, will be the most likely\n to conduct its affairs wisely, justly, and disinterestedly. This\n would be true, if those great principles which lie at the root of\n all happiness were respected; but unluckily, the stake in question,\n instead of being a stake in justice and virtue, is usually reduced\n to be merely a stake in property.... Now, all experience shows\n that the great property-incentives are to increase property, to\n protect property, and to buy with property those advantages which\n ought to be independent of property, viz., honors, dignities,\n power and immunities. I cannot say how it is with men, but our\n [Monikin] histories are eloquent on this head. We have had the\n property-principle carried out thoroughly in our practice, and the\n result has shown that its chief operation is to render property as\n intact as possible, and the bones, and sinews, and marrow of all\n who do not possess it, its slaves. (_The Monikins_, Chapter XXVII.)\n\nBut though Cooper might deny the validity of the eighteenth-century\nsocial-stake theory, he saw no valid reason to abandon his\neighteenth-century economics. In his preference for a social order\nfounded on agriculture he was as confirmed a Physiocrat as Franklin or\nJefferson; and this preference determined his judgment on the economic\nrevolution under way in America. A people living close to the soil was\nliving more wholesomely, he believed, than a city people immersed in\ntrade and manufacture. For the capitalistic expansion that followed the\nnew fiscal system of the seventeen-nineties, he felt an instinctive\nrepugnance. Banking and the manipulation of credit seemed to him mean\nand sordid, and the spirit of speculation that was overrunning the\nland he believed was destructive of common morality. The activities\nof Wall Street he looked upon with the eyes of an English squire. To\nexpect any sane progress from such worship of money, to assume that a\nhigh and excellent civilization could result from such worship, seemed\nto him plain madness. \u201cGod protect the country that has nothing but\ncommercial towns for capitals,\u201d he wrote his wife in 1839 (Cooper,\n_Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper_, Vol. II, p. 404), and the\ncomment found amplification in many a caustic passage in his novels of\ncriticism. A materialistic middle class with its gospel of progress\ninterpreted in terms of wasteful exploitation seemed to him the hateful\nprogeny of a period of \u201cmoral occultation\u201d; and against this \u201cYankee\u201d\nphilosophy he waged an unrelenting warfare. In _The Monikins_ he drew\na gloomy picture of the America of the thirties when the land had come\nunder a great moral eclipse; and in _Home as Found_ and _The Redskins_\nhe commented bitterly on the universal restlessness that was driving\nthousands to the new West to seek their fortunes. The settlement of\nthe Inland Empire was no romance for him. The Great Migration seemed\nto imply the break-up of the older America he loved; and the impact of\nthe frontier spirit upon the country seemed likely to destroy the last\nexcellence of an earlier age. It marked for Cooper the final triumph\nof the acquisitive Yankee spirit, grasping and lawless in its crude\nleveling.\n\nFrom these germinal sources--his love of the dignified ways of the old\nmanorial families, his contempt for the middle class, his dislike of a\nbumptious leveling, his hatred of brag and cant and enterprise--came\nthose sharp contrasts in his pictures that set the vulgar present\nover against the dignified past. His criticism was in no small part\nthe reaction of a romantic to the unlovely works of an economic\nrevolution. From his loyalty to the old came that subtle romanticizing\nof the eighteenth century that lends a charm to his tales, and from it\ncame also that vindictive hatred of the frontier that spurred him to\nill-balanced criticism. He could not like the new that was destroying\nthe old. Like Emerson he was a man without a party, but unlike him he\nsought consolation in the past rather than the future. The excellence\nhe yearned for he found in that older world whose stable ways were as\nyet unsettled by the romantic revolution, and from the meanness of the\npresent he stole away to find consolation in the dignity and worth of\nhonester times. The late eighteenth century became, therefore, his\nromantic haven and City of Refuge to which he returned gladly. He\nwas always seeking to revitalize the old in an environment where, as\nhe lamented, \u201cthe eighteenth century may be set down as a very dark\nantiquity.\u201d\n\nThat Cooper unconsciously romanticized the past is only too evident.\nToo often he accepted its self-proclaimed virtues as sober fact and\ncreated a race of squires that never existed outside his pages.\nRealist though he was in certain moods, he abandoned his realism in\nthe presence of the tie-wig gentry. His father was as graspingly\neighteenth century as Gouverneur Morris and saw to it that his own nest\nwas well feathered; yet the son failed to perceive that the dignified\nprofessions of those old gentlemen were little more than splendid\ngestures. He made the mistake of taking them at their face value.\nHonest himself, he attributed an equal honesty to the older generation,\nand he watched with unfeigned regret the disintegration of an order\nthat seemed to him the repository of much that was excellent. Fragments\nof its ideals he clung to; its dignity, its concern for breeding\nand manners, its fine distinction. Fragments also of its political\nconvictions: its concern for law and order, its belief that all just\nlaw is founded in morality, its insistence that American government\nis one of principles and not of men. He put his finger shrewdly on\ncertain fallacies of eighteenth-century theory, but he took too many\nof its values at par. The twilight is a mighty sorcerer and Cooper was\nbewitched by the half light that lingered softly on the familiar past.\n\nThis suffices to explain the grounds of the charge of aristocratic\nleanings that Cooper was persistently brought under. His bold defense\nof the landed gentry gave mortal enmity to the Jacksonians, and the\ntactlessness with which he pointed out the crude provincialisms of\nAmerica--the bumptious plebeians he set over against the priggish\ngentlemen--was rubbing salt on open sores. _Home as Found_ and _The\nRedskins_ were onslaughts on the ways of the sacred majority that\nAmerica could not forgive him for. Yet no counter criticism ever moved\nCooper from his conviction that gentlemen of an earlier generation\npossessed dignity, principles, character, far beyond the speculators\nand politicians and \u201csmall-potato lawyers\u201d of the present time of\n\u201cmoral occultation\u201d; and the difference in favor of the old he traced\nto the economic basis of the tie-wig gentry. Believing with John Adams\nthat an aristocracy is implicit in every established society, he\nfrankly preferred a landed to a capitalistic aristocracy. Gentlemen of\nthe old school were neighborhood patriarchs. Secure in position and\npossessions they disdained to keep an ear to the ground or court a\nsilly popularity. They were squires with a high sense of responsibility\nto themselves and society. Their stake in the land was a stabilizing\ninfluence in their lives; and their ample way of living, their\nwell-bred leisure, their courteous bearing learned from a cosmopolitan\nexperience, seemed to Cooper a desirable influence in a society lacking\nrefinement and exact standards. To supplant them with the new gentry of\nWall Street seemed to him plain folly, and he watched the decay of the\nold families with a pathetic concern. The Anti-Rent novels are a long\ndefense of a thesis that comes to final expression in such a passage as\nthis from _The Redskins_:\n\n I say that, in a country like this, in which land is so abundant\n as to render the evils of a general monopoly impossible, a landed\n gentry is precisely what is most needed for the higher order of\n civilization, including manners, tastes, and the minor principles,\n and is the very class which, if reasonably maintained and properly\n regarded, would do the most good at the least risk of any social\n caste known. (Chapter XXVI.)\n\nIt is not hard, indeed, to understand Cooper\u2019s preference for Stephen\nVan Rensselaer the Patroon, to John Jacob Astor the fur trader, or\nCommodore Vanderbilt the ferryman; yet such preference was charged\nagainst him as un-American.\n\nIt was this revulsion from the meanness of the present that sent\nCooper into the wilderness or out on the high seas, to seek adventure\nin the company of nature\u2019s noblemen, and forget the sordidness of the\nreal. Here again the French school prompted his thinking, if only to\nsupplement the romance of his boyish recollections. Natty Bumppo is\nquite evidently man as he came from the hand of nature, uncorrupted by\nthe vices of the settlements; indeed one might question whether the\nback-to-nature literature can show another figure so enduringly vital\nas the Leatherstocking. From this same material is fashioned Uncas\nand the younger Chingachgook and still other lovable figures of his\nromances. They belong to the free wilderness beyond the settlements,\nwhere the dramatic flight and pursuit go on unchecked by impertinent\nfences. Here their native virtues expand and their generous gifts find\nample play. They shunned the settlements as Cooper shunned them. On the\nfrontier, the middle ground between nature and civilization, Cooper\u2019s\nspirits flagged. He had no love for the stumpy clearings, the slovenly\ncabins, the shiftless squatters; the raw devastation of the ax grieved\nhim and he breathes contentedly only after he has left the last scars\nbehind and is in the deep woods beyond the smell of rum. Such a man\nobviously was unfitted to write a just account of the frontier as\nit straggled westward. He hated its ways too fiercely to do justice\nto it, and when he comes upon it in his tales, when he introduces a\nfrontier figure such as Ishmael Bush in _The Prairie_ or old Aaron\nThousandacres in _The Chainbearer_, it is to depict the unhappy state\nof society where the virtues of nature are gone and the refinements\nof civilization not yet come. No writer has set down a more sweeping\nindictment of the frontier than Cooper, and he set it down because the\nfrontier seemed to him the muddy source of the vulgar leveling he hated\nso heartily. A gentleman, whether Indian or squire or scout, Cooper\nloved to be with; but a vulgarian he could not endure, and a rascal\nstirred his Puritan wrath. In consequence there runs through his work\nlittle of the amusing picaresque strain that the heartier nature of\nGilmore Simms delighted in, and that made him a truer chronicler of\nfrontier ways.\n\nDemocrat though he professed to be, Cooper shrank from the logical\napplication of the democratic principle. The adoption of manhood\nsuffrage in New York brought in its train a sorry scramble of\ndemagogues to sway the popular will, a debasement of the press, and\na vulgarizing of political life that proved a sore trial to Cooper\u2019s\nfaith. He was too severely moralist to enjoy the little weaknesses of\nhuman nature, but must set himself up as custodian of public morals.\nAffronted by a bumptious vulgarity, he became the assailant rather than\nthe critic of Jacksonian ways. The land to which he returned in 1833\nwas a broad target for his shafts and he sent them into the white. The\nAmerica of log cabins and hard cider seemed to him to have repudiated\nthe traditional standards, moral as well as cultural, and he attributed\nthe disintegration to the corruption that came from the extension of\nthe suffrage to classes unprepared to use it wisely. It was this that\nembittered his criticism in the caustic pages of _Homeward Bound_ and\n_Home as Found_. He was startled and resentful at the changes. \u201cYou\nhave been dreaming abroad,\u201d remarked one of the characters in the\nformer, \u201cwhile your country has retrograded, in all that is respectable\nand good, a century in a dozen years\u201d (_Homeward Bound_, Chapter XVII).\nThe colossal brag, the meaningless unrest, the abysmal provincialism,\nhe marked as the natural by-products of the mob mind. In throwing off\nits old restraints America was coming to deny all standards of decency\nand excellence. \u201cWhat then do you deem our greatest error--our weakest\npoint?\u201d asks one of his characters, and the reply is explicit:\n\n Provincialisms, with their train of narrow prejudices, and a\n disposition to set up mediocrity as perfection, under the double\n influence of an ignorance that unavoidably arises from a want of\n models, and of the irresistible tendency to mediocrity in a nation\n where the common mind so imperiously rules. (_Home as Found_,\n Chapter XXV.)\n\nIt was during the bustling decade of the forties, when the agrarian\nunrest in York State was putting in jeopardy the old manorial system,\nthat Cooper\u2019s antagonism to the spirit of leveling became bitterest;\nand it was in defense of the old system that he wrote the Anti-Rent\ntrilogy that should always be set over against the Leatherstocking\ntales. Taken together the two series contain pretty much the whole\nof Cooper, his sea tales excepted; either alone gives an inadequate\nand partial view. The one is a social study, the other a romantic\nepic. The one gives a picture of the changes the years have brought\nto a given region, the other follows the retreating wilderness as the\nfrontier moved westward. The Anti-Rent novels present the reverse of\nthe romantic picture of the Leatherstocking tales. Their central figure\nis Aaron Thousandacres the squatter, who has come out of Connecticut\nto possess what pleases him, regardless of legal rights. Offspring of\ngenerations of covetous, psalm-singing Puritans, he has no difficulty\nin justifying his lawlessness by Yankee logic. The devil can quote\nScripture, and in this respect old Thousandacres is the devil\u2019s own\nson. When Scripture fails the easy gospel of natural rights comes to\nhis aid; the written law may be on the side of the title-holder, but\nnatural law is on the side of the squatter.\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s two rights to all the land on \u2019arth, and the whull world\n over,\u201d the squatter replied to Chainbearer\u2019s legal argument. \u201cOne\n of these rights is what I call a king\u2019s right, or that which\n depends on writin\u2019s, and laws, and sich like contrivances; and\n the other depends on possession. It stands to reason, that fact\n is better than any writin\u2019 about it can be.\u201d (_The Chainbearer_,\n Chapter XXV.)\n\nSuch lax doctrine, to Cooper, was the evil fruit of the spirit of\nlawlessness that was laying a blight upon America. A retributive bullet\nends the fierce career of old Thousandacres, but his tigress wife,\nhis rough sons and slattern daughters are driven from their home to\nplunge deeper into the wilderness, there to beget other generations of\nsquatters whose vicious doctrines return to plague society. No romance\nblends with the tale of their lives; no sympathy softens the picture of\nthe stern old Yankee. He has set himself against law and order and must\nyield or be destroyed. It is the old story of the struggle for land, a\nstruggle that went on for generations between speculator and squatter,\nbetween rich and poor, with much wrong and much right on both sides;\nyet Cooper\u2019s sympathies are cold to the squatter\u2019s plea and he enlists\nGod, morality, and the law, in defense of a title to forty thousand\nacres wheedled from the Indians for ninety-six pounds, York currency,\nspent in trinkets. Righteousness without a sense of humor is not easy\nto live with.\n\nIn much of his later work Cooper\u2019s romantic impulses are held in check\nby a growing tendency towards realism. It was there from the first but\nas he grew more critical it spread over more of his pages. He tried\nto hold the scales of his judgment even, but his realism was marred\nand distorted by his vehement nature. A mind exuding prejudice is\nill equipped to deal objectively with material, and Cooper was too\ninveterate a moralist to accept the principle of impersonal detachment.\nHe prided himself on facing fact, but he loved to preach; and having\npointed out the wrongfulness of vicious morals he must follow it\nwith a vigorous homily on right conduct. And yet despite his gross\nshortcomings there is a deal of realism scattered through his volumes.\nHe consciously tried to be a chronicler of manners, to depict America\ntruly, to recreate fairly present and past, red man and white, Dutch\nand Yankee. His prejudices certainly got the better of him in dealing\nwith New England, and his romance certainly got the better of him in\ndescribing the Mohicans. Yet though he might romanticize Uncas he\ndid not romanticize Saucy Nick in _Wyandott\u00e9_, but drew an excellent\npicture of the struggle between the drunkard and the warrior in the\nheart of the Tuscarora that reveals much of the Indian nature--an\nanalysis that holds the scales more evenly than they are held in _The\nLast of the Mohicans_ or in Bird\u2019s _Nick of the Woods_. The book as a\nwhole, indeed, is an excellent example of Cooper\u2019s desire to substitute\na critical for a romantic treatment of materials. In his discriminating\nanalysis of the motives separating families in the Revolutionary war,\nthere is no glorification of partisanship, no prejudiced espousal of a\nsacred cause, no division of sheep and goats. Cooper will have none of\nthe cheap romance of patriotism, but probes skillfully into the motives\nand impulses that divided honest men amid the difficulties of civil\nwar. More than that, he makes his villain one of the patriot party who\nuses the unsettlement of the times to cover his dirty tracks. It is a\ncharacteristic document that deserves to stand beside _Satanstoe_ as an\nexample of his later work.\n\nPolitics was all about Cooper while he was writing these tales, and\nhis sporadic incursions into criticism led him into the field of\npolitical theory. So doughty a warrior must break a lance when all\nAmerica was engaged in a great political tourney. While Whig and\nDemocrat were loudly professing allegiance to the new doctrine of\nmajority rule, Cooper was making his way back to the principles of\nthe eighteenth century and discovering the essence of good government\nin self-restraint. The mistake of the new school, he was convinced,\nlay in confusing the present will of the majority with the rule of\nthe people; the mistake of the old school lay in confusing the will\nof the minority with the rule of the people. Above and beyond both\nmajority and minority is the eternal principle of justice, and any\ngovernment that flouts that principle is bad government, no matter\nhow sanctioned. In a republic which foolishly believes that the voice\nof the people is the sole criterion of right, the problem of justice\nis peculiarly difficult, for what remedies are available in cases \u201cin\nwhich the people themselves happen to go astray, _en masse_\u201d? It is the\nproblem that attends every ethical interpretation of sovereignty, and\nit awakened acute concern in Cooper\u2019s mind. He could find no solution\nexcept in the good sense of the people, and with a vicious press and\npersuasive demagogues doing their best to befuddle the public mind,\nthe outlook seemed dark. It was not the people he distrusted, but the\nself-seekers who set up to be leaders of the people. All the noise was\nmade by demagogues who proclaimed their own mouthings to be authentic\npublic opinion. How ineffectively Cooper struggled with the problem is\nwritten down in many a passage in his critical novels.\n\n God help the nation [he said in _The Redskins_] where\n self-government, in its literal sense, exists.... When a people\n that has been properly educated by experience calmly selects its\n agents, and coolly sets to work to adopt a set of principles to\n form its fundamental law or constitution, the machine is on the\n right track, and will work well enough so long as it is kept there;\n but this running off and altering the fundamental principles every\n time a political faction has need of recruits, is introducing\n tyranny in its worst form--a tyranny that is just as dangerous to\n real liberty as hypocrisy is to religion. (Chapter XIII.)\n\n Some observers pretend that ... respect for law is gradually\n decreasing among us [he argued in _The Chainbearer_] and that\n in its place is sensibly growing up a disposition to substitute\n the opinions, wishes, and interests of local majorities, making\n the country subject to men instead of principles. The last are\n eternal and immutable; and coming of God, men, however unanimous\n in sentiment, have no more right to attempt to change them, than\n to blaspheme His holy name. All that the most exalted and largest\n political liberty can ever beneficially effect is to apply these\n principles to the good of the human race, in the management of\n their daily affairs; but when they attempt to substitute for these\n pure and just rules of right, laws conceived in selfishness and\n executed by the power of numbers, they merely exhibit tyranny\n in its popular form, instead of in its old aspect of kingly and\n aristocratic abuses. It is a fatal mistake to fancy that freedom\n is gained by the mere achievement of a right to govern, unless the\n manner in which that right is to be both understood and practised\n is closely incorporated with all popular notions of what has been\n obtained. The right to govern means no more than the right of the\n people to avail themselves of the power thus acquired to apply the\n great principles of justice to their own benefit, and from the\n possession of which they had hitherto been excluded. It confers\n no power to do that which is inherently wrong, under any pretense\n whatever. (Chapter XXVIII.)\n\nLike Hugh Henry Brackenridge before him, Cooper was a democrat who\ncriticized the ways of a reputed democracy because of his love for\nan ideal republic. Too few of his kind have arisen in America; too\nfew who dare to speak their minds unterrified by public opinion. An\nindividualist of the old English breed, he could not be intimidated\nor coerced in the matter of his rights by any clamor, whether of\nnewspapers or mobs. He had his shortcomings in plenty, both as\nromancer and critic. Testy, opinionated, tactless, forever lugging\nin disagreeable truths by the ears, he said many wise things so\nblunderingly as to make truth doubly offensive, and he hewed at his art\nso awkwardly as well-nigh to destroy the beauty of his romance. Yet the\nmore intimately one comes to know him, the more one comes to respect\nhis honest, manly nature that loved justice and decency more than\npopularity. His daily life became a long warfare with his fellows, who\nexacted of him a great price for his idealism; but later generations\nshould love him none the less for the battles he fought. That America\nhas been so tardy in coming to know him as a man and a democrat, as\nwell as a romancer, is a reflection upon its critical acumen.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[425] See the Preface to _The Redskins_.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V \u2022 Some Contributions of New England\n\n\nIt was the good fortune of New York to draw to the bustling city some\nof the best and most vigorous minds of New England. If the sons of\nYankees flocked thither, the sons of Puritans came likewise, and the\ncontributions of these latter to the idealism of a society rather too\nfond of material progress must not be overlooked. The literature of\nNew York in particular was heavily indebted to New England. One need\nonly run over a list of writers who came from New England to realize\nhow great was its total contribution to the production of the New York\ngroup. Bryant and Halleck and Willis and Greeley and Beecher and Curtis\nand Tuckerman and Parke Benjamin and Stedman and Stoddard and even, in\na sense, Melville, were products of that more serious-minded world that\nwas to create transcendentalism and issue in strange projects of social\nreform; they were men who would easily share the ethical enthusiasm of\ntheir Puritan fellows, and create a literature concerned with other\nthan aesthetic values. Not all of them were Puritan in ideals; Halleck\nand Willis quite evidently not; nevertheless the severe idealism of\ntheir work sets it apart from the productions of the Knickerbocker\nschool. Perhaps not above, but certainly apart; and this unlikeness\ncalls for some special consideration. Over against Irving and Paulding\nand Cooper may be set Bryant and Greeley and Melville, and the sharp\ncontrast between them will serve to differentiate the native mind of\nNew York from that of New England.\n\n\nI \u2022 William Cullen Bryant \u2022 Puritan Liberal\n\nFor upwards of half a century now too much of Bryant has been\nobscured by the brightness of his early fame. Since his death a\nserious injustice has been done him by the critics, who have dwelt\ntoo exclusively on his work in the field of verse to the neglect of\nother work in fields perhaps quite as significant. The journalist\nhas been forgotten in the poet, the later democrat who spoke for\nAmerican liberalism has been displaced by the youthful versifier who\ndescribed American scenery. For this our bellettristic historians, who\nare impatient of any incursions into matter of fact, are to blame.\nYet to ignore so much of Bryant results in underestimating him, and\nthis serves to explain the thin and shadowy quality of his present\nreputation. He was a much larger man and more significant than the\ncritics have made him out to be. His active and many-sided life is very\ninadequately expressed in the slender volume of his verse, excellent\nas much of that is. The journalist and critic who for fifty years sat\nin judgment on matters political and economic as well as cultural,\nwho reflected in the _Evening Post_ a refinement of taste and dignity\nof character before unequaled in American journalism, was of service\nto America quite apart from his contribution to our incipient poetry.\nHe was the father of nineteenth-century American journalism as well\nas the father of nineteenth-century American poetry. In the columns\nof the _Evening Post_ the best liberalism of the times found a place,\ninspired and guided by Bryant\u2019s clear intelligence. The lucidity of his\ncomment and the keenness of his humanitarian criticism set the editor\napart from shriller contemporaries, and made him a power for sanity in\na scurrilous generation. But with his death the evanescent character of\neven the highest journalism asserted itself, and with the fading of his\njournalistic reputation the earlier Bryant of _Thanatopsis_ shouldered\naside the Bryant of the _Evening Post_, and an unconscious distortion\nof his career began, a distortion made easier by the fact that no\noutstanding work of the later period remained to restore the balance.\nIn this he is like Jefferson. He is scattered piecemeal through his\noccasional writings as the latter through his letters, and the task of\npiecing him together and visualizing his work as a whole has not yet\nbeen done.\n\nIt will not prove an easy task. The narrow but real genius of Bryant\nis peculiarly elusive. His was essentially a self-pollenizing nature\nthat needed few contacts with other minds. He lived within himself,\nlittle swayed by modes of thought, slowly maturing the native fruit of\nhis speculation. The very tenacity and persistence of his intellectual\nlife, the rigid integrity of his thinking, suggest the confidence of\none who drew his nourishment from within, whose life was an organic\ngrowth. It is impossible to mistake his origins. The roots go down\nto deep substrata of Puritan seriousness and Puritan austerity, and\nthe fruits which they nourish--somewhat scanty it may be but of firm\ntexture and good keeping qualities--possess the slightly acrid flavor\nof old Puritan orchards where the care of the husbandman is pitted\nagainst harsh seasons and a meager soil. There is no pagan luxuriance,\nno riot of color or scent. The ethical idealism of New England is\ngiven stately form if not rendered altogether lovely; the passion for\nrighteousness is held in restraint but it retains much of its tempered\nacidity. Happily there was little of the schools in Bryant, and nothing\nof the intellectual play-boy. His early life in the Berkshire hills, on\nhis father\u2019s farm, as student at Williams College for a few months, and\nas a country lawyer, threw him upon his own intellectual resources and\nmade possible a normal unfolding of his mind. He was fortunately spared\na much-coveted life at Yale, where the narrow classicism and ungenerous\ndogmatisms could have done him little good. From Timothy Dwight the\nyoung Bryant could have got little to enrich his mind, and he might\nhave got some disastrous checks. Left to himself he appropriated such\nnourishment as fell in his way and went forward on the path of a sober\nliberalism.\n\nThat he went forward at all is sufficient testimony to his native\nintegrity of character. In 1825 when he removed to New York, the\nintellectual renaissance of Boston was just at the beginning, and in\nhis new environment he never quite kept pace with the transcendental\nenthusiasms that so stimulated the New England radicals. At Great\nBarrington where he had been growing more discontented with his\n\u201cshabby\u201d profession of the law, he discovered little to encourage\nan independent liberalism. Bred up in an environment of intolerant\nFederalism and an equally intolerant Calvinism, he had much to outgrow\nand little to feed on. Few innovating ideas penetrated to the Berkshire\nhills where he was brooding on life and poetry, and the training of\nhis youth was strong upon him. As a mere boy he had expostulated\nwith President Jefferson in shrill heroic couplets, declaiming on\nthe latter\u2019s reputed moral lapses and inviting him to resign his\nhigh office. He had summoned Napoleon to the bar of Cummington\nrespectability and adjudged him guilty of high crimes against humanity;\nbut such rhetorical outbursts were only echoes of a narrow world he\nwas soon to outgrow. The blight of the tie-wig school of Fisher Ames\ndid not fasten itself deeply on him, and by the time he had reached his\ntwenties he was moving towards the twin goals towards which liberal\nNew England was moving--the Unitarianism of Channing and the democracy\nof Jefferson. It was far more difficult for a Berkshire man to think\nhis way through to such revolutionary goals than for a Concord; yet\nthe unschooled Bryant who had never visited Boston till he went there\nin his twenty-seventh year to read a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa\nsociety at Harvard had already outstripped the Cambridge scholastics\nin the great work of setting his mind free. The stages through which\nhe passed cannot easily be traced, but the fact of his decisive break\nwith the dogmas of his youthful world is plain enough. During the last\nyears at Great Barrington he put himself upon a course of reading and\nthinking, and from that provocative experience emerged the Bryant that\nwe know. Calvinism and Federalism he put away, and he went up to New\nYork completely new-outfitted in a fashion he never afterwards saw\nreason to change. In politics and religion, as in poetry, he was a man\nof few ideas, but those ideas were creative, and determined all his\nthinking.\n\nFor this change that was unconsciously preparing him for his later work\non the _Evening Post_, Bryant owed something to his father, who had\nturned moderate Unitarian, but very much more to the Berkshire family\nof Sedgwicks, one of whom, Catherine M. Sedgwick, was just beginning\nher modest career as a \u201clady novelist;\u201d another, Henry M. Sedgwick,\nwas at the head of the New York bar, wealthy and liberal-minded; and\na third, Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., was a trusted adviser on legal and\neconomic matters, on whose pen Bryant came to rely in a difficult\nsituation. Theodore Sedgwick seems to have been a liberal of the\nEnglish school of Bright and Cobden, a confirmed free trader, and he\ninduced Bryant to undertake a course of reading in political economy.\nDuring the years 1822 to 1824 the young man turned away from poetry and\nlaw to study Adam Smith, Thornton, and Ricardo, together with a number\nof pamphlets that issued from the Parliamentary debates over free trade\nin 1820. The adventure proved stimulating and definitely determined\nhis attitude towards men and measures at a moment when American ideas\nwere in a state of flux. It was therefore as an English liberal that he\njudged Jackson and Clay and Webster, and as an English liberal that he\nweighed the Utopian programs of Greeley and Brisbane and Ripley. There\nis no evidence that he read the works of the French romantics, although\nthe major ideas of Rousseau came to him in the guise of Unitarianism;\nand this aloofness from the social enthusiasm of French thought, this\nfailure to sympathize with the idealism of the new sociology, may\nperhaps be accounted his greatest intellectual shortcoming. Rousseau\nand Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft could have taught him much that\nhe needed to know, could have warmed his cool blood and awakened his\nPuritan sense of justice to the wrongs of an exploitative order. A dash\nof Utopian enthusiasm would have made him a better poet and a better\neditor; but lacking that he found himself sometimes out of sympathy\nwith men and women whom he should have understood better. A liberal\nmight smile at the measureless zeal of Fanny Wright and Robert D. Owen;\nmight dislike the militancy of the Abolitionists; he might well counsel\nmoderation; but he should not add his shaft to the flight sent against\nthem. But unfortunately Bryant too often distrusted those who outran\nhim, and would rather attack than restrain them.[426]\n\nAs an English liberal it was inevitable that Bryant should turn\nDemocrat and support Jackson against Clay and Adams; and an ardent\nDemocrat he remained till the re-alignment over the slavery question\nturned him into a free-soiler. He early supported Lincoln for the\nRepublican nomination--the more easily because members of his family\nhad removed to Illinois and there followed the career of Lincoln\nsympathetically--and he accepted the Republican faith till the open\nalliance of the party with post-war capitalism aroused his opposition\nand weakened his allegiance. Democrat though he was in conviction\nand sympathy, Bryant was never a Jeffersonian, perhaps not even a\nJacksonian, but rather an anti-Whig, who measured the new America of\nthe industrial revolution and capitalistic finance by the yardstick of\neighteenth-century liberalism. As a disciple of Adam Smith, believing\nin the sufficiency of _laissez faire_, he looked askance at an\nengrossing political state that enlisted its sovereign powers on the\nside of the longest purses, and he viewed with scorn the mercenaries\nof the bench and Senate who defended the new citadels of capitalism.\nIn spite of his augmenting wealth he remained a simple countryman\nat heart, never a city man, never liking the ways of Wall Street,\nconcerned with other things than money-making. If he had supplemented\nAdam Smith with Du Pont de Nemours he might easily have followed\nJefferson into a Physiocratic agrarianism; if he had been bred in the\nfrontier West he might have discovered more sympathy for a coonskin\nequalitarianism with its engrossing majority will. As it was, he\noccupied a middle ground between Jefferson and Jackson, an economic\nindividualist who refused to conceive of the political state as a fat\ncow to be milked by whoever could lay hands on her. He wanted no share\nof the milk for himself and he saw no reason why others should have\nany. He turned his back on all middle-class temptations, refusing to\nspeculate, not grasping at unearned increment, believing that America\nhad a nobler destiny in store than could be measured by exploitation.\nAn old-fashioned liberal, he set himself resolutely against the\nexploitative spirit that was clamoring for internal improvements, a\nprotective tariff, speculative profits. The bitter struggle over the\nBank and the American System, in which he was drawn to Jackson by\nprinciple as well as by admiration for his courage, laid the emphasis\nin his mind on financial and industrial problems and made him the\noutstanding journalistic opponent of Henry Clay. From first to last\nBryant was anti-Whig.\n\nThere were times, to be sure, when he went further than that;\ntimes when his ingrained liberalism threw off its cool restraint\nand flamed up in dangerously disturbant fashion. In the depths of\nhis Puritan nature was a quick sense of justice that might uncover\nstrange potentialities; and associated as he was in the intimacies\nof daily work with two of the most radical spirits in New York,\nWilliam Leggett and Parke Godwin, he could not remain untouched by\ntheir social enthusiasms. The former was a man of immense vitality\nand boundless sympathies, to whom social justice was a religion. A\nleft-wing equalitarian democrat, Leggett hated all tariffs, subsidies,\nmonopolies, credit manipulation, everything that the new capitalism\nrepresented. His sympathies were enlisted on the side of the new\nproletarian movement, and with the zeal of a knight-errant he greeted\nevery opportunity to do battle for the cause. A home-made radical,\ncreated out of the native economics of the industrial revolution, he\nhas been called by a late historical writer \u201cone of the most sincere\nand brilliant apostles of democracy that America has ever known.\u201d His\npolitical leaders in the _Evening Post_ aroused the admiration of such\ndifferent men as Whittier and Walt Whitman, and were \u201cperhaps the most\npotent force in shaping the ideas of democracy\u201d held by the latter\n(Allan Nevins, _The Evening Post, etc._, p. 141). His son-in-law,\nGodwin, on the other hand, was a radical of the imported school,\nan ardent disciple of Fourier, deeply concerned with communistic\nexperiments at Brook Farm and elsewhere, and an assistant editor\nof _The Harbinger_, the mouthpiece of Brook Farm after it passed\nfrom transcendental to Fourierist control. His _Democracy, Pacific\nand Constructive_, was accounted by Horace Greeley the best of the\ncontemporary studies of collectivism. Less militant than Leggett, his\nradicalism ebbed with the years and growing prosperity, but it sufficed\nto instruct Bryant in the elements of the current Utopian philosophies.\n\nWith such associates the older man was led somewhat unwillingly into\nthe thick of social struggle and his mind shifted unconsciously to\nthe left. The movement of Locofocoism in particular absorbed Leggett\nand drew Bryant after him. Set on foot by a combination of reforming\neconomists opposed to banks, paper money, and monopolies, and the\nrising proletarian movement then beginning its long struggle to\nunionize the city workers, Locofocoism represented the extreme left\nwing of democratic equalitarianism, the avowed objective of which\nwas to take government out of the hands of bankers and lodge it in\nthe hands of the producers. It was one of the first native attempts\nat conscious class alignment between capital and labor. \u201cWhat\ndistinguishes the present from every other struggle in which the human\nrace has been engaged,\u201d wrote Fanny Wright, \u201cis that the present is\nevidently, openly and acknowledgedly a war of class.... It is the\nridden people of the earth who are struggling to overthrow the \u2018booted\nand spurred riders\u2019 whose legitimate title to work and starve will\nno longer pass current\u201d (quoted by Fox, _Aristocracy in the Politics\nof New York_, p. 396). How the democratic radicalism of Leggett was\nreceived by conservative New York is thus described by the historian of\nthe _Evening Post_:\n\n He was charged [says Nevins] with Utopianism, agrarianism,\n Fanny-Wrightism, Jacobinism, and Jack Cade-ism. His writings were\n said to set class against class, and to threaten the nation with\n anarchy. Gov. William M. Marcy called Leggett a \u201cknave.\u201d The\n advance of the Locofoco movement was likened to the great fire\n and the great cholera plague of these years. When Chief Justice\n Marshall died in the summer of 1835, Leggett unsparingly assailed\n him and Hamilton as men who had tried \u201cto change the character of\n the government from popular to monarchical,\u201d and to destroy \u201cthe\n great principle of human liberty.\u201d... Ex-Mayor Philip Hone was\n handed that editorial on the Albany steamboat by Charles King, and\n dropped the journal with the vehement ejaculation, \u201cInfamous!\u201d\n \u201cThis is absolutely a species of impiety for which I want words to\n express my abhorrence,\u201d he entered in his diary. (Allan Nevins,\n _The Evening Post, etc._, p. 152.)\n\nThe enthusiasm of Leggett sometimes carried further than the more\ntempered liberalism of Bryant could follow. He shared Leggett\u2019s\ndistrust of Marshall and Hamilton, but he seems to have been only a\nmoderate supporter of Locofoco principles. The paper had been brought\nclose upon financial breakers by its attack on the money-interests. The\nworking classes read it eagerly, but their indorsement could not make\ngood the loss of advertising and patronage by the wealthy; yet even\nin such straits Bryant remained true to his liberalism and joined his\nassociates in upholding the proletarian cause. The labor union movement\nhad aroused the wrath of the employers and the courts were appealed to\nto suppress it. In May, 1836, \u201ctwenty-one journeymen tailors who had\nformed a union were indicted for a conspiracy injurious to trade and\ncommerce,\u201d and after a trial the presiding judge charged the jury to\nbring in a verdict of guilty. Bryant at once attacked the judge in the\n_Evening Post_:\n\n We do not admit, until we have further examined the question, that\n the law is as laid down by the Judge; but if it be, the sooner\n such a tyrannical and wicked law is abrogated the better.... The\n idea that arrangements and combinations for certain rates of wages\n are injurious to trade and commerce, is as absurd as the idea that\n the current prices of the markets, which are always the result\n of understandings and combinations, are injurious. (_Ibid._, pp.\n 164-165.)\n\nWhen the tailors were heavily fined by the court Bryant returned to\nthe attack. He again pointed out the fatuousness of the legal logic\nby showing how the very price current was a similar evidence of\nconspiracy, and then appealed to a sense of common fairness:\n\n Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of\n generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the\n legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is\n not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of\n associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman,\n and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the\n soil. (_Ibid._, p. 165.)\n\nFrom defending the rights of free labor to defending the rights of free\nspeech, was an easy step. When James G. Birney\u2019s Abolitionist press\nwas suppressed by a Cincinnati mob, Bryant spoke out vigorously. \u201cSo\nfar as we are concerned, we are resolved that this despotism shall\nneither be submitted to nor encouraged.... We are resolved that the\nsubject of slavery shall be, as it ever has been, as free a subject\nfor discussion, and argument, and declamation, as the difference\nbetween whiggism and democracy, or the difference between Arminians\nand Calvinists\u201d (_ibid._, p. 171). And when Elijah P. Lovejoy was\nmurdered and his press thrown into the river, Bryant replied to those\nwho believed that the Abolitionists had got their deserts: \u201cWhether\nthey erred or not in their opinions, they did not err in the conviction\nof their right, as citizens of a democratic State, to express them;\nnor did they err in defending their rights with an obstinacy that\nyielded only to death\u201d (_ibid._, pp. 171-172). From the defense of free\nspeech Bryant went forward to the defense of free soil, and in 1848 he\nbolted Lewis Cass, the Democratic nominee, and joined the \u201cBarnburner\u201d\nmovement that nominated Martin Van Buren. The terse pronouncement of\nthe convention, indeed, might well be taken as an epitome and summary\nof Bryant\u2019s lifelong liberalism--\u201cWe inscribe on our banner Free Soil,\nFree Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men.\u201d\n\nA trenchant critic of the rising capitalism, delighting in exposing\nthe fallacies of the new economics and in pricking the bladders of\npolitical reputations--suggesting, for example, that it was scarcely\ngod-like of the great Webster to accept a purse of $65,000 from his\nhigh tariff friends--Bryant was perhaps the most distinguished of the\nliberals created by the revolutions that were enthroning the middle\nclass in power. The simplicity of his _laissez-faire_ philosophy, like\nhis admiration for \u201cOld Bullion\u201d Benton--whom he rated one of the\ngreatest statesmen of the times--may seem somewhat old-fashioned today;\nbut his ingrained democracy, his sturdy defense of the rights of free\nmen, his championship of unpopular causes, his tolerance and fairness\nand keen sense of justice, ought not to seem old-fashioned. He may not\nhave been a great poet, but he was a great American.\n\n\nII \u2022 Horace Greeley \u2022 Yankee Radical\n\nHorace Greeley has suffered far more disastrously than Bryant the\ncommon fate of journalists, yet his place in nineteenth-century America\nwas too important and his influence on current democratic ideals\ntoo great, to be carelessly ignored. A Yankee radical transported\nto New York, he was the spokesman of the common sense and practical\nintelligence of the plain people of the North, seeking to understand\nthe revolutionary upheaval then going forward, and bring it if possible\nto some issue in elementary justice. Far from being the visionary he\nwas so often accounted, he was the most practical of men, accepting\nfact and seeking to square theory with reality; as ready to adopt\nnew social machinery as the mill-owner to adopt a new invention. If\nthere were social maladjustments, why should they not be set right?\nThe patent confusions of the times seemed to him a challenge to the\ncommon intelligence. If civilization meant anything it ought to mean a\ngenerous life for the producing mass, and with the abundant resources\nof America the common well-being would never lie in jeopardy if simple\njustice prevailed. America had not yet fulfilled its promise; it had\nnot yet become the haven for the poor and outcast its potential means\nallowed; nor with its growing cities where poverty found a congenial\nhome, and its patrimony of raw lands flung to speculators, was it\nlikely to become so unless greater ingenuity were applied to the\nproblem. The industrial revolution was driving western civilization\ninto uncharted seas; clearly, it was only common sense to take bearings\nand lay as fair a course as possible. To accomplish this Greeley was\nready to entertain any promising suggestion. Intellectually curious,\nhe had the wit to understand that the older agrarian America was being\ndestroyed by forces that could not be stopped; they could only be\nguided. His eyes were wide open to what was taking place. He foresaw\ncertain consequences implicit in the industrial revolution that his\nfellows were blind to. If it brought material advancement and the\nmultiplication of conveniences--things excellent in themselves--it\nbrought as well a sinister exploitation of the producers, as England\nwith her Manchester slums had learned to her sorrow. If America were\ndriving straight toward such dead-seas of wretchedness, surely only a\nconscienceless fool would refuse to help trim the sails.\n\nNo more admirable Yankee than Horace Greeley ever went West to make his\nfortune. With his Yankee capacity for hard work, his daring enterprise,\nhis vigorous independence, he embodied an extremely sensitive social\nconscience, keen sympathy for those who do the work of the world,\nand a transparent honesty of mind and purpose. Bred up in the narrow\npoverty of the Vermont hills, remote from the culture of Boston and\nCambridge, he retained the angularities that marked his frontier\norigin. His ungainly and shabby exterior was the outward, visible\nsign of a niggardly youth; yet underneath the uncouth exterior was\nas warm a heart as ever beat in Yankee bosom. His early life was a\nbitter struggle, aggravated by the succession of economic depressions\nthat from 1819 to 1838 repeatedly brought hardship upon the country.\nCradled thus in the anxieties attending the transition from an agrarian\nto a capitalistic order, nurtured in the harassing uncertainties that\nfollowed the break-up of the old static economy, he longed for a more\nrational social system, unsoiled by the heart-breaking wreckages that\ndrifted into the new slums, unembittered by the lonely tragedies that\nlaid a blight on the frontier. He believed that the honest worker,\nwhether in the factory or on the farm, deserved a better fate than\ncommonly fell to his lot. It was a scandal that poverty should dog his\nfootsteps in a land potentially so rich as America; that those who did\nthe necessary work of society should find themselves reduced to the\nstatus of the slave, whether black or white; and he early determined to\nexplore the reasons why the workingman received so small an increment\nof the augmenting wealth of the industrial revolution. His struggles\nto gain a foothold in New York set him upon thinking, and before he\nwas thirty he began those speculations on ways and means of returning\nto the producer a fair reward for his work, that were to occupy his\nmind to the last. The farmer and the wage-earner he took to his heart,\nand the furtherance of their well-being--despite the persistent and\nvindictive opposition he encountered--became a major objective of _The\nTribune_.\n\nGreeley\u2019s mind was as homespun as his clothes, and he never quite\noutgrew certain Vermont parochialisms that retarded his intellectual\ndevelopment. The environment in which he was bred was staunchly\nFederalist-Whig, marked by the exuberantly nationalistic spirit that\nsprang from the War of 1812; and the seeds of his national economy\nwere sown in those years when to become nationally self-sufficient\nwas the great ideal of America. It was natural for him to accept the\nleadership of Clay, whom he idolized, and to look to the Federal\ngovernment for an adequate policy of internal improvements and national\ndevelopment. \u201cWe Vermonters were all Protectionists,\u201d he said in\nhis _Recollections_. In 1828 the village of Poultney, where he was\nserving his apprenticeship, gave 334 votes for John Quincy Adams\nand only four for Jackson. Starting with this back-country faith in\na benevolent paternalism, Greeley early began his speculations on\nan ideal national economy; and the conclusion to which he came, and\nwhich he never saw reason to question later, was that government\nmust impose an intelligent wardship upon economic forces, that, left\nto themselves, tend always to the anarchy of individualism. He had\nsuffered in his own person from the inadequacy and uncertainty of the\nfinancial and industrial machinery of the times; he was impatient of\nall purposeless floundering; the more he read the more rational it\nseemed that statesmanship must be judged by its intelligent concern to\nlessen the social waste and reduce the social friction. _Laissez faire_\nhe pronounced a \u201csuicidal\u201d policy; it was an invitation to anarchy; it\nhad impoverished India, and must impoverish America. From a critical\nstudy of the teachings of the Manchester school he came to two major\nconclusions: that agriculture and manufacturing are complementary\nindustries, and the closer they are drawn together the better for the\nnation; and that a wide national economy can result only from investing\nthe state with adequate regulatory powers. Hence his approval of Clay\u2019s\nAmerican System. The judicious intervention of government by means of a\nprotective tariff to foster the \u201cinfant industries,\u201d would secure them\na domestic market that would--he allowed himself to hope--be regulated\nby domestic competition, would do away with the waste represented by\ntransportation charges, and would return to the farmer an increase in\nprice represented by those charges. In his opinion, however, protection\nwas a temporary expedient, necessary only until American industries\nshould get on their legs. \u201cProtection is the shortest way to get free\ntrade,\u201d he said in 1851 (_The Tribune_, January 23).\n\nGreeley was never the tool of capitalistic interests that such an\nargument might seem to imply. All his mature life he persistently\nfought the aggressions of capitalism; yet in this crucial matter\nof protection his influence was thrown powerfully on its side, and\nthe ingenious argument he expounded was at once taken over by the\nindustrialists and used with telling effect. What particular turn he\ngave to the older Whig statement, adapting it to the prejudices of a\nmore democratic electorate, a present-day economist has thus summarized:\n\n The protective tariff, favored by the Whigs, was something\n different in his hands. The tariff arguments of his boyhood had\n been capitalistic arguments. Protect capital, their spokesman said,\n because wages are too high in this country. Eventually wages will\n come towards the European level and we shall not need protection.\n Greeley revised this plea; protect the wage earner, he said, in\n order that he may rise from this present condition of slavery. The\n only way to protect him against the foreign pauper is to protect\n the price of his product. But since capital owns and sells his\n product, we must needs protect capital. We know right well, he\n says, that a protective tariff cannot redress all wrongs.... The\n extent of its power to benefit the laborer is limited by the force\n and pressure of domestic competition, for which Political Economy\n has as yet devised no remedy. (John R. Commons, \u201cHorace Greeley\n and the Working Class Origins of the Republican Party,\u201d _Political\n Science Quarterly_, Vol. XXIV, pp. 468-488.)\n\nThe argument for protection has been little improved since it came\nfrom Greeley\u2019s hands in the late forties and early fifties.[427]\nNor, it must be added, has political economy devised the remedy for\nthe evils of competition, that Greeley was concerned about, unless\nmonopolistic control be regarded as such. Considering his extraordinary\ninfluence with the mass of farmers north and west, it must be accounted\na calamity to agrarian prospects that _The Tribune_--a paper that\nProfessor Commons characterized as \u201cthe first and only great vehicle\nthis country has known for the ideas and experiments of constructive\ndemocracy\u201d--should have thrown its influence on the side of artificial\nindustrial expansion. That the mind of the northern farmer became so\ndeeply inoculated with protectionist views, and has since persistently\nremained so, was due to Horace Greeley far more than to any other man.\n\nThe irony of it becomes apparent when the deeper spirit of Greeley\u2019s\nlife is probed. Though he called himself a Whig, he was in all\nfundamental interests and conceptions a Jeffersonian, seeking in the\nspirit of the great Virginian to fashion a new philosophy to suit\nthe new times, more like him in free speculation than any other\nnorthern thinker of the day. It needed years for him to throw off\nthe Federalist-Whig prepossessions of his youth, and work back to\nJeffersonian fundamentals; but in the end he did work back, and in the\nend--always excepting this one matter of protection with its corollary\nof state paternalism--he came by his own path to the major conclusions\nJefferson had reached a half century before. He was a spokesman of the\nolder America seeking a way out of the confusions the middle class\nwas bringing on the later America. In his social-mindedness that\nset justice above exploitation; in his readiness to change existing\ninstitutions in order to achieve justice; in his strong preference for\nan agrarian order as more wholesome than an industrial; in his trust in\nthe good will of the plain people and faith in the local democracies;\nin his acceptance of the principle of states rights that during the\nstruggle over slavery led him to advocate that the South be suffered\nto depart in peace:--in such conceptions he was a Neo-Jeffersonian,\nseeking to adapt the old principles to the needs of a different order.\nGreeley had never read the works of the French Physiocrats; he was\nunacquainted with their doctrine of the _produit net_; very likely he\nwould not have accepted their teachings to the extent that Jefferson\ndid. Nevertheless from his own experience he had come to agree with\nthem in the exaltation of agriculture over other forms of labor, as he\nhad come to agree with them in their social-mindedness. Greeley may be\naccounted a stepson, at least, of the old French school.\n\nThat for so long a time he should have turned aside from the path\nof Jeffersonianism to immerse himself in Utopian speculations and\nadventures may appear strange; and yet for so eager and hopeful a\ntemperament it was the most natural thing in the world. It marked a\nstep in the speculations through which he passed in pursuit of that\nremedy for domestic competition which the political economists had\nnot provided. He was twenty-nine when Albert Brisbane\u2019s _The Social\nDestiny of Mankind_ appeared in 1840, and on October 21, 1841, the\nfirst comment on Fourier socialism was printed in _The Tribune_,\nthen only six months old. Thereafter for years _The Tribune_ was the\nchief organ for the spread of collectivistic principles in the United\nStates, Brisbane expounding Fourierism in the fifties, and Karl Marx\ncontributing a weekly letter on European movements in the sixties,\nwhile lesser men contributed freely according to their special Utopian\nlights. With all this Greeley was in profound sympathy. Much of the\ntheory he did not agree with; many of the plans and specifications\nseemed to him ill conceived; but convinced of the gross evils of\ncivilization he welcomed free speculation as promising the only hope\nfor their cure. Like Jefferson and William Ellery Channing, he put\nhis trust in the unshackled mind, for like them he believed in the\nessential excellence of human nature when unperverted by vicious\ninstitutions.\n\nIt was this romantic faith that induced him to invest heavily in time,\nthought and money, in the Fourieristic foundations of the forties,\nthe North American Phalanx in particular offering an opportunity for\nexperiment on a considerable scale. In his deep concern over the\nselfishness of the competitive struggle, he was willing to turn from\nthe bankrupt political economists to consider the plans of the \u201csocial\narchitects.\u201d From Plato down those architects had been engaged on plans\nof ideal commonwealths, wherein the principle of brotherhood should\nsupersede the principle of competition, and he believed the time had\ncome when the great experiment might be tried with some reasonable hope\nof success. If the principle of collectivism could be successfully\nsubstituted for a chaotic individualism, the solution of the ancient\nproblem of social injustice might be in a way to be achieved. This in\nitself, he believed, \u201cwould do for domestic competition what protection\nwould do for foreign competition\u201d (John R. Commons, _Horace Greeley,\netc._). When associationism failed, Greeley turned his thoughts eagerly\nto co\u00f6peration as a promising means of eliminating the waste of the\nmiddleman and destroying the wage system.[428] Somehow the middleman\nmust be got rid of, he believed, if labor were to reap an adequate\nreward from its work. If one method did not achieve the result, another\nmust be tried. To leave off seeking a solution was to acknowledge that\nsociety must remain a pigsty, with the strongest hogs appropriating the\nswill.\n\nSuch persistent venturing into Utopian experiment made Greeley the\nlaughing-stock of more practical men who accepted the acquisitive\ninstinct as the voice of God and were busily engaged in exploitation\nfor their individual advantage; more important, it reveals how tenuous\nwere the ties that held him to the Whiggery he still professed.\nStalwart Whigs of the Webster school, middle-class bankers and\nindustrialists, grew impatient with such pestilent heresies as exuded\nfrom _The Tribune_, and denied that Greeley was a Whig. In 1847 _The\nCourier and Enquirer_ angrily protested:\n\n There can be no peace in the Whig ranks while the old New York\n Tribune is continued to be called Whig.... The _principles_ of the\n Whig party are well defined; they are _conservative_ and inculcate\n a regard for the laws and support of all established institutions\n of the country. They eschew _radicalism_ in every form; they\n sustain the constitution and the laws; they foster a spirit of\n _patriotism_.... The better way for the Tribune would be at once\n to admit that it is only Whig on the subject of the Tariff ...\n and then devote itself to the advocacy of Anti-Rent, Abolition,\n Fourierite, and Vote Yourself a Farm doctrines. (_The Weekly\n Tribune_, August 21, 1847; quoted in Commons, _Horace Greeley,\n etc._, p. 473.)\n\nThe real animus of the middle-class dislike of Greeley is to be sought\nin his active championship of the great exploited classes, the farmer\nand wage-earner. He was always sowing the seeds of discontent amongst\nthem. The betterment of their condition, he believed, was fundamental\nto any sound social progress. He was convinced that their well-being\nwas interrelated; that whatever affected the one must affect the other.\nIf the city proletariat were prosperous, the farmer\u2019s produce sold at\nbetter prices; and if the farmers were prosperous, the country would\ndraw off the surplus labor from the towns and thereby sustain the wage\nscale. The key to the situation, he came to believe, lay in the land\nsituation. The application of science to farm processes was a necessary\npreliminary to agrarian improvement, and he put the great influence\nof _The Tribune_ behind the movement for scientific instruction in\ncrop handling. But far more fundamental and immediate was the need of\na drastic change in the Federal laws governing land sales. Believing\nthat the wild lands of the West were a natural refuge for those who\nfled from the exploitation of the factory, he was concerned that those\nlands should be made available to the poorest settler. Greeley very\nwell knew that the ruthless exploitation of the English proletariat was\nan inevitable consequence of the enclosure movement. Dispossessed of\ntheir land and lacking means to emigrate, the peasant had been thrown\nlike sheep to the industrial wolves. Sunk in a hopeless wage-slavery,\nthe Manchester factory-hand was an object-lesson in the fate that\nawaits the landless, too striking for a shrewd observer like Greeley to\nmiss; and his agrarian program was proof that he had taken Goldsmith\u2019s\nwarning to heart:\n\n Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,\n Where wealth accumulates and men decay.\n\nThe freeholder, whatever the hardships of his lot, was still a free man\nand a free citizen, no fodder to fling to a huge-bellied industrialism.\n\nTo keep him thus free and independent, Greeley put himself vigorously\ninto the great agrarian movement of the forties and fifties--the\nmovement to democratize the national land policy that eventuated in\nthe Homestead Act of 1862. The conception of the strategic usefulness\nof the western lands as a refuge for the city proletariat he derived\nfrom George Henry Evans, who in 1828 had established _The Working Man\u2019s\nAdvocate_, was active in organization work with the mechanics of New\nYork City, and contributed to the cause numerous pamphlets, one of\nwhich, issued in 1844, was entitled _Vote Yourself a Farm_. The pioneer\nwork had been well done when, in 1845, Greeley joined the movement,\naccepted the arguments, and thenceforth was tireless in spreading the\ndoctrine. The principle on which he should work he laid down in _The\nTribune_:\n\n The freedom of the public lands to actual settlers and the\n limitation of future acquisitions of land to some reasonable\n amount, are ... measures which seem to us vitally necessary to the\n ultimate emancipation from thraldom and misery. What is mainly\n wanted is that each man should have an assured chance to earn and\n then an assurance of the just fruits of his labors. (Quoted in\n Commons, _Horace Greeley, etc._, p. 482.)\n\nTo accomplish this result Greeley introduced into Congress the first\nHomestead bill, according to the proposed terms of which any _bona\nfide_ settler might file on one hundred and sixty acres of public\nland, to be paid for within seven years at the rate of $1.25 an acre;\nall public lands not thus filed on by actual settlers were to be\nlisted at $5.00 an acre.[429] Greeley\u2019s bill was aimed directly at\nthe old scandal of favoring wealthy speculators at the expense of the\nsmall man, a scandal that ran far back into the past. The traditional\nargument had been that the government could not go into the retail land\nbusiness, but should sell in great blocks to responsible men who should\nin turn put settlers on the land. The policy had bred huge corruption,\nit had aroused bitter opposition, and had roiled the politics of\nmore than one state holding western lands. In the early years of the\ncentury the province of Maine had repudiated Massachusetts Federalism\nand turned to the Republican party by reason of discontent with the\nold system[430] and the fierce Anti-Rent riots in New York State were\nof recent occurrence. It was against this policy of favoritism that\nGreeley protested, thereby bringing on his head sharp criticism from\nthe respectable class, who declaimed bitterly against the demagoguery\nof a man who openly advocated a \u201cvote yourself a farm\u201d policy. To pay\na middleman\u2019s price for public land, after that land had been wheedled\nfrom Congress in the dark of the moon, seemed to many gentlemen the\nonly honest and patriotic way; but Greeley was unconvinced by such\nreasoning, and his concern over the problem became acute when the\nrailroads began to appropriate huge tracts of the public domain. The\npolicy of subsidizing them thus seemed to him wasteful and vicious; it\nran directly counter to his fundamental principle of limitation of land\nholdings; it was repeating on a vast scale the ominous landlordism of\nthe past.\n\n Man has a _natural right_ to produce and acquire property [he\n wrote], and therefore, I condemn a system of Land Monopoly, which\n robs the producer of one-half to seven-eighths of the fruits of his\n toil; and often dooms him to absolute starvation on the soil which\n he has faithfully and effectively tilled! The right of owning land\n is one thing: the right to own thousands and even millions of acres\n of land is another. The problem is learning to distinguish the one\n from the other. (_The Tribune_, April 24, 1849.)\n\n\u201cSettle the lands compactly and railroads will be constructed through\nthem rapidly and abundantly,\u201d he said later. \u201cThe grants do essentially\ninterfere with the true policy of granting lands in limited allotment\nto actual settlers\u201d (_ibid._, March 16, 1852). His proposed policy was\nfar-sighted and socially just, but it was repudiated by a speculative\nmiddle class that would not have its unearned increment curtailed by\nvisionaries.\n\nThoughtful as was Greeley\u2019s concern for the farmer, his concern for the\ncity worker was even greater. The wretchedness of the New York slums\nwas daily under his eye, and his honest heart was troubled at what he\nsaw. That he should have sympathized with the emerging labor movement\nwas inevitable; his conscience dictated his stand, but his eager mind\ndrove him to intelligent inquiry and vigorous support. He was the first\nAmerican of wide reputation and influence to give serious consideration\nto the effects on the working class of the industrial revolution with\nits gospel of exploitation. The exploitation of natural resources\nwas well enough; but the exploitation of human life was a different\nmatter. A material prosperity based on social injustice, a civilization\nfounded on slavery, he would have none of. That this great matter of\nslavery was inadequately understood and too narrowly interpreted by the\nAbolitionists, he was early convinced. He agreed with William Grayson\nand the southern apologists, that slavery existed in New York as well\nas in Charleston. \u201cThe worker of the Nineteenth Century,\u201d he said in\n_The Emancipation of Labor_, \u201cstands a sad and care-worn man\u201d; in\nAmerica as well as in Europe he is falling into \u201cthat train of thought\nwhich is beginning to encircle the globe, and of which the burden may\nbe freely rendered thus--\u2018_Why should those by whose toil ALL comforts\nand luxuries are produced or made available enjoy so scanty a share\nof them?_\u2019\u201d If Theodore Parker could have lived a few years longer he\nmust have shared Greeley\u2019s concern; but amongst the Abolitionists only\nWendell Phillips joined with him in espousing the cause of the working\nclass. Others held aloof. When appealed to in the middle-seventies to\naid the labor movement, William Lloyd Garrison denied the existence of\nwage-slavery in America, and indignantly declined to take part in the\nproletarian agitation.[431]\n\nGreeley\u2019s views would be reckoned advanced even today; before the\nCivil War they were regarded as incendiary, calculated to awaken class\nprejudice in a country where, as all patriotic Americans knew, classes\ndid not exist. What, for example, could simple-minded Abolitionists\nmake of a letter he wrote declining to attend an anti-slavery\nconvention in Cincinnati in 1845?\n\n You will readily understand that, if I regard your enterprise with\n less absorbing interest than you do, it is not that I deem Slavery\n a less but a greater evil. If I am less troubled concerning the\n Slavery prevalent in Charleston and New-Orleans, it is because\n I see so much Slavery in New-York, which appears to claim my\n first efforts.... [I would not] undertake to say that the Slavery\n of the South is not more hideous in kind and degree than that\n which prevails at the North. The fact that it is more flagrant\n and palpable renders opposition to it comparatively easy and its\n speedy downfall certain. But how can I devote myself to a crusade\n against distant servitude, when I discern its essence pervading my\n immediate community and neighborhood?\n\n _I understand by Slavery, that condition in which one human being\n exists mainly as a convenience for other human beings_--in which\n the time, the exertions, the faculties of a part of the Human\n Family are made to subserve, not their own development, physical,\n intellectual, and moral, but the comfort, advantage, or caprices of\n others.... In short, wherever service is rendered from one human\n being to another ... where the relation ... is one not of affection\n and reciprocal good offices, but of authority, social ascendency\n and power over subsistence on the one hand, and of necessity,\n servility, and degradation on the other--there, in my view, is\n Slavery. (\u201cSlavery at Home,\u201d in _Hints toward Reforms_.)\n\nHere is a definition that may well be considered Utopian; but however\ntranscendental his general conception, Greeley was far too practical to\npursue abstractions. Having diagnosed the common disease that infects\nall modern civilization, he was willing to use remedies that came to\nhand. Before 1845 he opposed labor legislation, on the ground that the\nevil was social; but later he supported the movement to limit the legal\nworking day by statute. More and more, however, he came to believe\nthat any lasting betterment must come from effective organization of\nthe workers; that the salvation of labor lay in its own hands; and the\ngreat end towards which he looked was co\u00f6peration. The stumbling-block\nthat stood in the way of co\u00f6perative effort was the common distrust and\nsuspicion that poisoned the minds of working men; until they emptied\ntheir hearts of that evil, the path that labor must follow would be\nflinty and its life meager and hard.\n\nAn incorrigible idealist, clearly, was this Yankee plebeian whom Cooper\nbelieved a vulgarian, Godkin held in contempt, and Bryant turned his\nback on and would not speak to--a strange, child-like figure, with\nhis round moon-face, eyes blinking through spectacles and a fringe\nof whiskers that invited the pencil of the cartoonist--yet carrying\nthe sorrows of the world in his heart and vexing his soul with all\nthe problems of society; an idealist who in the most sordid place in\nAmerica, and after years of fruitless experiment, could still stand\nbefore his fellow Americans and thus sum up his social philosophy--\u201cthe\navocations of Life, and the usages and structure of Society, the\nrelations of Power to Humility, of Wealth to Poverty, of served to\nservant, must all be fused in the crucible of Human Brotherhood, and\nwhatever abides not the test, rejected\u201d (_Hints toward Reforms_, p.\n400). In this faith--foolish it may be accounted by practical men, and\nfutile, but certainly not mean, not ignoble--Horace Greeley lived and\nworked; to it he gave such strength and powers as were his, and he died\nat sixty-one of a broken heart. He foolishly wished to be President,\nbut the American electorate that read his paper refused its votes, and\nhis hopes were destroyed by the careless many who were untroubled about\nindustrial pigstys.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Herman Melville \u2022 Pessimist\n\nSet down beside the austere Bryant and the plebeian Greeley, Herman\nMelville seems grotesquely out of company; and yet such proximities may\nsuggest, better perhaps than words, an explanation of the futility of\nhis dreams and the irony of the bitter penance of his days. Lifelong\nhe was lacerated by the coldly moral in his environment, and harassed\nby the crudely practical; and without forcing the comparison, one may\nfeel that Bryant and Greeley embodied in nobler form the twin forces\nthat seized upon his bold and rich nature, and bound it to the rocks to\nbe fed on by eagles. Like Jacob he wrestled all night with an angel,\nyet got no blessing from the touched thigh. Instead, his free spirit\nwas tormented and his adventurous heart seared with fire. Far more\ntruly than of De Quincey might one say of Melville: _Eccovi_, this\nlittle child has been in hell! All the powers of darkness fought over\nhim, all the devils plagued him. They drove him down into the gloom of\nhis tormented soul, and if they did not conquer, they left him maimed\nand stricken. The golden dreams of transcendental faith, that buoyed\nup Emerson and gave hope to Thoreau, turned to ashes in his mouth;\nthe white gleams of mysticism that now and then lighted up his path\ndied out and left him in darkness. Life could not meet the demands he\nmade on it, certainly not life in America in the eighteen-fifties; the\nmalady lay deeper than Greeley thought--it lay in the futility of life\nitself; and so after pursuing his vain dreams to the ends of the seas,\nthe rebellious transcendentalist withdrew within himself while awaiting\nannihilation. There is no other tragedy in American letters comparable\nto the tragedy of Herman Melville. Bryant\u2019s melancholy is only the\ngentle pensiveness of twilight compared to the midnight of his\npessimism. Hawthorne\u2019s gloom is no more than the skeptical questioning\nof life by a nature that knew no fierce storms; Poe\u2019s is only the\natrabilious wretchedness of a dipsomaniac.\n\nIn the presence of a nature so tempestuous and fiercely honest, it\nis a rash critic who will dogmatize. There is no simple clue to his\nmystery, no common pass-key to unlock his mind. Raymond Weaver in\nhis brilliantly creative study has perhaps done all that the critic\ncan to light up the darkness, and later commentators can only follow\nin his footsteps. In so far as a simple explanation may suffice, the\nbiographer finds it in certain frustrations that curdled the milk of\nhis romance and turned it sour. Like Mark Twain in later years, he\nrecoiled savagely from the smug conventions of society; but when he\nspoke out his views--instead of discreetly locking them up in his\nsafe--and found himself fiercely assailed for unorthodoxy, he bade the\nworld go to the devil and would have nothing more to do with its praise\nor blame. A proud sensitive nature, he took the world\u2019s contumely _au\ntragique_, and suffered it to mortify him. Or perhaps he was more\nlike James Branch Cabell than Mark Twain. An arch romantic, he vainly\nsought to erect his romantic dreams as a defense against reality, and\nsuffered disaster. In love with the ideal, and pursuing it in a wild\nadventure into the South Seas--his magic realm of Poictesme--yet \u201cnot\nso much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern,\u201d\nhe found there only disenchantment. Seeking his satisfactions in love\nof mother and wife, he came upon utter disillusion. The austerely prim\nand coldly correct Maria Gansevoort, to whom his boyish heart yielded\nitself passionately, was clearly no woman to satisfy his need of\nintelligent sympathy, and he fled moodily from the pale negations of\na stifling environment. Even the finely loyal Elizabeth Shaw whom he\nmarried seems only to have completed his disillusion, and he withdrew\ninto his study, and falling into \u201cPlato\u2019s honied head,\u201d like Tashtego\ninto the whale\u2019s head, \u201csweetly,\u201d or wretchedly, \u201cperished there.\u201d It\nis the plague of the idealizing mind that is forever comparing a wife\nin her morning kimono with the Helen of his dreams. It is the curse of\npossession that plays havoc with romance; and because Melville\u2019s dreams\nwere passionately beautiful, because he made heavy demands on life, his\ndisillusion was bitter. And so like Felix Kennaston in Cabell\u2019s _Cream\nof the Jest_, and like Shelley in _Epipsychidion_, Melville fashioned\nhis dream-figure to love. The elusive figure of Yillah in _Mardi_,\nwhom he loves and loses and seeks, in a madly grotesque and satirical\npursuit through all the civilizations of his land of Poictesme, is so\nsuggestive of Cabell\u2019s _Domnei_, that it perhaps may be accounted the\nlatter\u2019s prototype.\n\nRemembering the mingled strains of Melville\u2019s ancestry, the critic\nis tempted to discover in his New England blood the source of his\ntranscendental visions. Yet the influence is not easy to trace. Half\nDutch and half Yankee, he certainly got his vigorous physique and hot\ntemper from the former. His maternal grandfather, Major General Peter\nGansevoort, was a huge bulk of a man who achieved high distinction in\nthe Revolutionary War, and whose traditional prowess filled the boy\u2019s\nheart with pride. His mother, Maria Gansevoort, whom the son closely\nresembled in physique, was crossed in blood with that of the Van\nRensselaers, the Ten Broecks, the Van Schaicks--the proudest families\nof the old Dutch _r\u00e9gime_--and was deeply imbued with the distinction\nof her patroon ancestry--\u201ca cold, proud woman, arrogant in the sense\nof her name, her blood, and the affluence of her forebears\u201d (Weaver,\n_Herman Melville_, p. 34). His debt to the New England strain is not so\neasily appraised. His paternal grandfather, Major Thomas Melville of\nBoston, a graduate of Princeton and wealthy in his own name and through\nhis wife Priscilla Scollay, was not without his flashes of enthusiasm\nin early life, taking part with Joseph Story\u2019s father in the Boston\nTea Party. But his incipient radicalism was soon washed out of him; he\nturned rigidly conservative, and to his death in 1832 he lingered in\nthe twilight of the eighteenth century. As Federal naval officer of the\nport of Boston, he was a familiar figure in his cocked hat and knee\nbreeches; and it was of him that Holmes wrote the verses, _The Last\nLeaf_.\n\nHe was of Scotch descent, and Melville\u2019s father traced the family\nline back to the thirteenth century, Herman Melville being twentieth\nin direct descent from Sir Richard Melvill, who in 1296 was forced\nto swear allegiance to Edward I of England. The blood seems to have\nrun somewhat thin in Allan Melville, a conventional, pragmatic soul,\nwho after making five trips to Europe, at the age of thirty-two,\nhaving carefully weighed the advantages, fixed his affections on Maria\nGansevoort whom he met at Albany, and wooed with more propriety than\npassion. He entered business in New York city as an importer of French\ngoods; but hard times descended on \u201cthe greatest universal mart in\nthe world,\u201d and in 1832, when Herman was thirteen, Allan Melville\ndied leaving Maria Gansevoort and her eight children pretty nearly\npenniless. The struggle with poverty set its mark on the cold, proud\nwoman whose ambitions centered about the success of affluence; and it\nleft a mark of quite another sort on the son who was soon to measure\nher ideals with devastatingly critical eyes. The ways of mother and son\nwere at the parting.\n\nThe volcanic passions pent up in Herman Melville\u2019s heart, the ardent\nimagination that sent him forth on long quests and brought him home\nempty-handed, can scarcely be traced to any source in Maria Gansevoort\nor Allan Melville. A strange, incomprehensible child he seemed to his\nmother, and strange and incomprehensible he remained in the eyes of\nthe family--an ugly duckling of another breed than theirs. A bitter\nsense of aloofness and alienation from the intimacies of family\nsympathy seems early to have taken possession of him, and he felt\nhimself quietly thrust out of the circle of respectable contacts.\nMelville\u2019s writings are filled with thinly veiled autobiography, and\nit is a careless reader who does not see in _Pierre_ and _Moby Dick_\nconfessions as frank as Rousseau\u2019s. \u201cCall me Ishmael,\u201d is the opening\ninjunction of the latter, and the book closes with a glimpse of \u201cthe\ndevious cruising _Rachel_, that in retracing search after her missing\nchildren, only found another orphan\u201d (Weaver, _Herman Melville_, p.\n62). An Ishmael Melville unhappily conceived himself to be, an outcast\nand wanderer on the earth because man is an outcast and wanderer,\nto whom Nirvana is the only comfort and hope; and when he returned\ndisillusioned from the South Seas, when he found no home by his own\nfireside, when he discovered his transcendental craftsmanship driving\non the rocks of economic necessity, when the public rejected his\nmystical dreams and he was inexorably \u201cdamned by dollars,\u201d he perforce\nturned in upon his own broodings and sought solace in Plato. Driven by\nneed from his hill farm in the Berkshires, he buried himself in the\n\u201cBabylonish brick-kiln of New York,\u201d to pass long years pottering about\nthe customhouse. It was the vast futility of life as he experienced it,\nthat sent him to his study to find there such compensation as he might.\n\nThe stages in Melville\u2019s progress towards Nirvana are sufficiently\nmarked by the four books, _Typee_, _Mardi_, _Moby Dick_, and _Pierre_.\nThe first is his answer to the French romantic Utopia of man in a\nstate of nature. That the rankling wounds in man\u2019s heart are poisoned,\nif not originally inflicted, by social institutions, he was partly\nconvinced, and he felt a lively concern lest western civilization\nshould bring its futile restlessness to the simple island people.\nThe kindliness and simplicity of life in the valley of Typee, the\ncompensating virtues of the unsophisticated primitive, he found\nlovable; but as the unhappy heir of centuries of Christian conscience,\nas a child of Hebraic ideals of righteousness, he could not eradicate\nthe deep roots of ethical unrest. With Fayaway it was different.\n\u201cCivilization had given her no veils; Christianity had given her\nno compunctions. She was neither a mystery nor a sin\u201d (_ibid._, p.\n260). But he could not become a simple child of nature had he wanted\nto. He could never find his Nirvana in mere sensuousness; he could\nnot sink into the mud of animal existence. Even while he bathed in\nthe languorous calm of Typee, floating idly with Fayaway on the\nstream of being, his heart was beyond the narrow hills, and a cosmic\nnostalgia seized upon him. That chapter of his life ended in futility,\nand so he made his way back once more to the familiar places, with\nexpectation still undaunted. Certain of his experiences on that return\njourney he has recorded in _White Jacket_, the story of his cruise\non a man-of-war; and how near it brought him to oblivion is told in\nthe episode of the threatened flogging before the mast, when fate\nintervened to save Melville from flinging himself overboard, carrying\nwith him the brutal captain of the _Neversink_.\n\nAmidst the constrictions of the old world to which he had come back, a\nfresh vision of happiness opened to him in his love for Elizabeth Shaw,\nand he made a desperate plunge into marriage. The post-thalamion of\nthat thwarted romance was _Mardi_--a far-ranging \u201cpilgrimage for a lost\nglamour,\u201d \u201ca quest after some total and undivined possession of that\nholy and mysterious joy that touched Melville during the period of his\ncourtship\u201d (_ibid._, p. 279). _Mardi_ is a vast welter of satire and\nidealism, formless and wild, which in turn was no more than prologue\nto _Moby Dick_. This colossal book, fierce as _Gulliver_, broad as\nRabelais, with its _saeva indignatio_ that laughs as it rends life, is\nthe great confession of his defeat. \u201cIt is good to laugh,\u201d he says in\n_Mardi_, \u201cthough the laugh be hollow. Women sob, and are rid of their\ngrief; men laugh and retain it. Ha! ha! how demoniacs shout; how all\nskeletons grin; we all die with a rattle. Humor, thy laugh is divine.\u201d\nAnd the conclusion to which the philosopher comes is this: \u201cBeatitude\nthere is none. And your only Mardian happiness is but exemption from\ngreat woes--no more. Great Love is sad; and heaven is Love. Sadness\nmakes the silence throughout the realms of space; sadness is universal\nand eternal\u201d (_ibid._, p. 279).\n\nAfter _Moby Dick_, what remained but to put the external world of\nexperience aside and turn in upon his own thwarted hopes to analyze\nthem? _Pierre, or the Ambiguities_ is his spiritual autobiography,\nthe confession of a stricken soul. In the inconsequential matter of\nplot, a story of incest and murder and suicide, in its deeper purpose,\nit is a wild fierce tale of mortal passions, that traces the _\u00e9lan_\nof mystical idealism to the buried depths of procreative instinct.\nIt is the last bewildering attempt to understand the sources of the\ndream that had ridden him, and it is discovered in the passionate\nstruggles of Enceladus, titanic offspring of the incestuous union\nbetween Heaven and Earth, to regain the kingdom from which he has been\nthrust. In _Mardi_ the search for Yillah had been carried on under the\nwatchful eye of Hautia, the temptress, whom \u201chis whole heart abhorred,\u201d\nyet to whom at last he went in her bower of Flozella-a-Nina--\u201cThe\nLast-Verse-of-the-Song\u201d; for in \u201csome mysterious way seemed Hautia and\nYillah connected.\u201d In _Pierre_ Hautia reappears as Isabel, likewise\na child of Heaven and Earth, who is set over against Lucy--the pure\ndaughter of Heaven alone; and this dark Isabel robed in the midnight\nof her hair, by appealing unconsciously to Pierre\u2019s noblest impulses,\ndraws him from the safe orbit of the Gansevoort moralities, and makes\nof him \u201cthe fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate.\u201d\nIsabel is wild, unquestioning, mysterious passion, untouched by any\nHebraisms; and this half-sister of his blood, this lovely embodiment of\nhis star-crossed dreams, drives him unwittingly to destruction. Pierre\nlearns at last that the vision brings poison in its kisses, for the\ndivine in the heart of Enceladus is mingled with the clay of earth. The\ndream is man\u2019s final ironical curse; Yillah and Hautia and Lucy and\nIsabel--changing embodiments of the same mystical idealism--bring death\nto their lovers--this is the conclusion of _Pierre_, a conclusion that\nMr. Cabell would not take kindly to. It was a black and bitter book,\nlike _Moby Dick_ \u201cbroiled in hell-fire,\u201d to fling at an easy-going\npublic that cherished its Gansevoort conventions. With its fierce\ndisillusions _Pierre_ is the apogee and Nirvana of the spiritual\nromanticisms of the day.\n\nThat Melville was the spiritual child of Jean Jacques, that the\nconsuming nostalgia he suffered from was mortal, the most casual\nacquaintance with his passionate rebellions should make clear; and\nthat his pessimism was a natural end and outcome of his transcendental\nspeculations, once those speculations had come to intimate contact with\nlife, is perhaps equally clear. Transcendentalism in Concord village\nand at Walden pond, was one thing. Emerson\u2019s infrequent anger at the\nfolly of men was soothed by the perfect art with which he phrased it,\nand never seriously ruffled his temperamental placidity. Thoreau\u2019s\nmystical communings were with the young god Pan; he was too wise to\nseek to domesticate a woodland nymph, and he was fortunate in escaping\nthe dun twilight that gathers about the slow years of physical decay.\nBut transcendentalism in the forecastle of the whaler _Acushnet_,\ntranscendentalism that drove fiercely into the blood-red sunsets of\ndwarfing seas, transcendentalism in the hot and passionate heart of\na man whose vast dreams outran his feet--this was something very\ndifferent from the gentle mysticism of cooler natures and unembittered\nhearts where no Promethean fires were raging.\n\nFor Herman Melville, amidst the nameless obscenities of an alien\nenvironment, to keep his faith in the goodness of life strong and\nsweet, would have needed the boundless charity and simple paganism\nof Walt Whitman. But unfortunately for his peace of mind, though he\nmight immerse himself in Plato, Melville was no Greek; he was Hebraic\nrather, out of Ecclesiastes, and Solomon and Jesus. \u201cAway,\u201d he cries\nin _Pierre_, \u201cye chattering apes of a sophomorean Spinoza and Plato,\nwho once did all but delude me that the night was day, and pain only a\ntickle. Explain this darkness, exorcise this devil, ye cannot. Tell me\nnot, thou inconceivable coxcomb of a Goethe, that the universe cannot\nspare thee and thy immortality.... Already the universe gets on without\nthee.... Thou wert but the pretentious, heartless part of a man. Lo!\nI hold thee in this hand, and thou art crushed in it like an egg from\nwhich the meat hath been sucked\u201d (Chapter XXII--3). From the lips of\nthe ancient Preacher he had learned that all is vanity--even Pan. \u201cThe\ntruest of men was the Man of Sorrows,\u201d he says, \u201cand the truest of all\nbooks is Solomon\u2019s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of\nwoe. All is vanity. +ALL+.... He who ... calls Cowper, Young, Pascal,\nRousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free\nlifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;--not\nthat man is fitted to sit down on tombstones, and break the green damp\nmould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon\u201d (Weaver, _Herman Melville_,\npp. 151-152). After _Pierre_ came _Clarel_--years later--in which the\ntheological doubts and religious unrest that mark the poetry of Arnold\nand Clough in England came to expression in a world that was untouched\nby them.[432] The abyss that lay between Melville and America had\nbecome deeper and wider.\n\nLike all the transcendentalists Melville was a democrat, but his\ndemocracy sprang rather from his sympathies than from his philosophy.\nIt was a democracy learned rather from Ecclesiastes than from Emerson;\nit sprang from his pessimism rather than from any transcendental faith\nin the divinity of man. He knew only too well how weak and foolish\nare the children of Adam; but in presence of the common fate to which\nthe indifferent years hurry us, how stupid and callous are the social\ndistinctions that society erects! Why should not life be a leveler, as\nwell as death? His experience before the mast had taught him sympathy\nfor the common man; he regarded quizzically the ways of the exploiting\nfew and the sufferings of the exploited many; and he smiled ironically\nat the neat little classification that divides the human animal into\nsinners and saints. He was as comprehensive a democrat as Whitman, of\nthe same all-embracing school that denied the common social and ethical\ncategories of excellence; but alienated from his fellows, not drawn to\nthem as Whitman was. It was not a sense of social aloofness that held\nhim apart, but the isolation of loneliness. \u201cWhen you see or hear of\nmy ruthless democracy on all sides,\u201d he wrote to Hawthorne, \u201cyou may\npossibly feel a touch of a shrink, or something of that sort. It is but\nnature to be shy of a mortal who boldly declares that a thief in jail\nis as honorable a personage as Gen. George Washington.... It seems an\ninconsistency to assert unconditioned democracy in all things, and yet\nconfess a dislike to all mankind--in the mass. But not so\u201d (_ibid._,\npp. 320-321). He then goes on: \u201cBut truth is the silliest thing under\nthe sun,\u201d and does not deign to explain. \u201cBelieve me,\u201d he says of\n_Pierre_, \u201cyou will pronounce Pierre a thoroughgoing Democrat in time;\nperhaps a little too Radical altogether to your fancy\u201d (_ibid._, p. 37).\n\nSuch a man would not so much turn critic as embody criticism. His\nlife--even more than Emerson\u2019s--laid upon America, was a yardstick to\nmeasure the shortcomings of a professed civilization. Cooper was a\ncritic whom America could understand, and America hated him for his\nunpleasant frankness. Melville it could not understand, and it turned\naway and ignored him. Perhaps it was well enough that his generation\ncould not comprehend his devastating speculations, and called him mad;\nor it would have cried out to crucify this maligner of all the tribal\nfetishes. He would level every barrier against the unpleasant that his\nage was erecting. He outran Thoreau in contempt for current material\nideals. To turn scornfully away from the triumphs of his fellows--from\nthe fruits of the industrial revolution and the romantic gospel of\nprogress--this was incomprehensible blasphemy! Yet what had Herman\nMelville in common with middle-class America? Its hopes and fears were\nnot his. He was troubled about life, and not about things. He was not\nconcerned about politics or the political state. He was not concerned\nwith trade, or money-getting, or romantic imperialisms. He was not even\ngreatly concerned with political democracy, although in his time he had\nbeen as hot a republican as the best of them. The shoddy democracy of\nhis time made his gorge rise; and to this shoddy democracy that shrilly\nproclaimed its excellence he paid his respects in words that suggest\nLowell\u2019s _Cathedral_, but with a depth of significance that Lowell was\nincapable of. In the poem _Clarel_, into which Melville crowded so much\nof his later speculations, he comments thus:\n\n This world clean fails me: still I yearn....\n\n This side the dark and hollow bound\n Lies there no unexplored rich ground?\n _Some other world_: well, there\u2019s the New--\n Ah, joyless and ironic too!\n\n Ay, Democracy\n Lops, lops; and where\u2019s her planted bed?\n The future, what is that to her\n Who vaunts she\u2019s no inheritor?\n \u2019Tis in her mouth, not in her heart.\n The past she spurns, though \u2019tis the past\n From which she gets her saving part--\n That Good which lets her evil last.\n\n Behold her whom the panders crown,\n Harlot on horseback, riding down\n The very Ephesians who acclaim\n This great Diana of ill fame!\n Arch strumpet of an impious age,\n Upstart from ranker villeinage:\n Asia shall stop her at the least\n That old inertness of the East....\n\n But in the New World things make haste:\n Not only things, the _state_ lives fast--\n Fast breed the pregnant eggs and shells,\n The slumberous combustibles,\n Sure to explode. \u2019Twill come, \u2019twill come!\n One demagogue can trouble much:\n How of a hundred thousand such?...\n\n Indeed, those germs one now may view:\n Myriads playing pigmy parts--\n Debased into equality:\n Dead level of rank commonplace:\n An Anglo-Saxon China, see,\n May on your vast plains shame the race\n In the Dark Ages of Democracy....\n\n Your arts advance in faith\u2019s decay:\n You are but drilling the new Hun\n Whose growl even now can some dismay;\n Vindictive in his heart of hearts.\n He schools him in your mines and marts\n A skilled destroyer....\n\n Old ballads sing\n Fair Christian children crucified\n By impious Jews: you\u2019ve heard the thing:\n Yes, fable; but there\u2019s truth hard by:\n How many Hughs of Lincoln, say,\n Does Mammon, in his mills, to-day,\n Crook, if he does not crucify?\n\n The impieties of \u2018Progress\u2019 speak;\n What say _these_, in effect to God?\n \u2018How profits it? And who art Thou\n That we should serve Thee? Of Thy ways\n No knowledge we desire; _new_ ways\n We have found out, and better. Go--\n Depart from us!\u2019 And if He do?\n Is aught betwixt us and the hells?...\n\nFor Herman Melville, at least, the barriers betwixt him and the hells\nhad long been gone, and only Nirvana awaited him.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[426] See his satire on Fanny Wright in _The Evening Post_, January 29,\n1829, quoted by Allan Nevins, _The Evening Post, etc._, pp. 126-127.\n\n[427] For his statement, see \u201cLabor\u2019s Political Economy,\u201d in _Hints\ntoward Reforms_.\n\n[428] See \u201cThe Organization of Labor,\u201d in _Hints toward Reforms_.\n\n[429] See Charles Sotheran, _Horace Greeley_, p. 255.\n\n[430] See William A. Robinson, _Jeffersonian Democracy in New England_,\npp. 43-45.\n\n[431] Garrison, _Life of Garrison_, Vol. IV, p. 248.\n\n[432] See Weaver, p. 365.\n\n\n\n\nBook Three \u2022 The Mind of New England\n\n\nThe New England renaissance was tardy in appearing and of brief\nduration, yet in the few years of its extraordinary vigor it imparted\na stimulus to American life that its historians have not greatly\nexaggerated. We are now far enough from it to see that it was the last\nflowering of a tree that was dying at the roots, but in the tumultuous\nthirties it seemed to be a new birth of the native New England mind,\nopening on new worlds and great adventures. Though its prophecies might\nbe little heeded at its own fireside, and unheard in the vast stretches\nof the West where men were clearing and building after quite different\nplans than the Concord architects were drawing, its significance in the\ndevelopment of American idealism--the ethical imprint it stamped on\nAmerican culture--endured long after it had spent its force. It was the\nlast and in certain aspects the most brilliant of the several attempts\nto domesticate in America the romantic thought of revolutionary Europe;\nand with its passing, civilization in this western world fell into the\nhands of another breed of men to fashion as they saw fit.\n\nThe revolutions in thought that lie between the eighteenth century\nwith its aristocratic rationalism that conceived of human nature as\nevil, and the nineteenth century with its middle-class economics that\nconceived of human nature as acquisitive, are more clearly defined\nin New England and more sharply differentiated, than elsewhere in\nAmerica. The flood of romantic speculation with its humanitarian\nemphasis on the potential excellence of man and the equality of human\nrights, that in Europe had diffused itself widely, in Massachusetts\nflowed into narrow channels prepared by Puritan discipline, and swept\naway habits of thought that had dominated New England for two hundred\nyears. The intensity of the Puritan nature, once it embraced the new\nconceptions, imparted to them an intellectual and emotional unity that\nserves to explain the creativeness of the New England renaissance, as\nit serves to explain its failure to spread widely beyond the confines\nof Massachusetts. Appearing a generation later than in Virginia, it\ndrew its inspiration more largely from Germany than from France; it was\nintellectual and ethical rather than political and economic; and in\nconsequence it held little in common with the Physiocratic agrarianism\nof Jefferson. The latter was sufficiently native to American economics\nto appeal to the common man from Maine to Georgia; the former was\nnative only to New England Puritanism. Its idealism appealed only to\nrare souls, disciplined by speculation and trained in ethical values,\nmen of strong character and fine distinction who counted for much more\nthan numbers.\n\nAfter all it is the ethical note that marks the Puritan. That New\nEngland has run so different a course from other parts of America has\nbeen due chiefly to its desire to serve God even though it might be\nserving self. Its material life has always been plentifully seasoned\nwith the salt of religion. It sat under the teachings of an austere\nethics, as it lived under the compulsions of a narrow economics; and\nthe result was the development of a middle class distinct from that of\nthe West where the desire to get on was less hampered by the desire\nto get to heaven. The outstanding social figures in early New England\nwere the minister and the merchant; and these twin authorities--joined\nafter the Revolution by the rising profession of the law--ruled in\npatriarchal fashion the inarticulate mass of the yeomanry. From these\ntraditional leaders the policy of New England received a twofold bent:\na bent to the ethical and a bent to the practical. The two have rarely\nfused in a harmonious and fruitful life, but for the most part have\ndwelt side by side under a covenant of noninterference, the character\nof current social ideals taking its impress from one or the other as\nit gained a temporary ascendency. In the three hundred years of New\nEngland history the minister has enjoyed two periods of intellectual\nascendency: the first during the early days of the theocracy, when\nthe commonwealth was ruled by the laws of God and John Calvin; and\nthe second, between the years 1830 and 1850, when John Calvin was\nfinally put aside and New England was in the way of being remodeled in\naccordance with the plans of God alone. Between these brief periods of\nethical enthusiasm lies the main history of New England, a history that\ncounts for little in our intellectual and aesthetic development, but\nthat meant much and ill to the cramped minds of her sons.\n\nThis long stretch, arid and unlovely, was dominated wholly by the\nmerchant. Its parsimonious thrift, relieved by few generous impulses,\nwas hostile to all change and to the romance that is bred of change.\nThere was no rapid inflow of settlers to bring fresh energy and\nexpansion. The exuberant growth of other parts of America was never\nshared by rural New England, and in consequence the harvest of\nunearned increment was rarely reaped from her sterile acres. Except\nin the shipping towns there was little economic development. On its\nsecluded little farms New England was living a narrow parochial life,\ncooping up its mind in a rigid theological system and disciplining its\ncharacter by a self-denying ordinance. Public affairs were managed\nby the squire, for the minister was too busy defending John Calvin\nagainst the Arminians to have a care for much except morality and\ndogma. The renaissance became of necessity, therefore, a movement of\nliberalism--a vehement protest against the torpor of the dogmatist\nwhose mind was shut up in a dead system. It was a sudden reawakening\nof the ethical passion of Puritanism that had slept for two centuries;\na vision of a new heaven and a new earth that it proposed to take by\nstorm. It proposed to rid the mind of New England of its decadent\nloyalties--the nightmare dreams of Calvinism that debased human\nnature, and the counting-house dreams of Federalism that conceived of\nman as an exploitative animal. It had discovered anew the beauty of\nrighteousness, and in the name of righteousness it proposed to throw\noff the old tyrannies and create a society wherein the mind should be\nfree and the soul enjoy its religion. The battle against Calvinism was\nonly preliminary to greater battles which constituted the intellectual\nrevolution that marked the renaissance.\n\nIt was the New England minister, and the spiritual heirs of the\nminister--a group of intellectuals and reformers more notable than\nNew England had before bred--that gave to the movement its pronounced\nethical quality. It was freedom for individual righteousness that they\nsought; not freedom for intellectual epicureanism, for romance, for\naesthetic or pagan beauty. The transcendentalists and reformers had\nlittle time to amuse themselves with such things. They were too eager\nfor the coming of the kingdom to dawdle over fiction or patronize the\nplayhouse. They had been bred from their youth up on printer\u2019s ink;\nthey came of a race that had long respected the printed page. Literary\nmen by inheritance, they esteemed themselves stewards of a great\ncause. In rejecting their fathers\u2019 hell they became the more zealous\nto make a heaven of this world; and although the more practical Yankee\nwas skeptical of their plans and would not suffer them to turn Boston\ninto a transcendental Utopia, they succeeded in making such a stir as\nNew England had never before known. For a brief time, at least, liberal\nideas found a welcome in homes where they had hitherto been strangers;\nfor a brief time the intellectual and not the merchant dominated New\nEngland.\n\n\n\n\nPart One: the Twilight of Federalism\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Passing of the Tie-Wig School\n\n\nI \u2022 Old Boston\n\nThe year 1815, that brought to a close the unfortunate American\nventure into the maelstrom of the Napoleonic wars, may be conveniently\ntaken to mark for New England the transition to the nineteenth\ncentury. With the rise of Unitarianism and the development of the new\nindustrialism, a ruder and more vigorous age entered Boston. It met\nwith a somewhat chilly reception. The patriarchal eighteenth century\nstill clung to its warm chimney corner, not liking to be dispossessed\nby heirs of whom it testily disapproved. The old order stood on\nits dignity, tenacious of its habitual authority. It lived quietly\nin an aristocratic past, unregardful of the vigorous commonwealths\nrising beyond the Appalachian mountains, and contemptuous of the new\npolitical philosophy that preached the rights of man. A persistent\ncontinuity of temper marked the ruling class, a continuity little\ndisturbed by the tumultuous revolutions of the past two generations.\nAlthough nearly half the voters of Massachusetts, in the year 1800,\nwere Jeffersonian republicans, the knowledge of that fact only\nstiffened the backbones of the regnant caste. It colored their minds\nwith a virtuous pessimism, but it edged their temper with the zeal of\nrighteousness. The Boston mobsters, it would appear, were republican,\nand when the present custodians of the ark of decency were gathered\nto their fathers, very likely evil days would come upon the land; but\nwhile the righteous lived they would be faithful to their stewardship.\nTheir own households, at least, they would keep clean of all democratic\npollution; and so Boston and New Haven and Hartford--the capitals\nof New England culture--drew about them the garments of Federalist\nrighteousness. Since the Revolution of \u201976 a new authority had risen\non the ruins of the old Tory authority, but in spite of the change\nof personnel and outward political forms, the spirit of respectable\nNew England remained pretty much what it had always been. John Quincy\nAdams and Fisher Ames and Josiah Quincy were little different in\ncharacter and aims from Thomas Hutchinson and Joseph Sewall and Daniel\nLeonard--they were common chips from the tough old New England oak.\nHigh-minded yet narrow; devout yet not emotionally religious; thrifty\nyet generous in approved causes; engaged in overseas commerce yet\noddly parochial--they were men fashioned by a rugged environment into\nvigorous stock, that would hold tenaciously to what they had got and\nwould tolerate no insubordination on the part of their social inferiors.\n\nWith its twenty-five thousand inhabitants Boston ranked fourth in size\namong American cities. Philadelphia, the social capital of America,\nwas nearly three times as large; New York nearly two and a half times;\nand even Baltimore had lately come to exceed her in population. The\neconomic forces that make for liberalism had become largely impotent.\nFree land had long since been exhausted in Massachusetts and social\nlines were fixed. The northern frontier of Maine and New Hampshire\nwas rugged and uninviting, and York State lay to the West. Except in\nthe Connecticut valley the soil was thin and farming unproductive,\nand in consequence the more ambitious turned to commerce and\nmanufacture which the physical conditions of the country invited. The\ndominant interest of Boston was commercial, and the ruling coterie of\nmerchants and lawyers was narrowly Whiggish. They had modified their\npre-Revolutionary political philosophy no further than to substitute\nthe word republican for monarchical. The aristocratic temper dominated\nthe town meetings, and the principle of property rule was commonly\naccepted as the essence of political wisdom. In substituting Federalism\nfor Toryism there was no easing of the restrictions on rebellious\nplebeians. Quite repudiated were the rude leveling ways of the great\nRevolutionary adventure. Boston gentlemen had come to understand too\nwell the danger of encouraging the mob, for as Fisher Ames pointed out\nin 1787, \u201cThe people have turned against their teachers the doctrines,\nwhich were inculcated to effect the late revolution\u201d (_Works_, p.\n11). Boston had had enough of revolutions since Daniel Shays had got\nup one of his own aimed at the Boston purse, and French Jacobins had\nlet loose their devastating ideas upon a gullible world. Revolutions\nthat were not made in Boston, by Boston gentlemen, were quite certain\nto be wicked and seditious; and Boston had definitely gone out of the\nrevolution business. It wanted above all things to undo the mischief\nthat had already been done, and take back into safe hands the political\npower which in the days of revolutionary enthusiasm had been seized by\nthe agrarian democracy.\n\nIn the last decade of the eighteenth century the intellectual isolation\nof New England was sharply accentuated and the consequent intellectual\nstagnation became more disastrous. In other portions of America French\nrevolutionary theories of man and society were spreading widely and\nshouldering aside the outworn past. A romantic equalitarianism,\nbased on the doctrine of human perfectibility, was displacing the\ntraditional economic realism, established on the dogma of total\ndepravity. The leveling movement, in consequence, was provided with\na persuasive idealism that awakened troublesome aspirations in the\ndisfranchised majority and gave a strong impetus to the democratic\nmovement. But New England leaders stood resolutely apart, accounting\nall equalitarianism sheer romantic folly. The old stubborn realism held\nits ground, interpreting political principles in terms of economics,\nand dogmatically maintaining the sacred rights of property. Boston\nFederalism refused to have anything to do with \u201catheistic France,\u201d the\nfruitful mother of Jacobin follies. Pollution, it was convinced, must\nresult from any commerce with infidel and innovating ideas. Gunpowder\nthat was played with might explode, and New England wanted no blowing\nup of her excellent society. Virginia had lent credulous ears to the\nvoice of France, and the result was the atheist Jefferson and the\nrabble of his licentious followers. Massachusetts was not gullible\nand it would tolerate no Jeffersonian atheisms. And so instead of\nadapting French romantic philosophy to new world needs, seizing upon\nits social idealism to leaven the crude American lump--as Jefferson\nand Colonel Mason and John Taylor and many another Virginia gentleman\nhad done--Boston Federalism rejected French ideas in the mass, dubbed\nFrench idealism Jacobinism, and turned back upon a stubborn reaction.\n\nThe disastrous consequences of that rejection upon the mind of New\nEngland cannot easily be measured. It is clear enough, nevertheless,\nthat the renaissance was delayed a full generation, and when it\ncame it assumed certain provincialisms that greatly lessened its\npermanent influence upon the rest of America. The impress of its\ncontribution upon our national thought has been far less permanent than\nthat of Virginia, that came a generation earlier and was primarily\neconomic and political. It is a suggestive fact that in the work\nof adapting the new Federal Constitution to democratic ends, New\nEngland contributed no creative leader, none in any way comparable to\nJefferson; but on the contrary her most representative leaders--and\nin particular Webster--followed the eighteenth-century tradition in\ncombating the equalitarian advance in the interest of economic groups.\nSome explanation of this fact may be found, perhaps, in the selfish\nisolation of New England Federalism, that closed the door on the\nliberal thought of France.\n\nIn consequence of such isolation Boston became the recognized home of\nthe philosophy of a stake-in-society. If it clung tenaciously to an\nold-fashioned Federalism after it had been abandoned elsewhere, it\nwas because Boston was more middle-class than Charleston, and had not\nlearned from experience with Jacksonianism how easily the majority will\nmay be shaped and controlled to particular ends. It inherited the old\nTory contempt for democracy and relied on the old stock arguments to\ncombat it. Its habitual tone was one of virtuous arrogance. The one\ngreat and ever-present fear that haunted the pillows of worthy Boston\nmerchants and turned their dreams to nightmares, was fear of the mob\ngetting out of hand; and democracy, for them, was only a euphemism\nfor the mob--the ever-present menace to sober and decent government.\nIn the judgment of Theodore Dwight, brother of Timothy, \u201cthere could\nbe nothing more dreadful this side of hell.\u201d Nowhere else in America\ndid the reaction against the democratic ideal carry so far as in\nBoston. The church and the merchant associations joined with polite\nsociety to cry it down, and upon the head of the democrat fell the\nmost extravagant vituperation. For a generation few respectable New\nEnglanders raised their voices in defense of democracy, but gentlemen\nof principle and property followed the lead of the little clique that\nwas driving straight towards the Hartford Convention--blind sailors\nnavigating the Dead Sea of Federalist pessimism.\n\nAll this was before the reputed time of plain living and high thinking.\nIntellectual Boston was as parochial as political Boston. The lights\nwhom Bostonians regarded as the torch-bearers of New England culture\nhave long since been extinguished and their names forgotten even in\nBeacon Street. Amongst the literati of the little Boston of 1800 the\nhistorian need concern himself with no more than two or three: Fisher\nAmes (1758-1808), the Federalist lawyer-wit, and Robert Treat Paine\n(1773-1811), esteemed the ninth wonder of the Boston world. Other\nfigures there were, of course, in addition to the literati: Harrison\nGray Otis, the eloquent voice of Faneuil Hall, and Josiah Quincy, whom\nLowell likened to an old Roman of the elder virtuous days, and who\nduring a long life of ninety-two years was an example of stalwart and\nantiquated Federalism. Old Boston bred dignified figures in plenty,\nmen admirably equipped to be college presidents, ambassadors, orators\non formal occasions, purveyors of cultivated inutilities and polished\ncommonplace--men like Edward Everett, whom all Boston praised while\nthey lived and forgot when they were dead; but it bred no thinkers or\nmen of letters who count in the larger history of America. Boston was\nstill parochial, content with little things.\n\n\nII \u2022 Fisher Ames \u2022 The Oracle of the Tie-Wig School\n\nOf this testy little world that clung to its smallclothes and tie-wig,\nrefusing to adopt the Jacobin innovation in dress and manners and\npolitics, declining to temper its prejudices to the gusty whims of a\nleveling age, Fisher Ames was the universal counselor and oracle. A\nvivacious little gentleman to whom politics was the breath of life,\nhe achieved so tremendous a reputation in his short lifetime that all\nNew England looked to him for leadership and Harvard College wanted to\nmake him its president. He came of vigorous stock, prone to consult\nits own will and speak its opinions with no squeamish concern for a\nneighbor\u2019s views. His brother, Dr. Nathaniel Ames, was as violent a\nRepublican as Fisher was a Federalist, a hater of all lawyers whom\nhe accounted the \u201cpettifogging interest\u201d; and when the two members\nof the family came together at dinner the talk must have been worth\nhearing. Diverse worlds and hostile philosophies faced each other over\nthe roast, and the sauce no doubt was well spiced. Dr. Nathaniel had\na pretty gift himself in the way of pungent speech, and Fisher\u2019s wit\nwas the admiration of all New England. When Gouverneur Morris--reputed\nthe greatest wit in America--visited Massachusetts, Fisher Ames was\npitted against him, and Boston believed that the honor of the Bay\nState was worthily upheld. His pet hobby was the inherent tyranny of\nall democracies, and when he once got astride his wooden horse and dug\nin the spurs, the onset was tremendous. The letters that have come\ndown to us are a gold mine of picturesque vituperation, from which\none may dig a wallet of choice nuggets. The vivacity of his anathemas\nis delightful, and one would give much to have heard Dr. Nathaniel\u2019s\nretort militant.\n\nThere are the solidest grounds for regarding Fisher Ames as the\nrepresentative citizen of Boston in the year 1800. He was the cleverest\nand most intelligent spokesman of a social and political circle quite\nuntouched by the new French liberalisms, content with the habitual and\nfamiliar, and mightily concerned that the future should be as like\nthe past as one generation of oysters is like another. A lawyer who\nshared the strong property consciousness of the Boston merchant, and a\nchurchman who accepted the moral leadership of the Calvinist clergy, he\noffered stout and uncompromising resistance to innovation. \u201cA change,\nthough for the better, is always to be deplored by the generation in\nwhich it is effected,\u201d he said. \u201cMuch is lost and more is hazarded\u201d\n(_Works_, p. 15, edition of 1809). The new gospel of progress that came\nin with French romanticisms, he would have none of. In the face of a\nnoisy Jacobinism that threatened to carry all before it, he fought a\nspirited fight, turning pamphleteer when his broken health removed him\nfrom Congress, counseling and scolding his fellow Federalists with his\nlast breath. Others might truckle and compromise, but not Fisher Ames.\nHis faith was founded on the solid granite of Yankee prejudice.\n\nThe very solidity of that prejudice made him the trenchant spokesman\nof the older Boston conservatisms--that and the vivacity of his prose\nstyle which is approved Augustan, uncorrupted by what he dubbed\n\u201cpompous Johnsonian affectation.\u201d His contemporary reputation was\nenormous. Accounted a great orator, he was accounted an even greater\npolitical philosopher, and his pamphlets were appraised by President\nKirkland of Harvard as \u201cthe light of genius and wisdom darted athwart\nthe gloom of our political chaos.\u201d \u201cIn the character of Mr. Ames,\u201d\nsaid the Harvard president, \u201cthe circle of the virtues seemed to be\ncomplete, and each virtue in its proper place\u201d (_Works_, Introduction,\np. xxviii). Yet in spite of so authoritative a pronouncement, Fisher\nAmes does not seem today so great a man as he seemed to his own\ngeneration. From the data collected in a stout volume published soon\nafter his death as \u201ca voice of instruction and warning to his country,\u201d\nand from the letters published by his son in 1854, it is plain enough\nthat this \u201cpowerful and original genius\u201d was a retailer of somewhat\nshopworn goods, a complete Federalist Tory after the current Boston\nfashion. To Fisher Ames Federalism, as understood in New England, was a\nreligion. He defended it with the ardor of the moralist, convinced that\nit included all the political virtues, and that whoever rejected it was\na child of the devil. Whenever he considered the unpromising state of\nthe country--which luxury he often indulged--whether in the midst of\nShays\u2019s Rebellion or of the Jeffersonian revolution, he fell into black\npessimism. He grew hot from fires of his own kindling, and the gloomier\nhe became the more vigorously he blew the bellows.\n\nTo the sinful publican self-conscious virtue is peculiarly irritating,\nand since Fisher Ames accounted most of his generation political\npublicans, he was at odds with all but a scant remnant of Federalist\nsaints. From this isolation, from the defeat that overwhelmed his party\nin the great election of 1800, and from aggravating ill health, which\nbeginning when he was thirty-seven incapacitated him three years later\nfor public life, he fell into a state of chronic political despondency\nthat extracted a grim pleasure from the contemplation of democratic\nfollies and the anarchy towards which the country was hastening. During\nhis last years his wit became acid; his letters are filled with caustic\ncomment to sharpen the temper of those on the fighting line. Of these\nracy comments, so characteristic of Federalist spleen, a few examples\nmust serve to convey the spirit: \u201cOur country is too big for union,\ntoo sordid for patriotism, too democratic for liberty.\u201d \u201cWe are in the\nhands of the philosophers of Lilliput.\u201d \u201cI have as loyal and respectful\nan opinion as possible of the sincerity in folly of our rulers.\u201d \u201cAs\nto liberty, we are to have none--democracy will kindle its own hell,\nand consume in it.\u201d \u201cDemocracy is a troubled spirit, fated never to\nrest, and whose dreams, if it sleeps, present only visions of hell.\u201d In\nhis last years Fisher Ames had become a shrill Jeremiah crying in the\ngates of an Israel that mocked the old prophets.\n\nHis political philosophy was simple, yet so native to Calvinist-Yankee\nNew England, and historically so characteristic, that it provides\na useful candle to throw light into the old New England garrets.\nIn certain aspects it is close kin to the Whiggery of Locke and\nPitt, particularly in its concern for the sacred right of property\nrule--a principle that he casually recognizes in his frequent\nassertion that \u201cthe mass of the federalists are the owners of the\ncommercial and monied wealth of the nation\u201d (_Works_, p. 426).\nBut in post-Revolutionary Boston, suffering from the acute fright\ninflicted by Daniel Shays, this English Whiggery had come to assume\na particular native form that differentiated it from its original.\nIn the primitive Calvinist-Yankee world political theory had been\nshaped by the theocratic conception of stewardship, by which was\nmeant an authoritative leadership reposing in the best and wisest,\nyet subject to the will of God as revealed in the Bible. Minister\nand magistrate, therefore, professed to justify their acts, not by\nexpediency or interest, but by absolute ethical standards. From this\nearly practice developed the pronounced ethical temper of New England\npolitical thought that set it apart from the Virginia school, a temper\nthat persisted after the transfer of authority from Puritan minister\nand magistrate to Tory merchant and lawyer. With the growth of the\naristocratic spirit in the middle eighteenth century, the squirearchy\nassumed unchallenged political leadership, and it was from the remnant\nof the old gentry remaining after the expulsion of the Loyalists,\nstrengthened by a new generation of merchants and lawyers, that Boston\nFederalism drew its personnel. It professed republicanism, but it was\ninstinctively aristocratic. It was true to its Puritan origins in\nexpounding its political philosophy in terms of an absolute morality,\nand true to its aristocratic origins in assuming to be the special\ncustodians of law and order. It no more questioned its special right\nto rulership in the state than it questioned its social position; and\nin both politics and society it professed the ancient doctrine of\nstewardship.\n\nThe kinship between the political philosophy of Fisher Ames and John\nAdams is quite evident. They are cut out of the same Puritan-Yankee\ncloth, but the former is a more careless tailor. Founded on less\nadequate analysis and lacking the wide historical appeal of Adams,\nassuming rather than proving the fact of a universal property\naristocracy, and the economic origins of political power, the\nphilosophy of Ames postulates the same ideal of justice as the end of\ngovernment, discovers in faction the dragon to be slain, and concludes\nthat only a static division of powers can insure political stability.\nNevertheless the difference between the two men is enormous. John Adams\nwas a philosopher, and Fisher Ames was only a lawyer-politician. The\nideal of justice which the former postulated was fundamentally noble,\nwhereas the ideal of justice which the latter assumed was narrowly\nlegal. Both accepted the Puritan doctrine of human wickedness--a\ndoctrine derived from medieval Toryism--and from it deduced the\nnecessity of a coercive sovereignty; but Fisher Ames went further and\nassumed that the Puritan doctrine of the elect and the Yankee doctrine\nof the successful were one and the same, and that God\u2019s remnant in\nIsrael was no other than the prosperous merchants and lawyers of\nBoston. All the great multitude of the unprosperous, by the same\ndoctrine, were the mass of the unregenerate, condemned for the good of\nsociety to be ruled by a rod of iron.\n\nThe noble doctrine of justice, therefore, became for Fisher Ames\nlittle more than the divine right of the minority to coerce the\nmajority, in the name and through the agency of laws and statutes. In\nhis view justice was little more than a drab realist in a lawyer\u2019s\nwig, adjudicating title deeds, and delivering its findings out of law\nbooks. Its one concern was to safeguard what had been got, rather than\nto secure just and equal rights. It dreaded all rude and tumultuary\ninnovation, and would tolerate no change that was not implicit in\nlegal principles. Its golden rule was due process of law. Love of\none\u2019s neighbors was, no doubt, an excellent private virtue, but it was\nimpractical, if not immoral, in the state. Concern for the improvident\nsinners must not influence government to impair the rights of the\nthrifty saints; for government was instituted and exists to safeguard\nestablished things. \u201cThe chief duty and care of all governments,\u201d he\nargued, \u201cis to protect the rights of property and the tranquillity of\nsociety\u201d (_Works_, p. 125). Hence to Fisher Ames government was the\ncommon policeman and judge, whose function was to arrest the turbulent\nand bring them to the bar of the Common Law. Its beginning and end\nwas the Tory principle of coercion. Its sovereignty was arrogant\nand domineering, taking no account of the democratic principle of\ngood will. \u201cThe motives to refuse obedience to government are many\nand strong,\u201d he explained; \u201cimpunity will multiply and enforce them.\nMany men would rebel, rather than be ruined; but they would rather\nnot rebel, than be hanged\u201d (_Works_, \u201cLucius Junius Brutus\u201d). With\ngovernment thus conceived of, naturally he desired that it should be\nstrong; that it should impose its will ruthlessly upon the rebellious.\nNaturally also he regarded every idealist, the Rousseaus and Paines and\nJeffersons--all the mischievous hosts of \u201cdemocratick babblers\u201d--as\na dangerous enemy of law and order, desperately bent on overturning\nthe rights of vested interests and the tranquillity of society. This\nis sufficient to explain the vindictiveness of his assault upon Shays\nand his followers, as \u201cbankrupts and sots, who have gambled or slept\naway their estates\u201d--while in the Revolutionary army--and were now\nengaged in the business of treason against the commonwealth, and the\ncharacteristic conclusion that he draws--\u201cthe certainty of punishment\nis the truest security against crimes\u201d (_Works_, \u201cLucius Junius\nBrutus,\u201d p. 3). To Fisher Ames and Daniel Shays, justice seems to have\nhad very different aspects.\n\nTo the uncritical there is a certain persuasive dignity in the\nphilosophy of Boston Federalism. Gentlemen like Fisher Ames were\ncareful to appear well in public; they liked to be regarded as\nfaithful stewards of the common weal. Concern for the _res publica_\nthey professed so heartily that it seems ungracious to question their\nmotives. How excellently they could make out a case for themselves will\nappear from the following exposition of Fisher Ames\u2019 philosophy, as it\nwas understood by a Harvard president:\n\n Mr. Ames was emphatically a republican. He saw that many persons\n confounded a republick with a democracy. He considered them as\n essentially distinct and really opposite. According to his creed,\n a republick is that structure of an elective government, in\n which the administration necessarily prescribe to themselves the\n general good as the object of all their measures; a democracy is\n that, in which the present popular passions, independent of the\n publick good, become a guide to the rulers. In the first, the\n reason and interests of the society govern; in the second, their\n prejudices and passions. The frame of the American constitution\n supposes the dangers of democracy.... [The constitutional checks]\n are contrivances and devices voluntarily adopted by the people\n to restrain themselves from obstructing, by their own mistakes\n or perversity, the attainment of the publick welfare. They are\n professed means of insuring to the nation rulers, who will prefer\n the durable good of the whole to the transient advantage of the\n whole or a part. When these provisions become ineffectual, and\n the legislator, the executive magistrate, and the judge become\n the instruments of the passions of a people, or of the governing\n majority, the government, whatever may be its form, is a democracy,\n and the public liberty is no longer safe. True republican rulers\n are bound to act, not simply as those who appoint them _would_,\n but, as they _ought_; democratick leaders will act in subordination\n to those very passions which it is the object of government to\n control.... Then it is, that men, not laws, govern. (_Works_,\n Introduction, pp. xxiv-xxv.)\n\n\u201cThe durable good of the whole\u201d is an excellent phrase; but when the\nskeptical critic asks for more exact plans and specifications, the only\nanswer is a request for a vote of confidence. The representative is\npresumed to be wiser and more patriotic than his constituents--quite\nabove passion or interest--and may safely be intrusted with \u201cthe\npublick good.\u201d \u201cThe love of country,\u201d Fisher Ames was fond of\ninsisting, \u201cis the morality of politics,\u201d and the Federal Constitution\nhe believed to be so happily balanced that partisan selfishness must\ntransmute itself into patriotism. But when we dismiss these amiable\ngeneralities--which reveal to what straits gentlemen were reduced in\ntheir contest with democracy--and examine the political principles that\nlie behind them, they do not appear so amiable. They imply as necessary\ncorollaries a continuous aggrandizement of the political state, the\nprinciple of coercion, and the psychology of fear. It is no other than\nthe old Tory arrogance, new-modeled to suit republican taste. Fisher\nAmes seems to have had no faith in the principle of good will or the\nexpediency of compromise; his contempt for the opposition was as frank\nas Hamilton\u2019s.\n\n Government does not subsist by making proselytes to sound reasons\n or by compromise and arbitration with its members; but by the power\n of the community compelling the obedience of individuals. If that\n is not done, who will seek its protection, or fear its vengeance.\n (\u201cLucius Junius Brutus,\u201d _Works_, p. 5.)\n\n For let it be remarked, that a feeble government produces more\n factions than an oppressive one; the want of power first makes\n individuals legislators, and then rebels. Where parents want\n authority, children are wanting in duty. It is not possible to\n advance further in the same path; the one will conduct us first\n to anarchy, and next to foreign or domestick tyranny; the other,\n by the wise and vigorous exertion of lawful authority, will lead\n to permanent power, and general prosperity. I am no advocate for\n despotism; but I believe the probability to be much less of its\n being introduced by the corruption of our rulers, than by the\n delusion of the people. (\u201cCamillus,\u201d _Works_, p. 17.)\n\nA weak, government, Ames argues insistently, is no other than a\nhotbed of faction, and faction is the fruitful mother of democratic\nanarchy. Again and again he returns to an exposition of the familiar\neighteenth-century dogma that found its classic exposition in the\ntenth number of _The Federalist_; and his argument takes on darker\ncolors from the Calvinist background of his mind. To those who have\nbeen reared on the sour doctrines of reprobation and election, the\nchildren of Adam become a major political concern. If God has cast\noff and denied the mass of the unregenerate, how shall the political\nphilosopher hope to redeem them? If divine wisdom has granted them no\npart in the congregation of the righteous, what rights have they in\nthe republic of the patriotic? To Fisher Ames town and village and\nfarm showed plentiful examples of those whom the devil had marked for\nhis own, and if they were gathered into a numerical democracy with the\nsaints, how should the minority of the latter safeguard the Ark of\nthe Sanctuary? How should the durable good of the whole be provided\nfor? Thrift and godliness were not exactly synonymous terms to the\nCalvinist-Yankee, but it was clear that the godly will practice thrift,\nand those who have thriven, have _ipso facto_ made out a case for their\ngodliness. In this uncertain world two things seemed reasonably clear:\nthat the poor are in a more doubtful state than the rich; and that in\na moral world only the elect may be expected to serve the cause of\nmorality. The wicked incline to democratic faction, but the prosperous\nserve the durable good of the whole.\n\nTo one cradled in such prejudices, the current phrase, \u201cgentlemen of\nprinciple and property\u201d--a phrase that provides the chorus to his\nthought--lacked the savor of cynicism that it suggests to modern ears.\nIt was compounded of the ideals of Puritan and Yankee, and Fisher Ames\nseems never to have questioned its adequacy, or doubted its finality.\nTo gentlemen of principle and property he looked to provide a bulwark\nagainst the immoral multitude; they were the stewards of society, on\nwhom devolved the duty of protecting the whole from democratic faction.\nThey had erected the Federal Constitution, which Jacobins were seeking\nto destroy; and in defense of that Constitution he brought forth his\nheaviest artillery. He contributed nothing new to the discussion; but\nhe repeated the familiar arguments with the gusto of a dogmatist.\n\u201cSimple governments,\u201d he asserted, \u201care despotisms; and of all\ndespotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent\u201d\n(_Works_, \u201cAmerican Liberty,\u201d p. 382). The mortal weakness of all\ndemocracies he discovered in their immorality. A democracy will make\nevery people \u201cthoroughly licentious and corrupt.\u201d \u201cThe known propensity\nof a democracy is to licentiousness, which the ambitious call, and the\nignorant believe to be liberty.\u201d\n\n The great object, then, of political wisdom in framing our\n constitution, was to guard against licentiousness, that inbred\n malady of democracies, that deforms their infancy with grey hairs\n and decrepitude. (_Ibid._, p. 384.)\n\n There is universally a presumption in democracy that promises\n everything; and at the same time an imbecility that can accomplish\n nothing, not even preserve itself. (_Works_, \u201cFalkland,\u201d p. 151.)\n\n\u201cPolitics should have no passions,\u201d this caustic old Federalist\nprofessed to believe, yet his bitterness against the Jeffersonians who\nthreatened to overturn the funding law, the national bank, the midnight\njudicial appointments, and other measures of the best Federalist minds,\nwas almost unseemly. It would appear that \u201cthe durable good of the\nwhole\u201d flew out at the window, when danger to commercial interests came\nin at the door. To erect a strong government and then lose control of\nit was a disaster indeed. With the political state in the hands of\natheistic democrats, Fisher Ames was prepared to welcome the coming of\nanarchy, and his pessimism throve on the prospect. But that no warning\nmight be lacking he laid down the whole theory of government in plain\nterms, that even Jefferson might understand:\n\n But the essence, and almost the quintessence, of good government\n is, to protect property and its rights. When these are protected,\n there is scarcely any booty left for oppression to seize; the\n objects and the motives to usurpation and tyranny are removed. By\n securing property, life and liberty can scarcely fail of being\n secured: where property is safe by rules and principles, there is\n liberty. (_Works_, \u201cPhocion,\u201d p. 181.)\n\nThis is pure Federalism, stripped of all cant, speaking out frankly.\nIt is the philosophy of John Locke brought in to serve the rising\ncapitalism of New England, threatened by a Physiocratic agrarianism.\nThe dogma of political morality has yielded to economic realism. The\nstake-in-society principle is the reply of the Puritan-Yankee to the\ndemocratic romanticism of Jefferson and Madison--a principle which,\nfortunately, \u201cthese apostles from the race-ground and the cock-pit\u201d\npaid little heed to.\n\nTo a sophisticated generation, long familiar with the political ways of\ngentlemen of principle and property, Fisher Ames appears as a caustic\nlittle gentleman, vivacious and intolerant, who nodded his tie-wig\ndogmatically, and spoke his opinions oracularly. He quite evidently\nrelished his ample store of old-fashioned prejudices, cherished them\ncarefully, and prided himself on the wit with which he set them forth.\nIf he was not the repository of all political wisdom that he believed\nhimself to be, he was at least no demagogue, and in honoring him the\nBoston of the year 1800 was but painting its own portrait. It would be\nungracious, perhaps, to add that Fisher Ames and Boston Federalism,\ndefeated in their cherished projects, were both suffering from an\nextraordinarily aggravated case of the political spleen.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Robert Treat Paine, Jr. \u2022 Wit\n\nYoung Tom Paine, who took his brother\u2019s and his father\u2019s name--partly\nbecause a certain other Tom Paine had achieved a fame that Boston did\nnot regard as enviable--shared with Fisher Ames the literary renown\nof the New England capital, a renown so great that Boston paid him\nquite astonishing sums for such couplets as his indolence suffered him\nto turn off. The popularity of his wares was a notable instance of\nthe working of the law of supply and demand. The patriotism of Boston\npreferred domestic to imported goods, and he offered his verses to a\npublic not very critical of quality. Boston had never had a poet of her\nown, while Connecticut with her Hartford Wits was the envy of all New\nEngland. Certain poetesses to be sure, had tried with \u201challowed hands\u201d\nto \u201cattune Columbia\u2019s lyre\u201d--to quote Paine\u2019s eulogy of Mrs. Sarah\nWentworth Morton, \u201cblest Philenia, noblest of the choir\u201d (_Works_,\n\u201cMenander to Philenia,\u201d p. 129)--but their sentimentality was a bit\ncloying, and when genius appeared in the person of a Harvard graduate,\ngraced with wit and adorned with all the learning of the schools,\nBoston was quick to acclaim him as her own.\n\nThe young man thus seized upon, and as it were raped by fame, was\nthe last of the eighteenth-century wits, the most dashing product of\na generation that patched its verse with tags of the classics and\ncalled it lisping in numbers. In temper and manners he belonged wholly\nto the tie-wig school that swaggered till the War of 1812 and then\nbecame obsolete overnight. As a young man about town he displayed\nthe latest London clothes and set himself up as the very glass of\nfashion. Although he wore his own hair, he clung to smallclothes and\nlike an honest Federalist refused to adopt Jacobin trousers. He was\nindisputably clever and he cultivated a pretty wit as assiduously\nas any Augustan. He talked in epigrams, and a convivial evening--of\nwhich he was quite too fond for his own good--was a failure that did\nnot produce a _bon mot_ to run through the town. His biographer has\npreserved a number of such for the amusement of posterity, and one\nat least deserves to be remembered by our younger critics. When the\nprohibition against the theater was repealed in 1793, he remarked, \u201cThe\nVandal spirit of puritanism is prostrate in New-England.\u201d In cleaving\nto wit and abandoning Puritanism, Paine broke with sober Boston\nconvention, and soon all respectable folk began to shake their heads.\nA thriftless fellow, he played with the devil openly in the eyes of\nall Boston. He drank too much, he gambled, he haunted the theater and\nwas a favorite of the greenroom, he became the first dramatic critic\nborn and bred in New England, and when he married the daughter of an\nEnglish actor, his father disowned him. Quite naturally he came to\npoverty, dissipated his strength, suffered many a humiliation, and died\nat the age of thirty-seven, leaving his widow and young children to be\nprovided for by a public benefit at his beloved Federal Street theater.\n\nLittle of his wit, unfortunately, found its way into his verse, which,\nmodeled ostensibly on Dryden and Pope, lacks their vigorous common\nsense, and laboring to be sublime succeeds in being heavy. His couplets\nswell sonorously, but his thought does not keep pace with his rhetoric.\nHe follows his recipe carefully; adjectives duly support the nouns;\nthe caesuras are justly spaced and the balance of the parts is as nice\nas if weighed in an apothecary\u2019s scales. He seasons the whole with\nthe staples of personification and poetic diction; everything has\nbeen provided for, and yet the cake is fallen that he takes from the\noven. Something is lacking to lighten the sodden mass. A contemporary\ncritic, viewing the finished product, expressed his judgment thus:\n\n Of Mr. Paine, as an author, we cannot speak in terms of unmingled\n praise. His verse, indeed, seldom loiters into prose; but it\n must be confessed, that his prose is here and there \u201ctricked and\n frounced, till it outmantles all the pride of verse.\u201d His numbers\n are, perhaps, never feeble or faultering, but a wild and frolic\n imagination, occasionally, wantons through his periods, and\n sometimes displays itself in contemning the chaster elegancies,\n and sometimes in neglecting the severer decencies of thought and\n diction. (_Works_, Introduction, p. lxxviii.)\n\nIt is certainly a partial eye that discovers a wild and frolic\nimagination in these lumbering imitations of Pope, or in the occasional\nexcursions into the languorous fields of Della Cruscan sentiment.\nWhen Paine ceases to be a wit he becomes an offense. To his admiring\ncontemporaries his poetry seemed to be pure metal, but to later\ngenerations it is only plate, with the brass showing through the worn\nspots. _The Ruling Passion_, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa\nSociety in 1797, is perhaps the first poem of Paine\u2019s that is much more\nthan vacuous and turgid rhetoric; and this is redeemed, in spite of\nliberal helpings from Pope, by a certain vivacity of satire, phrased\nwith Augustan smartness. Such couplets as these still preserve a jaunty\nliterary swagger for later ears; how they tickled the more susceptible\nears of our grandfathers must be imagined:\n\n Where you send genius, send a fortune too;\n Dunces by instinct thrive, as oysters woo!\n For ne\u2019er were veins of ore by chymist found,\n Except, like Hebrew roots, in barren ground!\n\nPaine early grew old, and before he had reached his thirties his mind\nhad taken a rigid conservative bent. His affections were fixed upon a\npast that was visibly falling into decay, and its ways were endeared\nto him in the measure that they decayed. It was a matter of personal\npride with him to embody in his own manners the aristocratic bearing of\npre-Revolutionary times.\n\n Mr. Paine [says his biographer] attached great consequence to\n _manners_.... He was modelled upon the _old school_. Without being\n familiar, he was easy among friends, and courtly to strangers.\n In colloquial discussions, he rigidly adhered to the law of\n politeness; and in mixed society, he neither courted the _high_,\n nor avoided the _low_.... He frequently deplored a supposed decay\n of _manners_. With concern, he used to inquire \u201c_In manners,\n where is the successor of Gen. Knox to be found?_\u201d It was with\n him a constant topick of complaint, that \u201c_The old, genteel, town\n families, had been elbowed out of house and home, by newcomers_;\u201d\n that \u201c_instead of the polished manners of a city, we should soon\n exhibit that growth of gentility, which is produced by ingrafting\n dollars upon village habits and low employments_.\u201d (_Works_,\n Introduction, p. lxix.)\n\nAffecting an aristocratic bearing, Paine was as complete a Tory as\nthe republican environment permitted. If he despised the new, pushing\nmiddle class that had risen since the Revolution, he held in contempt\nthe numerous company of those he dubbed the yokel, the peasant, the\nhind, or the plow-tail. Under the circumstances the best that he\ncould do politically was to turn Federalist, and he embraced the\nprinciples of Fisher Ames with genteel conviction. \u201cIn politics,\u201d\nsays his biographer, \u201cMr. Paine was a disciple of the old federal\nschool. He understood the constitution, as Washington administered,\nand as Hamilton had expounded it\u201d (_ibid._, p. lxxvii). During his\nundergraduate days he had dabbled in French revolutionary philosophy,\nand \u201cthe fanatic Atheism of France, decorated in all the meretricious\ncharms of eloquence and philosophy, took a transient possession of his\nmind\u201d (_ibid._, p. lxxviii). At graduation in 1792, he read a poem\nentitled _The Nature and Progress of Liberty_, in which he eulogized\n\u201cliberal thought,\u201d proposed to follow \u201cReason,\u201d declared that \u201cthe\nrights of man\u201d are a gift from heaven, proffered the hand of fellowship\nto France--\n\n May struggling France her ancient freedom gain,\n May Europe\u2019s sword oppose her rights in vain--\n\nand launched a devastating couplet at the great English opponent of the\nRevolution--\n\n The fame of Burke, in dark oblivion rust,\n His pen a meteor--and his page the dust.\n\nThree years later, on proceeding Master of Arts, he presented a poem in\nvery different vein. Three years were a generation in those stirring\ntimes, and by 1795 the penetrating vision of this genius of twenty-two\nhad discovered the atheist poison in the cup of French democracy. _The\nInvention of Letters_ rises to a climax in a satirical elaboration\nof a line from the poem of 1792--\u201cLicentious morals breed disease of\nstate.\u201d Having learned his lesson from Fisher Ames, the sapient young\nFederalist announces that democracy is the mother of faction, and\nfaction leads on to anarchy. In this poem for the first time Paine\u2019s\nwit runs freely, and certain lines are as jaunty as he ever penned.\n\n For place or power, while demagogues contend,\n Whirled in their vortex, sinks each humbler friend.\n See Crispin quit his stall, in Faction\u2019s cause,\n To cobble government, and soal the laws!\n See Frisseur scent his dust, his razor set,\n To shave the treaty, or to puff Genet!\n In doubtful mood, see Mulciber debate,\n To mend a horse-shoe, or to weld the state!\n The whip\u2019s bold knight, in barn, his truck is laid,\n To spout in favour of the carrying trade!\n While Staytape runs, from hissing goose, too hot,\n To measure Congress for another coat;\n And still, by rule of shop, intent on pelf,\n Eyes the spare cloth, to cabbage for himself!\n\n Envy, that fiend, who haunts the great and good,\n Not Cato shunned, nor Hercules subdued.\n On Fame\u2019s wide field, where\u2019er a covert lies,\n The rustling serpent to the thicket flies;\n The foe of Glory, Merit is her prey;\n The dunce she leaves, to plod his drowsy way.\n Of birth amphibious, and of Protean skill,\n This green-eyed monster changes shape at will;\n Like snakes of smaller breed, she sheds her skin;\n Strips off the serpent, and turns--Jacobin.\n\nIn view of the fact that Governor Samuel Adams, chief of the New\nEngland Jacobins, was to occupy the stage, President Willard had\ndiplomatically struck from the manuscript the ten lines last quoted;\nbut Paine had the audacity to re-insert them in speaking, and the\ntumultuous applause was sufficient proof that it was not from a Harvard\naudience that Sam Adams got the votes that annually returned him\ngovernor.\n\nVerse imposed some slight restraint on Paine\u2019s rhetoric, but in prose\nwhen he was in full career--as in the grotesque eulogy of Washington\nwhich stirred the patriotism of Boston Federalists--the reins are\non the neck of his eloquence, and he takes all barriers with fiery\nabandon. Fact troubles his wild and frolic imagination not at all, but\nlike any plebeian demagogue--whose factional appeals he so furiously\ncondemned--he blew the bellows of Federalist partisanship with\nextraordinary vigor, stoking his fire with rumor and misrepresentation\nand party spleen. No slander was too gross, no lie too palpable to\nserve his end. He baited the democrats quite shamelessly, and aroused\nthe mob of Boston gentlemen like a true Tory. One of his political\norations has been preserved by his editor in the collected edition of\nhis works, for the enlightenment of posterity--an oration delivered\nin 1799, \u201cat the request of the young men of Boston,\u201d on the theme of\nFrance and democracy. In this extraordinary composition Paine seems\nto have been quite ravished by his own rhetoric, that flashes in many\na feint and parry before it impales its victim. It is a Federalist\nphilippic, designed to destroy the good name of all who have quitted\nthe sacred Federalist tribe. Words could hardly go further; disregard\nfor truth could scarcely be more brazen. Paine\u2019s delight in clever\nantitheses overweighs any scruples in regard to just statement. \u201cThe\nFrench Republick,\u201d he asserted, \u201chas exhibited all the vices of\ncivilization, without one of the virtues of barbarism.\u201d One or two bits\nfrom this tremendous oration, that in \u201cthe glow of feeling, the swell\nof language, and the brilliancy of sentiments\u201d has \u201cvery seldom been\nsurpassed,\u201d and that was \u201creceived with rapturous and enthusiastic\napplause,\u201d must suffice to illustrate the justice of the Federalist\nclaim to the custodianship of political good manners. \u201cPolitics should\nhave no passions,\u201d Fisher Ames asserted--which excellent principle\nyoung Robert Treat Paine exemplified thus:\n\n Political Empiricism has never attained, in any age or nation, so\n universal an ascendency, as at the present day in the \u201cIlluminated\n Republick.\u201d Unfettered by the fear of innovation, and unshackled by\n the prejudice of ages, the modern Frenchman is educated in a system\n of moral and religious chimeras, which dazzle by their novelty\n those volatile intellects, which prescriptive wisdom could never\n impress with veneration. Every Frenchman, who has read a little is\n a pedant; and the whole race of these horn-book Philosophers is\n content with the atheism of Mirabeau ... the absurd philanthropy of\n Condorcet, and the visionary politics of Rousseau. These are the\n boundaries of their literary ambition, of their political science.\n Hence it is, that they pretend to be too enlightened for belief,\n too virtuous for government.\n\n The feculence of party is not yet drained of its rankest sediment.\n The worshippers of democracy, though their altars are thrown down,\n are not yet converted from their devotions. The frozen snake has\n still some sparks of animation; and, if placed by compassion near\n your hospitable fires, he will revive with exasperated venom, and\n sting the hardy fool that fostered him. Deal therefore with these\n ferocious demoralizers, as our crafty mariners trade with the\n savages of the Indian ocean--with your men at their posts, your\n guns loaded, and your slow matches burning. (_Works_, p. 319.)\n\nFor all democrats Paine had the hearty contempt of an honest man for\na rogue, but for the intellectuals who expounded the new romantic\nphilosophy his indignation was measureless. \u201cThe legitimate plebeian\ndemocrat,\u201d he asserted, is \u201can enemy to all government, under which\nhe holds no office\u201d; but fling him a bone from the public table and\n\u201che becomes the very scavenger of administration.\u201d The \u201cIlluminated\nJacobin,\u201d on the other hand, \u201cnever changes his principles.\u201d\n\n His whole science is directed to unhinge society, his whole\n ambition to plunder it. He is too ravenous to be content with a\n system of order himself; and too selfish to permit its enjoyment\n by others. Like a hog in a flower-garden, he sets no value on the\n variegated foliage he destroys, and seems only desirous to root out\n every twig of vegetation, that can satiate his voracity. (_Ibid._,\n p. 321.)\n\nTo such fustian was he reduced when his wit left him. That a\ngentleman could talk like that, and other gentlemen applaud, is a\nsad commentary on the intellectual honesty of partisanship, even\namongst decent Federalists. Fustian was the order of the day, and\nPaine was merely baying with his pack. If only he had not professed\nsuch virtues his extravagance might be forgiven; but extravagance\nill becomes a distinguished repository of political wisdom. Once,\nindeed, his vivacity got him into a nasty mess. While editor of _The\nFederal Orrery_, he accepted in 1795 a political poem entitled _The\nJacobiniad_, the satire of which Paine \u201cnew-pointed and new-edged\u201d\nbefore printing. The democrats, at whom it was directed, were vastly\nincensed, and a mob gathered before his lodging but was dispersed.\nLater the son of one of the victims challenged him to a duel. Paine\ndeclined but armed himself with an unloaded pistol. Accidentally\nmeeting his challenger in the street, he drew his weapon, but the\nyoung fellow, standing in no awe of a favorite of the muses, struck\nthe pistol down and proceeded to give Paine a sound drubbing. To such\nbase treatment may genius come, when wit forgets that a sally of the\ntongue may invite a counter sally of the fists. And so we leave him in\nthe dust of the street, ignobly laid low by the strength of that vulgar\ndemocracy which was to bring down so many things held dear by Boston\nTories. His was, very largely, a wasted life--wasted by sheer indolence\nand feeble will. He was a fellow of some parts, and a sentence from one\nof his dramatic criticisms may not inaptly apply to him: \u201cThe character\nis not a sot, but his humor has a mellower tilth for having been\nhusbanded and manured by \u2018the excellent endeavor of drinking.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Winds of Political Doctrine\n\n\nI\n\nInto the complacent little Boston of Fisher Ames and Robert Treat Paine\ncame the Embargo, the War of 1812, and the industrial revolution to\nupset its static order and destroy its snug provincialism. The old\nFederalism with its Hartford Convention and plans for New England\nsecession went the way of mortality, carrying with it to the grave the\nold pessimism and the old spleen. The jealous isolationist policy was\nquietly forgotten in Boston; the gospel of secession was preached no\nmore; George Cabot and Timothy Pickering gave way to other leaders; and\nprovincial Boston joined with Kentucky and Tennessee in extolling a\nromantic nationalism. It sent to Washington a new spokesman, who joined\nwith Henry Clay in a paternalistic program of national expansion, and\ntook command of the forces combating the rising separatism of the South\nCarolina school. By the year 1830 Boston had traveled far from the\ntimes of the Hartford Convention.\n\nThe sufficient explanation of so striking a change is to be found,\nof course, in the changing economics of Massachusetts. The Embargo\nhad proved a major disaster to New England shipping; and the Boston\nmerchants, counting their losses from idle and dismasted ships,\nwater-logging at the wharves, found just cause for hating the policy of\nthe administration. But if the shipping business was brought face to\nface with tragedy, the manufacturing interests stumbled upon unexpected\nprosperity. With British imports cut off, the home market offered a\ntempting opportunity to Yankee enterprise. The familiar story of the\nswift rise of New England industrialism need not be recounted here. It\nis enough to remark that with the growth of domestic manufactures a\nnew group of economic leaders appeared, and the policy of New England\nshifted from pro-mercantilism to pro-industrialism. It was a difficult\nchoice at first between the antagonistic claims of the Boston merchant\nand the Lowell manufacturer; between the carriers of foreign goods who\ndemanded free trade, and the makers of domestic goods who demanded a\nprotective tariff. The traditional view of New England was strongly\nfor free trade. In 1807 a Federalist lawyer asserted it to be \u201can\nunalienable right,\u201d and in 1820 Judge Story asked, \u201cWhy should the\nlaboring classes be taxed for the necessaries of life?\u201d[433] The tariff\nbill of 1824 got only one vote from Massachusetts; but in the four\nyears between the passage of that act and the \u201cTariff of Abominations\u201d\nof 1828, Massachusetts went over definitely to industrialism.\nThenceforth she was to be the leader in the movement looking to\ngovernmental paternalism, substituting the expansive Federalism of\nHamilton for the restrictive Federalism of Fisher Ames, and becoming in\nconsequence whole-heartedly nationalistic.\n\nEqually significant, though less observed, was the changed attitude of\nMassachusetts towards the great republican experiment. Gone was the\nolder generation, with its face turned to the past and its heart bound\nup with the patriarchal ideals of a decadent squirearchy. Gone also\nwere the disturbant fears of democracy. The menace of Daniel Shays,\nthat had put the old Federalists in a rage at democracy, was long since\nforgotten; and the nervous panic over French Jacobinism, that had\nupset New England for a decade, had subsided. In the light of longer\nexperience with its ways democracy was seen to be far from terrifying.\nThe hobgoblin of faction that had benightmared the dreams of Fisher\nAmes was discovered to be only a bogey to frighten naughty boys.\nMassachusetts had kept off the agrarian reef, despite war and economic\nunrest, and with her new constitution of 1820 property interests\nwere as secure as any old Federalist could have wished. Gentlemen of\nprinciple and property were still in control of the state; and if less\nemphasis was laid on principle and more on property--if less regard\nseemed to be paid to gentlemen of breeding and manners, and more to\nassertive self-seeking--business was no less secure than in the good\nold days, and its profits were greater. And so, master of its looms and\na growing home market, New England industrialism regarded genially the\ngreat western movement, fostered by a benevolent paternalism, confident\nof extending its markets with every mile of westward expansion. To\nencourage the development of the West and South by a Federal policy\nof internal improvement became, therefore, common business foresight,\nprovided of course that the Constitution should follow population and\nsafeguard business interests against local agrarianism and the menace\nof particularism.\n\nBy the year 1830 both dangers lay black against the political horizon.\nThe triumph of Jackson had enthroned the agrarian menace at Washington\nand produced such a scrambling of frightened interests--such a rattling\namong the old bones of Federalism and scurrying among the young limbs\nof industrialism--as the country had not seen for many a year. Henry\nClay appealed to his followers in the West, and Webster marshaled his\nadherents of the East, and from the coalescing of these incongruous\nelements emerged the Whig party to do battle with Old Hickory. It was\na patchwork army at best. In the hour of peril, principles go by the\nboard. The Whig party was lineal heir of the old Federalism, but it\ndenied its philosophical patrimony. It substituted expediency for the\nold economic realism, and began and ended intellectually bankrupt. Its\nbitter and unseemly squabbles over the Bank and tariff, its platitudes\nof patriotism and its pose of disinterestedness, the venom of its\npersonal attack upon Jackson, were the earmarks of a policy of shallow\nopportunism that failed to make use of such victories as fell to its\nlot, for the simple reason that it could never agree on what to do.\nSuch cohesive power as held it together--aside from petty antagonism to\nJackson--was the vague assumption that the well-being of the American\npeople was dependent on governmental patronage; the belief that each\neconomic group and section must receive its special favor, and that\nthrough tariffs and bonuses and internal improvements the country as a\nwhole must prosper. Of this principle of special favors--a return to\nthe seventeenth century from which eighteenth-century liberalism was a\nreaction--the American System of Henry Clay was the chief expression,\nand it remains the most significant bequest of the Whig party to our\npolitical history.\n\nThe Whig party was the first attempt of our rising middle class to\nerect a political platform in accordance with middle-class ideals,\nand its failure was due to the fact that the time was not ripe for\nundisputed middle-class control. The merchant aristocracy of the North\nwas overthrown, but the planter aristocracy of the South was still to\nbe reckoned with; and its particularistic ambitions in the end wrecked\nthe Whig coalition of the West and East. By 1820 a revolutionary change\nhad taken place in the political philosophy of the plantation school.\nFrom an ardent nationalism Calhoun was leading his followers back to\nthe earlier doctrine of states rights; and New England industrialism\nfound itself confronted with the doctrine which the Hartford junto\nhad played with, but now with far more drive behind it. The slave\neconomy was entertaining imperialistic dreams, and to effect its ends\nwas building up a new constitutional philosophy. Southern writers\nhad long been at work, and the weight of their authority was behind\nthe new particularism. _Rawle on the Constitution_, a states-rights\nexposition, was the official textbook on civics at the United States\nMilitary Academy, and from it, while a student at West Point, Jefferson\nDavis declared that he first imbibed states-rights principles. Other\nauthoritative southern works that were widely read were John Taylor\u2019s\ntwo studies: _Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated_\n(1820), and _New Views of the Constitution of the United States_\n(1823); some years later came Henry St. George Tucker\u2019s _Lectures\non Constitutional Law_ (1843); and these were only preliminary to\nCalhoun\u2019s searching exposition in his _Disquisition on Government_ and\n_An Inquiry into the Nature of the Constitution of the United States_.\n\nTo meet this theory of particularism there was need of a resurgent\nFederalism, with a new nationalistic interpretation of the\nConstitution. The compact theory of the Federal state must be refuted\nby the organic theory; the conception of federated commonwealths must\nyield to the conception of a coalescing sovereignty. The old battle\nmust be fought over again with fresh arguments. The sanctity of the\nConstitution must be asserted, but that sanctity must be thrown over\na nationalistic rather than a particularistic interpretation. It must\nbe shown that despite the vehement protestations of southern loyalty,\na particularistic Constitution was a denial of loyalty and must end\nin the destruction of the national union. For this difficult business\nNew England was as yet unprepared. The old Federalist arguments were\nobsolete, and many of those Federalists had been deep in the Hartford\nConvention. The new industrialism must provide its own theory, and\nit was fortunate in discovering two men whose combined learning and\neloquence proved equal to the task.\n\n\nII\n\nThe name of Webster has been so closely associated with the movement\nof constitutional nationalism as to overshadow the just fame of one\nwho has many claims to be regarded as the intellectual leader of the\nschool. Joseph Story was a Salem lawyer whose reputation, considerable\nas it is, is scarcely commensurate with his influence on our later\nconstitutional development. Of the same Harvard class with William\nEllery Channing, he dabbled in polite letters as a young man, but\nwent into the law, entered politics, became Associate Justice of the\nSupreme Court, and for a time was Dane professor of law at Harvard.\nHe came of radical stock. His father, a physician at Boston till he\nremoved to Marblehead, was a militant Revolutionary Whig, one of\nthe score or so of Indians who made up the Boston Tea Party, and a\nleader amongst the group of Sons of Liberty who seized and gagged the\nsentinels and carried off two brass fieldpieces from the Common where\nthe British commander had posted them to overawe the town. The son grew\nup an ardent republican. As a very young man he became an outstanding\nleader of the unfashionable party, then in the minority, and suffered\ncertain humiliations on account of his political opinions; on one\noccasion, according to Theodore Parker, being \u201cknocked down in the\nstreet, beaten, and forced to take shelter in the house of a friend,\nwhither he fled, bleeding, and covered with the mud of the street\u201d\n(_Additional Speeches_, Vol. I, p. 178). Of these youthful heresies\nfew indications appeared in his later life. Republican though he might\nbe, he was utterly devoid of any radical tendencies, and when he took\nhis seat on the Supreme Court bench he was speedily drawn into the\npowerful orbit of John Marshall, shared the latter\u2019s views on all major\nconstitutional questions, and turned Whig. He became a close friend\nof Webster and from 1816 to 1842 he was his chief adviser on knotty\nlegal, constitutional, and international questions. \u201cFrom that deep and\ncopious well of legal knowledge,\u201d Parker asserts, Webster drew freely\n\u201cwhenever his own bucket was dry\u201d (_ibid._, p. 170).\n\nThis shift from Republican to Whig came about quite naturally. New\nEngland liberalism, it must be remembered, produced no intellectual\nleaders till late, and no clear-cut political philosophy. Though it\nnominally accepted the leadership of Jefferson it never was won over to\nthe Physiocratic economics or states-rights principles of the Virginia\nschool. Story was at no time a Jeffersonian, but rather an eager and\navowed disciple of Washington, \u201clittle infected with Virginia notions,\nas to men or measures.\u201d In his _Autobiography_ he wrote:\n\n The republican party then and at all other times embraced men of\n very different views on many subjects. Nay, a Virginia republican\n of that day, was very different from a Massachusetts republican,\n and the anti-federal doctrines of the former state then had and\n still have very little support or influence in the latter state,\n notwithstanding a concurrence in political action upon general\n subjects. I was at all times a firm believer in the doctrines of\n General Washington, and an admirer of his conduct, measures and\n principles.... I read and examined his principles, and have made\n them in a great measure the rule and guide of my life. I was and\n always have been a lover, devoted lover, of the constitution of the\n United States, and a friend to the union of the states. I never\n wished to bring the government to a mere confederacy of states; but\n to preserve the power of the general government given by all the\n states, in full exercise and sovereignty for the protection and\n preservation of all the states. (Story, _Life and Letters of Joseph\n Story_, Vol. I, p. 128.)\n\nThat he had as little sympathy with the Physiocratic economics of\nJefferson is apparent from his early activities in furthering the new\npaper system. While a member of the Massachusetts legislature, as a\nyoung man, he was active in pressing for bank franchises, and upon the\nestablishment of the Merchants\u2019 Bank of Salem he became its president.\nLike Washington and Marshall he espoused the new gospel of capitalism,\nwith none of the agrarian prejudices of the landed gentry to hold him\nback. He was the political twin of the great Chief Justice, and a Whig\nin spirit long before Webster. \u201cI seem to myself,\u201d he remarked late in\nlife, \u201csimply to have stood still in my political belief, while parties\nrevolved about me; so that, although of the same opinions now as ever,\nI find my name changed from Democrat to Whig, but I know not how or\nwhy\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 546). Though somewhat na\u00efve the comment is\njust. Anti-federalism in Massachusetts would seem to have been largely\na capitalistic protest against the narrow tie-wig Federalism; and\nwhile Joseph Story sat upon the Supreme Court bench, adapting legal\nprinciples to the new needs of business, the country was moving forward\nto the middle-class philosophy that he had early come to hold.\n\nIn the year 1833 he published his _Commentaries on the Constitution_,\nthe fruit of long labors, which was at once accepted throughout\nthe North as a classical authority, and which has held its ground\npretty well since. In method and temper, as well as objective, the\nexposition of Story stands in sharp contrast to that of the southern\nschool. In its particularism the latter appealed to the history of the\nConstitution in the making, and to French romantic philosophy; whereas\nthe former followed English constitutional theories to nationalistic\nends. Story was steeped in the Common Law and his thinking reveals the\nstrong influence of Blackstone. In passing through the mind of the\ngreat Tory commentator, English constitutional theory had received a\npronounced Tory bias, and something of this remains after filtering\nthrough the mind of Story. The ideal of a strong and efficient\npolitical state, with its corollaries of a coercive sovereignty, of the\nduties of a subject rather than the rights of a citizen, of loyalty\nto government rather than concern for political justice, derives\nimmediately from English theory and practice. Much likewise he took\nfrom the older Federalists: their fear of an encroaching legislative\npower; their concern at faction; their faith in checks and balances\nto restrain the majority will. But his chief inspiration came from\nthe spirit of the Common Law--that subtle influence that Jefferson so\ngreatly feared. His legalism was inveterate; the final, authoritative\nanswer to all questions he discovered in the decision of the courts.\nAgainst such a mind, deeply read in the law and with scanty knowledge\nof economics and political theory, the waves of liberal and romantic\nthought broke impotently. His reasoning may be convincing to a lawyer,\nbut to the historian his exposition is often weak, his data inadequate,\nand his conclusions not infrequently contrary to fact.\n\nIn building his argument Story drew his materials freely from _The\nFederalist_, from the writings and decisions of Marshall, and from\nBlackstone. The backbone of the work is Hamilton and Marshall, from\nwhom he quotes constantly, supplemented by a host of decisions by\nFederalist judges. With its pronounced bias _The Commentaries_ must\nbe regarded as a partisan document, which like _The Federalist_ has\ngrown in authoritativeness with the triumph of its party principles.\nIts surprising weakness on the historical side has come to be\noverlooked since the downfall of southern particularism, but during\nthe debates that preceded the Civil War the work was sharply handled\nby southern historians, and in his _Constitutional View of the War\nbetween the States_ Stephens quite demolished Story\u2019s feeble attempt\nat an historical justification of the anti-compact theory. The weight\nof historical evidence, to present-day students, would seem to be on\nthe side of the states-rights argument, although in certain aspects\nboth sides were innovators: Story in overleaping the period of French\nascendency when the Constitution took shape, and going back to the\nolder English tradition; and the compact school in reasserting the\ncompact theory at a time when the spirit of nationalism was undermining\nit. Story seems to have been conscious of his weakness, for he\nexpressly repudiates the method of interpreting the work in the light\nof contemporary testimony at the time of its formulation. In so doing\nhe not only violates the principle that a document is to be construed\nin the light of the common understanding when it was drawn; but with\nna\u00efve inconsistency, he constantly appeals to _The Federalist_, pretty\nmuch ignoring the opposition pamphlets, and interprets the Constitution\nin accord with its commentary. But for the most part he clings to the\nstrict letter of the document. He lightly brushes aside the whole\ncompact argument by asserting dogmatically that the phrase, \u201cWe the\npeople of the United States,\u201d must be understood in its simple literal\nsense, and that thus interpreted, the Constitution is seen to derive\nimmediately from the individual citizens acting in their sovereign\ncapacity without the intermediation of the state governments. The\ndispute long waged furiously about this point and Story\u2019s analysis\ntouches only the fringe of the argument.\n\nVery likely it is presumptuous for one who is not a lawyer to express\nan opinion, yet these celebrated _Commentaries_ seem today very little\nmore than a new-modeled Federalism, adapted to changing conditions.\nUnderneath the somewhat crabbed and narrow legalism is a common-sense\nrealistic political philosophy, an embodiment of English constitutional\ntradition as it grew up under a Tory r\u00e9gime, that reveals scant\nsympathy with French romantic theories. The work is an unconscious\ntestimony to the tenacious hold of the English Common Law on the legal\nmind of America, as well as to the rising spirit of nationalism. It\ndid much to strengthen both. It was a triumph of the lawyer over the\nhistorian and political philosopher, and it marks the beginning of the\nlawyer\u2019s custodianship of the fundamental law. In spite of its somewhat\npetty legalism and prosaic common sense, a note of veneration for the\ngreat document runs through the tedious pages, constituting the work at\nonce both a commentary and a eulogy.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Daniel Webster \u2022 Realist and Constitutionalist\n\nA far solider mind, strongly realistic and broadly philosophical, acute\nin analysis and with great powers of imagination, was the mind of the\ndistinguished leader of the New England Whigs. Not the equal of Story\nas a lawyer, he was far superior as a political thinker. No man more\nrichly endowed in mind and person has played a part on the stage of\nour public life, and in spite of gross shortcomings in character and\nthe betrayal of his own promise, Webster retains an aura of the heroic\nabout him. He was a great man, built on a great pattern, who never\nquite achieved a great life.\n\nIn Emerson and Webster were completely embodied the diverse New\nEngland tendencies that derived from the Puritan and the Yankee: the\nidealistic and the practical; the ethical and the rationalistic; the\nintellectual revolutionary, ready to turn the world upside down in\ntheory, planting at the base of the established order the dynamite of\nideas, and the soberly conservative, understanding the economic springs\nof political action, inclined to pessimism, neither wishing for Utopian\nchange nor expecting it. The physical contrast was as striking as the\nmental. The child of the Puritan was slender, nervous, with a lambent\nenergy that played freely in a rarefied atmosphere; the child of the\nYankee was massive, solid, somnolently heavy till an idea awakened his\nfaculties, a lover of the fleshpots, careless of conventional morals,\nrankly physical, and yet with an assured stateliness of manner, a slow\nimagination that expanded majestically and a rich eloquence that moved\nforward by regular stages to a great objective. Emerson was the child\nof a long line of ministers, and ministerial in his unworldliness;\nWebster was a Yankee squire, the descendant of some fox-hunting master\nof broad English acres, who by a freak of fortune had got born into the\nfamily of a New Hampshire yeoman. No Englishman was ever more English\nthan he. He loved the substantial things of life: his Marshfield farm;\nhis cattle and horses and crops; his rides afield and the return to\ngood dinners and rich wines. Nothing is more characteristic or more\nlikable--more redolent of the natural Webster--than his concern for\nagricultural improvements. His homely talk on _The Agriculture of\nEngland_, filled with facts that had come under his observant eye,\nreveals a side that is too little known. It is an English country\nsquire talking to his neighbors about the homely things they all care\nfor; and when after long years and disappointed ambition and utter\nweariness, he returned to his Marshfield farm to die, it was his cattle\nand his fields that offered a last solace to the broken man.\n\nWebster\u2019s intellectual development falls into distinct and rather\nsharply defined periods. Before 1825 his mental processes were still\nunder the dominion of the solid, rationalist eighteenth century, with\nits realistic politics and its _laissez faire_ economics. With the\nemergence of the constitutional disputes at the end of the twenties,\nwhen the lawyers and historians were busy at their commentaries, he\ncame increasingly to take a legalistic view of government. During the\nacrimonious forties, with slavery dividing the country into hostile\ncamps, he was bitten deeply by presidential ambitions, and thenceforth\nto the end of his life he was little more than a politician--a r\u00f4le for\nwhich he was singularly ill-fitted, and which brought bitterness and\ndisillusion to his last days. Since his death both earlier and later\nphases of his career have fallen into the background, and the middle\nperiod of constitutional interpretation has stamped itself indelibly\nupon his fame. Yet in many respects the solid reasoning of the\npolitical philosopher is more valuable than the stately but somewhat\nill-grounded declamation of the defender of the Constitution; and his\njust fame is increased rather than lessened by recalling his earlier\ncontribution to our institutional development.\n\nWebster was a sound political scholar, if not an outstanding creative\nthinker. He was of the distinguished line of political realists, from\nHarrington through Locke and Burke, to Hamilton, Madison and John\nAdams. He derived equally from seventeenth-century liberalism and\neighteenth-century Federalism. He was widely read in the political\nclassics, and his vigorous mind laid hold upon major principles\nand examined them closely. His intellectual master was the acute\nthinker of the English Commonwealth period, James Harrington, whom\nhe pronounces \u201cone of the most ingenious of political writers,\u201d and\nto whose suggestive doctrine of economic determinism he returns\npersistently. That Harrington was not the originator of the doctrine\nhe was well enough read to have discovered; but he pays him high\ntribute as the thinker who gave the doctrine form and currency. It\nis the substantial realism of the _Oceana_ that appealed to a mind\nthoroughly indoctrinated with political realism, before the rise of\nmanhood suffrage and the spread of equalitarianism had brought a\nchange in American political theory. Both his major premises and his\nmode of reasoning bear the impress of the classic English school. In\nthe year 1820, within a single week, he made two speeches, which as\nexpositions of his political philosophy are the most illuminating he\never uttered, and which should stand side by side: the _Basis of the\nSenate_, delivered before the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention,\nand the Plymouth speech on _The First Settlement of New England_. They\nsupplement each other and together give an admirable elucidation of\nthe stake-in-society principle that embodied a conviction he never\nabandoned. They are compact of Harrington, Montesquieu and John\nAdams--the last authentic expression of the old Federalism, before the\ndemocratic storms had driven it into new roadsteads and whipped its\nflag from the halyards where it had long waved.\n\nIn his admirable argument Webster accepts as axiomatic the theory\nof division of powers, with the attendant machinery of checks and\nbalances. He accepts equally the familiar view of eighteenth-century\nliberalism, that the legislature as the self-conscious custodian of the\npopular will is certain to prove the engrossing member of government\nwhose ambition is most to be feared. To expect a stable balance between\nSenate and House when their characters are undifferentiated by diverse\nmodes of selection--a result that must follow from choosing both on the\nnumerical majority principle--seems to him the judgment of political\ninexperience. The wiser method, he believed, was to seek counsel of the\nphilosophers and the clear teachings of history. The first, Webster\ninsisted, have rightly laid down the principle of a stake-in-society as\nthe true measure of political justice:\n\n I take the _principle_ to be well established, by writers of the\n greatest authority. In the first place, those who have treated of\n natural law have maintained, as a principle of law, that, as far as\n the object of society is the protection of something in which the\n members possess unequal shares, it is just that the weight of each\n person in the common councils should bear a relation and proportion\n to his interest. Such is the sentiment of Grotius, and he refers,\n in support of it, to several institutions among the lesser states.\n (\u201cThe Basis of the Senate,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. III, pp. 13-14.)\n\nAt the basis of the stake-in-society principle is the doctrine of\neconomic power as the controlling factor in determining the form\nand scope of the political state. In support of this doctrine of\ndeterminism Webster appeals to Harrington:\n\n It is his leading object, in his _Oceana_, to prove, that power\n _naturally_ and _necessarily_ follows property. He maintains that\n a government founded on property is legitimately founded; and\n that a government founded on the disregard of property is founded\n in injustice, and can only be maintained by military force. \u201cIf\n one man,\u201d says he, \u201cbe sole landlord, like the Grand Seignior,\n his empire is absolute. If a few possess the land, this makes the\n Gothic or feudal constitution. If the _whole people_ be landlords,\n then it is a commonwealth.\u201d \u201cIt is strange,\u201d says an ingenious\n person in the last century, \u201cthat Harrington should be the first\n man to find out so evident and demonstrable a truth as that\n property being the true basis and _measure_ of power.\u201d In truth,\n he was not the first. The idea is as old as political science\n itself. It may be found in Aristotle, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter\n Raleigh, and other writers. Harrington seems, however, to be the\n first writer who has illustrated and expanded the principle, and\n given to it the effect and prominence which justly belong to it. To\n this sentiment, Sir, I entirely agree. It seems to me to be plain,\n that, in the absence of military force, political power naturally\n and necessarily goes into the hands which hold the property. In my\n judgment, therefore, a republican form of government rests, not\n more on political constitutions, than on those laws which regulate\n the descent and transmission of property....\n\n The English Revolution of 1688 was a revolution in favor of\n property, as well as of other rights. It was brought about by men\n of property for their security; and our own immortal Revolution\n was undertaken, not to shake or plunder property, but to protect\n it. The acts which the country complained of were such as violated\n the rights of property. An immense majority of all those who had\n an interest in the soil were in favor of the Revolution; and they\n carried it through, looking to its results for the security of\n their possessions. (\u201cThe Basis of the Senate,\u201d in _Works_, Vol.\n III, pp. 14-16.)\n\nHarrington\u2019s principle that \u201cif the _whole people_ be landlords, then\nit is a commonwealth,\u201d Webster justified by appeal to American history.\nThe spontaneous birth of republican institutions out of colonial\nexperience he attributed to the wide diffusion of property. The land\ntenure of primitive New England was the creative source of her popular\ngovernment.\n\n Their situation demanded a parcelling out and division of the\n lands, and it may be fairly said, that this necessary act _fixed\n the future frame and form of their government_. The character of\n their political institutions was determined by the fundamental\n laws respecting property.... The property was all freehold ...\n alienation of the land was every way facilitated, even to the\n subjecting of it to every species of debt. The establishment of\n public registries, and the simplicity of our forms of conveyance,\n have greatly facilitated the change of real estate from one\n proprietor to another. The consequence of all these causes has\n been, a great subdivision of the soil, and a great equality of\n condition; the true basis, most certainly, of a popular government.\n \u201cIf the people,\u201d says Harrington, \u201chold three parts in four of the\n territory, it is plain there can neither be any single person nor\n nobility able to dispute the government with them; in this case,\n therefore, _except force be interposed_, they govern themselves.\u201d\n (\u201cThe First Settlement of New England,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. I, pp.\n 35-36.)\n\nWholly English then, after the soundest English liberal tradition,\nwas Webster\u2019s political philosophy in the year 1820, compact of sober\neighteenth-century realism, quite unaffected by French romantic\nequalitarianism. The great principle to which he adhered was the\nprinciple that government to be stable must be founded in men\u2019s\ninterests; thus founded no cause is given for revolutionary upheavals.\n\u201cThe disastrous revolutions which the world has witnessed, those\npolitical thunder-storms and earthquakes which have shaken the pillars\nof society to their very deepest foundations, have been revolutions\nagainst property.\u201d Such were Webster\u2019s convictions on the eve of\nthose two great upheavals, the rise of Jacksonian democracy and the\nrejuvenation of the slave economy, that unseated the authority of the\nold school of political realism, and turned him aside from the plain\npath to lose himself in a tangle of constitutional legalism.\n\nEnglish also was his economic theory, to which, like Franklin before\nhim, he gave close thought. In the year 1820 he was a frank disciple\nof Adam Smith and the _laissez faire_ school. Mercantilism he derided\nas exploded;[434] and Physiocratic agrarianism seemed to him unduly\nhostile to commerce. He never concerned himself, like Franklin, with\nhumanitarian ends. His sympathies went strongly for free trade,\nindividual initiative, and a competitive order--sympathies which to\nthe end of his life he never wholly outgrew. In those early days the\nmercantile interests commanded his loyalty far more readily than\nthe manufacturing interests. Next to his Marshfield farm he loved\na full-rigged ship, and the thought of Yankee skippers plowing the\nseven seas in well-freighted bottoms fired his imagination and kindled\nhis patriotism. But if in the background of his thought he remained\n_laissez faire_, with the necessary implications of a diminished\npolitical state and reliance upon the law of supply and demand above\ntariffs, bounties, and political regulations, unfortunately in the\nforeground of expediency were the loud demands of his constituents for\nprotective tariffs, internal improvements, and a policy of governmental\npaternalism. His economics came into collision with politics, and\nunder the drive of necessity he went reluctantly along the path which\nHamilton had marked out a generation before.\n\nThe change came between the years 1824 and 1825. In the earlier year\nhe aroused himself to a strong defense of _laissez faire_ economics in\nopposition to Clay\u2019s clever campaign cry, the American System; in the\nlater year he endeavored half-heartedly to defend New England interests\nin the game of subsidies. He was honestly ashamed of the whole mess; to\nWebster any tariff was a \u201ctariff of abominations\u201d; but his mouth was\nstopped by the clamor of the Lowell textile masters.[435] But having\nchosen his side, thereafter he defended his course vigorously, and\njoined forces with Clay in extolling the principle of protection. The\nsame dubious shift is revealed in his changing attitude towards public\nfinance. In 1815 he was an old-fashioned Federalist in his preference\nfor a metallic currency and his belief that the public credit must rest\non the public income; bank paper, stocks, bonds, and other agencies of\nthe new finance he distrusted as likely to encourage speculation.[436]\nTwenty years later he was the outstanding champion of the Bank in its\nmortal quarrel with Jackson. In defending his public career before his\nconstituents in Faneuil Hall in 1842, he said: \u201cThe subject of currency\nhas been the study of my life, in preference to all other public\ntopics\u201d; and the result of those studies had made him a confirmed\nbullionist. Nevertheless when \u201cOld Bullion Benton\u201d proposed to restore\na metallic currency, Webster derided the plan on the ground that bank\nmoney was necessary; and when the subtreasury system was established he\ndenounced it bitterly.[437] He was a partisan to the cause of the Bank,\nand as its attorney he defended its case before the American public, as\nhe defended its cases before the Supreme Court. He was no longer a free\nman but was deep in the subsidies of financial interests; nevertheless\nhis old realism convinced him--as it had convinced Hamilton--of the\nnecessity of shaping the public policy to the desires of the bankers.\nHe justified it not only on the grounds of economic determinism, but by\nprofessing to discover in business the strong friend of national unity.\nThe planters and farmers were local and sectional in outlook, but the\n\u201cmercantile classes, the great commercial masses of the country, whose\naffairs connect them strongly with every State in the Union and with\nall the nations of the earth, whose business and profession give a sort\nof nationality to their character\u201d--these men, he argued, gave solidity\nand stability to government--they were the cohesive force that bound\nthe whole together.[438] In serving such clients he was but serving a\ngreater cause.\n\nAfter 1824 the earlier Webster with his solid understanding, his\nfrank realism, his honest exposition of fundamental principles,\nslowly gave way to the lawyer, the politician, the opportunist of\nthe unhappy later years. With the change the last authentic voice of\nthe eighteenth century was silenced; the break with the old English\ntradition was complete. Immediate, domestic issues muddied his thought,\nand Webster and America plunged into a bitter partisanship produced\nby the new alignments of an equalitarian agrarianism, a capitalistic\nindustrialism, and a feudal slavocracy. Federalism was dead and in its\nstead was the Whig party, patched together of odds and ends, devoid\nof principles, seeking only expediency; and of this party Webster\nbecame an outstanding spokesman. It was an ignoble time, and his great\nabilities were not substantial enough to save him from the common\nmeanness. Whoever wishes to understand how great was his fall need\nonly compare the speech of 1820 on \u201cThe Basis of the Senate\u201d with the\n\u201cDeclaration of Whig Principles and Purposes\u201d of 1840 (_Works_, Vol.\nII, p. 41).\n\nTo his contemporaries, however, his position was secure. His reputation\nwas extraordinary, and he seemed as fixed and brilliant as the north\nstar. After the reply to Hayne, his fame as the defender of the\nConstitution was in every mouth. That celebrated speech, perhaps the\nmost celebrated in our congressional history, was delivered on the\nJanuary 26, 1830, and awakened an amazing response. Men were moved to\ntears by its eloquence, and its circulation in pamphlet form exceeded\nthat of any other pamphlet since the founding of the government. It is\nnot a great constitutional argument, but it better served the purpose\nof inspiring in the public a grandiose conception of national unity\nunder the organic law, than any reasoned statement could have done.\nFor political purposes rhetoric was more effective than historical\nargument, and its sonorous sentences, and in particular the stately\nconclusion, vastly appealed to the taste of the generation. Three\nyears later Webster applied himself more closely to the subtleties of\nthe question. Calhoun\u2019s masterly argument with its exposition of the\ntheory of concurrent majorities could not be answered by rhetoric, and\non February 16, 1833, Webster spoke on \u201cThe Constitution not a Compact\nbetween Sovereign States\u201d (_Works_, Vol. III, p. 449). His argument is\nstrictly legal and rests on four theses: that sovereignty inheres in\nthe people; that as individuals acting collectively in their sovereign\ncapacity, they ordained and established the Constitution; that the\nConstitution thus established is the supreme law of the land, acting\nimmediately upon the individual citizen and recognizing no intermediary\nsovereign state; and that as an \u201cexecuted contract\u201d it is irrevocable\nand final, with the necessary functions to construe its powers and\nexecute its will.\n\nOf these four theses, two may be regarded as Webster\u2019s chief\ncontribution to the great debate: the doctrine of immediacy, and the\ndoctrine of an executed contract. The latter, quite obviously, is no\nmore than Burke\u2019s theory of the British constitution as founded on a\ncompact entered into following the Revolution of 1688, and as such,\nby analogy from the Common Law, inviolable without the consent of\nboth parties to the instrument. As developed by Burke the theory is\nsomewhat tenuous, but as applied by Webster to the interpretation of\na written document it is extraordinarily plausible to the legal mind.\nThe doctrine of immediacy, on the other hand, would seem to have been\nderived from Judge Story. The argument of Webster in expounding the\nprinciple of immediate contact between the individual citizen and the\nConstitution follows the argument of Story\u2019s _Commentaries_ too closely\nto escape comment. Theodore Parker explicitly states that Webster got\nhis argument from Story, and circumstances bear out his assertion. The\ntwo men had long been close friends. Webster\u2019s speech was delivered a\nmonth after the _Commentaries_ was finished. In his earlier speeches\nsuch principle found no place, and it is reasonable to suppose that,\nconfronted by the Calhoun resolutions, Webster should have turned to\nthe materials gathered by his learned friend and frequent adviser. Here\nwas his reply ready to hand, a mass of legal fact and constitutional\nexposition, together with a clear and simple theory. Nearly a month\nelapsed before Webster rose to speak, and then he threw _Story on\nthe Constitution_ at Calhoun\u2019s theory of compact. Whether such an\ninterpretation is reasonable or not, the speech added greatly to\nWebster\u2019s reputation as an expounder of the Constitution.\n\nIn 1833 he stood at the meridian of his renown; thereafter the\nwestering sun of his fame went slowly down. He had come to evil\ntimes when opportunism and compromise--so imperative if the country\nwere to hold together at all--seemed immoral to men who insisted\nthat righteousness be legislated upon America, and weakness to men\nwho demanded their pound of flesh. The black shadow of slavery fell\nacross his path, and despite his wish to avoid all controversy on the\nsubject, he could not evade the issue. It drove him into a corner, and\nthe sword of the Constitution that he sought to defend himself with\nwas turned in the end against him. Webster\u2019s antipathy to slavery was\nof long standing and he gave frank expression to it in his speeches.\nThe position which he finally came to assume, in face of the growing\nabolition sentiment in Massachusetts, was taken deliberately and was\nworthy of a lawyer. He would oppose the extension of slave territory,\nbut he would not interfere with slavery in the old slave states. The\nConstitution, he argued, recognized slavery as existing in certain\ncommonwealths by virtue of state laws, but those laws did not run\nbeyond the confines of the state. The territories were under Federal\nlaw, and no injunction was laid upon Congress to extend the laws or\ninstitutions of any state or group of states over the territorial\ndomain. In his speech on \u201cExclusion of Slavery from the Territories,\u201d\non August 12, 1848, he stated his position thus:\n\n It will not be contended that this sort of slavery exists by\n general law. It exists only by local law. I do not mean to deny\n the validity of that local law where it is established; but I say\n it is, after all, local law. It is nothing more. And wherever that\n local law does not extend, property in persons does not exist.\n Well, Sir, what is now the demand on the part of our Southern\n friends? They say, \u201cWe will carry our local laws with us wherever\n we go. We insist that Congress does us injustice unless it\n establishes in the territory in which we wish to go our own local\n law.\u201d This demand I for one resist, and shall resist. It goes upon\n the idea that there is an inequality, unless persons under this\n local law, and holding property by authority of that law, can go\n into new territory and there establish that local law, to the\n exclusion of the general law. (_Works_, Vol. V, p. 309.)\n\nIt was the unfortunate Seventh of March Speech that proved Webster\u2019s\nundoing--this and the Fugitive Slave Bill in which he was deeply\nimplicated. The situation was desperately critical, Webster was\npessimistic, and this was a last gesture of reconciliation with the\nSouth. Presidential ambitions and runaway slaves were stewing in a\ncommon political pot with Abolition societies and northern mercantile\ninterests. Webster was puzzled, hesitated, emptied another glass of\nthe wine of the Constitution, and went for the Fugitive Slave Bill. It\nwas a tragic political mistake. To be sure a tremendous address was\npresented to him, signed by the most respectable persons in Boston and\nCambridge, but it was an empty honor. Webster\u2019s influence was gone,\nnever to be regained. There is something pathetic in his futile attempt\nto stifle the New England conscience by ramming the Constitution down\nits throat:\n\n Sir, the principle of the restitution of runaway slaves is not\n objectionable, unless the Constitution is objectionable. If the\n Constitution is right in that respect, the principle is right,\n and the law providing for carrying it into effect is right. If\n that be so, and if there is no abuse of the right under any law\n of Congress, or any other law, then what is there to complain of?\n (\u201cSpeech on the Compromise Measures,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. V, p. 433.)\n\nAnd there is something pathetic also in the hurt vanity of the old man\nthat his judgment should be questioned. His self-pride was offended\nwhen the Abolitionists rejected his legal dogmatisms, and set up their\nown dogmatisms. He regarded them as mischief-makers. \u201cI am against\nagitators, north and south,\u201d he exclaimed petulantly. He recognized no\nhigher law than the Constitution and Blackstone, and he would suffer no\npopular interference with Congress.\n\n Then, Sir, there are the Abolition societies, of which I am\n unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear\n notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their\n operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good\n or valuable.... They have excited feelings.... I cannot but see\n what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced ...\n everything that these agitating people have done has been, not to\n enlarge, but to restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster,\n the slave population of the South. (\u201cSeventh of March Speech,\u201d in\n _Works_, Vol. V, p. 357.)\n\n I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men at the\n North, of all conscientious men, of all men who are not carried\n away by some fanatical idea or some false impression, to their\n constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound\n minds at the North as a question of morals and a question of\n conscience. What right have they, in their legislative capacity or\n any other capacity, to endeavour to get around this Constitution,\n or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the\n Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at\n all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before\n the face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in\n such attempt. (_Ibid._, p. 355.)\n\nIf the later Webster had no message for the conscience of New England,\nneither had he any for the intelligence of New England. The realistic\nFederalism that had listened to him in 1820 was gone, submerged by the\nflood waters of the renaissance; and the current transcendentalism\nseemed to him insubstantial and dangerous. The rising liberalism of\nthe forties left him wholly untouched; it could not leaven the heavy\nmaterialism of his nature. He was quite unacquainted with the new\nMassachusetts that was coming to expression; he had lived too long with\n\u201cthe lawyers, the politicians, and rich merchants and manufacturers,\u201d\nto understand the greater world of Concord. While he had been living on\nthe subsidies of State Street, and contracting his mind to the compass\nof a banker\u2019s, the intellect of Massachusetts had become liberal. And\nin becoming liberal it aroused him from indifference to hostility.\nWriting to a friend in explanation of his refusal to visit Concord in\nhis later years, he said:\n\n Many of those whom I so highly regarded in your beautiful and quiet\n village have become a good deal estranged, to my great grief, by\n abolitionism, free-soilism, transcendentalism, and other notions\n which I cannot but regard as so many vagaries of the imagination.\n (Quoted in Sanborn, _Life of Thoreau_.)\n\nBut if he was scarcely acquainted with the little group of thinkers\nand liberals--Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, Parker, Garrison, Phillips,\nEdmund Quincy, Whittier, Lowell, Higginson, Harriet Beecher Stowe,\nMargaret Fuller--they were well acquainted with him and took his\nmeasure exactly. The intellect of Massachusetts--so long ignored by\nWebster--had its revenge. Its voice carried farther than his, and it\npainted his portrait in no flattering strokes. The fierce storm that\nsuddenly beat upon him broke the old man\u2019s spirit. He had fed too long\non adulation to endure censure. No doubt that censure was severe, but\nit was far juster than the earlier adulation had been. Whittier\u2019s\n_Ichabod_ is familiar to every American schoolboy. Lowell, then in his\nliberal mood, characterized him as \u201ca statesman who had communicated no\nimpulse to any of the great ideas of the century, as a statesman whose\nsoul had been absorbed in tariff, banks, and the Constitution, instead\nof devoting himself to the freedom of the future.\u201d Emerson, who had\nlong studied him critically, gave an extraordinarily just analysis of\nhis character:\n\n Mr. Webster is a man who lives by his memory, a man of the past,\n not a man of faith or of hope. He obeys his powerful animal\n nature;--and his finely developed understanding only works freely\n and with all its force, when it stands for animal good; that is,\n for property. He believes, in so many words, that government exists\n for the protection of property. He looks to the Union as an estate,\n a large farm, and is excellent in the completeness of his defence\n of it so far. He adheres to the letter.... What he finds already\n written, he will defend. Lucky that so much had got well written\n when he came. For he has no faith in the power of self-government.\n Not the smallest municipal provision, if it were new, would receive\n his sanction. In Massachusetts, in 1776, he would, beyond all\n question, have been a refugee. He praises Adams and Jefferson, but\n it is a past Adams and Jefferson, that his mind can entertain.\n A present Adams and Jefferson he would denounce. So with the\n eulogies of liberty in his writings,--they are sentimentalism and\n youthful rhetoric. He can celebrate it, but it means as much from\n him as from Metternich or Talleyrand. This is all inevitable from\n his constitution. All the drops of his blood have eyes that look\n downward. (\u201cThe Fugitive Slave Law.\u201d)\n\nTo the transcendental mind Webster\u2019s economic realism was peculiarly\nrepugnant, and it was this which inspired Theodore Parker\u2019s critical\nanalysis of Webster\u2019s career--the most scathing and explicit of\nall contemporary estimates. What Parker discovers most hateful in\nWebster\u2019s career was his adherence to the principles of Federalism,\nfrom the \u201cBasis of the Senate\u201d speech in 1820, to the New York speech\non November 18, 1850. The persistence of his economic realism was an\naffront to the liberals of the humanitarian school that had moved\nfar from the position of Fisher Ames. Webster might do lip service\nto humanitarian ideals, Parker asserted, but always he came back in\nthe end to his polar conception--\u201cThe great object of government is\nthe protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad\u201d\n(_Works: Additional Speeches_, Vol. I, p. 220).\n\nIt was this same persistent realism that made Webster so useful to\nthe rising capitalism. His work in the Senate was supplemented by his\nwork in the court room. He was the greatest corporation lawyer of the\nday, certain to be found defending vested interests, never on the side\nof the leaner purse. Probably more than any other man except John\nMarshall, he contributed to the work of bringing the Constitution under\nthe sovereignty of the judiciary. His most significant contribution,\ncertainly, was his argument in the celebrated Dartmouth College\ncase, delivered before the Supreme Court in 1818, which resulted in\none of the foundation decisions on which later has been erected the\nsolid structure of our corporation law.[439] By engrafting upon the\nConstitution the principle that a contract lies beyond the reach of\nlegislative power to annul, the decision assured greater security for\nprivate property than exists under any other judicial system in the\nworld. Alexander Hamilton could not have asked for more.\n\nIt was the singular ill fortune of Webster to have been born too late\nto profit from the old mercantile Federalism to which his affections\nwere always attached, and too early to profit by the industrial\nFederalism that came to greatness after the Civil War. If fate had\nbeen kinder to him, and he had appeared on the political horizon a\ngeneration earlier or a generation later, he would have reaped in far\ngreater abundance those high civic honors he so foolishly coveted. The\neconomic groups whom he served would have been in position to reward\na servant so conspicuously able and useful. As a contemporary of John\nAdams he might have become a notable political philosopher--provided\nalways that he had not turned Tory as Emerson suggested. But unhappily\nfor his fame he was launched between tides on a stormy sea and his\nstately bark foundered in the squall of Abolitionism.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[433] Quoted in Theodore Parker, _Daniel Webster: Additional Speeches_,\nVol. I, p. 195. Considerable information will be found in this\nexcellent study.\n\n[434] See \u201cThe Tariff,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. III, pp. 118-122.\n\n[435] See his \u201cApology and Defense,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. V, pp. 146, 240.\n\n[436] See \u201cThe Bank of the United States,\u201d _Works_, Vol. III, p. 35.\n\n[437] See \u201cSpeech in Wall Street,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, p. 55.\n\n[438] See \u201cThe Landing at Plymouth,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, pp. 204-205.\n\n[439] Theodore Parker denied Webster credit for the argument, pointing\nout that \u201cthe facts, the law, the precedents, the ideas, and the\nconclusions of that argument, had almost all of them been presented by\nMessrs. Mason and Smith in the previous trial of the case\u201d (_Additional\nSpeeches_, Vol. I, p. 171). The statement is confirmed by Beveridge.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: The Rise of Liberalism\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Renaissance\n\n To write a history of Massachusetts, I confess, is not inviting to\n an expansive thinker.... From 1790 to 1820 there was not a book, a\n speech, a conversation, or a thought in the State. About 1820, the\n Channing, Webster, and Everett era begun, and we have been bookish\n and poetical and cogitative since. (Emerson, _Journals_, Vol. VIII,\n p. 339.)\n\n\nIn such summary fashion in the year 1852, Emerson recorded his\njudgment on half a century of intellectual life in Massachusetts. It\nwas the comment of an exacting critic. In its characterization of\nthe extraordinary ferment of thought that marked the decades of the\nthirties and forties, it is quite inadequate; but in its contemptuous\ndismissal of the age of Fisher Ames and Robert Treat Paine it was\nscarcely unjust. The utter sterility of those old times Emerson\nunderstood only too well. It was the world of his own youth, whose\npale negations he had come to hate. The creative impulse was stifled,\nthe mind had grown stale from tedious iteration. But at last the old\nbarriers gave way, and into this narrow illiberal world, that had long\nfed on the crusts of English rationalism and Edwardean dogmatism--dry\nas remainder biscuit after voyage--broke the floods that had been\ngathering in Europe for years, the waters of all the streams of\nrevolution that were running there bank-full. Before this inundation\nthe old provincialisms were swept away, and for the first time in its\nhistory, and the last, the mind of New England gave itself over to a\ngreat adventure in liberalism.\n\nQuite evidently the renaissance resulted from the impact of the\nromantic revolution upon the Puritan mind, and it issued in a form\nnative to New England experience. Animated by the common spirit\nof Utopianism, its dreams were unlike those of Virginia or the\nWest, founded on a different economics and seeking different ends.\nMassachusetts had discovered a particular road leading to Utopia by way\nof the industrial revolution, and the textile mills on the Merrimac\nbegan weaving a new pattern of life for New England. The old static\nagricultural order was broken in upon, and with the social disruption\ncame naturally an intellectual disruption. The mind of that older New\nEngland had been held in the close keeping of the church, and the\nmovement of intellectual emancipation became therefore at the outset a\nmovement leveled at theological conservatism; it was concerned first\nto rid New England of the incubus of Calvinistic dogma. The Calvinists\nwere of tough fiber and tenacious of opinion, and to turn their flank\nwas no summer campaign. The result was a long battle of ideas, a fierce\nstruggle between the old deterministic theology and the new romantic\nphilosophy, with victory slowly inclining to the latter. This major\nstruggle gave to the renaissance its profoundly ethical spirit that\nset it off sharply from the earlier renaissance of Virginia; and not\nthe least important of the results of the movement was the liberation\nof the New England conscience from its long bondage to dogma, setting\nit free to engage in a larger work in the world. What that conscience\naccomplished in the brief period of its freedom; what causes it\nespoused and what reforms it carried through--how it quickened a\nhumanitarian zeal in New England and imparted a militant spirit to its\nculture--these are phases of the total movement not to be neglected by\nthe historian.\n\nIn the realm of ideas the renaissance was largely dominated by\nold-world thought. From the abundant stores of European revolutionary\ndoctrine the New England liberals drew freely--more freely perhaps\nfrom German idealism than from French Utopianism. Germany meant much\nto the awakening mind of New England, by reason of its spiritual and\nintellectual kinship. Plato was their common father, a transcendental\nmysticism their common experience. Philosophical idealism with its\nindwelling Godhood that exalted man to the divine and transformed\na mechanical universe into the dwelling place of divine love--this\nwas a dynamic faith, appealing to men long nurtured in faith, more\nseductive to the children of Puritanism than any political or economic\nromanticisms. It opened to them new heavens when the old were closed\nand encouraged them to go forth on great ventures.\n\nBut the renaissance was very much more than a transplanting of German\nidealism. France had a shaping hand in it, and England. Jean Jacques\ncame before Hegel, and Unitarianism before transcendentalism. It was\nsocial and literary as well as philosophical. In so far as that which\nwas essentially one may be divided, the movement involved three major\nstrands: the social Utopianism that came from revolutionary France; the\nidealistic metaphysics that emerged from revolutionary Germany; and the\nnew culture that spread with the development of literary romanticism.\nTo distinguish these three strands is one thing; to endeavor to\nseparate them is quite another. They interweave and blend in varying\npatterns; they are but different, new-world phases of a comprehensive\nEuropean movement that runs far back into the preceding century--a\nmovement that in transferring economic and political mastery from the\naristocracy to the middle class, in destroying the worm-eaten feudal\norder and clearing the way for the new capitalistic order, laid open\na broad path into the nineteenth century. The extraordinary appeal of\nthis vast movement to the liberal mind of America resulted from the\nfact that an identical revolution was under way here. In New England,\nperhaps more dramatically than elsewhere in America, the day of the\nmiddle class was dawning, aristocratic ideals were disintegrating, and\nthe hopes of men were running high. To humanize this emerging society,\nto awaken it to a nobler faith in human destiny, to further the cause\nof social justice, to create a democracy of the spirit--this was\nthe deeper romantic purpose, however vaguely comprehended, that was\nfermenting in the New England renaissance, and it was this that gave to\nit a spirit so warmly ethical.\n\nNow quite evidently a movement so extraordinarily complex would appeal\ndiversely to different minds, and in its development it drew to itself\na singularly various following. To the sons of respectable Federalism\nit was the new romantic culture that appealed; to the militant\nconscience of Puritanism it was the inspiration of social Utopianism;\nto the emancipated intellectuals it was the metaphysical idealism. Its\nmany-sidedness was both confusing and stimulating. How shall we explain\na movement that embraced such different men as Everett and Channing\nand Parker and Garrison and Whittier and Emerson and Longfellow and\nHolmes; men often mutually repellent, sometimes sharply critical\nof each other? No single mind sums up the whole--the theological,\nhumanitarian, mystical, critical, and cultural aspirations of the\nawakening--as perhaps Goethe may be said to have done for Germany.\nEmerson, Thoreau and Parker possibly embodied it most adequately; they\nwere transcendental individualists, intellectual revolutionaries,\ncontemptuous of all meanly material standards. But quite evidently\nEverett would not travel far along the transcendental path they pointed\nout, nor Holmes, nor Longfellow. These latter expected no romantic\nUtopias, wanted no such Utopias. Cambridge and Boston satisfied their\nhopes; they found the world not such a bad place for those who knew\nhow to meet it on its own terms. Yet they too were children of the\nawakening, and in following their individual paths they contributed\nin their own way to the disintegration of the old authoritarian order\nthat had long held the mind of New England in subjection. Each in\nsome measure and after his own fashion was a rebel, and their total\nrebellions made up the sum of New England\u2019s bequest to a more liberal\nAmerica. Yet in this eager and somewhat vague liberalism to which\nthe renaissance was dedicated in spirit, the note that runs through\nthe several programs is a note of reaction from the aspirations of\nthe middle class. It was an ethical protest against the harsh and\nunjust realities of the industrial revolution that was so ruthlessly\ntransforming the old order of life in New England; and it took the form\nof a return to a simpler life. To struggle free from the chains of the\neighteenth century, only to be bound in new chains, was an ignoble\nending to the emancipation that free men could not envisage with\nsatisfaction.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Liberalism and Calvinism\n\n\nThe first stirrings of new life were felt within the church, the\nrepository of such learning as Harvard College disseminated through\nthe Massachusetts villages. For two hundred years the dogmas of Calvin\nhad lain as a heavy weight on the mind of New England. Revolutions\nhad taken place in English and continental theology, but New England\nCalvinism had kept closely within the narrow confines of its creed,\nannually turning over the exhausted soil and reaping an ever scantier\nharvest. Since the days of Edwards there had been abundant speculation\nand much exercise in syllogisms, but no scrutiny of major premises.\nSuch an examination was long overdue, with the romantic revolution\nunder way in France, and new theories of human nature and the relation\nof man to society and the state, spreading widely. But unfortunately\nthe odium which New England conservatism quickly fastened upon the\nFrench school frightened the orthodox. The stigma of atheism was put\nupon every harmless bantling of the numerous French brood, and in the\nterror of reaction the pulpit, following the lead of the reactionary\npew, aroused itself to cleanse the church of every innovation. English\nArianism, even worse things, it was discovered, had stolen into\nCongregational pulpits during the relaxed period of the Revolution;\na dangerous spirit of liberalism had spread silently through the\ntidewater churches, capturing the strongholds of Boston orthodoxy.\n\nBy the year 1800 it was high time for the old Congregationalism of\nJonathan Edwards to take counsel with itself. \u201cLet us guard against\nthe insidious encroachments of _innovation_--that evil and beguiling\nspirit which is now stalking to and fro in the earth, seeking whom\nit may devour,\u201d exclaimed Jedidiah Morse, the arch reactionary, in\nthe days when French ideas were knocking at the doors of New England.\nAnd by innovation the doughty Jedidiah meant any idea that had been\nstumbled on, new since the days of the great Edwards. To go back to the\npure Edwardean doctrine, to purge the church of incipient Arminianism\nand Arianism and Socinianism--together with such other innovations as\nmight show their faces anywhere--became thenceforth the chief business\nof the devout New England of 1800. To timid souls the ideas of their\ngrandfathers seemed far safer than the ideas of their fathers; and so\ntheology followed politics in turning its back upon the freer, more\ngenerous world that beckoned.\n\nNevertheless French liberalism slowly won its victories. It needs\nhigh walls to keep out ideas. Excluded from the drawing-rooms and\ncounting-houses, ostracized in society and politics, romantic\nphilosophy slipped quietly into Boston by the door of theology, and\ntook lodgings in the homes of the first families. To those who enjoy\nthe little ironies of history, the easy subjugation of respectable\nBoston by that very Jacobinical heresy against which Boston was so\nbitter is too amusing to be overlooked. Changing its name and arraying\nitself in garments cut after the best Yankee fashion, the gospel\nof Jean Jacques presently walked the streets of Boston and spoke\nfrom its most respectable pulpits, under the guise of Unitarianism.\nThe heretical doctrines of the excellence of human nature and the\nperfectibility of man were preached to Federalist congregations so\npersuasively that instead of repudiating them and asserting the total\ndepravity of their neighbors, simple-minded merchants approved the\ndoctrines and cheerfully paid their pew-rent. It was a respectable\nand bloodless revolution. Under its discreet disguise Unitarianism\naccomplished for New England what Jeffersonianism had accomplished\nfor the South and West--the wide dissemination of eighteenth-century\nFrench liberalism. It opened the New England mind to fresh ideas. Out\nof Unitarianism was to come the intellectual renaissance, with its\ntranscendental philosophies and social reforms, its enlarged conception\nof democracy and its Utopian dreams, which made New England count so\neffectively in the developments of the half century.\n\nThe twenty-five years between 1790 and 1815 were the nascent period of\nUnitarianism, when it was re\u00ebxamining the old Calvinist dogmas in the\nlight of the new liberalism, weighing the doctrines of election and\nreprobation in the scale with the doctrines of God\u2019s beneficence and\nman\u2019s excellence, and coming definitely to reject them as blasphemy\nagainst God and defamation of human nature. And it was during these\ncritical years that the upholders of the traditional orthodoxy were\nmost actively concerned to provide a defense for the sacred dogmas\nof their grandfathers. The liberal advance produced a conservative\nreaction, and the lines of battle were sharply drawn. The capture of\nHarvard College by the Unitarians in 1805, and the founding of Andover\nTheological Seminary by the Calvinists in 1808, were dramatic events in\na long intellectual and legal struggle that aroused much bitterness and\nbequeathed to the churches a rich legacy of unchristian animosities.\nGood men on both sides--to recall a contemporary witticism--were quite\ntoo ready \u201cto fight for the glory of God as if the very devil were in\nthem.\u201d\n\nThe traditional Calvinism defended itself with spirit, asserting so\nvehemently that it was still a living faith, that the corpse was not\nyet an authentic corpse, that it succeeded at least in postponing\nits own burial. It was deeply entrenched in the inertia of custom,\nbut intellectually it was in really desperate straits. It was slowly\ndisintegrating from dry-rot with which both minister and theology were\nstricken. With its major premises tacitly denied by Yankee experience,\nit was unfortunate in being defended by as humorless and ungainly a\nbreed of theologians as ever quarreled over the loving-kindness of God.\nClinging to the defenses which Jonathan Edwards had erected against\nthe incursion of old-world ideas, it declaimed its dogmas and damned\nthe human race with tedious iteration. Over-threshed straw makes poor\nfodder, and after a two-hour battle with potential infidelities, many a\ngood minister descended from his pulpit lamenting that his exhortations\nhad been wasted on \u201ca sermon-proof, gospel-glutted generation.\u201d Yet\nhe went faithfully back to his study to consume the day in argument\nwith a suppositious Arminian, and in spinning cobweb systems between\nthe worm-eaten rafters, quite oblivious to the common-sense world\nwithout his walls. The difficulties in which those old Calvinists\nfound themselves very likely seemed tragic to them; but to later\ngenerations, endowed with some saving grace of humor, the situation\nwas not without its spice. The good men were undeniably caught in\na distressing dilemma. They were laboring prodigiously both to sit\ntight in the old dogma of determinism and yet wriggle out; to maintain\nelection and reprobation and yet insert somehow the thin edge of\npersonal responsibility; to prove to the satisfaction of the pew that\nman is both bound and free. It was a hard necessity to be under, to\ndamn man by predestination, and \u201cyet worry out enough freedom for him\nto be decently damned on,\u201d as a late critic has remarked;[440] to\nsend him to hell by divine decree, yet prove that he went of his own\naccord. Yet they must do that impossible thing if they were to justify\ntheir theology to common-sense congregations that were drifting into\nindifference.\n\nThe whole thing was monstrously unreal and it resulted in hatching such\na brood of tenuous subtleties as we have difficulty in comprehending\ntoday. Theological fame in Massachusetts came to be measured by the\nskill with which the logician made out to stand on both sides of the\nfence at the same time. Had it not been for Jonathan Edwards New\nEngland Congregationalism would have drifted comfortably with the tide\nof liberalism; but his uncompromising spirit held it anchored. This\nmasterly spinner of theological systems bequeathed to his successors an\nunfinished work; but he had clearly envisaged the problem and suggested\na line of attack. In his great inquiry into the nature of will he had\nhoped to provide an infallible means of reconciling the irreconcilable\nby arguing that the will is dependent on desire. The natural man,\naccording to the Edwardean logic, is free to serve God as the highest\ngood if he desires, but he lacks the desire unless God reveals himself\nas that highest good, and such revelation rests with God\u2019s pleasure.\n\u201cMoral responsibility lies in the choice, not in the cause of the\nchoice.\u201d[441] With this distinction suggested between natural and moral\nfreedom, Calvinistic speculation went on hopefully till it attained\nits culminating triumph in Nathaniel Walker\u2019s ingenious doctrine of\ncertainty with power to the contrary. Walker was a pupil of Timothy\nDwight\u2019s, and one of the foundation professors of the new Yale Divinity\nSchool, established to combat Unitarian heresies. A tremendous rattling\nof the bones of the Connecticut churches followed his pronouncement\nthat man\u2019s acts are not necessitated by a rigid law of cause and\neffect, but that his choices are so connected with antecedent\nconditions of soul and environment, that to God\u2019s perception it is\ncertain what they will be, although he possesses full power of contrary\nchoice.[442]\n\nAs we contemplate those old theological abstractions, dead now as\nLot\u2019s wife, the universe of our fathers shrinks to a petty compass,\nnot much larger than the snug little state of Connecticut, curiously\negocentric, curiously anthropomorphic. Obviously such grotesqueries\ncould not endure indefinitely. Presently there must appear the\ncommon-sense housewife with her broom, and the dusty cobwebs would\ndisappear. English Arianism, emerging out of English Presbyterianism,\nand long under suspicion of the New England fathers, first opened the\nwindows and let a little fresh air into the New England churches. But\nback of Arianism was the total body of eighteenth-century rationalism,\nwith its theology rooted in new political and social philosophies,\nand its doctrines derived from conceptions of God and man hostile to\nCalvinistic determinism. There could be no reconciling them. Calvinism\nmust extirpate English rationalism or be disintegrated by it.\n\nBut rationalism refused to be extirpated. Here and there in\nMassachusetts pulpits appeared a new order of preachers, young men\nwho had broken with the old dogmas and were plainly bitten with the\nEnglish distemper. Of these the most notable was Jonathan Mayhew, from\n1747 to 1766 pastor of the West Church, and the freest-spoken minister\nin Boston. Mayhew was a thoroughgoing liberal, not to say radical,\nan intimate friend of Otis and John Adams, and chief clerical leader\nof the opposition to the English ministry. He had broken through the\nnarrow parochialism of Boston; he corresponded with the intellectual\nleaders of English dissent, and while still a young man was on the\nhighroad to Arianism. He seems to have been a brilliant fellow, bold\nand frank in speech, with great and popular powers as a preacher, and\nhis early death alone prevented him from anticipating some of the work\nof Channing.[443] A like fate abruptly terminated the work of another\nable young man, Lemuel Briant, pastor of the Braintree church from\n1745 to his death in 1753. Briant was John Adams\u2019s pastor and, like\nMayhew, an Arian, with a ready wit that his adversaries must have\nfound disconcerting. \u201cI have always tho\u2019t,\u201d he remarked apropos of\nthe familiar dilemma, \u201cthat so far as any Man is pure (let it be in a\ngreater or lesser Degree) he is not filthy.\u201d[444] But the coming on of\nthe Revolutionary disputes and the disturbance of war put a stop to the\nnormal development of the movement; and the general reaction following\nthe treaty of peace gave encouragement to the Calvinistic reaction\nand temporarily strengthened the Edwardean school. Nevertheless the\nliberal doctrines of Mayhew and Briant, falling in with the French\nphilosophy, prepared the way for the conscious Unitarian revolt at the\nend of the century.\n\nThat revolt was fundamentally ethical rather than theological, and\nthe name Unitarian, which the liberal movement accepted somewhat\nreluctantly from its opponents, very inadequately describes its special\ngenius. The term derives from the middle eighteenth century, before\nreligious thought had come under the influence of the new social\nphilosophy; and it suggests a primary theological bias in a movement\nthat was far more significantly ethical and social. The early liberals,\nforerunners of Unitarianism, were theologians given to probing in\nrationalistic spirit, the mystery of the Godhood. Now, denial of the\nTrinity has been common to all Unitarians, although individually they\nmight profess an Arian or a Socinian interpretation of the nature\nand r\u00f4le of Jesus; but what is more important, they have been from\nthe first close Scripturists, disliking exact theological systems\nand setting biblical authority above human. By the time the name had\ncome to be generally accepted--about the year 1815--it had already\nlost much of its earlier significance, for emphasis had shifted from\nthe mystery of the Godhood to the problem of the relations existing\nbetween the children and the Father. On the one hand supernaturalism\ntended to disappear in morality, and on the other religion tended to\nseek an authoritative basis in idealistic philosophy and justify itself\nby intuitionism. \u201cThe soul,\u201d argued Channing, in his exposition of a\nlater Unitarian theology, \u201cis the spring of our knowledge of God.\u201d\n\u201cHere is our primitive teacher and light.\u201d \u201cThe only God, whom our\nthoughts can rest on, and our hearts can cling to, is the God whose\nimage dwells in our own Souls\u201d (_Works_, Vol. VI, Introductory Remarks,\np. 21). Unitarianism, in other words, reversed the thought process of\nCalvinism. Instead of debasing man to a mean creature, subject to a\nGod of wrath, it professed to discover a loving Father in the human\nheart of love. Here was a revolution indeed, a revolution in which\nwere the seeds of transcendentalism, of social Utopias, of pretty much\nthe entire intellectual awakening of New England. The old Calvinism\nhad no weapons to meet such an attack; the new creed lay outside its\nrealm of thought. What that creed finally came to be, under Channing\u2019s\ninfluence, is thus stated by a recent historian:\n\n Man is God\u2019s child, made in His image and object of His love; his\n reason and conscience are divine witnesses to truth and light, and\n when governed by them he walks in the ways of God, safe in his\n Father\u2019s love and care. The God in whom their opponents believed--a\n God of election and reprobation, capable of dooming an entire\n race because its ancestors disobeyed a God of arbitrary will and\n discriminating grace--seemed to them simply an immoral being and\n they frankly said so. (Fenn, _Religious History of New England,\n etc._, p. 125.)\n\nIn its noblest expression Unitarianism became essentially a humanistic\nreligion, rational, ethical, individual, yet with deep and warm\nsocial sympathies. In Channing\u2019s excellent phrase, it discovered the\napotheosis of religion in \u201cthe adoration of goodness.\u201d It issued in\nconduct because it developed character. The highest testimony to the\nexcellence of the faith is the noble company of men and women who\nsubscribed to its creed. And yet after all, Unitarianism was rather\nan attitude of mind than a creed. It was the recovery of the original\nprinciple of New England Separatism, lost during the long years of\northodox conformity--the principle of the open mind and free inquiry.\nLet each devout soul, each group of fellow believers, Unitarianism\nannounced, seek the truth where it may be found; let each give to it\nsuch outward form as best reveals its divine nature; not seeking to\nimpose a particular interpretation upon others, but each taking upon\nhimself full responsibility for his spiritual welfare. Authority it\nregarded as the prop of the weak; dogma, as the body of a faith that\nis dead. As free souls, mature and self-reliant, the Unitarians would\nbe their own authority, would fashion their own creed. The Scriptures\nlie open and the heedful eye will discover God\u2019s revelation in their\npages. The deeper spirit of Unitarianism is not inadequately embodied\nin the text, \u201cSearch the Scriptures, for they are they which testify\nof me.\u201d No abler or more devout Scripturists ever preached in America\nthan the Unitarian ministers, and if bolder souls like Theodore Parker\nwent further than others, if their free handling of old interpretations\ngave offense to the timid, that fact provided no sanction to coerce or\nstifle free inquiry. Toleration of differences, respect for devout free\nthought--this return to the position of Roger Williams two centuries\nbefore was the vital principle of Unitarianism. Like him, the Unitarian\nwas a seeker, open-minded and free. Others might be intolerant, others\nmight regard themselves as the sole custodians of truth, but not he.\n\nBut if the Unitarians who followed Channing were liberals in\nreligion, they were conservatives in well-nigh everything else.\nAmongst the laity the adoration of goodness was sufficiently tempered\nby Yankee thrift to keep it from interfering seriously with the\npractical business of getting on in the world; and in consequence\nthe new faith gathered its supporters from amongst the prosperous\nrather than the needy, from Federalists rather than Democrats. The\ncommercial dominated the intellectual and emotional in their prim\nand somewhat cold congregations. \u201cThe Unitarians,\u201d it was commonly\nsaid, \u201cwere the cult of the arrived.\u201d As successful men, these Boston\nmerchants and manufacturers did not believe that they were the sons\nof Adam, children of iniquity. They thought better of themselves and\nof God than Calvinism permitted them to think; \u201cone who was born in\nBoston,\u201d the current jest put it, \u201chad no need to be born again.\u201d\nGenerous in all approved philanthropies these Unitarian laymen might\nbe, but emotionally religious they were temperamentally incapable of\nbeing. Until the infusion of the rich sap of transcendentalism, that\ngave it new life and brought it to bloom, Unitarianism was in grave\ndanger of dying at the root. But with the spread of the philosophy\nof intuitionalism, the negative individualism of Unitarianism became\npositive, broke with the respectable conservatism of commercial\ncongregations, and overflowed in a rich and generous faith. Authority,\ndogma, creed, were swept away by this new faith in an indwelling\ndivinity, with its intuitive sanctions, and Unitarianism merged in the\nlarger movement of the renaissance.\n\n\nII \u2022 William Ellery Channing\n\nTo the austerely spiritual Channing the guiding principle of\nUnitarianism was identical with the spirit of primitive New England\nseparatism--the principle of freedom in religious matters, the\nindividual speaking his mind frankly, shepherd and flock feeding as\nthey would, without fear and without coercion. The soul is responsible\nto itself and its own conscience; there are no orthodoxies and no\nheterodoxies, but a duty is laid upon the individual to seek truth\nwith an open mind and be steadfast in its service. It was this spirit\nof open-minded liberalism that led him along the path of unmilitant\nindividualism, seeking freedom only to the end of righteousness, and\ncounting righteousness the fine flower of freedom; desiring peace and\nuniversal fellowship; loath to found a sect; yet driven by those who\ndenied freedom to themselves as well as others to become the champion\nand leader of a great schism that sundered the traditional unity of\nCongregationalism, and erected a new faith on the altars of the old.\n\nChanning\u2019s heritage was drawn from the deepest wells of New England\nidealism; and filtered through his finely ethical mind it emerged pure\nand limpid, the living waters of the new faith. His noble pre\u00ebminence\nwas due to the simple spirituality of his nature. Intellectually,\nhe was neither great nor original. In scholarship he was distinctly\ninferior to academic theologians like Andrews Norton and to omnivorous\nstudents like Theodore Parker. Almost wholly introspective he was\ninfluenced slowly by world-currents of thought, and such alien ideas\nas found lodgment in his mind took on a native form and color from\nhis own convictions. Nevertheless though his meditations revolved\nabout the pole-star of his own experience, his theology cautiously\ntook shape under the pressure of two ideas that came to him from the\nlatter years of the eighteenth century--the ideas of God\u2019s beneficence\nand of man\u2019s excellence. Once lodged in his mind, those ideas led to\nquite revolutionary consequences, not only in their disintegrating\neffect upon the Calvinistic dogmas in which he had been reared,\nbut in the generous romanticism which they bequeathed to Unitarian\ntheology. His intellectual development was late and halting, yet that\nhe liberated himself at all was remarkable considering the world that\nbred him--Newport, frequented by wealthy planters and enriched by the\nslave trade, Cambridge and Boston then in the stagnancy of Federalist\ncomplacency. Of the same generation with Robert Treat Paine and Josiah\nQuincy, only a few years older than Rufus Choate and Edward Everett,\nas a boy sitting under the preaching of Samuel Hopkins--the rugged\nexpounder of the Hopkinsian doctrine of willing to be damned for the\nglory of God, a doctrine so repugnant to the major tenets of Channing\u2019s\ntheology--he belonged by temperament and training to the parochial\nworld that accounted Fisher Ames a great orator, and looked with\nsuspicion on the new century that was crowding in on its comfortable\npreserves.\n\nFrom the deep New England ruts Channing pulled himself with incredible\ndifficulty. His frequent reactions almost kept pace with his progress.\nFor years he oscillated between freedom and dogma, now dominated by\nthe Hopkinsian influence and thrown back upon a morbid Calvinism by\nill health; then resolutely casting off the evil spell; until the year\n1815, when the conservative wing declaring war upon the liberals,\nhe was drawn into the controversy and took upon himself the burden\nof defending the liberal cause. He was then thirty-five, but it was\nnot till four years later, in the celebrated Baltimore sermon at the\nordination of Jared Sparks, that he offered a definitive statement\nof the new theology. The sermon brought him wide fame and fastened\nupon him the leadership of the Unitarian movement. Comment upon the\nnew doctrines was widespread, and the circulation of the sermon in\npamphlet form, according to a late biographer, \u201cwas not exceeded by any\nAmerican publication until in 1830 Webster made his memorable reply\nto Hayne\u201d (John White Chadwick, _William Ellery Channing_, p. 147).\nThe creative influence of that sermon in clarifying certain doctrines\nof Unitarianism and integrating the society should not blind us to\nthe fact that it embodies only a portion of Channing\u2019s theology--the\nidea of God\u2019s beneficence. It is a reasoned attack upon Trinitarian\nCalvinism, upon those dogmas which reveal--in Channing\u2019s expressive\nphrase--\u201chow mournfully the human mind may misrepresent the Deity\u201d; but\nit takes no account of the idea which later he came to place first--the\nidea of man\u2019s excellence.\n\nFiner than the Baltimore sermon in its restrained eloquence--an\neloquence that burns with an intensity rare in Channing--and in its\ndramatic exposition of the doctrine of the atonement, is the sermon\nentitled _Unitarian Christianity most Favourable to Piety_, delivered\nin 1826 at the dedication of the second Unitarian church in New York\nCity. In this sermon Channing made use of a daring comparison which\nstartled his friends and gave mortal offense to orthodox Calvinists. It\nis probably the most dramatic passage to be found in his writings, and\nit so well exemplifies the temper of the controversy that it deserves\nquotation. After discussing the Edwardean philosophy of infinite\npunishment and the nature of atonement, he proceeded:\n\n Let me, then, set it before you, in new terms, and by a new\n illustration; and if in so doing, I may wound the feelings of some\n who hear me, I beg them to believe, that I do it with pain, and\n from no impulse but a desire to serve the cause of truth.--Suppose,\n then, that a teacher should come among you, and should tell\n you, that the Creator, in order to pardon his own children, had\n erected a gallows in the centre of the universe, and had publicly\n executed upon it, in room of the offenders, an Infinite Being, the\n partaker of his own Supreme Divinity; suppose him to declare, that\n this execution was appointed, as a most conspicuous and terrible\n manifestation of God\u2019s justice, and of the infinite woe denounced\n by his law; and suppose him to add, that all beings in heaven and\n earth are required to fix their eyes on this fearful sight, as the\n most powerful enforcement of obedience and virtue. Would you not\n tell him, that he calumniated his Maker? Would you not say to him,\n that this central gallows threw gloom over the universe; that the\n spirit of a government, whose very acts of pardon were written in\n such blood, was terror, not paternal love; and that the obedience\n which needed to be upheld by this horrid spectacle, was nothing\n worth? Would you not say to him, that even you, in this infancy and\n imperfection of your being, were capable of being wrought upon by\n nobler motives, and of hating sin through more generous views; and\n that much more the angels, those pure flames of love, need not the\n gallows and an executed God to confirm their loyalty? You would all\n so feel, at such teaching as I have supposed; and yet how does this\n differ from the popular doctrine of atonement? (_Works_, Vol. III,\n pp. 197-198.)\n\nIn seeking an explanation of Channing\u2019s break with New England\northodoxy--a breach that widened greatly with years, coming to embrace\npolitics and economics as well as theology, alienating many of his\nown congregation and bringing acute grief to him--one can scarcely\nover-emphasize the influence of his Virginia experience. During\nthe twenty-one months that he spent on the southern plantation,\npainfully isolated and lonely, he grappled seriously with a body of\nthought from which the environment of his youth had pretty much shut\nhim away. Virginia in 1798 was ardently Jeffersonian, and French\nromantic philosophy was a commonplace in Virginia libraries. While\nChanning never went over wholly to Jeffersonianism, but retained\ncertain Federalist prejudices after the old foundations had turned to\nquicksand under his feet, he there began a long process of speculative\nbrooding that was to carry him far from the political principles of\nBoston. French revolutionary thought provided his chief intellectual\nstimulus during the critical Virginia period. Rousseau he read with\nprofound interest, together with Godwin\u2019s _Political Justice_ and Mary\nWollstonecraft\u2019s _Rights of Woman_. The Physiocratic economics that\nsanctioned the agrarian bias of Jeffersonian democracy seems to have\nmade no appeal to a mind primarily ethical in outlook, yet he went so\nfar as to dabble in communistic theory, and for a time contemplated\njoining a communistic community. From France, moreover, he derived\nthe idea of the excellence of human nature and the perfectibility\nof man, ideas which became the mainspring of his later thinking,\ncreatively determining both his theology and his social philosophy, and\ntransforming his whole intellectual world.\n\nIn July, 1800, eight months before it took formal possession of the\nWhite House, \u201cFrench infidel philosophy\u201d made its appearance in New\nEngland in the person of a slight, health-broken youth, who returned\nto his quiet theological studies, quite unmindful of the gunpowder he\nhad brought back in his intellectual luggage. It was long before a\nspark was to strike home, but the powder was there and would do its\nwork eventually. In passing through Channing\u2019s mind, the contributions\nof French romanticism merged with the native heritage of New England\nidealism, and supplemented by contributions from English Arian thought,\nslowly assumed definite form that came to issue in three dominating\nideas, namely: God is love, man is potentially noble, religion is an\nexcellent life. Enveloping these master ideas, in which they were\ncarried as in a medium, was a pervasive ethical spirit that colored\nall his thinking and eventually took form in that striking phrase into\nwhich all of Channing is compressed, \u201cthe adoration of goodness--this\nis religion.\u201d This constituted his reply to the Edwardean theology that\ndebased man to the sole end of exalting a monstrous God--the doctrine\nof \u201csweetness and light\u201d was set over against the dogmas of reprobation\nand election.\n\nWith his profound sense of justice, Channing could not follow \u201cthe\nadoration of goodness\u201d into an aloof and mystical pietism. The\ntemptation was strong, for his finely aristocratic and hesitant nature\nprompted him to stand apart from all turmoil and partisan struggle.\nHe disliked controversy and distrusted all dogmatists. The world of\neconomics and politics was exceedingly distasteful to him; he would\ngladly stop his ears against the clamor of organized groups and\nstrident parties. The Abolitionists, with whose purpose he deeply\nsympathized, seemed to him intolerant and their tactics vulgar. There\nis a measure of justice in Garrison\u2019s comment after Channing\u2019s death:\n\u201cHis nerves were delicately strung. The sound of a ram\u2019s horn was\npainfully distressing to him. He was firmly persuaded that nothing but\na silver trumpet was needed to cause the walls of Jericho to fall; and\nhe did his best upon his own.\u201d[445] And yet, however unwillingly, he\nwas drawn inevitably into an agitation that touched both his religion\nand his humanity; and between 1835 and 1837 he issued three notable\ncontributions to the controversy: _Slavery_, a reply to the Southern\napologists; _The Abolitionists_, an open letter to James Birney, whose\nAbolition press had been wrecked by an Ohio mob; and a noble appeal\nto Henry Clay against the annexation of Texas. In the latter year he\nspoke in Faneuil Hall at a turbulent meeting called to protest against\nthe murder of Lovejoy, the meeting at which Wendell Phillips made his\ndramatic first appearance on the Abolition platform.\n\nThe point of view from which Channing approached the problem of\nslavery is clearly set forth in his _Introductory Remarks_, written in\n1841 for a collected edition of his works, and which constitutes his\n_apologia pro vita sua_.[446] In this extraordinarily lucid and just\nstatement he reduces the master passions of his life to two--respect\nfor human nature, and reverence for human liberty--passions which were\ninseparable in all his thinking. Of the first he says, \u201cThe following\nwritings will be found to be distinguished by nothing more than by\nthe high estimate which they express of human nature. A respect for\nthe human soul breathes through them.\u201d This attitude he elaborates at\nlength:\n\n An enlightened, disinterested human being, morally strong, and\n exerting a wide influence by the power of virtue, is the clearest\n reflection of the divine splendour on earth.... The glory of the\n Maker lies in his work.... Those men glorify God most, who look\n with keen eye and loving heart on his works, who catch in all some\n glimpses of beauty and power, who have a spiritual sense for good\n in its dimmest manifestations, and who can so interpret the world,\n that it becomes a bright witness to the Divinity.\n\n I have also felt and continually insisted, that a new reverence for\n man was essential to the cause of social reform.... There can be no\n spirit of brotherhood, no true peace, any farther than men come to\n understand their affinity with and relation to God and the infinite\n purpose for which he gave them life. As yet these ideas are treated\n as a kind of spiritual romance.... The reception of this plainest\n truth of Christianity would revolutionize society, and create\n relations among men not dreamed of at the present day.... Men would\n know the import of the word Brother, as yet nothing but a word to\n multitudes. None of us can conceive the change of manners, the\n new courtesy and sweetness, the mutual kindness, deference and\n sympathy, the life and efforts for social melioration, which are\n to spring up, in proportion as man shall penetrate beneath the body\n to the spirit, and shall learn what the lowest human being is.\n\nOut of this reverence for human nature flowed his \u201creverence for\nLiberty, for human rights; a sentiment which has grown with my growth,\nwhich is striking deeper root in my age, which seems to me a chief\nelement of true love for mankind, and which alone fits a man for\nintercourse with his fellow-creatures.\u201d\n\n It is because I have learned the essential equality of men before\n the common Father, that I cannot endure to see one man establishing\n his arbitrary will over another by fraud, or force, or wealth,\n or rank, or superstitious claims. It is because the human being\n has moral powers, because he carries a law in his own breast\n and was made to govern himself, that I cannot endure to see him\n taken out of his own hands and fashioned into a tool by another\u2019s\n avarice or pride. It is because I see in him a great nature, the\n divine image, and vast capacities, that I demand for him means of\n self-development, spheres for free action--that I call society not\n to fetter, but to aid his growth.\n\nIn such humanitarian idealism did French romantic philosophy come to\nflower in the generous mind of this son of New England. He was no\nlonger narrowly Unitarian; he had become a social revolutionary with\nUtopian dreams. The minister\u2019s wealthy parishioners might worship the\ncommon Father complacently under the shadow of slavery, black or white,\nbut the minister could not; he had caught a glimpse of the Promised\nLand and would lead his flock towards it. Unhappily, the vast abyss\nof negro slavery lay between, and Channing considered it with growing\nconcern. In his examination of the problem he was broadly philosophical\nrather than narrowly partisan. He rested his case against slavery on an\nethical adaptation of the natural-rights theory.[447] Since man is both\nrational and moral, he argued, he cannot be deprived by law or custom\nof the essential prerogatives of personality. The inalienable rights\nof man are in essence no other than the rights of personality--the\nright to exercise his reason, to seek light of his conscience, to enjoy\nthe fruits of his labor, to enter into domestic relations, in short\nto be free to live as a man in a state of civilization. To treat man\nas property is the grossest denial and violation of that which by its\nnature is inviolable and inalienable. Channing pushed his argument\nfurther and asserted that the institution of slavery was not only\nirrational and immoral, but a fundamental denial of democracy. It must\nend in perverting the political state to its own evil. The southern\nconception of a Greek democracy resting on black slavery he looked upon\nas the final prostitution of the democratic ideal. \u201cThose who tell us\nthat slavery is a necessary condition of a republic, do not justify the\nformer, but pronounce a sentence of reprobation on the latter.\u201d For\nthose text-mongerers who professed to justify slavery by Scripture, he\nhad only scorn. By such methods polygamy might as readily be justified.\n\nInquiry into the nature and scope of individual rights brought Channing\nface to face with the problem of the political state and the duties\nof citizenship. Here his break with Boston Federalism was final and\ncomplete. He judged men and institutions by ethical standards; State\nStreet judged them by economic standards. By his own path he went back\nto the eighteenth century, and interpreting the functions and province\nof government in the light of Godwin\u2019s _Political Justice_, he arrived\nat the conception of a constantly diminishing political state that\nshould eventually disappear. The dogma of political sovereignty he\ndenied: \u201cThe state is equally restrained with individuals by the Moral\nLaw\u201d (\u201cSlavery,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. II, p. 37). The expediency of some\nrestraint upon individual action he accepted, but with the proviso\nthat it be exercised only to the end of the common well-being. \u201cThe\nauthority of the state to impose laws on its members I cheerfully\nallow; but this has limits, which are found to be more and more narrow\nin proportion to the progress of moral science\u201d (_ibid._, p. 38). \u201cThat\ngovernment is most perfect, in which Policy is most entirely subjected\nto Justice, or in which the supreme and constant aim is to secure the\nrights of every human being\u201d (_ibid._, p. 38). To such a government\nloyalty will be given gladly; but in the event that expediency should\nprevail over justice, and the state should prostitute its power by\nexploiting one class for the benefit of another, then must loyalty be\ntransferred from the state to the higher law. \u201cJustice is a greater\ngood than property, not greater in degree, but in kind.\u201d \u201cThe good\nof the individual is more important than the outward prosperity of\nthe State\u201d (_ibid._, pp. 40, 44). In such doctrines Channing paid his\nrespects to the political philosophy of Webster.\n\nThe final outcome of his political thinking was a close approximation\nto the position of Jefferson. His distrust of power grew more\napprehensive as he reflected on the common abuse of power, and the\ncheap and paltry appeals by which the unthinking are swayed. Before\nthe organized power of the mass, the individual is helpless. In the\n_Introductory Remarks_ he went further than he had done in earlier\nwritings in analysis of the state, and such a passage as this might\nhave been penned by John Taylor of Caroline County. It is pure\nJeffersonianism.\n\n So fearful is the principle of which I have spoken, that I\n have thought it right to recommend restrictions on power and\n a simplicity in government beyond what most approve. Power, I\n apprehend, should not be suffered to run into great masses. No more\n of it should be confided to rulers than is absolutely necessary\n to repress crime and preserve public order. A purer age may\n warrant larger trusts; but the less of government now the better,\n if society be kept in peace. There should exist, if possible, no\n office to madden ambition.... One of the tremendous evils of the\n world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands....\n Is any man pure enough to be trusted with it? Ought such a prize\n as this to be held out to ambition? Can we wonder at the shameless\n profligacy, intrigue, and the base sacrifices of public interests\n by which it is sought, and, when gained, held fast? Undoubtedly,\n great social changes are required to heal this evil, to diminish\n this accumulation of power. National spirit, which is virtual\n hostility to all countries but our own, must yield to a growing\n humanity, to a new knowledge of the spirit of Christ. Another\n important step is, a better comprehension by communities that\n government is at best a rude machinery, which can accomplish but\n very limited good, and which, when strained to accomplish what\n individuals should do for themselves, is sure to be perverted by\n selfishness to narrow purposes, or to defeat through ignorance its\n own ends. Man is too ignorant to govern much, to form vast plans\n for states and empires. Human policy has almost always been in\n conflict with the great laws of social well-being, and the less we\n rely on it the better. The less of power given to man over man the\n better. (_Works_, Vol. VI, pp. 26-27.)\n\nChanning had evidently read his _Political Justice_ to good effect,\nfor the spirit of eighteenth-century liberalism had passed into his\nthought and given shape to his political philosophy. In his hatred of\nwar, his pacifism, his humanitarian concern, his social-mindedness,\nhis repudiation of all coercive centralizing power, he proved himself\na child of Godwin. He would have no tyranny, whether by the organized\nstate or by the unorganized mass. He extended to all men the right\nof free thought and free speech. In no other cause did he speak\nmore vehemently than in defense of this democratic right. When the\nAbolitionists were mobbed and their presses broken he rejoiced in their\nrefusal to be silenced. \u201cFrom my heart I thank them,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI am\nmyself their debtor. I am not sure, that I should this moment write in\nsafety, had they shrunk from the conflict, had they shut their lips,\nimposed silence on their presses, and hid themselves before their\nferocious assailants.... I thank the Abolitionists, that in this evil\nday, they were true to the rights which the multitude were ready to\nbetray.\u201d Then follows a passage that is perennially true, considering\nhow hardly won and easily lost is the right of free speech:\n\n Of all powers, the last to be entrusted to the multitude of men,\n is that of determining what questions shall be discussed. The\n greatest truths are often the most unpopular and exasperating; and\n were they to be denied discussion, till the many should be ready to\n accept them, they would never establish themselves in the general\n mind. The progress of society depends on nothing more, than on the\n exposure of time-honored abuses, which cannot be touched without\n offending multitudes, than on the promulgation of principles,\n which are in advance of public sentiment and practice, and which\n are constantly at war with the habits, prejudices, and immediate\n interests of large classes of the community. Of consequence, the\n multitude, if once allowed to dictate or proscribe subjects of\n discussion, would strike society with spiritual blindness, and\n death. The world is to be carried forward by truth, which at first\n offends, which wins its way by degrees, which the many hate and\n would rejoice to crush. The right of free discussion is therefore\n to be guarded by the friends of mankind, with peculiar jealousy.\n It is at once the most sacred, and the most endangered of all our\n rights. He who would rob his neighbor of it, should have a mark\n set on him as the worst enemy of freedom. (\u201cThe Abolitionists,\u201d in\n _Works_, Vol. II, p. 161.)\n\nHigh-minded and generous was this child of Puritan idealism who had\ngone to school to French infidel philosophy--never untrue to the\nprinciple of free inquiry which in demanding for himself he willingly\ngranted others. He calmly accepted the fact of disintegration which\nis implicit in all liberalism--the denial of traditional authority\nand ancient custom--partly because he believed the old ways were\nbad, but in part also because he held strongly to his faith in human\nnature. Despite failure and discouragement he clung to his cardinal\nbelief--\u201cMy one sublime idea, which has given me unity of mind, the\ngreatness, the divinity of the soul.\u201d He broke the more willingly with\nan ungenerous past because he envisaged a nobler future. An intuitive\nindividualist, he was a forerunner of transcendental individualism,\nand he found himself in hearty accord with Emerson\u2019s doctrines in\nthe Divinity School address. With the later rationalistic phase of\nUnitarianism which began with Theodore Parker\u2019s memorable South\nBoston sermon _On the Transient and Permanent in Christianity_, in\nMay, 1841, he found himself only partly in intellectual sympathy.\nHe remained a supernaturalist after the younger generation had\nrejected supernaturalism; but his sturdy adherence to the principle\nof liberalism would not suffer him to join in the Unitarian hue and\ncry raised against the young radical. Unitarianism turned orthodox,\nand bent on erecting new dogmas, seemed to him treasonable to every\nliberal hope. \u201cAs to Mr. Parker,\u201d he wrote, \u201cI wish him to preach what\nhe thoroughly believes and feels. I trust the account you received\nof attempts to _put him down_ was in the main a fiction. Let the\nfull heart pour itself forth!\u201d (John White Chadwick, _William Ellery\nChanning_, p. 357.) Sixteen months after he penned those words Channing\nwas dead, but the spirit of his life was embodied in the great ferment\nthat was rising about him when he died. \u201cLet the full heart pour itself\nforth\u201d--to many sober Bostonians it seemed that New England had taken\nthat injunction quite too literally and was pouring forth disturbant\nand gusty heresies, but Channing would scarcely have disapproved.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[440] See Fenn, _Religious History of New England: King\u2019s Chapel\nLectures_, p. 130.\n\n[441] See Williston Walker, _A History of the Congregational Churches\nin the United States_, p. 283.\n\n[442] _Ibid._, p. 356.\n\n[443] _Ibid._, pp. 276-277.\n\n[444] _Ibid._, p. 272.\n\n[445] Compare a fuller estimate in Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_,\nVol. III, pp. 239-242.\n\n[446] In the Glasgow edition of 1844 it prefaces the sixth volume.\n\n[447] For a brief discussion, see Merriam, _American Political\nTheories_, pp. 217-221.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Liberalism and the Social Conscience\n\n\nI \u2022 The Social Mind\n\nUnitarianism was generous in its bequests to New England, and amongst\nits contributions to a nobler life not the least valuable was its warm\nsocial sympathy. Channing\u2019s tender social conscience sprang directly\nfrom his humanitarian religion. Not from the hard old Calvinism did\nhe get this fine flower of a humane life, but from the new French\nphilosophy. Not from bounding his ethics by the Decalogue, or hating\nsin more than he loved generosity, did he break the hard shell of\nPuritan righteousness; but by metamorphosing the sinner into a child\nof God and sharing with him the divine promise. Other-mindedness came\nnaturally to a religion established in a God of love. The social\nconscience could not remain indifferent to injustice visited upon\nthe children of a common Father. Yet other-mindedness was a virtue\npracticed too little in Calvinist New England. That old world had been\nmore concerned with hopes of individual salvation, with propitiating\nan angry God, than with its present obligations to its neighbors.\nHard doctrine--which the old Puritan loved--was likely to make hard\ncharacters, and an ascetic society was likely to breed close-fisted\nnatures. The conscience was tender in New England, but it was tender\nchiefly as the guardian and monitor of the Ten Commandments; it gave\nitself too little concern about the new commandment which Jesus\nlaid upon his disciples. It disciplined men and women in personal\nrighteousness, it created self-reliant characters, it scrutinized\nnarrowly the neighborhood conduct; but its social issues were likely\nto be mean and petty. The righteousness of which it professed to be\nguardian and monitor too often fell far short of generous manly stature.\n\nFrom this hardness of the old religion came the hardness of the social\nconscience. When the Yankee was driven by brutal fact to admit that\nhe was his brother\u2019s keeper, he usually took care to get a few honest\npennies out of his brother\u2019s board and lodging. The village poor\nwere provided for by farming out, as the taxes were farmed out. The\ntown meeting haggled narrowly over the terms, and substantial deacons\nunderbid each other. Though the price might be low, some profit might\nstill be got from the pauper\u2019s keep. It was a cold, hard, unsympathetic\nworld for the social unfortunate, whether pauper, debtor, or idiot;\nand it was harsh as well to the children of all but the wealthy.\nThe hours of toil were long, and the public schools about which the\nhistorians have bragged rather too loudly, were poor affairs, starved\nby the common niggardliness, ill taught and ill provided. The academies\nand colleges that professed to keep the torch of learning aflame were\nlargely perquisites of the gentry. It is beside the point to assert\nthat public schools existed in New England long before Virginia had\nany, and that poor boys stinted and starved their way through Harvard\nand Yale. Well known as such facts are, they do not testify to a high\nsocial sense in a people supposed to have been tender of conscience.\nThe Calvinist was taught to fear God rather than to love him. It was a\nstrong man\u2019s business to save one\u2019s soul and make a decent living; and\nin the social code of New England the weakling must take his chance.\n\nThere was helpful neighborliness of course in old New England, and\nmuch honest kindliness. Some of the hardest of dogmatic Calvinists\nwere the most considerate and gentlest of men. Old Samuel Hopkins of\nslave-running Newport was a generous soul who preached the gospel of\nlove to one\u2019s fellows, and practiced the virtues of apostleship to\nthe poor and outcast. He denounced the slave trade to parishioners\nwho knew all the inlets of the West African coast, and got himself\nwell disliked. His congregation preferred his hard theology to his\ninconvenient humanitarianism, and kept him poor all his days. The\ndogmatic Timothy Dwight scathingly attacked slavery in his _Greenfield\nHill_, denounced the injustice done the negro, and even protested\nagainst the extension of capital punishment. Yet for all such protests\nthe common conscience was untouched. The Yankee was always standing\nin the way of the Puritan\u2019s righteousness. Respectability was founded\non property, and respectability was mightier in New England than even\nJohn Calvin. It was the brutal debtor laws that brought on Shays\u2019s\nRebellion, which Federalist church members put down and denied the\ngrievances. It was no tender conscience that extinguished slavery\nin Massachusetts, for long after it became unprofitable there the\nYankee skipper was still in the slave trade. Dignified Tory Row on\nwhat is now Brattle Street, Cambridge, was built by gentlemen who\ndrew their wealth from West Indian slave plantations.[448] William\nLloyd Garrison\u2019s offense in Baltimore, for which he was thrown into\njail, lay in publishing the name of a Massachusetts shipmaster from\nNewburyport--Garrison\u2019s native town--who was engaged in the coastwise\nslave traffic.[449] In the year 1830 there were somewhat more than a\nhundred Abolition Societies in the United States, not one of which was\nin New England; and in the first number of the _Liberator_ Garrison\nwrote, probably without exaggeration, that he found \u201ccontempt more\nbitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice\nmore stubborn, and apathy more frozen,\u201d in New England, \u201cthan among\nslave owners themselves.\u201d[450] The old Puritan conscience might be\ntender, but it refused pretty steadily to take on any larger job than\nSabbath-keeping and dogma-saving. It was inquisitorial rather than\nhumanitarian, and the sins which it hunted down were theological rather\nthan social.\n\nThe bridge between this older world and the later was thrown across by\nUnitarianism. With its shift of emphasis from a God of wrath to a God\nof love came the entering wedge that was to split away the egoism of\nthe old theology--its thralldom to the conception of personal sin--and\nlay bare an inner core of altruism. It was another sort of conscience\nthat Unitarianism discovered, a conscience that welcomed the new social\nthought of romantic Europe, and applying it to the facts of life in\nAmerica created the new humanitarianism which bit so deeply into the\nNew England of the forties. From this movement the intractable nature\nof the Yankee held him back, but the Puritan speedily transformed the\nhard theological conscience into a tender social conscience, that\nbewildered the conventional morality with its sweeping program of\nreform.\n\nThe awakening of the new spirit may perhaps be held to date from the\ngrowing opposition to war that was an aftermath of the Napoleonic\nperiod with its huge debts and vast social suffering. The inhumanity\nof war profoundly impressed thoughtful minds that had come under the\ninfluence of the sociological movement, and when Channing in 1812\npreached his first anti-war sermon the new humanitarian spirit found\nexpression. In his espousal of pacifism Channing was following in the\nfootsteps of the social revolutionaries of the preceding century.\nHe fell short of Tom Paine in analysis of the economic and dynastic\nsources of war, and in appreciation of its social consequences;\nnevertheless his denunciation was significant of a changing social\nattitude. From this early attack to the rise of the Garrisonian\nNon-Resistance Society of the late thirties and early forties, the\nspread of the pacifist movement was rapid. Transcendentalism was\neloquently anti-militaristic, and Emerson, Alcott and Parker were\noutspoken in denunciation of the war spirit. To the war against war\nsoon was added the war against drink, and with the establishment in\nBoston in 1826 of the _National Philanthropist_, under the patronage\nof the \u201cMassachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance\u201d--a\npaper of which Garrison was editor for a few months--began the long\nagitation for the suppression of the liquor traffic. From such feeble\nbeginnings the ardor of reform grew and spread swiftly, enlarging its\nprogram to embrace anti-slavery, woman\u2019s rights,[451] prison reform,\nrepeal of the harsh debtor laws, vegetarianism, associationism, until\nit caught the contagion of the perfectionist and transcendental\nmovements and issued in a comprehensive program of universal reform.\nThe golden age of New England was quite as much the golden age of the\nNew England conscience as of the New England mind.\n\n\nII\n\nThe fame of transcendentalism has too much obscured the contemporary\nmovement of perfectionism, a movement which marked the extreme\nexpression of the new conscience, the most revolutionary of its\naspirations, the apotheosis of ethical radicalism. Its want of literary\nskill narrowed its appeal and the archaic quality of its enthusiasm\nlessened its following; yet in spirit it was native to Puritan\nidealism, and it enlisted the active sympathy of many of the finer\nsouls of New England. How greatly reform was furthered by the movement\nof perfectionism is not easily determined, but it is clear that its\ninfluence permeated much of the revolutionary activity of the times.\nScratch an ardent Abolitionist and you were likely to find a potential\nperfectionist.\n\nThe doctrine was first elaborated by John Humphrey Noyes, a young\nVermont mystic, who, under the influence of the revivalist excitement\nof the early thirties, elaborated a social creed that re\u00ebmbodied much\nof the teaching of the extreme left wing of English Commonwealth\nthought. Noyes was a primitive religious nature, with the tenderest\nof consciences, vastly troubled over current materialisms; and his\nspeculations reveal a curious throw-back to early English Puritanism.\nHe was a Yankee Fifth Monarchy man. Two hundred years of Yankee\nexperience slipped from his mind, and he walked and talked with the old\nmillennial spirits, the Diggers and Levelers of Commonwealth times. A\ndevout Scripturist, he took literally the injunction of Matthew, \u201cBe ye\ntherefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.\u201d\nA primitive Christian, he proposed to re-order society with the na\u00efve\nsimplicity of the apostle Eliot. In his mystical speculations, social,\npolitical, and religious radicalisms were stirred in a common pot and\nsimmered down to what may be called spiritual anarchism. Noyes was a\nYankee \u201croot and branch\u201d man, a single-minded apostle of \u201cthorough.\u201d\nHe would not strain at gnats and swallow camels, but he rejected the\ncamels first and then proposed to get rid of the gnats. In 1834 he\nestablished a small monthly paper called the _Perfectionist_, which was\nvery probably as revolutionary a sheet as was ever printed in America.\nHe made converts, including Garrison, Edmund Quincy, son of Josiah\nQuincy, the Grimk\u00e9 sisters, Henry C. Wright and other Abolitionists,\nand made an increasing stir in the world, to the great concern of\nrespectable folk who swallowed their camels without a grimace.\n\nSome notion of the main doctrines of this seventeenth-century creed may\nbe gained from a letter of Noyes to Garrison, written in 1837, from\nwhich the following is taken:\n\n I have subscribed my name to an instrument similar to the\n Declaration of \u201976, renouncing all allegiance to the government\n of the United States, and asserting the title of Jesus Christ to\n the throne of the World.... When I wish to form a conception of\n the government of the United States ... I picture to myself a\n bloated, swaggering libertine, trampling on the Bible--its own\n Constitution--its treaties with the Indians--the petitions of\n its citizens.... I have renounced active co-operation with the\n oppressor on whose territories I live; now I would find a way to\n put an end to his oppression. But he is manifestly a reprobate:\n reproof and instruction only aggravate his sins. I cannot attempt\n to reform him, because I am forbidden to \u201ccast pearls before\n swine.\u201d I must therefore either consent to remain a slave till\n God removes the tyrant, or I must commence war upon him, by a\n declaration of independence and other weapons suitable to the\n character of a son of God.\n\nHe then lays down seven reasons for choosing to make war upon the\nstate, amongst which are the following:\n\n 1. As a believer in the Bible I know that the territory of the\n United States belongs to God, and is promised ... to Jesus Christ\n and his followers....\n\n 6. The Son of God has manifestly, to me, chosen this country\n for the theatre of such an assault--a country which, by its\n boasting hypocrisy, has become the laughing-stock of the world,\n and by its lawlessness has fully proved the incapacity of man\n for self-government. _My hope of the millennium begins where Dr.\n Beecher\u2019s expires_--viz., +AT THE OVERTHROW OF THIS NATION+.\n\n I have stated to you only ... the principal things which God has\n urged upon me by his Spirit, and by which he has moved me to\n nominate Jesus Christ for the Presidency, not only of the United\n States, but of the world. Is it not high time for abolitionists to\n abandon a government whose President has declared war upon them? I\n cannot but think that many of them hear the same great voice out\n of heaven which has waked me, saying, \u201cCome out of her, my people,\n that ye be not partakers of her sins and of her plagues.\u201d... Allow\n me to suggest that you will set Anti-slavery in the sunshine only\n by making it tributary to Holiness; and you will most assuredly\n throw it into the shade ... if you suffer it to occupy the ground,\n in your mind or in others, which ought to be occupied by +UNIVERSAL\n EMANCIPATION FROM SIN+. All the abhorrence which now falls upon\n slavery, intemperance, lewdness, and every other specific vice,\n will in due time be gathered into one volume of victorious wrath\n against _unbelief_. I wait for that time as for the day of\n battle ... I counsel you, and the people that are with you, if\n you love the post of honour--the forefront of the hottest battle\n of righteousness--to set your face towards _perfect_ holiness.\n (Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_, Vol. II, pp. 145-148.)\n\nThis curious appeal brought forth its fruit in a Peace Convention,\nheld in 1838, which published a Declaration of Sentiments[452] that\nwas quite as extraordinary a pronouncement--one that serves to explain\nthe utter bewilderment of prosaic souls at the strange progeny of\nthe times. It was only one of many strange conventions, marked by an\nebullient faith of which Emerson remarked, \u201cThe core of the comet\ndid not seem to be much, but the whole air was full of splendors\u201d\n(_Journals_, Vol. VII, p. 5), and on which Josiah Quincy commented,\n\u201cSuch a mass of free mind as was brought together I have never seen\nbefore in any one assembly.... There was much talent and a great deal\nof _soul_.\u201d Men who take their Biblical teachings literally are likely\nto be curious fellows. Righteousness may prove a potent drink for\nthem that love it, begetting its own particular intemperance; and a\nconscience that has slipped its leash of the practical will run many a\nmad chase. If it followed its logic this perfectionism must make short\nshrift of political parties, of loyalty to government, of the political\nstate itself, and set up instead a social order in which familiar\nthings would be topsy-turvy, with the just sitting in high places\nand the rich and great of earth brought low; and this is precisely\nwhat Noyes did in the Oneida Community--the most successful of the\ncontemporary ventures in communism--of which he was the founder. In\nspite of his taste for the wine of new vintages Emerson was somewhat\ntaken aback at certain of its ebullitions, and when the sabbatarian\nChardon Street Convention in 1840 gathered together the choicest\nrepositories of New England holiness, he shook his head dubiously. His\nhumorous catalogue of the miscellaneous enthusiasts suggests more than\na spice of criticism.\n\n Madmen, madwomen, men with beards, Dunkers, Muggletonians,\n Come-outers, Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh-Day Baptists, Quakers,\n Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians, and Philosophers,--all came\n successively to the top, and seized their moment, if not their\n hour, wherein to chide, or pray, or preach, or protest. (\u201cThe\n Chardon Street Convention,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. X, p. 374.)\n\nAnd even the catholic-minded Edmund Quincy, who was one of the callers\nof the Convention, confessed that \u201cIt was the most singular collection\nof strange specimens of humanity that was ever assembled.\u201d The wine of\nperfectionism was in high ferment in New England in 1840.\n\nIt was a curious anachronism in the midst of the industrial\nrevolution--this revival of the religious Utopianism of 1650, this\nApril renaissance of the faith of a dead _saeculum theologicum_. It\nwas in no sense a by-product of transcendentalism--no lunacy fringe\nof metaphysical speculation. It owed nothing to French romanticism or\nGerman idealism, not in origin at least. It was far more primitive and\nnative, and its affinities run back to Roger Williams and the Fifth\nMonarchy millennialism, rather than to Rousseau and Kant and Jacobi. It\nwas a breaking through of the submerged New England spirituality, a\nvolcanic release from sterile conformity; and it summoned the awakening\nsoul to go forth and conquer the world for righteousness. Millennialism\nis the prophetic hope of a primitive faith. To its disciples it is\ncertain of fulfillment because God\u2019s promises are certain; but to\npractical minds, unconvinced that Biblical phrases are authentic divine\ncontracts, any expectation of the speedy coming of the Kingdom of God\nseems grotesque. The millennial enthusiast is a fair butt of ridicule,\nand the perfectionists came in for a large share. It was Lowell who\nleveled at the militant godliness of the new sects the wittiest attack.\nForgetting his English history he found himself puzzled, and being\npuzzled he allowed himself to become ill-natured. His clever sentences\nexplode smartly about his subject, but there is no light in them.[453]\n\n\nIII\n\nUpon another venture in Utopianism, and one far better known, the years\nhave laid a pleasant, idyllic haze, softening the prosaic outlines and\nclothing them with romance. Brook Farm has been singularly fortunate\nin the posthumous fame that has dealt with it so tenderly as to\ntransmute it into poetry. By virtue of the light reflected upon it by\nthe transcendental illumination and the literary skill it commanded,\nthe little communal settlement at West Roxbury has come to be regarded\nas a homely Yankee pastoral, a sort of May Day adventure in brown\nholland tunics, an inspiring quest of the ideal amongst furrows and\nmanures. It is a social poem fashioned out of Yankee homespun. No\nhint of rude social leveling is associated with its aims; even its\ncommunism suggests no stigma. Of the dozens of communistic experiments\nwhich marked the first half of the nineteenth century in America,\nfew were native in origin or ventured upon in New England. They were\nmostly undertaken by old-world groups, chiefly German, who sought cheap\nland and a free environment for primitive religious experiments. But\nBrook Farm was true Yankee, using the familiar dialect to clothe its\nunfamiliar thoughts, and escaping the prejudice that confronts the\nuncouth and alien; and in consequence the vagaries that all New England\nonce laughed at have become enshrined as a cherished New England\npossession.\n\nPerfectionism and Brook Farm embodied diverse phases of the\nrenaissance and made appeal to different temperaments. Fellow-ship\nfounded on common ownership and communal labor was an ideal that\nleft the religious mystic cold, whereas the anarchistic holiness of\nperfectionism seemed to the Brook Farmers grotesque. Present economic\nmaladjustment appeared to the latter the fundamental problem of the\ntimes. They were deeply concerned for the future that must emerge\nfrom the chaotic individualism of the present. Unless society were\nbrought back to a wiser understanding of values, they foresaw only\nchaos; and so in a small way they set about a great experiment.\nBrook Farm grew out of the impact of the industrial revolution upon\nthe social conscience of New England. Industrialism and social\nspeculation were contemporary developments. The first cotton mill in\nNew England was established at Lawrence in 1822, and the following\nyear the Merrimac Mills were established in the newly founded city of\nLowell. By absorbing the vast Irish immigration the factory system\nbrought increasing wealth to Beacon Street homes, but it brought other\nconsequences in its train which Beacon Street carelessly overlooked.\nHow those consequences affected more sensitive and intelligent\nminds--men like William Henry Channing, Theodore Parker and George\nRipley--is suggested by their eager talk of mutualism, association,\nco\u00f6peration, as potential cures for the growing evils of competition,\ndiscussions never before heard in New England. Describing the state\nof mind of the Boston group of social thinkers, John Weiss offers the\nfollowing explanation:\n\n A mutualism to secure culture and material welfare was consistently\n desired by those who believed in a community of the sources of\n moral and spiritual welfare. The social evils which result from\n the struggles of competitive labour seemed to outweigh all its\n benefits. Modern civilization was thought to be the culmination\n of isolated selfishness, madly struggling from bread to luxury\n and refined delights, which the strongest and least scrupulous\n only could acquire. Prisons and punishments were the defences of\n this artificial system, to repress instincts that were moral till\n they become illegal. Hospitals and benevolent institutions were\n also mere defences to absorb as much misery as possible ere it\n became malicious, to get the social gangrene reduced to limits.\n The providential impulses of the human being were forced to act in\n subversive ways and directions, when they might all be harmonized\n by their own inherent laws, and the blessing of mutualism succeed\n to the bane of antagonism. Each man ought to be the guarantee\n to all men against disorder; the carefully adjusted elements of\n a selfishness which threatens continually to blow the social\n fabric to atoms, would become not only innoxious but salutary in\n its proper combination; and a new civilization might arise in\n fair proportion from the serial development and movement of all\n possible human tendencies. Then all men and women might labor and\n be happy; all might earn with a minimum of toil a competence of\n culture. Property would be the ally of the whole instead of the\n oppressor of the many; and crime would disappear, because the\n instincts would no longer have motives to be criminal. (_Life and\n Correspondence of Theodore Parker_, Vol. I, pp. 106-107.)\n\nThe transcendental basis of such social speculation is evident enough.\nThe new social thought was transcendental thought. A common belief\nin the excellence of human instincts drew these idealists together;\nbut when it came to the vexing problem of reconciling individualism\nand mutualism, creating an economic fellowship out of electric\npersonalities, the more ardent transcendentalists took fright and\nprudently kept without the gates of Brook Farm. Organization seemed\nto them the fatal poison in the bottom of the cup. When a community\nwas planned in Massachusetts in 1841, by liberal Christians of the\nUniversalist sect, a writer in the _Dial_ subjected the proposal to\nsharp criticism:\n\n A true community can be founded on nothing short of faith in the\n universal man, as he comes from the hands of the Creator, with\n no law over his liberty but the eternal ideas that lie at the\n foundation of his being.... The final cause of human society is the\n unfolding of the individual man, into every form of perfection,\n without let or hindrance, according to the inward nature of each.\n (Quoted by Frothingham in _Transcendentalism, etc._, p. 157.)\n\nSuch a view is anarchistic rather than collectivistic, and as embodied\nin Alcott\u2019s Fruitlands, it may be regarded as the transcendental type\nof Utopia. Towards all systems of socialism the transcendentalists\nwere instinctively hostile, as implying an industrial regimentation;\nand in planning Brook Farm, Ripley rejected industrialism and reduced\nregimentation to a minimum. With the agrarian background of Brook Farm\nthe transcendentalists were in hearty sympathy, quite oblivious of the\nfact that agrarianism could offer no solution for industrialism; but\nthey balked at the principle of task allotment as a hindrance to the\nunfolding of individual differences. Upon the later introduction of\nthe Fourier Phalanx their doubts grew into certainty, and they lost\ntheir faith in the experiment. Of all the transcendentalists William\nHenry Channing was clearly the most confirmed associationist, except\nperhaps Ripley; to the end of his life he remained a socialist, active\nin collectivistic movements and clinging fondly to his memory of Brook\nFarm as a \u201cgreat college of social students.\u201d But few of his fellow\ntranscendentalists shared his faith.\n\nThis growing skepticism of organization is clearly shown in the\ncomments of Emerson\u2019s _Journals_. In October, 1840, he set down his\nfirst reaction to the plan as follows:\n\n Yesterday George and Sophia Ripley, Margaret Fuller and Alcott\n discussed here the Social Plans. I wish to be convinced, to be\n thawed, to be made nobly mad by the kindlings before my eye of\n a new dawn of human piety. But this scheme was arithmetic and\n comfort; this was a hint borrowed from the Tremont House and United\n States Hotel; a rage in our poverty and politics to live rich and\n gentlemanlike, an anchor to leeward against a change of weather; a\n prudent forecast on the probable issue of the great questions of\n Pauperism and Poverty. And not once could I be inflamed, but sat\n aloof and thoughtless; my voice faltered and fell. It was not the\n cave of persecution which is the palace of spiritual power, but\n only a room in the Astor House hired for the Transcendentalists. I\n do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little\n larger. I wish to break all prisons. I have not yet conquered\n my own house. It irks and repents me. Shall I raise the siege\n of this hencoop, and march baffled away to a pretended siege of\n Babylon? It seems to me that so to do were to dodge the problem I\n am set to solve, and to hide my impotency in the thick of a crowd.\n (_Journals_, Vol. V, pp. 473-474.)\n\nIn January, 1844, noting the spontaneity of life at Brook Farm, he drew\nthe conclusion \u201cthat in the arrangements at Brook Farm, as out of them,\nit is the person, not the communist, that avails\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. VI,\np. 492). With the introduction of Fourierist organization he became\nsharply critical. Neither in Fourier nor in Owen did he see any hope.\n\n Fourier learned from him [Owen] all the truth he had, and the rest\n of his system was imagination, and the imagination of a banker. The\n Owen and Fourier plans bring no _a priori_ convictions. They are\n come at merely by counting and arithmetic. All the fine _aper\u00e7us_\n are for individualism. The Spartan broth, the hermit\u2019s cell,\n the lonely farmer\u2019s life are poetic; but the Phalanstery, the\n \u201cSelf-supporting Village,\u201d are culinary and mean. (_Ibid._, Vol.\n VIII, pp. 134, 135.)\n\nAnd a few days later he gave his final judgment, \u201cDear heart, take\nit sadly home to thee, that there will and can be no co\u00f6peration\u201d--a\njudgment that explains the clever phrase with which he demolished Brook\nFarm, \u201cIt is the Age of Reason in a patty-pan.\u201d\n\nThe transcendentalist with his Puritan conscience could understand and\nsympathize with the perfectionist zeal for universal righteousness;\nbut collectivistic systems of economy seemed alien and a community of\ngoods uncongenial to his Yankee individualism. Albert Brisbane, the\nAmerican apostle of Fourierism, might bring George Ripley, the least\nindividualistic and most prosaic of the transcendental group, to his\nviews of organization; but he got on badly with the others who were\nquite too fluid to take a mechanical set. In consequence it was not at\nBrook Farm but at the North American Phalanx that the French system\nfound its fairest experiment and met with its solidest success.\n\n\nIV\n\nWith the awakening interest in social problems the conscience of New\nEngland could not longer remain indifferent to slavery. The incoming\nof French humanitarianism, the spread of idealistic sociology under\nthe teachings of Unitarianism, above all the stimulus of English\nAbolitionism that provided argument and example in the freeing of\nslaves in the British West Indies, wore away the indifferentism\nthat had calloused the mind of New England; and with the decay of\nher provincial particularism the conscience of New England slowly\nroused itself. The arrogance of the slave party nowhere else stirred\nsuch deep resentment. Southern steel, striking the flinty Yankee\ncharacter, threw off sparks that would fire whatever combustible stuff\nlay near; and such combustible stuff was provided in plenty by the\nUtopian enthusiasts who gathered in conventions, each with a plan\nof universal reform in his waistcoat pocket. Little conflagrations\nwere started in many an obscure Yankee soul, and the noise of the\ncrackling spread over New England, to the anger of the South and the\nvast concern of respectable Boston merchants. Sooner or later Abolition\nsentiment was bound to make a tremendous stir amongst the children of\nPuritanism; and when that time came it was bound to arouse tremendous\nantagonism amongst the sons of Yankees. The dominant commercial\ngroup would not tolerate a movement that was certain to alienate its\nsouthern customers. A mighty collision between the conscience and the\nself-interest of New England was inevitable; and in that collision of\nflinty characters, arguments were likely to be countered with blows.\n\nThe New England Abolitionists, men and women, were an extraordinarily\ninteresting group. They were good fighters, outspoken and tenacious of\nopinion, unsparing in attack, refusing to be browbeaten, resilient\nand tough as seasoned hickory. In them the Yankee Tory met his match;\nagainst them coercion and intimidation, all the usual Tory weapons,\nfailed as earlier they had failed with the primitive Quakers. They\nwere daily charged with being social incendiaries. The commercial\nnewspapers thundered against them as atheists, Sabbath-breakers,\nsocialists, anarchists; the absurdest myths were given circulation;\nthe public mind was skillfully poisoned against them. Yet as a matter\nof sober historical fact, they were the kindliest of men, with\ngenerous sympathies and disinterested motives. No blackguard was ever\nan Abolitionist--no ward-heeler, or mob-inciter, or purse-patriot;\nall such convenient tools of power were found amongst the baiters\nand mobsters in the commercial opposition. John Brown was the only\ndirect-action Abolitionist and what befell him is well known among men.\nThere was no money to be made, no place of honor or power to be got by\nespousing Abolitionism, but only self-sacrifice and social ostracism.\nAmbitious men, self-seekers, went with the dispensers of social\nfavors. It was the remnant in Israel that gathered to the cause, few\nin numbers but the best New England had. And what an excellent company\nthey were: Garrison, Samuel J. May, Edmund Quincy, Jonathan Sewall,\nTheodore Parker, Lydia Maria Child, Mrs. Chapman, Wendell Phillips,\nThomas Wentworth Higginson, Whittier, Henry Ward Beecher, Sumner,\nMaria White and the young Lowell--such a fighting phalanx as the New\nEngland conscience had never before mustered, nor has since. To them\nwere gathered heroic souls from other states: Arthur and Lewis Tappan\nand Gerrit Smith from New York, James Birney from Kentucky, Lucretia\nMott from Philadelphia, the Grimk\u00e9 sisters from South Carolina. Harriet\nMartineau, who knew the group intimately, has left on record her\njudgment of them: \u201cA just survey of the whole world can leave little\ndoubt,\u201d she wrote in 1838, \u201cthat the abolitionists of the United States\nare the greatest people now living and moving in it\u201d (Carpenter, _John\nGreenleaf Whittier_, p. 107). They gave New England and the country no\npeace. From their persistent agitation came the Emigrant Aid Society,\nSharp\u2019s rifles, and the bloody struggle in Kansas; and from it came the\ntemporary overwhelming of the Tory minority in Massachusetts. For a few\nbrief years New England threw off the stifling grip of the commercial\nmind and was the home of American humanitarianism.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[448] See T. W. Higginson, _Old Cambridge_, p. 149.\n\n[449] See Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_, Vol. I, Chapter VI. The\ncourt held that it was libelous to seek to bring into disrepute an\naction that was legal.\n\n[450] Quoted by S. E. Morison in _Harrison Grey Otis_, Vol. II, p. 263.\n\n[451] This was an outgrowth of the anti-slavery movement and emerged\nfrom the conservative opposition to women\u2019s appearing on the abolition\nplatform. The reply of the Quakeress, Angelina Grimk\u00e9, to Elizabeth\nBeecher\u2019s _Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with reference to the\nDuty of American Females_, in 1837, marks the definite beginning of the\nmovement. See Garrison, _William Lloyd Garrison_, Vol. II, pp. 133-134.\n\n[452] Written by Garrison; see _ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 230-234.\n\n[453] See the essay on Thoreau.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 Certain Militants\n\n\nI \u2022 William Lloyd Garrison\n\nThe flintiest character amongst the New England militants, curiously\nenough, was the son of an immigrant family, brought to Newburyport\nand abandoned by a shiftless father. William Lloyd Garrison was not\nan offspring of generations of New England Puritanism, but a waif\nthrown by chance on the bleak shores of Massachusetts, and left to\nshift pretty much for himself. Born in Newburyport, half English and\nhalf Irish, with a heritage that promised ill, he was disciplined in\nthe sternest of schools. His capable Irish mother had a bitter time\nproviding for her three fatherless children, and the son suffered\nthe privation and found the help that were the mixed portion of the\ndestitute of old New England. Like Horace Greeley he ate the bread of\npoverty and grew strong on it. There was iron in his nature, and the\nnarrow means that drove his father to drink and desertion, that sent\nhis brother adrift, that broke his mother and killed his sister, only\nstrengthened his will and toughened his fiber. As a lad he was put to\nthe cobbler\u2019s bench to learn the trade that Whittier was learning at\nHaverhill; later he was apprenticed to a carpenter and cabinetmaker. In\nboth trades he was unhappy, and it was not till a freak of fate turned\nhim over to a friendly printer that he found himself. For seven years\nhe stuck to his case, and at the end of the apprenticeship he was not\nonly a first-rate practical printer, but with some little knowledge of\nbooks and master of a vigorous and serviceable prose style. With the\namazing capacity for self-training so characteristic of the Yankee, he\nhad picked up a sort of education and was ready to do whatever work in\nthe world should come to hand.\n\nChance threw in his way the job of village editor, and inclination\nplunged him into politics. His political opinions, which he embraced\nmore ardently than intelligently, were faithful reflections of current\nMassachusetts partisanship. He was quite ignorant of political\nprinciples and the economics that determined political parties, and\nwith unconscious na\u00efvet\u00e9 he espoused the cause of Boston commercialism.\nHe was a dogmatic, unquestioning Whig. Clay was his idol, General\nJackson his abomination; and his first political speech was in support\nof Harrison Gray Otis, the discredited boss of the old Federalist\nmachine. But this was only a vagary of youthful hero worship.\nEnthusiasm for reform was already setting up a ferment in his ardent\nsoul and preparing him for quite other alliances. The unhappy fate of\nhis father was a lesson that he took home, and he interested himself\nin the temperance movement then just getting under way, serving for\na time as editor of a small temperance paper. Shortly thereafter he\nstumbled upon his life work. Benjamin Lundy, a homespun hero of the\nSociety of Friends, had long been publishing intermittently his _Genius\nof Universal Emancipation_, and in the itinerant work of begging\nsupport he fell in with Garrison. The two discovered kindred interests\nand they entered into a compact to go forth together to fight the\ndragon of slavery. They sought out the den of the beast in Baltimore\nand delivered their blows lustily; with the result that Garrison was\nindicted by the grand jury for printing the name of a Newburyport\nmerchant who was picking up some honest dollars in the coastwise slave\ntraffic, and spent seven weeks in jail. On his release he returned\nto Boston to replenish a lean purse, and January 1, 1831, he issued\nthe first number of _The Liberator_, a little paper that was to make\na mighty stir in the world during a long period of hand-to-mouth\nexistence.\n\nNever was there a more foolhardy venture, judged by the wisdom of this\nworld. With no following, no weapon but a borrowed font of type in\na mean little print-shop, no money or credit, he flung his defiance\nat the entrenched enemy with the courage of uncalculating youth. A\nprospectus issued in the fall of 1830 thus set forth the purpose of the\nventure:\n\n I shall assume, as self-evident truths, that the liberty of a\n people is a gift of God and nature:--That liberty consists in an\n independency upon the will of another:--That by the name of slave\n we understand a man who can neither dispose of his person or goods,\n but enjoys all at the will of his master:--That no man can have a\n right over others, unless it be by them granted to him.... That\n that which is not just is not law; and that which is not law,\n ought not to be in force:--That he who oppugns the public liberty,\n overthrows his own.... That there is no safety where there is no\n strength, no strength without union, no union without justice, no\n justice where faith and truth are wanting:--That the right to be\n free is a truth planted in the hearts of men, and acknowledged so\n to be by all that have hearkened to the voice of nature.... _Vide\n Algernon Sidney\u2019s Discourses on Government--the Declaration of\n American Independence--the Constitutions and Bills of Rights of the\n several States, etc., etc._ (_Life of William Lloyd Garrison, by\n his Children._ Vol. I, p. 200.)\n\nThis pronouncement was amplified in the salutatory address in the first\nnumber, as follows:\n\n Assenting to the \u201cself-evident truth\u201d maintained in the American\n Declaration of Independence, \u201cthat all men are created equal, and\n endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights--among\n which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,\u201d I shall\n strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave\n population.... I am aware that many object to the severity of my\n language; but is there not cause for severity? I _will_ be as\n harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject,\n I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation ...\n urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am\n in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not\n retreat a single inch--+AND I WILL BE HEARD+. (_Ibid._, Vol. I, pp.\n 224-225.)\n\nThe young man just turned twenty-six who thus marked out the path\nhe was to follow for thirty-five years was an extraordinarily\nsingle-minded and rugged character. His like has too rarely appeared in\nAmerica. Arrogant, dictatorial, intolerant, he might be, as his warmest\nfriends admitted; but it is a foolish judgment that will dismiss him\nthus. Unyielding as granite, sheer Yankee will driven by a passionate\nenergy, he was born for hazardous leadership. He was a man utterly\nunacquainted with fear. Lied about daily, threatened, bullied, charged\nwith every sin in the Decalogue and every crime on the statute-book, he\ncould not be coerced nor intimidated nor turned aside from his purpose.\nAn ascetic who cared nothing for ease or preferment; a pacifist who\nfought only with the sword of the spirit; a stern moralist prophesying\nwrath upon a nation of mockers, and pronouncing doom upon a people\nthat had forgotten God, he was an agitator fashioned after the ancient\nHebraic pattern. The stature of such a man cannot be measured by\nconventional standards. Outwardly a somewhat prosaic Baptist, deeply\nreligious and in his younger days bigotedly orthodox, he was in reality\na spiritual child of the Old Testament, a modern Puritan on whom had\nfallen the mantle of the Prophets. New England Calvinism never bred so\nPuritan a soul. Hebraism was in his marrow--its noble austerity, its\nconsuming passion. He daily walked with righteousness and communed\nwith conscience. He carried God\u2019s scales into the market place. He\nwould not accept his law of men. Constitutions and statutes were vain\nand foolish pronouncements to him if he judged them to be contrary to\nthe divine enactments. He counted property in negroes and cotton as\nnothing when weighed in the balance of justice. A human soul, whether\nin black skin or white, was of far greater worth in his eyes than all\nthe warring kingdoms of this world. As fully as John Humphrey Noyes he\nre\u00ebmbodied the root-and-branch righteousness of English Commonwealth\ntimes. Others might lash the sins of his generation with whips; he\nwould scourge them with nettles and scorpions. He would raise such a\nclamor about men\u2019s ears that the drowsiest must awake. He would light\nsuch a fire in the slave market of America that the evil thing should\nbe consumed as stubble in the white flame of righteousness.\n\nSuch primitive Hebraism, quite evidently, is calculated to make\ntroublesome citizens who are certain to get themselves heartily\ndisliked by those who approve of the world as it is. Any invasion of\nthe devil\u2019s realms will create an uproar, for the devil is prompt\nto defend his own. Righteousness may prophesy in the gates, but the\nbuying and selling of the poor goes on as usual. Amongst comfortable\nfolk conscience is rarely at home when justice knocks at the door;\nit is gone a-visiting, or is busy, or is waiting upon Caesar, or is\ngone forth to pray. Comfortable folk do not like clamor, even from\nthe prophets, and are content to leave justice to God with the hope\nthat He will not disturb business. If the tithes are duly paid, it is\na mean and censorious God that will ask how the money was got. Hence\ncomfortable folk, north as well as south, did not like Garrison; and\nnot liking him they were zealous to damn him. He was made out to be\na bogy man, busily engaged in stirring up Nat Turner insurrections,\ninciting peaceful and contented slaves to discontent, flouting the\nConstitution and seeking to disrupt the Union. His righteousness was so\ngreat a stumbling-block that he was held to be an atheist by eminent\nformalists who knew of righteousness only by hearsay, and learned\nof God only from report. It was reckoned to him a major sin that he\nforgot his manners, for must not the Lord\u2019s work be carried on in\nseemly fashion, and the money-changers be scourged from the temple\npolitely? \u201cThe first movement here at the North, was a rank onset\nand explosion,\u201d said the eminent Dr. Bushnell. \u201cThe first sin of this\norganization was a sin of ill manners. They did not go to work like\nChristian gentlemen.... The great convention which met at Philadelphia\ndrew up a declaration of their sentiments ... by which they willfully\nand boorishly cast off the whole South from them\u201d (Garrison, _William\nLloyd Garrison_, Vol. II, p. 132, Note). What could be done with\na fellow who insisted that the devil is rarely put in a quake by\ncourteous treatment, and who had never learned that the Hebrew prophets\nbore themselves like Christian gentlemen? That he spoke with plebeian\ndirectness was unquestionably true.\n\n These are your men of \u201ccaution,\u201d and \u201cprudence,\u201d and\n \u201cjudiciousness\u201d [he exclaimed in a speech at Philadelphia, May 14,\n 1838]. Sir, I have learned to hate those words. Whenever we attempt\n to imitate our great Exemplar, and press the truth of God, in all\n its plainness, upon the conscience, why, we are very imprudent;\n because, forsooth, a great excitement will ensue. Sir, slavery will\n not be overthrown without excitement, a most tremendous excitement.\n (_Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 215. Note.)\n\nIf clerical gentlemen disliked Garrison, gentlemen of State Street\ndisliked him much more heartily, and being the responsible custodians\nof law and order, they upheld existing institutions in their own way.\nYour Tory is always a Fascist at heart, and the Boston Tories naturally\nadopted the principle of direct action. Unpleasant things happened\nto Garrison in consequence. He was denounced at a most respectable\nmeeting in Faneuil Hall, \u201cat which Washington was cheered for being\na slave-holder.\u201d He was mobbed in his print-shop by \u201cgentlemen of\nproperty and standing from all parts of the city,\u201d and was thrown into\njail by a timid mayor to save his life. Not since the days of Tom Paine\nhad such unmeasured vituperation been poured out on the head of an\nAmerican. It would seem that it was a perilous business to defend the\ndowntrodden or to remind church-members of the injunction \u201cto undo the\nheavy burdens and let the oppressed go free.\u201d When conscience throws\ndown the gauntlet to economics it is certain to get some hard knocks.\nIt is ill-trained for a rough and tumble contest; its scruples will\nnot permit it to hit below the belt. But the Tory suffers no handicap\nof scruple and plants his blows where he can. On the occasion of an\nAbolition convention announced to be held within the shadows of Wall\nStreet, Bennett\u2019s _New York Herald_ exemplified the sweetness and\nlight of the commercial mind in such pronouncements as this:\n\n What business have all the religious lunatics of the free states\n to gather in this commercial city for purposes which, if carried\n into effect, would ruin and destroy its prosperity?... Public\n opinion should be regulated. These abolitionists should not be\n allowed to misrepresent New York.... When free discussion does not\n promote the public good, it has no more right to exist than a bad\n government that is dangerous and oppressive to the common weal.\n It should be overthrown. On the question of the usefulness to the\n public of the packed, organized meetings of these abolitionists,\n socialists, Sabbath-breakers, and anarchists, there can be but\n one result arrived at by prudence and patriotism. They are\n dangerous assemblies--calculated for mischief, and reasonable\n in their character and purposes.... That half-a-dozen madmen\n should manufacture opinion for the whole community, is not to be\n tolerated. (_Ibid._, Vol. III, pp. 283-284.)\n\nIn consequence of which appeals to \u201cprudence and patriotism\u201d the\nmeeting was broken up, public opinion was judiciously regulated,\nand the Bible and Constitution vindicated by a Bowery mob under the\nleadership of a ward-heeler. It was from the impact of such ruthless\nopposition that Garrison\u2019s strategy took form; and it was direct and\nuncompromising and outspoken--as sternly logical as Calhoun\u2019s. There\nwere no shades in his thinking but only black and white, righteousness\nand sin. Expediency was not in his vocabulary. He was as narrow as he\nwas intense. The catholic intellectual interests of the times touched\nhim but little. Transcendentalism lay quite outside his world of\nthought. He was a religious soul rather than a speculative intellect,\nand he measured all things by the principles of primitive Christianity.\nAs a young man he preferred the Calvinism of Lyman Beecher to the\nUnitarianism of Channing, but later he came to perceive the intimate\nrelation between the major premises of Unitarianism and his social\nideals. It is idle to seek a political philosopher in a Hebrew\nmoralist. His somewhat na\u00efve political conceptions were an amalgam of\nFrench equalitarianism and Yankee perfectionism. The Declaration of\nIndependence was his one political textbook, in the light of which\nhe judged Congressional enactments and interpreted the Constitution.\nWith Channing he assumed an ethical sanction for natural rights, and\nthis assumption conducted straight to the doctrine of the higher law.\nAs early as 1830 his conscience was prepared to appeal from laws and\nstatutes to ethics, on the principle that \u201cthat which is not just is\nnot law.\u201d By 1837 he had accepted the philosophy of spiritual anarchism\nas set forth in the new gospel of perfectionism, and from this flowed\nnaturally the doctrines of Nullification and disunion.\n\nWith amazing frankness Garrison published his views to friends and\nenemies, bringing all the hornets of conservatism about his ears. A\nfurious discussion arose within the Abolition ranks on the question of\nloyalty to the political state, and the scandal of Garrison\u2019s Fifth\nMonarchy doctrine spread far. What that doctrine was he was at great\npains to make clear. Writing to Henry C. Wright on the Quaker doctrine\nof non-resistance, he insisted on the sinfulness of all force whether\nin a private or public capacity, and then asserted:\n\n Human governments will remain in violent existence as long as men\n are resolved not to bear the cross of Christ, and to be crucified\n unto the world. But in the Kingdom of God\u2019s dear Son, holiness and\n love are the only magistracy. It has no swords, for they are beaten\n into ploughshares--no spears, for they are changed into pruning\n hooks--no military academy, for the saints cannot learn war any\n more--no gibbet, for life is regarded as inviolate--no chains,\n for all are free. And that kingdom is to be established upon the\n earth, for the time is predicted when the kingdoms of this world\n will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. (Garrison,\n _William Lloyd Garrison_, Vol. II, p. 149.)\n\nFrom such premises he deduced the conclusion that government is a cross\nthat God permits men to endure as punishment for their sins. When they\nshall voluntarily quit their sins political government will cease.\n\n Human governments \u201care the results of human disobedience to the\n requirements of heaven; and they are better than anarchy just as a\n hailstorm is preferable to an earthquake, or the small-pox to the\n Asiatic cholera.\u201d From the silence of the Bible as to the _form_ of\n such governments, he inferred not that each might claim a divine\n sanction, \u201cbut that the kingdom which Christ has established on\n earth is ultimately to swallow up or radically to subvert all other\n kingdoms.\u201d... \u201cShall we, _as Christians_, applaud and do homage\n to human government? or shall we not rather lay the axe at the\n root of the tree, and attempt to destroy both cause and effect\n together?\u201d Foolish are the speculations about the best form of\n human government: \u201cWhat is government but the express image of the\n moral character of a people?\u201d (_Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 150-151.)\n\nThis is of course undiluted perfectionism, in which Garrison was\nthe most ardent of believers. Prosaic political theory had lost all\nsignificance for him; he had got himself drunk on the new wine and was\nin no mood to listen to the counsels of expediency. Like John Humphrey\nNoyes he declared war upon the existing political state. He voluntarily\ndisfranchised himself. He raised the banner of \u201cdisloyalty\u201d in the\n_Liberator_, and summoned the Abolitionists to separate themselves\nfrom the unclean government that protected the sin of slavery. That\nthe Constitution recognized the hateful system was sufficient proof to\nGarrison that the Constitution itself was unclean. Let it be consumed\nby its own iniquity. In 1843 he began an uncompromising attack upon\nit by nailing to the masthead of the _Liberator_ his famous phrase,\n\u201cA Covenant with Death and an Agreement with Hell,\u201d to which he soon\nadded the words, \u201cNo Union with Slaveholders.\u201d He broke with many of\nhis oldest friends, with Whittier and Gerrit Smith and James Birney,\nassailing them bitterly for meddling with third-party movements in\nthe hope of curing the evil by political action. There followed,\nin consequence, a whirlwind and tempest of debate that brought a\ndisastrous schism upon the Abolition movement. Cries of disloyalty and\nsedition filled all ears; but Garrison was indifferent to the storms\nthat gathered about his head. He would go forward though he went alone.\nWith every advance of the slave power his hatred of the Constitution,\nunder cover of which its advances were made, grew more bitter. He\noutran southern fire eaters in advocacy of Nullification and secession.\nIt became his daily work to undo the labors of Webster and bring the\nfundamental law into common contempt. The doctrine of no compromise\nwith sin made no account of the complexities of social problems--the\nimmediate, root-and-branch eradication of slavery or immediate\ndissolution of the Union, were his alternatives. \u201cWe dissolved the\nUnion by a handsome vote, after a warm debate,\u201d wrote Edmund Quincy\nin 1843; \u201cthe question was ... wrapped up by Garrison in some of his\nfavorite Old Testament Hebraisms by way of vehicle, as the apothecaries\nsay\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. III, p. 88).\n\nIt was at a Fourth of July meeting, following the Anthony Burns affair\nof 1854, that Garrison made use of the striking appeal that attests his\nextraordinary boldness and skill as an agitator. After contrasting the\nprinciples of the Declaration of Independence and the present state of\nthe Republic, he went on:\n\n He should now proceed to perform an action which would be the\n testimony of his own soul, to all present, of the estimation in\n which he held the pro-slavery laws and deeds of the nation.\n Producing a copy of the _Fugitive Slave Law_, he set fire to it,\n and burnt it to ashes. Using an old and well-known phrase, he said,\n \u201cAnd let all the people say, Amen\u201d; and a unanimous cheer and shout\n of \u201cAmen\u201d burst from the vast audience. In like manner Mr. Garrison\n burned the decision of Edward G. Loring in the case of Anthony\n Burns ... the multitude ratifying the fiery immolation with shouts\n of applause. Then, holding up the U. S. Constitution, he branded it\n as the source and parent of all the other atrocities,--\u201ca covenant\n with death and agreement with hell\u201d--and consumed it to ashes on\n the spot, exclaiming, \u201cSo perish all compromises with tyranny!\n and let all the people say, Amen!\u201d A tremendous shout of \u201cAmen\u201d\n went up to heaven in ratification of the deed, mingled with a few\n hisses and wrathful exclamations from some who were evidently in a\n rowdyish state of mind, but who were at once cowed by the popular\n feeling. (_Ibid._, Vol. III, p. 412.)\n\nIn such fashion did this disciple of the gospel of peace carry the\nwar into Macedonia. The law of conscience had come into collision\nwith the law of the land, and he followed conscience. For Garrison\nmajority votes held no mandate. He had come to regard the political\nstate as the mother of all mischiefs; for behind this thing of shreds\nand patches he saw unscrupulous politicians whose profession was the\ndeceiving of simple minds, befogging moral issues with their myths and\ncults--their appeals to patriotism and the Constitution--and bringing\nthe law of God into contempt. It was the spiritual bondage of the North\nthat held the negro in slavery, Garrison had come to believe, and to\nfree the conscience of the North was the great duty devolving upon the\nAbolitionists. With his intense single-mindedness he saw no other duty,\nand in doing that duty he would use no other weapon than the sword of\nthe spirit. It is fortunate, perhaps, that the prophet knows so little\nof the resourcefulness of the market place on which he pronounces\njudgment, or his zeal might suffer abatement. Slavery was not destroyed\nby the conscience of Massachusetts, but by the economics of free\nlabor. The free-soilers were more dangerous to it for they fought with\nmaterial weapons; and old John Brown of Ossawatomie, more Hebraic even\nthan Garrison, was a sterner realist, who took care to load his Sharp\u2019s\nrifle while girding on the sword of the spirit. From the prophet to\nthe soldier is but a step, from the sword of the spirit to musket and\nball, from conscience to the Emancipation Proclamation. Single-minded\nmen--the Garrisons and John Browns--marshaling the discontent of\ntheir generation, sometimes do succeed in removing mountains; but\nunfortunately they leave a great scar, and the d\u00e9bris litters the\nwhole countryside. Other mountains may even arise from the waste of\nthe leveling. After the Emancipation Proclamation came the Fourteenth\nAmendment, and out of that came the triumphant gospel of \u201cdue process\nof law.\u201d The devil understands the ways of the world too well to become\ndiscouraged at a temporary set-back, for if righteousness succeed in\nbreaking the bonds that bind a generation, he knows that the market\nplace carries an ample stock of new cords to replace those that are\nbroken.\n\n\nII \u2022 John G. Whittier \u2022 Puritan Quaker\n\nIf Garrison was the flintiest character amongst the militant\nAbolitionists, Whittier was certainly the gentlest. Among many lovable\nmen he was perhaps the most lovable. Bred in a faith that had never\nbeen dominant in New England, he escaped the induration that was the\nprice the New England conscience paid for its hard dogma. No thick\nshell of Calvinism incrusted for him the soul of humanitarian religion.\nIn the Society of Friends righteousness was not daily twisted into\nunloveliness, nor the beauty of holiness forgotten; and in consequence,\nit was easier for him than for his Calvinist neighbors to fashion his\nlife upon the principles of the New Testament, and set Christ above the\nProphets.\n\nWhittier\u2019s family escaped many temptations by following quiet paths to\ntheir own ends. Prosperity had never wooed the Massachusetts Quakers\naway from the simple life, as it had done with so many Philadelphia\nFriends, but a narrow domestic economy and social non-conformity\nhad nourished their religion of peace and good will. Long before\nChanning discovered the religion of love in the teachings of French\nhumanitarianism, the early Quakers had found that primitive gospel in\nthe byways of Carolinian England, and had brought it to the new world.\nThere they had borne testimony in their daily lives to the excellence\nof Christian fellowship, and there they had suffered the reproaches\nand the blows of bigoted conformists. Their faith had been tried in\nthe fires of persecution, and the Society of Friends had justified\nits use of that most excellent of sectarian names. In the sincerity\nof their equalitarian fellowship the Quakers were the friends of\nhumanity, of the poor and the outcast of this world. Their religion\nwas of the week-day as well as the Sabbath. With its mystical doctrine\nof the inner light--of the Holy Spirit that speaks directly to the\nsoul without the intermediation of priest or church--it unconsciously\nspread the doctrine of democracy in an autocratic world. It interpreted\nliterally the principle that members of the Christian fellowship are\nequals in the sight of God and in each other\u2019s eyes--that on earth\nthere is neither high nor low but a common brotherhood in Christ.\nIt quietly set aside the pretentions of priestly hierarchies, and\nsubstituted the principle that religion is a matter that lies with the\nindividual and God. Naturally a \u201chireling ministry\u201d could not look\nwith favor on such doctrine, and the sharp hostility it aroused in\ntheocratic New England, sprang from the realization that the ideals\nof the Quaker fellowship were dangerous to the ideals of a priestly\ntheocracy. The autocratic rulers of Massachusetts Bay could see little\ngood in the democracy of the Friends.\n\nAs became a Quietist, the master passion of Whittier\u2019s life was\nethical. He was neither a transcendental nor a Utopian visionary, but a\nprimitive Christian, an apostle of good will and a friend of justice.\nSprung from a long line of New England yeomen, wholly of the soil,\nsimple in wants, quietly independent, he was the last lineal expression\nin our literature of the primitive faith, the last authentic echo of\nthe spiritual democracy of the seventeenth century. A thorough Yankee\nin character, the Yankee never dominated him. As a young man, to be\nsure, he temporized with his Quakerism and dreamed fond dreams of\nworldly ambition. The stirrings of youthful romance awakened the desire\nto be a Byronic poet, and a Yankee knack with politics led him to\nmeddle with the hope of representing his district in Congress. He was\nhand-in-glove with the time-serving Caleb Cushing, and the temptations\nof political intrigue almost led to his backsliding; but he soon put\nthe devil behind him and gave security for his better behavior by\ncoming out for the cause of Abolitionism. That was the end of his hopes\nof political preferment, and the more surely to burn his bridges he\npublished in 1833, at his own cost, a little Abolition tract entitled\n_Justice and Expediency_, which was reissued by Lewis Tappan in a great\nedition and scattered broadcast. The same year he attended as delegate\nthe National Anti-Slavery Convention at Philadelphia, and subscribed\nhis name to its pronouncement. Thenceforth for over thirty years he\ngave his best strength to the cause, writing abundantly in prose and\nverse, serving as editor of Abolition publications, and suffering the\nunpleasant experiences common to the group, at one time being hunted by\na mob and stoned.\n\nThis deliberate alignment with an unpopular cause, this calm response\nto the summons of conscience, was the fruit of his Quaker training.\nIt was no new experience for the Quaker to dissent. The Whittier\nfamily had been Come-outers for generations, sacrificing material\nwell-being for their faith, and he had grown up in dissent. The long\nstruggle for democratic freedom in Massachusetts was a familiar story\nto him. The record had come down by word of mouth and stories of\nearly persecutions were fireside tales in the Whittier household. His\nancestors had lived in the hard old Puritan theocracy, and yet detached\nfrom it; and this detachment had rendered them shrewdly critical and\nsensitive to injustice. With their quiet dissent from what the Quaker\nconscience regarded as unrighteous, and their practical nullification\nof unjust authority, Whittier was in full sympathy. His intimate\nknowledge of early Massachusetts history had taught him certain things\nwhich official historians had overlooked, the chief of which was that\ndissent had been the ally and friend of freedom in New England. From\nhis youth up he had been a loving student of the old annals, of those\nintimate narratives that preserve the voice and manner of the past;\nand as he discovered how often persecution had left its stain on the\nrecord, he was drawn to consider the superstitious aberrations of a\npeople supposedly devout. In middle life he gathered up in _Leaves from\nMargaret Smith\u2019s Journal of Massachusetts Bay, 1678-79_, materials that\nhe had long been collecting, and which, interpreted by a sympathetic\nimagination, provides a surprisingly vivid account of life in New\nEngland in the second generation.\n\nAll in all, it is Whittier\u2019s most notable achievement in prose. Pieced\ntogether out of old records, it is authentic as the yellow documents\nfrom which it was drawn. The soft light of romance lies upon its\npages, sobered by historical fact and tempered by creative sympathy.\nLoving yet critical, quite devastating at times in its implications,\nit is an amazingly intimate narrative. The mind of Puritan New England\nis uncovered in these unpretentious pages, and it does not show to\nadvantage. There was many a knot and seam in the old Puritan life,\nmuch that was mean and ugly woven into the honest web. The Puritan\nproneness to Quaker-baiting--aggravated to be sure by the ill manners\nof the Ranters; their vulgar credulity that encouraged witch-hunting;\ntheir callous treatment of the Indian and negro; their hardness of\nnature that made them grasping and censorious: such knots and seams\nin the Puritan character did not escape Whittier\u2019s eye, but they\nappear in the sketches of avaricious deacons, sour women, intolerant\nmagistrates--the Deacon Doles and Goody Lakes and Roger Endicotts,\nwhose bigotry tyrannized over the better natures of the community.\nWhittier sifted his materials carefully to gather up what good wheat\nthere might be, yet the showing it must be confessed is but paltry.\nHonest Robert Pine who will have none unjustly treated, good Mr.\nRuss who counsels moderation in dealing with the unhappy victims of\nmob suspicion. Captain Samuel Sewall who speaks up bravely for the\noutcast--these are the remnant in Israel, the generous minority that\ncannot leaven the dour and credulous mass. Yet even they are not heroic\nfigures to Whittier. His heroes are the Come-outers, and in particular\nPeggy Brewster--reminiscent evidently of his great-grandmother, the\nQuakeress Mary Peaslee, who married Robert Whittier in 1694--who is the\ngood Samaritan of the Puritan neighborhood, and whose loving-kindness\nwins a reluctant good will that stops short of toleration of her\nnon-conformity.\n\nSuch intimate studies in the psychology of persecution were a liberal\neducation, and Whittier would have been no Quaker had he not learned\nhis lesson. He was justified in not thinking well of the social\nconscience of respectable New England. Religious conformity, he\nhad come to understand, had not kept alive the torch of freedom in\nMassachusetts, nor had Puritan righteousness befriended justice. Not\nthe great of earth but the simple may be counted on to do God\u2019s work.\nSo taking his lesson to heart he quietly put aside ambition, and like\nPeggy Brewster numbered himself among the remnant. Like her he would\nbe a Come-outer and bear his testimony against the uncleanness of the\nAmerican people in this matter of negro slavery. Not with musket and\nball would he fight, like old John Brown; but with the sword of the\nspirit. The solution must lie with the conscience of the American\npeople. As a Friend, a man of peace, he would not deal harshly with\nthe supporters of slavery; he would not counsel violence. But as\na Yankee with a gift for politics, he would use political means to\njog a slothful conscience and marshal its forces. And so Whittier\nbecame the politician amongst the Abolitionists. He proved himself a\nskillful lobbyist. He was active in getting up petitions to Congress.\nHe supported John Quincy Adams and put pressure on the slippery Caleb\nCushing. He advocated the policy of boring from within the old parties,\nbut when such methods proved futile he became an active leader in\nthe third party movement. He was an early supporter of the Liberal\nparty--that in 1844 drew enough votes from Clay in New York to defeat\nhim for the Presidency--of the Free-Soil party, and later of the\nRepublican party.\n\nIt was this insistence upon the use of political methods that brought\nabout the unhappy break with Garrison. Immediately it was no more\nthan a difference over tactics, but it was embittered by a wide\ncleavage of political theory. With Garrison\u2019s conversion to spiritual\nanarchism the Abolition movement was sundered by a division between\nthe perfectionists and the political actionists. The principle of\nnon-voting and of refusing allegiance to the Constitution aroused\nstrong opposition, and Whittier went with Birney and Gerrit Smith,\nwith Jonathan Sewall, John Pierpont and the Tappans in rejecting the\nperfectionist policy. His political common sense turned naturally to\npolitical agencies to accomplish his ends. \u201cMoral action apart from\npolitical\u201d seemed to him an \u201cabsurdity.\u201d But when he applied the Quaker\nprinciple of Come-outism, and advocated separate party alignment.\nGarrison attacked him with his habitual intolerance. The latter feared\na third party movement as certain to provide a rallying cry for the\ncommercial interest to muster the mob to its support, and overwhelm\nthe minority with the unthinking and selfish mass. \u201cAll political\nminorities,\u201d he argued, \u201care more or less liberal,\u201d and by throwing\nthe Abolition strength to such organized minorities, the movement\nwould be \u201cfeared and respected by all political parties\u201d (Garrison,\n_William Lloyd Garrison_, Vol. II, pp. 310-311). The wisest strategy,\nhe believed, was to seek to hold the balance of power between the old\nparties--rewarding friends and punishing enemies--while laboring to\narouse the conscience of America, for ballots without conscience were\nthe enemies of justice.\n\nWhittier was no such root-and-branch spirit as Garrison, and in\nthe political field he was a practical, somewhat prosaic Yankee,\nlittle given to abstract speculation, skillful in minor strategical\nskirmishes, inclined to opportunism. He belonged to no school of\npolitical thought. His equalitarianism came as a heritage from his\nQuaker religion rather than from political theory. To prepare himself\nfor his work he read Milton and Burke. The pamphlets of the great\nPuritan appealed to him as the voice of the moral fervor of a heroic\nage, but Milton\u2019s aristocratic republicanism he seems to have examined\nno more critically than Burke\u2019s Whiggish legalism. Neither held\nanything in common with Quaker equalitarianism. Rousseau and Tom Paine\nand Jefferson, with whom he certainly would have sympathized, he seems\nnot to have been acquainted with. In Whittier\u2019s New England they were\nin ill repute, and the young Whittier was as na\u00efvely provincial in\nhis political partisanship as was Garrison. Economics had no part in\nhis thought, and the economic interests that divided Federalism and\nAnti-Federalism he seems never to have understood. Though sprung from\nsix generations of farmers who tilled the same acres, he reveals no\nsympathy with agrarianism. He swallowed Clay and the American System\nwithout a qualm, and as a young editor he wrote with pride of the\ndeveloping industrialism of Massachusetts. Neither in politics nor\nin economics was he a rebellious soul. He was conscience rather than\nintellect. He felt rather than thought. Only a moral issue could draw\nhim into strife, and even in such contests he was ill equipped to lead\nthe prosaic debates. His moral indignation found its natural expression\nin verse, and he early took his place as the poet of the Abolition\nmovement, distilling into ready lyrics the emotion of the moment.\n\nA great, even a noteworthy poet, Whittier certainly was not. Compared\nwith Whitman he is only a minor figure. Among the better known American\npoets Bryant alone is so narrow in range and barren in suggestion. His\naustere and meager life bred too little sensuousness of nature and\ntoo few intellectual passions. An over-frugal watering of the wine of\npaganism had left the New England character thin. The sap of humor that\nran so boisterously through the veins of the West, exuding a rough wit\nfrom Davy Crockett to Mark Twain, was quite gone out of the Yankee\nblood. His homely imagination was unquickened by a hearty village life\nas was the case with the English Bunyan and the Scotch Burns. He had\nbecome a bundle of Yankee nerves, responding only to moral stimuli.\nThe comment of Whitman sums up the Quaker poet adequately:\n\n Whittier\u2019s poetry stands for morality ... as filtered through the\n positive Puritanical and Quaker filters; is very valuable as a\n genuine utterance.... Whittier is rather a grand figure--pretty\n lean and ascetic--no Greek--also not composite and universal enough\n (doesn\u2019t wish to be, doesn\u2019t try to be) for ideal Americanism.\n (Carpenter, _Life of Whitman_, p. 293.)\n\nNever a great artist, rarely a competent craftsman, he wrote for the\nmost part impassioned commonplace, with occasional flashes that are not\ncommonplace.\n\nThe high-water mark of lyric indignation was reached in the lines to\nWebster. Written at white heat, they have the passionate directness\nof Thoreau\u2019s prose. Like other Abolitionists, Whittier had clung\nto his hopes of Webster in spite of frequent signs of the latter\u2019s\nbacksliding. He did not sufficiently appreciate the economic\nalliances that tied Webster to State Street, and he underrated his\npresidential ambitions. But when the blow came with the Seventh of\nMarch Speech, it staggered him--not alone the defection of Webster,\nbut the demonstrative approval of his wealthy constituents. For having\n\u201cconvinced the understanding and touched the conscience of a nation,\u201d\nWebster was formally thanked by some seven hundred addressers from\nthe most respectable circles of Massachusetts--great men like Rufus\nChoate, George Ticknor, W. H. Prescott, President Jared Sparks and\nProfessor Felton of Harvard, Moses Stuart and Leonard Woods of Andover\nTheological Seminary. It was an hour of profound discouragement that\nlaid bare what colossal difficulties stood in the way of Abolitionism.\n\u201cThe scandalous treachery of Webster and the _backing_ he has received\nfrom Andover and Harvard,\u201d wrote Whittier to Garrison, \u201cshow that we\nhave nothing to hope for from the great political parties and religious\nsects\u201d (William Sloane Kennedy, _John G. Whittier_, p. 113).\n\nThe scathing lines of _Ichabod_ were read throughout the North, and\nthey must have rankled in Webster\u2019s heart. Even Whittier was troubled\nby their severity and thirty years later he wrote a second Webster\npoem which he set beside _Ichabod_ in his collected works. _The Lost\nOccasion_ is a testimony to the kindliness of Whittier\u2019s Quaker heart\nthat did not love to offend; but no kindliness of memory could change\nor soften the just verdict of the lines:\n\n Of all we loved and honored, naught\n Save power remains;\n A fallen angel\u2019s pride of thought,\n Still strong in chains.\n\n All else is gone; from those great eyes\n The soul is fled:\n When faith is lost, when honor dies,\n The man is dead!\n\n Then, pay the reverence of old days\n To his dead fame;\n Walk backward, with averted gaze,\n And hide the shame!\n\nIf Whittier was ill acquainted with the Boston of State Street\nand the Back Bay, and the Cambridge of Harvard culture, he knew\nintimately the Massachusetts of the village and the farm, and the\noverwhelming repudiation of Webster and the Whig party, following\nthe Seventh of March Speech, would seem to have justified his lyric\nconfidence expressed in the vigorous heptameters of _Massachusetts to\nVirginia_. For those who lived in the social world of Commissioner\nLoring--professor of law at Harvard--and Rufus Choate, it was hard\nnot to think that Massachusetts had come to degenerate days. The fine\nold-school Federalist, Josiah Quincy, commenting on the Boston that\nwatched Sims returned to slavery, wrote:\n\n When the [Fugitive Slave] law passed, I did think the moral sense\n of the community would not enforce it; I said that it never\n would be. But now I find that my fellow-citizens are not only\n _submissive_ to, but that they are earnestly active for, its\n enforcement. The Boston of 1851 is not the Boston of 1775. Boston\n has now become a mere shop--a place for buying and selling goods;\n and I suppose, also, of _buying and selling men_. (Garrison,\n _William Lloyd Garrison_, Vol. III, p. 328.)\n\nAnd Lowell, living in the same mean atmosphere, wrote:\n\n Massachusetts, God forgive her,\n She\u2019s akneelin\u2019 with the rest,\n She, thet ough\u2019 to ha\u2019 clung ferever\n In her grand old eagle-nest.\n\n (_Biglow Papers_, Part I, 1.)\n\nBut Whittier professed to think better of the conscience of New\nEngland. A strong pride of the commonwealth runs through the lines\nthat name over the towns of Massachusetts, from \u201cfree, broad\nMiddlesex,\u201d westward and northward to the hills of Hampshire:\n\n And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray;\n And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay!\n Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill,\n And the cheer of Hampshire\u2019s woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill.\n\n The voice of Massachusetts! Of her free sons and daughters,\n Deep calling unto deep aloud, the sound of many waters!\n Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand?\n No fetters in the Bay State! No slave upon her land!\n\nWhen at last the long controversy was over and release from the\nstruggle came to Whittier, his poetry grew richer and mellower. He was\nnot made to be a fighter, and it was with a sigh of relief that he\nturned to the Elysian fields he had dreamed of, while he was turning\nwith his plow the rough stubble of a cause. Looking back upon those\narduous days, he sketched half whimsically his own portrait in _The\nTent on the Beach_.\n\n And one there was, a dreamer born,\n Who, with a mission to fulfill,\n Had left the Muses\u2019 haunts to turn\n The crank of an opinion-mill,\n Making his rustic reed of song\n A weapon in the war with wrong,\n Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough\n That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow.\n\n Too quiet seemed the man to ride\n The wing\u00e9d Hippogriff Reform;\n Was his a voice from side to side\n To pierce the tumult of the storm?\n A silent, shy, peace-loving man,\n He seemed no fiery partisan\n To hold his way against the public frown,\n The ban of Church and State, the fierce Mob\u2019s hounding down.\n\n For while he wrought with strenuous will\n The work his hands had found to do,\n He heard the fitful music still\n Of winds that out of dream-land blew.\n The din about him could not drown\n What the strange voices whispered down;\n Along his task-field weird processions swept,\n The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped.\n\n The common air was thick with dreams,--\n He told them to the toiling crowd;\n Such music as the woods and streams\n Sang in his ear he sang aloud;\n In still, shut bays, on windy capes,\n He heard the call of beckoning shapes,\n And, as the gray old shadows prompted him,\n To homely moulds of rhyme he shaped their legends grim.\n\nMany excellent things he did in those quiet later years; old time\npictures like _Snowbound_, with its homely fireside economy long since\nburied under the snows of forgotten winters; vigorous tales like\n_Abraham Davenport_; ballads like _Skipper Ireson\u2019s Ride_, that have\nsomething of the spirit of the primitive. He had given thirty years of\nhis life to the cause of social justice, and surely none would grudge\nhim in old age his rambles in pleasanter fields. It was well that he\ncould turn to the past, for the America of the new exploitative age,\nthe New England of Lowell and Lawrence, he never understood. Black\nslavery he understood, but wage slavery he comprehended no more than\ndid Garrison. To the end he remained a primitive soul, ill equipped to\nunderstand a materialistic philosophy of society. There is something\npathetic in his _Songs of Labor_. His economics, like his democracy,\nwas of a bygone time, having no kinship with a scrambling free-soilism\nor a rapacious capitalism. There is scant room in this world for the\nFriend with his unmilitant dream of the fellowship. With his passion\nfor freedom, established in the gospel of righteousness, the Quaker\nWhittier was fast becoming an anachronism in industrial New England\nthat was concerned about very different things. How old-fashioned he\nhad become is suggested by certain lines that phrase his greetings\nto later times. Spare, somewhat halting in rhythm, yet transparently\nsincere, they constitute an apologia that New England need feel no\nshame for.\n\n Yet here at least an earnest sense\n Of human right and weal is shown;\n A hate of tyranny intense,\n And hearty in its vehemence,\n As if my brother\u2019s pain and sorrow were my own.\n\n O Freedom! if to me belong\n Nor mighty Milton\u2019s gift divine,\n Nor Marvell\u2019s wit and graceful song,\n Still with a love as deep and strong\n As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine!\n\n\nIII \u2022 Harriet Beecher Stowe \u2022 A Daughter of Puritanism\n\nNo more Puritan mind than Mrs. Stowe\u2019s ever contributed to the\nliterature of New England. Her remarkable native gifts were\nunconsciously given specific shape by a rigid environment. For years\nthe artist in her struggled to subdue the moralist, and never quite\nsucceeded. Before she dipped her pen in ink her mind had taken its\nset. She could not hope to escape being a preacher. Daughter of a\nminister and wife of a minister, with brothers and sons ministers,\nshe lived all her life in an atmosphere of religion. She was baptized\nin creeds and prattled the language of sermons as the vernacular of\nchildhood. Born at a critical time for the old New England faith, her\nyouth was passed amid the storm clouds of the Unitarian controversy,\nin an atmosphere charged with electricity. Connecticut was the very\ncitadel of the Edwardean orthodoxy, and Litchfield was as rugged in\nits faith as the hills it nestled among; and when the old-school\nCalvinism of Boston was in danger of utter rout, it naturally turned\nto a Connecticut Daniel to save the venerable cause. Stout old Lyman\nBeecher was a host in himself. Son of a Connecticut blacksmith and\nhimself brought up at the forge before he quitted it to seek learning\nat Yale College under Timothy Dwight, able, kindly, practical, with\npronounced literary tastes and a capable pen, he was a stalwart\nEdwardean, militantly conservative, who damned our perverse human\nnature with incontrovertible logic. Harriet was eight years old\nwhen Channing preached his Baltimore sermon, and fourteen when her\nfather was summoned to Hanover Street Church, Boston. Her childish\nheart had already been given to Baxter\u2019s _Saint\u2019s Rest_, and her\nimagination awakened by Cotton Mather\u2019s _Magnalia Christi Americana_.\nTheocratic New England lay enveloped for her in a haze of romance, more\nfascinating than any Sir Walter had woven about the Scottish Highlands;\nshe had discovered there noble figures and heroic deeds to kindle\nan ardent hero worship. At fourteen she was converted--too easily\nit seems, for she could not demonstrate to the satisfaction of her\nspiritual counselors that she had been sufficiently under conviction\nof sin. Thereafter to the end of her life the greatest of all dramas\nfor her was the drama of the soul concerned with the great business of\nsalvation.\n\nThe surest clue to Mrs. Stowe\u2019s literary secret is to be found in\nher sympathetic understanding of the spiritual life of Puritan New\nEngland. She was a lifelong student of New England psychology, with\nits \u201cprofound, unutterable, and therefore unuttered melancholy\u201d that\nresulted from open-eyed contemplation of grim fact. The past that\nlay bleak and stern behind the sober present she understood as few\nothers did. Before her sympathetic eyes it fell into just proportions,\nand quite naturally she became the historian of her people. The\nautobiographical material that fills her later work--her husband\u2019s\nrecollections in _Old-Town Folks_, and her own in _Poganuc People_--is\nmuch more than autobiography; it is intimate history of New England,\nwritten by one who in distilling her own experience was writing\nthe chronicle of a race. In a brilliant chapter of the former work\nshe gives a remarkable analysis of the intellectual development of\nPuritan New England, and provides the setting against which her own\nintellectual life should be placed. To overlook it is to miss the most\nsuggestive commentary on her work that has ever been written.\n\nThis daughter of Puritanism traces her intellectual antecedents\nback to the long struggle of Puritan rationalism with feudal custom\nand medieval ideas. The old English Puritans, \u201cby nature the most\nreverential and most loyal portion of the community,\u201d in destroying the\ndivine-right sovereignty of King Charles, were impelled to transfer\nthat sovereignty to a higher King. In pulling down the temporal, they\nerected a divine sovereignty; and their passionate attachment to the\nnew Sovereign was the natural response to \u201cthe pleading and yearning\nwithin them of a faculty robbed of its appropriate object, and longing\nfor support and expression.\u201d But the theologies to which they yielded\nintellectual allegiance were a \u201clegacy from past monarchical and\nmedieval ages.\u201d To free themselves from this unhappy legacy, and create\na democratic theology, was an arduous work that needed two hundred\nyears to accomplish; and not until the Revolution spread a new social\nphilosophy through America, did the work go forward rapidly. Wanting\nsuch a democratic philosophy Puritan New England wandered in the old\ntheological fogs. It was Jonathan Edwards who first turned the New\nEngland mind to rationalism, and began that long \u201ccontroversy\u201d that\nwas to unsettle so much. But unhappily the rationalism of Edwards\nwas turned aside to reactionary ends, and his _Treatise on True\nVirtue_ was \u201cone of the strongest attempts to back up by reasoning\nthe old monarchical and aristocratic ideas of the supreme right of\nthe king and upper classes.\u201d Nevertheless he set all New England to\nrationalizing, and it was this severe discipline that carried her\npeople soberly through the Revolutionary War, and preserved them from\nthe excesses which followed the Revolution in France. And it was this\nsame discipline that prepared them for the eventual re-discovery of\nthe humanity of Jesus and the democracy of his religion. New England\nhad been struggling towards democracy through the bog of its feudal\ntheology; it became consciously democratic with the appearance of the\nnew theology (_Old-Town Folks_, Chapter XXIX).\n\nThis rationalistic bias of eighteenth-century New England suffices to\nexplain for Mrs. Stowe the stern temper and angular individuality of\nthe old Puritan Yankee. Her particular hero and saint was Jonathan\nEdwards, and her lesser hero and saint was Samuel Hopkins; and in both\nit was the courageous rationalism that appealed to her. In them, and\nmore particularly in the former, she discovered the creative force that\nquickened a religion that was falling into dead formalism, that gave\nit fresh vitality and made it the central fact of everyday New England\nlife. Across the world of her youth lay the shadow--or the light--of\nthe great Edwards, and the great Hopkins was his intellectual heir.\nIn another chapter of _Old-Town Folks_ she sketches the Edwardean\ninfluence in bold outline.\n\n The ministers of the early colonial days of New England, though\n well-read, scholarly men, were more statesmen than theologians.\n Their minds ran upon the actual arrangements of society, which were\n in great measure left in their hands, rather than on doctrinal and\n metaphysical subtleties. They took their confession of faith just\n as the great body of Protestant reformers left it, and acted upon\n it as a practical foundation, without much further discussion,\n until the time of President Edwards. He was the first man who began\n the disintegrating process of applying rationalistic methods to the\n accepted doctrines of religion, and he rationalized far more boldly\n and widely than any publishers of his biography have ever dared to\n let the world know. He sawed the great dam and let out the whole\n waters of discussion over all New England, and that free discussion\n led to all the shades of opinion of our modern days. Little as he\n thought it, Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker were the last results\n of the current set in motion by Jonathan Edwards. (Chapter XIX.)\n\nIn this flood let loose by the metaphysical saw of Jonathan Edwards,\nMrs. Stowe found the material for her New England tales. In no other\npages does one realize so fully the tremendous, vital significance\nof religion to the children of Puritanism, nor appreciate how narrow\na course their lives ran between the farm and the meeting-house. A\ndomestic economy and a parochial theology absorbed their energies,\nand they took on sharp and angular imprints from a severe routine.\nIt was a school of discipline that created individual character,\nand Mrs. Stowe possessed a loving eye for the odd and original. She\ndelighted in emphasizing the theological differences that ran through\nYankee families, giving little twists to character, and rising to the\ntongue in scraps of confirmatory Scripture. Large-hearted, motherly\nGrandmother Badger, in _Old-Town Folks_, was a stern Calvinist who\ndaily threw predestination in the face of her easy-going Arminian\nhusband, and exchanged syllogisms in a Sabbath-day \u201cbattle of the\nInfinities\u201d with her son from Yale. Theology provided the staple of\ntalk in the farmer\u2019s kitchen; it was the axis on which turned the\nsimple country life. _Old-Town Folks_ and _Poganuc People_ are cross\nsections of old New England, with its lingering prejudices in favor of\nrank,[454] its Arminian Parson Lothrop in wig and gold cane, and its\nCalvinist Dr. Cushing hostile to all democratic Jacobinism, its country\nyokels, its stubborn yeomen who parade their independence by voting the\ndemocratic ticket openly in the face of gentlemanly Federalists, its\nsharp contrasts of a stately old order and a somewhat bumptious new,\nyet with the hard New England granite snugly laid up and bonded with\nthe mortar of religion--a strange dead world that emerges distinctly\nthrough the haze of Victorian sentiment. For Mrs. Stowe was a child\nof her own romantic generation as well as a daughter of Puritanism,\nand it was easy for her to discover suggestions of Utopia in a world\nwhere minister and people mingled theology with their corn-huskings and\napple-bees.\n\nBetween these sketches and the Abolition novels stands _The\nMinister\u2019s Wooing_, with its Puritan heroine bleached into pure\nholiness under the cold sunshine of Hopkinsian theology, and its\nunworldly minister who demonstrated the sincerity of his creed of\ndisinterested benevolence--of willing to be damned for the glory of\nGod--by voluntarily yielding his betrothed to an earlier lover. It\nis a love story without sex, as befits the wooing of a Puritan nun\nby her spiritual father, set against a Yankee background of capable\nhousekeeping and dignified tea-drinking, subdued to proper decorum by\nreligion, and touched with tragedy by the shadow of damnation that\nfalls on the unregenerate--a world in which the beauty of holiness is\nsomewhat pale and austere, and where disinterested benevolence finds a\nthin and obdurate soil to strike root in. Mrs. Stowe was drawn to the\ntheme, very evidently, by the impulse of her two Utopian enthusiasms,\nher interest in Abolition and her affection for the ways of old New\nEngland. Such romance as blossomed under those bleak skies she loved\nto gather into a Yankee nosegay, and in her sympathetic hands the old\nslave-running Newport becomes almost lovable and human. She might\nfind the theology hard, but she forgave the sermon out of love for\nthe preacher. As the historian of the human side of Calvinism she\ntempered dogma with affection. In unsympathetic print those old sermons\nwere almost unbelievably harsh and ungainly; as theologians those\nbewigged preachers were dry as the chips of last year\u2019s woodpile; but\nas husbands and fathers and neighbors, they were usually kind and\nunselfish and helpful. Her father Lyman Beecher was an arid dogmatist\non the Lord\u2019s Day, but on week-days he fished and hunted rabbits and\nwent nutting with his sons, made garden or smoked hams, or helped a\nneighbor with plowing or haying, and was an unusually capable and\ncheery member of a busy little world. In the light of such domestic\nexegesis the bleakness of his theology was softened, and the dogmatic\ntheologian became a very human person.\n\nThus instructed Mrs. Stowe found no difficulty in discovering the human\nside of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, or understanding how the hard doctrine\nmight cover the gentlest of souls--that the very intensity of devotion\nto the logic of a stern creed betokened a depth of religious sincerity\nthat would find issue in generous deeds. A thinker who can dig from\nthe harsh soil of Calvinism the doctrine of disinterested benevolence\nwill discover a tender conscience in his own bosom. One might hazard\na guess, indeed, that the story of Samuel Hopkins was an unconscious\ndefense of the New England ministers against the sharp charges of\nthe Abolitionists that the clergy were half-hearted in the cause or\nopenly hostile. With her conviction of the unselfish nobility of their\nlives, Mrs. Stowe must have taken a secret pleasure in revealing the\ngood Doctor as a forerunner of the Abolitionists, and in pointing\nout that the crabbed logician of the Edwardean school, the theologian\nimmersed in the abstractions of a grotesque system, was nevertheless\na light set upon a hill, a primitive Christian with heart overflowing\nwith loving-kindness, who understood the iniquity of slavery and\nturned shepherd to the outcast to his own hurt. The figure of the\nunworldly minister is drawn with loving hand and his angularities made\nless rugged. His noble spirituality shrivels and consumes the mean\nexcuses of his slave-running parishioner; it spreads quietly over\nthe countryside, and his daily life is a sermon that quickens hearts\nthat his theology leaves cold. There is preaching aplenty in the\nbook--quite too much for later stomachs; but it scarcely detracts from\nthe significance of the story as a document of Puritan New England,\nrevealing how a tender conscience was stirring beneath the crabbed\nexterior of the old Calvinism.\n\nIn the light of such antecedents and such training Mrs. Stowe\u2019s\npassionate concern over slavery becomes easily comprehensible. Her\nPuritan conscience was quickened by her warm human sympathies. She had\ncome close to the hateful thing during the years spent at Cincinnati,\nwhere the Abolition sentiment of the Lane Seminary students aroused\nsuch bitter opposition that President Lyman Beecher was forced to\napprove the decision of the trustees to forbid any discussion of\nslavery, with the result that so great a hegira of students took\nplace from Lane to Oberlin that the seminary was forced to close.\nOnly the fact that two miles of Ohio mud provided defensive outworks\nsaved the building and the houses of the teachers from the hands of\nthe Cincinnati mob. She had visited in Kentucky; she had been to the\nslave markets; she had seen her father and brother aid runaway slaves\nby means of the underground railway. A profound sense of the iniquity\nof the system oppressed her, and when the Fugitive Slave Bill came\nto fill up the measure of her wrath, she poured out her heart in\n_Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_. Despite its obvious blemishes of structure and\nsentimentalism it is a great human document that stripped away the\nprotective atmosphere from the sacred institution, and laid bare its\nelementary injustice. It brought the system home to the common feeling\nand conscience. The strong religious coloring emphasized the Abolition\nargument that slavery trafficked in Christian souls, and rendered it\nhateful to every humanitarian instinct. It was noble propaganda, and\nthe humor and pathos, the passion for social righteousness, still\nlinger in its pages to make a later generation wonder that our fathers\nshould so long have tolerated this evil thing.\n\nFive years later she published _Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal\nSwamp_, a thoughtfully elaborated statement of the complex problem,\nwith a suggested solution that only thrust into relief the fact that it\nhad indeed become an irrepressible conflict--the same solution that had\nbeen hinted at thirty years before in Kennedy\u2019s _Swallow Barn_, namely,\na system of paternalistic emancipation, based on the historical analogy\nof the extinction of English villeinage, the slaves to be treated as\nwards by the masters and educated for gradual emancipation. It was a\nfeudal solution of a feudal problem, but it took higher humanitarian\nground than human nature can, and Mrs. Stowe recognized the complex of\npassion and interests in which the problem was involved, by removing\nher southern emancipationist to Canada to try his experiment. More\nstriking, perhaps, is the shift from the Christian pacifism of _Uncle\nTom\u2019s Cabin_ to the economics of _Dred_. The former had made appeal\nto the humanitarianism of the North; the latter proposed to appeal to\nthe self-interest of the South. The slave states, Mrs. Stowe\u2019s heroine\nargued, were being ruined by slavery, and if they were to expect a sane\neconomic future, they must destroy the wasteful system. The contrast\nbetween Yankee thrift under free labor and plantation shiftlessness\nunder slave labor had been pointed out by Whittier in his _Justice and\nExpediency_ as early as 1833 and by Caruthers in his _Kentuckian in\nNew York_ in 1834--statements that perhaps drew Mrs. Stowe\u2019s attention\nto the economic phases involved; nevertheless the recognition of the\ncomplexity of the problem, and the attempt to deal with it adequately,\nlessened the popular appeal of _Dred_. The book is more skillfully\ndone than _Uncle Tom_, it is far richer in background material--in\nvivid sketches of poor whites, of revivalist preachers, of plantation\nlife--it provides in Old Tiff a delightful study of the negro servant\nand it suggests the perennial fear of a negro uprising; but it lacks\nthe singleness of appeal that makes for telling propaganda. It was not\nits melodrama that hindered its success. The public had swallowed that\nin _Uncle Tom_ with a hearty appetite. It was rather the dissipation\nof dramatic interest, the want of a striking figure to capture the\nimagination and sympathy. It is a better sociological study but a\nweaker story.\n\nIt was hard for the New England conscience to quit the pulpit and turn\nartist; and it was particularly hard for Mrs. Stowe with her ardent\nnature and multiplying domestic cares. She could bring her soul under\ndiscipline but not her art. She never trained herself in craftsmanship,\nnever learned restraint, but suffered her pen to range freely as her\nemotions directed. The creative instinct was strong in her but the\ncritical was wholly lacking. Richly endowed though she was her work\nhas suffered the fate that pursues those who forget that beauty alone\nsurvives after emotion subsides.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[454] \u201cIt\u2019s a hard struggle for our human nature to give up titles and\nranks, though,\u201d said Miss Mehitable. \u201cFor my part, I have a ridiculous\nkindness for them yet. I know it\u2019s all nonsense; but I can\u2019t help\nlooking back to the court we used to have at the Government House in\nBoston.\u201d (_Old-Town Folks_, Chapter VI.)\n\n\n\n\nPart Three: The Transcendental Mind\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Genesis of Transcendentalism\n\n\nFrom the doctrine of the open mind that was the core of Unitarianism,\ncame the transcendental movement that marked the full flowering of\nthe New England renaissance. It was the native response of the mind\nof New England to the summons of revolutionary romanticism, and its\nardor was the greater for being so long delayed. Creatively influenced\nthough it was by French Utopianism and German mysticism, its manners\nand mode of thought received a particular impress from an environment\nlong preparing and that was natively congenial. \u201cPractically,\u201d says\nits most penetrating historian, transcendentalism \u201cwas an assertion of\nthe inalienable worth of man; theoretically it was an assertion of the\nimmanence of divinity in instinct, the transference of supernatural\nattributes to the natural constitution of mankind.\u201d[455] It was the\nglowing expression of philosophic Utopianism, the flaring up of old\nfires of idealism, before the scientific and materialistic reactions\ndestroyed its romantic dreams. It accepted kinship with the social\nidealism of the Declaration of Independence; it accepted the dynamic\nprinciple of equalitarianism; but it sought to go farther and provide a\nsure defense and justification of an idealism that it professed to find\nestablished in human nature, by establishing it in metaphysics.\n\nThe explanation of this curious throwback to earlier times in the mind\nof transcendental New England is clear enough to anyone acquainted with\nthe history of Puritan thought struggling with the mystical element of\nChristian experience. Since the far-off days of Roger Williams--the\nseeker and mystic who was so great a puzzle to his realistic\nbrethren--idealism had been starved in New England. Its mystical\naspirations had been repressed by dogma, and its elusive dreams brought\nto nothing. Jonathan Edwards struggled life-long to hold his idealism\nin subjection to theology, and ended in abortive reaction; a potential\nEmerson, another Berkeley, he re-welded the bonds of dogma on the mind\nof New England, putting off for two generations the day of its release.\nEven in the freer minds idealism suffered from the repressions of the\ncommon rationalism; with Locke and Hume in the ascendancy the mystic\nfound the times uncongenial to his needs. The dawn of a new day seemed\nto be breaking with the shift of interest from theology to politics,\nduring the stirring days of the Revolution. The submerged idealism of\nNew England came to expression in the dreams of homespun democrats\nlike Sam Adams, and expanded in the sunshine of French Utopianism; but\nunfortunately Boston Federalism reasserted the old dogmatisms and put\na speedy end to the movement. It shut the door upon all democratic\naspiration and bade it go about its business. It was from such a\nnarrow environment that the rising movement of Unitarianism received\nits impress. From a sterile rationalism, a respectable close-fisted\nconservatism, it could not escape; and in consequence the new movement\nof liberalism was taken over by Federalism and became a new orthodoxy.\n\u201cThe pale negations of Boston Unitarianism\u201d--to use Emerson\u2019s\nwell-known phrase--provided little nourishment for transcendental hopes.\n\nNevertheless Unitarianism carried within it the seeds of the new\nfaith--in its intellectual attitude, if not in its philosophy. \u201cThe\nUnitarians as a class,\u201d remarks Frothingham, \u201cbelonged to the school\nof Locke, which discarded the doctrine of innate ideas, and its\nkindred beliefs.... Unitarianism ... has rarely, if ever, been taught\nor held by any man of eminence in the church who was a Platonist\u201d\n(_Transcendentalism in New England_, Chapter VI). But in spite of\nits eighteenth-century nurture--because of it, indeed--Unitarianism\nwas a profoundly liberalizing movement. It was a narrow and local\nphase of a world-wide revolution; the special contribution of Boston\nto the great work of disintegrating the past to make ready for the\nfuture. It loosened the grip of dogma on the Puritan mind and widened\nthe field of reading and thinking. But it did very much more--it\nrecovered the original principle of Protestantism, the principle of\nindividual responsibility, that had been tacitly denied by Calvinistic\northodoxy. It asserted the essential decency of human nature--men may\nnot be the children of God but they are assuredly not children of the\ndevil; and it summoned this decent human nature to live decently in\naccordance with its nature. It would not coop up the mind in dogma; it\nwould not close all roads to heaven but one. The Unitarians might be\ninstinctively conservative, as was natural to prosperous persons, but\nthey at least acknowledged \u201cthemselves to be friends of free thought\nin religion.\u201d Their doctrine was not a creed but an attitude of mind.\nIf they themselves were not Seekers, they professed a willingness\nfor others to become Seekers. Very likely few of them measured up to\nthe full stature of such liberalism; nevertheless they \u201chonestly but\nincautiously professed a principle broader than they were able to\nstand by, and avowed the absolute freedom of the human mind as their\ncharacteristic faith\u201d (_ibid._, Chapter VI).\n\nAll this was excellent, but it was not enough. It remained to see\nwhat the free mind should discover in its venturesome quest into the\nunknown. Intellectually emancipated, with the bleak dogmas of election\nand reprobation put away, with the God of wrath dethroned and the\nGod of love lifted up, and with the dynamic principle of freedom of\ninquiry in their possession, the younger generation of New England\nintellectuals naturally opened their eyes to discover what winds of\nnew doctrine were blowing in the world. They were pretty much all\nUnitarians--the young transcendentalists--and largely clergymen; their\nprimary interest was metaphysical and they had already abandoned Locke\nfor Plato. The rationalistic eighteenth century was dead to them and\nthey set forth to discover another age. Hints and suggestions of\nthat better age had come to them from overseas--from Wordsworth and\nShelley, from Cousin and Madame de Sta\u00ebl, from Coleridge and Carlyle;\nand the fresh beauty of that new poetry, the enormous stimulus of that\nnew metaphysic, fired them with a desire to seek this inspiration at\nits source and drink from the living waters. And so they discovered\nromantic Germany where the new idealism had quite routed the philosophy\nof sensationalism, and a great school of transcendental thinkers was\nin triumphant possession of the field. It was a profoundly stimulating\ndiscovery, and from it dated the rise of New England transcendentalism.\n\nThe immediate creative influence of the new contact with Germany was to\nstrengthen the incipient Platonism of the rebellious intellectuals, and\nprovide it with an added sanction. Transcendentalism, it must always\nbe remembered, was a faith rather than a philosophy; it was oracular\nrather than speculative, affirmative rather than questioning; and it\nwent to Germany to find confirmation of its faith, not to re\u00ebxamine\nits foundations. Faith preceded metaphysics, and if the metaphysics\nhad been lacking intuition would have supplied its place, poetic\ninspiration would have sufficed the needs of transcendental minds. They\nhad found God for themselves before the philosophers justified them;\nthey took to Germany what they sought there. Nevertheless it was a\ntremendous experience to come upon their own philosophy there, erected\ninto a system, supported by a complete metaphysic; a philosophy that\nhad put to rout the fashionable skepticism of Voltaire and Condillac,\nestablished on the sensationalism of Locke, and offering justification\nfor faith in God and man--faith in a divinity indwelling in nature\nand the individual soul--by a masterly dialectics. That experience\ndetermined the development of New England transcendentalism. The\nmetaphysic of Kant, the mysticism of Jacobi, the idealistic egoism of\nFichte, the transcendentalism of Schleiermacher--the new gospel of\nthe renascent German spirit--these were the living waters of truth to\nthe thirsty minds of the New England intellectuals, from which they\ndrank eagerly, never doubting their sufficiency. They were poets and\nprophets; they were young and strong in faith; others might concern\nthemselves with the dialectics of idealism, they would apply it in\ntheir daily lives.\n\nIn essence this new transcendental faith was a glorification of\nconsciousness and will. It rested on the rediscovery of the soul that\nhad been dethroned by the old rationalism; and it eventuated in the\ncreation of a mystical egocentric universe wherein the children of God\nmight luxuriate in their divinity. The Unitarians had pronounced human\nnature to be excellent; the transcendentalists pronounced it divine.\nThey endowed it with great potentialities; made of it a dwelling place\nof the Most High; discovered the secret voice of God in the buried life\nthat men call instinct; refused to heed any other command save this\ninner voice of God. With ebbing faith men may deny their own divine\nnature, but the divinity is not destroyed; the music of the indwelling\nGodhood murmurs in the shell till the tide returns to flood it again.\nThe one great miracle is the daily rebirth of God in the individual\nsoul; every day is a new day; every act is a fresh wonder; faith, hope,\ntrust, accompany man in his adventurous journeyings. Why, therefore,\ndemanded the transcendentalist, should he not trust himself? Why should\nhe not walk confident in his own high purpose? Why should he doubt and\nquestion the buried compulsions that urge him forward? If he is indeed\na child of God, let him live as unto God; and if it should turn out\nthat there has been some mistake in the premises and he proves to be a\nchild of the devil, then let him live as unto the devil. Better so than\nnot to trust himself.\n\nQuite obviously they were arch-romantics--these young poets of the new\nfaith; children of an age given over to new hopes and disintegrating\nrevolutions; inexperienced prophets of a world in flux, before the\nscientific spirit had stripped them of their wings. The fascinating\nbook of nature and of man had been newly opened to them, and like\nMiranda they were ready to exclaim,\n\n O wonder!\n How many goodly creatures are there here!\n How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,\n That has such people in \u2019t!\n\nThey could see only God because in their thinking God had filled\ntheir minds. No evil lurked in the secret places of their hearts to\nwhisper doubts concerning the goodness of life; no ominous clouds\nveiled the divine light that wrapped their universe about. After\ntwo hundred years of discipline in righteousness the old dogmatic\npessimism was dissipated, leaving not a rack behind. The evil was gone\nand God remained; and in this new world the sons of God were to be\nhenceforth heirs of the kingdom, free to fulfill that good which is\nthe final reality. Arch-romantics, they were dreaming a transcendental\ndream, as other arch-romantics were dreaming their Jacksonian dream,\ntheir imperialistic dream, their Utopian dream. Romanticism comes to\ndifferent issues in different men and different times: Emerson and\nJefferson were unlike enough, as their worlds were unlike; but they\nwere both romantics and their idealism was only a different expression\nof a common spirit.\n\nYears after the transcendental ferment had subsided, one of the lesser\nprophets of the movement offered a statement of the faith that deserves\nto be recalled:\n\n Transcendentalism [he said] relies on those ideas in the mind\n which are laws in the life. Pantheism is said to sink man and\n nature in God; Materialism to sink God and man in nature;\n and Transcendentalism to sink God and nature in man. But the\n Transcendentalist at least is belied and put in jail by the\n definition which is so neat at the expense of truth. He made\n consciousness, not sense, the ground of truth.... Is the soul\n reared on the primitive rock? or is no rock primitive, but the\n deposit of spirit--therefore in its lowest form alive, and ever\n rising into organism to reach the top of the eternal circle again,\n as in the well one bucket goes down empty and the other rises\n full? The mistake is to make the everlasting things subjects of\n argument instead of sight.... Our soul is older than our organism.\n It precedes its clothing. It is the cause, not the consequence,\n of its material elements; else, as materialists understand, it\n does not exist.... What is it that accepts misery from the Most\n High, defends the Providence that inflicts its woes, espouses its\n chastiser\u2019s cause, purges itself in the pit of its misery of all\n contempt of His commands, and makes its agonies the beams and\n rafters of the triumph it builds? It is the immortal principle.\n It is an indestructible essence. It is part and parcel of the\n Divinity it adores. It can no more die than he can. It needs no\n more insurance of life than its author does. Prove its title? It\n is proof of all things else. It is substantive, and everything\n adjective beside. It is the kingdom all things will be added to.\n (C. A. Bartol, quoted by Frothingham in _Transcendentalism in New\n England_, Chapter XIV.)\n\nThis is sheer mysticism, and mystics in greater or less degree all\nthe transcendentalists were--isolated and lonely in the midst of men,\nseeking always a larger fellowship, awaiting those fleeting moments\nof illumination that should light up the meaning of life. \u201cMine is\na certain brief experience,\u201d says Emerson, \u201cwhich surprised me in\nthe highway or in the market, in some place, at some time,--whether\nin the body or out of the body, God knoweth,--and made me aware\nthat I had played the fool with fools all this time, but that law\nexisted for me and for all; that to me belong trust, a child\u2019s trust\nand obedience, and the worship of ideas, and I should never be fool\nmore\u201d (_The Transcendentalist_). Fleeting and incommunicable are such\nilluminations, yet like the clear sunlight to eyes that are open. \u201cIf\nyou do not need to hear my thought, because you can read it in my\nface and behavior, then I will tell it you from sunrise to sunset. If\nyou cannot divine it, you would not understand what I say\u201d (_ibid._).\nAnd because the realist found himself quite incapable of such\nunderstanding, the transcendentalist turned away from him to live by\nhimself. \u201cThey feel that they are never so fit for friendship, as when\nthey have quitted mankind, and taken themselves to friend.\u201d\n\nSuch an attitude of mind may easily become the father of criticism.\nCommuning with the ideal rarely begets complacency; the actual\nseems poor and mean in comparison with the potential. Hence the\ntranscendentalists, willingly or not, were searching critics of their\ngeneration. They were impatient of any falling short of the ideal, and\ntheir lives in consequence Became an open indictment of a Yankee world\ngiven over to materialism. \u201cBy their unconcealed dissatisfaction,\u201d said\nEmerson, \u201cthey expose our poverty, and the insignificance of man to\nman.\u201d \u201cTheir quarrel with every man they meet, is not with his kind,\nbut with his degree. There is not enough of him,--that is the only\nfault.... They make us feel the strange disappointment which overcasts\nevery human youth. So many promising youths, and never a finished man!\u201d\n(_The Transcendentalist._)\n\n As to the general course of living, and the daily employments of\n men, they cannot see much virtue in these, since they are parts of\n this vicious circle; and as no great ends are answered by the men,\n there is nothing noble in the arts by which they are maintained.\n Nay, they have made the experiment, and found that, from the\n liberal professions to the coarsest manual labor, and from the\n courtesies of the academy and the college to the conventions of the\n cotillion-room and the morning call, there is a spirit of cowardly\n compromise and seeming, which indicates a frightful skepticism, a\n life without love, and an activity without aim. (_Ibid._)\n\nIdealists though they were, they could not escape meddling with the\nreal which encompassed them on all sides--with institutions, laws,\nsociety, with the state itself. They were far more interested in God\nthan in Caesar, and they found it impossible to divide loyalties\nthat too often clashed. When Caesar essayed to impose his will upon\ntheirs, when he put their ideals in jeopardy by demanding allegiance\nto laws they did not approve, they quietly denied him sovereignty and\nfollowed their own paths. With such men nothing could be done; their\nvery lives were a criticism and a judgment on New England and America.\nTranscendentalism may have run into its follies, but foolish in its\ncritical judgment--blind to the gap between profession and reality--it\nwas not. It might be severe, but it was honest and intelligent, and\nhonest intelligent criticism America stood greatly in need of.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[455] See Frothingham, _Transcendentalism in New England_. Chapter VI.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Ralph Waldo Emerson \u2022 Transcendental Critic\n\n\nAt the age of thirty-six the man who was to become the most searching\ncritic of contemporary America expressed his conception of his mission\nin the following passage:\n\n What shall be the substance of my shrift? Adam in the garden, I am\n to new-name all the beasts of the field and all the gods in the\n sky. I am to invite men drenched in Time to recover themselves\n and come out of time, and taste their native immortal air. I\n am to fire with what skill I can the artillery of sympathy and\n emotion. I am to indicate constantly, though all unworthy, the\n Ideal and Holy Life, the life within life, the Forgotten Good, the\n Unknown Cause in which we sprawl and sin. I am to try the magic of\n sincerity, that luxury permitted only to kings and poets. I am to\n celebrate the spiritual powers in their infinite contrast to the\n mechanical powers and the mechanical philosophy of this time. I am\n to console the brave sufferers under evils whose end they cannot\n see, by appeals to the great optimism, self-affirmed in all bosoms.\n (_Journals_, Vol. V, p. 288.)\n\nSeven days before Emerson set down this transcendental pronouncement,\nhe had written in his journal a different comment:\n\n A question which well deserves examination now is the Dangers of\n Commerce. This invasion of Nature by Trade with its Money, its\n Credit, its Steam, its Railroad, threatens to upset the balance of\n man, and establish a new, universal Monarchy more tyrannical than\n Babylon or Rome. Very faint and few are the poets or men of God.\n Those who remain are so antagonistic to this tyranny that they\n appear mad or morbid, and are treated as such. Sensible of this\n extreme unfitness they suspect themselves. And all of us apologize\n when we ought not, and congratulate ourselves when we ought not.\n (_Ibid._, Vol. V, pp. 285-6.)\n\nIn such comments and others scattered plentifully through his Journals,\nEmerson essayed to make clear to himself the function of transcendental\ncriticism as he felt himself called to practice it. It was to be\nno trivial or easy duty. In the midst of a boastful materialism,\nshot through with cant and hypocrisy and every insincerity, fat and\nslothful in all higher things, the critic proposed to try the magic\nof sincerity, to apply the test of spiritual values to the material\nforces and mechanical philosophies of the times. His very life must\nembody criticism; his every act and word must pronounce judgment on\nthe barren and flatulent gods served by his countrymen. He must be a\nthinker and as such he must summon to the bar of a nobler philosophy\nthe current standards of value and conduct. Men of the greatest\nreputation must not be spared; he must \u201cissue a _quo warranto_ and\nrevoke the characters of fame,\u201d overruling the verdict of newspaper\neditors and the acclaim of the electorate. Here was a revolutionary\nbusiness indeed, that the critic was proposing to himself; and the\ncalm serenity with which he set about it was disconcerting. A thinker\nloose in the America of Daniel Webster, a thinker who proposed to\ntest men and measures by the magic of sincerity, was likely to prove\nan unpleasantly disturbant factor in a world of pretense. Measured by\nsuch standards the current philosophies must bate and dwindle, and the\ncommon ideals shrink to the mean and paltry. The life of an honest\nthinker laid on the America of 1840 would reveal how far short it came\nfrom the stature of intellectual manhood.\n\nEmerson the critic has been too much obscured to common view by Emerson\nthe brilliant dispenser of transcendental aphorisms. The oracular\n_Essays_ with their confident wisdom--the sententious expression of\nthe middle period of a life that came to late maturity--interpose\nthemselves between the young priest whose intellectual interests\nquietly detached themselves from Unitarian orthodoxy, and the mature\ncritic whose loyalties quietly detached themselves from the gods of his\ngeneration. The very brilliancy of the _Essays_ conceals the laborious\nprocesses by which their abundant wisdom was distilled. One must go\nto the _Journals_ for that--to those intimate records that reveal how\npatiently he sought for truth and how honestly he followed it. Wisdom\ndid not come to him of its own accord; it was painfully groped for.\nAs an introspective Puritan youth he began early to keep a diary of\nhis intellectual life, gathering into successive journals the savings\nfrom his discursive readings. For years as a quiet student he lived\nin a world of moral aphorisms, a cold, thin atmosphere where gnomic\nphrases bloomed and ancient oracles uttered judgment. This was the\nseedtime of his mind. He was making acquaintance with the noble dead,\ngathering their utterances to make for himself a new testament. \u201cNo\nman could be better occupied,\u201d he said later, \u201cthan in making his own\nbible by harkening to all those sentences which now here, now there,\nnow in nursery rhymes, now in Hebrew, now in English bards, thrill\nhim like the sound of a trumpet.\u201d As a young man he made this his\nchief concern. His early journals are an ample nursery where cuttings\nfrom all philosophies are set out, there to grow into such plants as\ncircumstance should permit. The ancestral cult of the book was in his\nblood, and living as he did under the threat of ill health, none too\nconfident that the years would lengthen out before him, he forced\nhimself to a severe intellectual regimen. To invest his days wisely\nwas his single purpose. He wanted only the best securities for his\ninvestments, and what he got he carefully deposited, together with\nthe increments of his own thought, to draw upon at later need. There\nwere no wastrel forays in his intellectual life, no unpruned riot of\ngrowth, but the very odds and ends of his meditation were carefully\ntreasured to be used when other materials were lacking. Fortunately\nthe stuff was of good quality that outlasted many makings-over, till\nfinally he got the cut to his liking. From this discipline of years\ncame his superlative mastery of the sententious sentence; his brilliant\nutterances are rich with the thought he has crammed into them.\n\nThe cheerful serenity that never deserted him was a triumph of will\nover circumstance. It was a singularly cheerless world that bred him,\nsubsisting by sheer will power, eating its heart out with heroic\nambitions, too grimly earnest to enjoy what it got so laboriously--the\nlean aftermath of two centuries of asceticism. The business of plain\nliving and high thinking was a joyless manner of life, and the young\nEmerson got little pleasure from it. A nature less insulated must have\nbroken under the strain. It was a world stricken with tuberculosis.\nOf the five brothers one was mentally defective, another burnt up his\nvitality and went to the West Indies to die, a third of brilliant\npowers succumbed to consumption, his first wife died of the same\nscourge, his second wife and Emerson himself were long affected with\nincipient tuberculosis. To ease such anxious lives there was need of a\ngreat solace, and that solace was sought in religion. The ascetic youth\nran as naturally to religious meditation as a normal child to play.\nNo call to conversion ever came to him; the natural man postulated\nin Calvinistic dogma was washed out of him before he was born. The\nearlier jottings in the journals, before philosophy came to soften the\ninherited asceticism, and a transcendental revulsion from the common\npessimism had turned him into a serene optimist, often are as bleak and\nausterely introspective as those morbid human documents that fill the\nold libraries of Puritanism. Such meditations are thin gruel for the\nnourishment of a vigorous life, and Emerson must have suffered from\ninnutrition if he had not come upon more substantial food.\n\nFortunately the old Puritan anchors were already dragging, and\nEmerson was pretty well adrift when the romantic surge caught him\nand sent him far along new courses. The Puritan moralizer became\nthe transcendental seeker; the curious-minded loiterer in the gates\nof the temple, who had studied the moral winds by watching the tiny\nstraws of circumstance--erecting unconsidered trifles into ethical\nsignposts--calmly quitted the church and set forth on his intellectual\nquest. The ties had long been loosening, but it was his year abroad\nwhere he discovered ways of thinking unknown to Concord and Boston,\nthat effectively liberalized his mind and released him from the\nnarrow Yankee provincialisms. On that momentous trip Goethe, Landor,\nColeridge, Wordsworth, Carlyle, set him speculating on new themes,\nstimulating afresh the love of Plato, in whom he had long found\ninspiration. Continental idealism with its transcendental metaphysics\nrefashioned Emerson and put him upon his life-work.\n\nSpeaking of the intellectual revival of New England later in life, he\nremarked that \u201cGoethe was the cow from whom their milk was drawn\u201d; but\nit would seem that the influence of Wordsworth proved more immediately\nstimulating, for on his return home Emerson set about the systematic\ncontemplation of nature which left so considerable a deposit in his\nmind. Before this he had been too intent on his soul to consider the\nsunshine on the fields, but thereafter he made his pilgrimages into the\ncountry with the seriousness of one conducting a novel experiment. In\nthis new concern for nature there was a deliberate self-consciousness.\nIn temperament he was a bookish recluse, in love with the printed\npage. He was not a Thoreau to love his Walden Pond for its own sake,\nand it needed an effort of the will to send him as far as Auburn\nwood, to lie on his back and translate nature into metaphysic. But\nhe had come to the point where his developing philosophy must send\nhim into the fields. He had looked within himself and discovered the\ndivinity of the individual soul; but he had not probed the non-self,\nthe great encompassing universe of matter by which the individual\nis circumscribed and of which he is a part. To discover there the\ndiffused presence of God, to feel his kinship with man, to understand\nthat the soul is a microcosm, were necessary preliminaries to the\nunfolding of his transcendental philosophy, and he went about the work\nwith painstaking thoroughness. From this creative contact with nature\nemerged the Emerson we know, radiant with idealism, glad of life; and\nthis radiant gladness he put into his maiden essay, _Nature_.\n\nThis was in 1836 when Emerson was thirty-three years of age. In the\nnext two years he published _The American Scholar_, quintessence of\ntranscendental individualism, and the _Divinity School Address_, the\nbible of transcendental religion. With the appearance of the second\nseries of _Essays_, six years later, the major ideas of his philosophy\nwere fully elaborated. Stripped of its idealistic phraseology, of its\nbeauty and fervor, the master idea of the Emersonian philosophy is the\ndivine sufficiency of the individual. In accepting himself he accepted\nhis fellows, and he accepted God. The universe he conceived of as a\ndivine whole, whereof each man is his own center from whom flows the\nlife that has flowed in upon him, perennially fresh, perennially a new\ncreation. The law for things is not the law for mind; man is unkinged\nin acknowledging any lesser sovereignty than the sovereignty of self.\nStatutes, constitutions, governments, schools, churches, banks,\ntrade--the coercing sum of institutions and customs--these things do\nnot signify; they are only idols with clay feet that blind men worship.\nThe true divinity dwells elsewhere, in the soul of man; and that\ndivinity must rule the world and not be ruled by it. The apotheosis\nof individualism--such in briefest terms was the gospel of Emerson;\nnew only in its radiant dress and idealistic sanctions, the final\ntranscendental form of a doctrine spread widely by the French romantic\nschool. It was the same revolutionary conception that Channing had come\nupon, that Jefferson had come upon, that Rousseau had come upon--the\nidea which in the guise of political romanticism had disintegrated\nthe _ancien r\u00e9gime_, and in the form of philosophical romanticism\nhad disintegrated eighteenth-century rationalism--the idea that was\nproviding Utopian dreams for an ebullient democratic faith.\n\nThus equipped with a philosophy Emerson was prepared to begin his work\nas a critic. The ideal he had drunk of was a perennial condemnation of\nthe material. The mean and ignoble ends pursued by a mean and ignoble\nsociety were a challenge to the serenity of his faith, and he must set\nhimself to analyze the causes of the low estate to which the potential\nsons of God had fallen. Lesser revolutions in thought were implicit in\nthis greater one, revolutions which Emerson was bound to go through\nwith. Despite the jaunty optimism of which he was often accused, his\neyes were never blind to reality; to see, and measure, and judge,\nwas to become his life business. He did not shrink from the ugliest\nfact, and the unhappy condition he discovered men to be in would have\ndiscouraged a less robust faith. At times even he doubted. At times he\nseems half persuaded, with Cotton Mather, that the potential children\nof light are \u201cstrangely and fiercely possessed of the devil.\u201d \u201cHuman\nnature is as bad as it dares to be,\u201d he commented in his journal; and\nat another time, \u201cIf it were possible to repair the rottenness of human\nnature ... it were well\u201d (_Journals_, Vol. VIII, p. 259).\n\nIn seeking an explanation of the tragic gap between the real and the\nideal, he came to attribute a large measure of the cause, like the\neighteenth-century romantics, to pernicious social institutions which\nstifle the nobler impulses and encourage the baser; and he became\nconvinced likewise that the work to which the critic was called was\nthe work of liberation, setting the mind free from false and ignoble\nloyalties that it might serve the true. He prepared therefore to lay\nhis transcendental yardstick on the little world of Yankee reality and\njudge how far short it came of its potential divinity. New England had\nnever been scrutinized so searchingly, measured so justly. Serene,\nimperturbable, he set the ideal in one pan of the scales, and all the\nNew England realities in the other, and bade his neighbors see how the\nbalance tipped. For a generation he was the conscience of America, a\npricker of inflated balloons, a gauger of the national brag and cant\nand humbug. With keen insight he put his finger on the mean and selfish\nand the great and generous. He surveyed his world with the detachment\nof posterity and anticipated the slower judgment of time. His\npenetration was uncanny and few of his judgments on men and measures\nhave suffered reversal in the court of final jurisdiction.\n\nSo shrewd a critic must concern himself greatly with the Jacksonian\nrevolution that was hurrying America towards the acceptance of\npolitical equalitarianism. By every compulsion of his transcendental\nphilosophy Emerson was driven to accept the abstract principle\nof democracy. He understood well what hopes for human betterment\nwere awakened by the principle of majority rule, and as he followed\nthe noise and tumult of the political campaigns he was driven to\ndefinition. In 1834 he commented in his journal:\n\n The root and seed of democracy is the doctrine, Judge for yourself.\n Reverence thyself. It is the inevitable effect of the doctrine,\n where it has any effect (which is rare), to insulate the partisan,\n to make each man a state. At the same time it replaces the dead\n with a living check in a true, delicate reverence for superior,\n congenial minds. \u201cHow is the King greater than I, if he is not more\n just?\u201d (_Journals_, Vol. III, p. 369.)\n\nSomewhat later in the same year he suggested:\n\n Democracy, Freedom, has its root in the sacred truth that every man\n hath in him the divine Reason, or that, though few men since the\n creation of the world live according to the dictates of Reason, yet\n all men are created capable of so doing. That is the equality and\n the only equality of all men. To this truth we look when we say,\n Reverence thyself; Be true to thyself. (_Ibid._, Vol. III, p. 390.)\n\n When I ... speak of the democratic element, I do not mean that ill\n thing, vain and loud, which writes lying newspapers, spouts at\n caucuses, and sells its lies for gold; but that spirit of love for\n the general good whose name this assumes. There is nothing of the\n true democratic element in what is called Democracy; it must fall,\n being wholly commercial. I beg I may not be understood to praise\n anything which the soul in you does not honor, however grateful may\n be names to your ear and your pocket. (_Ibid._, Vol. IV, p. 95.)\n\nHis deepening concern over the state of politics in America--the\nproperty-mindedness of the Whigs and the mob-mindedness of the\nDemocrats--drew him into an analysis of political parties and the\nnature of the political state. He was little read in the political\nclassics, and although he professed a mild approval of Montesquieu\nand was never tired of praising Burke, he was little influenced by\neither. The latter\u2019s political theory, indeed, was so fundamentally\nhostile to Emerson\u2019s major convictions--so legalistic in its\nreverence for government from the grave, so explicit in denial of\nnew-born rights--that it is a fair assumption that Emerson never\ntook the trouble to understand him but was content to enjoy his\nglowing rhetoric. Later commentators are too much given to glossing\nover Emerson\u2019s political theory, not approving its implications; or\nexplaining it away by appeal to certain comments jotted down when\nhis nerves were tried by enthusiasts;[456] but there is no explaining\naway a theory that was the logical expression of his transcendental\nphilosophy, unless his whole philosophy be explained away. Emerson\nknew very well where his political theory led, and he had no timid\ncompunction about following it through.\n\nIn his speculations on the nature and functions of the ideal\nrepublic--a theme that was much in his mind--he elaborated what we\nmay call the transcendental theory of politics, a theory closely akin\nto philosophical anarchism. All the elaborate machinery devised by\npolitical thinkers like Montesquieu and John Adams, with their schemes\nof checks and balances to preserve the _status quo_, he calmly throws\noverboard; constitutions he is not interested in, nor the complicated\nprops of coercive sovereignty. The single, vital, principle on which\nthe true republic must found itself, he insists, is the principle of\ngood-will. Since \u201cgovernments have their origin in the moral identity\nof men,\u201d the recognition of a common human nature with common interests\nmust induce rational men to enter a common political brotherhood; and\nuntil men become wise enough voluntarily to co\u00f6perate to the common\nwell-being, no good government is possible. The history of governments\nhitherto is a history of the tragic failure of men to achieve a\nrational political state. \u201cThe idea, after which each community\nis aiming to make and mend its law,\u201d he suggests in the _Essay on\nPolitics_, following Carlyle, \u201cis the will of the wise man. The wise\nman, it cannot find in nature, and it makes awkward but earnest efforts\nto secure government by contrivance.\u201d But he does not push his \u201cwise\nman\u201d theory to the patriarchal absolutism of Carlyle; with Channing he\npostulates an ethical sovereignty above the instrument. \u201cAbsolute right\nis the first governor; or, every government is an impure theocracy.\u201d\n\nThe doctrine of good-will establishes government in \u201cmoral identity\u201d;\nit \u201cseparates the individual from all party, and unites him at the\nsame time to the race\u201d; and in so doing it accepts the sovereignty of\nthe ethical absolute. This major conception of Channing\u2019s Emerson took\nover and made his own. He is explicit in his assertion of the need of a\nmoral interpretation of the doctrine of natural rights. The doctrine of\nan ethical sovereignty, he asserts,\n\n ... promises a recognition of higher rights than those of personal\n freedom, or the security of property. A man has a right to be\n employed, to be trusted, to be loved, to be revered. The power of\n love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.... There will\n always be a government of force where men are selfish; and when\n they are pure enough to abjure the code of force they will be wise\n enough to see how these public ends of the post-office, of the\n highway, of commerce and the exchange of property, of museums and\n libraries, of institutions of art and science can be answered.\n\n Every man\u2019s nature is a sufficient advertisement to him of the\n character of his fellows. My right and my wrong is their right\n and their wrong. Whilst I do what is fit for men, and abstain\n from what is unfit, my neighbor and I shall often agree in our\n means, and work together for a time to one end. But whenever I\n find my dominion over myself not sufficient for me, and undertake\n the direction of him also, I overstep the truth, and come into\n false relations to him. I may have so much more skill or strength\n than he that he cannot express adequately his sense of wrong,\n but it is a lie, and hurts like a lie both him and me. Love and\n nature cannot maintain the assumption; it must be executed by a\n practical lie, namely by force. This undertaking for another is the\n blunder which stands in colossal ugliness in the governments of\n the world.... For any laws but those which men make for themselves\n are laughable.... This is the history of government,--one man does\n something which is to bind another.... Hence the less government\n we have the better,--the fewer laws, and the less confided power.\n The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of\n private character, the growth of the individual ... the appearance\n of the wise man; of whom the existing government, is, it must be\n owned, but a shabby imitation.... To educate the wise man the State\n exists, and with the appearance of the wise man the State expires.\n The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary. The wise\n man is the State. (_Essay on Politics._)\n\nThus in transcendental fashion does Emerson range himself on the side\nof Jefferson, in opposition to a coercive sovereignty. A strong and\nenergetic government he feared as an efficient instrument of tyranny;\nand of the several contrivancies by which it enforced its will, he\nconsidered the police power the stupidest. As a sensible man he bore\nwith the state; he would pay his taxes; he would not strain at gnats;\nbut as a free man he would not suffer the state to coerce him; he would\ndestroy it first. There is a passage in his journal, written at the\ntime of the declaration of war against Mexico--when Alcott and Thoreau\nrefused to pay their taxes--that states his position with whimsical\ndirectness:\n\n The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means\n friendly. A poor cow who does well by you,--do not grudge it its\n hay. It cannot eat bread, as you can; let it have without grudge\n a little grass for its four stomachs. It will not stint to yield\n you milk from its teat. You, who are a man walking cleanly on two\n feet, will not pick a quarrel with a poor cow. Take this handful\n of clover and welcome. But if you go to hook me when I walk in the\n fields, then, poor cow, I will cut your throat. (_Journals_, Vol.\n VII, p. 220.)\n\nWith equal emphasis he rejected the economic interpretation of\npolitics. As a child of the romantic revolution he understood quite\nclearly how the waves of humanitarian aspiration broke on the reefs\nof property rights, how economic forces were in league against the\nideal republic. There could be no true democracy till this matter of\neconomics was put in subordination to higher values. Both the political\nparties, the respectable Whigs and the voluble Democrats, he was\nconvinced, were debauched by it; the one served property openly, the\nother secretly. \u201cFrom neither party, when in power, has the world any\nbenefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate\nwith the resources of the nation.\u201d Emerson did not deny the fact of\nthe universal appeal of economics. He could not, of course, accept the\ntheory of economic determinism; but he was convinced that the whole\nmatter must be probed deeply:\n\n The philosophy of property, if explored in its foundations, would\n open new mines of practical wisdom, which would in the event\n change the face of the world; would destroy the whole magazine\n of dissimulation, for so many ages reckoned the Capital art of\n Government. It would purge that rottenness which has defamed the\n whole Science until _politic_ has come to mean cunning.... It would\n go deep into ethics and touch all the relations of men. (_The\n Present Age._)\n\nPending such exploration it was clear to Emerson that the\nFederalist-Whig theory of a stake-in-society, or rulership by persons\nof principle and property, was wholly vicious:\n\n The theory of politics which has possessed the minds of men, and\n which they have expressed the best they could in their laws and\n in their revolutions, considers persons and property as the two\n objects for whose protection government exists. Of persons, all\n have equal rights, in virtue of being identical in nature. This\n interest of course with its whole power demands a democracy. Whilst\n the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access\n to reason, their rights in property are very unequal.... Personal\n rights, universally the same, demand a government framed on the\n ratio of the census; property demands a government framed on the\n ratio of owners and owning.... That principle no longer looks\n so self-evident as it appeared in former times, partly because\n doubts have arisen whether too much weight had not been allowed\n in laws to property, and such a structure given to our usages as\n allowed the rich to encroach upon the poor, and keep them poor;\n but mainly because there is an instinctive sense, however obscure\n and yet inarticulate, that the whole constitution of property, on\n its present tenures, is injurious, and its influence on persons\n deteriorating and degrading; that property will always follow\n persons; that the highest end of government is the culture of men.\n (_Essay on Politics._)\n\nIn such suggestions as he offered touching the form of the ideal\nrepublic, where \u201cevery child that is born must have a just chance\nfor his bread,\u201d Emerson reveals a pronounced bias in favor of\nthe Physiocratic theory of society. He was at one with Jefferson\nin preferring an agrarian to an industrial order. Manchester\neconomics--the doctrine of the economic man, of the iron law of wages,\nand other obscenities of the school--he quite frankly loathed. He did\nnot, he said, \u201clook with sour aspect at the industrious manufacturing\nvillage, or mart of commerce\u201d; but he would not glorify the machine,\nnor reduce man to a factory hand. He questioned the sufficiency or\nfinality of the division of labor. There is more than a suggestion of\nWilliam Morris in the doctrine elaborated in _Man the Reformer_; that\nthe industrial revolution with its factory system, must be judged in\nthe light of its effect upon the workingman, that the true function of\nwork must be explored and every man ply his tool to his own good. The\nsuggestion that \u201ca man should have a farm or mechanical craft for his\nculture,\u201d was an implicit denial of industrialism in the days of its\nfirst triumphs--a denial that Morris would have indorsed.\n\n We must have a basis for our higher accomplishments, our delicate\n entertainments of poetry and philosophy, in the work of our hands.\n We must have an antagonism in the tough world for all the variety\n of our spiritual faculties, or they will not be born. Manual labor\n is the study of the external world. The advantages of riches\n remains with him who produces them, not with the heir.\n\n I should not be pained at a change which threatened a loss of\n some of the luxuries or conveniences of society, if it proceeded\n from a preference of the agricultural life out of the belief,\n that our primary duties as men could be better discharged in that\n calling.... But the doctrine of the Farm is merely this, that\n every man ought to stand in primary relations with the work of the\n world, ought to do it himself, and not to suffer the accident of\n his having a purse in his pocket, or his having been bred to some\n dishonorable and injurious craft, to sever him from those duties;\n and for this reason, that labor is God\u2019s education; that he only\n is a sincere learner, he only can become a master, who learns the\n secret of labor, and who by real cunning extorts from nature its\n sceptre. (_Man the Reformer_.)\n\nIn all this--in the doctrine of the minimized state, of the sacred\nrights of the individual, of the wholesomeness of an agricultural life;\nin his concern for social justice and his tenderness for the poor and\nexploited among men--Emerson proved himself a child of the romantic\neighteenth century, who by his own transcendental path had come upon\nthe Utopia that an earlier generation had dreamed of, and which he\nsketched in the lovely poem prefacing the _Essay on Politics_. Much of\nEmerson is compressed in these lines:\n\n Fear, Craft, and Avarice,\n Cannot rear a State.\n Out of dust to build\n What is more than dust....\n When the Muses nine\n With the Virtues meet,\n Find to their design\n An Atlantic seat,\n By green orchard boughs\n Fended from the heat,\n Where the statesman ploughs\n Furrow for the wheat;\n When the Church is social worth,\n When the state-house is the hearth,\n Then the perfect State is come,\n The republican at home.\n\nThe contrast between such Utopian conceptions and the realities of\nAmerica in the forties was calculated to edge the critical judgment\nwith a certain asperity. The older agrarian simplicity of New England\nwas being submerged by the industrial revolution, and in the midst\nof the change Emerson quietly pronounced judgment upon the new idols\nof his generation, upon State Street and Beacon Street, upon Webster\nand Clay and Douglas, upon Everett and Choate, upon black slavery and\nwhite, upon the Mexican War and the Fugitive Slave Bill, upon the\nstolid poor and the callous rich. His judgment was severe but it was\nnever unjust. His later journals are a rich storehouse of critical\ncomment, keen, illuminating, disastrous in its analysis of all cant\nand humbug. At times--in his comment on Webster, in his hatred of\nState Street, in his criticism of the common materialism--he is almost\nsavage; at other times he is consumed with a vast sympathy for the\nlong-suffering, exploited mass of the people. \u201cAlas, for the majority,\u201d\nhe exclaimed, \u201cthat old, inevitable dupe and victim. What a dreary\nIliad of woes it goes wailing and mad withal. Some dog of a Cleon\nor Robespierre or Douglas is always riding it to ruin\u201d (_Journals_,\nVol. VIII, p. 449). When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed he wrote:\n\u201cThis filthy enactment was made in the nineteenth century, by people\nwho could read and write. I will not obey it, by God\u201d (_ibid._, Vol.\nVIII, p. 236). In smug and prosperous Boston he found no comfort--the\nBoston that applauded when \u201cThank-God Choate thanked God five times\u201d in\ndenouncing \u201cthe trashy sentimentalism of our lutestring enthusiasts.\u201d\nEmerson would have none of Boston:\n\n In Boston is no company for a fine wit. There is a certain\n _poor-smell_ in all the streets, in Beacon Street and Mount Vernon,\n as well as in the lawyers\u2019 offices, and the wharves, and the same\n meanness and sterility, and leave-all-hope-behind, as one finds in\n a boot manufacturer\u2019s premises. (_Ibid._, Vol. VIII, p. 363.)\n\nWith Theodore Parker he judged Boston to be the home of Hunkers, of\nthat \u201ccotton aristocracy\u201d that Webster served. It groveled servilely\nbefore State Street; how should the homely moralities get a hearing in\nsuch a place? Even Harvard College he charged with being a tool of the\nBoston counting-houses.[457]\n\nIt was the crass materialism of America, of the Democrats equally\nwith the Whigs, of the northern capitalists equally with the southern\nplanters, that drove him to exasperation, and tempered his optimism.\nThere is no jaunty optimism in a passage written during the panic days\nof \u201937:\n\n ... Society has played out its last stake; it is checkmated.\n Young men have no hope. Adults stand like day-laborers idle in\n the streets. None calleth us to labor. The old wear no crown of\n warm life on their gray hairs. The present generation is bankrupt\n of principles and hope, as of property. I see man is not what man\n should be. He is a treadle of a wheel. He is the tassel at the\n apron-string of society. He is a money-chest. He is the servant\n of his belly. This is the causal bankruptcy, this the cruel\n oppression, that the ideal should serve the actual, that the head\n should serve the feet.... Pride, and Thrift, and Expediency, who\n jeered and chirped and were so well pleased with themselves, and\n made merry with the dream, as they termed it, of Philosophy and\n Love,--behold they are all flat, and here is the Soul erect and\n unconquered still. What answer is it now to say, It has always\n been so? I acknowledge that, as far back as I can see the widening\n procession of humanity, the marchers are lame and blind and deaf;\n but to the soul that whole past is but one finite series in its\n infinite scope. Deteriorating ever and now desperate. Let me begin\n anew; let me teach the finite to know its master. (_Journals_, Vol.\n IV, p. 242.)\n\nTo be a critic rather than a fighter, and a critic because he was a\npoet and philosopher--this was the duty laid upon Emerson; and yet he\nwas sorely troubled when men from the skirmish line of social conflict\nreported to him the need of leaders. Why should he be privileged to\nremain in his study when slaves were abducted on the streets of Boston\nand John Brown was fighting at Harper\u2019s Ferry? With the extremest\nreluctance he was drawn into the struggle--it was not his fight.\n\n I waked at night [he recorded in his journal] and bemoaned myself,\n because I had not thrown myself into this deplorable question of\n Slavery, which seems to want nothing so much as a few assured\n voices. But then, in hours of sanity, I recover myself, and say,\n \u201cGod must govern his own world, and knows his own way out of this\n pit, without my desertion of my post, which has none to guard it\n but me. I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes, to\n wit, imprisoned spirits, imprisoned thoughts, far back in the\n brain of man,--far retired in the heaven of invention, and which,\n important to the republic of Man, have no other watchman, or lover,\n or defender, but I.\u201d (_Ibid._, Vol. VIII, p. 316.)\n\nBut always in the end he was drawn in, and none spoke wiser or braver\nwords to a careless generation. He never faltered, never compromised;\nthe prophet of the ideal faced the real and told the truth about it,\nserenely and with clear insight. His heroes were not the heroes of\nState Street; Horace Greeley, Theodore Parker, Horace Mann, Henry\nWard Beecher, he accounted the great Americans of his day, and not\nEverett and Webster and Clay and Calhoun. A friend of civilization, he\nwas partisan only to the ideal; to justice, truth, righteousness. A\nYankee of the Yankees, a Puritan of the Puritans, he had emancipated\nhimself from all that was mean and ungenerous in the one and harsh\nand illiberal in the other. A free soul, he was the flowering of two\ncenturies of spiritual aspiration--Roger Williams and Jonathan Edwards\ncome to more perfect fruition.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[456] See, for example, _Journals_, Vol. VII, p. 221.\n\n[457] \u201cHarvard College has no voice in Harvard College, but State\nStreet votes it down on every ballot. Everything will be permitted\nthere which goes to adorn Boston whiggism: ... but that which it exists\nfor,--to be a fountain of novelties out of heaven, a Delphi uttering\nwarning and ravishing oracles to elevate and lead mankind,--_that_ it\nshall not be permitted to do or to think of. On the contrary, every\ngenerosity of thought is _suspected_, and gets a bad name.\u201d (_Ibid._,\nVol. IX, p. 215.)\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Henry Thoreau \u2022 Transcendental Economist\n\n\n\u201cWisdom crieth in the streets and no man regardeth her\u201d; yet \u201cshe\nteacheth temperance and forethought, justice and fortitude; than which\nmen can have in their life nothing more profitable.\u201d\n\nThe single business of Henry Thoreau, during forty-odd years of\neager activity, was to discover an economy calculated to provide a\nsatisfying life. His one concern, that gave to his ramblings in Concord\nfields a value as of high adventure, was to explore the true meaning\nof wealth. Honest, fearless, curiously inquisitive--a masterless\nman who would give no hostages to fortune--he proved his right to\nbe called a philosopher by seeking wisdom as a daily counselor and\nfriend, and following such paths only as wisdom suggested. Out of his\nown experience, tested in the clear light of the Greeks, he wrote a\ntranscendental declaration of independence that may be taken as the\nfinal word of the Concord school touching the great issues of practical\nliving. _Walden_ is the handbook of an economy that endeavors to refute\nAdam Smith and transform the round of daily life into something nobler\nthan a mean gospel of plus and minus.\n\nIt was the common opinion of his neighbors that Henry Thoreau was a\nqueer fellow who had somehow got all his values topsy-turvy. And yet\nthe more thoughtfully one considers him, the more doubtful it appears\nwhether the queerness lay with him or with his critics. Unfortunately\na wholly honest and original man is so rare as to fall under common\nsuspicion. To the inmates of Bedlam a sane man will appear queer. In a\nsociety of serfs a masterless man will be accounted an outlaw. To the\nConcord farmers Thoreau appeared strange only because he applied in\nhis daily life a truth they assented to on the Sabbath. The principle\nthat life is more than the meat and the body than raiment was familiar\nenough to the Sunday doctrines of Concord; but that a man should\nseriously apply it on week-days; that he should propose to regulate his\nmid-week activities by the economy of the Sermon on the Mount, passed\nthe comprehension of practical Yankees who followed quite another\neconomy. It was Thoreau\u2019s conduct that perplexed them, rather than his\nphilosophy.\n\nFrom first to last that conduct was serenely logical. To this disciple\nof the ancient wisdom, Sabbath and week-day were one, and in seeking\nto square his daily life with the ancient precept, Thoreau became the\narch-rebel of his group, the most individual amongst the \u201clunatic\nfringe\u201d of the transcendental movement, the one who escapes elusively\nfrom the grip of an adjective. He slips out of all phrases devised\nto imprison him. \u201cA bachelor of nature,\u201d Emerson, with his gift for\ncryptic phrase, called him; \u201cpoet-naturalist,\u201d Ellery Channing who\nknew him intimately, chose to call him. \u201cI am a poet, a mystic, and a\ntranscendentalist,\u201d Thoreau said of himself, disregarding his nature\nwritings. Yet none of these phrases, true as they are, quite adequately\nsums him up. At the risk of committing a fresh futility, one may\nperhaps suggest that he was a Greek turned transcendental economist.\nHis life seems to have been a persistent experiment in values. A\nphilosopher of the open air who kept his mind clear and his nerves\nrobust by daily contact with wind and weather; a mystic who pried\ncuriously into the meaning of nature and was familiar with Hellenic\nand Oriental systems of thought; a Yankee, skilled in various homely\ncrafts, yet rather interested in proving for himself what things were\nexcellent and taking nothing on hearsay--Thoreau\u2019s chief business\nwould seem to have been with life itself, and how it might best be\nlived by Henry Thoreau; how a rational being, in short, might enjoy\nthe faculties God has given him, following the higher economy and not\nenslaving himself to the lower, so that when he came to die he might\nhonestly say, I have lived.\n\nAmongst the members of the transcendental school Thoreau was the one\nConcord man, born and bred there, literally of the soil and loving\nthe things of the soil. His tireless rovings were commonly bounded\nby the familiar Concord horizons. His life had taken deep root in\nthe Concord fields, and he refused to join the restless multitude\nof the _d\u00e9racin\u00e9s_, who seek novel experiences in a succession of\ntransplantings. No English peasant ever clung to the home-acres with\nmore loving tenacity. He was a countryman in instinct, distrusting the\ngreat city twenty miles away that disseminated its virus through the\noutlying villages and farms. The city was wedded to the economy of\nindustrialism and exploitation. But as a child of Jean Jacques, Thoreau\nchose to believe that the road to heaven ran through the fields and\nnot over the cobblestones of Boston; he discovered an honest integrity\nof character oftener in the country than in Lowell mills, yet none\ntoo often there. It was easier to be free there, yet even in Concord\nvillage the herd mind was always laying springes to catch the unwary;\nand Thoreau would not be caught. He was poet and philosopher as well as\ncountryman, and he weighed his own life and the life of his neighbors\nin the scales of Hellenic thought. He was surveyor of broader fields\nthan his neighbor\u2019s wood-lot; was acquainted with other mysteries than\nthe mystery of pencil-making. He desired other ends than those his\nshopkeeping, farm-tending neighbors served; he would not be encumbered\nas they were. He could not carry such gross impedimenta in his pack\nand be a free man; the pack was too heavy; and he proceeded to lighten\nit with a thoroughness that startled Concord. He \u201csigned off\u201d from\nDr. Ripley\u2019s church; with Alcott, he refused to pay his poll tax: he\nsevered his allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the\nFederal government; he rid himself of all concern at what Concord\nthought of his ways; he spoke out his honest convictions in the village\nLyceum--convictions about John Brown and slavery and Massachusetts\u2019\npart in sending negroes back to their masters--quite careless of the\ndisapproval of Judge Hoar and other Concord dignitaries. Such a man had\nnever before walked the village streets, and the spectacle filled his\nneighbors with amazement.\n\nWith so much useless luggage got rid of, Thoreau was ready to set\nabout the high business of living. To outward appearance a somewhat\nangular Yankee, practical and capable, he was at heart a Greek, with\nthe delight in the simple round of the seasons and a responsiveness\nto natural beauty that belonged to the older civilization. Brought\nup under the \u201cpale negations\u201d of Dr. Ripley\u2019s theology, he emerged a\npagan. He was the most widely read in Greek literature of the Concord\ntranscendentalists; had translated _Prometheus Bound_, and much of\nPindar; and was completely at home in the clear Greek atmosphere. Who\nbut a Hellenist could utter such words as these which serve as his\napology for the Walden experiment?\n\n I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front\n only the essential facts of life, and to see if I could learn what\n it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I\n had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living\n is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was\n quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow\n of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout\n all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to\n drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and,\n if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine\n meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it\n were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true\n account of it in my next excursion. (_Walden_, \u201cWhat I Lived For.\u201d)\n\nTo seek Pan in a tired world and recover joys that have long been\nforgotten is a business that only a romantic will engage in; yet\nThoreau set out on the quest with a clear-eyed purpose:\n\n ... My Good Genius seemed to say,--Go fish and hunt far and wide\n day by day,--farther and wider,--and rest thee by many brooks\n and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the\n days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek\n adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night\n over-take thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields\n than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild\n according to thy nature, like those sedges and brakes, which will\n never become English hay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it\n threaten ruin to farmer\u2019s crops? that is not its errand to thee.\n Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds.\n Let not to get a living by thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the\n land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are\n where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like\n serfs. (_Ibid._, \u201cBaker Farm.\u201d)\n\n If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and\n life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is\n more elastic, more starry, more immortal,--that is your success.\n All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily\n to bless yourself.... The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat\n as intangible and indiscernible as the tints of morning or evening.\n It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I\n have clutched. (_Ibid._, \u201cHigher Laws.\u201d)\n\nTo save one\u2019s soul has always been accounted in New England a matter\nworthy of a man\u2019s best effort, and Thoreau\u2019s days were given over to\nit with a single-heartedness without parallel even in New England.\nThe Puritan, he believed, had suffered his high spiritual mission\nto be sacrificed to the economic; he would recover that mission by\nsacrificing the economic to the spiritual; but he would interpret\nthe spiritual as a Hellenist rather than a Hebraist. The Christian\nother-worldliness seemed to him unduly regardless of the loveliness of\nthis world. \u201cChristianity,\u201d he says in the _Week_, \u201conly hopes. It has\nhung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land.\nIt has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with\njoy.\u201d\n\n I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the\n liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country\u2019s God....\n In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his\n ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and\n his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the\n great God Pan is not dead, as was rumored. Perhaps of all the gods\n of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his\n shrine. (_The Week_, \u201cSunday.\u201d)\n\nHis extraordinarily frank evaluation of the New Testament, and\nof Calvinistic New England that had too long chewed the cud of\nconscience--\u201cthey did not know when to swallow their cud, and their\nlives of course yielded no milk\u201d--is the work of a pagan from whom all\ncreeds slip easily. Few more searching sermons have been preached in\nMassachusetts than the sermon that composed itself as Thoreau\u2019s boat\nfloated down the Concord River, past the Billerica meeting-house where\nthe honest villagers were worshiping the God of New England--a sermon\nthat with fine irony summons minister and congregation to consider the\ndeeper teachings of their sacred book.\n\n I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none so truly\n strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians, no less than\n Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a stumbling-block. There\n are, indeed, severe things in it which no man should read aloud but\n once. \u201cSeek first the kingdom of heaven.\u201d--\u201cLay not up for yourself\n treasures on earth.\u201d--\u201cIf thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that\n thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in\n heaven.\u201d--\u201cFor what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole\n world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange\n for his soul?\u201d--Think of this, Yankees!... Think of repeating these\n things to a New England audience! thirdly, fourthly, fifteenthly,\n till there are three barrels of sermons! Who, without cant, can\n read them aloud? Who, without cant, can hear them, and not go out\n of the meeting-house? They never _were_ read, they never _were_\n heard. Let but one of these sentences be rightly read from any\n pulpit in the land, and there would not be left one stone of that\n meeting-house upon another.\n\n ... When one enters a village, the church, not only really but\n from association, is the ugliest-looking building in it, because\n it is the one in which human nature stoops the lowest and is\n most disgraced. Certainly, such temples as these shall ere long\n cease to deform the landscape.... Really, there is no infidelity,\n now-a-days, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath,\n and rebuilds the churches. (_The Week_, \u201cSunday.\u201d)\n\nAs Thoreau understood the problem of economics there were three\npossible solutions open to him: to exploit himself, to exploit his\nfellows, or to reduce the problem to its lowest denominator. The\nfirst was quite impossible--to imprison oneself in a treadmill when\nthe morning called to great adventure, to burden oneself with useless\nfardels when the pack must be kept light, was the folly of a slave\nmind. He had observed his neighbors closely and found little good in\ntheir way of self-exploitation.\n\n I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops,\n and offices, and field, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be\n doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.... How many a poor\n immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its\n load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn\n seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed,\n and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture and\n wood-lot.... The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the\n soil for compost. (_Walden_, \u201cEconomy.\u201d)\n\nTo exploit one\u2019s fellows seemed to Thoreau\u2019s sensitive social\nconscience an even grosser infidelity. The leisure of a slave driver,\ngot by imprisoning his fellows in a treadmill, was an ignoble leisure\nfrom which came the empty vulgarity of modern life. \u201cIf I devote myself\nto other pursuits and contemplations,\u201d he said, \u201cI must first see, at\nleast, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man\u2019s shoulders.\nI must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations, too.\u201d\nFreedom with abstinence seemed to him better than serfdom with material\nwell-being, for he was only giving up the lesser to enjoy the greater,\nas was the privilege of the philosopher.\n\n To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor\n even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according\n to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity,\n and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only\n theoretically, but practically.... When he has obtained those\n things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative\n than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life\n now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. (_Walden_,\n \u201cEconomy.\u201d)\n\nIt was the reply of the arch-individualist to the tyrannous\ncomplexities of society, and it set him apart even in the world of\ntranscendentalism. Other members of the group professed to have found\na better way out of the dilemma--the way of Brook Farm and Fruitland;\na richer life was to be achieved not by espousing poverty but by\nco\u00f6peration. But Thoreau could not adopt the co\u00f6perative solution; he\nmust either accept society as it was or remove. Convinced that it was\nnot worth accepting--that one made a foolish bargain in selling oneself\nto it--he was content to remove to Walden Pond. \u201cI came into this\nworld,\u201d he said, \u201cnot chiefly to make this a good place to live in,\nbut to live in it, be it good or bad.\u201d \u201cI desire to speak impartially\non this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of\nthe present economical and social arrangement.\u201d He did not advocate\nthat other men should build cabins and live isolated. He had no wish\nto dogmatize concerning the best mode of living--each must settle that\nmatter for himself. But that a satisfying life should be lived, that\nthe fox should somehow get free even though he left his tail in the\ntrap, he was vitally concerned about. \u201cThe youth may build or plant or\nsail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he\nwould like to do.\u201d Let him at least rid himself of the false gospel of\ncreature comforts, which men pay too high a price for.\n\nThe story of Thoreau\u2019s emancipation from the lower economics is the one\nromance of his life, and _Walden_ is his great book. More restrained\nthan the _Week_ and lacking the exuberant beauty of the latter--its\nnoble talk and scathing criticism--it is \u201cinformed by a more explicit\nunifying philosophy.\u201d It is a book in praise of life rather than of\nNature, a record of calculating economies that studied saving in order\nto spend more largely. But it is a book of social criticism as well, in\nspite of its explicit denial of such a purpose, and in its speculations\nmuch of Carlyle and Ruskin and William Morris crops out. In considering\nthe true nature of economy he concluded, with Ruskin, that \u201cthe cost\nof a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to\nbe exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.\u201d Conceive of life\nas cheap, a poor thing to be exploited, and the factory system becomes\nthe logical economic order; but conceive of it as dear, and the common\nhappiness the great objective of society, and quite another sort of\nindustrialism will emerge. Thoreau did not look with approval on the\nrising city of Lowell, with its multiplying spindles and increasing\nproletariat, and he did not understand why Americans should boast of\na system that provided vulgar leisure for the masters at the cost of\nserfdom for the workers.\n\n Where is this division of labor to end? [he asks] and what object\n does it finally serve? I cannot believe that our factory system is\n the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the\n operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English;\n and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or\n observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and\n honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be\n enriched. (_Walden_, \u201cEconomy.\u201d)\n\nThe whole middle-class philosophy of exploitation was hateful to him,\nthe middleman equally with the manufacturer. \u201cTrade curses everything\nit touches; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole\ncurse of trade attaches to the business.\u201d Men have been deceived by a\nfalse economy--lured by the bog lights away from the open fields to\nflounder in the miasmic marshes. While Ruskin was still pottering over\nTurner, Thoreau was elaborating in _Walden_ the text: The only wealth\nis life.\n\nIn other bits _Walden_ is curiously like _Hopes and Fears for Art_,\nand the drift of the whole is one with the revolutionary teachings of\nMorris, that the abiding satisfactions are those which spring from free\ncreative work. This Yankee Greek had learned that it is a beautiful\nlife back of the tool that creates beauty, and that if the work of our\nhands is ugly, it is because our liver are mean and sordid, affording\nno outlet for the free creative spirit. In New England, Puritan and\nYankee alike had conspired against beauty, and the gods had taken\nrevenge by clothing life in drab.\n\n Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls\n must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful\n living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful\n is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no\n housekeeping.\n\n What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown\n from within outward, out of the necessities and character of the\n indweller, who is the only builder,--out of some unconscious\n truthfulness, and nobleness, without ever a thought for the\n appearance; and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined\n to be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty of\n life. The most interesting dwellings in this country, as the\n painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble log huts and\n cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the inhabitants\n whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their surfaces\n merely, which makes them _picturesque_; and equally interesting\n will be the citizen\u2019s suburban box, when his life shall be as\n simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and there is no\n straining after effect in the style of his dwelling. (_Walden_,\n \u201cEconomy.\u201d)\n\nThoreau needed only to have lived in a world that honored craftsmanship\nto have opened fully the vein of gold that Morris dug his philosophy\nfrom; he had the instinct of the craftsman but not his training. His\nturning from the workshop to the fields, hearing no call in the humdrum\nvillage economy to develop a beautiful craftsmanship, was an implied\ncriticism of the common sterility of labor in every-day Concord; yet\nthe honest sincerity of his nature led him to the conclusion that lies\nat the heart of the philosophy of the great English craftsman:\n\n None have so pleasant a time as they who in earnest seek to earn\n their bread. It is true actually as it is true really; it is true\n materially as it is true spiritually, that they who seek honestly\n and sincerely, with all their hearts and lives and strength, to\n earn their bread, do earn it, and it is sure to be very sweet to\n them.\n\n In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to\n maintain one\u2019s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime,\n if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler\n nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not\n necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his\n brow, unless he sweats easier than I do. (_Walden_, \u201cEconomy.\u201d)\n\nAt Walden Pond and on the Merrimac River Thoreau\u2019s mind was serene as\nthe open spaces; but this Greek serenity was rudely disturbed when he\nreturned to Concord village and found his neighbors drilling for the\nMexican War, and when authority in the person of the constable came\nto him with the demand that he pay a due share to the public funds.\nThe war to him was a hateful thing, stupid and unjust, waged for the\nextension of the obscene system of negro slavery; and Thoreau was\nbrought sharply to consider his relations to the political state that\npresumed to demand his allegiance, willing or unwilling, to its acts.\nUnder the stress of such an emergency the transcendentalist was driven\nto examine the whole theory of the relation of the individual to the\nstate. He was not political-minded; he had concerned himself little\nwith political theory; he would gladly let the government alone if\ngovernment would let him alone; he was even prepared to make excuses\nfor government. But he would not compromise with his conscience; and\nwhen the state applied the principle of coercion, he applied the\ncounter principle of passive resistance. It was while he was domiciled\nin Walden cabin that the hand of the law seized him and thrust him\ninto Concord jail. He went with the constable quietly, but there was\na dangerous contempt in his heart. It seemed absurd that a man could\nnot go to the cobbler\u2019s for a pair of mended boots, but he must be\ninterfered with by a neighbor playing the r\u00f4le of constable. Constable,\njailer, the magistrate on the bench, all the elaborate machinery of\nthe law, Thoreau contemplated quizzically and judged his neighbors\nfools to have exchanged their freedom for such masquerades. Those who\ngot anything from such instruments--lawyers and propertied men--might\nthink well of them, but they were a mere impertinence to Thoreau who\nwanted to go huckleberrying. When they let him out he went quietly\nafter his berries, and discovered there was \u201cno state in sight among\nthe berry bushes.\u201d \u201cI saw,\u201d he remarked casually, \u201cthat the state was\nhalf-witted, that it was as timid as a lone woman with her silver\nspoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost\nall my remaining respect for it and pitied it.\u201d\n\nBut Thoreau was not done with the comedy. It set him upon thinking,\nand the result was the essay, _Civil Disobedience_. Taken by itself\nalone, it is a somewhat astonishing performance. This Yankee\ntranscendentalist quite evidently has turned philosophical anarchist.\nBut read in the light of Emerson\u2019s _Journals_, or in the light of\nGodwin\u2019s _Political Justice_, it is easily comprehensible. It is no\nmore than transcendental individualism translated into politics, with\nall comfortable compromises swept away. Its sources run straight back\nto eighteenth-century liberalism with its doctrine of the minimized\nstate--a state that must lose its coercive sovereignty in the measure\nthat the laws of society function freely. Very likely Thoreau had never\nread Godwin, yet his political philosophy was implicit in _Political\nJustice_. In Godwin\u2019s thinking the problem of man in society is the\nproblem of a voluntary adjustment of the individual to the state; and\nit is only by establishing economics and politics on morality, that\npolitical justice is possible. The moral law is the fundamental law,\nsuperior to statutes and constitutions; and to it the citizen is bound\nto render allegiance. \u201cThe object of the present state of society is\nto multiply labor,\u201d asserted Godwin; \u201cin another state it will be to\nsimplify it.\u201d \u201cThe only adequate apology of government is necessity.\u201d\n\u201cGovernment however reformed\u201d is \u201clittle capable of affording solid\nbenefit to mankind.\u201d \u201cGive us equality and justice but no constitution.\nSuffer us to follow without restraint the dictates of our own judgment,\nand to change our forms of social order as fast as we improve the\ndictates of our own judgment.\u201d \u201cThe pretense of collective wisdom is\nthe most palpable of all impostures.\u201d \u201cThe true reason why the mass of\nmankind has so often been the dupe of knaves, has been the mysterious\nand complicated nature of the social system. Once annihilate the\nquackery of government, and the most homespun understanding will be\nprepared to scorn the artifices of the state juggler that would mislead\nhim.\u201d\n\nBy his own path Thoreau came to identical conclusions. There is\nlittle in _Civil Disobedience_ that is not in _Political Justice_. To\nneither thinker is there an abstract state, society or nation--only\nindividuals; and to both, the fundamental law is the law of morality.\nPolitical expediency and the law of morality frequently clash, and\nin such event it is the duty of the individual citizen to follow the\nhigher law. Thoreau went even further, and asserted the doctrine of\nindividual compact, which in turn implied the doctrine of individual\nnullification; no government, he said, can have any \u201cpure right over my\nperson or property but what I concede to it.\u201d\n\n I heartily accept the motto,--\u201cThat government is best which\n governs least\u201d; and I should like to see it acted up to more\n rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to\n this, which also I believe,--\u201cThat government is best which governs\n not at all\u201d; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the\n kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but\n an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments\n are sometimes, inexpedient.\n\n A government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot\n be based on justice.... We should be men first and subjects\n afterwards. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law,\n so much as for the right.... How does it become a man to behave\n toward this American government today? I answer, that he cannot\n without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant\n recognize that political organization as _my_ government which\n is the _slave\u2019s_ government also.... There is but little virtue\n in the action of masses of men.... It is not a man\u2019s duty, as a\n matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any,\n even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other\n concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his\n hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it\n practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and\n contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue\n them sitting upon another man\u2019s shoulders. I must get off him\n first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.... If the law is\n of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice\n to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter\n friction to stop the machine.... As for adopting the ways which\n the state has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such\n ways. They take too much time, and a man\u2019s life will be gone....\n Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union.... Why do\n they not dissolve it themselves,--the union between themselves and\n the state,--and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury?[458]\n (_Works_, Vol. X, pp. 131-170.)\n\n\u201cLet your life be a counter friction to stop the machine\u201d--in this\ndoctrine of individual syndicalism Thoreau\u2019s conception of the relation\nof the citizen to the state is tersely summed up. In so far as he\nwas a democrat it was of the transcendental school, rather than the\nJacksonian. He would be governed by the majority no more than by the\nminority. The scorn of a fine ethical mind for practical government by\npoliticians could scarcely be more tellingly phrased than in the bit of\nverse he tucks into _Civil Disobedience_:\n\n A drab of state, a cloth-o\u2019-silver slut,\n To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt.\n\nSuch a man quite evidently would go for Nullification as fiercely as\nGarrison. Even though he might wash his hands of society, the cries of\nthose who suffered injustice followed him, and when the Fugitive Slave\nLaw passed, it robbed him of his peace, destroying his pleasure in\nwonted things. The slave hunters were in Boston streets, and justice\nin the person of Commissioner Loring was sending Anthony Burns back to\nslavery. As he contemplated the spectacle his wrath against a coercive\ngovernment flamed up. \u201cMy thoughts are murder to the state,\u201d he\ncomplained bitterly, \u201cand involuntarily go plotting against her.\u201d\n\n I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and\n Americans only at a late and convenient hour.... I hear a good deal\n said about trampling this law under foot. Why, one need not go out\n of his way to do that. This law rises not to the level of the head\n or the reason; its natural habitat is in the dirt. It was born and\n bred, and has its life, only in the dust and mire, on a level with\n the feet; and he who walks with freedom, and does not with Hindoo\n mercy avoid treading on every venomous reptile, will inevitably\n tread on it, and so trample it under foot,--and Webster, its\n maker, like the dirt-bug and its ball. (\u201cSlavery in Massachusetts,\u201d\n in _Works_, Vol. X.)\n\n The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make\n the law free. They are the lovers of law and order who observe the\n law when the government breaks it.\n\nThoreau was a stern judge, and he held his age in low esteem. His\nConcord neighbors seemed to him poor fellows with too little spirit to\nbe free men; they were the raw material of standing armies, militia,\njailors, constables, and the _posse comitatus_. And then one day into\nthe field of his vision came a plain Yankee, primitive and heroic,\nJohn Brown of Ossawatomie. In the contemplation of his life and death\nThoreau felt a shock of new faith run like an electric current through\nhis veins. The age was no longer dead to him, for it had bred a man.\n\u201cI rejoice that I live in this age,\u201d he exclaimed, \u201cthat I am his\ncontemporary.\u201d He had found his hero--not in past times as Carlyle and\nEmerson had done, but in the present and among his own Yankee kind. He\nhad talked with John Brown in Concord and recognized him as a primitive\nidealist of rugged mold, a stern moralist who set justice above the\nlaw. That this man should be so grossly misunderstood by lesser men, so\nfoully slandered, filled him with sorrow and with wrath also. \u201cWhen a\nnoble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble\nthemselves. I was not surprised that certain of my neighbors spoke of\nJohn Brown as an ordinary felon, for who are they? They have either\nmuch flesh, or much office, or much coarseness of some kind\u201d (\u201cThe\nLast Days of John Brown,\u201d in _Works_, Vol. X, p. 241). His trial and\nconviction Thoreau regarded as a judgment, not on John Brown, but upon\nAmerica; the lawyers and editors and politicians who judged him were\nonly convicting themselves.\n\n His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to\n pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor\n and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if\n not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and\n devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for\n the benefit of his fellow-man. It may be doubted if there were so\n many more their equals in these respects in all the country,--I\n speak of his followers only,--for their leader, no doubt, scoured\n the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop. These alone were\n ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they\n were the very best men you could select to be hung. That was the\n best compliment this country could pay them. They were ripe for her\n gallows. She has tried a long time, she has hung a good many, but\n never found the right one before.\n\n I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending\n a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground,\n and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence\n whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial\n cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were\n the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man,\n that would be another thing. A counterfeiting law-factory, standing\n half in a slave land and half in a free! What kind of laws for free\n men can you expect from that? (\u201cA Plea for Captain John Brown,\u201d in\n _Works_, Vol. X, p. 197.)\n\nIn Thoreau the eighteenth-century philosophy of individualism, the\npotent liberalisms let loose on the world by Jean Jacques, came to\nfullest expression in New England. He was the completest embodiment of\nthe _laissez-faire_ reaction against a regimented social order, the\nseverest critic of the lower economics that frustrate the dreams of\nhuman freedom. He was fortunate in dying before the age of exploitation\nhad choked his river with its weeds; fortunate in not foreseeing how\nremote is that future of free men on which his hopes were fixed:\n\n The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this\n year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched\n uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out\n all the muskrats ... such is the character of that morrow which\n mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out\n our eyes is darkness to us. There is more day to dawn. The sun is\n but a morning-star. (_Walden._)\n\nWith the dawning of that day perhaps men will sit once more at the feet\nof the ancient wisdom and fashion their lives upon the principle that\nthe soul is more than the meat and the body than raiment. Perhaps they\nmay even shape for themselves new heroes--\u201cabove and after all, the Man\nof the Age, come to be called workingman.\u201d He and his deeds are looked\ndown upon in our time--\u201cIt is obvious that none yet speaks to his\ncondition, for the speaker is not yet in his condition.\u201d \u201cLiterature\nspeaks how much still to the past, how little to the future; how much\nto the East, how little to the West\u201d (\u201cThomas Carlyle and his Works,\u201d\nin _Works_, Vol. X, p. 118). One of the great names in American\nliterature is the name of Henry Thoreau. Yet only after sixty years is\nhe slowly coming into his own.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[458] Compare the following entry in his _Journal_ under date of March\n26, 1842: \u201cI must confess I have felt mean enough when asked how I was\nto act on society, what errand I had to mankind. Undoubtedly I did\nnot feel mean without a reason, and yet my loitering is not without\ndefense. I would fain communicate the wealth of my life to men,\nwould really give them what is most precious in my gift.... I know\nno riches I would keep back. I have no private good unless it be my\npeculiar ability to serve the public.... This is the only individual\nproperty.... It is hard to be a good citizen of the world in any great\nsense, but if we do render no interest or increase to mankind out\nof that talent God gave us, we can at least preserve the principal\nunimpaired.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 Theodore Parker \u2022 Transcendental Minister\n\n\nTheodore Parker was described by one of his biographers as \u201cthe best\nworking-plan of an American yet produced,\u201d and by a fellow minister as\n\u201ca conscience since Luther unsurpassed.\u201d The two comments suggest still\nanother, that he was completely and adequately New England. Yankee\nand Puritan contributed equally to his making. His rich and plastic\nmind was two-sided: one-half was wholly English, practical, logical,\nconcrete, lucid; loving fact and tireless in its acquisition; master\nof everyday affairs and competent in dealing with this world; the\nother was emotional, mystical, idealistic, deeply and spontaneously\nreligious, living daily with God as a son with the Father, carrying\nthe sorrows of men in his heart and the wrongs of the world on his\nconscience. One of the greatest of New England ministers, he was\nshepherd as well as counselor, pastor as well as teacher. \u201cI wish to\nstand on the earth,\u201d he said with true critical insight, \u201cthough I\nwould look beyond the stars. I would live _with men_, but think with\nphilosophers\u201d (Weiss, _Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker_,\nVol. I, p. 115). The generous amplitude of his nature was too large\nfor the narrow walls of a church; he took all Boston for his parish,\nall New England for his congregation. Amazingly active and vital, he\nconsumed whole libraries in his pursuit of knowledge. \u201cHis mind,\u201d\nsays Weiss, \u201cwas like the republican idea itself; it could afford to\nbe hospitable, but could not afford to be exclusive\u201d (_ibid._, Vol.\nI, p. 178). Conversant with many fields of knowledge, with a memory\nextraordinarily retentive, he was master of many languages--nineteen\nor twenty, according to Thomas Wentworth Higginson--and at home in the\nmost abstruse subjects. He spent his vast energy with the prodigality\nof Cotton Mather, and he achieved what Cotton Mather with his inbred\nparochialism could not achieve, an intellectual cosmopolitanism that\njudged Boston by broader standards than it could gauge.\n\nA first-class fighting-man was this child of yeoman New England--none\nbraver, not even Garrison, none more effective; and yet\ntender-hearted, sympathetic, with the shrewd common sense of his\nhomespun forebears. The son of a Lexington farmer and mechanic,\nself-trained, endowed with indomitable will, he came of the soundest\nstock in Massachusetts. His grandfather was captain of the Minute Men\nwho faced the British troops on Lexington Common in April, 1775; and\na conscious pride of ancestry broke out frequently in his speech.\nThe words uttered before the Ministerial Conference in May, 1851,\nin justification of his repudiation of the Fugitive Slave Law, were\ncharacteristic: \u201cI am not afraid of men, I can offend them. I care\nnothing for their hate, or their esteem. I am not very careful of my\nreputation.\u201d He then goes on:\n\n I have had to arm myself. I have written my sermons with a pistol\n in my desk,--loaded, a cap on the nipple, and ready for action.\n Yea, with a drawn sword within reach of my right hand. This I\n have done in Boston; in the midst of the nineteenth century; been\n obliged to do it to defend the (innocent) members of my church,\n women as well as men! You know that I do not like fighting....\n But what could I do? I was born in the little town where the\n first bloodshed of the Revolution began. The bones of men who\n first fell in that war are covered by the monument at Lexington,\n it is \u201csacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind\u201d; those men\n fell \u201cin the sacred cause of God and their country.\u201d This is the\n first inscription that I ever read. These men were my kindred. My\n grandfather drew the first sword in the Revolution; my fathers\n fired the first shot; the blood which flowed there was kindred to\n this which courses in my veins today. Besides that, when I write\n in my library at home, on the one side of me is the Bible which my\n fathers prayed over, their morning and evening prayer, for nearly\n a hundred years. On the other side there hangs the firelock my\n grandfather fought with in the old French war, which he carried\n at the taking of Quebec, which he zealously used at the battle of\n Lexington, and beside it is another, a trophy of that war, the\n first gun taken in the Revolution, taken also by my grandfather.\n With these things before me, these symbols; with these memories in\n me, when a parishioner, a fugitive from slavery, a woman, pursued\n by the kidnappers, came to my house, what could I do less than take\n her in and defend her to the last? (_Additional Speeches_, Vol. I,\n pp. 13-15.)\n\nWith his sensitive conscience visited by such memories--a child of \u201976\nliving in the evil days of the Fugitive Slave Law, a devout freethinker\nborne on the crest of transcendental thought--Theodore Parker became\nthe embodiment and epitome of the New England renaissance. More\ncompletely perhaps than any other representative, he gathered up and\nexpressed the major revolutionary impulses of his time and world: the\nidealistic theism implicit in the Unitarian reaction from Calvinism;\nthe transcendental individualism latent in the doctrine of divine\nimmanence; and the passion for righteousness, to make the will of God\nprevail in a world where the devil quite openly kept his ledgers. He\nwas an eager and thorough iconoclast, impatient to break the false\nimages--the God of John Calvin with its slanders of human nature,\nand the god of State Street with its contempt for justice--which New\nEngland, he believed, had worshiped too long, forgetting the ideals of\nthe Revolutionary fathers. The mind and conscience of Boston seemed\nto him stifled by the strait-jacket of respectability. Righteousness\nlike a fugitive slave, was driven into hiding, or must walk the open\nstreets with a Derringer in its pocket. As a free soul loving freedom,\nand a righteous man loving righteousness, he believed a duty was laid\non him to cut away the strait-jacket, to shame the Boston that sold\nthe poor in the gates for a pair of shoes. He must labor to set free\nthe mind and conscience of Boston that they might go forth purified to\nwork a beneficent work in a world that is God\u2019s and not the devil\u2019s.\nHis attack was keen and unsparing; he laid on with gusto; he used\nhomely words; he was just rather than polite. Impatient of humbug and\nself-seeking he dealt in searching criticism rather than conventional\neulogy. At his touch distinguished reputations shrank to the mean and\ncommonplace, and inflated dignitaries collapsed like a pricked balloon.\nIntellectually honest, he spoke the truth he had been at immense\npains to gather, and in consequence those who suffered the sting of\nhis attack--ministers and lawyers and merchants and politicians, men\nin high position, distinguished leaders of Boston society--were not\nslack in crying out against him as a demagogue and agitator. Next to\nGarrison he became the most hated man in New England; and something of\nthat contemporary hatred, fierce and unforgiving, clings to his name\nstill, coloring later estimates of his worth, hinting that his manners\nwere not on a level with his morals.[459] An extraordinarily vital and\ninteresting person, in short, was this Yankee preacher with his Puritan\nconscience--this transcendental critic with his quiver full of facts;\none not to be ignored in casting up the accounts of the New England\nrenaissance.\n\nWith his memorable sermon _On the Transient and Permanent in\nChristianity_, preached in May, 1841--a sermon that ranks in the\nhistory of Unitarianism with Channing\u2019s Baltimore sermon--the\nUnitarian movement entered upon its second broad phase. It abandoned\nsupernaturalism established on the sufficient authority of the\nScriptures, and adopted the conception of an evolutionary theism, of\nGod progressively revealing himself to the developing faculties of\nmen and speaking through the conscience. Under Channing\u2019s guidance\nUnitarianism had abandoned the major dogmas of Calvinism--total\ndepravity, predestination, a God of wrath; it had shifted the emphasis\nfrom stable will to boundless love; and by such teachings it had\ncaptured the greater churches of Boston. By 1830 it had become securely\nestablished as the religion of Boston respectability, with implied\nbounds set to its intellectual liberalism. As the first ardor abated it\nfell to defining the new orthodoxy, resting content with what already\nhad been won. It was against this new orthodoxy that held fast to the\nold supernaturalism that Theodore Parker protested. \u201cThe defect of\nthe Unitarians was a profound one,\u201d he pointed out; \u201cceasing to fear\n\u2018the great and dreadful God\u2019 of the Old Testament, they had not quite\nlearned to love the all-beautiful and altogether lovely [God] of the\nuniverse.\u201d[460] He would have no pausing of the movement of adventurous\nthought, no settling back into the ruts of dogmatism; and so he threw\nhimself with immense energy into the work of liberating Unitarianism\nfrom a premature orthodoxy.\n\nFor this work he was admirably equipped. The greatest scholar of\nhis generation of New England ministers, deep in German theology\nand philosophy, with the latest results of higher criticism on his\nstudy table, he was critically trained to separate historical fact\nfrom ecclesiastical tradition, and establish his theology on a basis\nof naturalism. He was at once scientific and transcendental. He had\ntranslated De Wette\u2019s _Introduction to the Old Testament_ and was\nintimately acquainted with Strauss\u2019s _Leben Jesu_. He knew the oriental\nbackgrounds of Hebraic thought, had studied comparative religion with\nits suggestive record of taboos and fetishism, and was gathering\nmaterials for a comprehensive history of religion from primitive times.\nIntellectually acquisitive and curious, he far outran the less informed\nand courageous of his Unitarian brethren. But he was far more than\na critic, he may well be accounted a religious genius. A convinced\nintuitionist, he tested every authority by appeal to transcendental\nexperience. He frankly abandoned faith in the supernatural, with its\ncorollaries of miracles and its \u201cfetishism of the Bible,\u201d and was\nfar advanced in a theism that compensated for the supernatural by a\npassionate love of God. Thus established in personal experience his\nreligion issued in conduct. Love of God was more to him than historical\nfaith embodied in an historical church; love to his fellow men was\nmore appealing than dogma. Hence the profoundly ethical quality of\nhis religion, warm, palpitating, generous, that set it apart from\nthe colder and austerer ethicism of the conventional Unitarians. The\nspirituality of Channing was enriched in Parker by the ardency of his\nloving nature.\n\nThe three major doctrines of his theism, as elaborated in his \u201cLetter\nto the Members of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society,\u201d were the\ninfinite perfection of God, the adequacy of man to all his functions,\nand the sufficiency of absolute, natural religion. In his elaboration\nof these doctrines the controlling influence of transcendental thought\nis everywhere apparent. A metaphysical optimism throws a golden light\non all his thinking. The trinitarian Godhead, equally with the devil,\nvanishes in \u201cthe infinitely perfect God,\u201d \u201cimmanent in the world of\nmatter, and in the world of spirit, the two hemispheres which to us\nmake up the universe\u201d--a universe created \u201cfrom a perfect motive, for a\nperfect purpose, of perfect substance, and as a perfect means.\u201d Hence\nit follows in Parker\u2019s logic, that\n\n there must be a complete solidarity between God and the two-fold\n universe which He creates. The perfect Creator is thus also a\n perfect providence; indeed, creation and providence are not\n objective accidents of Deity, nor subjective caprices, but the\n development of the perfect motive to its perfect purpose, love\n becoming a universe of perfect welfare. I have called God Father,\n but also Mother ... to express more sensibility, the quality of\n tender and unselfish love, which mankind associates with Mother\n more than aught else beside. (\u201cLetter,\u201d etc., in Weiss, Vol. II,\n pp. 470-471.)\n\nThe doctrine of the adequacy of man flows logically from the doctrine\nof the immanence of God, but Parker was not content to rest it on\nsuch basis alone. The conception of human perfectibility, as it\nfiltered down to him through different strata of thought, romantic\nand idealistic, found a high sanction in his transcendentalism; but\nhis practical nature demanded that it be established if possible on\na scientific foundation. Anthropology must substantiate philosophy.\nParker was not convinced that it could be thus adequately established;\nnevertheless he would travel the objective path as far as it might\nlead. Darwin\u2019s _Origin of Species_ was published after Parker was\nseized with his fatal illness, yet in much of the latter\u2019s thinking he\nwas groping his way toward some similar conception of \u201cthe unity of\nlife of the human race,\u201d with its \u201cprogressive development\u201d from \u201cthe\nstate of ignorance, poverty, and utter nakedness of soul and sense,\nthe necessary primitive conditions of the race, up to the present\ncivilization.\u201d In the deep-buried scattered records of the past, slowly\nbeing gathered together and interpreted by science, he found \u201cproof of\ntime immense, wherein man, this spiritual Cosmos, has been assuming\nhis present condition, individual, domestic, social, and national,\nand accumulating that wealth of things and thoughts which is the mark\nof civilization.\u201d The doctrine of human perfectibility might not be\ncapable of scientific proof, but it was more than a reasonable hope; it\nwas implicit in all the past.\n\n But this progressive development does not end with us; we have\n seen only the beginning; the future triumphs of the race must be\n vastly greater than all accomplished yet. In the primal instincts\n and automatic desires of man, I have found a prophecy that what\n he wants is possible, and shall one day be actual.... What good\n is not with us is before, to be attained by toil and thought, and\n religious life. (_Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 471-472.)\n\nOf this slowly and painfully evolving man with his expanding ideals,\nreligion Parker believed to be the highest ultimate expression; and\nreligion, as the eyes of men slowly open to larger truths, will be seen\nto be answerable to the needs of daily life, to embody the highest\nideal of social excellence. The noblest religion he believed was\nnot supernatural, but natural. \u201cThe absolute religion which belongs\nto man\u2019s nature, and is gradually unfolded thence,\u201d \u201cis the idea of\nhumanity, dimly seen but clearly felt, which has flitted before the\npious eyes of men in all lands and many an age, and been prayed for\nas the \u2018Kingdom of Heaven.\u2019\u201d It is forever refashioning its ideal,\nre-embodying its vision, in every devout soul, in every creative age.\n\u201cThe religious history of the race is the record of man\u2019s continual\nbut unconscious efforts to attain this \u2018desire of all nations\u2019\u201d\n(_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 475). But unhappily every new advance soon\ncrystallizes in dogmas and institutions; taboos and fetishisms are\nquick to re-imprison the mind that struggles to be free. Old forms,\ntherefore, must be daily broken to make room for evolving experience.\nReligion must be free; it must rise spontaneously from the depths\nof life. Christianity has suffered grievously from a fetishism of\nthe Bible, from its worship of the supernatural, from an ungenerous\nsectarianism beloved of \u201cecclesiastic skeptics,\u201d who believe \u201cthere is\nno place for the Christian Church or the Bible till they have nullified\nthe faculties which created both, and rendered Bible-makers and\nChurch-founders impossible.\u201d Every age must write a new Bible out of\nits God-given instincts, permeated with the divine love that is slowly\nshaping society to the divine purpose.\n\n No more is the atheistic mocker or the ecclesiastic bigot\n commissioned to stop the human race with his cry, \u201cCease there,\n mankind, thy religious search! for, thousand-million-headed as\n thou art, thou canst know nought directly of thy God, thy duty,\n or thyself. Pause, and accept my authenticated word; stop, and\n despair!\u201d (_Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 475.)\n\nIt was this ethical quality of his religion that kept Theodore Parker\nso sensitive to wrongs and so generous in response to the call of\nsocial justice. His religion quickened his social conscience and\nsummoned him to serve the plentiful reform movements of the day. With\nGarrison and Wendell Phillips he organized the militants of Boston\nradicalism. His political principles were simple and uncompromising,\nwoven from the strands of English and French libertarianism of the\nseventeenth and eighteenth centuries--from Sidney, Locke, Rousseau,\nthe great leaders of the natural-rights school. One who accepted as\naxiomatic the nobility of human nature and the perfectibility of man,\nmight be a political romantic, but he was certain to be a liberal.\nParker was a primitive democrat, whose democracy was bone of his bone\nand flesh of his flesh. But the democracy that answered the needs of\nhis dream of the kingdom was, like Emerson\u2019s and Channing\u2019s, ethical\nrather than political or economic--it was \u201cthe enactment of God\u2019s\njustice into human laws\u201d (\u201cThe Nebraska Question,\u201d in _Additional\nSpeeches_, Vol. I, p. 327). \u201cThe democratic idea has had but a slow\nand gradual growth even in New England,\u201d he pointed out; nevertheless\nhe was convinced that it was spreading, and \u201cgovernment becomes more\nand more of all, by all and for all\u201d[461] (_ibid._, p. 33). He hated\nFederalism with an intensity equaling Jefferson\u2019s, and ecclesiastical\nFederalism that twisted the authority of the church to the side of\nwealthy pewholders, using Scripture as a sanction for exploitation, he\ndenounced as scathingly as Garrison. The power of the political state\nhe feared, because he discovered the political state to be the friend\nof the rich rather than the poor, of selfish advantage rather than of\nGod\u2019s justice. With other Abolitionists he distrusted the machinery\nof centralization that was being skillfully erected at Washington.\n\u201cOpposition to centralization of authority is very old in America,\u201d he\nremarked; \u201cI hope it will be always young\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 29).\nBut he was no partisan to the rule of the majority, if it determined\ncontrary to his conscience. A transcendental individualist, he went\nfor the nullification of an immoral statute in the name of the Higher\nLaw.[462]\n\nParker was never blind to the economic basis of politics. He saw\nso clearly, indeed, the close alliance between group interests and\ngovernmental statutes, that his political activities were almost\nwholly determined by that recognition. As a political critic he was\nthe shrewdest realist of his generation. He was one constituent whom\npoliticians talking for Buncombe could not befuddle. He was too deeply\nread in American history, gifted with too keen historical insight,\nto be impressed by the glittering rhetoric of the Rufus Choates. He\nhad his own views of the American government, and majestic appeals to\nthe Constitution left him cold. The Constitution, he asserted, \u201cis\na provisional compromise between the ideal political principles of\nthe Declaration, and the actual selfishness of the people North and\nSouth.\u201d America was not a democracy. It had thrown off theocracy,\naristocracy, and monarchy, only to set in their places the \u201cinstitution\nof money--the master of all the rest.\u201d The economic basis of society in\nAmerica he considered to be open and patent. In church and state, money\n\u201cis this day the strongest power of the nation.\u201d He declined to be\ndeceived by party cries and platforms, either Whig or Democratic; both\nparties served economics rather than justice.\n\n So there is a party organization about the dollar as its central\n nucleus and idea. The dollar is the germinal dot of the Whig party;\n its motive is pecuniary.... It sneers at the poor; at the many;\n has a contempt for the people. It legislates against the poor,\n and for the rich ... the few who are born with the desire, the\n talent, and the conventional position to become rich. \u201cTake care\n of the rich, and they will take care of the poor,\u201d is its secret\n maxim. Everything must yield to money.... With this party there\n is no Absolute Right, no Absolute Wrong.... There is Expediency\n and Inexpediency.... Accordingly a millionaire is reckoned by this\n party as the highest production of Society. He is the Whig ideal;\n he alone has attained \u201cthe measure of the stature of a perfect man.\u201d\n\n The Democratic party appeals to the brute will of the majority,\n right or wrong; it knows no Higher Law.... There is ... no vital\n difference between the Whig party and the Democratic party; no\n difference in moral principle. The Whig inaugurates the Money got;\n the Democrat inaugurates the Desire to get money. That is all the\n odds.... There is only a hand rail between the two, which breaks\n down if you lean on it, and the parties mix ... a Democrat is but\n a Whig on time; a Whig is a Democrat arrived at maturity; his time\n has come. A Democrat is a young Whig who will legislate for money\n as soon as he has got it; the Whig is an old Democrat who once\n hurrahed for the majority--\u201cDown with money! there is a despot!\n and up with the desire for it! Down with the rich, and up with\n the poor!\u201d The young man, poor, obscure, and covetous, in 1812\n was a Democrat, went a-privateering against England; rich, and\n accordingly \u201cone of our eminent citizens,\u201d in 1851 he was a Whig,\n and went a-kidnapping against Ellen Crafts and Thomas Sims. (\u201cThe\n Nebraska Question,\u201d in _Additional Speeches_, Vol. I, pp. 331-335.)\n\nThe America of Parker\u2019s day was fast becoming middle class and Parker\nknew it, and like Lincoln he did not disapprove. Honest thrift he found\nwholly desirable, and wealth if it were honestly got. But speculation\ndissociated from creative work he regarded with old-fashioned distrust.\n\u201cIf a man fully pay in efficient, productive toil and thought, he is\nentitled to all he gets, one dollar or many million dollars ... and\nif his estate be but what he has thus actually and honestly paid for\nwith service given, equivalent to the service received, what he can\nvirtuously keep or humanely apply and expend, then it will never be\ntoo large.\u201d[463] But he believed there were other gods, and greater,\nthan the god of getting on; social justice was more desirable than\nunearned increment; and he set his face like flint against the common\nmaterialism of America. \u201cI come to build up piety and morality; to\npull down only what cumbers the ground,\u201d he said; but he had learned\nthat the temples of State Street were not easily leveled; that they\nwould not fall without a mighty crash. A less courageous man would\nhave hesitated, but Parker was utterly fearless. Boston he knew \u201cwas\na Tory town.\u201d \u201cThe Mother city of the Puritans is now the metropolis\nof the Hunkers\u201d (_Additional Speeches_, Vol. I, p. 111). But the\nspirit of \u201976 was strong in him and he would \u201cappeal from Boston drunk\nwith gold, and briefly mad with hate, to sober Boston in her hour to\ncome.\u201d He would appeal from Whiggish Boston to Revolutionary Boston;\nfrom State Street to Lexington common; from the Faneuil Hall of Rufus\nChoate to the Faneuil Hall of Sam Adams. He would awaken the ancestral\nidealism of Boston that slept uneasily under the spell of middle-class\nambitions--that had sold its Puritan heritage for southern trade\nprofits. Such an appeal Boston had never before listened to, ardent,\nunsparing, the Hebraic and the Yankee vernacular curiously mingled; and\nBoston writhed uncomfortably and pronounced the prophet ill-mannered.\n\n When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New England states lay\n fast asleep: Massachusetts slept soundly, her head pillowed on her\n unsold bales of Cotton and of woolen goods, dreaming of \u201corders\n from the South.\u201d Justice came to waken her ... and she started in\n her sleep, and being frightened, swore a prayer or two, then slept\n again. But Boston woke,--sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and\n her eye on the market, her hand on her purse, dreaming of goods for\n sale,--Boston woke broadly up, and fired a hundred guns for joy. O\n Boston, Boston! if thou couldst have known, in that thine hour, the\n things which belong unto thy peace! But no: they were hidden from\n her eyes. She had prayed to her god, to Money; he granted her the\n request, but sent leanness into her soul. (\u201cThe Boston Kidnapping,\u201d\n in _Additional Speeches_, Vol. I, p. 89.)\n\nBut he offended the Boston code of good breeding even more seriously.\nHe became personal. He named names. Before vast congregations, in\nprinted books, he pronounced judgment on Bostonians respected in\nthe Back Bay, mighty in State Street. Boston gentlemen had never\nbefore suffered such tongue-lashings. How mercilessly he excoriated\nCommissioner Loring, judge of probate and Harvard professor, for\nsoiling his hands in the Anthony Burns case! How neatly he pricked\nthe empty culture of Edward Everett for his pro-slavery ardor--\u201ca\nCambridge professor of Greek, he studied the original tongue of the\nBible to learn that the Scripture says \u2018slaves,\u2019 where the English\nBible says only \u2018servants\u2019!\u201d (_Additional Speeches_, Vol. II, p. 115.)\nWhat an utterly devastating attack he made on the great Webster for\nthe latter\u2019s subserviency to local economic interests! Much honest\nrealism underlies that criticism, and much honest American history. The\n\u201cNebraska Address\u201d and the \u201cWebster Address\u201d are notable historical\ndocuments, incisive analyses--rare in those romantic days--done by\none who has kept a shrewd eye on current politics, and understands\nthe hidden springs of party policy. Into the Webster address he put\nhis vast knowledge, his power of analysis, his frank idealism. It was\n\u201ca sad and dreadful day\u201d when duty bade Theodore Parker speak on the\nman whose uncommon powers he had long admired; but he did his work\nthoroughly, refusing to shut his eyes to ugly fact, refusing to indulge\nin commonplace eulogy. It was the eighteenth-century economic realism\nof Webster that stirred the wrath of the transcendentalist--that and\nthe lapses from integrity. Parker\u2019s text was found in Webster\u2019s dictum\nthat \u201cthe great object of government is the protection of property at\nhome, and respect and renown abroad\u201d; and how starkly it runs counter\nto his own ideal of government, \u201cthe enactment of God\u2019s justice into\nhuman laws,\u201d is laid bare in page after page of scathing commentary.\nTo the exacting ethics of Parker, Webster was wanting in principles;\nhe followed expediency rather than justice; and how surely expediency\ndigs pitfalls for its own undoing he discovered tragic illustration of\nin the career of the great senator. It is a hard fate for a politician,\naccustomed to the cheap praise of the gullible public, to fall into the\nhands of a critic who is honest and searching; and Webster had too many\nweak points to emerge from such an analysis with credit. It is probably\nthe most critical examination of Webster\u2019s career that has ever been\nmade, and withal just.\n\nSurprisingly modern, far more so than Channing, was this brilliant\npreacher--impulsive, colloquial, natural, whose every arrow was\npointed with a fact and feathered to fly true; concerned more with\nrighteousness than with policy; hating the dull commonplace and empty\ndignity of Tory ways; careless of convention, somewhat spectacular,\nwith a keen relish for combat--a vital, vivid man, the apostle of\nconscience, the advocate of every unpopular cause. He possessed an\namazing gift of words, yet he was too impatient, too practical, to\nbecome an artist; preferring immediate ends to more lasting reputation,\nand spending himself with a free prodigality. He was always the speaker\nrather than the writer and his printed pages bear the unmistakable\nmarks of impetuous oral discourse. Emerson accounted him one of\nthe four great men of the age. Whether or not that judgment holds,\nwhether he was too eager a militant to become a great transcendental\nphilosopher, the historian sees in Theodore Parker one of the greatest,\nif not the last, of the excellent line of Puritan preachers.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[459] See Wendell, _Literary History of America_, p. 348.\n\n[460] See \u201cLetter to the Members of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational\nSociety of Boston,\u201d in Weiss, _Life and Correspondence of Theodore\nParker_, Vol. II, Appendix II, p. 482. This account of his \u201cExperience\nas a Minister\u201d constitutes a brief intellectual autobiography, of first\nimportance to the student of Parker.\n\n[461] This phrase of Parker\u2019s was probably the source of Lincoln\u2019s\nphrase.\n\n[462] See \u201cThe Law of God and the Statutes of Men,\u201d in _Additional\nSpeeches_, Vol. II, p. 181.\n\n[463] Quoted in Weiss, Vol. II, p. 488.\n\n\n\n\nChapter V \u2022 Margaret Fuller \u2022 Rebel\n\n\nThe fame of Margaret Fuller has waned greatly since her vivid\npersonality was blotted out in the prime of her intellectual\ndevelopment. Misunderstood in her own time, caricatured by unfriendly\ncritics, and with significant facts of her life suppressed by her\nfriends out of a chivalrous sense of loyalty, the real woman has been\nlost in a Margaret Fuller myth and later generations have come to\nunderestimate her powers and undervalue her work. Yet no other woman\nof her generation in America is so well worth recalling. She was\nthe completest embodiment of the inchoate rebellions and grandiose\naspirations of the age of transcendental ferment; for to the many\ngrievances charged against the times by other New England liberals, she\nadded the special grievance of the stupid inhibitions laid upon women.\nTranscendental radical and critic, like Emerson and Thoreau and Parker,\nshe was feminist also; and to the difficult business of freeing her\nmind from the Cambridge orthodoxies, she added the greater difficulty\nof freeing her sex.\n\nThe written record that Margaret Fuller left is quite inadequate to\nexplain her contemporary reputation. In no sense an artist, scarcely\na competent craftsman, she wrote nothing that bears the mark of high\ndistinction either in thought or style. Impatient of organization and\ninadequately disciplined, she threw off her work impulsively, not\npausing to shape it to enduring form. Yet she was vastly talked about,\nand common report makes her out to have been an extraordinary woman\nwho creatively influenced those with whom she came in contact. Like\nAlcott, her power lay in brilliant talk. Her quick mind seems to have\nbeen an electric current that stimulated other minds to activity, and\ncreated a vortex of speculation wherever she passed. Hungry for ideas,\nintellectually and emotionally vibrant, she caught her inspirations\nfrom obscure impulses of a nature thwarted and inhibited from normal\nunfolding; and in her sensitive oscillations she was often drawn\naway from polar principles to which she would later swing back. There\nwas quite evidently a fundamental unrest within her, a conflict of\nimpulses, that issued in dissatisfaction; and this contradiction was\naggravated by intense emotions, which both quickened her mind and\ndistorted it.\n\nA product of Cambridge bookishness, Margaret Fuller was both a wonder\nand a riddle to a generation that made little account of the psychology\nof sex. She was commonly looked upon as an intellectual monstrosity,\nthe most fearful of Yankee bluestockings, and a later Bostonian has\ngone so far as to suggest that she was \u201can unsexed version of Plato\u2019s\nSocrates\u201d (Wendell, _Literary History of America_, p. 300). But to\npresent-day psychology her character is an extraordinarily suggestive\ndocument, and a recent critic has read her seeming contradictions\nlike an open book.[464] Before Miss Anthony\u2019s penetrating analysis\nthe Margaret Fuller myth vanishes, and a very real, natural, and\nunfortunate woman takes its place. She came of vigorous stock,\nindependent, outspoken, opinionated. Her grandfather was a clergyman\nwho was unfrocked by his church for being lukewarm in the Revolutionary\nWar. Her father, Timothy Fuller, and her four uncles, worked their\nway through Harvard. In Timothy Fuller there was a large measure of\nPuritan grimness and severity that locked the door on the passions of\nhis heart, that none might know of them; yet there seems to have been\na volcano in the man who held off the world so brusquely. The rebel\nwas strong in him. The Fullers were not of Brahmin stock and had no\nwish to please their social superiors. While a Harvard undergraduate,\nTimothy Fuller turned Jeffersonian republican and lost his place as\nfirst honor man by joining in an undergraduate protest against certain\nhated regulations. As a lawyer and politician he repudiated respectable\nFederalism, and although he was representative in Congress for four\nterms and enjoyed certain other offices, his non-conformity in the end\ncost him dear. No doubt he had counted on that, for he was stubborn oak\nthat might break but would not bend. The tragedy of Margaret Fuller\u2019s\nlife seems to have been sketched before in the life of Timothy Fuller.\n\nTo an extraordinary degree the daughter was the child of the father,\nin ideas and sympathies as well as blood. Like him she was a rebel,\nbut for the daughter to turn rebel involved greater hazards than\nfor the father. Her sex was a heavy handicap, for the experience of\nFanny Wright and Lucretia Mott had revealed that American chivalry\nhad definite bounds; it did not shield the woman who ventured beyond\nthe pale. Yet considering her blood and training, how could she help\nthus venturing into freer fields without? From her earliest years her\nfather treated her as a comrade and gave her the training of a boy. In\nher studies he dealt with her as James Mill dealt with his brilliant\nson. Perhaps it was a mistake to force her into the rigid groove of\nclassical learning when she should have been playing with her dolls.\nFrom it she got very unusual acquisitions, but overstimulation broke\nher health, and isolation turned her mind in upon itself and made her\nthe victim of somnambulism and freaks of imagination. The result was\nthe development, on one side of her nature, of a female counterpart\nof Cotton Mather--precocious, domineering, moody, visionary, given to\nlong hours of greedy reading, gorging herself on books and well-nigh\nruining her intellectual digestion as well as her health. Against this\nunfortunate overstimulation her vigorous nature struggled for years,\nand never quite successfully. Her emotions were forever embroiling\nher intellect. To conceive of her as sexless is curiously to miss the\npoint of her emotionalism. She was rather the victim of sex. Her ardent\nfriendships with other women, her flashes of mystical experience, her\nfondness for children, her love of luxury and creature comforts, her\neager love affair with James Nathan who unchivalrously found safety in\nflight, her friendship with Mazzini and her more intimate friendship\nwith Count Ossoli, that ended in an unconventional marriage after her\nsituation rendered it necessary--such reactions can be explained on\nno other hypothesis. Her ardent nature was the victim of disastrous\nfrustrations, rendered the more acute by premature development. If\nshe had married early, as Harriet Beecher did, and her excessive\nenergy had been turned into domestic channels, her life must have been\nless tragic, whatever the effect might have been on her intellectual\ndevelopment.\n\nThe acutest contemporary analysis of her contradictory character is\nthat given by her friend William Henry Channing, who found his clue in\nthe clash between endowment and environment:\n\n Here was one fond as a child of joy, eager as a native of the\n tropics for swift transition from luxurious rest to passionate\n excitement, prodigal to pour her mingled force of will, thought,\n sentiment, into the life of the moment, all radiant with\n imagination, longing for communion with artists of every age in\n their inspired hours, fitted by genius and culture to mingle as an\n equal in the most refined circles of Europe, and yet her youth and\n early womanhood had passed away amid the very decent, yet drudging,\n descendants of prim Puritans. Trained among those who could have\n discerned her peculiar power, and early fed with the fruits of\n beauty for which her spirits pined, she would have developed into\n one of the finest lyrists, romancers and critics, that the modern\n literary world has seen. This she knew; and this tantalization of\n her fate she keenly felt. (_Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli_,\n by R. W. Emerson, W. H. Channing, and J. F. Clarke, Vol. II, pp.\n 36-37.)\n\nThis disastrous clash between endowment and environment is strikingly\nexemplified in her delight in Europe when at thirty-four she found\nherself there--in her admiration for Georges Sand, and in particular\nthe extravagance of her love for Rome, where her starved heart found\nsatisfactions she had long dreamed of. \u201cItaly receives me as a\nlong-lost child, and I feel myself at home here,\u201d she wrote in 1847;\nand a few weeks later, \u201cI find how true was the lure that always drew\nme towards Europe. It was no false instinct that said I might here\nfind an atmosphere to develop me in ways I need. Had I only come ten\nyears earlier! Now my life must be a failure, so much strength has\nbeen wasted on abstractions, which only came because I grew not in the\nright soil\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 225). She was too eagerly pagan to be\nsatisfied with either Puritan or Yankee Cambridge. The pale ethicism of\nNew England was thin gruel for such an appetite for life. Even Emerson\nshe found cold, and her stomach rebelled at the food he throve on. But\nthis was only half the story; the other half was this:\n\n But the tragedy of Margaret\u2019s history was deeper yet. Behind the\n poet was the woman,--fond and relying, the heroic and disinterested\n woman. The very glow of her poetic enthusiasm was but an outflush\n of trustful affection; the very restlessness of her intellect was\n the confession that her heart had found no home. A \u201cbook-worm,\u201d\n a \u201cdilettante,\u201d a \u201cpedant,\u201d I had heard her sneeringly called;\n but now it was evident that her seeming insensibility was virgin\n pride, and her absorption in studying the natural vent of emotions,\n which met no object of life-long attachment. At once, many of her\n peculiarities became intelligible. Fitfulness, unlooked-for changes\n of mood, misconceptions of words and actions, substitutions of\n fancy for fact ... were now referred to the morbid influence of\n affections pent up to prey upon themselves. And, what was still\n more interesting, the clue was given to a singular credulousness,\n by which, in spite of her unusual penetration, Margaret might be\n led away blindfold. As this revelation of her ardent nature burst\n upon me, and ... I saw how faithful she had kept to her life\n purposes,--how patient, gentle, and thoughtful of others, how\n active in self-improvement and usefulness, how wisely dignified she\n had been,--I could not but bow to her in reverence. (_Ibid._, Vol.\n II, p. 37.)\n\nThe inchoate rebellions in her heart were stimulated and given form by\nher reading. From the English, French, and German romantics she drew\nmuch of her intellectual food. The long hours spent with her father\nover Jefferson\u2019s letters were the best of preparation for Rousseau\nand Mary Wollstonecraft, and French romanticism provided an excellent\nintroduction to the German. Her emotions were in high ferment when she\ncame upon the German school, and she yielded her heart to it without\nreserve. Novalis, Richter, above all Goethe, became a passion and\nswept her along the path that Hedge and James Freeman Clarke were\nfollowing. For years she gathered materials for a life of Goethe, but\na feeling of self-distrust held back the project. Her love for him was\nthe great literary enthusiasm of her life. \u201cIt seems to me,\u201d she wrote\nin 1832, \u201cas if the mind of Goethe had embraced the universe.... I am\nenchanted while I read. He comprehends every feeling I have ever had\nso perfectly, expresses it so beautifully; but when I shut the book,\nit seems as if I had lost my personal identity; all my feelings linked\nwith such an immense variety that belongs to things I had thought\nso different\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 119). Later, with more critical\nanalysis of Goethe, she found her enthusiasm modifying; she was\nrepelled by his calm, aloof intellectuality;[465] but she never wavered\nin loyal recognition of his commanding powers.\n\nHer romantic idealism was in full career when the transcendental\nmovement caught her up and put its stamp upon her. It came as an\nemotional appeal to the vague aspirations of a life inadequately\nmotivated, and she threw herself eagerly into the new philosophy\nand became the most hectic of its expounders. The intellectual\nfoundations of her transcendentalism were so slight in comparison\nwith the equipment of Hedge and Parker as scarcely to justify her\npretentions to their fellowship. But what she lacked in knowledge of\nKant and Fichte she made up in enthusiasm, and none questioned her\nright to speak for the group. The editorship of the _Dial_ provided a\nconvenient safety valve for her energy, but it neither absorbed her nor\nsufficed to satisfy her limitless desires. She needed to espouse a\ncause more concrete and dramatic, personal in its demands, calling for\nhigh sacrifice. Abolitionism was at hand, but it repelled her by its\nnarrow dogmatisms. Garrison was never a hero of hers. She regarded him\nwith \u201chigh respect\u201d for his \u201cnoble and generous\u201d course; but \u201che has\nindulged in violent invective and denunciation till he has spoiled the\ntemper of his mind\u201d (\u201cFrederick Douglass,\u201d in _Life Without and Life\nWithin_, p. 122). Later, when she was in Europe, she looked back half\nregretfully at her indifference to the movement.\n\n How it pleases me here to think of the Abolitionists! I could never\n endure to be with them at home; they were so tedious, often so\n narrow, always so rabid and exaggerated in their tone. But, after\n all, they had a high motive, something eternal in their desire and\n life. (_Memoirs_, Vol. II, p. 229.)\n\nEven Brook Farm repelled her as much as it attracted her. Though\nshe loved many of the members, bore her share in the discussions\npreliminary to its establishment, and often visited there, she would\nnot join the venture. She had had enough of farm life at Groton. To\nopen a road to Utopia with a common plow was, perhaps, too prosaic a\nbusiness for her romantic nature, and when the Fourier Phalanx was\nintroduced she grew skeptical. Fourierism seemed to her too mechanical\na conception, in spite of her sympathy for the humanitarian spirit that\nlay behind it. As she looked back upon it from the vantage point of her\nFrench experience, she modified her judgment somewhat, although the old\ntranscendental bias that Emerson had voiced still colored her views.\n\n The more I see of the terrible ills which infest the body politic\n of Europe, the more indignation I feel at the selfishness or\n stupidity of those in my own country who oppose an examination of\n these subjects,--such as is animated by the hope of prevention.\n Educated in an age of gross materialism, Fourier is tainted by its\n faults; in attempts to reorganise society, he commits the error\n of making soul the result of health of body, instead of body the\n clothing of the soul; but his heart was that of a genuine lover\n of his kind, of a philanthropist in the sense of Jesus; his views\n are large and noble; his life was one of devout study on these\n subjects, and I should pity the person who, after the briefest\n sojourn in Manchester and Lyons, the most superficial acquaintance\n with the population of London or Paris, could seek to hinder a\n study of his thoughts, or be wanting in reverence for his purposes.\n (_Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 206.)\n\nIt was in part from Fourier, certainly from the collectivistic\ntheories discussed so generally by the transcendental group, that\nshe received her equipment for the cause which, more than any other\nexcept the dramatic Roman revolution, appealed to the deeper rebellions\nof her soul. She had dealt much with the woman question in her\n\u201cConversations,\u201d and in 1844 she published _Woman in the Nineteenth\nCentury_, a work that made a great stir in America. The \u201clittle book\nwas the first considered statement of feminism in this country\u201d\n(Katharine Anthony, _Margaret Fuller_, p. 80), and its novelty was\nemphasized by its boldness. The question of woman\u2019s place had emerged\nsharply from the Abolition movement, when the appearance of women on\nthe platform had aroused opposition even from radical reformers, and\nAngelina Grimk\u00e9 had encountered insults when she spoke at Abolition\nmeetings. But Margaret Fuller was the first since Mary Wollstonecraft,\nfifty years before, to undertake a reasoned defense of the claims of\nwoman to emancipation from man-made custom. It was a somewhat shocking\nbook to fling at respectable Boston bluestockings--male as well as\nfemale--for not only did she discuss equality of economic opportunity\nand equality of political rights for women, but she went further and\nspoke frankly about sex equality, marriage, prostitution, physical\npassions--pretty much everything that was taboo in Boston society. It\nwas a bold thing to do, needing more courage even than to engage in a\nFourieristic onslaught upon the conventions of private property. Only a\nfirst-class rebel would have had the temerity to offer such morsels to\nwagging tongues.\n\nThis was her parting shot at a world that had done its best to stifle\nher. Thenceforth her field was to broaden out immensely. In 1844 she\nwent to New York to live in the family of Horace Greeley and write\ncritical reviews for _The Tribune_--a shift that marked the beginning\nof her intellectual maturity, the end of her mystical sentimentalism.\nShe was thirty-four years of age, and she plunged vigorously into the\nwork of criticism, never perhaps very successfully, certainly never\nwith high distinction. Her judgments were penetrating and individual,\nshe awakened some Cambridge animosities by her comment on certain\nCambridge poets, but she was not a notable critic. A fine craftsmanship\nshe never attained. A light touch she could never command. Nevertheless\nthe experience was sobering. Honest, practical Horace Greeley, with\nhis pugnacious fondness for social reform, was an excellent antidote\nto Concord transcendentalism; and an awakening sociological interest\ndiscovered ample opportunities in New York for the expression of her\nmother-instinct. She took to her stormy bosom the inmates of Sing Sing\nprison, the poor and outcast of the city. At last she went to Europe,\nfell in with Mazzini, and found a cause dramatic enough and real enough\nto satisfy her rebellious instincts. She was profoundly stirred by the\nRoman revolution, took charge of one of the hospitals, and spent her\nstrength freely. On the tragic failure of the revolt she started home\nwith her husband and child, only to perish on the sandy shores of Fire\nIsland--a fate she did not turn her finger to escape. Perhaps it was\nwell. She had only too good reason to be fearful of her reception and\nof the future. Tongues that had wagged before would certainly have\nrisen to a virtuous gabble over her misadventure in Italy. On the whole\none must be glad that her friends refused to permit her good name to\nbe thrown to the gossips. Why shouldn\u2019t gentlemen lie stoutly if by so\ndoing they can cheat the salacious?\n\nA sensitive emotional nature offers the best of social barometers,\nand Margaret Fuller\u2019s tragic life, despite its lack of solid\naccomplishment, was an epitome of the great revolt of the New England\nmind against Puritan asceticism and Yankee materialism. She was the\nemotional expression of a rebellious generation that had done with\nthe past and was questioning the future. Not a scholar like Theodore\nParker, not a thinker like Thoreau, not an artist like Emerson, she was\na ferment of troubled aspiration, an enthusiasm for a more generous\nculture than New England had known--the logical outcome of the romantic\nrevolution which, beginning with Channing\u2019s discovery of humanitarian\nFrance, and leading thence to idealistic Germany, was to break the\nindurated shell of life in New England, and release its conscience and\nits mind. She was the spiritual child of Jean Jacques even more than of\nGoethe--a fact that she eventually came to realize. Writing from Paris\nin 1847, she said:\n\n To the ... Chamber of Deputies, I was indebted for a sight of the\n manuscripts of Rousseau, treasured in their library. I saw them and\n touched them,--those manuscripts just as he has celebrated them,\n written on fine white paper, tied with ribbon. Yellow and faded\n age has made them, yet at their touch I seemed to feel the fire\n of youth, immortally glowing, more and more expansive, with which\n his soul has pervaded this century. He was the precursor of all we\n most prize. True, his blood was mixed with madness, and the course\n of his actual life made some _detours_ through villainous places;\n but his spirit was intimate with the fundamental truths of human\n nature, and fraught with prophecy. There is none who has given\n birth to more life for this age; his gifts are yet untold; they are\n too present with us; but he who thinks really must often think with\n Rousseau, and learn him ever more and more. Such is the method of\n genius,--to ripen fruit for the crowd by those rays of whose heat\n they complain. (_Memoirs_, Vol. II, pp. 206-207.)\n\nThe rebel pays a heavy price for his rebellions, as Margaret learned to\nher cost. She suffered much in her daily life, but it was her art that\nsuffered most. She was evidently a far richer nature than her printed\nworks reveal. Intense in her extravagant demands upon life, a radical\nhumanitarian in all her sympathies and instincts, generous in response\nto whatever was fine and high, living unduly an inner life as became a\ndaughter of Puritanism--Margaret Fuller was too vivid a personality,\ntoo complete an embodiment of the rich ferment of the forties, to be\ncarelessly forgotten. The deeper failure of her career--its vague\naspirations and inadequate accomplishment--was a failure that may be\njustly charged against the narrow world that bred her. Perhaps no\nsharper criticism could be leveled at New England than that it could do\nno better with such material, lent it by the gods.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[464] See Katharine Anthony, _Margaret Fuller, A Psychological\nBiography_.\n\n[465] See _Life Without and Life Within_, pp. 23-60.\n\n\n\n\nPart IV: Other Aspects of the New England Mind\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Reign of the Genteel\n\n\nI\n\nThe discussion of the New England mind hitherto has kept pretty much\nto the outskirts of Boston, to Concord and Roxbury and undistinguished\nprecincts; it has not penetrated the Back Bay where dwelt the authentic\nrepresentatives of Brahminism, nor has it concerned itself greatly\nwith Cambridge that was a lesser Back Bay. Nevertheless there were\nother ideals than those of transcendentalism and social reform in the\nNew England of the renaissance--ideals of culture, of scholarship, of\n_belles lettres_, to which the Brahmin mind contributed, and which\nafter the subsidence of the ferment came to dominate genteel New\nEngland and for a generation largely influenced American letters. To\nthe revolutionary aspirations of the forties the Back Bay contributed\nlittle. Brahmin Boston might turn Unitarian with Channing, but it\nwas at heart neither French romantic nor German idealist; it desired\nrather culture for its own sake, and scholarship it regarded as the\nhandmaid of culture. It hoped of course that righteousness and the\nwill of God should ultimately prevail in human affairs, but it was not\nexigent in its demands. Occasion and means it willingly left to God,\nanticipating that the walls of Jericho must fall of their own weakness.\nIt is surprising how little the greater issues of the time ruffled the\nserenity of the Brahmin mind, and how uncritical were its judgments on\nsuch issues as came under its review. Divided between State Street and\nthe Back Bay, its life ran a smoothly agreeable course with no hint of\npotential antagonisms between exploitation and culture. It followed so\nstrictly the injunction, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand\ndoeth, that the two were almost total strangers to each other. Like\nEdith Wharton\u2019s contemporary Knickerbockers, the Brahmins conceived\nthe great business of life to be the erection of barriers against the\nintrusion of the unpleasant. They took it ill when those barriers were\nassaulted by rude militants, and when indisputable Brahmins--men like\nEdmund Quincy and Wendell Phillips--took part in the assault, the Back\nBay regarded them as more than a little queer.\n\nThe immediate consequence of this concern for defensive breastworks\nwas the reign of the genteel in life and letters, a reign that set up\na court of critical jurisdiction over the domain of American letters.\nThe essence of the genteel tradition was a refined ethicism, that\nprofessed to discover the highest virtue in shutting one\u2019s eyes to\ndisagreeable fact, and the highest law in the law of convention. Gone\nwere the franker days of Robert Treat Paine when a wit might find his\nchoicest _bons mots_ in the bottom of his cups. Coarseness had given\nway to refinement. It was the romanticism of Brahmin culture, with all\nFalstaffian vulgarity deleted, and every smutch of the natural man\nbleached out in the pure sunshine of manners. It was Victorianism of\na more maidenly purity than the English strain, so carefully filtered\nby passing through the close Puritan mesh that the smallest impurities\nwere removed. The first of literary commandments was the commandment\nof reticence. Literature was conceived of as belonging to the library\nand the drawing-room, and it must observe the drawing-room amenities.\nOnly a vulgarian would lug a spade there. Any venture into realism was\nlikely to prove libidinous, and sure to be common. Certainly Margaret\nFuller had overstepped the bounds of decency with her remarks about\nwomen of the streets. The Adamite school was the vulgar expression\nof the natural man, and Continental realism--the French and the\nRussian--was only bringing the gutter into the library. Literature\nmust be fine and pure and noble, and as such it will serve decency and\nmanners; what excuse is there for it otherwise? The case for the true\nchurch of literature, as against the Adamite and other heresies, was\nadmirably stated by Lowell:\n\n I have not seen Swinburne\u2019s new volume--but a poem or two from it\n which I have seen shocked me, and I am not squeamish.... Why should\n a man by choice go down to live in his cellar, instead of mounting\n to those fair upper chambers which look towards the sunrise of that\n Easter which shall greet the resurrection of the soul from the body\n of this death? _Virginibus puerisque?_ To be sure! let no man write\n a line that he would not have his daughter read.... But I have\n outlived many heresies, and shall outlive this new Adamite one of\n Swinburne. The true Church of poetry is founded on a rock, and I\n have no fear that these smutchy back-doors of hell shall prevail\n against her. (_Letters_, Vol. I, p. 377.)\n\n\nII\n\nThough it willingly recognized the superior claims of poetry and the\nessay, the Brahmin mind found a more congenial field for its literary\nambitions in history; and the quiet scholarship that it pursued with\nexemplary diligence was likely to flower in substantial historical\nstudies. Excellent work much of it is, brilliant in certain instances;\nyet it too is subtly marked by the psychology of the environment that\nproduced it. The renaissance of Boston scholarship began with Everett\nand Ticknor, whose German training was imposed on natures instinctively\naristocratic, swayed by the older Federalist prejudices. The latter\napplied himself to Spanish literature, but his colleague and fellow\nhistorian, Jared Sparks, proved that in the American field even\npainstaking scholarship could not subdue the temptation to improve upon\nreality. Sparks applied Boston ethics to biography and conceived that\nhis mission in writing the life of a great American like Washington\nwas to portray a national hero as a model to the youth of the land. In\npursuance of this aim he studiously perfected nature by correcting all\nthe little blemishes of manner and little weaknesses of character in\norder to produce an immaculate effect. He edited Washington\u2019s letters\nwith a free hand, not only correcting the grammar and spelling, but\nsilently deleting such passages as did not become the hero he had in\nmind. He did not of course go to the absurd lengths of Parson Weems\nin inventing episodes and effects, but he refused to deal with his\nmaterials realistically and the result was a falsifying of the total\nimpression.\n\nThe greatest and in certain respects the most characteristic work\nof the period was George Bancroft\u2019s _History of the United States_,\nto which with single-minded purpose he devoted sixty laborious\nyears. Trained in G\u00f6ttingen, he gathered his materials with German\nthoroughness, but the underlying spirit and purpose of his exposition\nwere native to the ardent nationalism of Jacksonian America. Bancroft\nwas the only important member of the New England group of historians\nwho was a militant Democrat, and he set out to justify to the world\nthe ways of democratic America. It was a great undertaking and in the\nopinion of Ranke, the German historian, it justified itself. \u201cYour\nhistory is the best book ever written from the democratic point of\nview,\u201d[466] he wrote Bancroft. The praise was perhaps not excessive.\nConceived in the early days of the Jacksonian triumph, it reflects\nthe grandiose conception of the future of America and the beneficent\ninfluence of republican institutions on western civilization, that\nwere common in the golden days of equalitarianism and that even such\na scholarly legalist as Hugh Legar\u00e9 shared. But unfortunately, with\nhis generation Bancroft had lost his economic bearings, and he drove\nforward somewhat too confidently into the new seas of political\nidealism trusting to the pole-star of emancipated human nature. As a\ndemocrat he was too easily persuaded that democratic America lay in\nthe particular keeping of Providence, and he assumed too readily that\nthe democratic development of American institutions was in response to\nthe divine will. It reflects something of the partisanship of honest\npatriots who believe God is on their side; but it served to correct\nthe teachings of Federalists like Richard Hildreth who insisted that\nGod was on the side of Federalism. Till Bancroft took up his pen the\nbias of American chronicles had been anti-democratic. Every Federalist\nwith leisure, a quill, and a smattering of historical knowledge, had\nadded his mite to the Federalist myths that long constituted the body\nof our history. The democratic interpretation ran so counter to Boston\ntradition that Bancroft found little congeniality amongst his fellow\nhistorians, and he eventually quitted his native state and took up his\nhome in Washington.\n\nMore representative of the Brahmin spirit was the work of William H.\nPrescott, John L. Motley, and Francis Parkman, who constitute what may\nbe called the romantic school of Boston historians. They sought the\nromantic in theme and aspired to the romantic in treatment quite as\nconsciously as did the contemporary novelists. Of excellent Brahmin\nstrain, with leisure, wealth, opportunity, they were free to pick\nand choose as they would. Prescott and Motley turned away from the\npartisanships of America, and while Jacksonianism was in full swing\nthe former wrote his _Ferdinand and Isabella_, and while the country\nwas wrangling over slavery the latter wrote his _Rise of the Dutch\nRepublic_. Broad in conception and dramatic in treatment, they are\nadmirable works, yet they suggest that aloofness from the sordid\nrealities of America so characteristic of the Brahmin mind. Far more\nbrilliant and significant was the work of Francis Parkman who turned\nhis imagination to the far West over which the struggle for exploration\nand conquest had long persisted between the French and English. In his\ntwenties he had made a venturesome trip to the great plains, and that\nexperience gave life and vitality to his later historical writings,\nthat were enriched by close research, a brilliant style, and a creative\nimagination. The theme he set himself was not alone a \u201chistory of the\nAmerican forest,\u201d but a clash between civilizations--the \u201cfeudal,\nmilitant, and Catholic France in conflict with democratic, industrial,\nand Protestant England\u201d; and with fine tenacity of purpose, in the\nteeth of ill health, he wrought at his project till the America of the\nold French War times was gathered into his pages. The Brahmin mind has\ncontributed to American letters no more brilliant work than came from\nthe pen of Francis Parkman.\n\n\nIII\n\nIf the highest aspirations of the Brahmin nature sought satisfaction\nin poetry, Longfellow may be reckoned its most characteristic product.\nIn his work the romantic, the sentimental, and the moralistic,\nblended in such just proportions, and expressed themselves with such\nhomely simplicity as to hit exactly the current taste and establish a\nreputation that later generations have difficulty in understanding.\nA gentle, lovable soul, widely read and in maturer years possessing\na ripe literary scholarship, he was a skillful purveyor of gentle,\nlovable ideals. Although he drew his materials from Spain and Sweden\nand Italy, from primitive New England and aboriginal America, it was\nGermany that largely provided the staple of his romance. With Emerson\nand Margaret Fuller and Theodore Parker, he found Germany a singularly\ncongenial land--not K\u00f6nigsberg with its transcendental metaphysics, nor\nWeimar with its pagan culture, nor T\u00fcbingen with its higher criticism.\nSuch things, transcendental and critical, he was not concerned about;\nit was the minor romantics, Freiligrath rather than Heine, the gentle\nmelancholy and pervasive _Sehnsucht_ of the German folk-nature, that\ndrew him irresistibly and quickened his sympathetic pen. There was\nlittle intellect in Longfellow, little creative originality. He was the\npoet of an uncritical and unsophisticated generation, as yet untroubled\nby science and industrialism, and his mind was detached from politics\nand his conscience rarely disturbed by social questions. He came of\nexcellent Federalist stock, his father having been a delegate from\nMaine to the Hartford Convention; and with his courteous manners he\nfitted easily into the little world of Cambridge Brahmins. However one\nmight question his poetry, none could question that he was a gentleman\namongst gentlemen.\n\nIf he was never the omnivorous bookman that Lowell was, he was\ndistinctly a poet of the library. His placid and singularly happy\nlife was pretty much bounded by his library walls. One could scarcely\nhave lived more detached from contemporary America, more effectively\ninsulated against the electric currents of the times. Though Thoreau\nmight flee to Walden he carried his questioning intellect with him;\neven the constable would not leave him alone there. But Longfellow\u2019s\ndoor shut securely against all intrusion. The winds of doctrine and\npolicy might rage through the land, but they did not rattle the windows\nof his study to disturb his quiet poring over Dante. The translation\nof the _Divina Commedia_ would go forward even while the country was\nbeing torn asunder. In a sense such work was his refuge against the\nstorm and stress of malignant forces that troubled him. He did not like\nthe tumult and the shouting, and much of Longfellow is compressed into\nthe sonnets that preface the translation, much of the gentleness of his\nevasion, and much of the finer craftsmanship of his later years.\n\n Oft have I seen at some cathedral door\n A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,\n Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet\n Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor\n Kneel to repeat his paternoster o\u2019er;\n Far off the noises of the world retreat;\n The loud vociferations of the street\n Become an undistinguishable roar.\n So, as I enter here from day to day,\n And leave my burden at this minster gate,\n Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,\n The tumult of the time disconsolate\n To inarticulate murmurs dies away,\n While the eternal ages watch and wait.\n\n How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!\n This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves\n Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves\n Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,\n And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!\n But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves\n Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,\n And underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!\n Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,\n What exultations trampling on despair,\n What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,\n What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,\n Uprose this poem of the earth and air,\n This mediaeval miracle of song!\n\nA single incursion Longfellow made into the field of Abolition\ncontroversy, prompted perhaps by Dickens, whose \u201cgrand chapter on\nslavery\u201d in _American Notes_ he had read in London. The seven poems\nwere written to beguile the tedium of a sea voyage. They are unreal\nenough to seem quite harmless, yet they created a decided stir on\ntheir appearance. For a Harvard professor to express publicly even a\nmild sympathy with the Abolition movement, may well have been somewhat\nperilous, considering the fate of Professor Follen; and the sacred\ninstitution may have scented a real danger in such romanticisms.\nGrotesque as these academic poems were, with their burnt-cork figures,\nthey perhaps served to romanticize and sentimentalize the negro\nfor northern minds, as _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_ did a decade later with\ntremendous effect. Slavery had no weapon against such an attack, and\nno doubt Longfellow\u2019s contributions proved serviceable to the cause\nof Abolitionism. But this one venture satisfied him, and having got\nsafely back to his library, he shut the door on the whole vexatious\nquestion of slavery. He was not made for battle, and causes commanded\nan unwilling allegiance. Little remained of his Puritanism save\nconscience, a sense of struggle against somewhat vague and indolent\npowers of evil, a pleasant melancholy that transmuted itself into\npleasant verse. He lived vicariously the lives of other poets, sharing\ntheir emotions, repeating their thoughts, reproducing their pictures;\nyet adding some individual color from his own sincere nature. Not\nrichly endowed, he was more than an echo. He marked the transition\nfrom the nebulous ferment of the creative renaissance to the scholarly\nculture of Brahmin Cambridge. After Longfellow came Charles Eliot\nNorton in whose blameless life that culture flowered, and after that\ncame sterility.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[466] Quoted in Stanton, _Manual of American Literature_, p. 101.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 Nathaniel Hawthorne \u2022 Skeptic\n\n\nAfter his immersion for some months in the Utopian dreams of Brook\nFarm, Miles Coverdale in _The Blithedale Romance_ discovered that he\nhad drifted far from reality. \u201cNo sagacious man,\u201d he remarked, \u201cwill\nlong retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and\nprogressive people, without periodically returning into the settled\nsystem of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old\nstandpoint.\u201d\n\n It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk\n with the conservatives, the writers of the North American Review,\n the merchants, the politicians, the Cambridge men, and all those\n respectable blockheads who still, in this intangibility and\n mistiness of affairs, kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which\n had not come into vogue since yesterday morning.\n\nIn this suggestive pronouncement the intellectual position of Hawthorne\nis revealed. Cool, detached, rationalistic, curiously inquisitive,\nhe looked out upon the ferment of the times, the clash of rival\nphilosophies and rival interests, only to bring them into his study\nand turn upon them the light of his critical analysis. One after\nanother he weighed the several faiths of New England, conservative and\ntranscendental and radical, and ended skeptic. He was too much of a\nrealist to change fashions in creeds. Time, experience--he is always\nremembering--have created men as we find them, and very likely only\ntime and experience can make them over into something different. The\nconservatives would seem to have common sense on their side, for they\nare seeking to retain what has hitherto been won; but the reformers\nare not without justification as well, for impelled by an ardent\nfaith they are seeking to win new conquests. But whether that which\nthe conservatives defend so valiantly is worth defending, or whether\nthe goal towards which the reformers drive so furiously is worth the\ntrouble, are questions about which the rationalist may be permitted his\ndoubts. The universe in which he found himself was a moral universe,\nHawthorne on the whole believed; and if that were true then man\u2019s\nchief business and urgent problem was the matter of a sufficient\nmorality.\n\nRadical in his intellectual processes, he could never become\ngreatly interested in specific radicalisms. He is often thought of\nas a transcendentalist, and his association with the Peabodys and\nhis venture into Brook Farm might seem to lend color to such an\ninterpretation. Yet nothing in his intellectual sympathies marks him\nas of the school. The polar conceptions of transcendentalism repelled\nrather than attracted him. Political and metaphysical speculation\nleft him cold, and the twin revolutionary forces of the time, French\nromanticism and German idealism, never deeply affected his thinking.\nAmid all the flux he retained much of the older Calvinist view of\nlife and human destiny. Though nominally a Unitarian he did not share\nChanning\u2019s faith in the perfectibility of man. The buried voice of God\nthat the transcendentalists professed to have discovered in instinct,\nhe greatly distrusted. Man seemed to him quite as likely to turn out\nto be a child of the devil as the first-born of God. Perhaps through a\nlong and uncertain process he may grow into something nobler than he\nnow is, but for the present the fact remains that the human heart, if\nnot desperately wicked, is at least on familiar terms with evil; too\noften it is cold, selfish, malignant, and its secret promptings need\nwatching. Doubting the indwelling presence of the divine Over-soul,\nhe could find no justification for the transcendental faith in the\nexcellence of the universe, out of which came the genial optimism\nof the Emersonians. Too pronounced a rationalist to comprehend the\nmysticism that lurked in the heart of the transcendental faith, he\nremained cold to the revolutionary criticism that was eager to pull\ndown the old temples to make room for nobler. Eager souls, mystics and\nrevolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with\ntheir dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret\nplaces of the heart, Utopia is only the shadow of a dream. And so while\nthe Concord thinkers were proclaiming man to be the indubitable child\nof God, Hawthorne was critically examining the question of evil as\nit appeared in the light of his own experience. It was the central,\nfascinating problem of his intellectual life, and in pursuit of a\nsolution he probed curiously into the hidden, furtive recesses of the\nsoul.\n\nThe isolation in which he chose to brood over the problem, seeking to\ntake the solution by surprise in unguarded moments, was the natural\nconsequence of his temperament and his habits. He lived singularly\nremote from common interests, singularly self-sufficient. Both as\nthinker and artist he suffered from his self-imposed isolation.\nThe twelve years of his apprenticeship, closely immured and given\nover to spinning cobwebs about the old Puritan rafters, drawing the\nstuff of his romance out of his own bowels, may have facilitated the\ndevelopment of technic, but it laid narrow limitations on the matter\nof his art. Intellectually unlocalized in his Yankee world, he was\nthe romancer of a dead but unforgotten past, at home only where the\nNew England conscience brooded over sin--subduing the old nightmares\nto less terrifying dreams, intruding his doubts into old dogmas yet\nnever emerging from the old shadows. Although he was a child of the\nliberation and had broken the web that Calvinism had woven about the\nmind of New England, he did not choose to quit the world from whose\nbondage he had freed himself. He would examine the old problem in a\nnew light. In rejecting Calvinism as a religion, he retained it as a\nbackground for his inquisitive probing. It appealed to his imagination\nafter his reason had rejected its dogmas; it determined his art after\nit had ceased to command his loyalty. In consequence, all his life\nHawthorne dwelt between worlds. Though at times he tried to establish\ncontact with Yankee reality, though he essayed to establish an\nintellectual _rapport_ with his generation, he never quite succeeded,\nbut remained to the last isolated, a frequenter of the twilight.\n\nOnly in a narrow and very special sense was Hawthorne a romantic.\nWith the romance of love and adventure he was never concerned; what\ninterested him was the romance of ethics--the distortions of the soul\nunder the tyranny of a diseased imagination. How little he shares in\ncommon with other romantics is revealed in his detachment from his\nnative Salem. The place was not lacking in picturesque charm, present\nand past. During the long years he spent in his Salem study, the city\nwas rising to the zenith of its brisk sea life, with its ships in the\nChina trade, its venturesome fisheries, its echoes of the whaling\nindustry at Nantucket. Materials for romance were lying all about\nthe Salem wharves--such a show of canvas and spars and rigging, such\nbriny smells, such suggestions of far voyages to outlandish places,\nsuch strange figures slipping in from the ends of the earth--such\nromantic promptings in short as would have intoxicated the imagination\nof Herman Melville, and that Joseph Hergesheimer wove into the rich\ntapestries of _Java Head_. A romantic could scarcely have found\nin America a setting better calculated to awaken a sense of brave\nadventure than in old Salem; yet for three years Hawthorne sat in the\nCustom House, with such materials all about him, and then turned away\nto the seventeenth century to write of Hester Prynne. For a man gifted\nwith imagination to fail to lift his eyes to the horizon beyond which\nthe hurrying ships were seeking strange markets, and instead to turn\nthem in upon a shadowy world of half unreal characters; to overlook\nthe motley picturesque in the foreground of the actual, in order to\nbrood over an old adultery and twist it into theological sin, can be\nexplained only on the ground that Hawthorne was concerned with ethical\nrather than romantic values, that he was interested rather in the\nproblem of evil than in the trappings of romance. Aloofness of time and\nplace served to isolate the problem, stripping away the wrappings of\nthe physical, delocalizing it, transmuting the individual act into the\nuniversal. Thus isolated, Hester\u2019s sin becomes a symbol of that ancient\nevil which forever waylays human life and by strange perversions\nbrings havoc to our hopes--the greatest havoc to him whose heart, like\nChillingsworth\u2019s, is cold, selfish, malignant.\n\nThis temperamental aloofness from objective reality was both the\nstrength and the weakness of Hawthorne\u2019s art. In choosing to follow\nthe way of the inner life he was true to his Puritan breeding. The\nperpetual turning-in of the mind upon itself, the long introspective\nbrooding over human motives, came naturally to one who lived in the\nshadow of a Puritan past. In their anxious concern over sin the\nPuritans had become in some measure psychologists; how else could\nthe secret impulses of the soul be probed and its dark workings laid\nbare? Hawthorne was only doing what Jonathan Edwards before him had\ndone in his psychological clinic of the Great Awakening--examining\nthe reactions of sin on conscience and character. From this comes the\nsimplicity of his theme and the compelling unity of his handling. To be\nsure it is pathological phenomena that he deals with, as the phenomena\nthat Edwards dealt with in his _Narrative of the Surprizing Work of\nGod_, were pathological; and like Edwards, Hawthorne is led into\ninsubstantial and tenuous regions where he breathes with difficulty.\nThe substantial world of Puritan reality that Samuel Sewall knew,\nHawthorne seems scarcely to have been aware of; he created instead\nhis own Puritanism, fantastic and unreal. He was forever dealing\nwith shadows, and he knew that he was dealing with shadows, and this\nconsciousness was a perennial source of doubt and uncertainty that\nbred self-distrust. In setting himself the task of dramatizing sin\nrather than sinners, of creating romance out of the problem of evil,\nhe encountered difficulties that oppressed him. The well-springs of\nhis imagination were constantly running dry and he must wait till they\nfilled again slowly. Hence the \u201cdevelopment of his art is towards\never greater elaboration of scantier and scantier materials, until\nthe joy of the whole becomes lost at last in the milder pleasures of\ndetail.\u201d[467]\n\nFrom the grave difficulties inherent in his theme came the inveterate\nhabit of sliding into symbolism and allegory--from this and from\nthe narrowness of his emotional life and the restrictions of\nhis sympathies. The cold thin atmosphere of his work, one comes\nincreasingly to feel, was due not alone or chiefly to the severity\nof his artistic restraint that forbade all rioting of the sensuous\nimagination; it was due rather to a lack of nourishment, to a poverty\nof ideas and sensuous imagery. His inveterate skepticism robbed him of\nmuch, but his inhibitions robbed him of more. A romantic uninterested\nin adventure and afraid of sex is likely to become somewhat graveled\nfor matter. Like the Pyncheon fowls, Hawthorne\u2019s imagination had\nsuffered from too long inbreeding; it had grown anemic, and every grain\nof fancy is clucked over and picked at and made much of. Once an idea\ncomes into his head he is loath to let it go, but he must turn it about\ncuriously and examine it from every angle. The striking chapter in\n_The House of the Seven Gables_, where the death of Judge Pyncheon is\nplayed upon so persistently, is only an extreme example of his habitual\nmethod. The tongues that wagged over the minister\u2019s black veil were no\nmore inquisitive and tireless than Hawthorne\u2019s when his imagination\nis fired by a vivid image. He will not let it go till it is sucked as\ndry as last year\u2019s cider cask. It is the way of one to whom ideas are\nfew and precious. Knowing how little is in the bottle he will linger\nout the flavor of every drop. Hence his fondness for symbolism, and\nhence his frequent lapse into allegory when imagination grows dull.\nBecause Hawthorne was an artist he was saved from the shipwreck that\nsuch a method might seem to invite; yet perhaps it is not unreasonable\nto suggest that he was an artist for the reason that only through the\nmastery of a refined technic could his scanty stock of ideas make any\nshow at all.\n\nThe intellectual poverty that resulted from his long immuring himself\nin a void is sufficiently revealed in his _American Note-Books_.\nIn the somewhat tedious volume covering the eighteen years between\n1835 and 1853--the most vigorous years of the renaissance--there\nis no suggestion of interest in the creative ideas of the time, in\nmetaphysics or politics or economics or humanitarianism. It is the\noccasional record of one who lived an unintellectual life, and it\nmakes but a paltry showing when set beside the journals of Emerson\nfor the same years. Few books are referred to; systems of thought lie\nbeyond his ken. Compared with the thinkers and scholars of the time he\nis only an idler lying in wait for such casual suggestions as he may\nturn into stories. Almost childish is his delight in marvels. There is\nsomething of the spirit of Cotton Mather in his persistent recording of\nthe gruesome and fantastic, in the hope that they will open a quarry\nfor his art. In the year that Emerson wrote _Nature_, Hawthorne set\ndown the following amongst some dozens of similar suggestions: \u201cA\nsnake taken into a man\u2019s stomach and nourished there from fifteen to\nthirty-five years, tormenting him most horribly. A type of envy or some\nother evil passion.\u201d The _Note-Books_, of course, are very inadequate\nrecords of his life, and yet that a mind should lie in wait for such\ngrotesqueries, and treasure them, offers food for speculation. After\nhis marriage they are much less frequent and his jottings become more\nnormal--a change which the Freudians, no doubt, would be ready enough\nto explain.\n\nThe one great adventure of Hawthorne\u2019s life was the plunge into Brook\nFarm Utopianism, a plunge that only proved the waters colder and less\nhospitable than he had hoped. It was a curious adventure for one of\nhis temperament to engage in, and his eventual disillusion might\nhave been foretold. Perhaps it may be explained as reaction from his\nlong isolation. The glowing enthusiasms of the times must often have\ntempted him to leave his narrow walls, and share the intellectual and\nemotional stimulus that others professed to discover in the work of\nmaking society over. Whatever the explanation the venture turned out\nto be a failure. His skepticism followed him there and came to later\nexpression in _The Blithedale Romance_, a work as thin and unreal as\nanything he ever did. It is worse. There is in its pages more than a\nhint of ill humor that colors his interpretation of the Fourieristic\nstage of the experiment, and slips out in his portraiture of the\nmajor characters. Hollingsworth both fascinates and repels him. A\ndramatization of the intransigent spirit of reform, his single-minded\nzeal for righteousness, is subtly fused with an intolerant egotism\nthat destroys Zenobia, cows Priscilla, and wrecks the venture. Perhaps\nAlbert Brisbane may have been in the background of Hawthorne\u2019s mind\nwhen he drew Hollingsworth, for it was Brisbane who influenced the\nchange he seems to have resented; perhaps Garrison may have served to\nfill out the picture. Whoever it was, the figure of Hollingsworth is\nHawthorne\u2019s reply to the summons of the social conscience of the times,\ndone by a critic whose insistent skepticism will not shut its eyes, but\ndiscovers under a new masquerade the ancient evil of a cold imperious\nheart. Seventeen years before he wrote _The Blithedale Romance_, he had\njotted down in his _Note-Book_ the conception out of which came the\nlater portrait:\n\n A sketch to be given of a modern reformer,--a type of the extreme\n doctrines on the subject of slaves, cold water, and other such\n topics. He goes about the streets haranguing most eloquently,\n and is on the point of making many converts, when his labors\n are suddenly interrupted by the appearance of the keeper of a\n mad-house, whence he has escaped. Much may be made of the idea.\n (_American Note-Books_, pp. 20-21.)\n\nHawthorne\u2019s interpretation of Margaret Fuller is not so easily\nexplained. Perhaps it came out of a subconscious personal spleen. Her\nrich paganism may well have disturbed a nature so reticent as his,\nso restrained by certain Puritan inhibitions. In an early sketch he\ncommented on the unfitness of authorship for women, on the ground\nthat \u201cthere is a delicacy ... that perceives, or fancies, a sort\nof impropriety in the display of woman\u2019s natal mind to the gaze\nof the world, with indications by which its inmost secrets may be\nsearched out\u201d (quoted by Amy Louise Reed, \u201cSelf-Portraiture in the\nWork of Nathaniel Hawthorne\u201d). Margaret\u2019s frankness in displaying\nher natal mind to the gaze of the world, her bold discussion of\nprohibited subjects like prostitution, could not fail to rub across\nHawthorne\u2019s deepest prejudices. She was too vigorous and outspoken,\ntoo consciously endowed with sex, too frankly feminist, not to have\nruffled his instinctive squeamishness. It was not her radical feminism\nin the abstract that offended him, if he may be trusted; but certainly\nin the concrete. A sexless feminism would not greatly disturb a mind\ntolerantly familiar with the current radicalisms; but the frank\navowal of sex touched a sensitive nerve. It offended certain latent\nPuritanisms in him. He was fascinated by Zenobia and yet afraid of\nher--or of himself; so his hero falls in love with the anemic and\nwitless Priscilla. How characteristic of a mind long fed on symbols, to\nturn away from the wealth of reality and prefer a shadow!\n\nAfter Brook Farm came no further experiments in the unsatisfactory\nbusiness of a _rapprochement_ with his generation. His marriage with\nSophia Peabody brought with it the prosaic duties of providing for a\nfamily, and he had no leisure to play with social reform. Abolitionism\nhe would have none of, nor perfectionism, nor Jacksonianism--the\nfutility of such things became for him a fixed idea. That he once\nhad the courage to make his plunge he seems to have rejoiced over:\n\u201cWhatever else I may repent of,\u201d Miles Coverdale wrote, \u201clet it be\nreckoned neither among my sins nor follies that I once had faith and\nforce enough to form generous hopes of the world\u2019s destiny,--yes!--and\nto do what in me lay for their accomplishment.\u201d Yet the truer Hawthorne\nis to be found in the judgments set down in the _Note-Book_: \u201cIt is my\nopinion that a man\u2019s soul may be buried and perish under a dung-heap,\nor in a furrow of the field, just as well as under a pile of money.\u201d\n\u201cOh, labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it\nwithout becoming proportionably brutified.\u201d The man who wrote that had\nmuch to learn about life and society, much that he might have learned\nfrom Thoreau. But Hawthorne never grappled with economics as Thoreau\ndid, and he learned no more from him than from Melville, or from\nEmerson, or from any of the books he read by the wise of other days.\nSelf-sufficient he remained to the last, hard-headed and practical,\nyet missing many a deeper truth that more receptive minds discover.\nHe was traveling the path that leads to sterility, and the lifelong\nbusiness of playing Paul Pry to the secrets of the conscience brought\nhim at last to the comment, \u201cTaking no root I soon weary of any soil in\nwhich I may be temporarily deposited. The same impatience I sometimes\nfeel, or conceive of, as regards this earthly life.\u201d He was the extreme\nand finest expression of the refined alienation from reality that in\nthe end palsied the creative mind of New England. Having consumed his\nfancies, what remained to feed on?\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[467] Amy Louise Reed, \u201cSelf-Portraiture in the Work of Nathaniel\nHawthorne,\u201d _Studies in Philology_, Vol. XXIII, No. I.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 The Authentic Brahmin\n\n\nI \u2022 Oliver Wendell Holmes \u2022 Beacon Street Wit\n\nSince the death of Holmes in 1894, his reputation has shrunk and\ndwindled with that of his group. With the rise of other literary\nschools, New England standards have been submitted to a somewhat rude\noverhauling, and Brahmin ideals are no longer reckoned so authoritative\nas they were once believed to be, nor the supremacy of Boston genius\nso indisputable. Concord has risen as Cambridge and Beacon Street\nhave declined, and in the shadow of Emerson and Thoreau, the wit of\nBack Bay is in danger of being obscured. Unsupported by his physical\npresence, his writings seem far less vital than they did when the\nechoes of his clever talk were still sounding through them. Certain\nintellectual shortcomings are more obvious when his works are brought\ntogether in a library edition: in the mass his prose seems far more\ndiscursive and his verse thinner and more jingly than when the several\nbits appeared singly, personally sponsored by the author in whose\ncleverness everybody delighted. Read with sprightly vivacity to a\ngroup of sympathetic listeners at the mellowest hour of the dinner,\nhis occasional verse must have sparkled brightly and have gone off\nwith such a crackle of laughter as to convince the Back Bay that the\nasthmatic little gentleman with bubbling spirits was a veritable poet,\non the same friendly footing with the muse that he was with Beacon\nStreet. So frequently on pleasant occasions did Holmes appear before\nhis classmates and friends copy in hand, so often and so happily did he\nrespond to the invitation to write something, that it would have been\nungenerous of Boston--and Boston meant the Back Bay, the Saturday Club\nand Harvard College--not to have crowned him with a wreath of her own\nivy.\n\nFor upwards of half a century, throughout the prime and on past the\nIndian Summer of the New England renaissance. Holmes was Boston\u2019s own\nwit, inexhaustible in clever sayings, bubbling over with satire and\nsentiment, the autocrat of her social gatherings, the acknowledged\nhead of her mutual admiration society. Not since Robert Treat Paine\nhad there been such a master of Yankee small talk. If he monopolized\nthe conversation he dealt generously with his listeners. The stream\nwas copious and the waters were never bitter or astringent, but with\njust enough effervescence to suit the Boston palate. As a young\nman the wit sparkled more brightly; as an old man the humor exuded\nmore gently. At twenty-five he described William IV of England with\nrepublican irreverence: \u201cThe King blew his nose twice, and wiped\nthe royal perspiration repeatedly from a face which is probably the\nlargest uncivilized spot in England\u201d; late in life he commented on\nhis obvious fondness of praise: \u201cI was always patient with those who\nthought well of me, and accepted all their tributes with something more\nthan resignation.\u201d Taste had changed with the times in Boston. Wit was\nyielding place to humor; eighteenth-century frankness had given way to\nnineteenth-century refinement; Victorianism was in full and vigorous\nbloom in the Beacon Street of 1850, and so Holmes became a Yankee\nVictorian. The morals of an impeccable society required no castigation,\nand he was under no obligation to satirize vice. Audacious sallies\nwould have been reckoned in bad taste. If the old-fashioned masculine\nwit of Robert Treat Paine, with its echoes of Charles Churchill,\nhad presumed to intrude itself into the teacup society of Back Bay\ndrawing-rooms, the indignant Doctor would have shown it the door, and\nthe small talk would have flowed again, decorous and clean and amiable,\nfar more refined than the wit that had delighted their fathers.\n\nAnd yet, though a full-blown Victorian in manners and tastes, Holmes\nwas something of a child of the eighteenth century at heart. The\nsituation in which he found himself might have proved disconcerting\nif he had chosen to speculate upon it. By nature a thoroughgoing\nrationalist, he lived in a romantic age. A gentleman of \u201cparts and\nlearning,\u201d with a quick and lively fancy that blossomed in the\npat phrase and neat couplet, he loved wit and hated dullness with\ntrue Augustan zeal. The great days of Queen Anne were a perennial\ninspiration to him. He clung to the heroic couplet through all the\nchanges of romantic styles. He moralized in rime with the fluency\nif not the finish of Pope.[468] He satirized Calvinism with an\nhonest wrath that he might have learned of Swift. He commented in his\ntable-talk on the manners of the times with the chatty discursiveness\nof Addison. Like the earlier wits, he discovered a deep sympathy for\nthe maturity and ripe wisdom of the classics. Writing to his friend\nJohn O. Sargent, he remarked:\n\n I wish I had become as familiar with some classic author as you\n are with Horace. There is nothing like one of those perennial old\n fellows for good old gentlemenly reading; and for wit and wisdom,\n what is there to compare with the writings of Horace? You make\n me envious,--I vow I shall have to get up Juvenal or Catullus,\n naughty but nice, or somebody that nobody else knows.... I get so\n tired of the damp sheets of all sorts of _literati_ (worse than\n the \u201cscreeching women of Marblehead\u201d) and clamorous essayists,\n that I want something always by me, calm, settled beyond cavilling\n criticism,--a cool, clear draught of Falernian that has been\n somewhere near two thousand years in the cellar. (Morse, _Life and\n Letters_, Vol. II, p. 311.)\n\nBut unhappily what could he do? He was the most sociable of persons,\nand he lived and moved in an atmosphere surcharged with various\nand sundry romanticisms. How could he preserve the spirit of quiet\nrationalism, or assure himself gentlemanly leisure, with a host of\n\u201cisms\u201d clamoring in his ears? He was amongst them even if he was not\nof them. He strove to keep himself aloof, unfuddled by heady idealisms\nand untroubled by strident reforms, but he could not shut his study\ndoor against the infection. He could not deny his generation, and\ninevitably he suffered his thought to be streaked and pied with the\ncurrent romanticism. He gave Lyceum lectures on Wordsworth and Keats\nand Shelley, and their influence seeped into his verse. The Longfellow\nfame was all about him, and he fell to composing ballads and idyls and\ntales, quite as if he did not know better. Romantic garments fitted\nhim ill, yet he persisted in trying them on. He even got to like\nthem, and came finally to prefer _The Chambered Nautilus_ above his\nother poems--a strange perversion of taste for a rationalist. _The\nOne-Hoss Shay_ is worth a volume of such pretty moralizing. _Parson\nTurell\u2019s Legacy_ and _The Moral Bully_ are in better vein--witty,\nlucid, critical--than any half-hearted ventures in romanticism. The\neighteenth-century wit does not appear to advantage patched with\nVictorian sentiment, and he should have been rationalist enough to know\nit.\n\nAs a Beacon Street Victorian Holmes was as full of virtuous prejudices\nas an egg is full of meat; but as a rationalist, with a modest\nscientific equipment that came from his professional training, he\nkept the windows of his mind open to the winds of scientific inquiry\nthat were blowing briskly to the concern of orthodox souls. Many a\nbarnacled craft was foundering in those gales, and Holmes watched\ntheir going-down with visible satisfaction. He was perhaps the most\nmilitant Unitarian amongst Boston laymen. Hatred of Calvinistic dogma\nwas an obsession with him; it dominated his thought and colored much\nof his work, _Elsie Venner_ and his table-talk as frankly as _The\nOne-Hoss Shay_. The criticism to which he subjected the old-school\ndogmas was always vehement, often vindictive. Long after the battle\nhad been won he kept annoying the retreating enemy. His father, Abiel\nHolmes, was a rigorous follower of the Edwardean school, who after\nnearly forty years\u2019 service lost his pulpit for refusing to compromise\nwith Unitarian liberalism that had gained the fortress of the near-by\nCollege Yard; and the stalwart among his congregation, having to yield\nthe building, the endowment and the communion plate, were forced to\nestablish themselves anew. In this unhappy schism that came about the\ntime Oliver Wendell Holmes was graduating from Harvard in 1829, the\nlatter went with the liberals. He had broken with the Calvinism of his\nfather, and in the reaction he went further than most along the path\nof Unitarian rationalism--not the path of Channing that led to French\nromanticism and transcendentalism, but the path of Andrews Norton that\nled to a harder-headed rationalism. The reasons for this shift are\nsufficiently evident in his writings. At his father\u2019s table he had\nwatched too many \u201cwhey-faced\u201d brethren to like the breed--men with \u201ca\nweedy flux of ill-conditioned hair,\u201d whose\n\n acrid words\n Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds,\n Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate,\n That all we love is worthiest of hate,\n As the scarred ruffian of the pirate\u2019s deck,\n When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck!\n\n (_The Moral Bully._)\n\nThe words are bitter, but they reveal the length of his reaction from\nthe Calvinism on which he had been over-fed at home and at Phillips\nAndover Academy; and they suggest also why, next to Theodore Parker,\nHolmes came to be the best hated of Boston Unitarians amongst the\northodox. On this one subject he was militantly radical, never\nshirking debate, but whetting the edge of his satire and impaling his\nvictim neatly with his logic. He took sardonic delight in turning\nCalvinism against itself, in the clever _reductio ad absurdum_ of the\nEdwardean argument. Perhaps this major intellectual interest appears\nmost adequately in his picture of the Master, the autobiographical\nrationalist whom he introduces into _The Poet of the Breakfast Table_.\nA dabbler in the law, theology and medicine, a philosophic contemplator\nof the Order of Things, who refused to permit \u201cthe territory of a man\u2019s\nmind\u201d to be \u201cfenced in,\u201d who agreed with the Poet in thinking somewhat\nill of the specialist who dedicated his life to the study of beetles,\npreferring to range widely through time and eternity, who followed\nDarwin and was deep in bacteriology, trying \u201ccurious experiments in\nspontaneous generation\u201d--this was Holmes on the intellectual side, a\ngenial disseminator of the latest scientific speculations, a tolerant\namateur of the things of the mind, a friendly dabbler in absolute\nmoralities, who hoped \u201cto do some sound thinking in heaven\u201d if he ever\ngot there, but who was too pleasantly engaged with Beacon Street to\nsettle things now.\n\nIn his own special way, then, as a Brahmin of the Brahmins, Holmes\nwas a rebel, a puller-down of worm-eaten structures, a freethinker\nrejoicing when free thought tossed a cargo of obsolete dogma into\nBoston Bay, or drew out a linchpin of some respectable social coach.\nHe loved Boston the more because he believed that Boston was the home\nof free thought and free speech, the capital of American brains, the\nintellectual rebel of the continent. He did not agree with Emerson\u2019s\nstrictures, or Parker\u2019s. He would not concede that Boston was the \u201chome\nof the Hunkers.\u201d It was provincial; it had crooked little streets; but\n\n I tell you Boston has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that\n lead straight to free thought and free speech and free deeds than\n any other city of live men or dead men--I don\u2019t care how broad\n their streets are, nor how high their steeples. (_The Professor at\n the Breakfast Table_, p. 4.)\n\nWhen he contemplated the future of America, with Boston as its\nintellectual leader, he was carried on the crest of an exuberant\noptimism:\n\n A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest\n of \u2019em for washbasins! A new race, and a whole new world for the\n new-born human soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it,\n and has been any time these hundred years! That\u2019s all I claim\n for Boston--that it is the thinking centre of the continent, and\n therefore of the planet. (_Ibid._, p. 104.)\n\nIf the mind is free other things will take care of themselves--this\npretty much sums up Holmes\u2019s social philosophy. Only, he would add,\nwhen the mind is used to its freedom, it will create a culture that\nis well-mannered, that does not run to extravagant agitation, that\nconsiders time, place, and outward circumstance in effecting needful\nchanges--the quiet decency of Channing rather than the noisier way\nof Parker. The Brahmin way, after all, was the better way, Holmes\nbelieved; and Channing was a Brahmin:\n\n Parson Channing put a little oil on one linchpin, and slipped it\n out so softly, the first thing they knew about it was the wheel of\n that side was down. T\u2019other fellow\u2019s at work now; but he makes more\n noise about it. When the linchpin comes out on his side, there\u2019ll\n be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old cart, and\n they pretend to say that there are valuable things in it which may\n get hurt. Hope not--hope not. But this is the great macadamizing\n place--always cracking up something. (_Ibid._, p. 19.)\n\nCertainly not on the intellectual side could Holmes be set down as\na conservative. He did not relish any such imputation and defended\nhimself with vigor:\n\n If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of thought choke\n up and keep the soul\u2019s windows down--to shut out the sun from the\n east and the wind from the west--to let the rats run free in the\n cellar, and the moths feed their fill in the chambers, and the\n spiders weave their lace before the mirrors, till the soul\u2019s typhus\n is bred out of our neglect, and we begin to snore in its coma or\n rave in its delirium--I, Sir, am a _bonnet-rouge_, a redcap of the\n barricades, my friends, rather than a conservative. (_Ibid._, p.\n 18.)\n\nIt was this spirit of rationalism that made him--at some risk of\nunpopularity--an unsparing critic of romantic equalitarianism. Here\nagain is an echo of the older century. Neither the Jacksonian nor the\ntranscendental version of the new gospel found favor in his eyes;\nboth seemed to run counter to the open facts of history. As a realist\nhe discovered justification for John Adams\u2019s doctrine of economic\ndeterminism: all society, he was convinced, tends to stratify in lines\nof wealth distribution, in America as well as in Europe, and no dogmas\ncan prevent it. He went further and insisted that the possession of\nwealth makes possible comfort, ease, leisure, culture; that those\nlacking wealth are necessarily unfree and their lives in consequence\nare meaner and narrower. Much of his criticism of Yankee villagers\nand countrymen--and except Cooper, he was perhaps the most critical\ncommentator on Yankee provincialisms of speech and manners--springs\nfrom the conviction that a niggardly economics had created a niggardly\nsociety. He desired more wealth to the end of more culture. He was too\ncompletely Brahmin to set material well-being as the ultimate goal\nof the competitive struggle; that seemed to him the object of State\nStreet and of the plutocracy he frankly detested. In _The Poet at the\nBreakfast Table_ he apologizes for calling one of his characters a\ncapitalist, on the ground that \u201cthe word seems to be equivalent to\nhighway robbery in the new gospel of Saint Petroleum.\u201d Wealth as a\nmeans to power he would have none of; but wealth as a means to leisure,\nand leisure as a means to cultivated living, he was fond of extolling.\nThe machinery of Brahmin life must be well oiled, but the life is more\nthan the machinery. Always he returned to the intellectual as the\nhallmark of every society that may be accounted excellent, and his\ninstinctive dislike of the middle class was founded on its intellectual\nsterility. It lived opulently but meanly; its rich dinners wanted the\nspice of wit, its ostentatious display lacked the salt of manners. It\nwas vulgar at heart, and Holmes hated vulgarity even more than he hated\nJohn Calvin\u2019s dogmas.\n\nUnfortunately his Brahminism sealed pretty tightly certain windows of\nhis mind that might better have been kept open. A radical in the field\nof theology where personal concern brought him to serious grappling\nwith the problem, a tolerant rationalist in the realm of the intellect,\nhe remained a cheerfully contented conservative in other fields. He was\nunconsciously insulated against the currents of social and political\nthought flowing all about him. Economic inequality he accepted rather\ntoo complacently. His daily life ran so easy and comfortable a course\nas never to prod him into questioning how other lives might be running.\nBy instinct and training he was an aristocrat, and he was never at\npains to conceal his preference for the well born and well mannered. He\nprofessed a philanthropic sympathy for the cause of the slave, but he\nshared the Beacon Street dislike of agitation--it was not well bred and\nit might bring down more things than he cared to have brought down. The\nmost completely class-conscious of the Boston writers, he deprecated\nall proletarian appeals. They were not, in his opinion, \u201cwholesome\nmoral entertainment for the dangerous classes. Boys must not touch off\ntheir squibs and crackers too near the powder-magazine.\u201d The less said\nabout the wrongs of labor, the better--at least publicly. Social strata\nbeing determined by economics, the agitator is little better than a\nfirebrand.\n\n You can\u2019t keep a dead level long, if you burn everything down flat\n to make it. Why, bless your soul, if all the cities of the world\n were reduced to ashes, you\u2019d have a new set of millionaires in a\n couple of years or so, out of the trade in potash. In the meantime,\n what is the use of setting the man with the silver watch against\n the man with the gold watch, and the man without any against them\n both?... Here we are travelling through the desert together like\n the children of Israel. Some pick up more manna and catch more\n quails than others, and ought to help their hungry neighbors more\n than they do; ... but we don\u2019t want the incendiary\u2019s pillar of a\n cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to lead us in the march\n to civilization, and we don\u2019t want a Moses who will smite the rock,\n not to bring out water for our thirst, but petroleum to burn us all\n up with. (_The Poet at the Breakfast Table_, pp. 5-6.)\n\nIn his attitude toward the present comfortable arrangement of society,\nHolmes was no rebel. He was not callous to the evils of society, but\nhe was willing to take a longer time in the march towards civilization\nthan more exigent souls wished; it was a pleasant march on the whole,\nand why quarrel over the difference in packs? If his attitude was\nnot the indifferentism of the well-to-do, it was near kin to it. He\nreflected the negative qualities of Unitarianism, rather than the\npositive, the free mind rather than the tender conscience. His social\nbias is sufficiently revealed in the tributes of praise he bestowed\nso generously. Among those whom he delighted to honor, the names of\nGarrison, Phillips, Parker, Thoreau, Greeley, John Brown, do not\nappear; instead he offered his praises to Everett, Webster, Bryant,\nWhittier, Agassiz, Parkman, Wilkie Collins, the Grand Duke Alexis,\nand a host of lesser celebrities known to the Back Bay. His heroes\nwere respectable souls rather than militant. As a critic his vision\nseems to have been blurred by certain astigmatisms, and he discovered\nheroic qualities more readily in the militant dead than in the militant\nliving. He delighted in the Boston of \u201976, but it is reasonably\ncertain that if he had lived then he would have walked the streets of\nthat older Boston as a genial Tory, and would have suffered the fate\nof other gentlemen who found it desirable to withdraw with Gage\u2019s\nRedcoats--unless, indeed, his love of the place had held him despite\nhis politics.\n\nIn his literary work Holmes was always the talker rather than the\nwriter. The charm of the vivid and racy colloquial marks every page.\nA clever aphorism or telling pun is the objective of every paragraph,\nand it explodes with a brilliant shower of sparks. But like every\ntalker his discursiveness is inveterate; he wanders far in pursuit\nof his point and sometimes returns empty-handed. He was always an\namateur; life was too agreeable for him to take the trouble to become\nan artist. The essay was his most congenial form--his novels are to be\ntaken no more seriously than his occasional verse. _Elsie Venner_ wraps\nup the familiar problem of moral determinism in pleasantly discursive\nchat of Yankee bumpkinism in contrast with Yankee Brahminism, and he\nreturns his impeccable hero to Beacon Street, after his sojourn in\nthe provinces, to reward him with the Brahmin rewards--a munificent\npractice, a charming wife, and an exalted social position. What richer\nreward could be desired by one who had tasted to the full the mellow\nflavor of that society? Staid, delightful, self-satisfied, righteous\nlittle Beacon Street! Last refuge and citadel of the old Brahmin\nrespectability; basking in the afternoon sunshine of its culture, not\nrealizing that its sun is already well past the meridian; in love with\nits own virtues and unaware that the morrow will see the invasion of\nthe Huns and Vandals of plutocracy, to whose plethoric bank books\nBrahmin culture must eventually bow--who would not have liked it?\nIt was something after all to have been its favorite wit, its ready\noracle, its clever poet, who in praising his fellow Brahmins was well\naware that he discreetly praised his own admirable qualities. Kindly,\ndelightful, fortunate Dr. Holmes! chief citizen of the Hub of the\nUniverse! He was born and lived with a silver spoon in his mouth, and\nif a grudging posterity inclines to rate him and his little world\nsomewhat lower than he rated them, what difference can that make to\nhim? Tolerant himself, we should perhaps emulate his example, and not\ninsist too rudely that he is only a minor figure in American literature.\n\n\nII \u2022 James Russell Lowell \u2022 Cambridge Brahmin\n\nWhatever the critics may eventually come to say about Lowell, he was\ncertainly the ablest and most distinguished of the old Cambridge\nbreed, in the days when the Brahmin caste was disintegrating and\nBrahmin ideals losing their hold on New England--a man of fine native\nabilities in whom Harvard culture did its best to strike fire and light\nand understanding to serve as a beacon to the rest of America. He was\nnot of the Concord line of transcendental individualists, nor of the\nmilitant strain of reforming enthusiasts; but of the true Brahmin line\nof Josiah Quincy and Edward Everett and Oliver Wendell Holmes--men of\nsound culture who could serve God valiantly in the social station in\nwhich He had placed them, without wanting to pull down the old church\nto build a new. Like Charles Eliot Norton--_clarum et venerabile\nnomen_--he had no plans of a new building in his pocket, but was\ncontent to enlarge and embellish the old. He would serve culture rather\nthan causes. His gifts were Brahmin gifts, his prejudices were Brahmin\nprejudices; and so in spite of a \u201ccertain sprightliness of brain\u201d\nthat tempted him to rebel at the aridity of the scholastic commons on\nwhich he fed, and in spite of certain youthful vagaries and incursions\ninto indiscreet places, he remained at bottom a Harvard conservative,\ncontent with his birthright, hopeful that his ways were God\u2019s ways.\nThis suffices to explain the extraordinary reputation of Lowell in\nCambridge circles, and the difficulty with which it made headway\nelsewhere. Though he traveled much in his library--as Thoreau would\nsay--his prejudices remained narrowly local. To the last he remained\nextraordinarily parochial.\n\nYet the culture he served so faithfully never fruited in wisdom. He\nwas never quite certain of himself, of what he really believed. He was\nfond of standing off and studying himself quizzically, to learn what\nsort of person he was; yet he was swayed by so many impulses he was\nnever quite sure what sort of legs were under him. He was hopelessly\nbewildered by his own vast disorder. His mind was as cluttered as\na garret, filled with an endless miscellany of odds and ends. Life\npuzzled him, as it puzzles every serious mind; but he allowed himself\nto be too easily discouraged by his inveterate unwillingness to\nthink. He never speculated widely or analyzed critically. Ideas,\nsystems of thought, intellectual and social movements, he had no\ninterest in; he was content to remain a bookish amateur in letters,\nloitering over old volumes for the pleasure of finding apt phrases and\nverbal curiosities. With all his reading, history remained a blank\nto him; and science he would have none of. \u201cI hate it,\u201d he confessed\nlate in life; \u201cI hate it as a savage hates writing, because I fear\nit will hurt me somehow.\u201d A good many things hurt him in those later\nyears, and it was characteristic of him to say, \u201cI continue to shut\nmy eyes resolutely in certain speculative directions.\u201d He defined\nculture as \u201cintelligent purpose\u201d; yet of such intelligent purpose his\nintellectual life revealed little. Naturally he did not relish the\ntheological unsettlement that came with the advance of scientific\ninquiry. Leslie Stephen\u2019s rationalism troubled him, and after reading\nthe former\u2019s _English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_, he wrote, \u201cI\nam very much in the state of mind of the Bretons who revolted against\nthe Revolutionary Government and wrote upon their banners, \u2018Give us\nback our God!\u2019\u201d (_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 168.) Neither did he relish\nthe economic unsettlement the industrial revolution was bringing to\nCambridge and America, but he looked back longingly to the quiet\ndays \u201cbefore our individuality had been trampled out of us by the\nIrish mob.\u201d Standing between the older America and the new, with the\nfoundations disintegrating under his feet, he confused the disorder in\nhis own mind with the disorder in the external world of society, and\ndesperately sought to cling to his ancient hopes. A pathetic yearning\nfor orderliness in an age that has grown heedless of it was natural\nenough in a mind that had come to expect little of life; but surely\norderliness, like charity, should begin at home.\n\nIt was, perhaps, not altogether his fault. His impulses were liberal\nand his mind generous, but he was never strong enough to overcome the\nhandicap of the Lowell ancestry and training. When he spoke of himself\nhalf whimsically as a natural Tory, he was putting his finger on the\nBrahmin strain. The sanctity of the Lowell blood is a commonplace in\nNew England; but that it was Tory blood is less frequently remarked.\nHis grandfather, John Lowell, to be sure, was visited by certain\nhumanitarian compunctions, and in 1772 convinced himself that at\nCommon Law slavery could not stand, and was eager to put it to the\ntest in Massachusetts. But John Lowell was high in the councils\nof the Federalist party, and a judge, and it is a safe guess that\nhis radicalism did not go deep. Certainly, the next generation was\nstalwartly conservative. The three brothers represented the three major\nprofessions of law, theology, and business, that constituted the New\nEngland hierarchy. His father, Charles Lowell, after traveling abroad,\nwas settled as pastor of the West Church, Boston--Jonathan Mayhew\u2019s\nchurch--a post he held for fifty-six years. He was a stout Federalist,\na good hater of Jefferson,[469] a pleasant, cautious gentleman who\nrefused to be drawn into the bitter Unitarian-Trinitarian controversy\nof the day--as unlike the militant Mayhew as a conventional soul could\nwell be.[470] His uncle, John Lowell, was a capable lawyer-politician,\none of the directing minds of the Federalist machine, earnestly\nengaged in defending Massachusetts against the wicked Republicans.\nAnother uncle, Francis Cabot Lowell, was an enterprising capitalist,\nfounder of the city of Lowell, whose multiplying spindles, it was\nhoped, would turn the wives and daughters of Yankee farmers, and the\npoverty-stricken Irish immigrants, into efficient revenue-producers for\nState Street securities.\n\nFrom this pleasant background of Brahmin conservatisms, Lowell went\nforth into a world given over to momentous changes, contemptuous of\nall Brahmin standards, to find his way as he might. An original mind\nwould have marked out its own path, as Emerson did; a conventional mind\nwould have gone with the better sort, as Josiah Quincy did; but Lowell\nwas neither Emerson nor Quincy. Sensitive to change, he was rarely\nself-reliant; generous in sympathies, he was timid in convictions. He\nwas no Come-outer to stand alone against the world, but unconsciously\nhe took color from his environment and was always glad to find a\nstaff to lean on. It was fortunate for his peace of mind that he\nnever realized how frequently he was no more than an echo of other\nminds; yet the confusions and contradictions that mark off the several\nperiods of his life can be explained in no other way. From Brahminism\nhe drifted to radicalism, and from radicalism back to a modified\nBrahminism; and these changes resulted from no native intellectual\nunfolding, but from certain dominant personalities who drew him aside\nfrom his natural orbit. He quitted college as a pleasant young Tory,\nwho paused in his Commencement Poem to address some pointed remarks at\nAbner Kneeland--the last man imprisoned in Massachusetts for religious\nopinion--upon the wickedness of an atheism that denied the faith of\nCharles Lowell. But the ferment of the times was already working in\nhim, and when he was nineteen he wrote with youthful fervor, \u201cI am\nfast becoming ultra-democratic.... Liberty is now no longer a cant\nword in the mouths of knaves and fools\u201d (_Letters_, Vol. I, p. 33).\nWithin a year he had met Maria White, whose influence till her death\nin 1853 was the determining factor in his intellectual life. She was\nan ardent Abolitionist and reformer, and under her pleasant tutelage\nLowell was indoctrinated in the current philosophy of radicalism. He\nspoke at Abolition meetings, and contributed to the Abolition press.\nMore important, he conceived that he had come upon his true mission\nin letters. In an ode beginning \u201cIn the old days of awe and keen-eyed\nwonder,\u201d he put into verse his new creed, a prose statement of which\nhe elaborated in a letter explaining his _Prometheus_ in 1843, a year\nbefore his marriage to Miss White:\n\n Although such great names as Goethe, Byron, and Shelley have all\n handled the subject in modern times, you will find that I have\n looked at it from a somewhat new point of view. I have made it\n _radical_, and I believe that no poet in this age can write much\n that is good unless he give himself up to this tendency. For\n radicalism has now for the first time taken a distinctive and\n acknowledged shape of its own. So much of its spirit as poets in\n former ages have attained (and from their purer organization they\n could not fail of some) was by instinct rather than by reason. It\n has never till now been seen to be one of the two great wings that\n upbear the universe.... The proof of poetry is, in my mind, that it\n reduces to the essence of a single line the vague philosophy which\n is floating in all men\u2019s minds, and so renders it portable and\n useful and ready to the hand. (_Letters_, Vol. I, p. 73.)\n\nSix years later he asserted confidently, \u201cI am the first poet who has\nendeavored to express the American Idea, and I shall be popular by and\nby.\u201d Yet within a few months he found the vein nearing exhaustion.\nIn a survey of his course up to 1850, he remarked that he had served\nlove and freedom hitherto, and he now proposed to serve beauty, adding\nthe significant comment, \u201cI find that Reform cannot take up the whole\nof me, and I am quite sure that eyes were given us to look about\nus sometimes, and not to be always looking forward.... I am tired\nof controversy\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 173). Between these several\nconfessions lies the bulk of Lowell\u2019s contribution to the \u201ccauses\u201d\nof the times, and how adequately he served them is revealed in the\nsuccessive poems that came from his pen.[471] Their equal as a whole\nis not to be found in the work of other contemporary radicals. The\nbetter work is solidly vigorous, with competent iambs that often rise\nto the dignity of such lines as \u201cSlowly the Bible of the race is writ.\u201d\nThe eager rhetoric of _The Present Crisis_ was the highwater mark of\nAbolition argument in verse; but its serviceableness for quotation\ncannot make it so good a poem as _Prometheus_ with its muscular blank\nverse, or as _A Glance behind the Curtain_ with its portrait of\nCromwell, strong in his faith, ready for all needful iconoclasms:\n\n I have no dread of what\n Is called for by the instinct of mankind;\n Nor think I that God\u2019s world will fall apart\n Because we tear a parchment more or less.\n\nThis is frank transcendental radicalism, yet the truer Lowell of those\ndays of youthful enthusiasm is found in the _Biglow Papers_, first\nwritten with spontaneous gusto out of his hatred of the imperialism of\nthe Mexican war, and later carefully embedded in the heavy machinery of\nthe prose setting. The native clutter of Lowell\u2019s mind is there laid\nbare--the grotesque mixture of homely satire, moral aphorisms, Yankee\nlinguistics, literary criticism--an unwieldy mass that he could neither\nsimplify nor reduce to order. The machinery spoils the propaganda and\nweighs down the satire; yet the verse has survived because for once\nLowell let himself go and hit such heads as he had a mind to.\n\nLowell saw fit to retain most of his radical verse in the definitive\nedition of his works, but his radical prose he disowned, and it was\nleft for pious hands to gather together long after his death. It was\nperhaps as well for his reputation that the ambassador at the Court\nof St. James\u2019s should not be plagued by his youthful indiscretions.\nIn those prose writings were combustible materials. He went with\nthe Abolitionists in their brisk assaults on law, order, and the\nConstitution. Whatever revolution was stirring anywhere found him\nsympathetic. He was strong for the workingman\u2019s revolution of 1848 in\nFrance; it was social injustice that was to blame for mob violence, and\nthe fetish of _laissez faire_ was a sorry enough god to worship.\n\n The great problem of the over-supply of labor is not to be settled\n by a decimation of the laboring class, whether by gunpower or\n starvation.... The giant Labor did not merely turn from one side\n to the other for an easier position. Rather he rose up, \u201cLike\n blind Orion hungry for the morn.\u201d... They had learned by bitter\n experience that it was on the body of old King Log _Laissez-faire_\n that King Stork perched to devour them. _Let-alone_ is good policy\n after you have once got your perfect system established to let\n alone. (Quoted in Scudder, _James Russell Lowell_, Vol. I, pp.\n 205-206.)\n\nIn common with the Abolitionists, Lowell appealed to the Declaration of\nIndependence against the Constitution. He took delight in satirizing\nhis Federalist forebears, who, he asserts, beginning to fear the light\nof freedom, ingeniously constructed a \u201cSacred Parasol\u201d for the new\nGoddess of Liberty, \u201cto prevent her from being tanned\u201d:\n\n A stout machine of parchment was accordingly constructed, and,\n under the respectable name of a Constitution, was interposed\n wherever there seemed to be danger from the hostile incursions of\n light. Whenever this is spread, a dim twilight, more perplexing\n than absolute darkness, reigns everywhere beneath its shadow....\n This contrivance of ours, though the work of our own hands, has\n acquired a superstitious potency in our eyes. (_Ibid._, Vol. I, p.\n 210.)\n\nNo wonder Lowell later disowned such apostasies, for after Maria\nWhite\u2019s death in 1853 came the dun professorial period of his life,\nwhen Harvard laid hands on him and came near to reducing him to\nits own ways. It revived the old Brahmin instincts that had lain\ndormant during the years of his Abolitionism, without reviving the\nold sanctions. Left without a cause, half ashamed of his youthful\nindiscretions yet ill content to drift, he turned bookman and for\ntwenty-one years wandered with Norton and Longfellow and Child in the\nSahara of medieval scholarship. It was not a happy time with him.\nThere is plenty of evidence of his restlessness and dissatisfaction\nthat occasionally prompted the wish to turn wholly scholar and keep\nhis note-books in order; that prodded him to salvage the mass of his\naccumulation by turning his lecture-notes into literary essays; and\nthat in other moods induced him to turn half savagely upon his dead\nenthusiasms and find solace in clever satire. His vigorous salvagings\nwere scarcely worth the trouble. He had nothing important to say\nabout Dante or Pope or Wordsworth, and he said it with a good deal of\nneedless verbal exertion. The essay on Thoreau, written in 1865, was a\ndifferent matter. Here he was brought face to face with a past which\nit still hurt him to remember; and the ill nature that colors his\ncomment is sufficient testimony to the painfulness of his memories.\nCertainly he did not understand Thoreau, was incapable of understanding\nhim; yet might not his dislike have been prodded by the consciousness\nthat Thoreau had refused to make terms with Harvard culture as he had\ndone? An intelligent reading of Thoreau must have been an unpleasant\nexperience in Lowell\u2019s mood, keenly aware of certain backslidings of\nhis own; and the essay is suggestive for the light it throws on Lowell,\nnot on Thoreau.\n\nTo this period belong most of the essays on which rests Lowell\u2019s\nreputation as a critic of letters and politics. Bright as that\nreputation long was, it is beginning to show tarnish. Subjected to\nthe scrutiny of eyes unblinded by the congenialities of the Cambridge\ncoterie, it appears that Lowell\u2019s brilliancy covered over certain grave\nshortcomings that unfitted him for serious critical judgment.[472]\nHe had no standards other than ethical, only likes and dislikes; no\ninterest in ideas, only a pottering concern for the text; no historical\nbackgrounds, only isolated figures dwelling in a vacuum. He was puzzled\nover new schools and unfamiliar technic, and was at ease only in\npraising established reputations and confirming approved judgments.\nHe scoffed at Taine instead of going to school to him, and made merry\nover Masson\u2019s _Life of Milton_; yet he was wholly incapable of dealing\nwith men from whose fruitful minds came ideas that summoned throngs of\nfollowers. In almost the last year of his life he spent weeks rereading\nRousseau, and was satisfied to dismiss him with the comment, \u201ca\nmonstrous liar, but always the first dupe of his own lie\u201d (_Letters_,\nVol. II, p. 424). _Leaves of Grass_ he dismissed as affected, not\noriginal. He was shocked at Swinburne\u2019s \u201cAdamite\u201d heresy--\u201cWhen a man\nbegins to lust after the Muse instead of loving her, he may be sure\nthat it is never the Muse that he embraces\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. I, p. 377).\nHe admired Howell\u2019s prose style and loved the man, but he could not\nbring himself to approve his literary and social theories.\n\nDuring those sterile professorial years he was closing one door after\nanother. Scarcely an important movement of contemporary thought\nawakened his interest. The hypothesis of evolution he rejected somewhat\nflabbily. \u201cI think the evolutionists will have to make a fetish of\ntheir protoplasm before long,\u201d he said in 1879. \u201cSuch a mush seems\nto me a poor substitute for the Rock of Ages--by which I understand\na certain set of higher instincts which mankind have found solid\nunder their feet in all weathers\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 245). And as\nlate as 1886 he wrote, \u201cI am a conservative (warranted to wash) and\nkeep on the safe side--with God as against evolution.\u201d Naturally so\nprovocative a doctrine as economic determinism never showed its face in\nhis study; Karl Marx was not one of his intellectual companions. Even\nthe home-bred knight-errant, Henry George, did not greatly interest\nhim. \u201cWhy, who in the world buys such a book as that,\u201d he exclaimed of\n_Progress and Poverty_; and learning that a friend had subscribed for a\nthousand copies, he remarked, \u201cHe _must_ be getting eccentric.\u201d[473]\n\nThe political principles that he discovered in the smoke of his\nprofessor\u2019s pipe were equally na\u00efve. He took himself seriously as a\nguide and mentor in matters political. He was fond of talking about the\n\u201cnoble science of politics\u201d; yet he never took the trouble to ground\nhimself in the elements of the subject. He had scarcely read the primer\nof political theory. Burke was probably the only political writer\nwho ever made any impression on his mind. Of American constitutional\nhistory he was as ignorant as a politician, and when in Civil War\ndays he began to scratch the field of politics, he only uncovered\ncertain old Federalist prejudices that lay hidden under his later\naccumulations. The extreme parochialism of the Brahmin mind is revealed\nin Lowell\u2019s incapacity to understand the South. The comment on Sibley\u2019s\n_Harvard Graduates_--\u201cI do not know when the provincialism of New\nEngland has been thrust upon me with so ineradicable a barb\u201d--should be\nturned upon Lowell\u2019s dogmatic essays in American politics. He had not\nthe slightest comprehension of Calhoun\u2019s doctrine of majorities; yet he\ndismissed it contemptuously, after attributing it to one of Calhoun\u2019s\nfollowers.[474] He speaks of the \u201cweak and wicked element\u201d of states\nrights--which he supposes the South owed to \u201cthe unhappy ingenuity of\nMr. Jefferson\u201d--as an unhistorical repudiation of the principle of\ncoercive sovereignty established by the fathers, quite overlooking\nthe Hartford Convention. His treatment of Jefferson Davis and Andrew\nJohnson is marked by the dogmatisms of one who is defending God\u2019s will\nagainst the devil\u2019s sophistries. He will have no other interpretation\nof history than an ethical interpretation, in which good and evil are\neternally at combat; and he closes his volume of political essays with\na comment that embodies for him the sum of all political wisdom:\n\n We have only to be unswervingly faithful to what is the true\n America of our hope and belief, and whatever is American will rise\n from one end of the country to the other instinctively to our side,\n with more than ample means of present succour and of final triumph.\n It is only by being loyal and helpful to Truth that men learn at\n last how loyal and helpful she can be to them. (_Ibid._, Vol. V, p.\n 326.)\n\nInto the stagnant atmosphere of the Elmwood study came on a happy day\nin the middle sixties the vibrant personality of Edwin Lawrence Godkin,\nand under the stimulus of his crisp thinking there began for Lowell\nwhat may perhaps be reckoned an intellectual renaissance. Godkin was\na moderate English liberal, a man of complete self-assurance, whose\ntart comment on politics and economics was pointed by a conviction\nof the finality of his own conclusions. Under such teaching Lowell\nmade rapid progress in the new school of criticism fathered by _The\nNation_. The delight with which he read Godkin\u2019s comment and the eager\nfaith with which he greeted his ideas suggest that his own ethical\ninterpretation of politics was giving way under the strain of post-war\nexperience. From Godkin he got some casual instruction in _laissez\nfaire_, and certain of its teachings snuggled down comfortably in his\nmind beside the principles of coercive sovereignty and a centralizing\nstate, without awakening any suspicion of their incompatibility of\ntemperament. He never went over wholly to _laissez faire_; he was too\nstrongly Brahmin Federalist for that; but his leanings often carried\nhim into the English camp. It was a tonic to his native conservatism\nthat was troubled about the new theories of collectivism, and it\nawakened strong doubts about the experiment in democracy. The reaction\nagainst the radicalism of his Abolition days became sharp and final.\n\u201cWe have got to work back from a democracy to our original institution\nas a republic again,\u201d he wrote Leslie Stephen in 1879 (_Letters_,\nVol. II, p. 161); and in 1888 he asserted that the republic would\nendure only \u201cso long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue\ndominant\u201d (_The Independent in Politics_, Vol. VI, p. 207). He warned\nThomas Hughes against the extension of suffrage in England,[475] and he\nwas more and more inclined to think that democracy meant a slough of\nmediocrity underlain with the mud of corruption--that it might prove\nto be \u201ca Kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of\nfools\u201d (_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 159).\n\nFrom the vigorous movements of protest of the seventies and eighties,\nthe agrarian uprising of the Middle Border and the proletarian\norganization in the industrial centers, he drew added confirmation of\nhis fears. In his attitude towards both he was little more than an\necho of Godkin, who was laying about him briskly, hitting both farmer\nand workingman with fine impartiality. He shared the latter\u2019s contempt\nfor all agrarian programs, without quite understanding them. He knew\nlittle of America. The continent was scarcely more than a hinterland\nto Cambridge, a hinterland that he explored with some bewilderment\non a trip that carried him as far as Cincinnati. Equally ignorant of\neconomics and of the Middle Border, he had no basis for any opinion;\na juster man would have put the agrarian question aside as beyond his\ncompetency; at least he would have been careful to clear his mind of\nprejudice. But Lowell was as much a victim of capitalistic prejudice\nas Thomas Bailey Aldrich and other Boston pseudo-intellectuals. The\nold Brahminism was close to the surface in those later years, and a\nscratch would reveal it. In the matter of the \u201cHaymarket Riot\u201d he\nwrote Howells that \u201che thought those Chicago ruffians well hanged\u201d--a\ncomment that recalls the Abner Kneeland episode of fifty years before.\nPhysically Lowell was in close proximity to the labor problem, but\nintellectually he was worlds removed. He looked upon the labor unions\nwith heavy misgivings. He frankly feared the power of the proletariat\nand was bitter in denunciation of social legislation. In 1869 he wrote\nGodkin, \u201cPray give Henry Wilson a broadside for dipping his flag\nto that piratical craft of the eight-hour men.... I have a thorough\ncontempt for a man who pretends to believe that eight is equal to ten\u201d\n(_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 31). And somewhat later he wrote Norton:\n\n I sometimes feel a little blue over the outlook here, with our\n penny-paper universal education and our workingmen\u2019s parties, with\n their tremendous lever of suffrage, decrying brains.... But the\n more I learn, the more am I impressed with the wonderful system\n of checks and balances which history reveals (our Constitution is\n a baby-house to it!) and the more my confidence in the general\n commonsense and honest intention of mankind increases.... I take\n great comfort in God. I think He is considerably amused with us\n sometimes, but that He likes us, on the whole, and would not let us\n get at the match-box so carelessly, as He does, unless He knew that\n the frame of His Universe was fire-proof. How many times have I not\n seen the fire-engines of Church and State clanging and lumbering\n along to put out--a false alarm! And when the heavens are cloudy\n what a glare can be cast by a burning shanty! (_Ibid._, Vol. II, p.\n 51.)\n\nThe ways of the Gilded Age were a rude shock to Lowell\u2019s ill-grounded\nidealism. The crude post-war exploitation and the political corruption\nthat marked the buccaneer stage of the rising plutocracy filled\nhim with anxiety. As an honest man he was angered by the common\nscoundrelism of the politicians and the press and troubled at the\napathy of the public, but his dislike for economics did him a grave\ndisservice. In seeking out the guilty he went wide of the mark. To\ntrace the source of the virus that was poisoning the public life to an\nexploiting economics, would have brought him close home. He chose to\nthink it was spread rather by western agrarians and city ringsters,\nthan by respectable New Englanders; yet after passing through the\n_Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ scandal he was visited by unpleasant suspicions. \u201cI\nsuspect,\u201d he wrote after his return from the Cincinnati Convention\nin 1876, \u201cthat few of our Boston men who have had to do with Western\nrailways have been more scrupulous [than the western Grangers.] I\nrather think they set the example of tempting legislators with the hope\nof questionable gains\u201d (_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 170). With the open\nfacts of a Congressional investigation before him, Lowell got no deeper\nthan that. Yet his indignation must find outlet and he contributed\ntwo poems to _The Nation_--\u201cThe World\u2019s Fair, 1876,\u201d and \u201cTempora\nMutantur\u201d--in one of which he wrote:\n\n Show \u2019em your Civil Service, and explain\n How all men\u2019s loss is everybody\u2019s gain; ...\n Show your short cut to cure financial ills\n By making paper-collars current bills;\n Show your new bleaching-process, cheap and brief,\n To wit: a jury chosen by the thief;\n Show your State legislatures; show your Rings;\n And challenge Europe to produce such things\n As high officials sitting half in sight\n To share the plunder and to fix things right;\n If that don\u2019t fetch her, why, you only need\n Your latest style in Martyrs--Tweed:\n She\u2019ll find it hard to hide her spiteful tears\n At such advance in one poor hundred years.\n\n (_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 155.)\n\nThis is Godkin translated into the Lowell vernacular, and what issued\nfrom his indignation was Godkin also--an apostolic ardor for civil\nservice reform. He had learned at least, that democracy had not yet\nbeen achieved in America; that, indeed, such spontaneous liberalism\nas had been bred by free land was in danger of being destroyed by\nevils that issued from the loins of this same heedless frontier\norder.[476] In 1876 he wrote, \u201cLet us all work together (and the\ntask will need us all) to make Democracy possible. It certainly is\nno invention to go of itself any more than the perpetual motion\u201d\n(_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 159). Yet in spite of his zeal, one may\nbe permitted to doubt that Lowell really desired any other than a\nBrahmin democracy. In those later years his conception of an ideal\nsociety was unconsciously colored by memories of Cambridge fifty years\nbefore--a simple, patriarchal world, amenable to the rule of the better\nsort. In such a world democracy seemed possible; but in the rising\nproletarian-plutocratic order, what reasonable hope was there?\n\nFrom his growing perplexities Lowell found a happy relief in his\nmission abroad. The experience was a godsend to a mind that was growing\ntorpid. In 1869 he had written, \u201cI fancy if I were suddenly snatched\naway to London, my brain would prickle all over, as a foot that has\nbeen asleep when the blood starts in it again. Books are good dry\nforage; we can keep alive on them; but, after all, men are the only\nfresh pasture\u201d (_ibid._, Vol. II, p. 24). London, in this mellow\nautumn of his life, ripened Lowell. He slipped into the congenial\nenvironment as easily as Irving had done a generation before, and\nfound English society as delightful. He loved England with unaffected\nheartiness, and under the stimulating experience he expanded into a\nkindly English Liberal. The extreme Liberals--men like Mill and Arnold\nand John Morley--he found less sympathetic; and radical thinkers like\nWilliam Morris he seems not to have known of. But English Liberalism\nof the Gladstone type was own cousin to Cambridge Brahminism; it\nunited dignity and conscience; it seemed to him the ideal type of\ngovernment--the rule of God-fearing gentlemen who strove to be faithful\nto their trusteeship, and who ruled because they were best fitted to\nrule. Into such a world no other American of the times could have\nentered more appreciatively than Lowell. If congeniality to the host\nbe a prime requisite in an ambassador, President Hayes made no mistake\nin sending him to the Court of St. James\u2019s. He was a distinguished\nrepresentative of Brahmin culture; but whether he was a representative\nof the solid realities of America is not so certain.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[468] See _A Rhymed Lesson_.\n\n[469] See _Letters_, Vol. I, p. 82.\n\n[470] See Hale, _James Russell Lowell and His Friends_, p. 10.\n\n[471] The more significant titles are: _Prometheus_ and _A Glance\nbehind the Curtain_, 1843; _Columbus_ and _The Present Crisis_, 1844;\n_On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington_, 1845; _Biglow\nPapers_, begun in 1846; _The Pioneer_, 1847; _Bibliol\u00e2tres_, 1849;\n_Anti-Apis_, 1851.\n\n[472] See C. Hartley Grattan, \u201cLowell,\u201d in _The American Mercury_, Vol.\nII, pp. 63-69.\n\n[473] Five years later he was more sympathetic, but hopelessly\nconfused. See _Democracy_, Vol. VI, p. 35.\n\n[474] See \u201cThe Rebellion,\u201d in _Prose Works_, Vol. V, p. 134.\n\n[475] See _Letters_, Vol. II, p. 175.\n\n[476] See _The Independent in Politics_, Vol. VI, pp. 204-209.\n\n\n\n\nConclusion\n\n\nTo the ebullient romanticisms with which the foregoing pages have\ndealt, the Civil War brought diverse fortunes; and from the titanic\nconflict emerged an America rid of one of the feculent sources of\ndomestic schism. The romantic imperialisms of the slave economy were\ngone forever. So much at least was cleared from the path of its\ndestiny, and the field of potential conflict was narrowed to the rival\nimperialisms of eastern capitalism and western agrarianism. Both had\nbeen vastly strengthened by the war. In the eastern centers was a\ngreatly stimulated industrialism, fed from the reservoirs of liquid\ncapital gathered in the process of financing the northern armies, ready\nto turn to transcontinental railway-building, large-scale manufacture,\nand a gigantic exploitation of the raw materials of mine and forest\nand field. Along the Middle Border the old romance of the settlement\ncame to new life as the flood of homesteaders, augmented by disbanded\nsoldiers, poured over the prairie spaces beyond the Mississippi, to\nrepeat there the story of commonwealth building. East and West would\neventually clash, for their diverse economic needs were driving towards\na collision; but that would not come for a generation till the conflict\nof interests was thrust into sharper relief.\n\nIn the meantime many familiar things were becoming anachronisms\nover night, though they might linger on for years. As the romantic\nrevolution began with the laying aside of the smallclothes and tie-wig\nof eighteenth-century aristocratic conservatism, so the new age began\nwith the putting away of the outworn dress of eighteenth-century\nromantic liberalism. In the hurrying new days there was no time or\nplace for abstract theories of natural rights, for equalitarian\ndemocracy, for local home rule--these relics of the past were thrust\naside in the scramble for wealth and power. The old philosophies were\nswept out on the rubbish heap--Jefferson and Lincoln with Calhoun and\nStephens--and Hamilton and Marshall came to their own again. The lost\ncause carried down to defeat much more than slavery, it carried down\nthe old ideal of decentralized democracies, of individual liberty; and\nwith the overthrow of the traditional principles in their last refuge,\nthe nation hurried forward along the path of an unquestioning and\nuncritical consolidation, that was to throw the coercive powers of a\ncentralizing state into the hands of the new industrialism. Here was a\nrevolution that was to engulf the older romantic America, its dignified\nliterary ideals as well as its democratic political theory. In the\nworld of Jay Cooke and Commodore Vanderbilt, the transcendental dream\nwas as hopelessly a lost cause as the plantation dream; it was in even\nworse plight, for it left no tragic memories to weave a new romance\nabout the fallen hopes. Emerson in Concord was as much out of date as\nLowell in Cambridge, or Gilmore Simms in Charleston. A new age had come\nand other dreams--the age and the dreams of a middle-class sovereignty,\nthat was busily surveying the fields of its future conquests. From\nthe crude and vast romanticisms of that vigorous sovereignty emerged\neventually a spirit of realistic criticism, seeking to evaluate the\nworth of this new America, and discover if possible other philosophies\nto take the place of those which had gone down in the fierce battles of\nthe Civil War. What form this critical spirit assumed, and what replies\nit returned to the strident challenge of the time, are questions not to\nbe answered here.\n\n\n\n\nBibliography\n\n\nOnly the more important titles dealt with in the present study are\nlisted hereunder, together with selected biographical and critical\nmaterial. The invaluable bibliographies in the _Cambridge History of\nAmerican Literature_, 4 vols., New York, 1917-22, cover most of the\nwriters considered, and the reader is referred to them.\n\n\nBook I: Part I\n\nInformation will be found in the _Library of Southern Literature_ by E.\nA. Alderman and others (16 vols., New Orleans, 1908-13) and in Montrose\nJ. Moses, _Literature of the South_ (New York, 1910). See also Carl Van\nDoren, _The American Novel_ (New York, 1921).\n\nI. The Old Dominion. See Thomas J. Wertenbaker, _Patrician and Plebeian\nin Virginia_ (Charlottesville, Va., 1910).\n\nII. For the economics of Jeffersonianism, see Charles A. Beard, _The\nEconomic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy_ (New York, 1915; Chapter\nXII). Also Charles Gide and Charles Rist, _A History of Economic\nDoctrines_ (translated by W. Smart and R. Richards, Boston).\n\nJohn Taylor: His works are out of print. Important titles are:\n_An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the United States_\n(Fredericksburg, Va., 1814). _New Views of the Constitution of the\nUnited States_ (Washington, 1823). _Correspondence_ (edited by W. E.\nDodd, Richmond, 1908).\n\nSee \u201cJohn Taylor, Prophet of Secession\u201d (by William E. Dodd, in _Branch\nHistorical Papers, II_, Richmond, 1908). See also Beard, _Economic\nOrigins of Jeffersonian Democracy_.\n\nIII. John Marshall: Sufficient materials will be found in Albert J.\nBeveridge, _Life of John Marshall_ (4 vols., New York, 1916-19).\n\nIV. For the plantation tradition, see Francis Pendleton Gaines, _The\nSouthern Plantation_ (New York, 1924).\n\nWilliam Wirt: His works are out of print. _Letters of a British Spy_\n(Richmond, 1803). _The Old Bachelor_ (2 vols., Richmond, 1810). _Life\nand Character of Patrick Henry_ (Philadelphia, 1817; also several later\neditions).\n\nSee John P. Kennedy, _Memoirs ... of William Wirt_ (Philadelphia, 1849).\n\nNathaniel Beverley Tucker: His works are out of print. _George\nBalcombe; a Novel_ (2 vols., New York, 1836).--_The Partisan Leader;\na Tale of the Future_, by Edward William Sidney (printed for the\npublishers, by J. Caxton, 1856 [_i.e._, Washington, printed by Duff\nGreen, 1836], 2 vols.): reissued as _A Key to the Disunion Conspiracy:\nThe Partisan Leader_ (2 vols. in one, New York, 1861); edition issued\nat Richmond, 1862.\n\nSome information about Tucker will be found in W. P. Trent, _William\nGilmore Simms_ (Boston and New York, 1892).\n\nV. William Alexander Caruthers: _The Kentuckian in New York. Or, the\nAdventures of Three Southerns. By a Virginian_ (2 vols., New York,\n1834).--_The Cavaliers of Virginia, or the Recluse of Jamestown.\nAn Historical Romance of the Old Dominion_ (2 vols., New York,\n1834-1835).--_The Knights of the Horse-Shoe; a Traditionary Tale of the\nCocked Hat Gentry in the Old Dominion_ (Wetumpka, Ala., 1845; New York,\n1882, 1909).\n\nJohn P. Kennedy: _Works_ (3 vols., New York, 1854; 9 vols., New York,\n1871, with life by H. T. Tuckerman, Vol. X). _Swallow Barn, or a\nSojourn in the Old Dominion_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1832; several\nlater editions). _Horse-Shoe Robinson; a Tale of the Tory Ascendency_\n(2 vols., Philadelphia, 1835; numerous later editions, the latest\nin 1906). _Rob of the Bowl; a Legend of St. Inigoe\u2019s_ (2 vols.,\nPhiladelphia, 1838; later editions). _Quodlibet: Containing Some Annals\nThereof ..._ (Philadelphia, 1840; 1860).\n\nEdgar Allan Poe: The bibliography is extensive. See the _Cambridge\nHistory of American Literature_.\n\n\nBook I: Part II\n\nII. John C. Calhoun: _Works_ (6 vols., Columbia, S. C., 1851; New\nYork, 1853-55). _Correspondence_, edited by J. F. Jameson (American\nHistorical Association, _Annual Report_, 1899, Vol. II).\n\nBiographies: W. E. Dodd, in _Statesmen of the Old South_ (New York,\n1911). H. von Holst, _John C. Calhoun (American Statesmen Series_,\nBoston, 1882, 1899). W. M. Meigs, _Life of John Caldwell Calhoun_ (2\nvols., New York, 1917). G. M. Pinckney, _Life of John C. Calhoun_\n(Charleston, 1903). W. P. Trent, _Southern Statesmen of the Old R\u00e9gime_\n(New York, 1897).\n\nAlexander H. Stephens: _Constitutional View of the War between the\nStates_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1868).\n\nSee L. B. Pendleton, _Alexander H. Stephens_ (Philadelphia, 1908).\n\nFrancis Lieber: _The Stranger in America_ (2 vols. in one, London,\n1834). _Political Ethics_ (Philadelphia, 1838; edited by Theodore D.\nWoolsey, Philadelphia, 1890; with introduction by Nicholas Murray\nButler, Philadelphia, 1911). _Essays on Property and Labor_ (New York,\n1841). _Civil Liberty and Self-Government_ (2 vols., Philadelphia,\n1853; London, 1859; edited by Theodore D. Woolsey, Philadelphia, 1891).\n_Miscellaneous Writings_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1881; edited by Daniel\nC. Gilman, Philadelphia, 1916).\n\nSee L. R. Harley, _Francis Lieber: His Life and Political Philosophy_\n(New York, 1899).\n\nIII. For the southern position, see Jeannette Reid Tandy, \u201cPro-Slavery\nPropaganda in American Fiction in the Fifties\u201d (in _South Atlantic\nQuarterly_, January March, 1922). Francis Pendleton Gaines, _The\nSouthern Plantation_ (New York, 1924; Chapter III).\n\nWilliam J. Grayson: _The Hireling and the Slave_ (Charleston, 1856).\n\nIV. William Crafts: _A Selection in Prose and Poetry, from the\nMiscellaneous Writings of the Late William Crafts. With Memoir by\nSamuel Gilman_ (Charleston, 1828).\n\nHugh Swinton Legar\u00e9: _Writings_ (2 vols., Charleston, 1846; with\nmemoir).\n\nWilliam Gilmore Simms: His works have never been collected and most of\nthem are out of print. _Border Romances_ (17 vols., New York, 1859,\n1866, 1879; 10 vols., New York, 1882; 15 vols., Chicago, 1885; 17\nvols., Chicago, 1888; 17 vols., Atlanta, 1901 [?]). See W. P. Trent,\n_William Gilmore Simms_ (New York, 1892)--an excellent study. Also see\nJ. Erskine, _Leading American Novelists_ (New York, 1910).\n\n\nBook I: Part III\n\nExcellent bibliographical material for western literature will be found\nin Ralph Leslie Rusk, _The Literature of the Middle Western Frontier_\n(2 vols., New York, 1925). See also W. H. Venable, _The Beginnings of\nLiterary Culture in the Ohio Valley_ (Cincinnati, 1891).\n\nII. Interesting material will be found in Claude G. Bowers, _Party\nBattles of the Jackson Period_ (Boston, 1922).\n\nIII. Timothy Flint: His works are out of print and rare. _Recollections\nof the Last Ten Years_ (Boston, 1826). _Francis Berrian, or the Mexican\nPatriot_ (Boston, 1826; Philadelphia and London, 1834). _The Life and\nAdventures of Arthur Cleaning_ (Philadelphia, 1828). _George Mason,\nthe Young Backwoodsman; or, \u201cDon\u2019t Give up the Ship\u201d_ (Boston, 1829;\nwith changed title, London, 1833). _The Shoshonee Valley; a Romance_\n(Cincinnati, 1830).\n\nSee John Ervin Kirkpatrick, _Timothy Flint, Pioneer, Missionary,\nAuthor, Editor_ (Cleveland, 1911)--an excellent study with bibliography.\n\nJames Hall: _Works_ (4 vols., New York, 1853-56). _Legends of the West_\n(Philadelphia, 1832, 1833; five later editions).--_The Soldiers Bride;\nand Other Tales_ (Philadelphia, 1833).--_The Harpe\u2019s Head; a Legend of\nKentucky_ (Philadelphia, 1833); as _Kentucky. A Tale_ (London, 1834, 2\nvols.).--_Tales of the Border_ (Philadelphia, 1835). _The Wilderness\nand the War Path_ (New York, 1846; New York and London, 1849).\n\nSee J. L. Davis, \u201cJudge James Hall, a Literary Pioneer of the Middle\nWest\u201d (in _Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publications_,\nOctober, 1909).\n\nAugustus Longstreet: _Georgia Scenes_ (Atlanta, Ga., 1835; New York,\n1840; several later editions).\n\nSee John Donald Wade, _Augustus Longstreet, a Study of the Development\nof Culture in the South_ (New York, 1924), an excellent study with\nbibliographical material.\n\nDavy Crockett: Five titles are grouped under the name of Crockett:\n_Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett, of West Tennessee_\n(1833). _A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of\nTennessee_ (Philadelphia, 1834; seven editions in one year). _Life of\nMartin Van Buren_ (1835). _An Account of Col. Crockett\u2019s Tour to the\nNorth and Down East_ (1835). _Col. Crockett\u2019s Exploits and Adventures\nin Texas_ (1836). The _Narrative_ is reprinted with an introduction by\nHamlin Garland, in _The Modern Student\u2019s Library_, under the title,\n_The Autobiography of David Crockett_ (New York, 1923).\n\nThere is no life of Crockett; such so-called works are uncritical\njumbles of fact and fiction. Some information will be found in John\nDonald Wade, \u201cThe Authorship of David Crockett\u2019s Autobiography\u201d\n(_Georgia Historical Quarterly_, September, 1922); S. H. Stout, \u201cDavid\nCrockett\u201d (_American Historical Magazine_, Vol. VII, No. I, Jan.,\n1902)--uncritical; Chester T. Crowell, \u201cDavy Crockett\u201d (_American\nMercury_, Vol. IV, No. 13).\n\n\nBook II\n\nFor Philadelphia, see Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, _The Literary History\nof Philadelphia_ (Philadelphia, 1906). Also H. M. Ellis, \u201cJoseph Dennie\nand His Circle\u201d (_University of Texas Bulletin_). For the politics\nof New York, see Dixon Ryan Fox, _The Decline of Aristocracy in the\nPolitics of New York_ (New York, 1918).\n\nI. Charles Brockden Brown: _The Novels of Charles Brockden Brown ...\nwith a Memoir_ (Boston, 1827; Philadelphia, 1857, 1887). _Wieland; or\nthe Transformation_ (New York, 1798; best recent edition in _American\nAuthors Series_, New York, 1926). _Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the\nYear 1793_ (Philadelphia, 1799; Second Part, New York, 1800; numerous\nlater editions).\n\nNo adequate life has been written. The best is by William Dunlap, _The\nLife of Charles Brockden Brown_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1815). See John\nErskine, _Leading American Novelists_ (New York, 1910), and Annie R.\nMarble, in _Heralds of American Literature_ (Chicago and London, 1907).\n\nRobert Montgomery Bird: For a list of his plays, see A. H. Quinn, _A\nHistory of the American Theatre_ (New York, 1923).\n\n_Calavar; or, the Knight of the Conquest: a Romance of Mexico_ (2\nvols., Philadelphia, 1834; about ten later editions).--_The Hawks of\nHawks-Hollow. A Tradition of Pennsylvania_ (2 vols., Philadelphia,\n1835; two London editions).--_The Infidel; or, The Fall of Mexico_ (2\nvols., Philadelphia, 1835; London, 1835).--_Nick of the Woods, or, the\nJibbenainosay. A Tale of Kentucky_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1837; upward\nof twenty later editions).\n\nFor his life, see Clement Foust, _Life and Dramatic Works of Robert\nMontgomery Bird_ (1919).\n\nII. James Kent: _Commentaries on American Law_ (4 vols., New York,\n1826-1830; many later editions).\n\nFor his life, see William Kent, _Memoirs and Letters of James Kent_\n(Boston, 1898).\n\nFitz-Greene Halleck: _Poetical Works_ (New York and Philadelphia; eight\neditions between 1847 and 1859). _Poetical Writings with Extracts from\nthose of Joseph Rodman Drake_ (edited by J. G. Wilson, New York, 1869,\n1885).\n\nFor a life, see J. G. Wilson, _The Life and Letters of Fitz-Greene\nHalleck_ (New York, 1869). Also see W. C. Bryant, _Some Notices on the\nLife and Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck_ (New York, 1869).\n\nIII. Washington Irving: The standard edition of his works is in forty\nvolumes, New York, 1887.\n\nThe standard life is by Pierre M. Irving, _The Life and Letters of\nWashington Irving_ (4 vols., London, 1864; New York, 1879, 1883).\n\nSee also _The Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort_ (edited\nby George S. Hellman, 2 vols., New York, 1915). A recent study is\nGeorge S. Hellman, _Washington Irving, Esq_. (New York, 1925).\n\nJames Kirke Paulding: _Works_ (15 vols., New York, 1834-1839; 4 vols.,\n1867-1868).--_The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan_\n(New York, 1812).--_Letters from the South_ (2 vols., New York,\n1817).--_The Backwoodsman. A Poem_ (Philadelphia, 1818).--_Salmagundi,\nSecond Series_ (2 vols., New York, 1820).--_Koningsmarke, the Long\nFinne, A Story of the New World_ (New York, 1823; 2 vols., New York,\n1834; three London editions, and a German).--_Westward Ho! A Tale_ (2\nvols., New York, 1832, 1845; three London editions, a French and a\nGerman).--_The Dutchman\u2019s Fireside. A Tale_ (2 vols., New York, 1831;\nlatest edition, 1900).--_The Puritan and his Daughter_ (New York, 1849,\n1850; also London, 1849, two editions, and one German).\n\nNo adequate life has been written, but see W. I. Paulding, _Literary\nLife of James K. Paulding_ (New York, 1867).\n\nIV. James Fenimore Cooper: The editions of Cooper\u2019s novels are\nnumerous; as good as any is the one in thirty-two volumes (New York,\n1895, 1896-97). Much of his controversial work and critical articles\nhave not been reprinted. See _Notions of the Americans; Picked up by a\nTravelling Bachelor_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1829). _A Letter to His\nCountrymen_ (New York, 1834). _The American Democrat; or Hints on the\nSocial and Civic Relations of the United States_ (Cooperstown, 1838).\n_The History of the Navy_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1839). Also his eight\nvolumes of European travels.\n\nNo satisfactory life has been written. The best is by T. R. Lounsbury,\n_James Fenimore Cooper_ (New York, 1883). See also _Correspondence of\nJames Fenimore-Cooper_ (edited by his grandson, James Fenimore Cooper,\n2 vols., New Haven, 1922). W. C. Brownell, in _American Prose Masters_\n(New York, 1909). Carl Van Doren, in _The American Novel_ (New York,\n1921).\n\nV. William Cullen Bryant: The standard edition is edited by Parke\nGodwin (6 vols., New York, 1883-1889: 1-2, _Biography_, 1883, 3-4,\n_Poetical Works_, 1883, 1901; 5-6, _Prose Writings_, 1884-1889). Much\ninformation on his work in journalism will be found in Allan Nevins, _A\nCentury of Journalism_ (New York, 1921).\n\nHorace Greeley: His works have not been collected. See _Hints towards\nReform_ (New York, 1850). _Recollections of a Busy Life_ (New York,\n1868). _Essays Designed to Elucidate the Science of Political Economy_\n(Boston, 1870). _The American Conflict_ (Hartford and Chicago,\n1864-1866).\n\nFor his life, see James Parton, _The Life of Horace Greeley_ (Boston,\n1868). Charles Sotheran, _Horace Greeley_ (New York, 1915). See also\nJohn R. Commons, \u201cHorace Greeley and the Working-Class Origins of\nthe Republican Party\u201d (_Political Science Quarterly_, Vol. XXIV, pp.\n468-488).\n\nHerman Melville: The best edition is The Standard (16 vols., London,\n1922-23). Also see _Works_ (4 vols., edited by A. Stedman, New York,\n1892, 1896; Boston, 1900, 1910). Convenient editions of _Typee_,\n_Omoo_, and _Moby-Dick_ are plentiful.\n\nThe indispensable life is Raymond Weaver\u2019s _Herman Melville: Mariner\nand Mystic_ (New York, 1921), with bibliography. Also see John Freeman,\n_Herman Melville_ (in _English Men of Letters Series_, New York, 1926).\n\n\nBook III: Part I\n\nI. For the political backgrounds, see A. E. Morse, _The Federalist\nParty in Massachusetts to the Year 1800_ (Princeton, 1909). W. A.\nRobinson, _Jeffersonian Democracy in New England_ (New Haven, 1916).\nSamuel Eliot Morison, _Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis_ (2\nvols., Boston. 1913).\n\nFisher Ames: _Works_ (with memoir by J. T. Kirkland, Boston, 1809).\n_Works, with a Selection from his Speeches and Correspondence_ (edited\nby his son, Seth Ames, 2 vols., Boston, 1854).\n\nRobert Treat Paine: _Works in Prose and Verse_ (with memoir, Boston,\n1812).\n\nII. Joseph Story: _Commentaries on the Constitution of the United\nStates_ (3 vols., Boston, 1833; numerous later editions).\n\nSee W. W. Story, _Life and Letters of Joseph Story_ (2 vols., Boston,\n1851).\n\nDaniel Webster: The best edition of his works is The National--_The\nWritings and Speeches of Daniel Webster_ (18 vols., Boston, 1903).\n_Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster_ (2 vols., Boston, 1857).\n_Letters_ (edited by C. H. Van Tyne, New York, 1902).\n\nSee George Ticknor Curtis, _Life of Daniel Webster_ (2 vols., New York\nand London, 1870). For a critical contemporary estimate see Theodore\nParker, _Discourse Occasioned by the Death of Daniel Webster_ (Boston,\n1853). See also Charles A. Beard, _The Economic Basis of Politics_ (New\nYork, 1922).\n\n\nBook III: Part II\n\nI. Unitarianism: See George Willis Cooke, _Unitarianism in America:\nA History of its Origin and Development_ (Boston, 1902). Williston\nWalker, _A History of the Congregational Churches in the United States_\n(New York, 1894).\n\nWilliam Ellery Channing: _Works_ (5 vols., Boston, 1841; sixth volume\nadded in 1843; numerous later editions).\n\nAn excellent life is J. W. Chadwick, _William Ellery Channing, Minister\nof Religion_ (Boston, 1903). See also William H. Channing, _Memoir of\nWilliam Ellery Channing_ (3 vols., Boston, 1848).\n\nII. Perfectionism: For materials see Garrison, _Life of William Lloyd\nGarrison_ (4 vols., New York, 1885-1889).\n\nBrook Farm: See Lindsay Swift, _Brook Farm; Its Members, Scholars\nand Visitors_ (New York, 1906; contains bibliography). J. T. Codman,\n_Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs_ (Boston, 1894). Nathaniel\nHawthorne, _Blithedale Romance_.\n\nAbolitionism: Sufficient materials will be found in Garrison, _Life\nof William Lloyd Garrison_ (4 vols., New York, 1885-1889). See also\nCatherine N. Birney, _Sarah and Angelina Grimk\u00e9_ (Boston, 1885); and\n_James C. Birney and His Times, by His Son, William Birney_ (New York,\n1890).\n\nIII. William Lloyd Garrison: See Garrison, _Life of William Lloyd\nGarrison_ (4 vols., New York, 1885-1889).\n\nJohn G. Whittier: _The Writings of John Greenleaf Whittier_ (Riverside\nEdition, 7 vols., Boston, 1885-1889).\n\nSee G. R. Carpenter, _John Greenleaf Whittier_ (in _American Men of\nLetters Series_).--T. S. Pickard, _Life and Letters of John Greenleaf\nWhittier_ (2 vols., Boston, 1894).--F. H. Underwood, _John Greenleaf\nWhittier. A Biography_ (Boston, 1884).\n\nHarriet Beecher Stowe: _Works_ (Riverside Edition, 16 vols., Boston,\n1896; with life by Mrs. Field, 17 vols., 1898).\n\nSee Mrs. J. T. Fields, _The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe_ (Boston,\n1897).\n\n\nBook III: Part III\n\nI. Transcendentalism: The literature is abundant. See _The\nDial_ (4 vols., Boston, 1840-1844).--_The Harbinger_ (4 vols.,\nNew York, 1844-1848).--Harold Clarke Goddard, _Studies in New\nEngland Transcendentalism_ (New York, 1908).--O. B. Frothingham,\n_Transcendentalism in New England. A History_ (New York, 1876).--See\nalso Sylvester Judd, _Margaret. A Tale of the Real and Ideal_ (2 vols.,\nBoston, 1845; revised edition, 1851).\n\nII. Ralph Waldo Emerson: _Works_ (Riverside Edition, edited by James\nEliot Cabot, 12 vols., Boston, 1884-1893; London, 1884-1893; Centenary\nEdition, with biographical introduction and notes by E. W. Emerson,\n12 vols., Boston, 1903-04; London, 1904).--_Journals of Ralph Waldo\nEmerson, with Annotations_ (edited by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo\nEmerson Forbes, 10 vols., Boston, 1909-1914).--_Uncollected Writings.\nEssays, Addresses, Poems, Reviews and Letters by Ralph Waldo Emerson_\n(New York [1912]).\n\nSee George Willis Cooke, _Bibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson_ (Boston,\n1908). James Eliot Cabot, _A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson_ (2 vols.,\nBoston, 1887). George Willis Cooke, _Ralph Waldo Emerson; His Life,\nWritings, and Philosophy_ (Boston, 1881). Oscar W. Firkins, _Ralph\nWaldo Emerson_ (Boston, 1915). W. C. Brownell, _American Prose Masters_\n(New York, 1909).\n\nIII. Henry David Thoreau: _Works_ (Riverside Edition, 11 vols., Boston,\n1894; Manuscript Edition, 20 vols. [Vols. VII-XX contain the Journals],\nBoston, 1906).\n\nSee Francis H. Allen, _A Bibliography of Henry David Thoreau_\n(Boston and New York, 1908). William E. Channing, _Thoreau, the\nPoet-Naturalist_ (Boston, 1873, 1902). F. B. Sanborn, _Henry D.\nThoreau_ (in _American Men of Letters Series_, Boston, 1882, 1910);\n_The Personality of Thoreau_ (Boston, 1901); _The Life of Henry\nDavid Thoreau_ (Boston and New York, 1917). L\u00e9on Bazalgette, _Henry\nThoreau--Bachelor of Nature_ (translated by Van Wyck Brooks, New York,\n1924).\n\nIV. Theodore Parker: _Collected Works_ (edited by F. P. Cobbe, 14\nvols., London, 1863-71). _The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of\nTheodore Parker_ (Boston, 1843). _Speeches, Addresses and Occasional\nSermons_ (2 vols., Boston, 1876). _The American Scholar_ (with notes by\nGeorge Willis Cooke, Boston, 1907).\n\nAn excellent study is J. W. Chadwick, _Theodore Parker, a\nBiography_ (Boston, 1900), containing a bibliography John Weiss,\n_Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker_ (2 vols., New York,\n1864)--indispensable.\n\nV. Margaret Fuller: Her works have not been collected. Important titles\nare: _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_ (New York and London, 1845; with\nadditional papers and introduction by Horace Greeley, New York, 1855).\n_Life Without and Life Within_ (Boston, 1860; New York, 1869). _Papers\non Literature and Art_ (2 vols., New York and London, 1846).\n\nAn excellent study is Katharine Anthony, _Margaret Fuller: A\nPsychological Biography_ (New York, 1920). See also R. W. Emerson, W.\nH. Channing, and J. F. Clarke, _Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli_ (2\nvols., Boston, 1833). Thomas Wentworth Higginson, _Margaret Fuller\nOssoli_ (in _American Men of Letters Series_, Boston, 1884), containing\nbibliography.\n\n\nBook III: Part IV\n\nI. Henry W. Longfellow: _The Writings of ... with Bibliographical and\nCritical Notes_ (11 vols., Boston, 1886 [Vols. I-VI, _Poetical Works_;\nVII-VIII, _Prose Works_; IX-XI, _Dante_]).\n\nSee Samuel Longfellow, _Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ (3\nvols., Boston and New York, 1891). T. W. Higginson, _Henry Wadsworth\nLongfellow_ (in _American Men of Letters Series_, Boston and New York,\n1902).\n\nII. Nathaniel Hawthorne: _Works_ (12 vols., Boston, 1871-76; Fireside\nEdition, 12 vols., Boston, 1879; Riverside Edition, 12 vols., Boston,\n1883; Standard Library Edition, 15 vols., Boston, 1891 [contains\n_Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_, by Julian Hawthorne]; New Wayside\nEdition, 13 vols., Boston, 1902).\n\nThe best-known life is Julian Hawthorne, _Nathaniel Hawthorne and His\nWife_ (2 vols., Boston, 1885). Henry James, _Nathaniel Hawthorne_\n(in _English Men of Letters Series_, London, 1879; New York, 1885,\n1887). See also W. C. Brownell, _American Prose Masters_ (New York,\n1909). John Erskine, _Great American Novelists_ (New York, 1910). Carl\nVan Doren, _The American Novel_ (New York, 1921); Stuart P. Sherman,\n_Americans_ (New York, 1923).\n\nIII. Oliver Wendell Holmes: _Works_ (Riverside Edition, 13 vols.,\nBoston, 1891, additional volume, 1892; Autocrat Edition, 13 vols.,\nBoston and New York, 1904).\n\nSee George B. Ives _A Bibliography of Oliver Wendell Holmes_ (Boston\nand New York, 1907). John T. Morse, _Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell\nHolmes_ (2 vols., Boston and New York, 1896).--Lewis W. Townsend,\n_Oliver Wendell Holmes. Centenary Biography_ (London, 1909).\n\nJames Russell Lowell: _Works_ (Riverside Edition, 13 vols., Boston\nand New York, 1902 [contains Scudder\u2019s _Life_]; Elmwood Edition, 16\nvols., Boston, 1904 [four volumes of letters]). _Anti-Slavery Papers_\n(2 vols., Boston and New York, 1902). _Letters of James Russell Lowell_\n(edited by Charles Eliot Norton, 2 vols., New York, 1893; 3 vols.,\nBoston, 1904). _Early Prose Writings of ..._ (2 vols., New York, 1903).\n\nG. W. Cooke, _A Bibliography of James Russell Lowell_ (Boston and\nNew York, 1906). H. E. Scudder, _James Russell Lowell: A Biography_\n(2 vols., Boston, 1901). Ferris Greenslet, _James Russell Lowell: A\nBiography_ (2 vols., Boston, 1901). Ferris Greenslet, _James Russell\nLowell: His Life and Work_ (Boston, 1905). See also C. Hartley Grattan,\n\u201cLowell\u201d (_The American Mercury_, Vol. II, p. 69): Harry Hayden Clark,\n_Lowell\u2019s Criticism of Romantic Literature_ (\u201cPublications of the\nModern Language Association,\u201d March, 1926); W. D. Howells, _Literary\nFriends and Acquaintances_ (New York, 1902); Henry James, _Essays in\nLondon and Elsewhere_ (New York, 1893); J. J. Reilly, _James Russell\nLowell as a Critic_ (New York, 1915); and John M. Robertson, _Lowell as\na Critic_ (_North American Review_, February, 1919).\n\n\n\n\nIndex [Volume Two]\n\n\n _Abolitionists, The_, 333, 337\n\n _Abraham Davenport_, 370\n\n _Account of Col. Crockett\u2019s Tour to the North and Down East_, 173,\n 174, 176\n\n Adams, John, 13, 15, 17, 22, 78, 82, 95, 119, 187, 198, 226, 231,\n 282, 283, 305, 306, 316, 325, 393, 456\n\n ----, John Quincy, 242, 249, 276, 365\n\n ----, Samuel, 292, 380, 423\n\n\n Addison, Joseph, 31, 35, 199, 453\n\n _Additional Speeches_, 297 n, 300, 316, 415, 420, 421 n, 422, 423\n\n _Adventures of Captain Bonneville_, 209, 211\n\n _Aeneid_, 32\n\n Agassiz, Louis, 458\n\n _Agriculture of England, The_, 304\n\n Alcott, Bronson, 342, 348, 349, 394, 402, 426\n\n _Alcuin, A Dialogue_, 189\n\n Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 469\n\n _Alexander H. Stephens, Life of_, 83, 86, 89, 91\n\n Alexis, Grand Duke, 458\n\n _American Democrat, The_, 226, 227\n\n _American Liberty_, 287\n\n _American Mercury, The_, 466 n\n\n _American Note-Books_, 447, 448, 449\n\n _American Notes_, 441\n\n _American Novel, The_, 133\n\n _American Political Ideas_, 94, 334 n\n\n _American Scholar, The_, 390\n\n Ames, Fisher, ii, 19, 21, 36, 109, 113, 116, 119, 198, 241, 276,\n 279-288, 291, 293, 296, 297, 315, 317, 329\n\n ----, Dr. Nathaniel, 279, 280\n\n _Anarchiad, The_, 24\n\n Anne, Queen, 452\n\n Anthony, Katharine, 427, 432\n\n _Anti-Apis_, 464 n\n\n Anti-Rent Novels, 231, 233\n\n _Apology and Defense_, 309 n\n\n _Arbitrament of National Disputes, The_, 121 n\n\n Aristotle, 307\n\n Arnold, Matthew, 265, 472\n\n _Arthur Mervyn_, 190\n\n Astor, John Jacob, 195, 201, 203, 208, 211, 231\n\n _Astoria_, 209, 211\n\n Ashe, Thomas, 215\n\n _Augustus Baldwin Longstreet_, 169 n, 170\n\n _Authorship of David Crockett\u2019s Autobiography, The_, 177 n\n\n _Autobiography of Davy Crockett_, 166\n\n _Autobiography of Joseph Story_, 300\n\n\n _Backwoodsman, The_, 215\n\n Bacon, Lord, 31, 307\n\n Baldwin, Joseph G., 133, 162, 166\n\n Bancroft, George, 437-439\n\n _Bank of the United States, The_, 309 n\n\n Barlow, Joel, 188\n\n Bartol, C. A., 384\n\n _Basis of the Senate, The_, 306, 307, 310, 315\n\n Bassett, John, 148, 149\n\n Baxter, Richard, 371\n\n Beard, Professor Charles A., 13 n, 15, 18-19\n\n _Beauchampe_, 130\n\n Beecher, Elizabeth, 342 n\n\n ----, Henry Ward, 238, 344, 351, 399\n\n ----, Lyman, 357, 371, 375, 376\n\n Benjamin, Parke, 238\n\n Bennett, James Gordon, 102 n, 356\n\n Bentham, Jeremy, 166\n\n Benton, Thomas H., 14, 55, 151, 246, 309\n\n Berkeley, Bishop, 380\n\n Beveridge, Albert J., 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 316 n\n\n _Bibliol\u00e2tres_, 464 n\n\n Biddle, Nicholas, 55\n\n _Biglow Papers, The_, 368, 464, 464 n\n\n Bird, Robert Montgomery, 135, 162, 166, 190-192, 220, 235\n\n Birney, James G., 246, 333, 351, 359, 365\n\n Blackstone, 31, 35, 47, 113, 117, 120, 168, 197, 302, 313\n\n _Blithedale Romance, The_, 442, 448\n\n Bl\u00fccher, Marshal, 94\n\n Boone, Daniel, 138, 139, 162\n\n _Border Beagles_, 128\n\n _Boston Kidnapping, The_, 423\n\n Bourlamaqui, 117\n\n Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 236\n\n Bradbury, John, 215\n\n Brevoort, Henry, 205\n\n Briant, Lemuel, 325, 326\n\n Bright, John, 241\n\n Brisbane, Albert, ii, 101, 108, 200, 208, 242, 251, 350, 448\n\n _British Spy, The_, 31, 33, 41\n\n _Broker of Bogota, The_, 191\n\n Brown, Charles Brockden, 188-190\n\n ----, John, 155, 159, 360, 364, 399, 402, 412, 458\n\n Brownson, Orestes, ii, 108\n\n Bryant, William Cullen, 201, 208, 238-246, 247, 257, 258, 366, 458\n\n Buckminster, Rev. Joseph Stevens, 113\n\n Bunyan, John, 366\n\n Burgess, John W., 94\n\n Burke, Edmund, 12, 15, 31, 94, 305, 311, 366, 392, 467\n\n Burns, Anthony, 359, 360, 411, 423\n\n ----, Robert, 366\n\n Burr, Aaron, 197\n\n Bushnell, Rev. Horace, 356\n\n Byrd, Col. William, 8\n\n Byron, Lord, 111, 116, 200, 216\n\n\n Cabell, James Branch, 259, 260\n\n Cabot, George, 296\n\n _Caleb Williams_, 190\n\n Calhoun, John C., 4, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69-82,\n 83, 89, 91, 93, 102, 109, 115, 120, 123, 126, 136, 137, 144,\n 150, 152, 153, 168, 170, 299, 311, 312, 357, 399, 467, 468, 473\n\n Calvin, John, 215, 272, 273, 321, 340, 416, 457\n\n _Camillus_, 285-286\n\n Campbell, Thomas, 200\n\n _Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington, On the_, 464 n\n\n Carey, Matthew, 185-186\n\n Carlyle, Thomas, 47, 101, 111, 381, 389, 393, 406, 412\n\n Carpenter, G. R., 351, 367\n\n Caruthers, Dr. William Alexander, 28, 41-46, 377\n\n Cass, Lewis, 246\n\n _Cathedral, The_, 266\n\n Catullus, 453\n\n _Cavaliers of Virginia, The_, 41, 45\n\n Chadwick, John White, 330, 338\n\n _Chainbearer, The_, 232, 234, 236\n\n _Chambered Nautilus, The_, 453\n\n Channing, William Ellery, 188, 252, 300, 314, 317, 319, 325, 326,\n 327, 328-338, 339, 342, 357, 361, 371, 390, 393, 420, 435, 443,\n 454, 456\n\n ----, William Ellery (Younger), 401\n\n ----, William Henry, 108, 228, 241, 347, 348, 428, 429\n\n Chapman, Mrs., 351\n\n _Chardon Street Convention, The_, 345\n\n _Charlemont_, 130\n\n Charles I, King, 372\n\n \u201c_Charming Creature\u201d as a Wife, The_, 172\n\n Chase, L. B., 102\n\n Chaucer, 47\n\n _Chicora and Other Poems_, 103\n\n Child, Francis, 465\n\n ----, Lydia Maria, 351\n\n Choate, Rufus, 152, 329, 367, 368, 397, 398, 421, 423\n\n _Chronicle, The_, 206\n\n Churchill, Charles, 452\n\n _Civil Disobedience_, 409, 410, 411\n\n _Civil Liberty and Self-Government_, 95\n\n _Clarel_, 265, 266-267\n\n Clark, George Rogers, 138\n\n Clarke, J. F., 429, 430\n\n Clay, Henry, 4, 34, 37, 46, 48, 67, 69, 71, 122, 138, 139, 142-144,\n 145, 150, 152, 153, 209, 218, 242, 243, 249, 296, 298, 309,\n 333, 353, 365, 366, 397, 399\n\n Clayton, Augustus S., 176\n\n Cleon, 398\n\n Cliffton, William, 188\n\n _Climbing the Natural Bridge_, 46\n\n Clinton, De Witt, 201\n\n Clough, Arthur Hugh, 265\n\n Cobbett, William, 185, 186\n\n Cobden, Richard, 241\n\n Coke, Sir Edward, 15, 47, 117\n\n _Col. Crockett\u2019s Exploits and Adventures in Texas_, 173, 178 n\n\n Coleridge, Samuel T., 58, 381, 389\n\n Collins, Wilkie, 458\n\n _Columbus_, 464 n\n\n _Commentaries on American Law_, 199\n\n _Commentaries on the Constitution_, 301-303, 311, 312\n\n Commons, John R., 250, 252, 253, 254\n\n Comte, Auguste, 30\n\n Condillac, Etienne de, 382\n\n Condorcet, Marquis de, 10, 11, 293\n\n _Congressional Debates_, 175\n\n Congreve, William, 54\n\n _Connecticut_, 202\n\n _Constitutional History of Greece, The_, 116\n\n _Constitutional View of the War between the States_, 9, 56, 83, 88,\n 89, 90 n, 91, 302\n\n _Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States, The_, 311\n\n _Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated_, 299\n\n Conway, Moncure D., 90\n\n Cooke, Jay, 474\n\n ----, John Esten, ii, 28\n\n Cooper, James Fenimore, 37, 131, 133, 135, 141, 183, 193, 196, 204,\n 207, 208, 216, 220, 222-237, 238, 257, 266, 457\n\n ----, James Fenimore (grandson), 207 n, 229\n\n ----, Judge William, 194, 224, 225\n\n ----, Dr., 72\n\n\n _Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper_, 207 n, 229\n\n Cotton, Rev. John, 118\n\n _Country, The_, 103\n\n _Courier and Enquirer, The_, 253\n\n Cousin, Victor, 381\n\n Coverley, Sir Roger de, 52\n\n Cowper, William, 188, 264\n\n Crafts, William, 112-114\n\n _Crater, The_, 226\n\n Crawford, W. H., 168\n\n _Cream of the Jest, The_, 259\n\n Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur, Hector St. John de, 215\n\n _Croaker Papers_, 200\n\n Crockett, Davy, 45, 138, 147, 162, 165, 172-179, 192, 366\n\n Cromwell, Oliver, 213, 464\n\n Cruse, Peter Hoffman, 48\n\n Cujacius, 117\n\n Curtis, George William, 238\n\n Cushing, Caleb, 362, 365\n\n\n _Daniel Webster_, 297 n\n\n Dante, 440, 466\n\n Darwin, Charles, 419, 455\n\n Davis, Jefferson, 4, 62, 65-66, 70, 86, 146, 299, 468\n\n _Debating Society, The_, 172\n\n _Declaration of Whig Principles and Purposes_, 310\n\n _Decline of Aristocracy in New York Politics_, 199, 224, 244\n\n _Democracy_, 467 n\n\n _Democracy, Pacific and Constructive_, 244\n\n Dennie, Joseph, 187\n\n De Quincey, Thomas, 258\n\n Dew, Professor, 102\n\n _Dial, The_, 348\n\n Dickens, Charles, 47, 127, 141, 441\n\n Dickinson, John, 186\n\n _Discourses on Government_, 354\n\n _Disquisition on Government, A_, 75 n, 77, 79, 299\n\n _Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan, The_, 214\n\n _Divina Commedia_, 440\n\n _Divinity School Address_, 337, 390\n\n _Domnei_, 260\n\n _Don Quixote_, 31\n\n Douglas, Stephen A., 153, 397, 398\n\n Drake, Joseph Rodman, 200\n\n _Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp_, 377\n\n _Dred Scott_, 157\n\n Dryden, John, 31, 104, 289\n\n Dumas, Alexandre, 216\n\n _Dutchman\u2019s Fireside, The_, 220\n\n Dwight, Theodore, 278\n\n ----, Timothy, 71, 188, 240, 324, 340, 371\n\n\n _Early Spanish Ballads_, 116\n\n _Ecclesiastes_, 264\n\n _Echo, The_, 24\n\n _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, The_, 13 n, 15, 19\n\n Edward I, King, 260\n\n Edwards, Jonathan, 71, 321, 323, 324, 372, 373, 379, 399, 445\n\n Eliot, Rev. John, 201, 343\n\n _Elliot\u2019s Debates_, 83\n\n Elliott, S. K., 102\n\n _Elsie Venner_, 454, 459\n\n _Emancipation of Labor, The_, 256\n\n Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 108, 226, 230, 258, 264, 266, 304, 314, 316,\n 317, 319, 337, 344, 349, 373, 379, 380, 383, 384, 385, 386-399,\n 401, 409, 412, 420, 426, 429, 431, 433, 439, 447, 449, 451,\n 455, 462, 474\n\n _Encyclopedia Americana_, 94\n\n _English Serfdom and American Slavery_, 102\n\n _English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_, 461\n\n _Epipsychidion_, 259\n\n _Epistle of Robert Hogbin, Esq._, 201\n\n _Essays_ (Emerson), 387, 390\n\n _Essay on Politics_, 393, 394, 396, 397\n\n _Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with Reference to the Duty of\n American Females_, 342 n\n\n _Essay on Thoreau_, 346 n\n\n Evans, George Henry, 254\n\n _Evening Post, The_, 102 n, 239, 242 n, 244, 245\n\n Everett, Edward, 109, 159, 317, 319, 320, 329, 397, 399, 423, 437,\n 458, 460\n\n _Examination of the Late Proceedings in Congress Respecting ... the\n Secretary of the Treasury, An_, 15\n\n _Exclusion of Slavery from the Territories, On the_, 312-313\n\n\n \u201cFalkland,\u201d 287\n\n _Fanny_, 202\n\n _Federal Orrery, The_, 294\n\n _Federalist, The_, 24, 196, 286, 302, 303\n\n Felton, Professor, 367\n\n Fenn, William W., 324 n, 327\n\n Fenno, John, 186, 206\n\n _Ferdinand and Isabella_, 434\n\n Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 382, 430\n\n Fielding, Henry, 128\n\n _Fight, The_, 172\n\n Fillmore, President Millard, 47\n\n Filmer, Sir Robert, 215\n\n Fink, Mike, 138, 192\n\n _First Settlement of England, The_, 306, 307-308\n\n Flint, Rev. Timothy, 51, 140, 141, 162-163, 211\n\n _Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi_, 133, 162, 166\n\n Follen, Professor Charles, 94, 441\n\n _Forayers, The_, 132, 134\n\n Forrest, Edwin, 191\n\n Fourier, Fran\u00e7ois Charles Marie, 30, 244, 251, 348, 349, 431\n\n Fox, Dixon Ryan, 199, 224, 244\n\n _Francis Berrian, or the Mexican Patriot_, 163\n\n Franklin, Benjamin, 11, 185, 225, 228, 308\n\n _Frederick Douglass_, 431\n\n Freiligrath, Ferdinand, 439\n\n Freneau, Philip, 186, 196\n\n Frothingham, Octavius B., 348, 379, 380, 384\n\n _Fugitive Slave Law, The_, 315\n\n Fuller (Ossoli), Margaret, 314, 349, 426-434, 436, 439, 448\n\n ----, Timothy, 427\n\n\n Gage, General, 459\n\n Gaines, Francis Pendleton, 102 n\n\n Galloway, Joseph, 186\n\n _Gander Pulling, The_, 172\n\n Gansevoort, Maria, 259, 260, 261\n\n ----, Major-General Peter, 260\n\n Garland, Hamlin, 213\n\n Garrison, William Lloyd, 256, 314, 319, 332, 341, 343, 351, 352-361,\n 365, 366, 411, 415, 416, 420, 431, 448, 458\n\n Gen\u00eat, Citizen, 292\n\n _Genius of Universal Emancipation, The_, 353\n\n _George Balcombe_, 162\n\n George, Henry, 467\n\n _George Mason, the Young Backwoodsman; or \u201cDon\u2019t Give up the Ship_,\u201d\n 163\n\n _Georgia Historical Quarterly, The_, 177 n\n\n _Georgia Scenes_, 51, 162, 166, 168, 169, 172, 178 n\n\n _Georgia Theatrics_, 172, 178 n\n\n _Gladiator, The_, 191\n\n Gladstone, W. E., 472\n\n _Glance Behind the Curtain, A_, 464, 464 n\n\n _Godey\u2019s Lady\u2019s Book_, 187\n\n Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 257, 468, 471\n\n Godwin, Parke, 200, 243, 244\n\n ----, William, 11, 22, 33, 188, 189, 190, 242, 331, 335, 336, 409\n\n Goethe, 389, 430, 433\n\n Gournay, Vincent de, 11\n\n _Governor Clinton\u2019s Speech_, 201 n\n\n Grant, General U. S., 48\n\n Grattan, C. Hartley, 466 n\n\n Gray, Edward, 48\n\n ----, Elizabeth, 48\n\n ----, Thomas, 31, 188\n\n Grayson, William J., 103-108, 110, 111, 256\n\n Greeley, Horace, 101, 107, 108, 200, 208, 238, 242, 244, 247-258,\n 352, 399, 432, 458\n\n Green, Duff, 36\n\n Greene, General, 132\n\n _Greenfield Hill_, 340\n\n Grimk\u00e9, Angelina, 342 n, 432\n\n ---- Sisters, 343, 351\n\n Grotius, 117, 306\n\n _Gulliver\u2019s Travels_, 262\n\n _Guy Rivers_, 130\n\n\n Hale, Edward Everett, 462 n\n\n Hall, Captain Basil, 215\n\n ----, James, 51, 140 n, 162, 164, 172, 211\n\n Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 200, 238\n\n Hamilton, Alexander, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 24, 36, 48, 89, 93, 94, 95,\n 138, 143, 148, 156, 196, 197, 198, 206, 227, 245, 285, 291,\n 297, 305, 309, 316, 473\n\n Hammond, Governor, 102\n\n _Harbinger, The_, 244\n\n Harper, Chancellor, 102\n\n _Harpe\u2019s Head_, 164, 165, 172\n\n Harrington, James, 5, 305, 306, 307\n\n _Harrison Gray Otis_, 341 n\n\n Hartford Wits, The, 24, 188\n\n _Harvard Graduates_, 467\n\n Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 259, 265, 442-450\n\n Hayes, President Rutherford B., 472\n\n Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 126\n\n ----, Robert Young, 310, 330\n\n Hedge, Frederick Henry, 430\n\n Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 318\n\n Heine, Heinrich, 439\n\n Helper, Hinton R., 133\n\n Henry, Patrick, 33, 34\n\n Hergesheimer, Joseph, 445\n\n _Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic_, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265\n\n Hervey, James, 31\n\n Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 314, 344 n, 351, 414\n\n Hildreth, Richard, 438\n\n _Hints toward Reforms_, 250 n, 252 n, 257\n\n _Hireling and the Slave, The_, 103, 104, 108\n\n _History of the American Drama, A_, 191\n\n _History of the Congregational Churches in the United States_, 324 n,\n 325 n\n\n _History of the United States_, 437-438\n\n Hoar, Judge, 402\n\n Hobbes, Thomas, 78\n\n Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 163\n\n ----, Josiah Ogden, 206\n\n ----, Matilda, 206\n\n Holmes, Abiel, 454\n\n ----, Oliver Wendell, 260, 319, 320, 451-459, 460\n\n _Home as Found_, 141, 229, 230, 233\n\n _Homeward Bound_, 233\n\n Hone, Philip, 245\n\n _Hopes and Fears for Art_, 407\n\n Hopkins, Samuel, 329, 340, 373, 375-376\n\n Hopkinson, Francis, 186\n\n Horace, 453\n\n _Horace Greeley_, 254 n\n\n _Horace Greeley and the Working-Class Origins of the Republican\n Party_, 250, 252, 253, 254\n\n _Horseshoe Robinson_, 41, 51, 53\n\n _Horse Swap, The_, 172\n\n _House of the Seven Gables, The_, 446\n\n Howells, William Dean, 466\n\n Huger, Alfred, 103\n\n Hughes, Thomas, 469\n\n Hume, David, 385\n\n Hunt, Gaillard, 71, 72 n, 80\n\n Hutchinson, Governor Thomas, 276\n\n\n _Ichabod_, 315\n\n _Illinois Monthly Magazine, The_, 164\n\n _Independent in Politics, The_, 471 n, 469\n\n _Industrial Worker, The_, 141\n\n _Inquiry into the Nature of the Constitution of the United States,\n An_, 299\n\n _Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the\n United States, An_, 15\n\n _Inquiry into the Principles and Tendencies of Certain Public\n Measures, An_, 15\n\n _Introductory Remarks_, 326, 333-334, 336\n\n _Introduction to the Old Testament_, 417\n\n _Invention of Letters, The_, 291\n\n Irving, Pierre M., 205\n\n ----, Washington, 29, 47, 49, 50, 51, 54, 172, 183, 195, 200,\n 203-212, 213, 218, 238, 471\n\n ----, William, 213\n\n Jackson, Andrew, 4, 8, 26, 29, 34, 36, 37, 55, 63, 90, 122, 139,\n 145-152, 154, 156, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 198, 207, 241, 242,\n 243, 249, 298, 309, 353\n\n ----, Stonewall, 65, 70\n\n Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 345, 382\n\n _Jacobiniad, The_, 294\n\n _James Russell Lowell_, 465\n\n _James Russell Lowell and his Friends_, 462 n\n\n _Java Head_, 445\n\n Jay, John, 196, 198, 224, 225, 227\n\n Jefferson, Thomas, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21, 22, 26, 33, 38, 61,\n 62, 66, 69, 70, 71, 77, 84, 88, 89, 90, 111, 119, 120, 142,\n 146, 148, 150, 151, 153, 158, 159, 206, 228, 239, 240, 241,\n 243, 251, 252, 272, 277, 278, 284, 287, 288, 300, 301, 302,\n 335, 366, 383, 390, 394, 396, 421, 430, 462, 468, 473\n\n _Jefferson Davis, A Memoir by his Wife_, 146\n\n _Jeffersonian Democracy in New England_, 255 n\n\n Jeremiah, 282\n\n _Jeremy Bentham and the Utilitarians_, 116\n\n _John Bull in America_, 214\n\n _John G. Whittier_, 367\n\n _John Greenleaf Whittier_, 351\n\n Johnson, Andrew, 468\n\n ----, Dr. Samuel, 35, 109\n\n _Jonathan Wild_, 128\n\n _Journal_ (Thoreau), 411 n\n\n _Journals_ (Emerson), 317, 344, 349, 386, 387, 391, 392, 393 n, 395,\n 398, 399, 409\n\n _Justice and Expediency_, 362, 377\n\n Juvenal, 453\n\n\n Kane, Elisha Kent, 50\n\n Kant, Emmanuel, 343, 382, 430\n\n _Katherine Walton_, 128 n\n\n Keats, John, 111, 453\n\n Kennedy, John Pendleton, ii, 28, 37, 41, 46-56, 160, 172, 177, 203,\n 377\n\n ----, William Sloane, 367\n\n Kent, Chancellor James, 117, 196, 197-199\n\n ----, William, 198\n\n _Kentuckian in New York, The_, 41, 45, 46, 377\n\n King, Charles, 245\n\n ----, Rufus, 196\n\n Kirkland, President, 280, 281, 284-285\n\n Kirkpatrick, John Ervin, 140, 141\n\n Kneeland, Abner, 463, 469\n\n \u201cKnickerbocker\u201d _History_, 212\n\n _Knickerbocker Magazine, The_, 46, 163\n\n _Knights of the Horse-Shoe, The_, 45\n\n Knox, General, 291\n\n _Koningsmarke_, 216, 218, 219\n\n\n Lamar, L. Q. C., 62\n\n ----, President, 170\n\n _Landing at Plymouth, The_, 3 n\n\n Landor, Walter Savage, 389\n\n _Last Days of John Brown, The_, 412\n\n _Last Leaf, The_, 260\n\n _Last of the Mohicans, The_, 235\n\n _Law of God and the Statutes of Men, The_, 421 n\n\n _Leaves of Grass_, 466\n\n _Leaves from Margaret Smith\u2019s Journal of Massachusetts Bay_, 363\n\n _Leben Jesu_, 417\n\n _Lectures on Constitutional Law_, 299\n\n Lee, General Robert E., 29, 65\n\n Legar\u00e9, Hugh Swinton, ii, 96, 103, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114-124,\n 168, 169, 438\n\n _Legends of the West_, 164\n\n Leggett, William, 200, 208, 243, 244, 245\n\n Leonard, Daniel, 276\n\n _Letter to A. C. Henry_ (Lincoln), 155\n\n _Letter to the Members of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society of\n Boston_, 417 n, 418, 419, 420\n\n _Letters of James Russell Lowell_, 437 n, 461, 462 n, 463, 466, 467,\n 469, 470, 471\n\n _Letter of Mr. Paul Ambrose on the Great Rebellion in the United\n States_, 56\n\n _Letters from the South_, 198, 216 n, 217\n\n _Letters on Slavery_, 102\n\n Lewis, Matthew Gregory (\u201cMonk\u201d), 220\n\n _Liberator, The_, 341, 353, 359\n\n _Life and Adventures of Arthur Clenning, The_, 163\n\n _Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, The_, 347-348, 414, 417 n\n\n _Life and Letters of Joseph Story, The_, 301\n\n _Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, The_, 453\n\n _Life and Letters of Washington Irving, The_, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210\n\n _Life of Andrew Jackson_, 148, 149\n\n _Life of William Lloyd Garrison_, 256 n, 332 n, 342 n, 344, 344 n,\n 353-354, 356, 358, 359-360, 365, 368\n\n _Life of James Louis Petigru_, 103, 104, 111\n\n _Life of John P. Kennedy_, 48\n\n _Life of John Marshall_, 22, 24\n\n _Life of Martin Van Buren_, 173, 174, 176, 177\n\n _Life of Milton_, 466\n\n _Life of Henry David Thoreau_, 314\n\n _Life of Washington_, 211\n\n _Life of Whitman_, 367\n\n _Life Without and Life Within_, 430 n, 431\n\n _Literary History of America, A_, 416 n, 427\n\n Lieber, Francis, 93-98\n\n Lincoln, Abraham, 4, 66, 152-160, 242, 420 n, 422, 473\n\n _Literary History of Philadelphia_, 185\n\n _Literature of the Middle Western Frontier, The_, 164\n\n Livingston, Chancellor, 227\n\n Locke, John, 197, 198, 199, 228, 282, 287, 305, 380, 381, 382, 420\n\n Longfellow, Henry W., 319, 320, 439-441, 453, 465\n\n Longstreet, Augustus Baldwin, 51, 162, 166-172, 176, 178\n\n _Lord Byron\u2019s Character and Writings_, 116\n\n Loring, Commissioner Edward G., 360, 368, 411, 423\n\n _Lost Occasion, The_, 367\n\n Lovejoy, Elijah P., 246, 333\n\n Lowell, Rev. Charles, 402, 463\n\n ----, Francis Cabot, 462\n\n ----, James Russell, 266, 314, 315, 351, 368, 436, 440, 460-472, 474\n\n ----, John, 461, 462\n\n _Lucius Junius Brutus_, 284, 285\n\n Lundy, Benjamin, 353\n\n _Lyrical and other Poems_, 114\n\n\n McDuffie, Governor George, 62, 81, 136, 168, 170\n\n Madison, James, 6, 71, 196, 288, 305\n\n _Magnalia Christi Americana_, 371\n\n _Man the Reformer_, 396, 397\n\n Mann, Horace, 399\n\n _Manual of American Literature, A_, 438 n\n\n Marcy, Governor William M., 244\n\n _Mardi_, 260, 261, 262, 263\n\n _Margaret Fuller, A Psychological Biography_, 427 n, 432\n\n Marshall, John, 8, 20-27, 47, 94, 138, 197, 245, 300, 301, 302, 316,\n 473\n\n _Martin Chuzzlewit_, 141\n\n Martineau, Harriet, 351\n\n Marx, Karl, 251, 467\n\n Mason, Col. George, 277\n\n _Massachusetts to Virginia_, 368\n\n Masson, David, 466\n\n Mather, Cotton, 202, 371, 391, 414, 428, 447\n\n May, Samuel J., 351\n\n Mayhew, Jonathan, 325, 326, 462\n\n Mazzini, 428, 433\n\n _Mellichampe_, 129\n\n Melvill, Sir Richard, 260\n\n Melville, Allan, 260, 261\n\n ----, Herman, ii, 58, 131, 183, 238, 258-267, 445, 449\n\n ----, Major Thomas, 260\n\n _Memoirs and Letters of James Kent_, 198\n\n _Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli_, 429, 430, 431, 434\n\n _Menander to Philenia_, 288\n\n Merriam, Charles A., 72 n, 94, 334 n\n\n Metternich, Prince, 94\n\n _Militia Company Drill, The_, 72\n\n Mill, James, 428\n\n ----, John Stuart, 104, 472\n\n Milton, John, 109, 366\n\n _Minister\u2019s Wooing, The_, 374\n\n _Minutes and Debates of the Constitutional Convention_, 72\n\n Mirabeau, Marquis de, 10, 293\n\n _Moby Dick_, 131, 261, 262, 263\n\n Modestinus, 117\n\n _Monikins, The_, 227, 228, 229\n\n Monroe, James, 71\n\n Montesquieu, Charles, 73, 75, 76, 94, 306, 392, 393\n\n Moore, Tom, 30, 111, 114, 185, 187, 200\n\n _Moral Bully, The_, 453, 454\n\n Morison, S. E., 341 n\n\n Morley, John, 472\n\n Morris, Gouverneur, 194, 196, 230, 280\n\n ----, Robert, 8, 21, 183, 195\n\n ----, William, 396, 406, 407, 408, 472\n\n Morse, Jedidiah, 321\n\n ----, John T., 453\n\n ----, S. F. B., 50\n\n Morton, Mrs. Sarah Wentworth, 288\n\n Motley, John Lothrop, 83, 438\n\n Mott, Lucretia, 35, 428\n\n\n Napoleon, 240\n\n _Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee_,\n 172, 174, 175\n\n _Narrative of the Surprizing Works of God_, 445\n\n Nathan, James, 428\n\n _Nation, The_, 468, 470\n\n _National Philanthropist, The_, 342\n\n _Nature_, 390, 447\n\n _Nature and Progress of Liberty_, 291\n\n _Nebraska Question, The_, 420, 421-422, 424\n\n Nemours, Du Pont de, 3, 10, 243\n\n Nevins, Allan, 102 n, 242 n, 244, 245\n\n _New England Chattels_, 102\n\n _New Views of the Constitution of the United States_, 299\n\n _New York Herald, The_, 102 n, 356-357\n\n _Nick of the Woods, or the Jibbenainosay_, 135, 191, 192, 235\n\n Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 94\n\n Nightingale, Florence, 107\n\n _North American Review, The_, 111, 442\n\n Norton, Andrews, 329, 454\n\n ----, Charles Eliot, 441, 460, 465, 470\n\n Novalis, 430\n\n Noyes, John Humphrey, 343-346, 355, 359\n\n\n Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson, 185\n\n _Oceana, The_, 306, 307\n\n _Old Cambridge_, 341 n\n\n _Old-Town Folks_, 372, 373, 374\n\n _One-Hoss Shay, The_, 453, 454\n\n _Orations and Addresses_, 201\n\n _Origin of Species, The_, 419\n\n _Origin, History and Influence of Roman Legislation, The_, 116\n\n _Ossian_, 31, 111, 186\n\n Ossoli, Count, 428\n\n Otis, Harrison Gray, 279, 353\n\n ----, James, 325\n\n Owen, Robert, 30, 242, 349\n\n\n Page, J. W., 102\n\n ----, Thomas Nelson, 28\n\n Paine, Robert Treat, 113, 279, 288-295, 317, 329, 436, 452\n\n ----, Thomas, 11, 12, 22, 88, 96, 284, 288, 342, 356, 366\n\n Papinian, 117\n\n Parker, Theodore, 108, 115, 124, 171, 256, 297 n, 300, 311, 314,\n 315, 316 n, 319, 327, 329, 338, 342, 347, 351, 373, 398, 399,\n 414-425, 426, 430, 433, 439, 455, 456, 458\n\n Parkinson, Richard, 215\n\n Parkman, Francis, 438-439, 458\n\n _Parson Turell\u2019s Legacy_, 453\n\n _Partisan, The_, 53, 134\n\n _Partisan Leader, The_, 35, 36, 37\n\n Pascal, 264\n\n _Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia_, 7, 8\n\n _Patrick Henry, Sketches of the Life and Character of_, 31-33\n\n Paulding, James Kirke, 162, 163, 183, 190, 198, 200, 207, 212-221, 238\n\n Peabody, Elizabeth, 443\n\n ----, Sophia, 443, 449\n\n Peaslee, Mary, 364\n\n Pendleton, L. B., 83, 86, 87, 91\n\n ----, Nancy, 47\n\n _Perfectionist, The_, 343\n\n Perry, Commodore, 50\n\n Petigru, James Louis, 103, 110, 123, 168\n\n Phillips, Wendell, 108, 256, 314, 333, 351, 420, 436, 458\n\n _Phocion_, 287\n\n Pickering, Timothy, 187, 296\n\n Pierpont, John, 365\n\n _Pierre, or the Ambiguities_, 261, 263, 264\n\n Pike, Albert, 162\n\n _Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_, 129\n\n Pinckney, General Charles Cotesworth, 110\n\n Pindar, 402\n\n _Pioneer, The_, 464 n\n\n _Pioneers, The_, 216, 220, 224\n\n Pitt, William, 170, 282\n\n Plato, 252, 259, 264, 318, 381, 427\n\n _Plea for Captain John Brown, A_, 413\n\n Poe, Edgar Allan, 57-59, 127\n\n _Poet of the Breakfast Table, The_, 455, 457, 458\n\n _Poganuc People_, 372, 374\n\n _Political Ethics_, 95\n\n _Political Justice_, 331, 335, 336, 409-410\n\n _Political Science Quarterly, The_, 250\n\n Pope, Alexander, 31, 104, 114, 289, 290, 452, 466\n\n _Port Folio, The_, 187\n\n _Prairie, The_, 232\n\n Prescott, W. H., 367, 438\n\n _Present Age, The_, 395\n\n _Present Crisis, The_, 464, 464 n\n\n Prince, H. L., 154\n\n _Professor at the Breakfast Table, The_, 455, 456\n\n _Progress and Poverty_, 467\n\n _Prometheus_, 463, 464, 464 n\n\n _Prometheus Bound_, 402\n\n _Pro-Slavery Argument_, 102\n\n _Pro-Slavery Propaganda in American Fiction in the Fifties_, 102\n\n _Prose Sketches and Poems_, 162\n\n Pufendorf, Baron von, 117\n\n _Puritan and his Daughter, The_, 215, 216\n\n\n Quesnay, Fran\u00e7ois, 3, 10, 11\n\n Quincy, Edmund, 314, 343, 345, 331, 359, 436\n\n ----, Josiah, 276, 279, 329, 343, 368, 460, 462\n\n Quinn, Arthur Hobson, 191 n\n\n _Quodlibet_, 37, 51, 55, 56, 177\n\n\n Rabelais, 262, 265\n\n _Raciad, The_, 114\n\n Radcliffe, Mrs. Ann, 111\n\n Raleigh, Sir Walter, 307\n\n Randolph, John of Roanoke, 8, 9, 26, 30, 31, 35, 57\n\n Ranke, Leopold von, 437\n\n _Rawle on the Constitution_, 299\n\n _Rebellion, The_, 468 n\n\n _Recollections of a Busy Life_, 249\n\n _Recollections of the Last Ten Years, Passed in Occasional Residences\n and Journeyings in the Valley of the Mississippi_, 163\n\n _Recorder, The_, 201 n\n\n _Red Book, The_, 48, 51\n\n _Redskins, The_, 226 n, 229, 230, 231, 236\n\n Reed, Amy Louise, 446, 448\n\n _Religious History of New England: King\u2019s Chapel Lectures_, 324 n, 327\n\n _Rhymed Lesson, A_, 452 n\n\n Ricardo, David, 241\n\n _Richard Hurdis_, 128, 130\n\n Richter, Jean Paul, 430\n\n _Rights of Man, The_, 12\n\n _Rights of Woman_, 331\n\n Ripley, Dr. Ezra, 199, 402\n\n ----, George, 101, 108, 242, 347, 348, 349, 350\n\n ----, Sophia, 349\n\n _Rise of the Dutch Republic, The_, 438\n\n Rittenhouse, David, 185\n\n _Rob of the Bowl_, 51, 53, 54\n\n Robespierre, 398\n\n _Robinson Crusoe_, 163\n\n Robinson, William A., 255 n\n\n Rogers, Dr., 199\n\n _Romance of American History_, 140 n, 166\n\n Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 11, 22, 242, 261, 264, 284, 318, 331, 345,\n 366, 390, 402, 413, 420, 430, 433, 434, 466\n\n _Ruling Passion, The_, 290\n\n Rusk, Ralph Leslie, 164, 165\n\n Ruskin, John, 101, 406, 407\n\n\n _Saint\u2019s Rest_, 371\n\n _Salmagundi_, 200, 206, 213\n\n Sampson, Abbot, 101\n\n Sanborn, F. B., 314\n\n Sand, Georges, 429\n\n Sargent, John O., 453\n\n _Satanstoe_, 235\n\n Schlegel, August Wilhelm von, 58\n\n Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 382\n\n Scollay, Priscilla, 260\n\n Scott, Sir Walter, 28, 30, 47, 111, 120, 129, 171, 200, 216, 220, 371\n\n _Scout, The_, 133\n\n Scudder, H. E., 465\n\n Sedgwick, Catherine M., 241\n\n ----, Henry M., 241\n\n ----, Theodore, Jr., 241\n\n _Self-Portraiture in the Work of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 446, 448\n\n _Seventh of March Speech, The_, 313, 314, 367, 368\n\n Sewall, Jonathan, 351\n\n ----, Joseph, 276\n\n ----, Samuel, 364, 446\n\n Seward, William Henry, 107\n\n Shakespeare, 47, 129, 130\n\n Shaw, Elizabeth, 259\n\n Shays, Daniel, 276, 282, 284, 297, 340\n\n Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 111, 259, 381, 453\n\n _Shooting Match, The_, 172\n\n _Shoshonee Valley, The_, 163\n\n Sibley, J. L., 467\n\n Sidney, Algernon, 354, 420\n\n \u201cSidney, Edward William,\u201d 36\n\n Simms, William Gilmore, ii, 37, 39, 47, 53, 54, 102, 110, 112,\n 125-136, 169, 190, 232, 474\n\n _Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West\n Tennessee_, 173, 175, 176, 177\n\n _Skipper Ireson\u2019s Ride_, 370\n\n _Slavery_, 333, 335\n\n _Slavery in Massachusetts_, 412\n\n _Social Destiny of Mankind, The_, 251\n\n Socrates, 427\n\n Solomon, 264, 265\n\n _Song, The_, 172\n\n _Songs of Labor_, 370\n\n Sotheran, Charles, 254 n\n\n _South Atlantic Quarterly, The_, 102 n\n\n _Southern Plantation, The_, 102 n\n\n _Southern Quarterly Review, The_, 39\n\n _Southern Review, The_, 112, 114\n\n Smith, Adam, vii, 3, 121, 241, 242, 243, 308, 400\n\n ----, Gerrit, 351, 359, 365\n\n Smollett, Tobias, 128\n\n _Snowbound_, 370\n\n Sparks, Rev. Jared, 330, 367, 437\n\n _Spectator, The_, 31\n\n _Speech on the Compromise Measures_, 313\n\n _Speech at New Haven_, 154\n\n _Speech at Springfield_, 157, 159\n\n _Speech in Wall Street_, 309 n\n\n Spinoza, 264\n\n _Spirit of the Sub-Treasury_, 122\n\n Spotswood, Governor Alexander, 7, 45\n\n Sta\u00ebl, Madame de, 381\n\n Stansbury, Joseph, 186\n\n Stanton, Theodore, 438 n\n\n _State Rights Sentinel, The_, 171\n\n Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 200, 238\n\n Stephen, Leslie, 461, 469\n\n Stephens, Alexander H., 39, 56, 62, 64, 65, 69, 82-93, 94, 167, 302,\n 473\n\n Sterne, Lawrence, 31, 33, 35\n\n Stiles, Rev. Ezra, 199\n\n Stoddard, Richard Henry, 200, 238\n\n Story, Joseph, 83, 88, 93, 117, 197, 260, 297, 300-303, 304, 311\n\n ----, W. W., 301\n\n Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 107, 314, 371-378, 428\n\n _Stranger in America, The_, 95\n\n Strauss, David Friedrich, 417\n\n Stuart, Moses, 367\n\n _Studies in Psychology_, 446\n\n _Sullivan\u2019s Island_, 114\n\n Sumner, Charles, 106, 351\n\n _Swallow Barn_, 28, 41, 50, 51, 52, 172, 377\n\n Swift, Jonathan, 228, 453\n\n Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 436, 466\n\n Swinton, Mary, 115\n\n\n Taine, Hippolyte, 466\n\n Tandy, Jeannette Reid, 102\n\n Tappan, Arthur, 351\n\n ----, Lewis, 351, 362\n\n _Tariff, The_, 308 n\n\n Taylor, John of Caroline, ii, 14-19, 20, 21, 29, 61, 90, 122, 123,\n 150, 153, 170, 217, 277, 299, 336\n\n ----, Zachary, 71\n\n _Tempora Mutantur_, 470\n\n _Tent on the Beach, The_, 369\n\n Thackeray, William Makepeace, 47, 54\n\n _Thanatopsis_, 239\n\n _Thirty Years\u2019 View_, 14, 151\n\n _Thomas Carlyle and his Works_, 413\n\n Thoreau, Henry David, 156, 258, 264, 266, 314, 319, 367, 389, 394,\n 400-413, 426, 433, 440, 449, 451, 458, 460\n\n Thornton, W. T., 241\n\n Ticknor, George, 116, 367, 437\n\n _Timothy Flint, Pioneer, Missionary, Author, Editor_, 140, 141\n\n Toombs, Robert, 39, 62, 86, 91\n\n Tocqueville, Alexis de, vi\n\n _Tour of the Prairies, A_, 211\n\n _Transcendentalism in New England_, 348, 379, 380, 381\n\n _Transcendentalist, The_, 384, 385\n\n _Transient and Permanent in Christianity, On the_, 338\n\n _Treatise on True Virtue, A_, 372\n\n Trent, Professor William Peterfield, 39, 131\n\n _Tribune, The_, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253, 254, 255\n\n _Tristram Shandy_, 31, 47\n\n Trollope, Mrs., 215\n\n Tucker, Henry St. George, 299\n\n ----, Nathaniel Beverley, ii, 35-40, 41, 42, 47, 57, 119\n\n Tuckerman, Henry T., 48, 238\n\n Turner, J. M. W., 407\n\n ----, Nat, 355\n\n Twain, Mark, 159, 172, 259, 366\n\n Tweed, \u201cBoss,\u201d 471\n\n Tyler, President John, 8, 116\n\n _Typee_, 261\n\n Ulpian, 117\n\n _Uncle Robin in his Cabin in Virginia and Tom without one in Boston_,\n 102\n\n _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_, 102, 376, 377, 441\n\n _Unitarian Christianity most Favorable to Piety_, 330-331\n\n\n Van Buren, Martin, 36, 55, 197, 203, 207, 217, 246\n\n Vanderbilt, Commodore, 231, 474\n\n Van Doren, Carl, 133\n\n Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 194, 195, 231\n\n Vattel, Emrich von, 117\n\n _Virginians, The_, 54\n\n Voet, 117\n\n Voltaire, 382\n\n _Vote Yourself a Farm_, 254\n\n\n Waddell, Dr. Moses, 168\n\n Wade, John Donald, 169, 170, 177 n\n\n _Walden_, 400, 403, 405, 406, 407, 408, 413\n\n Walker, Nathaniel, 327\n\n ----, Williston, 324, 324 n\n\n Ware, Norman, 141\n\n Washington, George, 7-8, 21, 48, 159, 194, 211, 265, 291, 292, 300,\n 301, 356, 437\n\n _Waverley Novels_, 216\n\n Weaver, Raymond, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265\n\n _Webster Address_, 424\n\n Webster, Daniel, 37, 67, 69, 88, 90, 94, 116, 122, 144, 159, 177, 207\n n, 227, 242, 246, 252, 278, 298, 299, 300, 301, 304-316, 317,\n 330, 335, 359, 367, 368, 387, 397, 398, 399, 412, 424, 458\n\n Weed, Thurlow, 197\n\n _Week, The_, 404, 406\n\n Weems, \u201cParson,\u201d 437\n\n Weiss, John, 347, 412, 417 n, 422 n\n\n Weld, Isaac, 215\n\n Welles, Gideon, 64\n\n Wendell, Barrett, 416 n, 427\n\n Wertenbaker, Thomas J., 7, 8\n\n _Western Monthly Magazine, The_, 164\n\n _Western Souvenir, The; A Christmas and New Year\u2019s Gift for 1829_, 164\n\n _Westward Ho!_, 162, 163, 217, 220\n\n Wette, Wilhelm Martin de, 417\n\n Wharton, Edith, 435\n\n _White Jacket_, 262\n\n White, Maria, 351, 463, 465\n\n Whitman, Walt, 127, 183, 222, 244, 264, 265, 366, 367\n\n Whittier, John G., 244, 314, 315, 319, 351, 352, 359, 361-370, 377\n\n ----, Robert, 364\n\n _Wieland_, 190\n\n _Wilderness and the War-Path, The_, 165\n\n Willard, President, 292\n\n William IV, King, 452\n\n _William Ellery Channing_, 330, 338\n\n _William Gilmore Simms, Life of_, 39\n\n Williams, Roger, 97, 327, 345, 379, 399\n\n Willing, Mrs., 207 n\n\n Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 200, 202, 238\n\n Wilson, Henry, 469\n\n _Windsor Forest_, 114\n\n Winthrop, John, 124\n\n ----, Robert C., 47, 49\n\n Wirt, William, 29, 30-35, 47, 48, 49, 56, 169\n\n Wollstonecraft, Mary, 188, 189, 242, 331, 430, 432\n\n _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_, 432\n\n _Woodcraft_, 131, 134\n\n Woods, Leonard, 367\n\n Woolsey, Theodore, 94\n\n Wordsworth, William, 111, 381, 389, 453, 466\n\n _Working Man\u2019s Advocate, The_, 254\n\n _World\u2019s Fair, The_, 470\n\n Wright, Fannie, 242, 244, 428\n\n ----, Henry C., 343, 358\n\n _Wyandott\u00e9_, 235\n\n Wythe, George, 25, 29, 142, 143\n\n\n Yates, Robert, 72\n\n _Yemassee, The_, 134, 135\n\n Young, Edward, 31, 111, 254\n\n\n\n\nThe Beginnings of Critical Realism in America [Volume Three]\n\n\n\n\nVernon Louis Parrington\n\n\nThe sudden death of Professor Vernon Louis Parrington in England, June\n16, 1929, cut tragically short his labors on the last volume of _Main\nCurrents in American Thought_. Of this third volume approximately the\nfirst half had been completed, which, together with the outline of\nthe work and some scattered essays in sections otherwise undeveloped,\nconstitutes all that the author left. Unfinished it is, yet no\ncompletion by another can be justified. That anyone could duplicate\nhis felicity of style, so unobtrusively individual, so sensitively\nadjusted to the freighted thought, is hardly to be hoped for; and\nmore important, that another scholar could accurately reproduce his\ninterpretation is an assumption not to be warranted. The decision to\npublish the author\u2019s incomplete work is a tribute to his brilliance.\n\nNevertheless it is possible to know Professor Parrington\u2019s chief\nintentions, particularly when one understands, as his associates did,\nhis principles for organizing materials and his standards of value.\nStudents as well as associates first of all noticed beneath the\nrichness and complexity of his thought a constancy of purpose as clear\nas the treatment of mass in a Gothic cathedral. Indeed it was through\na delight in architecture pursued as a hobby for many years that\nParrington expressed this desire for a unity, balanced, harmonious, and\nproperly proportioned.\n\nThis architectonic feeling, abundantly illustrated in his writing\nhabits, was carried over not only into his classroom procedure and\nconversation, but also into his varied interests. Painting as well as\narchitecture had long intrigued him. Though few people knew it, he\nwrote poetry distinguished for restraint in expression and clarity of\nform; while in conversation he persistently sought the appropriate\nphrase, spiced it with wit, salted it with homely realism; for no\ngentleman of the eighteenth century was more conscious of the charms of\ngood discourse.\n\nProfessor Parrington\u2019s classroom procedure had a reputation that\nattracted students not much interested in literature and which appealed\nto all ranges of intellect. The source of that popularity was the\npersonality of the teacher, together with his gift for presenting\nideas and evoking a response. By means of a Socratic cross-examination\nParrington made the student discover his intellectual deficiencies;\nwhile the class, to its astonishment and delight, found the quest for\ntruth both elusive and exciting. Surprise and satisfied expectation\nkept the easily bored from sinking into apathy, for there was no\ntelling from day to day just what Professor Parrington was going to do.\nHe paired every occasion with a fitting response; yet this flexibility\ndid not degenerate into an aimless drifting, since he persistently\nsimplified his main objectives and concentrated the material to be\nstudied, while expressing its meaning through a significant symbol\nor a telling phrase. His classes in the eighteenth century, for\nexample, were given the concept of harmony, balance, and proportion.\nThey found it in architecture, they saw it in dress, they heard it in\nconversation, they watched it work out in the heroic couplet, they\npursued it in Addison, Pope, and Swift; in short, they analyzed the\nwhole social structure of the age and discovered it everywhere. A\ngerminal idea, Parrington liked to call it, while he held it before the\nclass like a many-faceted crystal, slowly turning it around and around\nso the student could see every face. As a result no student who had\ntaken the course ever forgot the significance of this architectonic\ntrilogy.\n\nIn writing habits there was a similar all-encompassing purpose. He\nhabitually began with his thesis--a phrase, a sentence, or a revealing\nfigure. This was examined and stripped of its implications as one\nwould peel an onion layer by layer. So imperious was the habit of this\nprocedure that his ability to write would be blocked until he had in\nmind a perfectly crystallized concept expressible at the maximum in one\nsentence. An example of this occurred shortly before he left on his\ntrip to England. He had been working on the period that Mark Twain had\nlabeled the \u201cGilded Age,\u201d but found the title inadequate to his idea,\nand, as a result, his writing did not get on. Another day some weeks\nlater there was an obvious satisfaction expressed in his bearing and an\nexceptionally pronounced twinkle in his eye. \u201cI have found the phrase,\u201d\nhe said; \u201cI will call it The Great Barbecue.\u201d Similarly, the three\nvolumes of this work began in a single paragraph which by progressive\nunfoldings he expanded to its present scope.\n\nAfter having made a provisional outline, with each section condensed\ninto a single sentence, he began writing, completing a unit here or\nthere as circumstance and mood directed. When it was completed the\nprocess of readjustment began. Each portion was inspected for its\nlength, which had to be fitted to its relative importance; an emphasis\nhere was shifted to balance an emphasis there; the mood of one part\nwas altered to make it harmonize with the mood of its neighbor. As\nmany as twelve times he rewrote a single section in this complex and\ndelicate effort for harmonious adjustment. Finally, he made from this\nhis finished outline.\n\nKnowing Professor Parrington\u2019s methods one can now understand the\nproblem he faced and the solution he found when bent on the task of\nwriting a history of American literature. Although he was by nature\npartial to the claims of aesthetics, yet it was obvious to him that\nsuch an approach was foredoomed to failure. All too few of the American\nwriters would deserve treatment on any aesthetic test, while many\nwho were undeniably significant could not possibly be left out even\nthough inferior artistically. Moreover, one only had to look at the\nnumerous attempts already made to see the failure of the belletristic\ninterpretation. What were these histories of American literature?\nSprawling lists of names arranged in a fashion that gave little save\nconventionalized data and some dubious evaluations. Already there was\na widespread demand for a new interpretation growing out of these past\nfailures.\n\nProfessor Parrington found the first step to a solution when he\nremembered the day he opened Taine\u2019s _Histoire de la litt\u00e9rature\nanglaise_. It had come as a new and inspiring discovery to find a\nmethod that envisaged the literature of a people as the inevitable\noutgrowth of their racial peculiarities, environment, and epoch. It is\ntrue that the claim set up by Paine, that his method was scientific\nand could account for every phenomenon, proved to be unfounded;\nbut nevertheless his work was epoch-making; it gave a unity and a\nsignificance never before attained, and this was what attracted\nParrington. Nothing less unifying than Paine\u2019s method was thinkable.\n\nA second source of inspiration came from a close friend and colleague,\nJ. Allen Smith, another pioneer figure, who applied to the abstract\ntheorizings of political science the economic realities that underlie\nand determine them. The method was so fruitful of results that it\nquickly spread to a group of American political scientists, from whose\nfindings much of Parrington\u2019s significant work received its first\nflattering confirmation. Under such a stimulus Parrington was quick to\nrealize the fruitfulness of economic determinism when applied even to\nliterature.\n\nA third idea completed the synthesis. When he envisaged American\nliterature as American thought, the trammel of the belletristic was\nbroken and he was free to re\u00ebvaluate American writers, to follow the\ntrail of their work wherever it led; for at last he had found a method\ntrue to facts, yet one which would satisfy his insatiable demand for\na significant unity, balanced, harmonious, and properly proportioned.\nThe economic forces imprint their mark upon political, social, and\nreligious institutions; literature expresses the result in its thought\ncontent.\n\nBut a technique, though vitally necessary, is not the end of the\nstory. There still remains, even for the most impartial scholar, the\nfinal and, be it admitted, inescapable evaluation. Parrington was\ntoo honest with himself to dodge the issue; he made his choice and\nabided the result. In the foreword to the first volume he made his\nconfession: \u201cThe point of view from which I have endeavored to evaluate\nthe materials is liberal rather than conservative, Jeffersonian rather\nthan Federalistic; and very likely in my search I have found what I\nwent forth to find, as others have discovered what they were seeking.\nUnfortunately the _mens aequa et clara_ is the rarest of attributes,\nand dead partisanships have a disconcerting way of coming to life\nagain in the pages of their historians. That the vigorous passions and\nprejudices of the time I have dealt with may have found an echo in my\njudgments is, perhaps, to be expected; whether they have distorted my\ninterpretation and vitiated my analysis is not for me to determine.\u201d\n\nProfessor Parrington\u2019s _Main Currents in American Thought_ has, then,\nfor its subject the adventures of American liberalism. To anyone alive\nto the issue an adventurous story it is, as becomes more apparent\nwhen the author\u2019s own liberalism is completely understood. Those\nsections where his sympathies are kindled, where he stamps his seal of\nenthusiastic admiration, provide the clue which his treatment of Roger\nWilliams, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau,\nChanning, and Theodore Parker assuredly verifies. All of his latent\nenthusiasms burst into bloom until, as in his essay on Roger Williams,\nnothing less than the cadence and passion of the Song of Solomon would\nexpress it. \u201cRunning through his writings is a recurrent echo of the\nHebrew love-song that Puritan thought suffused with glowing mysticism:\n\u2018I am my beloved\u2019s and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the\nlilies.... I will arise now, and go about the city in the streets, and\nin the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth.\u2019 But when he\nwent into the broad ways of Carolinian England, seeking the rose of\nSharon and the lily of the valley, he discovered only abominations. The\nlover was tempted by false kisses; the Golden Image was set up in the\nhigh places, and the voice of authority commanded to bow down to it.\nAnd so as a Christian mystic Roger Williams became a Separatist, and\nset his mind upon the new world where the lover might dwell with his\nbride.\u201d[477]\n\nThe liberalism of Parrington had this great virtue, which all too\nmany creeds lack: it was built on an obligation first to examine and\nunderstand all points of view before exercising the right to condemn\nthem. Although he disliked the personalities and groaned at the dreary\npages of men like Cotton Mather, yet he was not satisfied until he got\nat their marrow. And again there was an abiding sense of the humane\nin Parrington before which all abstractions, generalizations, and\nlogical systems had to pass in review. He feared above all, as did the\nsensitive Jefferson, the cancer of power. \u201cMan,\u201d he used to say, \u201chas\nnever proved himself worthy of an unrestrained control of his fellows,\nnor has any special group of men ever been dominant without injustice\nto others.\u201d Combined with this love of freedom was an urbanity and\na sense of personal integrity not subject to the interference of\noutside forces in convention or mob--an integrity which so impressed\neveryone having contact with the man, that he has been often called\nan aristocrat. Parrington would not have objected to the label, nor\nhave seen it as contradictory to the principles of liberalism, since\nin his opinion only liberalism expressing itself in a democratic\nsociety provides for the free exercise of personal rights. Elevating\noneself by riding on the shoulders of others, a common device of the\npseudo-aristocrat, was to him but a vulgar gymnastic performance.\n\nWhen he described Jefferson \u201cwith his aristocratic head set on a\nplebeian frame\u201d[478] he was unconsciously describing himself, for there\nwas a deep love of the soil in Parrington. One saw it, surprisingly, in\nhis hands. They were thick and sturdy, blunted at the ends as if from\ntoo much delving into the black loam of his flower garden, where roses,\npeonies, and crocuses were cherished companions, and the delight of his\nleisure hours. He secretly suspected the apartment dweller as any true\nfarmer would; and though there was a twinkle in his eye when he called\nNew York a Babylon or spoke of its corrupting influence on scholar and\nartist, yet there was a meaning implied more serious than the jest.\n\nIt was Parrington\u2019s hope to vindicate this liberalism \u201cstemming,\u201d as\nhe said, \u201cfrom the fruitful loins of the eighteenth century.\u201d As he\ndiagnosed it, that era had two creative currents of thought: a hopeful,\nvigorous liberalism, together with a sturdy realism which did not balk\nat men\u2019s selfishness or deny the economic basis of social forces.\nUnfortunately the nineteenth-century liberal attended only to hopes\nand neglected the realism, while the swelling forces of industrialism\naccepted the economic realities but cynically brutalized them. Failure\nwas the inevitable result; the liberals despair while Babbitt, regnant,\ninfests the country with his blustering agents. In the unfinished\nsection of this last volume it was Parrington\u2019s purpose to show this\nparlous state of twentieth-century America, to discern the hopeful\ngleam in the darkness, and to uncover the hidden forces working for a\nmore stable and just society. Parrington\u2019s point of view then, was that\nof a staunch and kindly liberalism, the motif in the three volumes,\nthe theme never absent from a page of the whole composition. It is a\nliberalism not to be found in any program yet formulated by political\nparty or economic sect; it is rather a generous idealism that can\nenvisage a future richer in values, more humane in distribution of\nfavors than any known past. Wise to the ways of man, such a liberalism\nrefuses confinement in the strait-jacket of any set formula, yet\nescapes the emasculation awaiting mere enthusiasm; for it can separate\nfoes from friends and recognize the point where compromise means\nsurrender.\n\nIf my analysis thus far is to any purpose it will suggest what these\nmain objectives that Parrington never completed were to have been. The\nunfinished Book Two was to chronicle three parties of revolt against\nthe plutocracy born of the Gilded Age. Of these rebellions the first\nwas engendered on the Middle Border, where the farmers, beset by hard\ntimes, struck out against the source of their ills. As the agrarians\ndiagnosed the situation, these economic maladjustments were brought on\nby a currency manipulated for the benefit of creditors, and further\nenhanced by capitalistic control of the political machine. One of the\nlast of Parrington\u2019s completed units deals with the economic phase of\nthe revolt; the next section was to record the farmer\u2019s effort to\ndemocratize the government. Through pressure of third-party movements\nthe farmers tried to inject such reforms as the initiative and\nreferendum, the recall, the direct primary, and the income tax; until,\nseduced by Bryan\u2019s oratory, they joined with the Democrats in an attack\nupon the intrenchments of capitalism. As Parrington saw it, these\nagrarian descendants of Jefferson, lacking the intellectual leadership\nwhich the South had contributed in earlier days, at a tactical\ndisadvantage, and already a minority economic group, were fated to lose\ntheir last great uprising.\n\nAlso out of the valley of the Mississippi came a literature of the\nMiddle Border. Such writers as Edward Eggleston and E. W. Howe had\nalready initiated a realism that revealed the drabness of frontier\nlife and suggested its smoldering discontent, although the pastoral\nnote fathered by the genial and romantic James Whitcomb Riley did not\nlack its prose children. Notably did Meredith Nicholson, William Allen\nWhite, and Booth Tarkington[479] portray the village neighborliness,\nits wholesomeness, its spirit of democracy, until they cast such a fog\nof sentiment over the scene as to blur all the realities. But the true\nspirit of Populism is represented in the impassioned work of Hamlin\nGarland, whose \u201cadmirable realism and passionate democracy\u201d Parrington\ndepicts in a chapter that he completed.\n\nThe second chorus of dissent came from the very citadels of plutocracy,\nfor the wage-earners, unable to escape slavery by flight to an\nunshackled frontier that no longer existed, were brought to bay. The\ndoctrine of class war, which had been ignored since the eighteenth\ncentury, was revived by the German socialists and given an added\nplausibility by the employers\u2019 unscrupulous use of injunction, black\nlist, and lockout. T. V. Powderly, who found a solution to the labor\nproblem in syndicalism, organized the Knights of Labor. Although this\nunion had a promising inception, it was soon wrecked, while the craft\nunionism recommended by Samuel Gompers forged to the front because of\nits middle-class ideology and spirit of compromise. On the other hand\nthe left wing of the labor cause embraced various brands of socialism.\nThe tragic flare-up of the Haymarket riot, which resulted in a \u201cred\u201d\nscare and persecution of the humane Governor Altgeld, served Parrington\nas a dramatic illustration of the obloquy that descended upon the\nleaders of socialism, Daniel De Leon, Eugene V. Debs, and Victor\nBerger. Needless to say, Parrington had planned a vindication of them\nhorn of his desire to see more justice in the world.\n\nThere were echoes of this proletarian strife manifested in the world\nof letters. Certain writers following Edward Bellamy joined the quest\nfor a socialistic Utopia. Parrington had completed his passage on\nBellamy, but of the party formed to agitate for principles advanced in\n_Looking Backward_ and of the other writers of Utopian novels, such as\nTourg\u00e9e, he left no treatment. A second set of writers were grouped\ntogether by reason of their common concern over the darkening future\nof American civilization. Edwin Markham, his humanitarian sympathies\naroused, penned an indictment of wage exploitation in his \u201cThe Man with\nthe Hoe\u201d that caused no little concern in its day and spurred defenders\nof the existing economic system to offer liberal prizes for an equally\nconvincing reply. The emergence of naturalism, seen in Stephen\nCrane[480] and Frank Norris,[480] was also a response to the darkening\nsocial outlook. Parrington defined naturalism as \u201ca pessimistic realism\nthat sets man in a mechanical world.\u201d He traced this pessimistic\ndeterminism to the machine industrialism so overwhelming in its power\nas to impress man with his own impotence, to the centralization of\nwealth, which causes a caste regimentation of society, and finally to\nthe great city, which reduces the inhabitant to an infinitesimal unit\nof a vast beehive. Other writers, equally oppressed by this state of\naffairs, concentrated on the phenomena of the city. It was here that\nParrington intended to discuss Henry B. Fuller, Harold Frederic, Robert\nGrant, and Edith Wharton.[481]\n\nThe third party of revolt was a hesitant one--the South, still\nconvalescing from the Civil War and further weakened by divisions in\nits counsels. Though burdened by parochial creeds, weakened by lack of\nintellectual leadership, the agrarian South, largely plebeian, joined\nthe Middle Border in its uprising. The middle-class South, represented\nby Henry W. Grady, proposed a surrender to the Yankee principle of\nindustrial exploitation, while the remnant of the old aristocracy\nresisted the new and clung to the traditions of the past. Thomas Nelson\nPage, Joel Chandler Harris, Mary Murfree, and George Washington Cable\nattended to these romantic traditions of the plantation, the negro, the\nmountaineer, and the creole; while Sidney Lanier[482] became the poet\nof southern landscape and sunrise. Far more significant in Parrington\u2019s\neye was the rebirth of a southern intelligentsia represented in letters\nby Ellen Glasgow, W. W. Woodward, the debunker, and James Branch\nCabell,[483] the ironic romanticist. Professor Parrington, who had\nbeen among the first to appreciate Cabell, admired the competence of\nhis style and the effectiveness of his ironic commentary on American\ncivilization.\n\nBook Three was to present the movement of liberalism from 1903 to\n1917, and the reaction to it following the war. Parrington called\nthis period of liberalism the \u201cgreat stock-taking venture.\u201d These\nliberals announced that the democratic hopes of earlier days had not\nbeen fulfilled, that the Constitution is not a democratic instrument\nnor was it intended to be, and that while Americans were professing to\ncreate a democracy, they had been creating in fact a plutocracy. They\nthen determined upon a new program based on their discovery of the\nrelations between economics and politics. Such relations made necessary\nthe control of property by the collective will, and to that end they\nendeavored to squeeze the Hamiltonian state into a Jeffersonian\nmold.[484]\n\nThe muckrakers of 1903 to 1910 attacked the plutocracy where its joints\ncreaked. In effect this group of writers from Henry D. Lloyd to Charles\nEdward Russell, Gustavus Meyers, and A. M. Simons popularized economics\nand made the liberals conscious of what was going on behind the closed\ndoors of the directors\u2019 meetings. On the other hand, the movement of\nProgressivism, engaged in the hopeless task of directing the political\nmachinery to democratic ends, was typified by Robert La Follette,\nTheodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Only one, La Follette, remained\ntrue to the colors; the other two compromised, then surrendered, and\nthe hopes of liberalism went down in a tragic _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_.\n\nIn the realm of letters this liberalism found expression in three major\ngroups of writers. A set of intellectuals turned critical began to\nscrutinize the economic, political, and social institutions of America.\nOf these critics Parrington considered Randolph Bourne and Charles A.\nBeard[485] the most important. Another set turned to fiction, shifting\ntheir point of view from liberalism to radicalism, from politics to\neconomics. Winston Churchill[486] had discovered the emptiness of\nthe profit motive with its resultant destruction of beauty, freedom,\nand creative craftsmanship. Similarly Robert Herrick[486] became a\npathologist of the city, investigated its ethics, and then rebelled\nat the predatory egoism which ruled its life to the destruction of\nall ethical integrity. At his best Jack London[487] wrote of the\nrevolution, though later selling out to bigger and better royalties;\nwhile Upton Sinclair became the revolutionary sleuth spying upon the\nindecencies of the capitalist system. Perhaps these novelists were too\nseriously engaged in social criticism and reform propaganda to become\ngreat craftsmen, yet they were to Parrington important writers, because\nthey were in touch with deep currents of American thought.\n\nStill a third set of writers turned to a realistic technique\nappropriate to the times, yet avoided the weakness inherent in direct\npropaganda. The poets Masters,[488] Sandburg, Frost, and Robinson,\nParrington chose for consideration as realists with an art, an\nunderlying criticism of conditions, and a philosophy that set them\nabove the other poets of the time. For the same reasons he had planned\na section on Huneker. Theodore Dreiser,[489] because of his massive\ndocumentation, his deterministic philosophy, and his sense of the\ninevitable tragedy inherent in life, Parrington labeled a modern,\nmeaning by this that Dreiser most adequately and most thoroughly\nrepresented modern America.\n\nThe last section of the book was to be a consideration of the post-war\nreaction to the liberalism of the preceding period. The economic\ndemocracy which liberals had marked for their goal was now attacked\nby the younger intellectuals. H. L. Mencken turned to farce and\nburlesque for methods adequate to express his contempt of American\ndemocracy. Biologists pointed to the inescapable laws of heredity as a\nrefutation of the liberals\u2019 hopes for social improvement; while some\npsychologists, discovering morons, ruled out all equalitarian Utopias.\nParrington could find little sympathy in his heart for a return to\nthe spirit of aristocracy. This narrow, doctrinaire biology, denied\nby the more careful biologists and the behaviorists who assert that\nenvironment is determining, cannot rule out all environmental changes.\nAs long as the _milieu_ is an effective force in molding the organism,\nroom is left for social betterment by social readjustments. A disputed\npsychology dealing in primitive sex drives, gland secretions, and\nintelligence scores is no more conclusive on the subject.\n\nThe attack on industrialism is nearer to the heart of Parrington\u2019s\nideals, because it proved to him that liberalism is not by any\nmeans dead. Such a comprehensive movement enlisting first-class\nminds--intellectuals, poets, novelists, dramatists--revealed clearly\nto him the increasing criticism of a dehumanized economics, and such\ncriticism proceeds from an implicit liberalism.\n\nThe attack on the middle class is seen best in Zona Gale,[490] Evelyn\nScott, and particularly in Sinclair Lewis,[491] whom Parrington\nrated the chief of our younger satirists. This satire is a searching\ncriticism of the _bourgeois_ ideals and habitat, its tyrannical\nherd-mind, its poverty-stricken materialism. By its nature this\nsatire clearly suggests a set of new ideals which grow out of a free\nindividualism rather than a political or economic socialism. The\nemphasis is shifted by implication from externalities to things of the\nspirit. This is more clearly seen in the new philosophies just now\narising, which deny the finality of economic law, turn in politics to\nthe ideal of a decentralized state, and in science to new syntheses\nemphasizing the pragmatic and relative aspects of scientific law.\n\nThe latest literary fashions that Parrington intended to consider\nembody a psychological emphasis seen in the impressionism of biography,\nin the brutal but frank pacifism of war novels,[490] and most\nsignificantly of all in the impressionism and expressionism of Sherwood\nAnderson.[491] Parrington felt that there were rich potentialities\nlatent in these new methods although the writers of the new school\nwere themselves painfully at sea. In technique as well as in direct\nstatement there was to be seen, though obscurely, a renewed emphasis\nupon individual integrity, the necessity for creative expression, and\nthe reaffirmation of what some may choose to call spiritual values.\n\nIn effect he believed that all is not lost. Through the influence of\nscience we are recovering the neglected realism of the past; we are\nnot only reaffirming it but making its acquaintance more intimately\nthan ever before. Weld that science to enlightened and humane\naspirations (Parrington believed that there was nothing in the findings\nof science that prevented the union) and a revivified liberalism will\nmake the world a fit place to live in. It is by no means an easy\nprogram, for it requires knowledge of fact, and ability to carry\nknowledge into the sphere of effective action. It is made doubly\ndifficult by the untimely death of one of its chief proponents, yet in\nthe young men and women whom he liked to have around him there must\nbe, however obscurely, a feeling and a groping for the way out. They\nwill be guided and inspired by such utterance as Parrington\u2019s diagnosis\nof Sinclair Lewis, where he quarries out a vein of his own enduring\nliberalism.\n\n\u201cSome lingering faith in our poor human nature he still clings to. In\nthe great American mass that human nature is certainly foolish and\nunlovely enough. It is too often blown up with flatulence, corroded\nwith lust, on familiar terms with chicanery and lying; it openly\ndelights in hocus pocus and discovers its miracle-workers in Comstocks\nand Aimee Semple McPhersons. But for all its pitiful flabbiness\nhuman nature is not wholly bad, nor is man so helpless a creature of\ncircumstance as the cynics would have us believe. There are other and\ngreater gods than Mumbo Jumbo worshiped in America, worthier things\nthan hocus pocus; and in rare moments even Babbitt dimly perceives\nthat the feet of his idol are clay. There are Martin Arrowsmiths as\nwell as Elmer Gantrys, and human nature, if it will, can pull itself\nout of the trap. Bad social machinery makes bad men. Put the banker\nin the scullery instead of the drawing-room; exalt the test-tube and\ndeflate the cash register; rid society of the dictatorship of the\nmiddle class; and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a\ncivilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a\nthing to be respected. For all his modernity and disillusion learned\nfrom Pullman-car philosophers, Sinclair Lewis is still an echo of Jean\nJacques and the golden hopes of the Enlightenment--thin and far-off, no\ndoubt, but still an authentic echo.\u201d\n\n\u201cThin and far-off, no doubt,\u201d is this contemporary liberalism, yet\nParrington found hints of it in the midst of the war fiasco that\nculminated in reaction and despair. Death did not grant him the\nopportunity to show what he found, but the young men who learned\nfrom him the love of sound craftsmanship, who were inspired by his\nenlightened dreams, will some day complete the monument. In the\nmeantime Vernon Louis Parrington would like to be held in memory as\nhe held his friend, J. Allen Smith--as a \u201cscholar, teacher, democrat,\ngentleman.\u201d\n\n E. H. Eby\n\n _University of Washington\n Seattle, Washington\n March, 1930_\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[477] Vol. I, p. 65.\n\n[478] _Ibid._, p. 343.\n\n[479] See Addenda for notes on these men.\n\n[480] See Addenda for lecture notes on these writers.\n\n[481] See Addenda for brief notes on these writers.\n\n[482] See Addenda for brief notes on these writers.\n\n[483] See Addenda for magazine article on Cabell.\n\n[484] \u201cA Chapter in American Liberalism,\u201d which is included in the\nAddenda, deals with this subject, with the muckraking movement, and\nwith post-war realism.\n\n[485] See Addenda, \u201cA Chapter in American Liberalism.\u201d\n\n[486] See \u201cThe Problem Novel and the Diversion from Naturalism,\u201d in the\nAddenda.\n\n[487] See Addenda for notes on London.\n\n[488] See Addenda, \u201cOle R\u00f6lvaag\u2019s _Giants in the Earth_.\u201d\n\n[489] See Addenda for lecture notes on Dreiser.\n\n[490] See Addenda for brief notes.\n\n[491] See Addenda, \u201cSherwood Anderson: a Psychological Naturalist.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nForeword\n\n\nWith the present volume I bring to a close my studies in the main\ncurrents in American thought. The broad drifts of American opinion,\nas I interpret that opinion, should now be sufficiently clear. The\nvolume immediately preceding the present one dealt with the romantic\nrevolution in America--one of the most stimulating experiences the\nAmerican mind has undergone--which was traced to twin forces: the\ninfluence upon an expansive generation of French romantic thought, and\nthe spirit of robust individualism resulting from a fluid economics;\nand the creative result was the spontaneous emergence in America of\na buoyant spirit of hopefulness that expressed itself in democratic\nprograms and faith in a benevolent progress. The present volume deals\nwith the slow decay of this romantic optimism in more thoughtful minds,\nand the cause of that decay is traced to three sources: the stratifying\nof economics under the pressure of centralization; the rise of a\nmechanistic science; and the emergence of a spirit of skepticism which,\nunder the pressure of industrialism, the teachings of the physical\nsciences, and the lessons of European intellectuals, is resulting in\nthe questioning of the ideal of democracy as it has been commonly held\nhitherto, and the spread of a spirit of pessimism. The custodianship of\nAmerica by the middle class has brought unsuspected consequences in its\ntrain.\n\nThus after three hundred years\u2019 experience we have returned,\nintellectually, to the point from which we set out, and the old\nphilosophy brought to the new world from the compact societies of\nEurope, with its doctrine of determinism and its mood of pessimism,\nhas come back in changed form to color the thinking of our generation.\nEmersonian optimism, that was the fullest expression of the romantic\nfaith, is giving way to Dreiserian pessimism, and the traditional\ndoctrine of progress is being subjected to analysis by a growing\nskepticism. Our intellectual history thus conceived falls into three\nbroad phases: Calvinistic pessimism, romantic optimism, and mechanistic\npessimism. Between the first and the last lies the America of yesterday\nthat shaped the American mind and American institutions; and with\nthe submergence of that native world we are in the way of repeating\nhere the familiar history of Europe, with its coercive regimentations\nreproduced on a larger scale and in more mechanical fashion. Once more\na gloomy philosophy stands on the threshold of the American mind.\nWhether it will enter and take possession of the household, no one can\npredict as yet. This much nevertheless is clear: an industrialized\nsociety is reshaping the psychology fashioned by an agrarian world; the\npassion for liberty is lessening and the individual, in the presence\nof creature comforts, is being dwarfed; the drift of centralization is\nshaping its inevitable tyrannies to bind us with. Whether the quick\nconcern for human rights, that was the noble bequest of our fathers\nwho had drunk of the waters of French romantic faith, will be carried\nover into the future, to unhorse the machine that now rides men and to\nleaven the sodden mass that is industrial America, is a question to\nwhich the gods as yet have given no answer. Yet it is not without hope\nthat intelligent America is in revolt. The artist is in revolt, the\nintellectual is in revolt, the conscience of America is in revolt.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt ought not to be necessary to add that in these volumes I have\nnot essayed to write a history of American literature--that rather\ndifficult task for which no scholar is as yet equipped. But I have\nsuffered so many gentle reproofs for failing to do what I did not set\nout to do, that it may be well to repeat what I said in the Foreword\nto Volume I, that I have been concerned in the present study with the\ntotal pattern of American thought--the broad drift of major ideas--and\nnot with vagrant currents or casual variations. In particular I\nhave been repeatedly taken to task for a seeming slight put upon\ncertain of our artists, and it has been inferred that I slighted\nthem because I chose to ignore whatever did not fit into a rigid\nscheme of economic determinism. Let me say in rebuttal that I hold\nno brief for a rigid scheme of economic determinism. I recognize the\nrich culture potentialities that inhere in individual variation from\ntype, and I realize that the arts are likely to receive their noblest\ngifts from men who should be classed biologically as cultural sports\nor variations from the cultural type. But in such a study as I have\nundertaken, individual variation is significant not for its own sake,\nbut rather for the help it may offer in determining the type. After\ndue consideration I see no cause to apologize for my treatment of Poe,\nfor example, if indeed I have done so. I am content to have placed\nhim historically and culturally in relation to the whole, leaving the\nfascinating problem of his variation from type to those who deal with\nsuch problems.\n\n V. L. P.\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction[492]\n\n\nIn the second volume of my studies I laid down the thesis that at the\nbeginning of our national existence two rival philosophies contended\nfor supremacy in America: the humanitarian philosophy of the French\nEnlightenment, based on the conception of human perfectibility and\npostulating as its objective an equalitarian democracy in which\nthe political state should function as the servant to the common\nwell-being; and the English philosophy of _laissez faire_, based on\nthe assumed universality of the acquisitive instinct and postulating\na social order answering the needs of an abstract \u201ceconomic man,\u201d\nin which the state should function in the interests of trade. And I\npointed out further, with adequate backing up, I hope, that the first\nof these antagonistic philosophies was accepted by the agrarian leaders\nof America and found issue in the Jeffersonian program; that the\nsecond came to dominate the thinking of the mercantile, capitalistic\nAmerica and took form in Hamiltonian Federalism. Unfortunately this\nlogical alignment of diverse economic groups was obscured by the\nneeds of practical politics, and in passing through the explosive\nJacksonian revolution both philosophies underwent subtle changes.\nJacksonianism imposed upon America the ideal of democracy to which\nall must thereafter do lip service, but it lost its realistic basis\nin a Physiocratic economics and wandered in a fog of political\nequalitarianism; and the Whiggery that issued from Federalism turned\nto the work of converting the democratic state into the servant of\nproperty interests. Both political parties contented themselves with an\negoistic individualism that took no account of social ends, forgetful\nof the humanitarian spirit that underlay the earlier democratic\nprogram. The finer spirit of the Enlightenment was lost, and in\nconsequence the major parties chose to follow the economic interests of\nmaster groups, heedless of all humanitarian issues.\n\nBut the spirit awakened by the earlier democratic enthusiasm could\nnot be kept in political strait-jackets. The Jacksonian revolution\noverflowed all narrow party dikes, expressing itself in diverse\nhumanitarian and reform movements and quickening the minds of ardent\nAmericans with larger democratic aspirations. The noble idealism of\nsuccessive third parties that have sprung up reasserted the democratic\nprinciples flouted by the major parties. The Locofoco movement, the\nFree-soil Party, the early Republican Party, the Greenback Party, the\nPopulist Party, the Progressive Party, have had a common objective,\nnamely to carry further the movement inaugurated by the Jeffersonians\nto make of America a land of democratic equality and opportunity--to\nmake government in America serve man rather than property. The\nthird-party movements have always been democratic movements, and though\nthey have failed in their immediate objectives they have served the\npurpose of reminding the major parties--oftentimes rudely--that America\npresumes to be a democratic country. Thus interpreted the history of\nthe political struggle in America since 1790 falls into three broad\nphases: the Jeffersonian movement that asserted the ideal of political\ndemocracy; the Jacksonian movement that established it crudely in\npractice; and the successive third-party movements that attempted\nto regain such ground as had been lost, to extend the field, and to\nperfect the machinery of democratic government.\n\nAs a result of the long struggle the abstract principle of\ndemocracy--during the period under consideration--was firmly\nestablished in the popular mind; but as it fell under the successive\ncustodianship of different economic groups it came to receive strangely\ndiverse interpretations. Interpreted by the coonskin Jacksonians\nit meant political equalitarianism; by the slave economy it meant\na Greek democracy; by the industrial economy it meant the right of\nexploitation. It has changed service with each new master. Always the\nprinciples of Jeffersonianism--of democracy as a humane social order,\nserving the common well-being--have been lost out of the reckoning, and\nexcept in so far as the tendency has been checked by the third-party\nthreat, democratic professions have been only a thin cover under\nwhich the old class warfare has gone forward vigorously. In the\ndecades immediately following the Civil War democracy passed under the\ncustodianship of the middle class, who were busily engaged in creating\na plutocracy, and the major ideas of the earlier movement took on\na characteristic middle-class coloring. The idea of a beneficent\nprogress, which was the flower of the doctrine of human perfectibility,\ncame to be interpreted as material expansion with constantly augmenting\nprofits; and the idea of democracy came to be interpreted as the right\nto use the government of the whole for the benefit of the few.\n\n * * * * *\n\nConsidered historically perhaps the chief contribution of the\nProgressive movement to the democratic cause is to be found in its\ndiscovery of the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the federal\nConstitution. That so obvious a fact so long escaped recognition\nwas due to political causes easily understood. For a century the\nConstitution had been a symbol of national unity, a cohesive\nforce amidst the drift of expansion, a counter influence to the\ndisintegrations of states-rights particularisms; and as such it had\nappealed to the national loyalties of men in every commonwealth. To\ncriticize it was reckoned disloyal. The long process of interpretation\nhad remained in the hands of the lawyers and had been wholly\nlegalistic and antiquarian. In all this earlier commentary--except\nfor a small group of left-wing Abolitionists who repudiated the\nentire instrument--no question as to the democratic spirit of the\nConstitution was raised, no doubts as to its sufficiency as a\nfundamental democratic law were suggested. The class divisions that\npresided at its making were ignored, and the aristocratic spirit of\nits creators was forgotten. But with the rising revolt against the\ncustodianship of government by financial and industrial interests came\na new critical interest in the fundamental law. Discovering that its\nhands were tied the democracy began to question the reason for the\nbonds that constrained its movements. The latent distrust was quickened\nby what was regarded by many as judicial usurpations of power, such\nas the act of the Supreme Court in declaring unconstitutional the\nfederal income-tax law, and the question of the desirability of an\neighteenth-century document that by its complexity unduly impeded the\nfunctioning of the democratic will, was thrust into the foreground of\npolitical debate. It was the struggle of 1789 over again.\n\nThe new school of criticism was historical rather than legalistic. It\nwas concerned primarily with origins--and it must take into account\nthe political theories and class interests of the eighteenth-century\ngentlemen who framed the document. It refused to look upon the Fathers\nas supermen, devoted unselfishly to high patriotic duty, but chose\nto regard them as capable statesmen, saturated with aristocratic\nprejudices, who fearful of losing control of the new venture in\nrepublicanism, took care to shape an instrument that threw sharp\nrestrictions about the majority will.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe theme of the present volume is the industrialization of America\nunder the leadership of the middle class, and the consequent rise of a\ncritical attitude towards the ideals and handiwork of that class. It\nconcerns itself primarily with the spirit of realism that under the\nconstrictions of industrialism and with the spread of scientific modes\nof thought emerged to question the ardent romanticisms of an earlier\nage, and bring under doubt the excellence of a social order created by\nthe Industrial Revolution.\n\nThe field to be traversed is thus predetermined. The interpretation of\nour literature since 1860 must be fitted into the broad lines of our\nnational experience and will follow the main divisions of development.\n\n I. The conquest of America by the middle class and its\n custodianship of democracy. The philosophy of the middle class.\n\n II. The challenge of that overlordship by:\n\n 1. The older democratic agrarianism as expressed chiefly in the\n third-party movements.\n\n 2. The new proletarian philosophy that came likewise out of the\n ferment of the French Revolution, but that traveled a different\n course--through Europe and the earlier continental Industrial\n Revolution, and thence to America.\n\n III. The intellectual revolution brought about by science with the\n results:\n\n 1. The recovery of a spirit of realism.\n\n 2. The appropriation of science by the middle class.\n\n IV. The rise of a detached criticism by the younger intellectuals.\n\nIn dealing with this material it will be necessary to follow sectional\nlines in the earlier decades until the encompassing movement of\ncentralization finally obliterated them and produced a common national\nspirit and purpose.\n\nIn the welter that is present-day America militant philosophies with\ntheir clear-cut programs and assured faiths are wanting, and many feel,\nas Matthew Arnold felt fourscore years ago, that they are dwelling\nbetween worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. The old\nbuoyant psychology is gone and in the breakdown and disintegration of\nthe traditional individualism no new philosophies are rising. Builders\nof Utopias are out of a job. Political and economic theory is in\ncharge of paymasters and is content with the drab rim of the familiar\nlandscape. Retainer-fees have blotted out for it the lovelier horizons\nthat earlier thinkers contemplated. Academic political scientists and\neconomists have largely joined the Swiss guards, and abdicated the high\nprerogative of speculative thought. It is the men of letters--poets and\nessayists and novelists and dramatists, the eager young intellectuals\nof a drab generation--who embody the mind of present-day America; not\nthe professional custodians of official views. They at least decline\nto block the path to the Promised Land with retainer-fees; they at\nleast are free souls, and in the measure of their abilities, free\nthinkers. It is to them therefore that one must turn to discover the\nintellectual currents of later America--to their aspirations as well\nas to their criticisms. Literature at last has become the authentic\nvoice of this great shapeless America that means so much to western\ncivilization. Not theologians any longer, nor political philosophers,\nnor industrial masters, nor bankers, are the spokesmen of this vibrant\nlife of a continent, but the intellectuals, the dreamers, the critics,\nthe historians, the men of letters, in short; and to them one may turn\nhopefully for a revelation of American life.\n\nThe period dealt with in the present study marks the complete\ntriumph of the middle class and the final defeat of the traditional\nagrarianism. The disintegration of the earlier romanticisms, both\nnative and imported, has run its course. The philosophy of Jefferson\nand John Taylor, with its physiocratic bias, its antipathy to a money\neconomy, its love of local autonomy, has been buried in the potter\u2019s\nfield.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAmidst all the turmoil and vague subconscious tendencies, certain ideas\nslowly clarified: first, that the earlier democratic aspirations had\nsomehow failed, that an equalitarian philosophy adapted to frontier\nconditions could not easily be carried over into a centralizing and\nstratifying America and was doomed to eventual defeat; second, that\neven in the supposed heyday of our democracy, we had never achieved a\ndemocracy, but rather a careless individualism that left society at\nthe mercy of a rapacious middle class; third, that we must take our\nbearings afresh and set forth on a different path to the goal. As these\nconvictions slowly rose into consciousness, a quick suspicion of our\nearlier philosophies arose to trouble us. With the growing realism of\nthe times came a belief that our French romantic theories were mainly\nat fault and we must somehow go back to the rationalistic eighteenth\ncentury and start once more to recreate a democratic philosophy. The\ncrux of the matter seemed to lie in the romantic conception of human\nnature. Rousseau and Godwin were the false prophets who led us astray,\nand we must return to the solid realism of John Locke. In the light of\na realistic psychology, with its discovery of morons, and its study\nof mob tendencies, it was no longer possible to take seriously that\nattractive figment of the romantic imagination--man in the state of\nnature, perfectible by following the light of reason, seeking justice.\nMorons do not fit nicely into the older theory--they jar one\u2019s faith in\nhuman perfectibility. In the light of intelligence tests perhaps the\nwhole romantic theory of democracy was only a will-o\u2019-the-wisp. With\nthe very foundations of our traditional philosophy turning to quicksand\nunder our feet, no wonder we are bedeviled by doubts and uncertainties.\nUtopias no longer seem so near at hand as they did; plans and\nspecifications of the ideal commonwealth no longer seem simple matters\nto be drawn by any competent social carpenter. Our jauntiness is gone,\nspeculation is less important than investigation, and in the spirit of\nsober realism we are setting about the serious business of thinking.\n\nIn this thinking two major forces are at hand: economics and\npsychology. In our economic realism we are returning to the spirit\nof the eighteenth century, and adapting the determinism that marked\npolitical thought from Harrington and John Adams to Webster and\nCalhoun; but we are equipped with a psychological knowledge that those\nearlier thinkers lacked. Wedding the new psychology to the older\neconomic determinism, we may hope in a spirit of sober realism to make\nsome progress in our thinking.\n\nYet not too hastily should we abandon our earlier faith: the\neighteenth-century conception of environment as a creative influence\nin determining character is a vital idea not yet adequately explored.\nEven morons may be traced back to adenoids or diets of salt pork\nand whisky or to later machine labor, and aristocracies are still\nseen to be economic. And aristocratic albinos may well breed mobs and\nmorons. Jefferson was not as foolish as many of his disciples have\nbeen, and Jeffersonian democracy still offers hope. Education begins\nto fail--except education to individualize and to summon forth the\npotential intelligence of the younger generation.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[492] The Introduction, as will be readily seen by the reader, is\nnot complete, yet it undoubtedly contains the gist of what Professor\nParrington intended to include in it. He wrote several forms of some\nparts, from which the Introduction as it stands has been pieced\ntogether in logical order. It is probable that the last words he wrote\nwere the significant closing words here--\u201cto summon forth the potential\nintelligence of the younger generation.\u201d--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\n Contents[493] [Volume Three]\n\n\n Introduction: The Great Revolution xxiii\n\n I. [A New America in the Making: Rise of capitalistic industrialism\n submerging the older agrarianism, the Enlightenment,\n the Jacksonian frontier]\n\n II. [Aristocracy Dead: The principle of democracy accepted, yet\n driving toward a plutocracy. A middle-class, urban\n civilization]\n\n III. [Cleavages: Western agrarianism; Eastern capitalism. The\n South confused, bitter, hesitant. Expansion of the frontier\n and the cities. The swift extension of the psychology of\n the city]\n\n IV. [Changing Patterns of Thought: (1) From the frontier came\n the doctrine of pre\u00ebmption, exploitation, progress; (2)\n From the impact of science came the dissipation of the\n Enlightenment and a spirit of realism; (3) From European\n proletarian philosophies came a new social theory]\n\n V. [Certain Drifts: to unity, to realism, to criticism]\n\n\n Book I: Changing America\n\n Changes in traditional economies after the Civil War. The rise of\n American industrialism and the conquest of nature by science.\n The age of the middle class. The last flare-up of the spirit of the\n frontier 3\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Gilded Age\n\n I. The American Scene 7\n\n I. Free America: Half a continent awaiting pre\u00ebmption; new\n raw materials--oil, steel, copper, coal. A new technique\n of exploitation--capital, transportation, machinery. Philosophy\n embraced in three ideals: pre\u00ebmption, exploitation,\n progress 7\n\n II. Figures of Earth: The flowering of Jacksonian frontier\n spirit, simplified to the acquisitive instinct; a crude, dynamic\n energy 10\n\n III. Politics and the Fairy Godmother: The struggle within\n the Republican Party; the gospel of Whiggery and the\n triumph of the American System, Henry Clay 17\n\n IV. The Great Barbecue: How capitalism and agrarianism\n fared--the Homestead Act and railway grants. The shift\n from governmental to private control 23\n\n V. Folk Heroes 26\n\n 1. General Grant 27\n\n 2. Jay Cooke 31\n\n 3. Charles A. Dana 43\n\n II. The Culture of the Seventies: With the decay of aristocratic\n controls, a loss of unity. Three strands: aristocratic,\n romantic, frontier 48\n\n I. New England in Decay: The Genteel Tradition and the\n drift away 50\n\n 1. Thomas Bailey Aldrich and the Genteel 54\n\n 2. The New England Scene: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps;\n Harriet Beecher Stowe; Sarah Orne Jewett; Mary\n Wilkins Freeman 60\n\n II. The Afterglow of the Enlightenment--Walt Whitman 69\n\n III. The Backwash of the Frontier--Mark Twain 86\n\n III. Changing Theory: An agricultural people changing to an\n urbanized people. The railways hasten economic development 102\n\n I. Winds of Economic Theory: The conscription of economics:\n The business man comes to the front 103\n\n 1. Henry C. Carey 105\n\n 2. Francis A. Walker 111\n\n II. The Conscription of Political Theory: The democratic\n and plutocratic trends. Development of the democratic\n principle vs. the cult of the Constitution. New conception\n of the political state 117\n\n 1. Theodore Woolsey 120\n\n 2. [John W. Burgess] 124\n\n III. [The New Ally: The courts: the police power and the fourteenth\n amendment; the injunction]\n\n IV. [Buttressing the Democratic Theory]\n\n 1. A Democratic Economics--Henry George 125\n\n 2. [Supplementing the Democratic Political Theory--Henry\n D. Lloyd]\n\n IV. The Beginnings of Criticism: The pessimists skeptical of\n democracy, the optimists calling for reform of the spoils\n system. No competent critics of industrialism 137\n\n I. The New England Conscience and Capitalism--Wendell\n Phillips 140\n\n II. Morality and Politics--George William Curtis 147\n\n III. English Liberalism and Politics--Edwin Lawrence Godkin\n and the _Nation_ 154\n\n IV. Fiction Considers the State of the Country 168\n\n 1. The Political Novel: _The Gilded Age_; _Democracy_; _An\n American Politician_ 169\n\n 2. [The Economic Novel: _The Bread-winners_] 173\n\n 3. The Beginnings of the Sociological Novel: H. H. Boyesen 179\n\n\n Part II\n\n New Patterns of Thought\n\n I. Disintegration and Reintegration: Two forces creating\n a new ideology, science and the machine. The decay of\n the older theological, political mind, and the emergence\n of an urban mind 189\n\n I. The Victorian Mood--A genial optimism 193\n\n 1. Sociology and the Enlightenment: Condorcet,\n Comte, and the gospel of progress 194\n\n 2. Biology and the Enlightenment: Spencer and the\n philosophy of anarchism 197\n\n 3. The End of the Hopes of the Enlightenment 202\n\n II. The School of Spencer--John Fiske 203\n\n II. The Skepticism of the House of Adams: The flower of the\n sturdy New England character. They fail to adjust to\n the Gilded Age 212\n\n I. Charles Francis Adams--The Business Failure 213\n\n II. Henry Adams--Intellectual 214\n\n III. Brooks Adams--Rebel 227\n\n III. Victorian Realism: In the eighties realism begins to excite\n interest and the movement gets under way, though the\n American taste is still romantic. The psychology of the\n dispersion marking America 237\n\n I. [William James and Pragmatism]\n\n II. Henry James and the Nostalgia of Culture 239\n\n III. William Dean Howells and the Realism of the Commonplace 241\n\n\n Book Two: The Old and the New: Storm Clouds\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Middle Border Rises\n\n I. The Plight of the Farmer 259\n\n I. Democratic Reactions to Plutocracy: The Middle Border\n suffers. Two moods: Buoyancy, depression--the farmer\n deflated. The economic problem 259\n\n II. The Farmer Considers Politics: His intellectual\n equipment--homespun theories derided by the schools. The\n movement of organization: The Grange, The Alliance,\n Populism. The flare-up of the nineties--the doctrine of\n more corn and less hell 263\n\n III. The Greenback Movement: The _laissez-faire_ theory\n abandoned by English economists. American spokesmen: John\n Sherman, David A. Wells, Eleazar Lord. Diverse theories\n of money--the intrinsic-value theory and the quantitative\n theory. The money question a heritage of the Civil War--a\n debtor class and an appreciating standard of value 266\n\n IV. Greenbackism and Peter Cooper 276\n\n V. [Bi-metallism: A heritage of Jacksonian democracy: Ignatius\n Donnelly, \u201cCoin\u201d Harvey]\n\n II. The Democracy of the Age of Innocence 283\n\n I. Capitalistic Encroachments: Due to inadequate democratic\n machinery. The movement to democratize government.\n Plutocracy content with the machine which it controlled;\n hence radical proposals must issue from the\n discontented. After 1870, with few exceptions, popular\n democratic thinking done west of the Allegheny Mountains 283\n\n II. Third-party Movements. A summary of democratic proposals\n of previous movements 285\n\n III. [The Populistic Program: Income tax; the initiative and\n referendum; the recall; direct primary; Australian ballot;\n popular election of Senators; sub-treasuries; proportional\n representation]\n\n IV. [William Jennings Bryan and the Last Battle]\n\n III. Literature and the Middle Border 288\n\n I. [Edward Eggleston and Frontier Realism]\n\n II. [Whitcomb Riley and Folk Romance]\n\n III. Hamlin Garland and the Middle Border. Joseph Kirkland,\n Harold Frederic 288\n\n\n Part II\n\n Proletarian Hopes\n\n I. [Plutocracy and the Workingman: Disruption of industry--strikes\n and lockouts in the Gilded Age. Bitterness of\n conflict. The discovery of the injunction]\n\n I. [Industrialism and the American theory of freedom: Rise of\n labor unions. Passing of the frontier. Incoming of German\n Socialists and the recovery of the doctrine of class war\n lost since the eighteenth century]\n\n II. [The first solution--Syndicalism: T. V. Powderly and the\n Knights of Labor]\n\n III. [The second solution--craft unionism: Gompers and the\n A. F. of L. A middle-class solution]\n\n II. [The Rise of the Left]\n\n I. [The Menace of Socialism: The Haymarket riot; Governor\n Altgeld]\n\n II. [Leaders of the Left: Daniel De Leon; Eugene Debs; Victor\n Berger]\n\n III. The Quest of Utopia 301\n\n I. Edward Bellamy and _Looking Backward_ 302\n\n II. [After Bellamy: \u201cNationalism\u201d; Tourg\u00e9e\u2019s _Murvale Eastman_]\n\n IV. [The Darkening Skies of Letters: The clouds gathering\n on the \u201cgay\u201d horizon of American optimism. Changes in\n the temper of scientific thought point to determinism.\n A gloomier realism on the way, coming first from the\n West] 316\n\n I. [Edwin Markham and \u201cThe Man with a Hoe\u201d]\n\n II. [The Rise of Naturalism: Stephen Crane; Frank Norris[494]]\n\n III. [Fiction Discovers the City]\n\n\n Part III\n\n The Hesitant South\n\n I. [Two Worlds: The aristocratic clinging to the romance of\n the past; the plebeian agrarian joining with the Middle\n Border in its protest against plutocracy. Tom A. Watson.\n The beginnings of industrialism that proposed to exploit\n the cotton and iron of the South]\n\n II. [The Romance of the Past: Thomas Nelson Page and the\n plantation tradition; Joel Chandler Harris and the romance\n of the negro; Mary Murfree and the romance of\n the mountaineer; George Washington Cable and the\n romance of the creole]\n\n III. [Sidney Lanier--the poet of the South[495]]\n\n IV. [Henry W. Grady and the Surrender to the Middle\n Class]\n\n V. [The Southern Intellectual: James Branch Cabell;[496]\n Ellen Glasgow; W. W. Woodward]\n\n\n Book Three: The New America\n\n\n Part I\n\n The Rise of Liberalism[497]\n\n 1. [Movements of Liberalism: Three periods: 1790-1912;\n 1820-1860; 1903-1917. Since 1870 three attitudes towards\n democracy: (1) It has been achieved but the machine\n needs closer attention--civil service reform; (2) It has\n not been achieved because of the Constitution, but it must\n be achieved through remodeling political machinery; (3)\n No intelligent person desires it to be achieved. The movement\n of liberalism (1903-1917) a great stock-taking\n venture]\n\n I. [Discoveries]\n\n 1. [That the democratic program has not been fulfilled]\n\n 2. [That the Constitution is not a democratic instrument,\n and was not intended to be--the clash between\n the Declaration and the Constitution]\n\n 3. [That while professing to create a democracy we have\n been erecting a plutocracy]\n\n II. [Conclusions]\n\n 1. [The rediscovery of the relations between economics\n and politics]\n\n 2. [The necessity of subjecting property to the collective\n will]\n\n 3. [To that end the need of democratizing the machinery\n of government--political Progressivism. The application\n of the Hamiltonian state to the Jeffersonian\n program]\n\n II. [Liberalism and the Journalists: The Muckraking Movement[498]]\n\n I. [The Origins in the Nineties--Henry D. Lloyd\u2019s _Wealth\n vs. Commonwealth_]\n\n II. [The Gathering Clan: Lawson\u2019s _Frenzied Finance_; Ida\n Tarbell; Ray Stannard Baker; _McClure\u2019s_, _The American_,\n _Hampton\u2019s_]\n\n III. [The Left Wing]\n\n 1. [Lincoln Steffens, _The Shame of the Cities_]\n\n 2. [Charles Edward Russell, _The Stories of Great Railroads_]\n\n 3. [Gustavus Myers, _Great American Fortunes_]\n\n 4. [A. M. Simons, _Social Forces in American History_]\n\n III. [Liberalism and Politics: The Movement of Progressivism]\n\n I. [Robert La Follette--The State and Industry]\n\n II. [Theodore Roosevelt--Middle-Class Liberal]\n\n III. [Woodrow Wilson]\n\n\n Part II\n\n Liberalism and Letters\n\n I. [Liberalism and the Intellectuals: The movement becomes\n critical]\n\n I. [Walter E. Weyl--Radical]\n\n II. [Thorstein Veblen--Social Economist]\n\n III. [Charles A. Beard--Political Scientist[498]]\n\n IV. [Herbert Croly--Political Critic]\n\n V. [The Younger Intellectuals: Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck\n Brooks, Waldo Frank]\n\n II. [Liberalism and Fiction: A shift from liberalism to\n radicalism--from politics to economics]\n\n I. [Winston Churchill: From romance to syndicalism[499]]\n\n II. [Robert Herrick: Academic radical[499]]\n\n III. [Jack London: Revolutionist[500]]\n\n IV. [Upton Sinclair: Social detective[500]]\n\n III. [Liberalism and Realism]\n\n I. [The Poets and Realism: Masters, Sandburg, Frost, Robinson]\n\n II. [The Essay--Huneker]\n\n III. [Theodore Dreiser--A Modern[501]]\n\n\n Part III\n\n Reaction\n\n I. [The War and Liberalism: The reaction developed a many-sided\n attack on the liberalisms of the preceding period.\n The older intellectuals had abandoned French equalitarian\n democracy, but set as their goal economic democracy;\n the younger intellectuals attacked the principle of democracy,\n the ideal of industrialism, the culture of the\n middle class]\n\n II. [The Attack on Democracy: A return to the eighteenth\n century spirit of aristocracy. Purveyors of current disgusts]\n\n I. [Philosophical: H. L. Mencken--a Nietzschean critic. A\n cynic who grows witty over American failure]\n\n II. [Biological: The falsity of the perfectionist philosophy derived\n from Locke. Not environment but heredity--the\n isolated germ existence before birth]\n\n III. [Psychological: The discovery of morons. Primitive drives--sex,\n hunger--keep men children. Nevertheless behaviorism\n a denial of the aristocracy of the biological argument,\n holding with Locke that environment is determining]\n\n III. [The Attack on Industrialism: A comprehensive movement\n that enlists first-class minds--intellectuals, poets,\n novelists, dramatists]\n\n IV. [The Attack on the Middle Class: Sinclair Lewis;[502] Zona\n Gale;[503] Evelyn Scott]\n\n V. [New Philosophies]\n\n I. [Economics: Denial of the finality of economic law: A pragmatic\n view--Mitchell]\n\n II. [Political Theory: A decline of the program of industrial\n democracy]\n\n III. [Science: A rejection of the law of causality and a weakening\n of the authority of science]\n\n VI. [New Literary Fashions]\n\n I. [In fiction, impressionism and expressionism--Sherwood\n Anderson[503]]\n\n II. [In biography: The impressionism of psychography]\n\n III. [In war fiction:[503] A brutal realism and frank pacifism]\n\n Addenda 323\n\n Naturalism in American Fiction 323\n\n 1. Stephen Crane 328\n\n 2. Frank Norris 329\n\n \u201cMcTeague\u201d 330\n\n \u201cVandover and the Brute\u201d 332\n\n \u201cThe Octopus\u201d 332\n\n Sidney Lanier 334\n\n The Incomparable Mr. Cabell 335\n\n The Problem Novel and the Diversion from Naturalism 346\n\n Jack London: The Novelist of the Proletariat 352\n\n Upton Sinclair 353\n\n Theodore Dreiser: Chief of American Naturalists 354\n\n Sinclair Lewis: Our Own Diogenes 360\n\n Sherwood Anderson: A Psychological Naturalist 372\n\n A New Romance 372\n\n 1917-1924 373\n\n I. The Small Town in Fiction 373\n\n William Allen White: A Son of the Middle Border 374\n\n Booth Tarkington: The Dean of American Middle-Class Letters 375\n\n Dorothy Canfield (Fisher) 375\n\n II. The Realistic Small Town and the New Naturalism 376\n\n Zona Gale--The Transition from Romance to Realism 377\n\n Donn Byrne 377\n\n Robert Nathan 378\n\n Joseph Hergesheimer: A Sophisticated Romantic 379\n\n III. Certain Other Writers 381\n\n Edith Wharton--The Genteel Tradition and the New Plutocracy 381\n\n Willa Cather: Epics of Women 382\n\n IV. Some War Books 384\n\n John Dos Passos 384\n\n E. E. Cummings 385\n\n Thomas Boyd 385\n\n Laurence Stallings 385\n\n V. Youth in Revolt--Certain Purveyors of the Hectic 385\n\n F. Scott Fitzgerald 386\n\n Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t and Floyd Dell 386\n\n Ben Hecht 386\n\n Ole R\u00f6lvaag\u2019s _Giants in the Earth_ 387\n\n The Short Story 397\n\n A Chapter in American Liberalism 401\n\n Bibliography 415\n\n Index 421\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[493] This is given in full, as Professor Parrington left it, with\nthose parts not completed by him in brackets. Some revision has been\nmade for the parts he completed, but notes have been added to the text\nto show his original intention. For some of the bracketed headings\nafter Part II of Book II some material is given in the Addenda from\nother work of Parrington\u2019s.--_Publisher._\n\n[494] See \u201cNaturalism in American Fiction,\u201d in the Addenda--lecture\nnotes including Crane and Norris.\n\n[495] See Addenda for lecture notes on Lanier.\n\n[496] See Addenda for magazine article on Cabell.\n\n[497] See \u201cA Chapter in American Liberalism,\u201d the last of the Addenda.\n\n[498] See _Ibid._\n\n[499] See Addenda, \u201cThe Problem Novel and the Diversion from\nNaturalism.\u201d\n\n[500] See Addenda for brief notes.\n\n[501] See Addenda for notes of lecture on Dreiser.\n\n[502] See Addenda for reprint of pamphlet on Lewis.\n\n[503] See Addenda for brief notes.\n\n\n\n\nBook One \u2022 Changing America\n\n\nWhen America laid aside its arms after Appomattox and turned back\nto the pursuits of peace it was well advanced toward the goal set\nby Alexander Hamilton three-quarters of a century before. The great\nobstacle that had withheld its feet hitherto had been swept from its\npath. A slave economy could never again thwart the ambitions of the\ncapitalistic economy. The jealous particularism that for a generation\nhad obstructed the inevitable drift toward a coalescing national unity\nhad gone down in defeat. The agrarian South was no longer master in\nthe councils of government; the shaping of the future had fallen to\nother hands and the unfolding of the new order could go forward without\nsouthern let or hindrance.\n\nOther obstacles were falling away of themselves. North as well as\nSouth, the traditional domestic economy was already a thing of the\npast. An easier way to wealth, and one enormously more profitable,\nhad been discovered. The future lay in the hands of the machine that\nwas already dispossessing the tool. In the hurry of the war years\nthe potentialities of the factory system had been explored and the\nready resources of liquid capital had been greatly augmented. From\nthe smoke of the great conflict an America had emerged unlike any the\nearlier generations had known. An ambitious industrialism stood on the\nthreshold of a continental expansion that was to transfer sovereignty\nin America from a landed and mercantile aristocracy to the capable\nhands of a new race of captains of industry. Only the western farmers,\nnewly settled in the Middle Border and spreading the psychology of the\nfrontier through the vast prairie spaces of a greater Inland Empire,\nremained as a last stumbling-block. Other battles with agrarianism must\nbe fought before capitalism assumed undisputed mastery of America;\nbut with the eventual overthrow of the agrarian hosts in their last\nstronghold the path would lie broad and straight to the goal of an\nencompassing industrialism, with politicians and political parties\nits willing servants. There would be no more dissensions in the\nhousehold. With southern Jeffersonians and western agrarians no longer\nsitting as watch dogs to the Constitution, the political state would\nbe refashioned to serve a new age, and the old dream of a coalescing\nnational economy become a reality. The American System was in the way\nof complete establishment.\n\nOther changes impended, and greater. The enthronement of the machine\nwas only the outward and visible sign of the revolution in thought that\ncame with the rise of science. As a new cosmos unfolded before the\ninquisitive eyes of scientists the old metaphysical speculations became\nas obsolete as the old household economy. A new spirit of realism was\nabroad, probing and questioning the material world, pushing the realm\nof exact knowledge into the earlier regions of faith. The conquest of\nnature was the great business of the day, and as that conquest went\nforward triumphantly the solid fruits of the new mastery were gathered\nby industrialism. Science and the machine were the twin instruments\nfor creating a new civilization, of which the technologist and the\nindustrialist were the high priests. The transcendental theologian was\nsoon to be as extinct as the passenger pigeon.\n\nWith the substitution of the captain of industry for the plantation\nmaster as the custodian of society, the age of aristocracy was at an\nend and the age of the middle class was established. A new culture,\ncreated by the machine and answering the needs of capitalism, was to\ndispossess the old culture with its lingering concern for distinction\nand its love of standards--a culture that should eventually suffice\nthe needs of a brisk city world of machine activities. But that would\ntake time. In the meanwhile--in the confused interregnum between\nreigns--America would be little more than a welter of crude energy, a\nraw unlovely society where the strife of competition with its prodigal\nwaste testified to the shortcomings of an age in process of transition.\nThe spirit of the frontier was to flare up in a huge buccaneering\norgy. Having swept across the continent to the Pacific coast like a\nvisitation of locusts, the frontier spirit turned back upon its course\nto conquer the East, infecting the new industrialism with a crude\nindividualism, fouling the halls of Congress, despoiling the public\ndomain, and indulging in a huge national barbecue. It submerged the\narts and created a new literature. For a time it carried all things\nbefore it, until running full tilt into science and the machine, its\ntriumphant progress was stopped and America, rejecting individualism,\nbegan the work of standardization and mechanization. It is this world\nin transition from an aristocratic to a middle-class order, turmoiled\nby the last flare-up of the frontier spirit, shifting from a robust\nindividualism to a colorless standardization, which the chapters\nthat follow must deal with. A confused and turbulent scene, but not\nwithout its fascination to the American who would understand his\nspecial heritage--perhaps the most characteristically native, the most\nAmerican, in our total history.\n\n\n\n\nPart One: The Gilded Age\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 the American Scene\n\n\nI \u2022 Free America\n\nThe pot was boiling briskly in America in the tumultuous post-war\nyears. The country had definitely entered upon its freedom and was\nsettling its disordered household to suit its democratic taste.\nEverywhere new ways were feverishly at work transforming the\ncountryside. In the South another order was rising uncertainly on\nthe ruins of the plantation system; in the East an expanding factory\neconomy was weaving a different pattern of industrial life; in\nthe Middle Border a recrudescent agriculture was arising from the\napplication of the machine to the rich prairie soil. All over the land\na spider web of iron rails was being spun that was to draw the remotest\noutposts into the common whole and bind the nation together with steel\nbands. Nevertheless two diverse worlds lay on the map of continental\nAmerica. Facing in opposite directions and holding different faiths,\nthey would not travel together easily or take comfort from the yoke\nthat joined them. Agricultural America, behind which lay two and a\nhalf centuries of experience, was a decentralized world, democratic,\nindividualistic, suspicious; industrial America, behind which lay\nonly half a dozen decades of bustling experiment, was a centralizing\nworld, capitalistic, feudal, ambitious. The one was a decaying order,\nthe other a rising, and between them would be friction till one or the\nother had become master.\n\nContinental America was still half frontier and half settled country.\nA thin line of homesteads had been thrust westward till the outposts\nreached well into the Middle Border--an uncertain thread running\nthrough eastern Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, overleaping the Indian\nTerritory and then running west into Texas--approximately halfway\nbetween the Atlantic and the Pacific. Behind these outposts was still\nmuch unoccupied land, and beyond stretched the unfenced prairies till\nthey merged in the sagebrush plains, gray and waste, that stretched to\nthe foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Beyond the mountains were other\nstretches of plains and deserts, vast and forbidding in their alkali\nblight, to the wooded coast ranges and the Pacific Ocean. In all this\nimmense territory were only scattered settlements--at Denver, Salt Lake\nCity, Sacramento, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere--tiny\noutposts in the wilderness, with scattered hamlets, mining camps, and\nisolated homesteads lost in the great expanse. On the prairies from\nMexico to Canada--across which rumbled great herds of buffalo--roved\npowerful tribes of hostile Indians who fretted against the forward\nthrust of settlement and disputed the right of possession. The urgent\nbusiness of the times was the subduing of this wild region, wresting\nit from Indians and buffalo and wilderness; and the forty years that\nlay between the California Gold Rush of \u201949 and the Oklahoma Land Rush\nof \u201989 saw the greatest wave of pioneer expansion--the swiftest and\nmost reckless--in all our pioneer experience. Expansion on so vast a\nscale necessitated building, and the seventies became the railway age,\nbonding the future to break down present barriers of isolation, and\nopening new territories for later exploitation. The reflux of the great\nmovement swept back upon the Atlantic coast and gave to life there\na fresh note of spontaneous vigor, of which the Gilded Age was the\ninevitable expression.\n\nIt was this energetic East, with its accumulations of liquid capital\nawaiting investment and its factories turning out the materials needed\nto push the settlements westward, that profited most from the conquest\nof the far West. The impulsion from the frontier did much to drive\nforward the industrial revolution. The war that brought devastation to\nthe South had been more friendly to northern interests. In gathering\nthe scattered rills of capital into central reservoirs at Philadelphia\nand New York, and in expanding the factory system to supply the needs\nof the armies, it had opened to capitalism its first clear view of\nthe Promised Land. The bankers had come into control of the liquid\nwealth of the nation, and the industrialists had learned to use the\nmachine for production; the time was ripe for exploitation on a scale\nundreamed-of a generation before. Up till then the potential resources\nof the continent had not even been surveyed. Earlier pioneers had only\nscratched the surface--felling trees, making crops, building pygmy\nwatermills, smelting a little iron. Mineral wealth had been scarcely\ntouched. Tools had been lacking to develop it, capital had been\nlacking, transportation lacking, technical methods lacking, markets\nlacking.\n\nIn the years following the war, exploitation for the first time was\nprovided with adequate resources and a competent technique, and busy\nprospectors were daily uncovering new sources of wealth. The coal\nand oil of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the copper and iron ore of upper\nMichigan, the gold and silver, lumber and fisheries, of the Pacific\nCoast, provided limitless raw materials for the rising industrialism.\nThe Bessemer process quickly turned an age of iron into an age of steel\nand created the great rolling mills of Pittsburgh from which issued the\nrails for expanding railways. The reaper and binder, the sulky plow and\nthe threshing machine, created a large-scale agriculture on the fertile\nprairies. Wild grass-lands provided grazing for immense herds of cattle\nand sheep; the development of the corn-belt enormously increased the\nsupply of hogs; and with railways at hand the Middle Border poured into\nOmaha and Kansas City and Chicago an endless stream of produce. As the\nline of the frontier pushed westward new towns were built, thousands\nof homesteads were filed on, and the speculator and promoter hovered\nover the prairies like buzzards seeking their carrion. With rising\nland-values money was to be made out of unearned increment, and the\ncreation of booms was a profitable industry. The times were stirring\nand it was a shiftless fellow who did not make his pile. If he had been\ntoo late to file on desirable acres he had only to find a careless\nhomesteader who had failed in some legal technicality and \u201cjump his\nclaim.\u201d Good bottom land could be had even by latecomers if they were\nsharp at the game.\n\nThis bustling America of 1870 accounted itself a democratic world. A\nfree people had put away all aristocratic privileges and conscious\nof its power went forth to possess the last frontier. Its social\nphilosophy, which it found adequate to its needs, was summed up\nin three words--pre\u00ebmption, exploitation, progress. Its immediate\nand pressing business was to dispossess the government of its rich\nholdings. Lands in the possession of the government were so much\nidle waste, untaxed and profitless; in private hands they would be\ndeveloped. They would provide work, pay taxes, support schools,\nenrich the community. Preemption meant exploitation and exploitation\nmeant progress. It was a simple philosophy and it suited the simple\nindividualism of the times. The Gilded Age knew nothing of the\nEnlightenment; it recognized only the acquisitive instinct. That much\nat least the frontier had taught the great American democracy; and in\napplying to the resources of a continent the lesson it had been so well\ntaught the Gilded Age wrote a profoundly characteristic chapter of\nAmerican history.\n\n\nII \u2022 Figures of Earth\n\nIn a moment of special irritation Edwin Lawrence Godkin called the\ncivilization of the seventies a chromo civilization. Mark Twain, with\nhis slack western standards, was equally severe. As he contemplated\nthe slovenly reality beneath the gaudy exterior he dubbed it the\nGilded Age. Other critics with a gift for pungent phrase have flung\ntheir gibes at the ways of a picturesque and uncouth generation. There\nis reason in plenty for such caustic comment. Heedless, irreverent,\nunlovely, cultivating huge beards, shod in polished top-boots--the last\nrefinement of the farmer\u2019s cowhides--wearing linen dickeys over hickory\nshirts, moving through pools of tobacco juice, erupting in shoddy and\ngrotesque architecture, cluttering its homes with ungainly walnut\nchairs and marble-topped tables and heavy lambrequins, the decade of\nthe seventies was only too plainly mired and floundering in a bog of\nbad taste. A world of triumphant and unabashed vulgarity without its\nlike in our history, it was not aware of its plight, but accounted its\nmanners genteel and boasted of ways that were a parody on sober good\nsense.\n\nYet just as such comments are, they do not reach quite to the heart of\nthe age. They emphasize rather the excrescences, the casual lapses, of\na generation that underneath its crudities and vulgarities was boldly\nadventurous and creative--a generation in which the democratic freedoms\nof America, as those freedoms had taken shape during a drab frontier\nexperience, came at last to spontaneous and vivid expression. If its\ncultural wealth was less than it thought, if in its exuberance it was\nengaged somewhat too boisterously in stamping its own plebeian image on\nthe work of its hands, it was only natural to a society that for the\nfirst time found its opportunities equal to its desires, a youthful\nsociety that accounted the world its oyster and wanted no restrictions\nlaid on its will. It was the ripe fruit of Jacksonian leveling, and\nif it ran to a grotesque individualism--if in its self-confidence it\nwas heedless of the smiles of older societies--it was nevertheless\nby reason of its uncouthness the most picturesque generation in our\nhistory; and for those who love to watch human nature disporting itself\nwith na\u00efve abandon, running amuck through all the conventions, no other\nage provides so fascinating a spectacle.\n\nWhen the cannon at last had ceased their destruction it was a strange\nnew America that looked out confidently on the scene. Something had\nbeen released by the upheavals of half a century, something strong and\nassertive that was prepared to take possession of the continent. It did\nnot issue from the loins of war. Its origins must be sought elsewhere,\nfurther back in time. It had been cradled in the vast changes that\nsince 1815 had been reshaping America: in the break-up of the old\ndomestic economy that kept life mean and drab, in the noisy enthusiasms\nof the new coonskin democracy, in the romanticisms of the California\ngold rush, in the boisterous freedoms discovered by the forties and\nfifties. It had come to manhood in the battles of a tremendous war,\nand as it now surveyed the continent, discovering potential wealth\nbefore unknown, it demanded only freedom and opportunity--a fair race\nand no favors. Everywhere was a welling-up of primitive pagan desires\nafter long repressions--to grow rich, to grasp power, to be strong and\nmasterful and lay the world at its feet. It was a violent reaction\nfrom the narrow poverty of frontier life and the narrow inhibitions\nof backwoods religion. It had had enough of skimpy, meager ways, of\nscrubbing along hoping for something to turn up. It would go out and\nturn it up. It was consumed with a great hunger for abundance, for the\ngood things of life, for wealth. It was frankly materialistic and if\nmaterial goods could be wrested from society it would lay its hands\nheartily to the work. Freedom and opportunity, to acquire, to possess,\nto enjoy--for that it would sell its soul.\n\nSociety of a sudden was become fluid. With the sweeping-away of the\nlast aristocratic restraints the potentialities of the common man\nfound release for self-assertion. Strange figures, sprung from obscure\norigins, thrust themselves everywhere upon the scene. In the reaction\nfrom the mean and skimpy, a passionate will to power was issuing from\nunexpected sources, undisciplined, confused in ethical values, but\nendowed with immense vitality. Individualism was being simplified to\nthe acquisitive instinct. These new Americans were primitive souls,\nruthless, predatory, capable; single-minded men; rogues and rascals\noften, but never feeble, never hindered by petty scruple, never given\nto puling or whining--the raw materials of a race of capitalistic\nbuccaneers. Out of the drab mass of common plebeian life had come\nthis vital energy that erupted in amazing abundance and in strange\nforms. The new freedoms meant diverse things to different men and each\nlike Jurgen followed after his own wishes and his own desires. Pirate\nand priest issued from the common source and played their parts with\nthe same picturesqueness. The romantic age of Captain Kidd was come\nagain, and the black flag and the gospel banner were both in lockers\nto be flown as the needs of the cruise determined. With all coercive\nrestrictions put away the democratic genius of America was setting out\non the road of manifest destiny.\n\nAnalyze the most talked-of men of the age and one is likely to find\na splendid audacity coupled with an immense wastefulness. A note of\ntough-mindedness marks them. They had stout nippers. They fought\ntheir way encased in rhinoceros hides. There was the Wall Street\ncrowd--Daniel Drew, Commodore Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk, Jay Gould, Russell\nSage--blackguards for the most part, railway wreckers, cheaters and\nswindlers, but picturesque in their rascality. There was the numerous\ntribe of politicians--Boss Tweed, Fernando Wood, G. Oakey Hall, Senator\nPomeroy, Senator Cameron, Roscoe Conkling, James G. Blaine--blackguards\nalso for the most part, looting city treasuries, buying and\nselling legislative votes like railway stock, but picturesque in\ntheir audacity. There were the professional keepers of the public\nmorals--Anthony Comstock, John B. Gough, Dwight L. Moody, Henry Ward\nBeecher, T. De Witt Talmage--ardent proselytizers, unintellectual,\nmen of one idea, but fiery in zeal and eloquent in description of the\nparticular heaven each wanted to people with his fellow Americans.\nAnd springing up like mushrooms after a rain was the goodly company\nof cranks--Virginia Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, \u201cCitizen\u201d George\nFrancis Train, Henry Bergh, Ben Butler, Ignatius Donnelly, Bob\nIngersoll, Henry George--picturesque figures with a flair for publicity\nwho tilled their special fields with splendid gestures. And finally\nthere was Barnum the Showman, growing rich on the profession of\nhumbuggery, a vulgar greasy genius, pure brass without any gilding, yet\nin picturesque and capable effrontery the very embodiment of the age. A\nmarvelous company, vital with the untamed energy of a new land. In the\npresence of such men one begins to understand what Walt Whitman meant\nby his talk of the elemental.\n\nCreated by a primitive world that knew not the machine, they were\nmarked by the rough homeliness of their origins. Whether wizened or\nfat they were never insignificant or commonplace. On the whole one\nprefers them fat, and for solid bulk what generation has outdone them?\nThere was Revivalist Moody, bearded and neckless, with his two hundred\nand eighty pounds of Adam\u2019s flesh, every ounce of which \u201cbelonged\nto God.\u201d There was the lyric Sankey, afflicted with two hundred and\ntwenty-five pounds of human frailty, yet looking as smug as a banker\nand singing \u201cThere were ninety and nine\u201d divinely through mutton-chop\nwhiskers. There was Boss Tweed, phlegmatic and mighty, overawing\nrebellious gangsters at the City Hall with his two hundred and forty\npounds of pugnacious rascality. There was John Fiske, a philosophic\nhippopotamus, warming the chill waters of Spencerian science with his\nprodigious bulk. There was Ben Butler, oily and puffy and wheezy,\nlike Falstaff larding the lean earth as he walked along, who yearly\nadded more flesh to the scant ninety-seven pounds he carried away from\nWaterville College. And there was Jim Fisk, dressed like a bartender,\nhuge in nerve as in bulk, driving with the dashing Josie Mansfield down\nBroadway--prince of vulgarians, who jovially proclaimed, \u201cI worship in\nthe Synagogue of the Libertines,\u201d and who on the failure of the Erie\ncoup announced cheerfully, \u201cNothing is lost save honor!\u201d\n\nImpressive as are the fat kine of Egypt, the lean kine scarcely\nsuffer by contrast. There were giants of puny physique in those days.\nThere was Uncle Dan\u2019l Drew, thin as a dried herring, yet a builder of\nchurches and founder of Drew Theological Seminary, who pilfered and\ncheated his way to wealth with tobacco juice drooling from his mouth.\nThere was Jay Gould, a lone-hand gambler, a dynamo in a tubercular\nbody, who openly invested in the devil\u2019s tenements as likely to\npay better dividends, and went home to potter lovingly amongst his\nexotic flowers. And there was Oakey Hall, clubman and playwright,\nsmall, elegant, and unscrupulous; and Victoria Woodhull who stirred\nup the Beecher case, a wisp of a woman who enraged all the frumpy\nblue-stockings by the smartness of her toilet and the perfection of her\nmanners; and little Libby Tilton with her tiny wistful face and great\neyes that looked out wonderingly at the world--eyes that were to go\nblind with weeping before the candle of her life went out. It was such\nmen and women, individual and colorful, that Whitman and Mark Twain\nmingled with, and that Herman Melville--colossal and dynamic beyond\nthem all--looked out upon sardonically from his tomb in the Custom\nHouse where he was consuming his own heart.\n\nThey were thrown up as it were casually out of the huge caldron of\nenergy that was America. All over the land were thousands like them,\nself-made men quick to lay hands on opportunity if it knocked at the\ndoor, ready to seek it out if it were slow in knocking, recognizing no\nlimitations to their powers, discouraged by no shortcomings in their\ntraining. When Moody set out to bring the world to his Protestant God\nhe was an illiterate shoe salesman who stumbled over the hard words\nof his King James Bible. Anthony Comstock, the roundsman of the Lord,\nwas a salesman in a dry-goods shop, and as careless of his spelling\nas he was careful of his neighbors\u2019 morals. Commodore Vanderbilt, who\nbuilt up the greatest fortune of the time, was a Brooklyn ferryman,\nhard-fisted and tough as a burr-oak, who in a lifetime of over eighty\nyears read only one book, _Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_, and that after he was\nseventy. Daniel Drew was a shyster cattle-drover, whose arid emotions\nfound outlet in periodic conversions and backslidings, and who got on\nin this vale of tears by salting his cattle and increasing his--and\nthe Lord\u2019s--wealth with every pound of water in their bellies--from\nwhich cleverness is said to have come the Wall Street phrase,\n\u201cstock-watering.\u201d Jim Fisk was the son of a Yankee peddler, who,\ndisdaining the unambitious ways of his father, set up for himself in a\ncart gilded like a circus-wagon and drove about the countryside with\njingling bells. After he had made his pile in Wall Street he set up his\nown opera house and proposed to rival the Medici as a patron of the\narts--and especially of the artists if they were of the right sex. A\nsurprising number of them--Moody, Beecher, Barnum, Fisk, Comstock, Ben\nButler--came from New England; Jay Gould was of Connecticut ancestry;\nbut Oakey Hall was a southern gentleman; Fernando Wood, with the face\nof an Apollo and the wit of an Irishman, was the son of a Philadelphia\ncigar-maker and much of his early income was drawn from sailors\u2019\ngroggeries along the waterfront; Tweed was a stolid New Yorker, and\nDrew was a York State country boy.\n\nWhat was happening in New York was symptomatic of the nation. If\nthe temple of Plutus was building in Wall Street, his devotees were\neverywhere. In Chicago, rising higgledy-piggledy from the ashes of the\ngreat fire, Phil Armour and Nelson Morris were laying out stockyards\nand drawing the cattle and sheep and hogs from remote prairie farms\nto their slaughter-houses. In Cleveland, Mark Hanna was erecting his\nsmelters and turning the iron ore of Michigan into dollars, while\nJohn D. Rockefeller was squeezing the small fry out of the petroleum\nbusiness and creating the Standard Oil monopoly. In Pittsburgh, Andrew\nCarnegie was applying the Bessemer process to steel-making and laying\nthe foundations of the later steel trust. In Minneapolis, C. C.\nWashburn and Charles A. Pillsbury were applying new methods to milling\nand turning the northern wheat into flour to ship to the ends of the\nearth. In San Francisco, Leland Stanford and Collis P. Huntington were\namassing huge fortunes out of the Southern Pacific Railway and bringing\nthe commonwealth of California to their feet. Everywhere were boom-town\nand real-estate promoters, the lust of speculation, the hankering after\nquick and easy wealth.\n\nIn the great spaces from Kansas City to Sacramento the frontier\nspirit was in the gaudiest bloom. The experiences of three centuries\nof expansion were being crowded into as many decades. In the fifties\nthe highway of the frontier had run up and down the Mississippi River\nand the golden age of steamboating had brought a motley life to Saint\nLouis; in the seventies the frontier had passed far beyond and was\npushing through the Rocky Mountains, repeating as it went the old\nfrontier story of swagger and slovenliness, of boundless hope and\nheroic endurance--a story deeply marked with violence and crime and\nheart-breaking failure. Thousands of veterans from the disbanded\narmies, northern and southern alike, flocked to the West to seek their\nfortunes, and daily life there soon took on a drab note from the alkali\nof the plains; yet through the drabness ran a boisterous humor that\nexalted lying to a fine art--a humor that goes back to Davy Crockett\nand the Ohio flatboatmen. Mark Twain\u2019s _Roughing It_ is the epic of\nthis frontier of the Pony Express, as _Life on the Mississippi_ is the\nepic of the preceding generation.\n\nThe huge wastefulness of the frontier was everywhere, East and West.\nThe Gilded Age heeded somewhat too literally the Biblical injunction to\ntake no thought for the morrow, but was busily intent on squandering\nthe resources of the continent. All things were held cheap, and\nhuman life cheapest of all. Wild Bill Hickok with forty notches on\nhis gun and a row of graves to his credit in Boot Hill Cemetery, and\nJesse James, most picturesque of desperadoes, levying toll with his\nsix-shooter on the bankers who were desecrating the free spirit of the\nplains with their two per cent. a month, are familiar heroes in Wild\nWest tales; but the real plainsman of the Gilded Age, the picturesque\nembodiment of the last frontier, was Captain Carver, the faultless\nhorseman and faultless shot, engaged in his celebrated buffalo hunt\nfor the championship of the prairies. Wagering that he could kill\nmore buffalo in a day than any rival hero of the chase, he rode forth\nwith his Indian marker and dropping the miles behind him he left an\nendless trail of dead beasts properly tagged, winning handsomely when\nhis rival\u2019s horse fell dead from exhaustion. It was magnificent. Davy\nCrockett\u2019s hundred and five bears in a season was but \u2019prentice work\ncompared with Captain Carver\u2019s professional skill. It is small wonder\nthat he became a hero of the day and his rifle, turned now to the\ncircus business of breaking glass balls thrown from his running horse,\nachieved a fame far greater than Davy\u2019s Betsy. With his bold mustaches,\nhis long black hair flying in the wind, his sombrero and chaps and\ntop-boots, he was a figure matched only by Buffalo Bill, the last of\nthe great plainsmen.\n\nCaptain Carver was picturesque, but what shall be said of the thousands\nof lesser Carvers engaged in the same slaughter, market-hunters who\ndiscovered a new industry in buffalo-killing? At the close of the\nCivil War the number on the western plains was estimated at fifteen\nmillions. With the building of the Union Pacific Railroad they were\ncut asunder into two vast herds, and upon these herds fell the hunters\nwith the new breech-loading rifles, shooting for the hide market that\npaid sixty-five cents for a bull\u2019s hide and a dollar and fifteen cents\nfor a cow\u2019s. During the four years from 1871 to 1874 nearly a million\nhead a year were slain from the southern herd alone, their skins ripped\noff and the carcasses left for the coyotes and buzzards. By the end\nof the hunting-season of 1875 the vast southern herd had been wiped\nout, and with the building of the Northern Pacific in 1880 the smaller\nnorthern herd soon suffered the same fate. The buffalo were gone with\nthe hostile Indians--Sioux and Blackfeet and Cheyennes and a dozen\nother tribes.[504] It was the last dramatic episode of the American\nfrontier, and it wrote a fitting climax to three centuries of wasteful\nconquest. But the prairies were tamed, and Wild Bill Hickok and Captain\nCarver and Buffalo Bill Cody had become romantic figures to enthrall\nthe imagination of later generations.[505]\n\nIt was an abundant harvest of those freedoms that America had long\nbeen struggling to achieve, and it was making ready the ground for\nlater harvests that would be less to its liking. Freedom had become\nindividualism, and individualism had become the inalienable right\nto pre\u00ebmpt, to exploit, to squander. Gone were the old ideals along\nwith the old restraints. The idealism of the forties, the romanticism\nof the fifties--all the heritage of Jeffersonianism and the French\nEnlightenment--were put thoughtlessly away, and with no social\nconscience, no concern for civilization, no heed for the future of the\ndemocracy it talked so much about, the Gilded Age threw itself into the\nbusiness of money-getting. From the sober restraints of aristocracy,\nthe old inhibitions of Puritanism, the niggardliness of an exacting\ndomestic economy, it swung far back in reaction, and with the discovery\nof limitless opportunities for exploitation it allowed itself to get\ndrunk. Figures of earth, they followed after their own dreams. Some\nwere builders with grandiose plans in their pockets; others were\nwreckers with no plans at all. It was an anarchistic world of strong,\ncapable men, selfish, unenlightened, amoral--an excellent example of\nwhat human nature will do with undisciplined freedom. In the Gilded Age\nfreedom was the freedom of buccaneers preying on the argosies of Spain.\n\n\nIII \u2022 Politics and the Fairy Godmother\n\nCertainly the Gilded Age would have resented such an interpretation\nof its brisk activities. In the welter of change that resulted from\nthe application of the machine to the raw materials of a continent,\nit chose rather to see the spirit of progress to which the temper of\nthe American people was so responsive. Freedom, it was convinced,\nwas justifying itself by its works. The eighteenth century had been\nstatic, the nineteenth century was progressive. It was adaptable,\nquick to change its ways and its tools, ready to accept whatever\nproved advantageous--pragmatic, opportunist. It was not stifled by\nthe dead hand of custom but was free to adapt means to ends. It\naccepted progress as it accepted democracy, without questioning the\nsufficiency of either. The conception accorded naturally with a\nfrontier psychology. Complete opportunism is possible only amongst a\npeople that is shallow-rooted, that lives in a fluid society, scantily\ninstitutionalized, with few vested interests. In a young society it is\neasy, in a maturing society it becomes increasingly difficult.\n\nDazzled by the results of the new technique of exploitation applied on\na grand scale to unpre\u00ebmpted opportunities, it is no wonder the Gilded\nAge thought well of its labors and confused the pattern of life it\nwas weaving with the pattern of a rational civilization. It had drunk\nin the idea of progress with its mother\u2019s milk. It was an inevitable\nfrontier interpretation of the swift changes resulting from a fluid\neconomics and a fluid society in process of settling into static ways.\nIt served conveniently to describe the changes from the simplicities\nof social beginnings to the complexities of a later order. It was made\nuse of following the War of 1812 to explain the stir resulting from\nthe westward expansion and the great increase in immigration; but it\nwas given vastly greater significance by the social unsettlements\nthat came with the industrial revolution. With the realization of the\ndramatic changes in manner of living--the added conveniences of life,\nrelease from the laborious round of the domestic economy, ease of\ntransportation--that resulted from the machine order, it was inevitable\nthat the idea of progress should have been on every man\u2019s tongue. The\nincrease of wealth visible to all was in itself a sufficient sign of\nprogress, and as the novelty of the industrial change wore off and the\neconomy of America was more completely industrialized, it was this\naugmenting wealth that symbolized it.\n\nIn such fashion the excellent ideal of progress that issued from\nthe social enthusiasms of the Enlightenment was taken in charge by\nthe Gilded Age and transformed into a handmaid of capitalism. Its\nduties were narrowed to the single end of serving profits and its\naccomplishments came to be exactly measured by bank clearings. It\nwas unfortunate but inevitable. The idea was too seductive to the\nAmerican mentality not to be seized upon and made to serve a rising\norder. Exploitation was the business of the times and how better could\nexploitation throw about its activities the sanction of idealism than\nby wedding them to progress? It is a misfortune that America has never\nsubjected the abstract idea of progress to critical examination.\nContent with the frontier and capitalistic interpretations it has\nconfused change with betterment, and when a great idealist of the\nGilded Age demonstrated to America that it was misled and pointed out\nthat the path of progress it was following was the highway to poverty,\nhe was hooted from the market-place.\n\nHaving thus thrown the mantle of progress about the Gold Dust twins,\nthe Gilded Age was ready to bring the political forces of America\ninto harmony with the program of pre\u00ebmption and exploitation. The\nsituation could hardly have been more to its liking. Post-war America\nwas wholly lacking in political philosophies, wholly opportunist. The\nold party cleavage between agriculture and industry had been obscured\nand the logic of party alignment destroyed by the struggle over\nslavery. Democrat and Whig no longer faced each other conscious of the\ndifferent ends they sought. The great party of Jefferson and Jackson\nwas prostrate, borne down by the odium of slavery and secession. In\nthe North elements of both had been drawn into a motley war party,\nmomentarily fused by the bitterness of conflict, but lacking any common\nprogram, certain indeed to split on fundamental economic issues. The\nWhig Republican was still Hamiltonian paternalistic, and the Democrat\nRepublican was still Jeffersonian _laissez faire_, and until it was\ndetermined which wing should control the party councils there would be\nonly confusion. The politicians were fertile in compromises, but in\nnominating Lincoln and Johnson the party ventured to get astride two\nhorses that would not run together. To attempt to make yoke-fellows of\ndemocratic leveling and capitalistic paternalism was prophetic of rifts\nand schisms that only the passions of Reconstruction days could hold in\ncheck.\n\nIn 1865 the Republican party was no other than a war machine that had\naccomplished its purpose. It was a political mongrel, without logical\ncohesion, and it seemed doomed to break up as the Whig party had broken\nup and the Federalist party had broken up. But fate was now on the side\nof the Whigs as it had not been earlier. The democratic forces had lost\nstrength from the war, and democratic principles were in ill repute.\nThe drift to centralization, the enormous development of capitalism,\nthe spirit of exploitation, were prophetic of a changing temper that\nwas preparing to exalt the doctrine of manifest destiny which the Whig\nparty stood sponsor for. The middle class was in the saddle and it was\ntime to bring the political state under its control. The practical\nproblem of the moment was to transform the mongrel Republican party\ninto a strong cohesive instrument, and to accomplish that it was\nnecessary to hold the loyalty of its Democratic voters amongst the\nfarmers and working-classes whilst putting into effect its Whig program.\n\nUnder normal conditions the thing would have been impossible, but\nthe times were wrought up and blindly passionate and the politicians\nskillful. The revolt of Andrew Johnson came near to bringing the party\non the rocks; but the undisciplined Jacksonians were overthrown by\nthe appeal to the Bloody Flag and put to flight by the nomination of\nGeneral Grant for the presidency. The rebellion of the Independent\nRepublicans under Horace Greeley in 1872 was brought to nothing by\nthe skillful use of Grant\u2019s military prestige, and the party passed\ndefinitely under the control of capitalism, and became such an\ninstrument for exploitation as Henry Clay dreamed of but could not\nperfect. Under the nominal leadership of the easy-going Grant a loose\nrein was given to Whiggish ambitions and the Republican party became a\npolitical instrument worthy of the Gilded Age.\n\nThe triumph of Whiggery was possible because the spirit of the Gilded\nAge was Whiggish. The picturesque embodiment of the multitude of\nvoters who hurrahed for Grant and the Grand Old Party was a figure\nwho had grown his first beard in the ebullient days before Secession.\nColonel Beriah Sellers, with his genial optimism and easy political\nethics, was an epitome of the political hopes of the Gilded Age. With\na Micawber-like faith in his country and his government, eager to\nrealize on his expansive dreams and looking to the national treasury to\nscatter its fructifying millions in the neighborhood of his speculative\nholdings, he was no other than Uncle Sam in the boisterous days\nfollowing Appomattox. The hopes that floated up out of his dreams were\nthe hopes of millions who cast their votes for Republican Congressmen\nwho in return were expected to cast their votes for huge governmental\nappropriations that would insure prosperity\u2019s reaching certain\npost-office addresses. Citizens had saved the government in the\ntrying days that were past; it was only fair in return that government\nshould aid the patriotic citizen in the necessary work of developing\nnational resources. It was paternalism as understood by speculators and\nsubsidy-hunters, but was it not a part of the great American System\nthat was to make the country rich and self-sufficient? The American\nSystem had been talked of for forty years; it had slowly got on its\nfeet in pre-war days despite the stubborn planter opposition; now\nat last it had fairly come into its own. The time was ripe for the\nRepublican party to become a fairy godmother to the millions of Beriah\nSellerses throughout the North and West.\n\nIt is plain as a pikestaff why the spirit of Whiggery should have taken\nriotous possession of the Gilded Age. With its booming industrial\ncities America in 1870 was fast becoming capitalistic, and in every\ncapitalistic society Whiggery springs up as naturally as pigweed\nin a garden. However attractive the disguises it may assume, it is\nin essence the logical creed of the profit philosophy. It is the\nexpression in politics of the acquisitive instinct and it assumes as\nthe greatest good the shaping of public policy to promote private\ninterests. It asserts that it is a duty of the state to help its\ncitizens to make money, and it conceives of the political state as\na useful instrument for effective exploitation. How otherwise? The\npublic good cannot be served apart from business interests, for\nbusiness interests are the public good and in serving business the\nstate is serving society. Everybody\u2019s eggs are in the basket and they\nmust not be broken. For a capitalistic society Whiggery is the only\nrational politics, for it exalts the profit-motive as the sole object\nof parliamentary concern. Government has only to wave its wand and\nfairy gifts descend upon business like the golden sands of Pactolus.\nIt graciously bestows its tariffs and subsidies, and streams of wealth\nflow into private wells.\n\nBut unhappily there is a fly in the Whiggish honey. In a competitive\norder, government is forced to make its choices. It cannot serve\nboth Peter and Paul. If it gives with one hand it must take away\nwith the other. And so the persuasive ideal of paternalism in the\ncommon interest degenerates in practice into legalized favoritism.\nGovernmental gifts go to the largest investments. Lesser interests are\nsacrificed to greater interests and Whiggery comes finally to serve the\nlords of the earth without whose good will the wheels of business will\nnot turn. To him that hath shall be given. If the few do not prosper\nthe many will starve, and if the many have bread who would begrudge the\nfew their abundance? In Whiggery is the fulfillment of the Scriptures.\n\nHenry Clay had been a prophetic figure pointing the way America was to\ntravel; but he came a generation too soon. A son of the Gilded Age, he\nwas doomed to live in a world of Jacksonian democracy. But the spirit\nof Henry Clay survived his death and his followers were everywhere in\nthe land. The plain citizen who wanted a slice of the rich prairie\nland of Iowa or Kansas, with a railway convenient to his homestead,\nhad learned to look to the government for a gift, and if he got his\nquarter-section and his transportation he was careless about what the\nother fellow got. A little more or less could make no difference to a\ncountry inexhaustible in resources. America belonged to the American\npeople and not to the government, and resources in private hands paid\ntaxes and increased the national wealth. In his favorite newspaper,\nthe _New York Tribune_, he read daily appeals for the adoption of a\npatriotic national economy, by means of which an infant industrialism,\nmade prosperous by a protective tariff, would provide a home market for\nthe produce of the farmer and render the country self-sufficient. Money\nwould thus be put in everybody\u2019s pocket. Protection was not robbing\nPeter to pay Paul, but paying both Peter and Paul out of the augmented\nwealth of the whole.\n\nThe seductive arguments that Horace Greeley disseminated amongst the\nplain people, Henry Carey purveyed to more intelligent ears. The most\ndistinguished American economist of the time, Carey had abandoned\nhis earlier _laissez-faire_ position, and having convinced himself\nthat only through a close-knit national economy could the country\ndevelop a well-rounded economic program, he had become the most ardent\nof protectionists. During the fifties and later he was tireless in\npopularizing the doctrine of a natural harmony of interests between\nagriculture and manufacturing, and to a generation expanding rapidly\nin both fields his able presentation made great appeal. It was but a\nstep from protectionism to governmental subsidies. Beriah Sellers and\nHenry Clay had come to be justified by the political economists. (Note\nthat amongst Carey\u2019s converts were such different idealists as Wendell\nPhillips and Peter Cooper.)\n\n\nIV \u2022 The Great Barbecue\n\nHorace Greeley and Henry Carey were only straws in the wind that\nduring the Gilded Age was blowing the doctrine of paternalism about\nthe land. A Colonel Sellers was to be found at every fireside talking\nthe same blowsy doctrine. Infectious in their optimism, na\u00efve in their\nfaith that something would be turned up for them by the government if\nthey made known their wants, they were hoping for dollars to be put\nin their pockets by a generous administration at Washington. Congress\nhad rich gifts to bestow--in lands, tariffs, subsidies, favors of all\nsorts; and when influential citizens made their wishes known to the\nreigning statesmen, the sympathetic politicians were quick to turn\nthe government into the fairy godmother the voters wanted it to be.\nA huge barbecue was spread to which all presumably were invited. Not\nquite all, to be sure; inconspicuous persons, those who were at home\non the farm or at work in the mills and offices, were overlooked; a\ngood many indeed out of the total number of the American people. But\nall the important persons, leading bankers and promoters and business\nmen, received invitations. There wasn\u2019t room for everybody and these\nwere presumed to represent the whole. It was a splendid feast. If the\nwaiters saw to it that the choicest portions were served to favored\nguests, they were not unmindful of their numerous homespun constituency\nand they loudly proclaimed the fine democratic principle that what\nbelongs to the people should be enjoyed by the people--not with petty\nbureaucratic restrictions, not as a social body, but as individuals,\neach free citizen using what came to hand for his own private ends,\nwith no questions asked.\n\nIt was sound Gilded Age doctrine. To a frontier people what was more\ndemocratic than a barbecue, and to a paternalistic age what was more\nfitting than that the state should provide the beeves for roasting.\nLet all come and help themselves. As a result the feast was Gargantuan\nin its rough plenty. The abundance was what was to be expected of a\ngenerous people. More food, to be sure, was spoiled than was eaten, and\nthe revelry was a bit unseemly; but it was a fine spree in the name of\nthe people, and the invitations had been written years before by Henry\nClay. But unfortunately what was intended to be jovially democratic was\nmarred by displays of plebeian temper. Suspicious commoners with better\neyes than manners discovered the favoritism of the waiters and drew\nattention to the difference between their own meager helpings and the\nheaped-up plates of more favored guests. It appeared indeed that there\nwas gross discrimination in the service; that the farmers\u2019 pickings\nfrom the Homestead Act were scanty in comparison with the speculators\u2019\npickings from the railway land-grants. The _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ scandal\nand the Whisky Ring scandal and divers other scandals came near to\nbreaking up the feast, and the genial host--who was no other than the\nhero of Appomattox--came in for some sharp criticism. But after the\nmore careless ones who were caught with their fingers where they didn\u2019t\nbelong, had been thrust from the table, the eating and drinking went\non again till only the great carcasses were left. Then at last came\nthe reckoning. When the bill was sent in to the American people the\nfarmers discovered that they had been put off with the giblets while\nthe capitalists were consuming the turkey. They learned that they were\nno match at a barbecue for more voracious guests, and as they went home\nunsatisfied, a sullen anger burned in their hearts that was to express\nitself later in fierce agrarian revolts.\n\nWhat reason there was for such anger, how differently rich and poor\nfared at the democratic feast, is suggested by the contrast between\nthe Homestead Act and the Union Pacific land-grant. Both were war-time\nmeasures and both had emerged from the agitations of earlier decades.\nBy the terms of the former the homesteader got his hundred and sixty\nacres at the price of $1.25 an acre; by the terms of the latter the\npromoters got a vast empire for nothing. It was absurd, of course, but\nwhat would you have? The people wanted the railway built and Collis P.\nHuntington was willing to build it on his own terms. The government was\ntoo generous to haggle with public-spirited citizens, and too Whiggish\nto want to discourage individual enterprise. Ever since the cession of\nCalifornia there had been much talk of a continental railway to tie the\ncountry together. In the first years the talk in Congress had all been\nof a great national venture; the road must be built by the nation to\nserve the common interests of the American people. But unfortunately\nsectional jealousies prevented any agreement as to the route the survey\nlines were to run, and the rising capitalism was becoming powerful\nenough to bring into disfavor any engagement of the government in a\nwork that promised great rewards. Under its guidance political opinion\nwas skillfully turned into the channel of private enterprise. The\npublic domain backed by the public credit, it was agreed, must pay for\nthe road, but the government must not seek to control the enterprise\nor look to profit from it directly; the national reward would come\nindirectly from the opening-up of vast new territories.\n\nThe definite shift in policy came about the year 1855. In 1837 Stephen\nA. Douglas had been the driving force behind the state enterprise of\nbuilding the Illinois Central Railway. In 1853 he proposed that the\nPacific Railroad should be built by private enterprise. With the change\npromptly came a request for a patriotic land-grant. The government was\nexpected to provide the road, it appeared, but private enterprise was\nto own it and manage it in the interest of speculators rather than\nthe public. For old-fashioned souls like Thomas A. Benton, who still\nremembered the Jeffersonian concern for the common well-being, it was a\nbitter mess to swallow.\n\n I would have preferred [he said] that Congress should have made the\n road, as a national work, on a scale commensurate with its grandeur\n and let out the use of it to companies, who would fetch and carry\n on the best terms for the people and the government. But that hope\n has vanished ... a private company has become the resource and\n the preference. I embrace it as such, utterly scouting all plans\n for making private roads at national expense, of paying for the\n use of roads built with our land and money, of bargaining with\n corporations or individuals for the use of what we give them.[506]\n\nWith this speech the old Jeffersonianism pulled down its flag and the\nnew Whiggery ran up its black banner. The Gilded Age had begun and Old\nBullion Benton had outlived his time. In the tumultuous decades that\nfollowed there was to be no bargaining with corporations for the use\nof what the public gave; they took what they wanted and no impertinent\nquestions were asked. The hungriest will get the most at the barbecue.\nA careless wastefulness when the supply is unlimited is perhaps natural\nenough. There were hard-headed men in the world of Beriah Sellers who\nknew how easy it was to overreach the simple, and it was they who got\nmost from the common pot. We may call them buccaneers if we choose, and\nspeak of the great barbecue as a democratic debauch. But why single\nout a few, when all were drunk? Whisky was plentiful at barbecues,\nand if too liberal potations brought the Gilded Age to the grossest\nextravagancies, if when it cast up accounts it found its patrimony\ngone, it was only repeating the experience of a certain man who went\ndown to Jericho. To create a social civilization requires sober heads,\nand in this carousal of economic romanticism sober heads were few--the\ngood Samaritan was busy elsewhere.\n\nThe doctrine of pre\u00ebmption and exploitation was reaping its harvest.\nThe frontier spirit was having its splurge, and progress was already\nturning its face in another direction. Within the next half-century\nthis picturesque America with its heritage of crude energy--greedy,\nlawless, capable--was to be transformed into a vast uniform\nmiddle-class land, dedicated to capitalism and creating the greatest\nmachine-order known to history. A scattered agricultural people,\nsteeped in particularistic jealousies and suspicious of centralization,\nwas to be transformed into an urbanized factory people, rootless,\nmigratory, drawn to the job as by a magnet. It was to come about the\nmore easily because the American farmer had never been a land-loving\npeasant, rooted to the soil and thriving only in daily contact with\nfamiliar acres. He had long been half middle-class, accounting unearned\nincrement the most profitable crop, and buying and selling land as\nif it were calico. And in consequence the vigorous individualism\nthat had sprung from frontier conditions decayed with the passing of\nthe frontier, and those who had lost in the gamble of pre\u00ebmption and\nexploitation were added to the growing multitude of the proletariat. It\nwas from such materials, supplemented by a vast influx of immigrants,\nthat was fashioned the America we know today with its standardized\nlife, its machine culture, its mass psychology--an America to which\nJefferson and Jackson and Lincoln would be strangers.\n\n\nV \u2022 Folk Heroes\n\nPerhaps one cannot penetrate more directly to the heart of the Gilded\nAge than in taking account of certain of its heroes, figures of earth\nwhom it accounted great in its generation, and to whom its admiration\nflowed out in unstinted measure. It is our own secret desires we\nattribute to our gods, and if from the muck of the times a queer lot of\nheroes was singled out, if an undisciplined generation rioting in its\nnew freedoms chose to honor men who had scrambled upward in uncouth\nways, it only suggests that such figures were a composite picture of\nthe secret desires of an age vastly concerned with getting on. From a\nhost of striking personalities two must suffice to suggest the spirit\nof the times, authentic folk-heroes of the Gilded Age, fashioned out\nof the commonest stuff and realizing such greatness as multitudes\nof Americans were then dreaming of; and over against them a third\nfigure, a mordant intellectual, who sardonically swam with the stream\nof tendency and in serving all the gods of the Gilded Age gained for\nhimself a brilliant career.\n\n\n1 \u2022 General Grant\n\nGreatest of all the heroes of the age was the victor of Appomattox.\nHis fame was in all men\u2019s mouths, and his reputation was substantial\nenough to withstand the attacks of enemies and the gross shortcomings\nof his own character. It was not for any singular or remarkable\nqualities of mind or personality that General Grant was taken to the\nheart of his generation, but rather because he was so completely a\nproduct of the times, so strikingly an embodiment of its virtues and\nweaknesses. In his spectacular career were the sharp contrasts that\nappealed to a plebeian people wanting in fine and discriminating\nstandards of appraisal. He had come up from the people and the marks\nof his origins--the slovenly manners and uncritical force of frontier\nfolk-ways--were stamped on him as indelibly as they were stamped on his\nfellow soldiers who proclaimed his greatness. To a later generation he\nseems an odd and unaccountable figure for the high r\u00f4le of national\nhero, yet he was as native and homespun as Lincoln, like him sprung\nfrom the common stock and learning his lessons from harsh experience,\na figure blown to huge dimensions by the passions of civil war. A\ngeneration that discovered something praiseworthy in the \u201csmartness\u201d\nof Jim Fisk, in the burly acquisitiveness of Commodore Vanderbilt, or\nin the clever humbuggery of Barnum the Showman, certainly would judge\nwith no very critical eyes the claims to greatness of a grim leader of\narmies who succeeded where so many before had failed.\n\nGeneral Grant was no conventional military hero. It was not the gold\nstars on his epaulets that dazzled his generation. The people of\nthe North had seen too many gold stars rise and set on the military\nhorizon, they had been stricken too sorely by the bitter struggle,\nto be caught by military popinjays. They had gone through the fire\nand any hero of theirs must himself have passed through the fire. It\nwas something veracious in the man, something solid and unyielding\nin the soldier, something plain as an old shoe in the field marshal\nof bloody battles, that caught the imagination of the North and made\nGrant a hero--this together with a certain gift of pungent phrase,\nbefitting the leader of democratic hosts, that served to spread his\nfame amongst the common people. Vicksburg did much for his reputation,\nbut the demand for \u201cunconditional surrender,\u201d sent to a Confederate\nleader, did far more. The words fixed his character in the popular\nmind. Here at last was a fighting man who instead of planning how to\nfall back, as other generals did, thought only of going ahead; so the\npopular judgment shut its eyes to his dull plebeian character and set\na wreath on his brows. It rested there somewhat grotesquely. In spite\nof a deep unconscious integrity and a stubborn will that drove him\nforward along whatever path his feet were set on, he was the least\nimposing of military heroes. Short, stooped, lumpish in mind and body,\nunintellectual and unimaginative, devoid of ideas and with no tongue\nto express the incoherent emotions that surged dully in his heart, he\nwas a commonplace fellow that no gold braid could set off. He hated war\nand disliked soldiering, yet accepting life with a stolid fatalism he\nfought his bloody way to ultimate victory.\n\nGraduated from West Point after four sterile years of drill, quite\nuneducated and unread even in his profession, he served for a time at\ndifferent army posts, went through the Mexican War--which he looked\nupon as a stupid imperialistic debauch--as quartermaster without\ngaining distinction, and eventually, oppressed by the eventless routine\nof garrison life, he fell into the habit of solitary drinking and was\ndismissed from the service. Misfortune that it seemed, it was his\nmaking. Only as a volunteer could he have risen so quickly to high\ncommand; as a captain or major in the regular army he would have been\ndetailed as drill-master to the raw troops and have had no chance.\nNevertheless hard times came with his dismissal. Indolent by nature and\ninclined to drift, he was as incompetent a man in practical affairs as\none could find in a frontier township. But with a wife and children to\nsupport he must turn his hand to something, so he tried his luck at\nfarming, selling real estate, and various odd jobs, yet all the time\ngrowing poorer and seedier, till the war came and picking him up flung\nhim to mountain heights of popularity and reputation. Thereafter till\nhis death he was accounted the greatest American of his generation. No\naccumulating evidence of his well-meaning but witless incapacity in\ncivic and political affairs could pluck from his brows the wreath that\nhad been thrust upon him.\n\nIn his spectacular career Grant was an embodiment of the dreams of all\nthe Beriah Sellerses of the Gilded Age. He was a materialistic hero\nof a materialistic generation. He was dazzled by wealth and power,\nand after years of bitter poverty he sat down in the lap of luxury\nwith huge content. He took what the gods sent, and if houses and fast\nhorses and wines and cigars were showered upon him he accepted them as\na child would accept gifts from a fairy godmother. He had had enough\nof skimping meanness; with his generation he wanted to slough off the\ndrabness of the frontier; he wanted the good things of life that had\nso long been denied him, and he was not scrupulous about looking a\ngift horse in the mouth. He sought out the company of rich men. He was\nnever happier than when enjoying the luxury of Jay Cooke\u2019s mansion in\nPhiladelphia or riding with A. T. Stewart in Central Park. As he grew\nfat and stodgy the vulgar side of his plebeian nature was thrown into\nsharper relief. He accepted gifts with both hands, and he seems never\nto have suspected the price that would be exacted of the President\nfor the presents to the General. He never realized how great a bill\nwas sent to the American people for the wine he drank or the cigars\nhe smoked with his wealthy hosts; yet if the wine had been molten\ngold and the cigars platinum they would have been far cheaper. In\nreturn for a few boxes of choice Havanas, Jay Cooke laid his hands on\nmillions of western lands for the Northern Pacific Railway. It was the\nway of the Gilded Age, and Grant was only doing what all his friends\nand associates were doing. If he accepted a fifty-thousand-dollar\nhouse in Philadelphia, his comrade General Sherman accepted a\nhundred-thousand-dollar house at Washington. Such gifts were not\nbribes; they were open and aboveboard; it was the free and easy way of\nthe times. What the age was careless about is the fact that it is hard\nto refuse a reasonable request from one\u2019s fairy godmother, and what the\nGeneral never understood is that if one is President such a godmother\nis certain to be a very dangerous member of the family.\n\nThere was far too much of that sort of thing all about him for Grant to\nserve as President with credit to himself or profit to the country.\nHonest himself, he was the source of more dishonesty in others than\nany other American President. His eight years in the White House\nmarked the lowest depths--in domestic affairs at least--to which any\nAmerican administration has fallen. They were little better than a\nnational disgrace. All the festering evils of post-war times came to a\nhead and pock-marked the body politic from head to foot. Scandal and\ncorruption whispered all about him, the hands of his closest advisers\nwere dirty; yet he stubbornly refused to hear the whispers or see the\ndirt. In judging men and policies he was no more than a child. He could\nnever distinguish between an honest man and a rascal. He was loyal to\nhis friends and open-handedness he regarded as a mark of friendship.\nIn the end it turned out that like the thieves of Jericho his blatant\nfollowers despoiled him of pretty nearly everything.\n\nIn what must pass for his political views Grant was as na\u00efvely\nuninformed as a Wyoming cowboy. Utterly wanting in knowledge of\npolitical principles, he was a fit leader for the organized mob\nthat called itself the Republican party, whose chief objective was\nthe raiding of the treasure-box of which it was the responsible\nguardian. He had been nominally a Democrat and the first vote he cast\nfor President he cast for Buchanan. After Lincoln\u2019s death he turned\nnaturally to President Johnson and was one of his supporters till the\nwily Radical group got his ear and carried him over to the rival camp.\nThey wanted his reputation to hide under, and they took possession of\nit with no great credit to the General\u2019s reputation. Thereafter he\nwas a Republican of the Whig wing. It was where he belonged. He was\nswayed politically by his emotional reactions and it was natural for\nhim to drift into the opulent camp of money and power. His frontier\ndemocracy sloughed away and with his generation he went over easily\nto a buccaneer capitalism. No social conscience obtruded itself to\ngive him trouble. His millionaire friends were Whig Republicans and\nwith his respect for rich men, his admiration for material success,\nhe found himself in congenial company amongst the Whig group. About\nthe only political policy he ever interested himself in was the policy\nof a protective tariff, and his Whig associates took care that his\ninterest did not wane. Yet so completely did the na\u00efve General reflect\nthe spirit of the Gilded Age that his noisy followers, conspiring to\nconfuse in the public mind southern reconstruction and capitalistic\nexpansion, and hiding a precious set of rascals in the folds of the\nbloody flag, came near to making him President for a third term. The\nGeneral was bitterly disappointed at their failure, and the General\u2019s\nwife, who liked to live in the White House, was even more disappointed.\nTo millions of Americans Grant was an authentic hero, to Mark Twain he\nwas a very great man, and to Jay Cooke he was a pawn to be used in the\nnoble strategy of fortune-seeking. What a comedy it all seems now--yet\none that leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.\n\nYet to dismiss the stolid General thus is scarcely to do justice to\nthe substantial core of the man. There remains the work written in\npain during his last days, the two volumes of _Memoirs_ that in their\nplain directness--as uninspired, says a late biographer, as \u201ca bale\nof hay\u201d--laid bare his honest simplicity and rugged meagerness. No\nblackguard and no charlatan could have written such pages. If General\nGrant was not the great man so many thought, he was a native growth\nfrom American soil, endowed like his age with a dogged will and a\nplodding energy, and he gave his country what he had. Though the\nbranches of the tree were ungainly and offered too hospitable shelter\nto unseemly birds of the night, the gnarly trunk was sound at the heart.\n\n\n2 \u2022 Jay Cooke\n\nAnother hero of the times likewise was flung up as it were casually out\nof obscurity and reaped an amazing harvest from the gigantic struggle.\nIn those difficult years the name of Jay Cooke--\u201cthe financier of the\nCivil War,\u201d as his biographer calls him--became as familiar to the\npeople of the North as the names of Grant and Lincoln, and was often\njoined with theirs as that of one of the saviors of the Union. He was\nthe first great American banker, and good fortune sent him into the\nworld at a moment when his skill in brokerage found opportunity for\nfree play. The war was as great a godsend to Jay Cooke as it was to\nGrant, for alone amongst our money-lenders he realized the problems\nand foresaw the profits in a popular system of war financing. He was\na pioneer in exploring all the potentialities of the banker\u2019s trade,\nand in his dramatic exploitation of salesmanship and his skillful\nmanipulation of money and credit he marked out the highway our later\nfinanciers have traveled. Jay Cooke occupies too significant a place in\nthe history of American capitalism to be overlooked in casting up the\naccounts of the Gilded Age.\n\nOf Yankee-Puritan stock, he was born in the frontier hamlet of\nSandusky, Ohio, when the Western Reserve was at the beginning of\nits development. His father was a country lawyer of Federalist-Whig\naffinities, proficient in high-flown western oratory, who liked to\nbe much in the neighborhood eye. He was a pushing, self-confident\nfellow, highly patriotic, soberly moral, fearing God and loving\nhis country, who felt that the government he supported so heartily\nshould serve him and his town with equal heartiness. His readiness\nin florid speech won him a single term in Congress, and he used his\nposition as a heaven-sent opportunity to promote a government road\nfrom Sandusky--which it seems was not prospering as its inhabitants\nhad expected it would--deep into the Indian country. It was a good\nClay-Whig scheme of internal improvement; it would open up a rich\ntimber country, and be highly profitable to the real-estate promoters\nof Sandusky. Cradled thus in speculation and faith in a benevolent\ngovernment, his three sons grew up native Whigs, with vigorous\nPuritan-Yankee minds, who found no difficulty in reconciling the\ninterests of God and Mammon. Eager to get on \u201cthe right side of\nfortune,\u201d they went into the three professions of banking, journalism,\nand the law. The eldest, Pitt, found the law little to his liking;\nthe youngest, Henry, labored diligently at journalism, at Sandusky\nand later at Columbus, where he was part owner of the _Ohio State\nJournal_ and \u201cboss\u201d of young William Dean Howells, who was likewise\nseeking to rise through the medium of journalism. It was the family\nitch for politics that took him to Columbus, and although the venture\nwas financially unsuccessful it brought him influential connections.\nHe was useful to Governor Salmon P. Chase, afterwards to be Lincoln\u2019s\nSecretary of the Treasury, and to John Sherman, who was later to become\na great influence on financial policies at Washington. His reward came\nin the shape of an appointment to do the government binding, reputed to\nbe worth $25,000--a commission that allowed him to unload his paper on\nsome investors who speedily lost the $20,000 they put into it.\n\nHenry Cooke\u2019s Whiggery was justifying itself, yet to both Pitt and\nHenry it soon became clear that Jay had hit upon the true road\nto wealth. At twelve years of age he had begun his career in his\nfather\u2019s store at Sandusky, and with characteristic enterprise he\nput in some side lines and became \u201cquite a capitalist.\u201d At fourteen\nhe ventured so far as St. Louis to help in a general store, and at\nthe age of seventeen he went to Philadelphia and took a place in a\nbroker-banker\u2019s office. That was in 1839, a golden time for brokers,\nwhen every business man must keep a sharp eye on the table of banknote\ndiscounts and see to it that bad paper was worked off. Into this world\nof discounts and premiums the young clerk plunged with immense zest.\n\u201cThe business I am engaged in is of the most respectable kind and the\nhouse is the first in the city,\u201d[507] he wrote to Pitt Cooke. \u201cHe\nwas ambitious, industrious, and faithful to each day\u2019s duties,\u201d his\nbiographer reports of him. His quick mind ran to calculations and his\nslender sensitive fingers seemed made for telling money. He was soon\nthe admiration of the office, an expert in detecting counterfeits,\na walking table of \u201cwild-cat\u201d currency, with a genius for smelling\nout possible commissions. Every art of extracting profits from\nnote-shaving, gold-juggling, delayed payments, and other devices known\nto the world of brokerage, he speedily made himself master of. When he\nreached his majority he was entered a member of the firm, and before\nhe was thirty he aided his partners--\u201cnoble\u201d fellows he called them,\nof honest Puritan extraction--in squeezing huge commissions out of the\nfinancing of the Mexican War. \u201cIt was a grand time for brokers and\nprivate banking,\u201d he remarked; and late in life he wrote glowingly of\nhis cleverness in twice overreaching the Secretary of the Treasury. It\nwas quite legal and the patriotic banker was vastly pleased to report,\n\u201cSo we victimized him again.\u201d[508] He was the brains of the company\nand under his guidance the business piled up profits at an astonishing\nrate. During the panic of 1854 he wrote: \u201cWe use our money at 1\u00bd to 3\nper cent. per month from day to day and frequently it pays \u215b to \u00bc a\nday. We have done a noble business since 1st of January; profits up\nto 1st July $135,000.\u201d[509] On the reorganization of the firm in 1858\nhe withdrew, and three years later, on January 1, 1861, he opened the\ndoors of what was soon to become the greatest banking-house in America,\nJay Cooke and Company of Philadelphia.\n\nHe was then in his fortieth year and his private fortune he reckoned at\n$150,000. But with the breaking-out of the war, opportunity knocked at\nthe door of the new bank. Ardently patriotic, Jay Cooke was anxious to\ndo his bit for the cause, but he seems never to have thought of going\nto the front. He came of fighting Revolutionary stock, but love of the\nbattlefield had died out of the family. His father had been drafted\nfor the War of 1812, but hired a substitute who was unfortunate enough\nto be killed, and none of the three sons got nearer the front than the\nTreasury Department at Washington. It was there that the battles of the\nCooke brothers were fought. Henry Cooke went to Washington to attend\nthe inauguration of the new administration, and twenty-one days later\nJay Cooke modestly proposed a plan for mobilizing the resources of the\nfirm in defense of the country. On March 25, he wrote to his brother:\n\n What we wish to do with the Treasury is to have the Department\n allow us to make the frequent transfers that are made from point\n to point instead of giving the business to Adams and Company\n [Express]. We can make those transfers and the Department when\n flush can give us 30, 60, 90 or 120 days time, as it is no loss to\n them, and the interest in the meantime would be clear profit and to\n be divided.[510]\n\nWhen the magnitude of the task in which the country was engaged became\nclear to him he was no longer content with a single banking-house at\nPhiladelphia. A branch at Washington under the shadow of the Treasury\nwas highly desirable, and Henry Cooke was the man for the business.\nA born lobbyist, a close friend of John Sherman--who was looking out\nfor a profitable opening in some war business for a brother--and of\nSecretary of the Treasury Chase, he let no grass grow under his feet.\nThe war loans had not been taken freely and in July, Jay Cooke wrote\nto Chase suggesting a close alliance between the Treasury and two\nPhiladelphia firms, Jay Cooke and Company and Drexel and Company.\n\n We would wish to make our business mostly out of the Treasury\n operations and we feel sure that we could by having a proper\n understanding with yourself greatly help you in the management of\n your vast negotiations.... We could not be expected to leave our\n comfortable homes and positions here without some great inducement\n and we state frankly that we would, if we succeeded, expect a\n fair commission from the Treasury in some shape for our labor and\n talent. If you feel disposed to say to us ... that you will give us\n the management of the loans to be issued by the government during\n the war, allowing us a fair commission on them, ... we are ready to\n throw ourselves into the matter heartily....[511]\n\nIt was quite an amazing proposal and one that Secretary Chase dared\nnot accept. Bankers and brokers in New York and Boston would scarcely\napprove a monopoly of loan-commissions granted to two Philadelphia\nhouses. But Jay Cooke would not acknowledge defeat. He cultivated the\nacquaintance of the Secretary, lent him money, entertained his family,\npresented him with gifts, and gave him sound advice. He took the\nharassed servant of the people to his warm and generous heart and was\nvigilant in keeping him out of the clutches of Copperhead profiteers.\nHis opportunity came in October, 1861, when in competition with other\nbrokers he undertook the sale of a new bond-series. His success was\nso great that he won the complete confidence of Secretary Chase,\nand it was only a matter of time when he should secure his coveted\nmonopoly. In February, 1862, he opened the branch house at Washington,\nimmediately opposite the Treasury building, and Henry Cooke soon made\nits offices an indispensable club for Congressmen and government\nemployees. He was charmingly cordial and during the next ten years he\nknew everybody and every political move at the Capital. With the same\nbland and deacon-like appearance as his brother, he was master of the\nart of ingratiating himself into the confidence of influential men,\nand successive Secretaries of the Treasury--Chase and Fessenden and\nMcCulloch--were easily induced to look with partial eye upon the firm\nof Jay Cooke and Company. When Grant returned to Washington after the\nwar he was soon like a brother to Henry Cooke, and when the General\nhad tasted the quality of cigars kept for his use at Jay Cooke\u2019s\nPhiladelphia home, his heart warmed to the kindly banker.\n\nMeanwhile the firm was discovering innumerable ways to help win the\nwar; amongst others Henry Cooke put through a congressional franchise\nfor a street railway at Washington, and the new cars were soon carrying\ncitizens and soldiers to and fro, to their great content and the\ncompany\u2019s great profit. He was hourly in and out of the Treasury and\nhe knew as much about the government business as the Secretary. The\ninterests of the firm extended with amazing rapidity; other banks\ncame under their control and their agents were everywhere. Their\nlater successes in selling bonds were a revelation to older-fashioned\nbrokers. On the day that Richmond fell the \u201cfinancier of the Civil\nWar\u201d marked out the lines of a pretentious country house that was to\ncost a million dollars and to become a show place of America, where\nSecretaries of the Treasury, Presidents, and great men from every walk\nof life were to find a welcome release from their cares. \u201cAs rich as\nJay Cooke\u201d had become a common saying from the Atlantic to the Pacific.\nThe gigantic war had been no ill wind to the money-teller of 1861.\n\nIn certain aspects Jay Cooke may be reckoned the first modern American.\nHe was the first to understand the psychology of mass salesmanship.\nIt was his fertile brain that created the syndicate and conceived and\nexecuted the modern American \u201cdrive.\u201d Under his bland deacon-like\nexterior was the mind of a realist. He assumed that every man has his\nprice, but he knew that few men like to acknowledge the fact even\nto themselves; so he was at immense pains to cover our poor human\nnakedness with generous professions. If he were to lure dollars from\nold stockings in remote chimney-corners he must \u201csell\u201d patriotism to\nhis fellow Americans; and to do that successfully he must manufacture\na militant public opinion. The soldier at the front, he announced\nin a flood of advertisements, must be supported at the rear. It\nwas every loyal American\u2019s war, and patriotism demanded that idle\ndollars--in greenbacks--should be lent to the boys in blue, and a\ngrateful government would return them, both principal and interest, in\ngold. To induce slacker dollars to become fighting dollars he placed\nhis agents in every neighborhood, in newspaper offices, in banks, in\npulpits--patriotic forerunners of the \u201cone-minute men\u201d of later drives.\nThey also served their country, he pointed out, who sold government\nbonds on commission. He subsidized the press with a lavish hand, not\nonly the metropolitan dailies but the obscurest country weeklies. He\nemployed an army of hack-writers to prepare syndicated matter and he\nscattered paying copy broadcast. His \u201chired friends\u201d were everywhere.\nIn a hundred delicate ways he showed his appreciation of patriotic\nco\u00f6peration in the bond-sales--gifts of trout caught with his own\nhand, baskets of fruit from his own garden. He bought the pressings\nof whole vineyards and cases of wine flowed in an endless stream to\nstrategic publicity-points. Rival brokers hinted that he was debauching\nthe press, but the army of greenbacks marching to the front was his\nreply. It all cost a pretty penny, but the government was liberal with\ncommissions and when all expenses were deducted perhaps two millions\nof profits remained in the vaults of the firm, to be added to the many\nother millions which the prestige of the government agency with its\nfree advertising brought in its train.\n\nWith such prestige and with the greatest fluid resources as yet\naccumulated by any American, it was inevitable that the Rothschild of\nthe North should play a bold part in the speculations of the Gilded\nAge. Jay Cooke vastly enjoyed the game and it was idle to expect him\nto sit back quietly when others were playing for high stakes. In those\nhalcyon days promoters were as thick as flies about a dead carcass;\nwild-cat railroads had succeeded wild-cat banks as short-cuts to\nwealth; and in an unlucky moment Jay Cooke was tempted. He had expected\nto be made Secretary of the Treasury by President Grant, but failing\nof appointment in spite of countless boxes of twenty-five-cent cigars\nprovided for the General\u2019s pleasure, he determined to back the Northern\nPacific Railway enterprise. The company had been chartered in July,\n1864, receiving a congressional grant of 12,800 acres of public land\nfor every mile of track laid in the states, and double that amount in\nthe territories. As the proposed line would run almost entirely through\nterritories the grand total was reckoned at 47,360,000 acres.[512]\nEarly land-sales were at the rate of $6 an acre. At such valuation the\nprospective value of the grant through the territories was $153,600 for\nevery mile of track, yet in portions of an earlier line absorbed by the\ncompany the road had been built for $8,225 a mile, and a stretch of 112\nmiles at the rate of $9,500.[513] To be sure there were great stretches\nof unsalable land, but in compensation the company was free to run\nits surveys so as to embrace choice mineral deposits, virgin timber,\nwater-power, and town sites.\n\nAs Jay Cooke contemplated the possibilities his buoyant temperament\ntook fire, and he dreamed of empire-building. He quickly rationalized\nthe project into a great patriotic undertaking that would carry the\nblessings of civilization to the farthest Northwest. He would lay open\nto the poor man the rich wheat lands of the Dakotas, the mineral wealth\nof the Rockies, the vast timber resources of the Puget Sound territory.\nHe would annex western Canada by benevolent absorption. It was a dream\nworthy of the Gilded Age and Jay Cooke was chief amongst the Beriah\nSellerses of the day. He threw himself into the project with boundless\noptimism, and proved again his right to be called a great financier.\nHe proposed to sell the Northern Pacific as he had sold government\nbonds. He had learned that to catch the little fish he must first\ncatch the big fish, for the shilling is timid till the pound shows the\nway. He must create confidence, cost what it would, and to that end\nhe opened a huge pool and created a special syndicate. Stocks, jobs,\ncash, influence, were distributed judiciously where they would do good.\nIn the language of stock-jobbing much \u201csweetening\u201d was used.[514] And\nthere was need of much \u201csweetening,\u201d for the times were inauspicious.\nJay Cooke drove the publicity work with his old vigor, but sales were\nslow, and as the great patriotic venture showed signs of lagging he\nturned for help to a sympathetic government.\n\nHis engineer had made a careful estimate of the prospective cost of\nthe road, which including rolling-stock, terminals, a branch line\nto Portland, and interest on bonds during the construction, came to\n$42,638 a mile for the entire line.[515] But the financier was not\nsatisfied \u201cwith the magnificent property the government has given us,\u201d\nand made ready to buy from Congress a revision of the terms of the\ncharter, which amongst other things would widen the land-grant belt\nthrough the territories to 120 miles, convey a second right-of-way\nzone from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and permit the company\nto hypothecate the whole before the terms of the contract were\nfulfilled. It was an audacious proposal even to a generation used to\naudacious proposals. There was bitter opposition, for the rumblings\nof the _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ scandal were already disturbing the halls of\nCongress; but his lobbyists used \u201cthe company\u2019s money freely\u201d to bring\nin the common breed of Congressmen, and the Cooke brothers employed\ntheir well-practiced skill to take care of such important persons as\nSpeaker Blaine of the House, Vice-President Colfax of the Senate, and\nPresident Grant. The matter was handled with great delicacy in the case\nof the latter--\u201cthe glorious honest man,\u201d the banker called him. \u201cHe\nsent a fishing-rod and creel to the President\u2019s little son Jesse, for\nwhich he was duly thanked in a childish hand.\u201d He invited the General\nto a day\u2019s fishing-trip, and together the heroes whipped the trout\nstream in the most charming comradeship. \u201cIt may be thought,\u201d remarks\nhis biographer, \u201cthat such machinations were unbecoming in a man of\nMr. Cooke\u2019s moral dimensions.\u201d[516] But surely delicate \u201cmachinations\u201d\nwere not unbecoming to such \u201cmoral dimensions.\u201d \u201cWe let the other\nside do most of the talking,\u201d wrote the deacon-like Henry Cooke, who\nkept the Sabbath as strictly as his brother, \u201cand we do the voting.\u201d\nThe President\u2019s cabinet was bitterly divided on the issue, but wheels\nturn on well-greased axles and delicate attentions have their reward.\nThe bill was signed and the building of the Northwest empire could go\nforward.\n\nUnfortunately, however, black days were pressing hard on the great\nsuccess. The money of the company ran in fructifying streams\nthrough Europe and America but the expected crop was short. Thirty\npapers were subsidized in Germany; agents lived in ducal palaces;\ncommissions, stocks, bonuses, were plowed in for manure; but the crop\nof bond-sales was still scanty. Ugly rumors were abroad. There was talk\nof a congressional investigation, and when General Banks offered a\nresolution of inquiry Jay Cooke was hurt to the quick. An investigation\nhe regarded as no other than persecution of legitimate business, and he\nwrote to his brother: \u201cHe ought to be expelled from Congress for such\noutrageous attacks upon the great interests of the country.... If I\nget at him I will give him a piece of my mind, and no mistake, for his\nimpertinence and foolishness.\u201d[517] Then the _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ scandal\nbroke and in a panic he wrote to Henry Cooke denouncing the proposal to\nstop payment on the interest-coupons of the Union Pacific.\n\n Now I want you to go to the Attorney General at once and tell him\n how wrong this whole procedure is. This whole persecution of the\n Union Pacific is nonsense, and is damaging our credit abroad.\n If the government sets the example of enjoining the payment of\n interest coupons, who will buy a bond abroad? The whole thing\n is wrong, ill advised and scandalous.... Williams ought to make\n a public apology for such an attack and instruct the lawyers to\n desist from anything of the kind. The bonds are long since in the\n hands of innocent holders, and, if they were not, they could never\n reach them in this way. Some wily speculators have put the idea\n into the heads of the government lawyers and they, without knowing\n anything of its effect upon business, have made this attack. It\n will damage us hundreds of millions unless withdrawn at once. No\n man of sense would buy a railroad bond or anything else in this\n country if such legal proceedings are to be permitted under the\n sanction of the highest officer of the government.[518]\n\nJay Cooke\u2019s ethics were simple. Whatever helped bond-sales was\npatriotic and right; whatever hurt them was wicked and immoral. Let\ngovernment take care of business and business will take care of the\ncountry. That the newspapers could not see this great truth, but often\nindulged in wild demagoguery, was painful to one who had been generous\nto them. \u201cIt is too bad,\u201d he wrote of a certain attack, \u201cthat these\nnewspapers are permitted by the law thus to interfere with great public\nworks.\u201d[519] But the black days were at hand. The _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_\nscandal was a whirlwind reaped from the sowings of the Gilded Age. With\nthe outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war bond-sales stopped short in\nEurope and the firm of Jay Cooke and Company was broken. September 18,\n1873, the New York house suspended payment; the house of cards tumbled\nto pieces; and a panic swept the country. The crash was as spectacular\nas the rise; it had been built on credit and when credit was shaken it\nfell.\n\nBecause he had amassed a great fortune Jay Cooke was regarded by his\nfellow Americans as an intelligent man whose opinions were entitled\nto heedful consideration. A national figure in finance must become a\nnational figure in the public councils; and this added function he\nassumed with the utmost seriousness. As the power behind the United\nStates Treasury he regarded himself as responsible for the program\nof the Treasury; and he made use of his immense publicity-machine to\nshape public opinion in regard to taxation, funding, and the currency.\nHis \u201cviews\u201d of those questions were as simple as a child\u2019s primer. In\nbrief they were: no taxes for the extinction of the debt; consolidate\nthe debt and fund it in a form attractive to capital; retire the\ngreenbacks and return at once to specie payments. Like others who\nhad made money out of the war he did not take kindly to the idea of\nreturning a part of it in taxes to pay off a debt that was highly\nprofitable to him as a broker and banker. The men of \u201965 had fought and\nsuffered to secure the blessings of liberty to their posterity, and it\nwas only fair that posterity should help pay the bills. To popularize\nthis pregnant thought he subsidized a pamphlet contributed by one of\nhis hack-writers, entitled _Our National Debt a National Blessing_;\nbut the Hamiltonian argument overshot the mark and aroused bitter\nopposition. In this as in his attitude towards currency-contraction\nand funding he was thinking exclusively in terms of the money-lender.\nVery likely he was probably not so much self-seeking as ignorant.\nIntellectually he was poverty-stricken and outside the narrow realm of\nbrokerage and banking he was only a child. He read nothing, thought\nlittle and was unconcerned with social or economic principles. His\nbusiness life was regulated by a set of ready-made formulas, in which\nideas played no part. William Cullen Bryant rightly judged him in the\nfollowing comment:\n\n We counsel Mr. Jay Cooke in all good will, not to abandon his\n proper vocation of dealing in stocks and government securities, for\n the sake of giving lectures on political economy--a subject which\n he does not understand. We do not say that he might not understand\n it if he had given it his attention, but that he has evidently\n never done, and knows no more of the matter than Red Jacket knew of\n Greek. We advise all who have any money to invest to take Mr. Jay\n Cooke\u2019s seven-thirty bonds, and eschew his political economy. His\n seven-thirties are first rate, his political economy is a tissue of\n mistakes.[520]\n\nAny program that lay outside the bounds of his formulas he regarded\nas dangerous radicalism, and any policy that threatened to reduce his\ncommissions he regarded as unchristian. He bitterly disliked Secretary\nBoutwell of the Treasury, who rejected his guidance, and he wrote to\nhis brother:\n\n I observe ... that Boutwell is to leave the Treasury. I think that\n if he does not propose to do any better than he has in the past it\n will be a grand move for Grant to put some more practical person in\n his place. A man who has no more breadth of thought ... and no more\n spunk than to let the country drift along without even an attempt\n at funding the debt, and who insists upon keeping up an enormous\n taxation for the foolish object of paying off rapidly a debt that\n no one wants paid off, excepting gradually, it will be a great\n benefit to have replaced by some one who will take an opposite\n course.[521]\n\nA month later one of the causes of the hostility was suggested by a\nmember of the firm:\n\n All of our transactions with Boutwell have shown conclusively that\n he will never permit one dollar to be made out of the business of\n the Treasury, if he can possibly prevent it. With all his friendly\n feelings I cannot remember a single dollar that we have made\n directly or indirectly out of his administration of the Treasury,\n ...[522]\n\nAgainst the Greenback movement his hostility was bitter. He regarded\nit as an attempt to repudiate the \u201cplighted faith\u201d of the nation, and\nin 1867 he issued a pamphlet, written to order, aimed at combating\nthe movement. In the opinion of a subsidized admirer it was \u201cable,\nunanswerable and timely,\u201d calculated to do immense good in a country\nwhere universal suffrage encourages the \u201cattempts of demagogues to\nexcite the poor against the rich, labor against capital, and all\nwho haven\u2019t money against the banks who have it.\u201d[523] How deeply\nthe members of the firm felt in presence of any threat to the money\ninterests is suggested in a letter from Henry Cooke of October 12, 1867.\n\n You know how I have felt for a long time past in regard to the\n course of the ultra infidelic radicals like Wade, Sumner, Stevens,\n _et id omne genus_. They were dragging the Republican party into\n all sorts of isms and extremes. Their policy was one of bitterness,\n hate, and wild agrarianism without a single Christian principle to\n give it consistency, except the sole idea of universal suffrage....\n These reckless demagogues have had their day and the time has come\n for wiser counsels. With Wade uttering agrarian doctrines in Kansas\n and fanning the flame of vulgar prejudices, trying to array labor\n against capital and pandering to the basest passions; with Butler\n urging wholesale conscription throughout the South and wholesale\n repudiation throughout the North so far as the national debt is\n concerned; with Stevens joining hands with the traitor Vallandigham\n and advocating the idea of a flood of irredeemable paper money\n sufficient in volume to drown the whole country; with Pomeroy and\n Wade and Sprague and a host of others clamoring for the unsexing of\n woman and putting the ballot in her hand ... what wonder it is that\n the accumulated load was too heavy for any party to carry and that\n it broke down under it?[524]\n\nThere can be little doubt that the spectacular career of Jay Cooke\nquite dazzled his contemporary fellow citizens. Nothing like it\nhad before appeared in America. The greatest salesman that the\nrising middle class had yet produced, a financier who understood\nthe psychology of mass appeal, a propagandist of truly heroic\nproportions, he was reckoned no other than a magician by all the lesser\nmoney-grabbers of the Gilded Age. From nothing he built up a vast\nfortune. Scrupulous in all religious duties, a kind husband, a generous\nfriend, benevolent in all worthy charities, simple and democratic\nin his tastes, ardently patriotic, uncreative and unintellectual,\nhe exemplified all the substantial middle-class virtues of a people\nnewly given to the worship of a sterile money economy. To call him\na vulgarian and the chronicle of his life nauseous would scarcely be\ncharitable. The record of his days has been laid before us, naked and\nmean, by his biographer, who has done his best to construct a hero\nfrom the poor materials. No doubt he was a hero of his generation--and\nperhaps of ours also.\n\n\n3 \u2022 Charles A. Dana\n\nIf General Grant and Jay Cooke were na\u00efve heroes, ignorant as the\ngeneration that delighted to honor them, Charles A. Dana, the\njournalist of the Gilded Age, was a disillusioned intellectual who\nafter immersing himself in the golden dreams of the forties, put\naway all Utopian hopes and made use of his brains to serve himself.\nDisappointed with idealism, he turned materialist and dedicated to\ncapitalistic exploitation the abilities that before had been given to\na venture in co\u00f6perative living. A brilliant fellow, playing the new\ngame in Gilded Age fashion and winning a brilliant success, he was a\nconspicuous victim of the bankruptcy of idealism that is the price of\nall wars, and his later triumph as editor of the _New York Sun_ only\nserved to measure the greatness of his fall. The career of Dana is a\ncynical commentary on the changing spirit of America from the days of\nBrook Farm to the days of Mark Hanna.\n\nA child of the Puritan frontier, Dana early crossed over into New\nYork State and became a shop-boy in the backwoods village of Buffalo\nat a time when the Indian trade was important enough to justify him\nin learning Algonquin. In these early manhood days he was living in\nthe midst of the coonskin democracy, and falling in with the frontier\nspirit he became an ardent Jacksonian. He was eager for an education\nand quitting Buffalo he went to Harvard, but his eyes failing him after\ntwo years, he joined the Brook Farm community where he speedily became\none of the chief counselors, and was deeply concerned for the success\nof the experiment. In those generous years he was a militant idealist,\nwidely read in socialist literature and warmly espousing associationism\nas a cure for the evils of competition. Upon quitting Brook Farm after\nthe burning of the Phalanstery he joined Greeley and for fifteen years\nwas one of the directing minds on the _Tribune_. In 1848 he went abroad\nas foreign correspondent, saw much of the revolutions of that great\nyear, studied the temper of the French and German people, analyzed\nthe popular leaders and programs with singular acuteness, and found\nhis sympathies warmly enlisted in the cause of the lower classes. He\nwas then thirty-nine, and his active mind had gathered up all the\ndiverse radicalisms--Jacksonian, Utopian, European proletarian--of\nhis revolutionary generation. Shrewdly observant and with a sensitive\nsocial conscience, he was amply equipped to become such another critic\nof the Industrial Revolution as England had bred from its bitter\nexperience.\n\nBut the war intervened, and after the war a dun twilight gathered about\nthe hopes of the forties. Few generous enthusiasms survived those\nyears of struggle and Dana in his editorial rooms underwent successive\nchanges of heart. The realist slowly dispossessed the idealist and\nthen the cynic swallowed up the realist. The last forty years of his\nlife were spent undoing the work of his earlier years. His political\nphilosophy went to pieces and the policy of the _Sun_ became a mere\nhodge-podge of jingo programs, an irrational bundle of personal\nprejudices and private interests. His reaction from associationism\ncarried him over to a stark and ruthless individualism. He saw all\nabout him the strong and capable as the masters of the earth, with\nsocial justice an outcast and mendicant begging from house to house.\nThe millennium to which belongs the ideal of social democracy which\nhe had earlier served, he could no longer make out from any present\nbend in the road, and putting away his faith he went with the masters.\nThe reaction began during the _Tribune_ days with his espousal of the\nAmerican System--the first outcropping of the middle-class qualities\nof his mind--and thereafter he drifted steadily to the right and the\nDismal Swamp of exploitation. With augmenting wealth and the sense\nof power that came from the great success of the _Sun_ he became the\napologist and defender of capitalism, phrasing with clever vivacity all\nthe sophistries of Gilded Age argument. Professing to be a Democrat, he\nmade much of states rights and governmental _laissez faire_. He would\ncountenance no interference with the principle of free competition,\nbut would reduce the government to the r\u00f4le of policeman to keep the\npeace. He professed to believe that the dry bones of Manchesterism were\na living democratic faith. He ridiculed the proposal for pure-food\nlegislation, civil service reform, the control of monopolies,\nprofessing to see in every such move the insidious beginnings of an\nun-American bureaucracy. No social pretext justified in his eyes the\nregulation of business enterprise. Centralization of economic power he\naccepted as in the nature of things, and the popular denunciation of\ntrusts he called \u201cthe greatest humbug of the hour.\u201d His argument was\nsimple and to the Gilded Age wholly satisfactory.\n\n The objects of trade being to buy as cheap as possible, to sell\n as dear as possible, and to get control of the market as far as\n possible, the formation for these purposes of these gigantic and\n widely extended partnerships is just as natural and regular as the\n partnership of two shoemakers or of two blacksmiths.[525]\n\nThus far Dana must be reckoned a belated disciple of the Manchester\nschool. The days of transcendental and Utopian idealism were past and\nhe knew it. The Gilded Age had traveled far from such na\u00efve enthusiasms\nand it was time to face reality. But his realism was only a gesture\nto cover his surrender to capitalism. It was not honest. When his\nprinciple of individualism trod on his own toes he threw it aside with\nno compunctions. He was a _laissez-faire_ Democrat only when a free\nfield favored business, but when business desired government assistance\nhe made no scruple to turn Whig. Accepting the principle of private\nexploitation under the drive of the acquisitive instinct, and content\nwith the social ethics of Captain Kidd, he would weaken government or\nstrengthen government as business profits dictated. In these later\nyears he became cynically class-conscious, while professing to deny\nthe existence of classes. He would disarm the government as against\nthe capitalist, but he would triple-arm it against the farmer and\nworkingman. He was shrill in his demands for a high protective tariff\nfor the manufacturers, huge grants of public lands for speculative\nrailway companies, and a monetary system in the control of the bankers.\nBut for the economic demands of the western farmers he had only\ncontempt--the agrarians were flying in the face of economic law as\neconomic law was understood by the high priests of capitalism. When\nhe talked about \u201chonest money\u201d he laid his brains on the shelf. He\nwould have no other money than the gold standard, and to achieve that\nobject he never suffered candor to weaken his plea. He bitterly opposed\nthe income tax and when the Democratic platform of 1896 suggested the\nreorganization of the Supreme Court to reverse the decision on its\nconstitutionality, he turned demagogue and indulged in talk about\n\u201cthe destruction of the independence of the judiciary.\u201d When it was\nproposed that the railways be nationalized he protested that he could\nnot \u201cimagine anything more absurd, unpatriotic, and dangerous\u201d--on\nthe assumption no doubt that railways existed to pay dividends on\ntheir stock. \u201cStill more alarming\u201d to him was the \u201cclearly implied\napproval of lawless violence contained in the denunciation of what is\ndenominated in the [Democratic] platform \u2018government by injunction.\u2019\nVeiled in the language of moderation, the wild light of anarchy shines\nthrough.\u201d[526] He urged upon government the necessity of holding the\nlabor unions in strict control, he was eloquent in defense of the\nindividual laborer\u2019s sacred right of \u201cfree contract,\u201d and he was loud\nin applause of President Cleveland\u2019s lawless suppression of the Pullman\nstrike. When it came to Bryan and Populism he lost his head and became\nquite maudlin.\n\nDana was no fool to be deceived by his own insincerity. On the\ncontrary he was highly intelligent and knew perfectly well what he\nwas about. Having gone over to capitalism, he would fight its battles\nwith whatever weapons came to hand, and like a son of New England\nhe would cover his breast with a shield of morality. He became the\nchief journalistic exponent of the \u201clawless violence\u201d he was fond of\nattributing to other social classes. He turned into a flaming jingo\nimperialist, talked patriotically about \u201cadequate\u201d coast defenses,\ndemanded a great navy, and was the loudest spokesman of the blowsy\ndoctrine of \u201cManifest Destiny.\u201d He was always peering through his\nglasses to discover some fresh territory to annex--Haiti, Cuba,\nMexico--and so late as 1887 he was still calling for the annexation\nof Canada. Naturally he approved President Cleveland\u2019s Venezuelan\nproclamation and he probably would have enjoyed a tussle with the\nBritish lion. In his morality he was quite as truculent as in his\npatriotism and in his advocacy of capitalism. Perhaps it was a salve\nto a conscience that could not have been easy. He hated political\ncorruption and he attacked the sordid looting that marked President\nGrant\u2019s administration with gusto. He took sardonic delight in giving\nthe widest publicity to the classic corruptionist phrase of the\nday--\u201cHe understands addition, division, and silence.\u201d He erected into\na fetish the cry \u201cTurn the rascals out!\u201d yet while helping to pry\nloose one set of rascals from their spoils he was busily providing\nanother set with his demand for subsidies and tariffs. It was a\nsituation that must have amused the cynical Dana. He had long since\nleft off worrying about the damned human race. It was more sensible to\npile up one\u2019s plate at the barbecue and send the bill to the American\npeople. He had made a huge success and what mattered it if his old\nBrook Farm associates, Ripley and Curtis, no longer spoke to him when\nthey met?\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[504] See Allan Nevins, \u201cThe Taming of the West,\u201d in _The Emergence of\nModern America_.\n\n[505] It is the same story in the matter of the passenger pigeon. In\nearly days the flights of these birds ran to untold millions. The last\ngreat nesting was at Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878, covering a strip\nforty miles long and from three to ten miles wide. Upon the nests fell\nthe market-hunters and a million and a half squabs were shipped to New\nYork by rail, besides the thousands wasted. Within a generation the\npassenger pigeon had become extinct. See W. B. Mershon, _Outdoor Life\nand Recreation_, February, 1929, p. 26 ff.\n\n[506] Quoted in J. P. Davis, _The Union Pacific Railway_, pp. 67-68.\n\n[507] E. P. Oberholtzer, _Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_, Vol.\nI, p. 52.\n\n[508] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 81 and 83.\n\n[509] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 85.\n\n[510] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 132-133.\n\n[511] See _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 143-144.\n\n[512] See _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 97-98.\n\n[513] C. E. Russell, _Stories of Great Railroads_, p. 19.\n\n[514] The list of his \u201cbeneficiaries,\u201d some of whom were drawn\nin delicately and some realistically, included, according to his\nbiographer, Vice-President Colfax, Speaker Blaine and James A. Garfield\nof the House, Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio and Governor Geary\nof Pennsylvania, General Horace Porter, President Grant\u2019s private\nsecretary, Senators John Sherman, William Windom, and Ben Wade,\nDelegate Garfielde of Washington Territory, Bayard Taylor. Amongst\nthe papers were Henry Ward Beecher\u2019s _Christian Union_, Greeley\u2019s\n_Tribune_, the _Philadelphia Press_, the _Washington Chronicle_, the\n_London Times_.\n\n[515] See Oberholtzer, Vol. II, p. 154.\n\n[516] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 176.\n\n[517] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 322.\n\n[518] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 409.\n\n[519] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 411.\n\n[520] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 643-644.\n\n[521] _Ibid._, Vol. II, pp. 267-268.\n\n[522] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 269.\n\n[523] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 56 note.\n\n[524] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 28.\n\n[525] See James Harrison Wilson, _The Life of Charles A. Dana_, p. 479.\n\n[526] See _Ibid._, p. 491.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Culture of the Seventies\n\n\nIt was in the seventies that good taste reached its lowest ebb. Not\nonly in America, but in England as well, where rebels like William\nMorris were contemptuously rejecting a machine civilization. A\nveritable _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_ of the arts was in process, the lesser as well\nas the greater, in New York and Boston as well as in Chicago and San\nFrancisco, from which literature could not wholly escape; and that\n_d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_ was an expression of profound changes taking place at the\nbases of society. The dignified culture of the eighteenth century,\nthat hitherto had been a conserving and creative influence throughout\nthe Jeffersonian revolution, was at last breaking up. The disruptive\nforces that swept out of the great West, bringing the frontier spirit\nto every threshold, and the factory economy that displaced the wares of\nthe craftsman with the products of the machine, were destroying that\nearlier culture and providing no adequate substitute. Distinction of\nmanners and dress was gone, dignity and repose were gone, traditional\nstandards were gone; and in their stead a bumptious restlessness, a\nstraining for originality and individuality that exuded in a shoddy and\nmeaningless grotesque. It was not without justification that Godkin\ncontemptuously applied the phrase, \u201ca chromo civilization,\u201d to the\nworks of that singular generation dwelling between worlds, the one\ndead, the other seeming powerless to be born.\n\nHow much was lost in the break-up of the excellent culture of the\neighteenth century the children of the seventies neither knew nor\ncared. Generations of growth had gone to its shaping. It had been\nformed by the needs of men and women conscious of the ties that linked\nthem with the past. It was bound back upon the rich cultural life of\nmedieval times, and in the aristocratic eighteenth century it had come\nto flower in forms of fine distinction and dignity. Touch that century\non any side--dress, architecture, furniture, manners, letters--and\nthe same note of refinement, of grace, of balanced harmonious form,\nis everywhere evident. The culture of the times of the Coffee House\nWits was all of a piece, held together by an inner pervasive unity.\nThe formality of the wig and the heroic couplet was symbolic of a\ngeneration that loved dignity, and the refinement of the Chippendale\nsideboard, wrought in slender Honduras mahogany, was the expression of\na society that cultivated the graces of life. But when the tie-wig and\nsmallclothes disappeared before the social revolutions of the end of\nthe century, when the gentleman was pushed from his place by the banker\nand manufacturer, and broadcloth gave way to tweeds, the culture of the\neighteenth century was doomed; and until another culture should impose\nits standards upon society and re\u00ebstablish an inner spiritual unity,\nthere would be only the welter of an unlovely transition.\n\nIn no other field is the sprawling formlessness of the seventies\nmore grotesquely suggested than in its architecture and in interior\ndecoration, which is a lesser form of architecture. Upon the buildings\nof the times the hallmark of the Gilded Age is stamped in gaudy\ncolors. By the end of the thirties the fine traditions of colonial\ncraftsmanship were gone and the builders set forth on a foolish quest\nfor historical styles. Revivals followed on each other\u2019s heels. The\nGreek revival and the Gothic revival marked the successive decline of\nthe noble art of building, until at last, turning away from the past,\narchitecture erupted in what it conceived to be a new American style,\nthe expression of a free democratic people, but which later generations\nreckon a sign and proof of cultural bankruptcy. It was the golden\nage of the jig saw, of the brownstone front, of the veranda that ran\nabout the house like a spider web, of the mansard roof, the cupola,\nthe house of stilts. Flamboyant lines and meaningless detail destroyed\nthe structural unity of the whole; tawdry decoration supplanted beauty\nof materials and a fine balance of masses. A stuffy and fussy riot of\nfancy, restrained by no feeling for structural lines, supplied the lack\nof creative imagination, and architecture sank to the level of the\njerry-builder. Bad taste could go no further.\n\nWith this decay of aristocratic culture and the attendant\ndisintegration of the earlier cultural unity, three diverse strands\nof cultural impulse remained, each of an individual fabric that\ncould not easily be woven into a harmonious pattern: a decadent\nFederalistic culture that occupied the seats of authority in New\nEngland and wherever New England opinion was respected; the body of\nsocial aspiration that had come from the French Enlightenment, from\nwhich individual dreamers still drew nourishment; and the vigorous\nindividualism of the frontier that bit so deeply into the psychology\nof the age. Behind these diverse impulses lay still another that would\neventually shoulder them aside and provide the pattern for the America\nthat was rising--the culture of an urbanized and mechanized society\nthat in its vast warrens of business was creating the psychology and\nmanners of a standardized, middle-class world of salesmanship.\n\n\nI \u2022 New England in Decay\n\nIn one spot in America, at least, the disruption of the fine old\naristocratic culture would not be suffered without a protest. Brahmin\nNew England would cling to its traditional standards though all the\nrest of America should go whoring after strange gods. The welter of the\nseventies it looked upon with undisguised contempt. It would not follow\nthe way that other portions of the country were hastening. It would\nhave nothing to do with a bumptious frontier spirit that recognized no\nobligations to the past--for the excellent reason that it had no past.\nIt had had its fill of the visionary Enlightenment that had come to\nlogical fruit in the vagaries of Thoreau and the grotesque vaporings\nof Alcott. It had had more than its fill of the strident causes that\nspawned like mushrooms in the rank soil of French romanticism. Emerson\nit could forgive, for Emerson was a Brahmin, but it quietly ignored\nhis philosophic anarchism and chose to dwell on pleasanter aspects of\nhis teaching. Wendell Phillips it regarded as a common nuisance, but\nEdmund Quincy it forgave, for after a season of vagrant wanderings he\nreturned to the placid ways of his ancestral Brahminism. Of all these\nthings, whether frontier or Utopian or what not, it had had enough,\nand so it turned back lovingly to the culture of earlier times and\ndrew comfort from a dignified Federalism--enriched now by a mellow\nHarvard scholarship that was on intimate terms with Dante and Chaucer\nand Cervantes and Shakespeare--a Federalism that fitted the dignified\nBrahmin genius as comfortably as an old shoe.\n\nIt was an excellent heritage--that old culture. Never richly creative,\nnever endowed with a fleshly paganism, it possessed nevertheless a\nsolidity got from long wrestling with the eternities, a pleasantly\nacrid flavor got from crotchety old books, and a sober morality got\nfrom much contemplation of the sinfulness of the children of Adam. It\nwas as native to New England as Boston brown bread, and it issued in\nself-respecting and dignified character. Underneath all transcendental\nand other eruptions it had lain unmoved like the granite foundations\nof the New England fields; and now after those eruptions had subsided\nit provided the solid footing on which the later culture might rear\nits chaste temples. But unhappily the building days of New England\nwere over. Matters were going ill there. Emigration to the West was\ndraining the vitality from farm and village, and in Boston disastrous\nchanges were under way. The familiar places where Sam Adams and Josiah\nQuincy had dwelt with their fellows were being invaded by immigrants\nwho brought with them another faith and discordant manners. The Roman\nCatholic church grew strong as the Old North declined; the Irish brogue\ndisplaced the Yankee on Boston Common; Faneuil Hall was given over to\nalien fishmongers. The Brahmin remnant was absorbed in banking and\nbrokerage and railway investments. It still held the Boston purse but\nit was fast losing the Boston vote. The capital of the Puritan fathers\nwas being destroyed by the Industrial Revolution that their descendants\nhad set on foot. New England was visibly falling into decay and the\nyears of its intellectual leadership in America were numbered.\n\nThe days of high thinking were over and the familiar home of\nhumanitarian causes was inhabited by other tenants. All that remained\nof the golden forties was the quiet atmosphere of good breeding.\nUnitarianism, that Theodore Parker had kept open-minded and militant,\nsettled into a staid and respectable orthodoxy, its pale negations\nsufficing to soothe its placid congregations. Transcendentalism, that\nhad thrown a lovely mist about the lean New England character, was\nevaporating in the rising sun of science; and the ardor of reform, that\nhad burned fiercely in the Puritan heart, subsided into a well-bred\ninterest in negro schools and foreign missions. The Abolition leaders\nlaid aside their pens, convinced that the last injustice had been\nremoved from American society. Their work was done and they turned\nunwilling ears to calls for new crusades. The New England conscience\nwas tired. It had borne the burden and heat of a long day and was glad\nto be released from its cares to set up monuments to its sacred dead\nand to write the chronicles of its past. New England lost interest in\nideas and turned away from creative intellectual life to catalogue\nits libraries and revere the men who had written those libraries. The\nEnlightenment was over in Boston and the stir of reform passed to New\nYork and the West, where Amelia Bloomer and Elizabeth Cady Stanton\ncarried forward the great crusades for temperance and women\u2019s rights,\nand Henry George was preaching the gospel of a new social economics.\nWhatever militants existed in New England were not likely to be\nBrahmins and their labors did not roil the quiet waters. Clamorous\ndistractions no longer disturbed the calm of Federalistic culture, and\nCambridge and the Back Bay quietly appropriated the literary earnings\nof Concord and lived pleasantly on its revenues.\n\nThe inevitable fruit of such thin soil was the genteel tradition, the\nexcellence of which in the seventies New England maintained in the\nface of all frontier leveling and romantic liberalisms--a timid and\nuncreative culture that lays its inhibitions on every generation that\nis content to live upon the past. It was a penalty for backsliding.\nThe men of the preceding generation had got their cheeses made--and\nexcellent cheeses they were, with a fine native flavor. But the\ntranscendental cow had gone dry and with no fresh cows coming in the\nBrahmins of the seventies were hard put to it to live an adequate\nintellectual life. Translations and medieval scholarship were no better\nthan remainder biscuit after voyage. Ever since Lowell put away his\nyouthful radicalisms and turned bookman, Brahmin culture had been\nundernourished. The story of intellectual New England after 1870 is\nlittle more than a repetition of the story of New England after 1790--a\nresurgence of the traditional Toryism that assumed an unquestioned\ncustodianship of all matters intellectual.\n\nThat was her own business, of course, and it would have been of no\ngreat concern to the rest of the country if New England had not set\nup a cultural dictatorship over American letters. It was not content\nto follow its own path to sterility, but was bent on dragging the\ncountry with it. Boston taste determined American literary standards,\nand Boston taste rejected most of the new movements then getting\nunder way. Stoddard and Stedman in New York, Boker in Philadelphia,\nand Aldrich in Boston, stoutly upheld the genteel tradition, of which\nthe _Atlantic Monthly_ was the authoritative spokesman. Great figures\nfrom the past--Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Motley,\nParkman--still walked the streets of Boston, and their extraordinary\nreputations were little less than tyrannous in the inhibitions they\nlaid on younger men. It is incomprehensible today, the authority of\nthese great reputations. Young William Winter walking twenty miles\nto stand in the moonlight at Craigie House gate and view reverently\nthe silent walls within which the great Longfellow was sleeping; Mark\nTwain in the fullness of his powers abashed and put out of countenance\nat his temerity in speaking humorously of Emerson and Longfellow and\nHolmes at the _Atlantic_ dinner--one understands such things with\ndifficulty now that those reputations have so much bated and dwindled.\nYet to the generation of the seventies the inhibitions of the genteel\ntradition were all-powerful, and the little Boston group set themselves\nup as a court of final jurisdiction over American letters. New England\nparochialism had become a nation-wide nuisance.\n\nThe genteel tradition, as Professor Santayana has pointed out, had\nlong been a disease in New England. Some of the finest minds of the\nRenaissance--Emerson and Hawthorne in particular--had suffered from\nit; their mental processes \u201chad all a certain starved and abstract\nquality,\u201d a lack of the rich paganism that endows life and art with\nsensuous beauty.\n\n They could not retail the genteel tradition [he goes on]; they were\n too keen, too perceptive, and too independent for that. But life\n offered them little digestible material, nor were they naturally\n voracious. They were fastidious, and under the circumstances they\n were starved.... Therefore the genius of ... Hawthorne, and even\n of Emerson, was employed in a sort of inner play, or digestion of\n vacancy. It was a refined labor, but was in danger of being morbid,\n or tinkling, or self-indulgent. It was a play of intra-mental\n rhymes. Their mind was like an old music-box, full of tender\n echoes and quaint fancies. These fancies expressed their personal\n genius sincerely, as dreams may; but they were arbitrary fancies\n in comparison with what a real observer would have said in the\n premises. Their manner, in a word, was subjective. In their own\n persons they escaped the mediocrity of the genteel tradition, but\n they supplied nothing to supplant it in other minds.[527]\n\nIf the thin pale atmosphere in which the genteel tradition throve\nstarved the minds of greater men in a more vigorous age, it would play\nhavoc with smaller men in an imitative age. After Emerson and Hawthorne\ncame Stedman and Stoddard and Aldrich, upon whose studiously correct\npages the genteel tradition laid a hand of death. In the seventies it\nhad become the refuge of a stale mentality, emptied of all ideals save\nbeauty, and that beauty become cold and anemic. Its taboos were no more\nthan cushions for tired or lazy minds. The idea of morality--with its\ncorollary of reticence--and the idea of excellence were well enough in\nthe abstract, but become empty conventions, cut off from reality, they\nwere little more than a refuge for respectability, a barricade against\nthe intrusion of the unpleasant. In compressing literature within\nthe rigid bounds of a genteel morality and a genteel excellence, New\nEngland was in a way of falsifying it. Highways are easy traveling,\nbut the artist who will not venture from them misses much. In the\nseventies and eighties the incurious Boston mentality missed pretty\nmuch everything vital and significant in American life, and the more\ndaring children of Boston--men like Henry Adams and, shall we add,\nHenry James--sought congenial atmosphere elsewhere.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Thomas Bailey Aldrich and the Genteel\n\nIn the expansive days of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain the official\ncustodian of the genteel in letters was Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who\nas editor of the _Atlantic_ from 1881 to 1890 sturdily combated all\nliterary leveling. Sitting in the high seat of Boston authority he\nwould countenance none of the \u201cJosh Billingsgate\u201d corruptions of\nthe English language that he professed to believe were sullying the\npurity of American literary taste. A Portsmouth, New Hampshire, boy,\nearly transplanted to New York City, he lisped in numbers before he\nlearned to think. At the age of nineteen he published a volume of\npoems entitled _The Bells, A Collection of Chimes_, the tintillations\nof which were little more than faint echoes of Keats, Chatterton,\nTennyson, Poe, Bryant, Willis, and Longfellow; and to the end of his\nlife his state of ideal felicity was to be \u201cloaded to the muzzle with\nlyrics and sonnets\u201d wherewith to do execution on all purveyors of\nrealism with its \u201cmiasmatic breath blown from the slums.\u201d Transplanted\nto Boston from the Bohemian world of Pfaff\u2019s restaurant where Willis\nheld court, he settled down into the staid atmosphere of the Back\nBay with immense content. Though he was fond of calling himself only\nBoston-plated he was soon as completely Bostonian as the Autocrat\nhimself. Intellectually and esthetically he had been Cambridge bred,\nand the influence of Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes determined his\nevery literary endeavor. Like the returned prodigal he wandered no\nmore but was satisfied to feast on the dainties of Back Bay culture.\nHe immersed himself in the genteel. His one ambition as editor of the\n_Atlantic_ was to keep it as Lowell wished it kept. To the end of his\nlife he remained completely insulated against the creative forces of\nthe times, and in the year that Stephen Crane was writing _Maggie_\nhe published _The Sisters\u2019 Tragedy_. He would have been shocked by\n_Maggie_, if he had read it, as a later generation wonders at _The\nSisters\u2019 Tragedy_.\n\nIt is easy to see why Aldrich should have been taken to Boston\u2019s\nheart. His refined and delicate technique more than compensated for\nan intellectual sterility that seems never to have been apparent to\nhis ardent admirers. Witty, charming in manners, in love with art\nand devoted to a painstaking craftsmanship, he was a hollow reed\nthrough which blew into flawless form the refinements of his world and\ngroup. Good taste found nothing to offend in his scanty pages. If he\nworshiped at the altar of beauty, beauty to him was always a chaste\ngoddess, severe and pale and slight. A blowsy goddess like Whitman\u2019s,\nor a slattern like Mark Twain\u2019s, he would have none of. As a youthful\npoet, to be sure, he sometimes hinted that she had red cheeks and\nplump breasts and rounded limbs, but on his removal to Boston he\ndiscovered that she was quite Beacon Street with her slender form and\nmodest reserve--no Greek but a lovely Puritan maiden; and the mature\nAldrich came to prefer her chaste reticence to the freer ways the\nyounger generation liked. They were destroying beauty--this younger\ngeneration--with their vulgar realism, besmirching the goddess with\ntheir vulgarities. In an interlude entitled \u201cRealism\u201d he gave voice to\nthe following pastoral lament:\n\n Romance beside his unstrung lute\n Lies stricken mute.\n The old-time fire, the antique grace,\n You will not find them anywhere.\n To-day we breathe a commonplace,\n Polemic, scientific air:\n We strip Illusion of her veil;\n We vivisect the nightingale\n To probe the secret of his note.\n The Muse in alien ways remote\n Goes wandering.[528]\n\nAnd in a dramatic monologue, quite evidently suggested by _The\nGrammarian\u2019s Funeral_, he voiced the following protest against an age\nenslaved to realism:\n\n A twilight poet, groping quite alone,\n Belated, in a sphere where every nest\n Is emptied of its music and its wings.\n Not great his gift; yet we can poorly spare\n Even his slight perfection in an age\n Of limping triolets and tame rondeaux.\n He had at least ideals, though unreached,\n And heard, far off, immortal harmonies,\n Such as fall coldly on our ear to-day.\n The mighty Zolaistic Movement now\n Engrosses us--a miasmatic breath\n Blown from the slums. We paint life as it is,\n The hideous side of it, with careful pains,\n Making a god of the dull Commonplace.\n For have we not the old gods overthrown\n And set up strangest idols? We would clip\n Imagination\u2019s wing and kill delight,\n Our sole art being to leave nothing out\n That renders art offensive. Not for us\n Madonnas leaning from their starry thrones\n Ineffable, nor any heaven-wrought dream\n Of sculptor or of poet; we prefer\n Such nightmare visions as in morbid brains\n Take form and substance, thoughts that taint the air\n And make all life unlovely. Will it last?\n Beauty alone endures from age to age,\n From age to age endures, handmaid of God.[529]\n\nIt was not the realists alone, he thought, who were fouling their own\nnests, but all who turned aside from the narrow path of Victorianism\nto explore new ways. Whitman he regarded as a charlatan whose\nmannerisms were a \u201chollow affectation\u201d representing \u201cneither the\nman nor the time.\u201d Riley\u2019s formal verse he preferred to his dialect\npoems--\u201cThe English language is too rich and sacred a thing to be\nmutilated and vulgarized,\u201d he wrote, overlooking the _Biglow Papers_.\nHe held Kipling\u2019s cockneyisms in contempt and said he would not have\nopened the pages of the _Atlantic_ even to the \u201cRecessional.\u201d Lanier\nhe thought a less significant figure than Fitz-Greene Halleck, and\nof Poe he remarked that if he \u201chad been an exemplary, conventional,\ntax-oppressed citizen, like Longfellow, his few poems, as striking as\nthey are, would not have made so great a stir.\u201d[530] In such literary\njudgments the arch-conservative is engaged in defending the genteel\ntradition against every assault, convinced that the portals of creative\nliterature open into the past and that in following in the footsteps of\nthe dead we shall come upon a living world. The sterility of his own\nrefined craftsmanship is perhaps sufficient commentary upon his faith.\n\nWhen in later years he turned to prose his work revealed the same\nnegative qualities. His prose style is finished, clean, and thin,\nwanting in homely idiom and a rich suggestiveness. The water trickled\ngently from the spring of his invention, cool and unroiled, but never\nabundant. The dignity that results from a strong nature held in\nrestraint, he never achieved. There were no depths in him. He waited\npatiently for his vessel to fill and measured it out carefully. As a\nshort-story writer he gained a surprising repute, and admirers like\nSarah Orne Jewett were never tired of praising the sprightliness of his\nhumor. Nevertheless his most celebrated story scarcely explains today\nthe immense stir it made. _Marjorie Daw_ is a clever _jeu d\u2019esprit_ but\na bit thin and artificial, too consciously written backwards from its\nsurprise ending. Other distillings of his wit and wisdom, done in the\nsententious manner and gathered up in _Ponkapog Papers_, are slight in\ncontent, and the effervescence is long since gone out of them. _The\nStory of a Bad Boy_, with its pleasant recollections of his Portsmouth\nyouth, remains his most important work in prose and deserves much\nof the praise that has been lavished upon it; but set over against\n_Huckleberry Finn_ its shortcomings are evident.\n\nIt is absurd, of course, to expect an aesthete to concern himself with\nideas, or to care greatly about what goes on outside his ivory tower.\nThe rumblings of the vulgar world beat ineffectually against the gate\nbehind which he sits and dreams. For years the editor of the _Atlantic_\nwas scarcely conscious of his complete aloofness from the world of\nreality, and he wrote in some surprise to Hamilton Wright Mabie, in\n1897:\n\n I like to have you say that I have always cared more for the\n integrity of my work than for any chance popularity. And what\n you say of my \u201caloofness\u201d as being \u201cdue in part to a lack of\n quick sympathies with contemporary experience\u201d (though I had\n never before thought of it) shows true insight. To be sure,\n such verse as \u201cElmwood,\u201d \u201cWendell Phillips,\u201d \u201cUnguarded Gates\u201d\n and the \u201cShaw Memorial Ode\u201d would seem somewhat to condition\n the statement; but the mood of these poems is not habitual with\n me, not characteristic. They did, however, grow out of strong\n conviction.[531]\n\nYet though he spoke rarely on social themes, during the long years\nin Boston most of the Back Bay prejudices seemed to have seeped into\nhis mind and when the \u201cstrong convictions,\u201d to which he refers, found\nutterance they proved to be Brahmin convictions. In the vigorous poem\n\u201cUnguarded Gates\u201d--a poem tense, outspoken, almost unique in its\ndeliberate declamation--he sallied forth from his ivory tower to speak\nto the American people on the dangers of uncontrolled immigration, a\nsubject that Boston Brahmins had been talking about since the days of\nHarrison Gray Otis.\n\n Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,\n And through them presses a wild motley throng--\n Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,\n Featureless figures from the Hoang-Ho,\n Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav,\n Flying the Old World\u2019s poverty and scorn;\n These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,\n Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.\n In street and alley what strange tongues are loud,\n Accents of menace alien to our air,\n Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!\n\n O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well\n To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast\n Fold Sorrow\u2019s children, soothe the hurts of fate,\n Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel\n Stay those who to thy sacred portals come\n To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care\n Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn\n And trampled in the dust. For so of old\n The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,\n And where the temples of the Caesars stood\n The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.[532]\n\nWhat emotions lay back of the measured words of the poem, and how\ndeeply they were colored by the social passions of the times, he tells\nin a letter to George E. Woodberry, written May 14, 1892:\n\n I went home and wrote a misanthropic poem called \u201cUnguarded\n Gates\u201d ... in which I mildly protest against America becoming the\n cesspool of Europe. I\u2019m much too late, however. I looked in on an\n anarchist meeting the other night ... and heard such things spoken\n by our \u201cfeller citizens\u201d as made my cheek burn. These brutes are\n the spawn and natural result of the French Revolution; they don\u2019t\n want any government at all, they \u201cwant the earth\u201d ... and chaos.\n My Americanism goes clean beyond yours. I believe in America for\n the Americans; I believe in the widest freedom and the narrowest\n license, and I hold that jail-birds, professional murderers,\n amateur lepers ... and human gorillas generally should be closely\n questioned at our Gates. Or the \u201csifting\u201d that was done of old will\n have to be done over again.... A certain Arabian writer, called\n Rudyard Kipling, described exactly the government of every city and\n town in the ... United States when he described that of New York\n as being \u201ca despotism of the alien, by the alien, for the alien,\n tempered with occasional insurrections of decent folk!\u201d[533]\n\nTwo years later he again gave private expression to one of his rare\njudgments on matters political and social:\n\n When not otherwise engaged I sit and smoke, and smile at the\n present administration [President Cleveland\u2019s].... The best kind\n of Democracy (as per sample) is no better than the worst kind\n of Republicanism. The Income Tax is the deformed child of Coxey\n and his brother scalawags. I vote for McKinley. We shall have\n bloody work in this country some of these days, when the lazy\n _canaille_ get organized. They are the spawn of Santerre and\n Fouquier-Tinville. In about twenty years we shall bring out an\n American edition (illustrated with cuts) of the beautiful French\n Revolution.[534]\n\nAnd again in 1899:\n\n Personally I must confess that I have never been very deeply\n impressed by the administrative abilities of what we call the lower\n classes. The Reign of Terror in France is a fair illustration of\n the kind of government which the masses give us when they get the\n happy opportunity.[535]\n\nThe literary conservative, it appears, was no better than a social\nand political Tory. He has traveled back a hundred years and speaks\nagain the very language of Robert Treat Paine. _Canaille_ is not a\nnice word to apply to American workingmen, and the French Revolution\nhas never been well thought of by the children of the _ancien r\u00e9gime_.\nThomas Bailey Aldrich was a cultivated gentleman, on the pleasantest\nterms with the Muse of Beacon Street. Twice he traveled around the\nworld; innumerable summers he spent in Europe; yet of many things that\nconcern men greatly he was very, very ignorant. Of the American people\nbeyond the Hudson River, he knew nothing. Of social economics he knew\nnothing. Fearful lest his art should get a smutch from the streets, he\nwithdrew within his tower, where perhaps it is well to leave him. Yet\nit is odd to recall that he was once regarded as a significant literary\nfigure and that intelligent people listened to him seriously.\n\n\n2 \u2022 The New England Scene\n\nIn fields less distinguished than poetry and the essay the sway of\nthe genteel was neither so magisterial nor so repressive. As fiction\nsomewhat tardily encroached upon the older literary preserves of New\nEngland it brought with it a fresher and more realistic spirit that\nwas eventually to deny the validity of the traditional standards. The\ngroup of fiction writers that arose in the seventies and eighties to\nchronicle the life of New England, was greatly concerned with the decay\nof the old New England world, and with the causes of that decay. As it\nset down with loving fidelity the characteristics of an earlier order\nit could not fail to consider the unloveliness of the new world that\nwas rising on the decay of the old--the alien industrial towns with\ntheir polyglot workers that were flourishing as the native villages\nand quiet countryside declined. New England fiction, therefore, came\nto embody two main features, chronicle and criticism. It gathered up\nsuch picturesque bits of the past as time and change had left, and it\nquestioned with some anxiety the ways of an industrialism that was\ndestroying what it loved. It was not Boston fiction, but up-country\nfiction, given to exploring quiet villages and decaying towns; and in\nboth its chronicles and its criticisms the spirit of realism became\nmore searching as the years passed.\n\nIn its own fashion such fiction would finally be brought into service\nto the social conscience and issue as sociological studies. As the\nevils of sweated labor under the factory system were brought home to\nthe common knowledge, one would suppose that New England would have\nbeen the first to conscript the novel to arouse the public conscience.\nThere had been anxious discussion amongst the Concord intellectuals\non the evils of industrialism, and in the early forties the talk had\nturned upon associationism as the likeliest cure; but though from such\ndiscussions came Brook Farm and other Utopian ventures, no fiction\nresulted. It was elsewhere, in the Pennsylvania iron district where\nexploitation was harsher and more brutal than in the textile mills,\nthat fiction first turned to consider the ways of industrialism. In\n1861 Rebecca Harding contributed to the _Atlantic_ a story entitled\n\u201cLife in the Iron Mills,\u201d that was stark and fierce in its drab\nrealism.[536] Nevertheless ten years were to pass before Elizabeth\nStuart Phelps published _The Silent Partner_ (1871), a dithyrambic plea\nfor justice for the mill-hands.\n\nIf this was not the first New England novel of industrialism it was\ncertainly one of the earliest. In conception, temper, and technique it\nbelongs to the emotional fifties, and is almost primitive in comparison\nwith Rebecca Harding\u2019s work. Underlain with religion, it is sticky\nwith sentiment. Although Miss Phelps professed to base her work on\nthe Reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, to\nwhich she says she was \u201cdeeply in debt for the ribs\u201d of her story,\nthe result is more a tract than a study. There is no realistic grasp\nof the materials. She was grieved that the mill-masters should reveal\nso little Christian understanding of the hard lot of the hands and\nso little sympathy with their poverty. \u201cI believe,\u201d she said, \u201cthat\na wide-spread ignorance exists among us regarding the abuses of our\nfactory system, more especially, but not exclusively, as exhibited in\nmany of the country mills.\u201d \u201cHad Christian ingenuity been generally\nsynonymous with the conduct of manufacturing corporations, I should\nhave found no occasion for the writing of this book.\u201d[537] It was to\nlessen such ignorance and encourage Christian sympathy between the\nclasses that she offered her study.\n\nThe book is a closet study done with more unction than skill. It is the\nwork of an emotional woman who lived in a world of sentiment rather\nthan reality. Miss Phelps was an Andover Brahmin, highly sensitive,\nwhose deeply religious nature was ruffled by every vagrant wind. She\nwas tremulous in her eager desire to lessen the injustice of men. _The\nSilent Partner_ is a story of a young woman brought up in luxury,\ndaughter of a manufacturer, who on her father\u2019s death wishes to join in\nthe management of the factory, but on being politely rejected by her\npartners she engages in personnel work amongst her employees. There she\ncomes upon poverty as a sordid fact, and that discovery works a moral\nchange in her life. She is overwhelmed by it and cannot understand why\nthe conscience of the world is not overwhelmed. \u201cSometimes I do not\nsee,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cwhat else there can _be_ to talk about in such a\nworld as this! I\u2019ve stepped into it, as we have stepped out into this\nstorm. It has wrapped me in....\u201d[538] Of the complexity of the problem\nshe is wholly ignorant. Surely there must be some road that leads to\njustice--justice based on understanding and Christian kindliness; and\nthe working girl whom she singles out for heroine becomes in the end\na street preacher to the textile workers, after refusing to marry and\nbring children into a world of factory toil. _The Silent Partner_ is an\nemotional Puritan document that was out of date when it came from the\npress.\n\nWhile Miss Phelps was thus summoning the New England conscience to\ncleanse the textile mills, her Brahmin sisters were little inclined\nto engage in such thankless labors, but preferred to gather up and\npreserve such fragments of the homely traditional New England as\nhad not been swept away in the engulfing stream of industrialism.\nFemale writers, from the days of Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton, had\nlong been busy in New England but never had they written so well or\nso understandingly as in the days of the New England decline. Harriet\nBeecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Harriet Prescott Spofford,\nRose Terry Cooke, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Alice Brown were not\ngreat writers, but they essayed to be faithful recorders of what came\nunder their eyes. It was the earlier New England that quickened their\nimaginations, the rugged Yankee character that had taken form under\na homely domestic economy. They had no liking for the New England\nthat was rising in the shadow of the mills; the cleavages of race and\nreligion that were sundering the old homogeneous society were bitterly\ndistasteful to them. The Irish, the French-Canadians, the masses of\nraw immigrants that were swept into the hoppers of the mills, were\nunwelcome gobbets to the Brahmin stomach. And so these recorders of the\nNew England decline turned away from the sordid industrial scene, and\nit was not till thirty years later that Mary Wilkins Freeman, in _The\nPortion of Labor_ (1901), essayed to do more adequately what Elizabeth\nStuart Phelps had first sketched.\n\nFrom Catherine Sedgwick to Mrs. Freeman the note shifted from the\nmoralistic to the sentimental, then to the idyllic, then to the\nrealistic; and the successive changes are sufficiently marked by three\nwriters, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Mary Wilkins\nFreeman. Seeking their materials remote from Boston, amidst the old\nnative stock pottering through the traditional round of life, they\ndiscovered a world of angular figures that had grown knotty and gnarly\nfrom a harsh climate and a meager soil. The stoic repressions that were\na heritage from Puritan ancestors had bred a hard race that any twist\nof circumstance was likely to turn into grotesques. Calvinists have\nalways at hand a providential justification of any freakish outcome to\nmen\u2019s struggles, and in piously denying freedom of the will they often\nput the seal of God\u2019s approval on their own willfulness. Mrs. Freeman\u2019s\n_Pembroke_ is not unlike _Winesburg, Ohio_, as a record of abortive\nlives; and Sarah Orne Jewett, in spite of a Brahmin temperament that\nchose to see the idyllic rather than the grotesque, could not overlook\nwhat New England provided so abundantly. In _A Country Doctor_ a\nvisitor in the village of Oldsfield thus analyzed the New England\ncharacter:\n\n ... for intense, self-centred, smouldering volcanoes of humanity,\n New England cannot be matched the world over. It\u2019s like the regions\n in Iceland that are full of geysers. I don\u2019t know whether it is\n the inheritance from those people who broke away from the old\n countries, and who ought to be matched to tremendous circumstances\n of life, but now and then there comes an amazingly explosive and\n uncontrollable temperament that goes all to pieces from its own\n conservation and accumulation of force. By and by you will all be\n blown up,--you quiet descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans, and\n have let off your superfluous wickedness like blizzards; and when\n the blizzards of each family have spent themselves you will grow\n dull and sober, and all on a level, and be free from the troubles\n of a transition state. Now, you\u2019re neither a new country nor an\n old one. You ought to see something of the older civilizations\n to understand what peace of mind is. Unless some importation of\n explosive material from the westward stirs them up, one century is\n made the pattern for the next.[539]\n\nThey deal wholly with the past--these chronicles of a decaying New\nEngland--concerning themselves with a \u201cprimitive and Biblical people\u201d\nwho dwelt in quiet inland towns or about the lonely shores of the Maine\ncoast; yet always under the shadow of the meeting-house, with few\ndefenses betwixt them and the eternities. The age had traveled far\nbeyond them and they were left pottering about in their narrow Hebraic\nworld, unaware that science and industrialism were undermining the\nfoundations on which village and meeting-house rested. \u201cIn that handful\nof houses,\u201d said old Captain Littlepage in _The Country of the Pointed\nFirs_, \u201cthey fancy that they comprehend the universe.\u201d But if they\nunderstood God\u2019s plan of redemption they knew nothing of the ways of\ncapitalism. A certain romantic quaintness colors the realism of these\ncountry tales and imparts a note of the idyllic. Harriet Beecher Stowe\nfirst discovered the literary possibilities of decaying New England,\nand in _Old-Town Folks_, _Poganuc People_, and _The Minister\u2019s Wooing_,\nshe turned back to the days of its prime and sketched the scene with\na loving hand. But it was rather in _The Pearl of Orr\u2019s Island_,\nespecially the first part before the heavy moralism that was always\nentrapping her art had closed upon the tale, that she revealed its\npossibilities to later writers. In a letter of July 5, 1889, Sarah Orne\nJewett suggests the source of her own more finished work:\n\n I have been reading the beginning of _The Pearl of Orr\u2019s Island_\n and finding it just as clear and perfectly original and strong as\n it seemed to me in my thirteenth or fourteenth year, when I read it\n first. I never shall forget the exquisite flavor and reality that\n it gave me.... It is classical--historical--anything you like to\n say, if you can give it high praise enough.[540]\n\nBut Miss Jewett desired a more adequate realism and so she turned\ncuriously to consider the technique of the great continental realists\nof the eighties. She read Zola and Flaubert, Tolstoi and Turgenev, and\noddly enough was persuaded that she had long been trying to do what\nTolstoi was doing. In a letter of 1888 she wrote:\n\n That story of Tolstoi\u2019s was such an excitement that I did not sleep\n until almost morning. What a wonderful thing it is!... It startled\n me because I was dimly feeling the same kind of motive (not the\n same plan) in writing the \u201cGray Man.\u201d... I have felt something of\n what Tolstoi has been doing all the way along. I can tell you half\n a dozen stories where I tried to say it, \u201cLady Terry,\u201d \u201cBeyond the\n Toll-Gate,\u201d and this \u201cGray Man.\u201d Now and then it came clearer to\n me. I never felt the soul of Tolstoi\u2019s work until last night ...\n but now I know what he means, and I know that I can dare to keep at\n the work I sometimes have despaired about....[541]\n\nYet to later readers the tie that drew her to Tolstoi seems the\nthinnest of gossamers. The roots of her character--and of her art--went\ndown too deep into Brahmin soil, she was too completely under the\ncritical sway of Lowell and Fields and Aldrich, for her to turn\nnaturalist. Her realism--if one may use the word--was as dainty and\nrefined as her own manners--bleached out to a fine maidenly purity.\nIn _The Country of the Pointed Firs_--a story that Willa Cather would\ndestine for immortality in the select company of _Huckleberry Finn_\nand _The Scarlet Letter_--she discovers an innate gentility, or at\nleast gentleness, in the simple fisherfolk of the Maine village, and\nshe suggests as its source a primitive environment supplemented by\nan encompassing religion. Nowhere does she paint in the smutch of\nvulgarity, for in these eddies of New England life she discovers no\nvulgarity either of mind or manners. But in the cities it is different.\nThere she found evidence in plenty of what she called the \u201ccheap side\nof life,\u201d and she attributed it to the increasing material well-being\nof the country. Of the new middle class she held a low opinion--\n\n Their grandparents or even their own parents went hungry and ill\n clothed, and it will take some time for these people to have their\n fling, to eat all they want and to wear fine raiment, and flaunt\n authority. They must get to a state, and by slow stages too, where\n there is going to be something fit for education.... The trouble is\n to us old-fashioned New Englanders that \u201cthe cheap streak\u201d so often\n spoils what there is of good inheritance, and the wrong side of our\n great material prosperity is seen almost everywhere.[542]\n\nThere spoke the Brahmin. That this \u201ccheap streak\u201d should have spread\nso far through American life, that the vulgar middle class should have\ntaken over the rule of the country, gave her concern. To one brought\nup on Carlyle and Lowell and Arnold the ways of the plutocracy were\nabhorrent, and she clung the more tenaciously to the land of her\nmemories, where the gentry ruled, where the plain people respected\nthemselves and their betters, and where vulgar display was unknown. \u201cI\nthink as Mr. Arnold does,\u201d she wrote in 1884, \u201cand as Mr. Lowell did,\nthat the mistake of our time is in being governed by the ignorant mass\nof opinion, instead of by thinkers and men who know something.\u201d[543]\nThough she disliked and distrusted the America that was submerging\nthe old landmarks, she was as ignorant as her Maine fisherfolk of the\nsocial forces that were blotting out the world of her fathers, and\nshe clung with pathetic futility to such fragments of the old order\nas remained. Like Lowell in his later years her heart was given to a\nBrahmin democracy where gentlemen ruled and where \u201cthe best traditions\nof culture and manners, from some divine inborn instinct toward what is\nsimplest and purest,\u201d were held in universal respect.\n\nWhat Miss Jewett with her love of the idyllic did not see--the grim and\nstark ugliness that resulted from the long Puritan repression--Mary\nWilkins Freeman was to make the very warp of her work. She did not come\nof Brahmin stock. Bred up in the narrow village world of New England,\nshe was a part of that world and she knew it as Miss Jewett could not.\nThe decay of a social order was all about her in her youth. The more\nambitious were drifting to the cities or to the new West, and those\nwho remained were deeply marked by the constricting round of duties.\nCatastrophe seems always to be lying in wait for the characters that\nfill her meager pages. They are either timid and querulous, or fiercely\n\u201csot,\u201d yet in either case happiness has a way of slipping through their\nfingers. There was too little of the wine of paganism in their veins\nfor them to enjoy what life offers. They held themselves in with too\ntight a rein. The New England conventions were always building higher\nthe dams of their emotions until they broke and the roily waters\nrushed out in a wasting flood. Potential disaster peeps out of every\npage of her stories. _Pembroke_ is an extraordinary collection of\nmean and petty and tragic lives, besotted with stubborn willfulness,\nwithout grace or comeliness, extracting no pleasant flavors from the\ncrushed grapes of life. In that narrow world daily existence demands an\nunending struggle and the pinching meanness breeds miserly instincts\nand dour ways. _A Humble Romance_ is a stark bit of sordid futility,\nand in many another of her short stories Mrs. Freeman etched in the\nfamiliar scene with a mordant pen. Drawn with realistic strokes the\npicture of New England in decay is not so lovely as Miss Jewett found\nit to be.\n\nRealizing poignantly what was happening in the home of Puritanism, Mrs.\nFreeman turned eventually to deal with the problem of industrialism\nthat was subduing New England to its will. _The Portion of Labor_\npicks up the theme where it had been dropped a generation before by\nMiss Phelps, and attempts in realistic manner to portray the life of\nthe New England villager in the shoe factory. It is a tract rather\nthan a story, and it finds no difficulty in reconciling industrialism\nwith morality. It revives the old Puritan ethics of work--preached by\nRichard Baxter to his Kidderminster weavers two hundred and fifty years\nbefore; it discovers in discipline of character the great end of life;\nand it accepts the factory as a necessary instrument of civilization.\nIt is the Cinderella story of a village girl who, refusing a chance to\nbe sent to Vassar, enters a shoe factory, becomes a proletarian leader,\nengineers a strike, gains a wider vision of the function of labor,\naccepts the principle of exploitation, and is rewarded by marriage into\nthe exploiting class. In her girlhood she was a radical in an untaught\nway, and from her valedictory essay at the High School Commencement to\nher organization of the factory workers she boldly attacked the factory\nowners. With the machine itself she had no quarrel. This is how she\nfelt when she took her place for the first time in the mill:\n\n Scared she was not; she was fairly exultant. All at once she\n entered a vast room in which eager men were already at the machines\n with frantic zeal, as if they were driving labor herself. When she\n felt the vibration of the floor under her feet, when she saw people\n spring to their stations of toil, as if springing to guns in a\n battle, she realized the might and grandeur of it all. Suddenly it\n seemed to her that the greatest thing in the whole world was work\n and that this was one of the greatest forms of work--to cover the\n feet of progress of the travellers of the earth from the cradle to\n the grave. She saw that these great factories, and the strength\n of this army of the sons and daughters of toil, made possible the\n advance of civilization itself, which cannot go barefoot. She\n realized all at once and forever the dignity of labor, this girl of\n the people, with a brain which enabled her to overlook the heads\n of the rank and file of which she herself formed a part. She never\n again, whatever her regret might have been for another life for\n which she was better fitted, which her taste preferred, had any\n sense of ignominy in this. She never again felt that she was too\n good for her labor, for labor had revealed itself to her like a\n goddess behind a sordid veil.[544]\n\nNevertheless she is ready to fight for control of the machine--for a\nreturn to the workers of a larger share of their earnings; but when the\nstrike fails and she contemplates the misery that it has spread amongst\nthe workers, she recants:\n\n Her youthful enthusiasm carried her like a leaping-pole to\n conclusions beyond her years. \u201cI wonder,\u201d she said to herself,\n \u201cif, after all, this inequality of possessions is not a part of\n the system of creation, if the righting of them is not beyond the\n flaming sword of the Garden of Eden? I wonder if the one who tries\n to right them forcibly is not meddling, and usurping the part of\n the Creator, and bringing down wrath and confusion not only upon\n his own head, but upon the heads of others? I wonder if it is wise,\n in order to establish a principle, to make those who have no voice\n in the matter suffer for it--the helpless women and children?\u201d...\n She reflected, as she had so many times before, that the world was\n very old--thousands of years old--and inequality was as old as\n the world. Might it not even be a condition of its existence, the\n shifting of weights which kept it to its path in the scheme of the\n universe?[545]\n\nMrs. Freeman wisely chose a girl in her teens as the leader in a fierce\nlabor battle, for Mrs. Freeman\u2019s own thinking on social questions was\nstill in its teens. She had the warmest sympathy for the exploited\npoor; her conscience was as tender as Miss Phelps\u2019s; but her inadequate\nknowledge of economics served her ill. If economic inequality is\nnecessary to keep the world from flying from its orbit, it serves the\npurpose likewise of character development. When an old factory-hand\nlooks back upon a long life of futile labor he thus philosophizes:\n\n Andrew quoted again from the old King of Wisdom--\u201cI withheld not\n my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoices in all my labor, and\n that was my portion of labor.\u201d Then Andrew thought ... of all the\n toilsome lives of those beside him, of all the work which they had\n done with their poor, knotted hands, of the tracks which they had\n worn on the earth towards their graves, with their weary feet, and\n suddenly he seemed to grasp a new and further meaning for that\n verse of Ecclesiastes.\n\n He seemed to see that labor is not alone for itself, nor for what\n it accomplishes of the tasks of the world, not for its equivalent\n in silver and gold, not even for the end of human happiness and\n love, but for the growth in character of the laborer.\n\n \u201cThat is the portion of labor,\u201d he said.[546]\n\nSo the book ends on a Hebraic note. In 1901 when Mrs. Freeman wrote\n_The Portion of Labor_ the psychology of work had been pretty well\nexplored. For years William Morris had been preaching a very different\ndoctrine, pagan rather than Hebraic, yet Mrs. Freeman seems to have\nbeen acquainted with Morris no more than was Ellen Brewster, her\ngirlish heroine. Even the starkest New England realism was not very\ncritical of the industrialism that was destroying the traditional New\nEngland. A cynical reader might perhaps suggest that the explanation\nis to be found in the fact that the Yankee was profiting enormously\nfrom this fouling of the Puritan nest.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Afterglow of the Enlightenment--Walt Whitman\n\nIf the philosophy of the Enlightenment was fast disintegrating in the\nAmerica of 1870, it still numbered its picturesque followers who sought\nto leaven the age with the social spirit of an earlier generation. It\nwas a noble bequest--this gift of the French thinkers--with its passion\nfor liberty, its faith in man, its democratic program. From that great\nreservoir had come pretty much all that was generously idealistic\nand humanitarian in the life of the two preceding generations. Its\npersuasive idealism had woven itself so closely into the fabric of\nnational thought that our fathers had come to believe that America\nwas dedicated in a very special sense to the principles of a free\nsociety. The democratic movement returned to it constantly to refresh\nits strength and take new bearings. At every great crisis the familiar\npronouncement of the Declaration of Independence had been confidently\nappealed to in furtherance of social justice. And now in the days\nof an acquisitive individualism, when idealism was begging alms in\nthe market-place, it still threw flashes of romantic splendor on\nthe crude American scene. Old Peter Cooper still dreamed his dreams\nof social justice after eighty years had passed over his head; and\nThaddeus Stevens, grown crabbed and surly from bitter struggles, mutely\ntestified to his passionate equalitarianism on the day of his burial.\nBut it was Walt Whitman in his den at Camden--culturally and in the\nthings of the spirit countless leagues removed from Boston--who was the\ncompletest embodiment of the Enlightenment--the poet and prophet of a\ndemocracy that the America of the Gilded Age was daily betraying.\n\nIn his somewhat truculent pose of democratic undress Whitman was a\nsingular figure for a poet, and especially an American poet. The\namplitude and frankness and sincerity of his rich nature were an\naffront to every polite convention of the day. Endowed with abundant\nsensuousness and catholic sympathies, he took impressions as sharply as\nwax from the etcher\u2019s hand; and those impressions he transcribed with\nthe careful impartiality of the modern expressionist. His sensitive\nreactions to experience were emotional rather than intellectual. A\npagan, a romantic, a transcendentalist, a mystic--a child of the\nEnlightenment yet heeding the lessons of science and regarding\nhimself as a realist who honored the physical as the repository of\nthe spiritual--to an amazing degree he was an unconscious embodiment\nof American aspiration in the days when the romantic revolution was\nat flood tide. His buoyant nature floated easily on the turbulent\nstream of national being, and his songs were defiant chants in praise\nof life--strong, abundant, procreative--flowing through the veins of\nAmerica.\n\nOracular and discursive, Whitman lived and moved in a world of sensuous\nimagery. His imagination was Gothic in its vast reaches. Thronging\ntroops of pictures passed before him, vivid, vital, transcripts\nof reality, the sharp impress of some experience or fleeting\nobservation--his own and no one\u2019s else, and therefore authentic.\nDelighting in the cosmos he saw reflecting its myriad phases in\nthe mirror of his own ego, he sank into experience joyously like a\nstrong swimmer idling in the salt waves. Borne up by the caressing\nwaters, repressing nothing, rejecting nothing, he found life good in\nall its manifestations. As an Emersonian he was content to receive\nhis sanctions from within, and as he yielded to the stimulus of the\nenvironing present his imagination expanded, his spirits rose to\nearth\u2019s jubilee, his speech fell into lyric cadences, and from the\nexalted abandon of egoistic experience there issued a strong rich note\nof the universal. His like had not before appeared in our literature\nfor the reason that the childlike pagan had not before appeared.\nEmerson with his serene intelligence almost disencumbered of the flesh,\nand Hawthorne with his dessicating skepticisms that left him afraid\nof sex, were the fruits of a Hebraized culture that Puritan America\nunderstood; but Walt Whitman the caresser of life, the lover who found\nno sweeter fat than stuck to his own bones, was incomprehensible, and\nnot being understood, it was inevitable that he should be inexorably\ndamned. The most deeply religious soul that American literature knows,\nthe friend and lover of all the world, the poet of the democratic ideal\nto which, presumably, America was dedicated, Whitman was flung into\nouter darkness by the moral custodians of an age that knew morality\nonly from the precepts of the fathers.\n\nThe early stages of Whitman\u2019s intellectual development are obscure,\nbut that in his twenties he caught most of the infections of the\ntimes, literary, political, and social, is clear enough. The young\nprinter-editor in frock coat and tall hat, with cane and boutonni\u00e8re,\nwho often joined the Bohemian society at Pfaff\u2019s restaurant, was a\ncallow romantic, practicing the conventional literary arts of the time,\nwriting formal verse, spinning romantic tales,[547] and seeking to\napprove himself a reputable litt\u00e9rateur. But the passion of reform was\nalready stirring within him and a succession of causes--temperance,\nanti-capital-punishment, abolitionism--recruited his pen. As a child\nof Manhattan and of the Jacksonian revolution it was inevitable that\nhis first great passion should have been political, and when in the\nlate forties he found a suitable vehicle of expression in the _Brooklyn\nEagle_, his native Jeffersonianism took stock of current political\nprograms. His political master was the radical equalitarian William\nLeggett--whose praises in after life he never stinted--and from Leggett\nand the _Evening Post_, supplemented by Fanny Wright and Tom Paine and\nother disreputable influences, he seems to have got the first clear\nexpression of the sweeping democratic postulates on which later he\nwas to erect his philosophy. The times were stirring everywhere with\nrevolution and on Manhattan Island Locofocoism, with the newfangled\nmatches, ten years before had started its little local bonfire by way\nof preparation for a general conflagration that should consume the\naccumulated mass of wrong and injustice. The ardent young Whitman was\ndeeply infected with Locofoco enthusiasm and his editorials for the\n_Eagle_ were the pronouncements of an extreme left-wing Democrat, as\nbecame a disciple of Leggett.\n\nIn this early phase of his democracy he fixed his hopes on the\ngreat West where, he believed, a freer and more democratic America\nwas taking shape. He was an expansionist, full of ardent hopes, an\napostle of \u201cmanifest destiny.\u201d In such lesser matters as finance and\ngovernmental subsidies he was a good Jacksonian, following Old Bullion\nBenton in his preference for hard money and dislike of shin-plasters.\nHe was opposed to the bankers and monopolists. He called himself a\n\u201cfree-trader by instinct,\u201d and so late as 1888 he said, \u201cI object to\nthe tariff primarily because it is not humanitarian--because it is a\ndamnable imposition upon the masses.\u201d[548] But these lesser things were\ninconsequential in comparison with the great objective towards which\nAmerica was moving--the ever-widening freedom of men in society. \u201cThere\nmust be,\u201d he wrote in those early years, \u201ccontinual additions to our\ngreat experiment of how much liberty society will bear.\u201d[549] On that\ngrand theme he was never tired of speaking. With Tom Paine he believed\nthat just government was a simple thing, fitted to the capacity of many\nheads; it is made complex to hide its dishonesty. After commenting on\nthe \u201conce derided, but now widely worshipped doctrines which Jefferson\nand the glorious Leggett promulgated,\u201d he went on:\n\n ... this one single rule, rationally construed and applied, is\n enough to form the starting point of all that is necessary in\n government: _to make no more laws than those useful for preventing\n a man or body of men from infringing on the rights of other men_.\n\nAnd again:\n\n There is not a greater fallacy on earth than the doctrine of\n _force_, as applied in government.... Sensible men have long seen\n that the best government is that which governs least.[550]\n\nSuch comments, of course, are only familiar echoes of the\nEnlightenment--echoes that run through all the thinking of the\nnaturistic school, from Godwin and Paine to Channing and Emerson and\nThoreau. In the minds of the children of the Enlightenment the creative\nideal of individualism was always pointing toward the ultimate end\nof philosophic anarchism, and Whitman with his assured faith in the\naverage man accepted the Godwinian political theory as naturally as\ndid Thoreau. What other politics, indeed, was possible for those who\nbuilt upon the postulates of the innate excellence of human nature\nand the measureless potentialities of men when vicious social codes\nhave been swept away and the plastic clay is molded by a kindly\nenvironment? The perfectibility of man was no romantic dream to the\ndisciples of the French school, but a sober statement of sociological\nfact, based on a rationalistic psychology; and Whitman was convinced\nthat he was a competent realist in thus envisaging the social problem.\nIf man\u2019s instincts are trustworthy, what justification is there for\nnarrow repressions laid on his freedom? Hitherto those repressions\nhave only maimed and distorted him, encouraging his baser rather than\nhis better impulses; and before he can realize his potentialities he\nmust put away all external compulsions and learn to rely solely upon\nhimself. Hence the immediate objective of the democratic revolution was\nindividual freedom, the breaking of all chains, to the end that free\nmen may create a society worthy of them.\n\nSo it was as a revolutionary that Whitman began his work; and a\nrevolutionary he remained to the end, although in his last years he\nchose to call himself an evolutionist. A born rebel, he was always\npreaching the gospel of rebellion. \u201cI am a radical of radicals,\u201d he\nsaid late in life, \u201cbut I don\u2019t belong to any school.\u201d[551] It was this\nrevolutionary spirit that made him the friend of all rebellious souls\npast and present. \u201cMy heart is with all you rebels--all of you, today,\nalways, wherever: your flag is my flag,\u201d[552] he said to a Russian\nanarchist; and it was this sympathy that enabled him to understand\nFanny Wright and Tom Paine and Priestley, who \u201chave never had justice\ndone them.\u201d[553] \u201cThe future belongs to the radical,\u201d and so _Leaves of\nGrass_--he says in \u201cStarting from Paumanok\u201d--\u201cbeat the gong of revolt.\u201d\nConventional law and order he frankly despised and those individuals\nwho sought their own law and followed it awoke his admiration.\nThoreau\u2019s \u201clawlessness\u201d delighted him--\u201chis going his own absolute\nroad let hell blaze all it chooses.\u201d It is a coward and a poltroon who\naccepts his law from others--as true of communities as it is true of\nindividuals. He was a good Jeffersonian in his fear of Federalistic\nconsolidation that must put an end to local rights and freedoms.\n\n To the States or any one of them, or any city of the States,\n _Resist much, obey little_,\n Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,\n ... no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes\n its liberty.[554]\n\n I am for those that have never been master\u2019d,\n For men and women whose tempers have never been master\u2019d,\n For those whom laws, theories, conventions can never master.[555]\n\nThis is the spirit of the radical forties when men were prone to\nrepudiate their allegiance to the political state; when left-wing\nAbolitionists were dissolving the Union by resolutions; and\ntranscendentalists were proclaiming the doctrine of nullification of\nunrighteous law. It had come out of the Jacksonian upheaval, but it\nwas daily discovering fresh sanctions as the anarchistic premises of\nthe Enlightenment were more adequately explored and the revolutionary\nspirit of Europe broke in upon America. During these turbulent years\nWhitman\u2019s great plan was in gestation, but before _Leaves of Grass_\ncame to print in the first slender edition of 1855 other influences had\nbeen at work, confirming his earlier views, endowing them with lyric\npassion and expanding them into a grandiose whole. Those influences\nwould seem to have been the fervid emotionalism of the fifties, the\nmonistic idealism of the transcendental school, and the emerging\nscientific movement. On the whole perhaps it was the first, with its\nvague and expansive Utopianism, that bit most deeply, stimulating his\nrich pagan nature to unconventional frankness and encouraging him to\nthrow off the inhibitions of a Puritan ethicism that held American\nthought in narrow bondage. The rude and ample liberalisms that so\nshocked his early readers were in no sense peculiar to Whitman, despite\ncommon opinion, but the expression of the surging emotionalism of the\ntimes, and _Leaves of Grass_, can best be understood by setting its\nfrank paganism against the background of the lush fifties.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWith its Calvinistic antecedents--Scotch-Irish and Huguenot as well\nas New England Puritan--America had always been unfriendly to a\npagan evaluation of man\u2019s duties and destiny, and the revolutionary\nmovement of the forties had been kept within sober ethical bounds.\nJohn Humphrey Noyes was probably the most radical American of the\ntimes, yet the Perfectionism of his earlier years, with its ascetic\nreligiosity, bore little resemblance to the later communism of the\nOneida Community. But the liberalism of the fifties was casting off all\nHebraic restraints and running wild, proclaiming a new heaven about to\nappear on the free continent of America, and bidding the youth of the\nland live joyously as children of the earth. Paganism for the first\ntime lifted up its head and surveyed the American scene--a youthful\npaganism, lusty and vigorous, that suggested amazing applications of\nthe respectable doctrines of freedom and individuality, to the scandal\nof older-fashioned folk. From the free spaces of the West, carried on\nthe tide of the Gold Rush, had come a spontaneous reaction from the\nearlier repressions. Liberalism was passing from the political to the\nsocial--a free welling-up of repressed desires, a vast expansiveness.\nToo long had the natural human emotions been under the ban of\nasceticism; too long had a God of wrath dispossessed a God of love.\nLife is good in the measure that it is lived fully, and to live fully\nis to live in the flesh as well as the spirit. Emerson the prophet of\nthe earlier decade had suffered from an extreme unfleshliness; Whitman\nthe prophet of the fifties would recover the balance. As the current of\nemotionalism gathered force a frank _joie de vivre_ submerged the old\nreticences; candor, frankness, a very lust of self-expression, was the\nnew law for free men and women--a glorification of the physical that\nput to rout the traditional Hebraisms. A riotous sentimentalism ran\nabout the land until it seemed to timid souls as if liberty were quite\nrunning away with decency. Freedom for black slaves was one thing,\nbut freedom for women--the loosening of social convention--suggested\nterrifying eventualities like free love and the disruption of the\nfamily. They would countenance no such immoral freedom and under the\nleadership of young Anthony Comstock the forces of reticence and\nrespectability made ready to do battle with the new liberalisms.\n\nIt was not alone Walt Whitman who threw down the gage to the\nComstockian watchmen in the gates. The apostle of the new freedom,\nthe high priest of emotional liberalism, was Henry Ward Beecher,\nlately come out of the West, who from the pulpit of Plymouth Church\nswept his thousands of idolizing followers along the path of Utopian\nemotionalism. With a rich amplitude and golden vagueness of metaphor\nhe preached the new gospel. From his lips flowed a lyric chant, a vast\npaean, a very shout in praise of liberty and love, of godlike man and\na manlike God. \u201cLife--affirmative, immediate, in a highly ornamented\nMayday world--he acknowledged and commemorated life!\u201d[556] He bathed\nin a \u201cperpetual tropical luxuriance of blessed love.\u201d \u201cI never knew\nhow to worship until I knew how to love,\u201d he cried; \u201cand to love I\nmust have something ... that touching my heart, shall not leave the\nchill of ice but the warmth of summer.\u201d Like a good Emersonian he\ndiscarded reason--the discipline of the ancestral Calvinism--to follow\nthe \u201csecret chords of feeling,\u201d the \u201cheart\u2019s instincts, whose channels\nyou may appoint but whose flowing is beyond control.\u201d A \u201cmagnificent\npagan\u201d--so Thoreau called him--he reveled in sensuous beauty. His\nemotions mounted as he contemplated this new land, this new people,\nthe golden future that beckoned--with all shackles broken, dedicated\nto freedom, warm and palpitating from abundant life--a radiant world\nof lovely women and manly men. He dwelt on Pisgah and from the heights\nlooked out on a divine democracy. \u201cThe life of the common people is the\nbest part of the world\u2019s life,\u201d he exclaimed; \u201cthe life of the common\npeople is the life of God.\u201d And to his congregation intoxicated with\nhis rhetoric he shouted, \u201cYe are gods! You are crystalline, your faces\nare radiant!\u201d[557] And the end and outcome envisaged by this prophet of\nthe American Idea was a vaguely grandiose fellowship, not of the Saints\nalone, but of all the thronging children of men, for of such is God\u2019s\nkingdom of this world.\n\nAs such lyric chants fell on Whitman\u2019s ears, they must have quickened\nthe ferment of thought that was eventually to clarify for him the\nideal of democracy, exalting it by making it warm and human and\nsocial. The old Jacksonian leveling had been negative; its freedoms\nhad been individual, its anarchism selfish and unsocial. The great\nideal of the fellowship had been lost in the scramble for rights. Even\ntranscendental democracy had narrowed its contacts. The hermit Thoreau\nin his cabin at Walden Pond was no symbol of a generous democratic\nfuture. In the struggle for liberty and equality the conception of\nfraternity had been denied and the golden trinity of the Enlightenment\ndismembered. It was this idea of fraternity, made human and hearty by\nhis warm love of men and women, that Whitman got from the expansive\nfifties and built into his thinking. The conception of solidarity,\nthen entering the realm of proletarian thought through the labors of\nFriedrich Engels and Karl Marx, was his response to the new times--a\nresponse that infused his democratic faith with a glowing humanism.\nDemocracy spiritualized by Channing and Emerson and Parker had suffered\nlimitations from their lingering Hebraisms--the Puritan passion for\nrighteousness had imposed strict ethical bounds on the democratic\nwill. In Thoreau it had been subjected to caustic skepticisms--the\ntranscendental individualist quizzically asked, \u201cWhat _is_ your\npeople?\u201d and refused to subject himself to the mass. But in Whitman\nall limitations and skepticisms were swept away by the feeling of\ncomradeship. Flesh is kin to flesh, and out of the great reserves\nof life is born the average man \u201cwith his excellent good manliness.\u201d\nNot in distinction but in oneness with the whole is found the good\nlife, for in fellowship is love and in the whole is freedom; and love\nand freedom are the law and the prophets. The disintegrations of the\nearlier individualism must be succeeded by a new integration; fear and\nhate and jealousy and pride have held men apart hitherto, but love\nwill draw them together. After all solidarity--the children of America\nmerging in the fellowship, sympathetic, responsive, manlike yet divine,\nof which the poet should be the prophet and literature provide the\nsermons.\n\nIt was a noble conception--washing away all the meanness that befouled\nJacksonian individualism--and it somewhat slowly found its way to\nparity with his first master conception, the universal ego, and settled\ninto place in those later opening lines of _Leaves of Grass_:\n\n One\u2019s-self I sing, a simple separate person,\n Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.[558]\n\nThen came the war to strengthen his faith in the common man. As he\nwatched the soldiers marching, fighting, suffering, he was deeply\nimpressed with their courage, patience, kindness, manliness, and came\nto reverence the deep wellspring of national being from which issued\nsuch inexhaustible waters. It was not the few but the many that gave\nhim hope. \u201cI never before so realized the majesty and reality of the\nAmerican people _en masse_,\u201d he wrote of some regiments returning\nfrom the front. \u201cIt fell upon me like a great awe.\u201d[559] And as he\ncontemplated this fecund people, with its sons and daughters issuing\nstrong and wholesome from every part of the land, there came to him\na new conception of unity--the Union that Lincoln loved--the drawing\ntogether into an indissoluble whole of the far-flung commonwealths--a\nrealization of the perfect State where reign liberty, equality,\nfraternity. Solidarity had taken on a political complexion but its\nlife-blood was in the veins of a free people.\n\nBut pagan though he was in his deeper nature, a child of the emotional\nfifties, he was a transcendentalist also and his democratic philosophy,\nas it took shape, bears unmistakable marks of the New England school,\nsupplemented perhaps by Quakerism. His well-known comment, \u201cI was\nsimmering and simmering; it was Emerson brought me to boil,\u201d suggests\nmuch, and in particular that the Enlightenment as it had come to him\nthrough the Jeffersonian heritage was supplemented and spiritualized\nby the Enlightenment as it had taken special form in passing through\nthe transcendental mind. To this latter source must be traced the\nphilosophic monism that served to draw his speculations together--a\nmystic sense of the divine oneness of life that took his major\npostulates in golden hands and fused them into a single spiritual\nwhole. Thus instructed the \u201cgreat Idea, the idea of perfect and free\nindividuals,\u201d became curiously Emersonian in all its amplifications.\nThere is the same glorification of consciousness and will, the same\nexaltation of the soul, the same trust in the buried life that men call\ninstinct, the same imperious call to heed the voice of innate Godhood;\nand round and about this \u201cperfect and free individual\u201d is a mystical\negocentric universe wherein the children of men may luxuriate in\ntheir divinity. The body is excellent as the soul is excellent; away,\ntherefore, with all shamefacedness--the mean secretiveness, the putting\nof fingers to the lips in presence of the naked, the lies in presence\nof open palpable fact! For if this be indeed God\u2019s universe, and He is\nin and through it all, the children of Adam may stand in His presence\nunafraid--nay, rather with pride in their own excellence. \u201cI exist as I\nam, that is enough,\u201d for \u201cDivine am I inside and out, and I make holy\nwhatever I touch or am touch\u2019d from.\u201d\n\nWhitman not only accepted Emerson with ungrudging loyalty but he dwelt\nmuch with Hegel and the German idealists, and with their help he\npenetrated curiously to the core of things, discovering there an inner\nspiritual reality that is the abiding substance behind the external\nmanifestation. He had come upon food to sustain his faith in presence\nof the mean and base that compassed him about, and the puzzling\ncontradictions of life no longer troubled him. If man be perfectible,\nif he be indeed a child of God though still in his infancy, how\nglorious must be the future toward which he is pressing! The evil will\npass and the good remain.\n\n Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good\n steadily hastening towards immortality,\n\n And the vast all that is call\u2019d Evil I saw hastening to merge\n itself and become lost and dead.[560]\n\nWhen he turned from the oracular utterance of _Leaves of Grass_ to\nsober exposition, he phrased it thus:\n\n There is, apart from mere intellect ... a wondrous something that\n realises without argument ... an intuition of the absolute balance,\n in time and space, of the whole of this multifarious, mad chaos of\n fraud, frivolity, hoggishness--this revel of fools, and incredible\n make-believe and general unsettledness, we call the _world_; a\n soul-sight of that divine clue and unseen thread which holds the\n whole congeries of things, all history and time, and all events\n however trivial, however momentous, like a leash\u2019d dog in the hands\n of the hunter.[561]\n\nTo discover this divine clue and be drawn by the unseen thread\ninto the orbit of things, to suffer the Me--the \u201chuman identity of\nunderstanding, emotions, spirit\u201d--to fuse with the Not Me--\u201cthe whole\nof the material, objective universe and laws, with what is behind them\nin time and space\u201d--became therefore for Whitman the grand objective\nof man\u2019s life and effort. This for him was the sum and substance of\nreligion, which was no other than the binding of the individual back\nupon the whole. \u201cA vast similitude interlocks all.\u201d And so from his\nconception of social solidarity he went forward to the conception of\nspiritual solidarity, and discovered religion to be the crown and\nglory of the \u201cAmerican Idea.\u201d Walt Whitman and America were to be the\nprophets of religion. \u201cEasily at home in a natural world of prodigious\nbrightness and scale, he ... saw \u2018the most splendid race the sun ever\nshone upon,\u2019 and was urging the life of instinct and impulse. Love\nwas the key--taking form and in \u2018Starting from Paumanok\u2019 he asserted\nhis Love, Democracy, Religion--a new religion.\u201d[562] His message was\npurpose.\n\n The soul,\n Forever and forever--longer than soil is brown and solid--longer than\n water ebbs and flows.\n\n I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the\n most spiritual poems,\n And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality,\n For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and\n of immortality.\n\n I will make a song for these States that no one State may under any\n circumstances be subjected to another State,\n\n * * * * *\n\n I will sing the song of companionship,\n\n * * * * *\n\n I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love,\n\n * * * * *\n\n I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races,\n I advance from the people in their own spirit,\n\n * * * * *\n\n I, too, following many and follow\u2019d by many, inaugurate a\n religion, ...\n\n * * * * *\n\n Each is not for its own sake,\n I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion\u2019s\n sake.\n\n I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,\n None has ever yet adored or worship\u2019d half enough,\n None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the\n future is.\n\n * * * * *\n\n I say that the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be\n their religion,\n Otherwise there is no real and permanent grandeur;\n\n * * * * *\n\n My comrade!\n For you to share with me two greatnesses, and a third one rising\n inclusive and more resplendent,\n The greatness of Love and Democracy, and the greatness of\n Religion.[563]\n\nBut this new religion of the mystical Whitman, in harmony with\npost-transcendental thought, was deeply impregnated with the spirit of\nscience. He was in the very fullness of his powers when the conception\nof evolution came to him and he greeted it gladly, weaving it into all\nhis thinking and discovering in it a confirmation of his idealistic\nphilosophy. It was the evolution of Herbert Spencer, it must be\nremembered, that Whitman accepted--teleological, buoyantly optimistic,\ndominated by the conception of progress, shot through with the spirit\nof the Enlightenment; and such an evolution was a confirmation and not\na denial of his transcendental premises. It supplemented rather than\ncontradicted the tenets of his faith. Like Emerson as he saw the bounds\nof the material universe slowly pushed back by science he discovered\namidst the constant change the presence of growth, development, the\nnatural passage from the simple to the complex; and like Theodore\nParker he felt that this slow unfolding was no other than the unfolding\nof God, making Himself evident and unmistakable to man. Evolution was\nGod\u2019s great plan. \u201cThe law over all, the law of laws, is the law of\nsuccessions,\u201d he was persuaded; \u201cfor what is the present after all but\na growth out of the past?\u201d But noble as is the evidence of God\u2019s work\ndiscoverable by science, the soul is not content to rest with such\nevidence; it must seek out the reality behind the manifestation; and\nfor this work the poet alone is fitted. The poet must complete the work\nof the scientist. The noble \u201cPassage to India\u201d is a lovely chant of\nhuman progress, the adventurous soul conquering the earth; but it must\nnot pause there; it must seek God through the universe until it finds\nHim, and \u201cNature and Man shall be disjoin\u2019d and diffused no more,\u201d and\n\u201cAll these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth\u2019d.\u201d\n\n Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,\n I and my soul to range in range of thee.[564]\n\nIt was in this profoundly religious spirit that Whitman accepted\nscience, built it into his poetry, rested confidently upon it; and\nit is this spirit that explains his formal statement in the \u201cSong of\nMyself.\u201d\n\n I accept Reality and dare not question it,\n Materialism first and last imbuing.\n\n Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!\n Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,\n This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar\n of the old cartouches,\n These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas,\n This the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is\n the mathematician.\n\n Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!\n Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,\n I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.[565]\n\nEquipped with such a philosophy and supported by such a faith Whitman\naccepted the twin duties laid upon him: to make clear to America her\npresent failure in the great adventure--how far she had fallen short\nhitherto of any adequate democratic reality; and to mark out afresh\nthe path to the Canaan of democratic hopes--reviving the early hopes of\nthe Enlightenment and drawing in lovelier colors the democratic Utopia\ndreamed of for a hundred years. To be both critic and prophet--that\nhe conceived to be his mission, a mission that he was faithful to for\nupwards of forty years. For the first duty he was admirably equipped.\nNo other knew this America so intimately or so broadly--had penetrated\nso lovingly to the common heart and read so clearly its secret\nhopes and fears. That America was not yet a democracy--was very far\nindeed from a democracy--that it was a somewhat shoddy _bourgeois_\ncapitalistic society shot through with cant and hypocrisy and every\nmeanness, he saw with calm, searching eyes. No contemporary critic, not\nGodkin, not Emerson, saw more clearly the unlovely reality or dealt\nwith it more scathingly, not only in _Leaves of Grass_ but especially\nin his prose writings and in casual talk. Amongst scores of such\npassages a single one must serve for illustration.\n\n I say that our New World democracy, however great a success in\n uplifting the masses out of their sloughs, in materialistic\n development, products, and in a certain highly-deceptive\n superficial popular intellectuality, is, so far, an almost complete\n failure in its social aspects, and in really grand religious,\n moral, literary, and esthetic results.... Shift and turn the\n combinations of the statement as we may, the problem of the future\n of America is in certain respects as dark as it is vast. Pride,\n competition, segregation, vicious wilfulness, and license beyond\n example, brood already upon us. Unwieldy and immense, who shall\n hold in behemoth? who bridle leviathan? Flaunt it as we choose,\n athwart and over the roads of our progress loom huge uncertainty,\n and dreadful threatening gloom. It is useless to deny it: Democracy\n grows rankly up the thickest, noxious, deadliest plants and\n fruits of all--brings worse and worse invaders--needs newer,\n larger, stronger, keener compensations and compellers. Our lands\n embracing so much ... hold in the breast that flame also, capable\n of consuming themselves, consuming us all.... Even today, amid\n these whirls, incredible flippancy, and blind fury of parties,\n infidelity, entire lack of first-rate captains and leaders,\n added to the plentiful meanness and vulgarity of the ostensible\n masses--that problem, the labor question, beginning to open like\n a yawning gulf, rapidly widening every year--what prospect have\n we? We sail a dangerous sea of seething currents, cross and\n under-currents, vortices,--all so dark and untried.[566]\n\nAs a realist Whitman granted the worst charges of the critics of\ndemocracy, but he probed deeper and brought other facts to light\nthat modified the equation. It was the difficult question the old\nFederalists had posed and that Carlyle had lately revived--the\nquestion, is not this meanness inseparable from democracy? is not\nyour people in fact a great beast, requiring the lash and the curb?\nIt was the crux of the long debate over democracy and to it Whitman\ngave anxious and frequent consideration. In fighting the battle of\n1790 over again, like Jefferson he rested his case on the native\nintegrity and measureless potentiality of the \u201cbulk-people\u201d--they are\nthe deep soil from which spring the abundant fruits and flowers of\ncivilization. Gentle-nurtured folk do not understand this--they do\nnot like the rank qualities of vital being. Matthew Arnold \u201calways\ngives you the notion that he hates to touch the dirt--the dirt is so\ndirty! But everything comes out of the dirt--everything: everything\ncomes out of the people ... not university people, not F.F.V. people:\npeople, people, just people!\u201d In the rude, vital, natural man is the\ninexhaustible wellspring of good and evil; \u201cHe\u2019s got it all ... not\nonly the cruel, beastly, hoggish, cheating, bedbug qualities, but\nalso the spiritual--the noble--the high-born\u201d;[567] in \u201csome ways\u201d he\nis a \u201cdevil of a fellow,\u201d but he is not \u201call devil or even chiefly\ndevil.\u201d[568] And because he is not chiefly devil such love and beauty\nand justice and comradeship as there is in the world, such progress\nin civilization as has been made hitherto, have been possible--how\notherwise? If he has journeyed thus far out of the primeval slime, what\nbounds shall be set to his eventual journeyings? Why put out one\u2019s eyes\nwith a mere handful of years?\n\nSo Whitman projected his democratic commonwealth far into the future;\nhe would not have us believe that it had been realized here in America.\nPolitical democracy, the struggle for political rights that had engaged\nAmerica hitherto, was only negative, a necessary preliminary to the\nultimate reality. \u201cI submit,\u201d he said, \u201cthat the fruition of democracy,\non aught like a grand scale, resides altogether in the future,\u201d and its\nrealization depends upon the use to which the people put their freedom.\nIf from it emerges a proud and self-conscious individualism--\u201cthe\nquality of Being, in the object\u2019s self, according to its own central\nidea and purpose, and of growing therefrom and thereto--not criticism\nby other standards, and adjustments thereto\u201d--then democracy on a grand\nscale will be possible and the self-reliant citizen will take his\nplace in a free creative society. The ideal of the growing man, and\nthe ideal of the perfect State--broadly social rather than narrowly\npolitical--these were his twin ideals; and the tie that is to bind\nmen together in spontaneous solidarity is love. How characteristic\nis his sketch of the perfect city, and how deeply saturated with the\nEnlightenment! There is wanting only a physiocratic economics to make\nit perfect.\n\n A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards,\n Where the city stands that is belov\u2019d by these, and loves them in\n return and understands them.\n Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds,\n Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,\n Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,\n Where the slave ceases and the master of slaves ceases,\n Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of\n elected persons,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside\n authority.\n Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Mayor,\n Governor and what not, are agents for pay,\n Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on\n themselves.\n Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Where the city of faithfulest friends stands,\n Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,\n\n * * * * *\n\n There the great city stands.[569]\n\nIndividualism, solidarity--on such strong bases he erected his ideal\ndemocracy, and the heaven-reaching temple will be overlaid with the\nrich arts and graces of a civilization worthy at last of the name. Such\nwas the Enlightenment as it came to flower in the passionate idealism\nof Walt Whitman--a dream that was mocked and flouted and nullified\nby the Drews and Fisks and Goulds--the \u201choggish, cheating, bedbug\nqualities\u201d of a generation that scorned him for a beast. Even his stout\nfaith was shaken at times by the infidelities of the Gilded Age. He\nwas troubled by the gap that opened between the free individual and\nthe perfect State. \u201cI seem to be reaching for a new politics--for a\nnew economy,\u201d he confessed in 1888; \u201cI don\u2019t quite know what, but for\nsomething.\u201d[570] Although he protested, \u201cThe older I grow ... the more\nI am confirmed in my optimism, my democracy,\u201d he projected his hopes\nfarther into the future. He sympathized with the socialists but he\nwas not one of them. His revolutionary ardor abated and he preferred\nin later years to call himself an evolutionist.[571] \u201cBe radical--be\nradical,\u201d he said to Traubel, \u201cbe not too damned radical.\u201d[572] With\nhis catholic sympathies that refused all bitterness he could not be a\npartisan--\u201cafter the best the partisan will say something better will\nbe said by the man.\u201d[573]\n\nSo in the twilight of the romantic revolution Whitman quietly\nslipped away. The great hopes on which he fed have been belied by\nafter events--so his critics say;[574] as the great hopes of the\nEnlightenment have been belied. Certainly in this welter of today, with\nscience become the drab and slut of war and industrialism, with sterile\nmoney-slaves instead of men, Whitman\u2019s expansive hopes seem grotesque\nenough. Democracy may indeed be only a euphemism for the rulership of\nfools. Yet in a time of huge infidelities, in the dun breakdown and\ndisintegration of all faiths, it is not wholly useless to recall the\nlarge proportions of Walt Whitman, his tenderness, his heartiness, his\nfaith, his hope. There was in him no weak evasion, no sniveling over\nthe shards of the goodly vessel broken at the well, but even when \u201cold,\nalone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat,\u201d a free and joyous\nacceptance of life.\n\n Thanks in old age--thanks ere I go,\n\n For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air--for life, mere life,\n\n * * * * *\n\n For all my days--not those of peace alone--the days of war the same,\n\n For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands.\n\n For shelter, wine and meat--for sweet appreciation,\n\n * * * * *\nFor beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books--for colors, forms,\n\n For all the brave strong men--devoted, hardy, men--who\u2019ve forward\n sprung in freedom\u2019s help, all years, all lands,\n\n For braver, stronger, more devoted men--(a special laurel ere I go,\n to life\u2019s war\u2019s chosen ones,\n\n The cannoneers of song and thought--the great artillerists--the\n foremost leaders, captains of the soul:)\n\n As soldier from an ended war return\u2019d--As traveler out of myriads,\n to the long procession retrospective.\n\n Thanks--joyful thanks!--a soldier\u2019s, traveler\u2019s thanks.[575]\n\nA great figure, the greatest assuredly in our literature--yet perhaps\nonly a great child--summing up and transmitting into poetry all\nthe passionate aspirations of an America that had passed through\nthe romantic revolution, the poet of selfhood and the prophet of\nbrotherhood, the virile man and the catholic lover--how shall Walt\nWhitman become dumb or cease to speak to men unless the children of\nthose who are now half-devil and half-God shall prove to be wholly\ndevil--or wholly moron?\n\n\nIII \u2022 The Backwash of the Frontier--Mark Twain\n\nAs Whitman contemplated the feeble literature purveyed by the\nworshipers of the genteel he asked with some irritation: \u201cWhat\nis the reason in our time, our lands, that we see no fresh local\ncourage, sanity, of our own--the Mississippi, stalwart Western men,\nreal mental and physical facts, Southerners, etc., in the body of\nour literature?\u201d That was in 1870 and the answer was at hand in the\nperson of Mark Twain. Here at last was an authentic American--a native\nwriter thinking his own thoughts, using his own eyes, speaking his own\ndialect--everything European fallen away, the last shred of feudal\nculture gone, local and western yet continental. A strange and uncouth\nfigure in the eyes of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, yet the very embodiment of\nthe turbulent frontier that had long been shaping a native psychology,\nand that now at last was turning eastward to Americanize the Atlantic\nseaboard. Yet in spite of a rare vein of humor, the outcropping of\na rich and whimsical imagination, he made his way slowly to polite\nrecognition. For years he was regarded by authoritative critics as\nlittle more than a buffoon, an extravagant fun-maker with a broad\nstreak of western coarseness; and it was not till near the end, when\nhe had long been an international figure, that the culture of the\nEast accepted him. It was Howells then who pronounced him \u201cthe sole,\nthe incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature ... the very marrow of\nAmericanism.\u201d\n\nJust as that judgment was at the time, it needs qualification\nnow. The marrow of Americanism is not the same substance from\ngeneration to generation. The outer environing life of a people\nworks itself slowly into the bones and brings about subtle changes.\nMark Twain was indubitably an embodiment of three centuries of\nAmerican experience--frontier centuries, decentralized, leveling,\nindividualistic; but the Americanism that issued from them came to\nits flower and was quickly succeeded by another kind as the fields of\nexperience were re-plowed by industrialism and sowed to a different\ngrain. Mark Twain was the child of a frontier past--as Lincoln was, as\nthe Gilded Age was--and the America of today could no more breed him\nthan it could breed Lincoln, or Greeley, or Whitman; his Americanism\nwas the reflection of an environment that is no longer ours, in the\nslack folk-ways of the frontier that we have outgrown. Child of the\nSouthwest in its early boom days, he was cradled in profitless schemes\nand nourished on dreams of vast potential wealth. The frontier spirit\nwas an effervescence in his blood and golden expectations flung their\nmirage over the drab reality. As a boy he took impress from a kindly,\nignorant, slave-holding, Calvinistic village world, and he quitted the\nslattern village life to plunge into the picturesque traffic of the\nMississippi in the boom days when every river pilot drove his boat\nfull steam ahead. Then the Far West of silver mines and the Golden\nGate took him in hand--a gambling, romantic, optimistic frontier,\nfeverish with flush times, \u201ca beggar\u2019s revel of potential millionaires\nwithout the price of a square meal.\u201d[576] And finally this buoyant,\nirreverent adolescent was taken in hand by the Far East: by New England\nrespectability in the persons of Olivia Langdon of Elmira, William Dean\nHowells of Cambridge, Twitchell and Warner of Hartford; and by New York\nin the persons of Carnegie and Gilder and Whitelaw Reid and Henry H.\nRogers, to be made over into a man of the world.\n\nSuch were his origins and his schooling. All his life he remained a\nboy, with the imitativeness of youth, and yet with something deep\nwithin him that cherished its own integrity. Quick to take color from\nhis environment and at home in crowds, he lived nevertheless in the\nsolitude of his own heart. Acutely conscious of his rough western\nways, he admired the culture of the Langdons and the refined art of\nHowells, and he wanted to be approved by them. A kinsman of Beriah\nSellers, he delighted in the great barbecue and wanted to carve great\nportions for himself, to heap up his plate as others were doing. His\nreactions to experience were always emotional. He was not a Walt\nWhitman to penetrate curiously to the core of his own being and grow\nthence outwardly, content to wait till the world came round to him.\nHe loved to make a splurge, to be talked of, to be in the public eye,\nto live on an ample scale; he accepted the world\u2019s standards and\nwished to be measured by them. It was characteristic of the frontier.\nWanting other standards, the frontier measured success by obvious\nmaterial standards. Its aggressive individualism was never spiritual or\nintellectual or cultural. So with all his heritage of generations of\nfrontier individualism he never achieved an intellectual or spiritual\nunity, an untroubled conscious integrity, as Emerson did and Whitman\ndid. He never was at home in the world of catholic thought, but all\nhis life he suffered from the petty inhibitions of his origins. He\ncould not throw off the frontier--its psychology and its morality were\ntoo deeply intertwined with his primitive self; and the result was a\nharassing inner conflict that left him maimed.\n\nYet with all his shortcomings--because of them indeed--Mark Twain is\nan immensely significant American document. He is a mirror reflecting\nthe muddy cross-currents of American life as the frontier spirit washed\nin, submerging the old aristocratic landmarks. To know Mark Twain is to\nknow the strange and puzzling contradictions of the Gilded Age. With\nunconscious fidelity he reveals its crudity, its want of knowledge,\ndiscipline, historical perspective; its intellectual incapacity to deal\nwith the complexities of a world passing through the twin revolutions\nof industrialism and science. And he reflects with equal fidelity\ncertain other qualities that go far to redeem the meanness: a great\ncreative power; an eager idealism, somewhat vague but still fine; a\ngenerous sympathy; a manly independence that strove to think honestly;\na passionate hatred of wrong and injustice and an honest democratic\nrespect for men as men. A significant if not an unsoiled or heroic\ndocument!\n\nThat in his later years an impassable gulf opened between Mark Twain\nand his generation, that the buoyant humorist of the seventies ripened\ninto the bitter satirist of the nineties, is a matter that has been\nmuch remarked upon. The fact is clear enough but the explanation\nis not so clear. In part no doubt--as Van Wyck Brooks has pointed\nout--the change resulted from a thwarting of the creative artist by a\ndisastrous surrender to the ideals of the Gilded Age; in part, also,\nit was the inevitable toll exacted by the passing years. A humane and\ngenerous spirit cannot long watch with indifference the motley human\ncaravan hastening to eternity--cannot find food for laughter alone\nin the incredible meanness and folly of men cheating and quarreling\nin a wilderness of graves. Tenderness, chivalry, love of justice,\nare poor bucklers to withstand the blows of fate, and Mark Twain had\nlittle skill in defense. The humorist like the poet is sensitively\nresponsive to life and the scars multiply fast. Endowed with a nature\nnot unlike Swift\u2019s in its fierce rage at inhumanity, not unlike Sir\nPhilip Sidney\u2019s in its romantic chivalry, he was not a stoic to endure\nwith equanimity. He was foredoomed to suffer vicariously. The comment\nhe wrote Howells in 1899 throws a white light on the man. \u201cI have been\nreading the morning paper,\u201d he said. \u201cI do it every morning--well\nknowing that I shall find in it the usual depravities and basenesses\nand hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and cause me\nto put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human\nrace.\u201d\n\nYet granting so much, and granting also a morbid conscience that\nharassed him with self-condemnation--\u201cWhat a man sees in the human race\nis merely himself in the deep and honest privacy of his own heart\u201d--it\nstill remains true that the bleakness of his later years was due in\npart, at least, to the insubstantial dwelling he chose to live in. The\narchitects of the Gilded Age were jerry-builders, and Mark Twain found\nhis jerry-built house a poor protection against the winter winds. It\nwas perhaps not greatly his fault that he built so flimsily. He was\ntoo willing to be caught in the web of material things. He could not\nreach out for companionship with the great earth. Hamlin Garland in a\nbleak Dakota shack found help and comfort in the philosophy of Taine,\nbut Mark Twain could not get outside his own skin. He could not break a\npath through the provincialism of his environment. He was held prisoner\nto his own thoughts and his only release was through the window of\nimagination. When harassed beyond endurance he sought release in\nwriting that hid the evidence of his rebellion. What would Livy say,\nwhat would the American public say, if they knew he had come to deny\nall the tribal gods!\n\nThere is no more pathetic figure in American literature than Mark\nTwain, alone and solitary amid the blatant American crowd, living in\na dreary wash of speeches and banquets, spinning the threads of a\nrebellious philosophy out of his own bowels, unaware of what others\nwere spinning, regarding himself as a dangerous fellow and stowing away\nin his strong-box intellectual bombs that he thought too explosive for\nthe Gilded Age to play with. In his intellectual isolation he could\nnot take the measure of his speculations and he did not realize how\ncommon were such conclusions--that his own generation indeed, under\nthe tutelage of the physical sciences, was fast drifting in the same\ndirection, and that the clouds of pessimism were obscuring for many\nthe brighter horizons of an earlier day. If he had known Henry Adams\nas intimately as he knew Henry H. Rogers, very likely his eyes would\nhave been opened to many things that would have done him good. As it\nwas he knew only that his speculations ran counter to the formal creed\nof his middle-class neighbors and friends. To deny the dogmas of the\nconventional orthodoxy and in the face of a smug optimism to assert a\nmechanistic pessimism, was an unpleasant business that he would have\navoided if he could.\n\nBut he couldn\u2019t avoid it wholly, and in that fact is to be found the\nthread that runs through his later life, giving to it such unity and\ncoherence as it possessed. It is this: here was a thoroughly honest\nmind, that hated all sham and quackery and humbug, and a singularly\nwarm heart, that hated all wrong and cruelty and injustice; and this\nhonest mind and chivalrous heart, deceived and led astray by the mass\n_mores_, espoused and defended such fragments of ideals, such bits\nof truth, as he came upon in his solitary brooding, until driven\nfrom one stronghold after another he came to doubt the adequacy\nof all strongholds and took refuge in a black pessimism--God is a\nmalignant being, the universe is a machine, and man is a creature of\ndeterminism. It was a fierce and stark reaction from the emotionalism\nof the fifties--from Beecher\u2019s God of love and Whitman\u2019s religion of\ndemocracy. His earlier loyalty to half-gods had brought him at last to\ndeny all the gods. And so a maimed giant, stumbling and uncertain, he\nmade such way as he could; and his journeyings wrung from him many a\nfierce comment that his generation did not understand.\n\nWhen the milk of western humor curdled in his veins, a Mark Twain\nemerged who was a puzzle to the Gilded Age. A humorist who was a good\nRepublican and business man, the Gilded Age could understand; but a\nsatirist who launched his shafts at sacred things--at evangelical\nreligion, the Republican party, the government at Washington, the\ndamned human race itself--it could not understand. The professional\nfun-maker had outgrown his audience. Expecting the familiar\nexaggeration, they accounted his bitterest sally a characteristic\nwhimsy, and laughed when he commented bitterly on \u201cthis plodding sad\npilgrimage, this pathetic drift between the eternities,\u201d or when he\nexclaimed, \u201cEverything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor is\nnot joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.\u201d But the significant\nthing is that in the end the tyrannizing _mores_ did not conquer, they\ndid not destroy him wholly; but such convictions as he had hewn from\npuzzling experience, however bleak or repellent they might be, he clung\nto firmly, desperately, and at last flung them in the face of the\nGilded Age that had kept him prisoner.\n\nThe slow drift of Mark Twain\u2019s thought from humor to satire--it smacks\nof Philistinism to call it progress with its many false alarums and\nexcursions and its huge frontier wastefulness--is plain enough to\nanyone who will take the trouble to chart his course. Roughly it\nfalls into definite stages: the swaggering gayety of western youth\nin _Innocents Abroad_ and _Roughing It_--the mood of flush times,\ndown-grade with the brakes off; then a gay plunge into satire in _The\nGilded Age_; then the West recalled in middle life--_Tom Sawyer_, _Life\non the Mississippi_, _Huckleberry Finn_--living over again a youth\nthat is gone; then an excursion into the Middle Ages--_The Prince\nand the Pauper_ and _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u2019s Court_--a\nromantic flare-up of the democratic passions of the Enlightenment; then\nthe search for the ideal in _Joan of Arc_--the dream of the perfect\nwoman, the Domnei of James Branch Cabell; and finally _The Mysterious\nStranger_ and _What is Man?_--a fierce satire of disillusion, the cry\nof an idealist who realizes at last how greatly he has been cheated by\nhis dreams.\n\nThat he should have begun by burlesquing life was itself a broad\nsign of his frontier origins. Since the first crossing of the\nAllegheny Mountains a swaggering extravagance of speech had been a\nhallmark of the Westerner. In part this swagger was an unconscious\ndefense-mechanism against the drabness of frontier life; and in part\nit was the spontaneous expression of new experiences in an untrammeled\nworld, the spirit of wilderness-leveling. Its procreative source would\nseem to have been the Ohio River where the rough flatboatmen bequeathed\nthe Mike Fink legend to literature; and it expanded in the huge\nDavy Crockett hoax--a hoax that would have tickled the ribs of Mark\nTwain had he traced its genesis and progress, as a colossal example\nof how the damned human race loves to be humbugged. It developed\nfurther in Gus Longstreet\u2019s _Georgia Scenes_ with its grotesque Ransy\nSniffle--sorriest of backwoods heroes, too mean-spirited to ruffle like\nCanebrake Davy; and in Joseph Baldwin\u2019s _Flush Times of Alabama and\nMississippi_, with its greasy frontier blackguard, Colonel Simon Suggs.\n\nThis earliest backwoods humor had been done in realistic colors and\nbears the impress of authenticity. But the school that succeeded--John\nPhoenix, Artemus Ward, Petroleum V. Nasby--quickly conventionalized\nits technique, relying on burlesque, tall lying, distorted spelling,\ngenial philosophy. The picaresque strain was softened and perverted by\ndeliberate human-interest touches--a better case must be made out for\nthe untutored children of nature. It was this humor that Mark Twain\ninherited, and he enriched it with a wealth dug from his own large and\ngenerous nature. An incorrigible idealist, as all great humorists must\nbe, he recreated some of the earlier types, translating Colonel Simon\nSuggs into Colonel Sellers, and Ransy Sniffle into Huck Finn. It was a\nglorious transformation, but the result lacked something of the soiled\nreality of the earlier blackguards. Yet underneath his idealism was a\ngenerous deposit of the common mud of life. The spirit of Mike Fink was\nnever far from Mark Twain. It haunted him like an evil genius, refusing\nto be exorcised by Olivia Clemens, and it found vent in sly literary\nsprees that begot offspring to be handed about furtively and chuckled\nover by the sons of Adam; but for the most part it was kept in strict\nsubjection to the proprieties of Elmira and Hartford.\n\n_Roughing It_ and _The Gilded Age_ are brilliant complementary pictures\nof the gaudy frontier spirit that was washing in upon the staid realm\nof the genteel, to the vast concern of such genteelists as Thomas\nBailey Aldrich. The former is a buoyant chronicle of the West of\nCaptain Carver and Wild Bill Hickok, the West of the Pony Express,\nthe Comstock lode, the bad man and the lynch law, a land of young\nmen in red flannel shirts, heavy boots, and six-shooters, who feared\nneither God nor the devil. Bret Harte in San Francisco first realized\nthe literary possibilities of this picturesque world, and his tales\nof life in the mining-camps were received with a shout of approval.\nBut Bret Harte had never been a miner. He was not realist enough, nor\nhonest enough, to portray the West in its stark, grotesque reality. He\nwas only a literary middleman who skillfully purveyed such wares as\nhis eastern readers wanted. In consequence he coated his tales with a\nsentimental picaresque--pandered to the common taste by discovering\nnuggets of pure gold in the dregs and outcasts of the mining-camps.\nBut Mark Twain was too honest for that. He had been a part of the\nflush times and had seen the economic process work itself out. He had\nseen the grub-stake prospector succeeded by the wild-cat speculator,\nand him in turn followed by the eastern capitalist. He had seen\nthe mining frontier become a thing of the past in a single decade,\nwith the Comstock lode in the hands of competent exploiters and the\npick-and-shovel miners plunging deeper into the mountains to pursue\ntheir feverish hopes. From that experience he had learned a lesson he\nwas to carry East with him. \u201cBecause we judged that we had learned,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cthe real secret of success in silver mining, which was, not to\nmine the silver ourselves by the sweat of our brows and the labor of\nour hands, but to _sell_ the ledges to the dull slaves of toil and let\nthem do the mining.\u201d[577]\n\nIt was the great lesson of his generation, and thus instructed he\nproposed to sell his brains in the best market. Exploitation was the\nroyal road to wealth and he was eager to exploit both himself and\nhis fellows. Yet not all of Mark Twain was thus eager. Deep in his\nheart was another Mark Twain, the artist, the chivalrous lover of\njustice, the simple child puzzled at life--and this Mark Twain was\nalready plotting treason against the exploiting Mark Twain. For the\nfirst time this deeper self got out of hand in _The Gilded Age_. As he\ncontemplated the common scoundrelism at Washington and elsewhere, his\nanger exuded in scathing satire. He hated the dirty thing, yet he seems\nnever to have realized that such scoundrelism was only the backwash of\nthe spirit of exploitation and that he himself was riding on its waves.\nWith the soap-bubble dreams of Colonel Sellers he dealt lovingly, for\nhe was sketching his own origins; the Colonel and the Hawkinses were\nhis own flesh and blood and the Tennessee lands were an old investment\nabout which the family dreams of wealth had been woven for years. He\ndelighted in the Colonel\u2019s childlike faith that prosperity only awaited\na vote of Congress--with adequate appropriations, of course. He asked\nno questions about unearned increment; to question that would have been\ntreason to the frontier philosophy. So into Colonel Sellers he put all\nthat was na\u00efve and lovable in the Gilded Age. But Senator Dillworthy\nwas another matter. Hypocrite and corruptionist, he was laying obscene\nhands on sacred things, betraying his high trust for sordid ends. Mark\nTwain hated graft--the word had not been coined but the ugly thing was\nthere--and with the innocence of his generation he damned the agent\nand overlooked the principal. It was not his fault. The economics of\nhistory was a closed book to Americans of the seventies, and even\nHenry Adams in his analysis of the current corruption in his novel\n_Democracy_ was no better than a mole nosing blindly underground.\n\nHe had opened another door to his genius and discovered the satirist.\nThere lay the real Mark Twain. But the wares of the satirist were not\nin demand at the barbecue, so he closed the door and fell to purveying\nwhat the public wanted. _Tom Sawyer_ was in part a malicious thrust\nat the Sunday School tale, and in part a whimsical pronouncement\nof the natural rights of the small boy. But it is in _Huckleberry\nFinn_--the one great picaresque tale of the frontier--that the western\nphilosophy of Mark Twain, a philosophy that derives straight from the\nold naturistic school, crops out most sharply. It is a drama of the\nstruggle between the individual and the village _mores_, set in a loose\npicturesque framework, and exemplifying the familiar thesis that the\nstuff of life springs strong and wholesome from the great common stock.\nHuck Finn is a child of nature who has lived close to the simple facts\nof life, unperverted by the tyrannies of the village that would make\na good boy of him. He had got his schooling from the unfenced woods,\nfrom the great river that swept past him as he idly fished, from the\nfolk-tales of negroes and poor whites, from queer adventures with Tom\nSawyer; and from such experiences he had got a code of natural ethics.\nThen he found himself on the raft with Jim the runaway nigger, and\nhis little pagan soul felt the stirrings of the problem of right and\nwrong. The village code and the natural code clashed and the conflict\nwas terrifying. The village code warned him that hell yawned for one\nwho helped a slave escape, and the human code warned him that betrayal\nwas a blackguardly thing. With the fear of hell upon him he wrote to\nMiss Watson, and then his sense of the kindliness of Jim, the honest\nhumanity under the black skin, rose up in fierce protest.\n\n It was a close place. I took [the letter] up, and held it in my\n hands. I was a-trembling, because I\u2019d got to decide, forever,\n betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied for a minute, sort\n of holding my breath, and then says to myself:\n\n \u201cAll right, then, I\u2019ll _go_ to hell\u201d--and tore it up.\n\n It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let\n them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.[578]\n\nIt was a triumph over the sacred tribal law of conformity--the\nassertion of the individual will in opposition to society--and it\nreveals the heart of Mark Twain\u2019s philosophy. The rebel Huck is no\nother than the rebel Mark Twain whose wrath was quick to flame up\nagainst the unrighteous customs and laws of caste. If men were only\nhonest realists--that is, if they were men and not credulous fools--how\nquickly the stables might be cleansed and life become decent and\nhumane. If only the good brains could be segregated and trained in a\nreal \u201cman-factory,\u201d the history of civilization might become something\nthe angels need not weep over as they read it. It all comes back to an\nhonest realism that in accepting fact will clear away the superstitious\nfogs in which men have floundered and suffered hitherto. The one sacred\nduty laid on every rational being is the duty of rebellion against\nsham--to deny the divinity of clothes, to thrust out quack kings and\npriests and lords, to refuse a witless loyalty to things. This creed of\nthe rebel is written all through Mark Twain\u2019s later work, edging his\nsatire and lending an Emersonian note to his individualism. In such a\npassage as this it emerges sharply:\n\n You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one\u2019s country, not to\n its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real\n thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing\n to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are\n extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear\n out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the\n body from winter, disease, death. To be loyal to rags, to shout\n for rags, to worship rags--that is a loyalty to unreason, it is\n pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy;\n let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution\n declares \u201cthat all political power is inherent in the people, and\n all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted\n for their benefit; and that they have _at all times_ an undeniable\n and indefeasible right to _alter their form of government_ in such\n manner as they may think expedient.\u201d\n\n Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the\n commonwealth\u2019s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his\n peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a\n traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay,\n does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is\n the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter\n as he does.[579]\n\nIn the Middle Ages clothes-worship had been exalted to a religion,\nhe believed, and he turned with gusto to reply to the aristocratic\nromanticism of Sir Walter, who, delighting in the picturesque company\ngathered in the great hall, forgot to penetrate to the _oubliettes_--is\nnot the word commentary enough on the ways of the seigneur?--where\nnameless wretches were rotting under the walls of the castle. He had\nsmall patience with the cult of medievalism that was turning such\nmen as Henry Adams and William Morris back to the Middle Ages as to\ntheir lost home. He had the frontier contempt for medieval ways, and\nfor the _ancien r\u00e9gime_ that was the last rags of the Middle Ages.\nThe French Revolution had thrust the abomination away forever, and he\nthanked God for that \u201cever memorable and blessed Revolution, which\nswept a thousand years of ... villainy away in one swift tidal wave of\nblood.\u201d He had no tears for Marie Antoinette. What was the Terror but\n\u201ca settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of\nblood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures\nout of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and\nshame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell ...\nthat unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been\ntaught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.\u201d[580] The past\nthat had been consumed in that fierce conflagration had been a brutal,\ntyrannical, superstitious past, and not till king and priest had been\nflung out on the dung-heap did the people walk their native soil as\nfree men. The whole king business was preposterous to him; with Freneau\nhe cried, \u201cKings are the choicest curse that man e\u2019er knew.\u201d The battle\nagainst medievalism had been fought and won and why go maundering back\nover past battlefields, when other battles await?[581]\n\nMark Twain\u2019s passionate republicanism was a product of the\nEnlightenment as it had passed into the psychology of western\nAmericans, and it retained the militant idealism of Jeffersonian times.\nIt is shot through with the nature philosophy. In _The Prince and the\nPauper_, the heir of Offal Court and the heir of the Tudors are both\nchildren of nature, endowed with warm hearts, generous sympathies,\nand clever wits. Put rags on the prince and robes on the pauper and\ntheir own kin cannot tell them apart. The latter, indeed, promises to\nmake the better king, for he has suffered the lot of the subject, and\nnot till the prince has put on rags does he come to know his people.\nIt is caste that breeds cruelty and wrong; the brutalities of the\nEnglish criminal code were deviltries devised by king and nobles to\nsafeguard their stealings. Only when the laws spring from the people\nare they just. \u201cThe world is made wrong,\u201d cried the young king when\nhe was brought out of prison to watch the burning at the stake of two\nwomen who had befriended him--women whose only crime was that of being\nBaptists--\u201cthe world is made wrong, kings should go to school to their\nown laws, at times, and so learn mercy.\u201d And this great lesson of mercy\nis exemplified in the acts of the pauper king, who during his brief\nreign tempers the harshness of the law with a sense of justice learned,\nlike Huck Finn\u2019s, from sharp contact with reality.\n\nIt is in _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u2019s Court_--a curious\nmedley, half philippic and half farce--that Mark Twain\u2019s passion for\njustice rises to white heat. The book has been grossly misunderstood.\nIt is not an attack on chivalry--at least not primarily; it is rather\nan attack on thirteen centuries of reputed Christian civilization\nthat under pretense of serving God has enslaved and despoiled the\nchildren of God. The keen satire is given point and edge by the long\ntragic perspective. Thirteen centuries heavy with sorrow and misery\nand frustrated hopes--a meaningless succession of foolish and futile\ngenerations, wandering in fogs of their own brewing, hagridden by\nsuperstitions, deceived and exploited by priest and noble, with no will\nto be free--here is a perspective to correct our callow enthusiasms,\nour revolutionary hopes! Why indeed should we expect men to possess\nthe will to freedom, seeing that each generation is molded after the\nlikeness of the past and none has been free? There is change, advance\nand recession, but the story of the generations is no more than a \u201csad\ndrift between the eternities,\u201d without purpose or meaning. In the\nbrain of the Connecticut Yankee are secrets hidden from the children of\nKing Arthur\u2019s time--a curious ability to use the forces of nature, some\nglimmerings of social justice. But to what purpose have Hartford and\nthe nineteenth century used their knowledge? It is a world of slaves\nstill as it was in King Arthur\u2019s day. The human animal cannot lift\nhimself to heaven by his own bootstraps, and heaven will not stoop to\nlift him. For a \u201cclammy atmosphere of reverence, respect, deference,\u201d\nit has substituted smartness, vulgarity, irreverence.\n\nAs one slips back and forth between the two worlds the satire takes\non vaster perspectives; it cuts deep into all civilizations, for all\nalike are sham, all have issued from the conquest of man\u2019s native\nintelligence by his superstitions that are too useful to his masters\nto be dissipated. Clearly in Mark Twain\u2019s philosophy of history the\nhopes of the Enlightenment are fading. Passionately dedicated to the\nprogram of the Enlightenment--freedom, individuality, humanitarianism,\ndemocracy--his faith in reason, free will, progress, was burning low,\nin presence of the historical record. The determinism that lurked\nat the bottom of John Locke\u2019s psychology, unperceived by the French\nidealists, was revealing itself to Mark Twain and he was already\ntrimming his sails to the chill winds blowing from the outer spaces of\na mechanistic cosmos.\n\nMore immediately of course _A Connecticut Yankee_ is an attack on the\naristocratic romanticism of Sir Walter. There is little loitering in\nthe great hall--except to comment on the coarseness of the knights\nand ladies--and much poking about in unlovely secret places where\none comes upon a rare collection of human animals thrust away in the\n_oubliettes_ or pigging together in mean huts. Few chapters in American\nliterature are so noble in their _saeva indignatio_, so beautiful in\ntheir stern simplicity, as certain sketches of the king\u2019s progress\nthrough his realm--not a royal progress but a peasant\u2019s. There are no\ntears in them, they go far beyond that. The scene in the smallpox hut\nwhere the wife is glad her husband and daughters are dead--they are\neither in heaven or hell, it makes little difference, for they are no\nlonger in Britain and so are happy; and the scene of the young mother\nhanged for stealing a piece of cloth of an ell\u2019s length or so, hanged\nthat property in Britain might be safe--such pictures reveal how far\nhe had traveled from the days of _Roughing It_. He was no longer a\ngood Federalist-Whig concerned about exploitation and the safeguards\nof property. Although he voted the Republican ticket he made merry\nover the tariff[582] and he frankly hated the dominant Republican\nproperty-consciousness. Like Lincoln he was for the man rather than the\ndollar when the rights of the two clashed. In these later years he was\nsteadily drifting to the left, on the side of the social underling,\nsympathetic with those who do the work of the world. \u201cHe never went so\nfar in socialism, as I have gone,\u201d said Howells, \u201cif he went that way\nat all ... but from the first he had a luminous vision of organized\nlabor as the only present help for workingmen.... There was a time when\nI was afraid that his eyes were a little holden from the truth; but in\nthe very last talk I heard from him I found that I was wrong, and that\nthis great humorist was as great a humanist as ever.\u201d[583]\n\nIt is good for an American to read _A Connecticut Yankee_--and _Joan\nof Arc_ as well; for in them is a flame that sears and shrivels the\nmean property-consciousness which lays a blight on every civilization.\nIn the peasant girl of Domr\u00e9my, the rapt mystic led by her Voices,\nMark Twain found his ideal, the lily that bloomed out of the muck of\nmedieval times; and as he contemplated her life and work he was lifted\nto the plane of worship. She had waged heroic warfare against the\nembattled lies and shams and treacheries of a sordid age, and that she\nshould have died at the stake was inevitable. What other reward was to\nbe expected from bishops and kings and suchlike spawn of the devil? Not\ntill the people grow to manhood can any savior help them, and in that\nday they will need no savior but themselves. The Sieur Louis de Conte\nstruggles with the idea confusedly.\n\n I believe that some day it will be found out that peasants are\n people. Yes, beings in a great many respects like ourselves. And\n I believe that some day _they_ will find this out, too--and then!\n Well, then I think they will rise up and demand to be regarded as\n a part of the race, and that by consequence there will be trouble.\n Whenever one sees in a book or in a king\u2019s proclamation those words\n \u2018the nation,\u2019 they bring before us the upper classes; only those;\n we know no other \u2018nation;\u2019 for us and the kings no other \u2018nation\u2019\n exists. But from the day I saw old D\u2019Arc the peasant acting and\n feeling just as I should have acted and felt myself, I have carried\n the conviction in my heart that our peasants are not merely\n animals, beasts of burden put here by the good God to produce food\n and comfort for the \u2018nation,\u2019 but something more and better. You\n look incredulous. Well, that is your training; it is the training\n of everybody; but as for me, I thank that incident for giving me a\n better light, and I have never forgotten it.[584]\n\nNo Bayard ever did his devoir more knightly to his lady than Mark Twain\nto Joan, finding in the noble drama of her life the romance he had\nnot found at Arthur\u2019s court. The knights of the Round Table were \u201cbut\nghosts fighting in the fog,\u201d but Jeanne D\u2019Arc was human and lovable\nand divine. And then the outlet through which his idealism had found\nrelease slowly closed in, and he was left alone with his comfortless\nspeculations. What profits it to rail at the damned human race when man\nhas about as much chance for happiness as a blind puppy in a sack? The\nbitter lot of humanity is due not to institutions alone or chiefly,\nit is a part of the mad plan of a bleak mechanical universe. For Mark\nTwain the solid earth was dissolving, leaving only a rack behind. It\nis futile to lament. A sympathetic heart, indeed, is the last and\nbitterest irony--for why weep over an evil exhalation! \u201c_Life itself is\nonly a vision, a dream ... Nothing exists save empty space--and you._\u201d\n\n In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander\n its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you\n will remain a _thought_, the only existent thought, and by your\n nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant,\n have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams,\n and better. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected\n that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions,\n fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically\n insane--like all dreams ... the silly creations of an imagination\n that is not conscious of its freaks--in a word that they are a\n dream, and you the maker of it....[585]\n\nSo, like Cabell, Mark Twain asserts that man must build within and\nby letting his dreams flow out create for himself such shelter as he\ncan against the chill of the eternal void. A flea on the epidermis of\nearth, nevertheless he is thought and thought is deathless. To such a\nconclusion did the buoyant youth of _Roughing It_ arrive in the dun\ntwilight years. _The Mysterious Stranger_ is only _Tom Sawyer_ retold\nin the midnight of his disillusion.\n\nWhat an ending for a child of the Gilded Age! In his youth a complete\nfrontiersman, with vast potential wealth within him, he hewed and\nhacked at his genius, working the easiest veins, exploiting the most\naccessible resources, wasting much to cash in on a little. And when in\nthe end the fool\u2019s gold turned to ashes in his mouth, as a frontiersman\nstill he pursued his way alone, a solitary pioneer exploring the\nuniverse, seeking a homestead in an ironical cosmos, until overwhelmed\nby the intolerable solitude he made mock at all the gods. What a\ncommentary on the Gilded Age!\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[527] _The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy, University of\nCalifornia Chronicle_, Vol. XIII, Number 4.\n\n[528] _Poetical Works_, Vol. I, p. 45.\n\n[529] \u201cAt the Funeral of a Minor Poet,\u201d _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 94.\n\n[530] Ferris Greenslet, _Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_, p. 215.\n\n[531] _Ibid._, p. 200.\n\n[532] _Poetical Works_, Vol. II, p. 72.\n\n[533] Ferris Greenslet, _Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_, pp. 168-169.\n\n[534] _Ibid._, p. 176.\n\n[535] _Ibid._, p. 205.\n\n[536] Fred Lewis Pattee, _The Development of the American Short Story_,\npp. 171-172. See the entire chapter for a discussion of early realism\nin the _Atlantic_.\n\n[537] Preface, p. 5.\n\n[538] Chapter VIII, p. 183.\n\n[539] Chapter IX, p. 100.\n\n[540] _Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett_, pp. 46-47.\n\n[541] _Ibid._, pp. 38-39.\n\n[542] _Ibid._, pp. 186-187.\n\n[543] _Ibid._, p. 23.\n\n[544] Chapter XXXV, p. 350.\n\n[545] Chapter LVII, pp. 519-520.\n\n[546] _Ibid._, p. 563.\n\n[547] See Mabbott, _Short Stories by Walt Whitman_, Columbia University\nPress, 1927.\n\n[548] For his late views see Horace Traubel, _With Walt Whitman in\nCamden_, Vol. I, p. 99, and elsewhere.\n\n[549] Cleveland Rogers and John Black, _The Gathering of the Forces_,\nVol. I, p. 12.\n\n[550] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 53, 54, 57.\n\n[551] Traubel, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 215.\n\n[552] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 65.\n\n[553] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 79-80.\n\n[554] _Leaves of Grass_, inclusive edition ed. by Emory Halloway,\nGarden City, N. Y., 1927. Hereafter called _Leaves_. \u201cTo the States,\u201d\np. 8.\n\n[555] _Ibid._, \u201cBy Blue Ontario\u2019s Shore,\u201d p. 297, ll. 21-23.\n\n[556] Constance Mayfield Rourke, _Trumpets of Jubilee_, p 171.\n\n[557] _Ibid._, p. 172.\n\n[558] _Leaves_, \u201cOne\u2019s-Self I Sing,\u201d p. 1, ll. 1-2.\n\n[559] _Autobiographia_, p. 73. See also _Democratic Vistas_, p. 74.\n\n[560] _Leaves_, \u201cRoaming in Thought,\u201d p. 233.\n\n[561] \u201cCarlyle from the American Point of View,\u201d in _Specimen Days,\nProse Works_, pp. 174-175.\n\n[562] Rourke, _op. cit._, p. 173.\n\n[563] _Leaves_, \u201cStarting from Paumanok,\u201d p. 14, ll. 22-26; p. 15, ll.\n1, 13, 19, 22-23; p. 16, ll. 2, 5-11; p. 17, ll. 7-10.\n\n[564] _Leaves_, p. 349, ll. 18-19.\n\n[565] _Leaves_, p. 43, ll. 9-17.\n\n[566] _Democratic Vistas, Prose Works_, pp. 254-255.\n\n[567] Traubel, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 174.\n\n[568] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 285.\n\n[569] _Leaves_, \u201cSong of the Broad Axe,\u201d p. 160, ll. 7, 14-20, 21-22;\np. 161, ll. 1-2, 6-7, 10.\n\n[570] Traubel, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 101.\n\n[571] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 193, 215.\n\n[572] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 223.\n\n[573] _Ibid._ Vol. I, p. 363.\n\n[574] See Norman Foerster, _American Criticism_, pp. 211-222; Lucy\nLockwood Hazard, _The Frontier in American Literature_, pp. 170-177.\n\n[575] _Leaves_, \u201cThanks in Old Age,\u201d p. 435.\n\n[576] Lucy Lockwood Hazard, _The Frontier in American Literature_, p.\n223.\n\n[577] Vol. I, Chapter XXXIII, p. 237.\n\n[578] Chapter 31.\n\n[579] _The Connecticut Yankee_, N. Y., 1917, p. 107.\n\n[580] _Ibid._, Chapter XIII, pp. 105-106.\n\n[581] Cf. Whitman\u2019s view, _The Gathering of the Forces_, Vol. II, pp.\n284-286.\n\n[582] See Chapter 33.\n\n[583] W. D. Howells, _My Mark Twain_, p. 43.\n\n[584] _Joan of Arc_, Chapter 37, p. 290.\n\n[585] _The Mysterious Stranger_, p. 151.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Changing Theory\n\n\nUnlike as were Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain,\nthey belonged equally to an America that was passing. In consequence\nof the silent drift towards consolidation new philosophies were\npreparing that were to rephrase the familiar American ideals and adapt\ncurrent political and economic theory to the needs of the new order.\nFor a decade or more the significance of that drift was obscured by\nthe last great wave of decentralization that swept across the prairie\ncommonwealths; but when the frontier had been pushed to the Pacific\nNorthwest and the free lands had passed into private ownership, the\nmovement of consolidation gathered momentum swiftly. Primarily economic\nin its origins, it went forward on even foot with the industrial\nrevolution. The vast increase in population, the unprofitable expansion\nof agriculture, the augmenting resources of liquid capital, the new\npotentialities revealed by industrialism, were all engaged in the work\nof transforming a scattered agricultural people into an urbanized\nindustrial people.\n\nAnd then came the railways to hasten a movement that was implicit in\nthe nature of things. Effective nationality in America issued more\nimmediately from fluid communication than perhaps any other cause.\nA depressing spirit of isolation--of provincial aloofness--had lain\nlike a heavy weight on the colonial mind. The barriers of distance\nwere made formidable by a rugged untamed country, and to open up free\ncommunication was an arduous undertaking. Yet easy communication must\nbe provided if economic development were to go forward. In the early\nyears of the nineteenth century vast plans and great outlays of money\nwent into the work of linking the sundered portions of the country\nby a system of waterways. The Erie canal, the great lakes, the Ohio\nand the Mississippi, were creating their own America, picturesque and\nindividual, when the process of differentiation was rudely broken\nacross by the iron rails that ran East and West, disregarding natural\nbarriers and breaking down traditional frontiers. It was the railways\nthat tied the continent effectively together, providing the needed\ntransportation to make possible a national economic system. With the\nlaying of the Union Pacific rails in the late sixties the destiny of\nAmerica as a self-sufficient economic unity was fixed. Henceforth\nfor an indeterminate period the drift of tendency would be from the\noutlying frontiers to industrial centers, and with that drift would\ncome far-reaching changes in the daily routine of life. The machine\nwould reach into the remotest villages to disrupt the traditional\ndomestic economy, and the division of labor would substitute for the\nversatile frontiersman the specialized factory-hand. A new urban\npsychology would displace the older agrarian, and with the new\npsychology would come other philosophies in response to the changing\nrealities.\n\n\nI \u2022 Winds of Economic Theory\n\nSo profound a revolution could not fail to dislocate the foundations\nof all traditional schools of thought. Economic and political theory\nwere both thrown out of their earlier beds to flow in new channels.\nBy force of gravitation the main stream of economic theory--like the\nmain stream of political theory--poured into the broadening channels\nof capitalism, and only the lesser vagrant currents followed the\nold channels of agrarianism or the new channels of proletarianism.\nThere was much speculation on the disturbing phenomena of the great\nchange, and current economic theory was slow to settle into the\nconformities of a school. It divided sharply, not only between the\nadvocates of capitalism and agrarianism, but between those who\naccepted the classical English theory and those who believed that\neconomic conditions in America warranted an independent American\nschool. The first group of professional economists--Henry C. Carey,\nFrancis A. Walker, David A. Wells--made its appearance, and a very\nconsiderable group of amateurs--free-lance economists and fireside\ntheorists--contributed to the speculation of the times in the measure\nof their intelligence. These latter have received scant attention,\nsince the battle went against them; nevertheless they do not deserve\nto be forgotten, for most often they were an expression of the social\nconscience of the times--a homely protest against the exploitation\nof farmer and workingman by the rising capitalism. But because they\nessayed to turn the course of \u201cmanifest destiny\u201d they were ignored\nor roughly ridden down, and only one of them--Henry George--is still\nwidely influential.\n\nIn the primitive early days of America economic theory had been a\nsimple homespun product, woven on fireside looms, and following simple\ndomestic patterns. With the rise of industrialism it passed into the\nkeeping of stockbrokers and textile manufacturers and retail merchants\nwho were looked upon as authoritative expounders of the new science\nof wealth. In his _Elements of Political Economy_, first published in\n1837 and for forty years a standard textbook in American colleges,\nFrancis Wayland accepted this view and offered an apology for treating\nof the subject at all. \u201cIt may possibly be urged,\u201d he said, \u201cthat the\nAuthor, having had no experience in mercantile business, should have\nleft this subject to be treated of by practical men.\u201d In the days of\nHenry Clay this view established itself in the halls of Congress, where\npoliticians who had never heard of Ricardo were on profitably intimate\nterms with Nick Biddle, and respected the interests of influential\nconstituents far more than the principles of Manchesterism. With the\nappearance of professional economists the breach between economic\ntheory and legislative votes widened to a chasm. Ignored by the\npoliticians except in so far as their views fell in with the current\npaternalism, the economists retreated to the quiet of the schools and\nthere spun their webs quite harmlessly. Youthful undergraduates were\nfed on a modified English classical theory in which the pessimism\nof Ricardo and Malthus, bred of the bitter dislocations of English\nindustrial life, was diluted with an optimism more suited to the temper\nof the new world.\n\nThe academic economists, it must be confessed, were in an unhappy\nposition, not unlike that of the earlier Calvinists. They lived as\nremote from the realities of life as did those old ministers. Trained\nin the orthodox English school they felt bound to defend _laissez\nfaire_; yet as members of universities dependent on wealthy patrons\nthey could not well offend powerful interests that wanted none of\ntheir free-trade theory. On the whole they stuck pretty manfully\nto their guns, and from Wayland to Sumner they upheld the abstract\nprinciple of free competition; but what they could do in other ways\nto appease the wrath of the protectionists they did heartily, and\nthe steady rapprochement of academic economic theory and capitalism\nwas foreordained in the nature of things academic. Agrarian and\nproletarian economics were granted no hearing in the colleges. Other\nschools than the English classical were not countenanced, Henry George\nwas ridiculed and the left-wing European economists--great thinkers\nlike Sismondi, Saint-Simon, Louis Blanc, Bastiat, Proudhon, Engels,\nand Karl Marx--were pretty much ignored by professors of economics in\nthe America of the Gilded Age. Something of the intellectual sterility\nof the genteel tradition descended upon our academic economists;\nyet amongst them were vigorous and capable minds that must not be\noverlooked.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Henry C. Carey\n\nHenry C. Carey, son of the vigorous Irish Republican, Matthew\nCarey, who made _The American Museum_ one of the ablest of the\neighteenth-century American magazines, may perhaps be justly called\nour first professional economist. The eighty-six years of his life\nwere filled with enormous labors in the twin fields of economics and\nsociology. He did his own thinking from a basis of facts that he was\nat great pains to gather and tabulate, and his intellectual unfolding\nfollowed naturally the current material development of the mid-century.\nHis statistics, of which he was excessively fond, no doubt were as\nunreliable as most statistics that economists love to dabble in, and\nlike other purveyors of columned figures and impressive charts he\ncertainly leaned too heavily on his knotty staff; but unlike academic\neconomists such as Francis Wayland he tried to keep his thinking in\ncontact with reality and in consequence his studies possess a solidity\nthat is still impressive.\n\nAlthough his father had early been interested in Hamilton\u2019s national\nsystem and for a time was president of a Philadelphia society\nconcerned in furthering a protective tariff--for which the great\nGerman protectionist List published a number of letters in 1827--Carey\nbegan as a follower of the classical school, and in the thirties he\npublished a treatise on political economy that expounded the Manchester\ndoctrine of free-trade. But under the stirring leadership of Henry\nClay the American System was making headway fast, and the facts of\nAmerican expansion impressed him as earlier they had impressed the\nyoung List on his visit here. Turning statistician, he soon discovered,\nas he believed, certain fallacies in the English classical school,\nand he proceeded to examine afresh the Ricardian theory of rent.\n(The change came in 1848.) According to this most celebrated of all\neconomic doctrines rent is measured by the difference in productivity\nbetween the best land, which is settled first, and the poorest, which\nsocial need later brings under cultivation; and hence in every growing\ncommunity the increment of rent constantly increases at the expense of\nboth labor and capital. But in the America which Carey was acquainted\nwith, and where the story of social development was being swiftly\nrecapitulated, the facts seemed to him to prove quite otherwise. Here\nthe poorer lands were settled first, because their physical condition\nmade them more easily available, and only later, when social pressure\nincreased and larger means were available, were the rich bottom-lands\ncleared and the marshes drained.\n\nAs a result of his narrow interpretation of Ricardo\u2019s doctrine of\nsocial fertility, Carey lost faith in the Ricardian theory and turned\nfrankly to the American scene to discover, if possible, a more adequate\nexplanation. Soon the seeds of his intense nationalism were bearing\ntheir fruit. An inherited dislike of England led him to fear its\nindustrial pre\u00ebminence, and he abandoned the ideal of an international\ndivision of labor for the ideal of independent nationality, with\nAmerica developing its individuality through the exploitation of its\nown resources. Free-trade, he came to believe, is international,\nit results in establishing a \u201csingle factory for the whole world,\nwhither all the raw produce has to be sent whatever be the cost of\ntransport\u201d; whereas any society waxes individual and strong in the\nmeasure that it develops variety of employment with its demand for\nmutual help and service. Only through such associations can man develop\nhis capacities and further his mastery of nature. His patriotism thus\nbecame involved in his economics and for years he waged a relentless\nwarfare against Manchesterism. Not only were the English doctrines\nfalse to American fact, he pointed out, but they were vicious Tory\ndoctrines which if followed here would keep America poor for the\nbenefit of England. The great idea which came finally to dominate his\nthinking is suggested by the title of a pamphlet, written in 1852, _The\nHarmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial_--a\nwork that suggests Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat\u2019s _Les harmonies \u00e9conomiques_,\npublished in 1850, and influenced by Carey\u2019s earlier speculations.[586]\nIt was an age much given to discovering harmonies and Carey was not\nbehindhand in the business. In the introduction he traced the ills\nof contemporary economic life to the Manchester theories of rent and\npopulation--theories which had thrown their black shadows over English\nParliamentary programs of relief and perverted the normal unfolding\nof western civilization. In consequence the \u201ctendency of the whole\nBritish system of political economy is the production of discord among\nnations.\u201d[587]\n\nIn the background of Carey\u2019s mind was a Physiocratic dislike of the\nsterile middleman which sharpened his antagonism to an international\ndivision of labor, and a sensitive social conscience that was concerned\nat the ruthless exploitation of English mill-hands. An ardent believer\nin natural liberty and convinced of its beneficence, he restricted\neconomic freedom within national boundaries. The harmony of interests\nis local and not international--the tying together of the several parts\nof the whole. Beyond the national boundaries it ceases. The pessimism\nof the English school with its iron law of wages and its Malthusian law\nof population was harshly repugnant to his buoyant optimism. From these\nvicious roots, he was convinced, sprang the principle of isolation and\ndifferentiation--that producer and consumer must live apart, with the\ncorollary that the poor must seek new lands in far countries to supply\nthe places of those from which they have been thrust, there to produce\nagricultural staples to exchange for the manufactured goods produced\nin thickly settled countries--a principle that taxes both producer and\nconsumer in the exact measure of transportation tolls, and benefits\nexclusively the sterile middleman. Applied to America the policy of\nfree-trade must keep this country dependent upon England--keep it\nagricultural for the benefit of British merchants; and the program that\nCarey outlined, the complete sufficiency of which he never doubted,\nwas a return to the policy of Adam Smith, to that \u201cgeneral harmony of\ninterests\u201d that must result from bringing the farmer and artisan into\nneighborhood communities, fashioning the raw materials where they are\nproduced and consuming the farmer\u2019s produce where it is grown. Adam\nSmith \u201csaw well,\u201d says Carey, \u201cthat when men came thus together, there\narose a general harmony of interests, each profiting his neighbor,\nand profiting by that neighbor\u2019s success, whereas the tendency of\ncommercial centralization was toward poverty and discord, abroad and at\nhome.\u201d[588]\n\nTo his death in 1879 Carey was the most distinguished as he had been\nthe most tireless advocate of a system of protection for American\nmanufactures. He was one of the most pugnacious pamphleteers of a\npugnacious generation.[589] He was a co-worker with Horace Greeley in\nthe labor of convincing a suspicious people of the common benefits\nto be got from a subsidy to a class; and their joint influence gave\nrespectability and popularity to the appeals of business men and\npoliticians. Between 1849 and 1857 he \u201cwas the virtual editor of the\n_New York Tribune_\u201d in all matters regarding protection. His chief\nantagonist in the long struggle was William Cullen Bryant and the\n_Evening Post_; and he made frequent appeal to Bryant to meet him in\na pamphlet debate that should bring before the public both sides of\nthe great question of protectionism. Bryant\u2019s refusal did not lessen\nhis ardor, and in successive pamphlets he laid before the American\npeople a well-rounded argument for tariff subsidies that ranks him in\nthe history of economic thought with Friedrich List, the great German\napostle of a nationalist economic system. American manufacturers owe a\nheavy debt to Henry Carey.\n\nIn these early years of industrialism the manufacturer was still\ndependent on the banker, and industrial development was held back,\nCarey came to believe, by a false financial policy imposed on the\ncounty by the bankers. From his boundless enthusiasm for the ideal of\na national economy sprang likewise his unorthodox views on money that\nso greatly annoyed his fellow economists. Individual in his thinking\non this as on other subjects, he espoused theories that to dogmatic\nbullionists like David A. Wells seemed incendiary at a time (during\nthe post-war years) when so many Americans were bitten with \u201cmoney\nheresies.\u201d On this theme his patriotism and his democratic sympathies\nran together. He was opposed to the bullion system because it struck\nat nationalism. An English system, devised by Lombard Street, did not\nanswer the needs of America. The price of gold is established in a\nworld market and the flow of bullion is always toward the great centers\nalready glutted with money. To throw the money of the world into a\ncommon pool was to subject the money of poorer and remoter countries\nto the control of the great financial capitals. Free-trade and the\ngold standard were the twin weapons forged by England for world-wide\neconomic conquest, and for America to adopt a financial policy that\nheld her subject to Lombard Street, seemed to Carey the height of\nfolly. Gold follows the balance of trade, and until America had built\nup an adequate domestic economy her specie would continue to drain off,\nleaving too scanty a supply to do the necessary work of society.\n\nThe solution, he believed, lay in the creation of an independent\nnational currency; and an efficient national currency, he held with\nBishop Berkeley, was one that was non-exportable, that remained at\nhome to do the day\u2019s work instead of gadding about. To provide such\na medium of exchange he proposed a currency founded on the national\ncredit--a \u201cnational system,\u201d he argued, \u201cbased entirely on the credit\nof the government with the people, and not liable to interference\nfrom abroad.\u201d[590] It was on such grounds that Carey supported the\ngreenback issues and favored the remonetization of silver. The ideal of\n\u201csocietary circulation,\u201d he pointed out, was credit--\u201cthat great step\ntowards civilization which consists in substituting _letters of credit_\nfor material money\u201d; and because \u201cthe steady and regular use of the\n_letter of credit_ known to the world as the \u2018greenback,\u2019 or that other\nknown as the \u2018national bank note,\u2019\u201d[591] tended to wean the minds of\nmen from dependence on specie, he was warm in their favor.\n\n With a sound national system, let foreigners take our gold for\n whatever balance of trade they can impose upon us, having no use\n among ourselves for any coin money except what we can retain under\n a wholesome foreign commerce.\n\n What we most need today is the establishment of that monetary\n independence which results from maintaining absolute command over\n the machinery of exchange used within our borders, leaving to\n the gold dollar the performance of its duty of arranging for the\n settlement of balances throughout the world.[592]\n\nCarey\u2019s insistence on a plentiful supply of money laid him under the\ncharge of being an advocate of \u201ccheap money,\u201d and therefore one of\nthose wicked persons known as \u201cinflationists.\u201d The charge in the main\nwas true. He was pungent in his contrast between the prosperity of\nwar times when an abundant currency released all the energies of the\nAmerican people, and the stagnation that followed upon contraction.\n\u201cCheap money--low interest--enabled our working men to prosper,\u201d\nwhereas dear money--high interest--was bringing distress and hardship.\nEvery reduction in the amount of currency decreases the purchasing\npower of the people, and slows down the circulatory system. The attempt\nto retire the greenbacks he regarded as a class attack on the common\nwelfare of the country. \u201cTo that end the greenback, everywhere claimed\nas the people\u2019s money, has by those in high places been denounced,\nsmall as is the quantity, when compared with the real need for\nit.\u201d[593] Paper money is \u201cdemocratic in its tendencies,\u201d passing from\nhand to hand and never seeking a bank vault to hide in.\n\n A war upon what is called \u201cpaper money\u201d is ... a war upon the\n poor in favor of the rich; and that the war being made upon it\n has precisely that effect is proved by the fact, that the western\n farmer is now being so impoverished by reason of such a reduction\n in the price of corn and oats that the former is being used as\n fuel, while the latter sold at 8 cents a bushel, [while] houses and\n lots in the neighborhood of Wall Street [are] commanding ... prices\n such as had never before been heard of.[594]\n\nConsidering Carey\u2019s reputation as an economist and his wide influence,\nsuch doctrine, in the eyes of all \u201csound-money men,\u201d was distinctly\npernicious. He was giving aid and comfort to the apostles of inflation\nand repudiation, and he suffered many a sharp attack. But that would\nnot deter a warrior grown gray in battle, and in the very last year\nof his life he fell upon the bullion theory with the ardor of a young\nman. He would not suffer the bankers to go unrebuked in their mad\nattack on the prosperity of the country; he would not be silent while a\npolicy of contraction, that so early as 1866 had reduced the per capita\ncirculation to $12.50--according to his statistics--was still in full\nswing after the disastrous lesson of 1873. He had much in common with\nPeter Cooper, who in 1876 took up the battle against Wall Street for a\n\u201cdemocratic\u201d monetary system. The blood of the two old men, both born\nin the last decade of the eighteenth century, had not grown cold or\nsluggish with long years, but responded ardently to the great cause of\ndemocracy that had inspired their youth. That Carey\u2019s national system\nwas a house divided against itself--that industry and finance were\nengaged in a mortal combat for supremacy--he probably never quite\nrealized. He was concerned that America should be free to create and\nenjoy the wealth that lay in the potentialities of the continent, and\nto that end he would have money serve industry, and not industry money.\n\n\n2 \u2022 Francis A. Walker\n\nThe social conscience of Carey was colored with an optimism that was\nthe spontaneous expression of a generation that set no limits to the\nbeneficent development of American industrialism. No storm-clouds\nhad yet gathered on the horizon; no hostile systems challenged the\nsufficiency of capitalism. But a change was at hand. By the end of\nthe seventies the complacency of the Gilded Age was disturbed by the\nrise of pestilent heresies in the shape of new economic dogmas. The\nsurplus-value theory of Marx and the unearned-increment theory of Henry\nGeorge were spreading widely through America, to the unsettlement of\nsusceptible minds; and the Knights of Labor were preparing to launch a\ngeneral attack against the whole system of capitalistic exploitation.\nCarey had sufficed the wants of his simpler day, but there was need of\na new champion to wield the sword of pure Ricardian doctrine against\nthese later heresies.\n\nFrancis A. Walker, son of the economist Amasa Walker, Brigadier General\nin the Civil War, Professor at Sheffield Scientific School and later\nPresident of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was to be the\nself-appointed champion of industrialism, the official economist of\nthe Gilded Age, and forerunner of a long line of academic purveyors of\neconomic dogma. As the author of a college textbook that superseded\nFrancis Wayland\u2019s na\u00efve _Elements of Political Economy_--a work that\nhad served innumerable college generations as a quarry of economic\ndoctrine--he elaborated a complete system of economics with a geniality\nthat went far to popularize the \u201cdismal science\u201d with vast numbers of\nundergraduates; and as an authoritative apologist for entrepreneur\nprofits he rendered a service to capitalism that quite erased his\nlittle Ricardian peccadillo of free-trade prejudice. There runs\nthrough his solid pages the confident optimism of his generation--an\noptimism that discovers in the heresies of socialism and single-tax\nthe only storm-clouds on the fair American horizons. He saw no\nreason to question the ultimate good of industrialism, or to fear any\ndeep-seated clash between labor and capital. He carried water easily\non both shoulders, for he was so fortunate as to have worked out to\nhis complete satisfaction, a magic economic formula that should return\nboth to master and workman their just shares of the total production.\nIn the light of his exegesis there could be no Marxian struggle of the\nclasses. The captain of industry must no longer be regarded with sour\naspect as a parasite upon labor, but as a fellow worker, the creator of\nthose profits which are not subtracted for his benefit from the portion\nof labor. From Ricardo to Marx the economists had been barking up the\nwrong tree in their analysis of the rewards of the entrepreneur.\n\nThe classical school of the Gilded Age was in like position with the\neighteenth-century Calvinists; they must either abandon their dogmas\nor reinterpret them to meet current needs. Walker was too good a\nRicardian to abandon them, so he proposed to reinterpret them. The\nurgent problems to which he addressed himself were the sources of\nprofits and of wages; and the examination of those problems led him\nto his theory of the function of the entrepreneur and to a rejection\nof the classical wage-fund theory. He refused to discard his suit of\nRicardian clothes as Carey had done. They could never go out of style,\nhe believed, so long as honest thinking was respected. He accepted\nmost of the Ricardian dogmas without question. \u201cCapital,\u201d he asserted\nsoberly, \u201carises solely from saving. It stands always for self-denial\nand abstinence,\u201d and interest is the \u201creward of abstinence.\u201d But\none important dogma, the classical wage-fund theory, he insisted on\nstripping away. He was too genial an optimist to rest content with\nthe bleak conception that the margin of subsistence circumscribes the\nrewards of labor, and too enlightened an apologist of industrialism\nto assert that \u201cprofits are the leavings of wages.\u201d He could not\nhope to erect a theory suitable to the Gilded Age on such skimpy\nhypotheses, and he scourged them from the temple of economic law.\nWages, to be sure, are the leavings after rent, interest, and profits\nhave been deducted from the total production; but vast and dangerous\nmisconceptions have arisen in regard to the portions that accrue to\nthese several partners, and in particular mischievous perversions\ntouching the share of profits. This was the crux of the problem of\ndistribution and until the nature of profits should be determined the\nquestion of wages would remain to befuddle weak heads.\n\nThe heart of Walker\u2019s doctrine, therefore, is his theory of profits.\nHe proposed to show that according to the true law of profits this\nflexible increment is never a moiety wrested from labor, but an\nadditional earning of management that justly accrues to him who creates\nit. The doctrine from which he deduced his theory of the entrepreneur\nwas the Ricardian theory of rent. On this point Walker was the most\nloyal of Ricardians, and he violently attacked Carey for repudiating\nthe classical dogma. In a word \u201cRicardo\u2019s doctrine can no more be\nimpugned than the sun in the heaven,\u201d he asserted, \u201cand those who\nmouth at it simply show that they do not know what it was Ricardo\ntaught.\u201d[595] What was needed was to understand its wide implications\nrather than to seek to destroy it--to trace in all its reaches the\ndoctrine of fertility and discover how in other spheres than land the\ndifference between fertile and unfertile measures the return upon\neconomic endeavor. For the great doctrine of fertility, Walker pointed\nout, following Mill, is capable of expansion to cover wider fields\nthan rent; it applies equally to management and labor; it broadens out\ninto a comprehensive principle that exactly measures the most bitterly\ndisputed of the several increments, the increment of profits.\n\nThis theory of fertility, introduced into the law of distribution,\nis Walker\u2019s most interesting contribution to economic speculation.\nBy it he supplemented the trinity of land, capital, and labor--or\nin terms of distribution, of rent, interest, and wages--with a new\nentity--management and the earnings of management. The argument is\nhighly ingenious. Assuming a no-profits employer at the lowest scale of\nthe entrepreneur system, by analogy from the Ricardian no-rent grade\nof land, he asserted that similarly \u201cprofits are measured upwards from\nthe level of the no-profits class of employers,\u201d and hence \u201cit appears\nthat the gains of the employer are not taken from the earnings of the\nlaboring class, but measure the difference in production between the\ncommonplace or bad, and the able, and shrewd, and strong management of\nbusiness.\u201d[596] Profits, then, are an added increment of management,\nsecured by foresight and business skill, the fruit of managerial\nfertility; and since they flow solely from the entrepreneur they belong\nto him alone and no portion may be justly claimed for rent, interest,\nor wages. The complete theory he states thus:\n\n Under free and full competition, the successful employers of labour\n would earn a remuneration which would be exactly measured, in the\n case of each man, by the amount of wealth which he could produce,\n with a given application of labour and capital, over and above\n what would be produced by employers of the lowest industrial,\n or no-profits, grade, making use of the same amounts of labour\n and capital, just as rent measures the surplus of the produce of\n the better lands over and above what would be produced by the\n same application of labour and capital to the least productive\n lands which contribute to the supply of the market, lands which\n themselves bear no rent.[597]\n\nIt is a persuasive argument of which Walker was vastly proud. The germ\nof it later historians of economic thought have traced to Senior and\nJohn Stuart Mill, who had suggested the idea of \u201cdifferential rent,\u201d or\n\u201crent of ability,\u201d which is the reward of \u201call peculiar advantages of\nextraordinary qualities of body and mind.\u201d[598] From whatever source\nit issued, the usefulness of such doctrine in the days of an expanding\nindustrialism, and the ends it might serve in counteracting proletarian\nphilosophies, are too evident to need comment. The Marxian dogma of\nsurplus value--that profits are stealings from wages--was certainly\ncalculated to breed dissatisfaction in weak proletarian heads. Marx was\na good Ricardian in his major postulates and the Ricardians had failed\nto analyze adequately the true sources of profits; because of such\nfailure the classical school had underestimated the social beneficence\nof the capitalistic system. Chained to the iron law of wages the school\nhad been forced to envisage a bleak future with labor kept always at\nthe margin of subsistence. From this pessimism Walker proposed to rid\neconomic theory, by showing that entrepreneur profits augment the wage\nfund and hence that the entrepreneur is the benefactor rather than the\nexploiter of labor. With his business skill the captain of industry,\nlike the inventor of a new machine, lays open new sources of wealth for\nall, and if he gains much for himself he gives more to society; for\nevery improvement in business methods accrues in the end to society as\na whole, for the new technique soon becomes a common possession.\n\nThe validity of Walker\u2019s theory of profits does not concern us here; it\nis a matter for economists to determine. To one who is under the spell\nof no doctrinaire system the theory seems somewhat too neat with its\nassumption of \u201cfree and full competition\u201d;[599] and in its conscious\npurpose to glorify the captain of industry it is freighted rather\ntoo heavily with the spirit of the Gilded Age. It not only throws\nthe door wide to exploitation but it invites everybody to the feast.\nYet the work of the apologist was only half done. Having established\nto his satisfaction the law of profits, Walker was prepared to take\nequally high ground in determining the increment that falls to labor.\nTo glorify profits and at the same time defend the pessimism of the\nwage-fund theory, would have been foolish tactics in presence of the\nMarxian surplus-value theory; proletarian discontent must be dealt with\nand Walker was prepared to deal with it. Having ascertained exactly\nthe several increments due to rent, interest, and profits--which in\nhis system are rigidly determined by economic law--he confidently\nassigned all the residual increment to wages. Labor not only gets all\nit earns, he argued, but far more, since what does not fall to the\njust shares of the other partners falls to it--that is the \u201cwhole\nremaining body of wealth.\u201d If it be recalled that the total social fund\nof inventions, machinery, trade processes, systems of transportation,\nbusiness methods, are alike in the service of all employers--the\nno-profit entrepreneur equally with the high-profit--it follows that\nthe individual employer can derive from such social wealth no modicum\nof profit above and beyond what his individual fertility has produced.\nWhere then can the income from such social fund flow except to wages?\n\u201cEvery invention in mechanics, every discovery in the chemical art, no\nmatter by whom made, inures directly and immediately\u201d to the benefit\nof labor.[600] This, to be sure, on the hypothesis of \u201cfull and free\ncompetition,\u201d which may be interfered with by various means but which\nin the long run prevails. How else shall one explain the constant rise\nin the wage-scale that has marked the Industrial Revolution and that\nhas gone hand in hand with vast profits to the entrepreneur class?\n\nIt was a robust optimism that could lay down the theory that labor\nis \u201cthe residual claimant to the product of industry.\u201d Although\nWalker prided himself on his discovery, it seems to have made slight\nimpression on later economic thought. Like too many members of the\nclassical school the apologist of the Gilded Age failed to keep his\nfeet on the plebeian earth; and his conclusions suggest how great\nmischief _a priori_ reasoning may work in the speculations of academic\ngentlemen. A moderate dash of realism might have lessened his buoyant\noptimism; but Walker was too warm an admirer of capitalism, too eager\nto assert the beneficence of industrialism, to inquire curiously into\nthe everyday facts of current exploitation. As a realistic statistician\nhe was far inferior to Carey. But why demand a plodding realism of the\neconomist when all America was romantic? If the economic theory of\nGeneral Walker was a pleasant blend of Ricardo and Colonel Sellers,\nwould it not hit the taste of the age to a nicety? Its sturdy optimism\nwas a soothing antidote to the Jeremiads of the Marxians and the shrill\ndemands of the single-taxers. The Gold Coast of America looked to its\nofficial economists for a confutation of all economic heresies, and who\nwas so well equipped for that business as a doughty Colonel Sellers\narmed with a sharp Ricardian sword?\n\nIn this brisk work Walker engaged with gusto. In his onslaught upon\nMarx and Henry George he was untroubled by doubt. He first demolished\nthe structure of their theory and then impugned their honesty. His\ncondemnation of single-tax is bold and sweeping. There is a bitter\nasperity in his denunciation of the economic heresies of _Progress\nand Poverty_, and he dismisses the proposal to tax unearned increment\nwith the comment, \u201cEvery honest man will resent such a proposition\nas an insult.\u201d[601] His discussion of the economics of the question\nis only casual and he hastens back to the safe haven of Ricardian\ndoctrine.[602] In his commentary on the Knights of Labor he is somewhat\nvindictive for a well-bred gentleman. He charges the syndicalistic\nattack on the profits system to immigrant foreigners, asserts that the\nlaw of profit fertility is an insuperable obstacle to any proletarian\ncontrol of industry, and finally damns it as un-American. The honest,\nnative American \u201cknows that for himself and his children the way is\nopen clear to the top\u201d; his \u201cspirit is that of civility, reciprocity\nand fair play\u201d; and he concludes:\n\n Had it been left to our native population alone, not one of those\n violent and reckless attacks upon production and transportation,\n which have, within the past two or three years, shocked the whole\n industrial system and have come near to produce a general crisis of\n trade, would ever have taken place.[603]\n\nYet in spite of his genial optimism he discovered specks on the fair\npicture of society. To the Ricardian logic the stupidity of men is a\nconstant irritant; if only men were rational the path of progress would\nbe so much easier! After economic law has been demonstrated with the\nfinality of a Euclidian theorem, it is disconcerting to see how the\nmultitude will not be reasoned with, but persist in following after the\nlast false prophet who cries in the market-place. The clamor raised\nby single-tax was especially annoying. \u201cThat such an argument,\u201d he\nremarked a bit testily, \u201cshould for a moment have imposed upon anybody,\nis enough to give one a new conception of the intellectual capabilities\nof mankind.\u201d[604] Fortunate it is for society, he concludes, that while\nman proposes, economic law disposes. False prophets will have their\nlittle day, but from their secure watch-tower the Ricardians calmly\nlook out upon a world of which they alone hold the key.[605]\n\n\nII \u2022 The Conscription of Political Theory\n\nWhen the social fabric is being torn rudely across by a changing\neconomics, political theory and practice will suffer from the attendant\nconfusions. The America of the Gilded Age accounted itself a democracy\nand was outwardly content to make use of the familiar democratic\nmachinery; but until it was determined whether majority or minority\nrule should prevail, whether the well-being of the many or the property\nof the few should be the chief object of government, there would be\nno serious effort to create a political state for adequate social\ncontrol. In the meantime the old individualisms would range the land\nseeking what they might devour, and the common attitude toward the\npolitical state would remain one of good-natured contempt. A shambling\ngovernment, corrupt and incompetent, awakened no man\u2019s hope or\npride, and amidst the slovenly anarchisms of the times, with a crude\nexploitation in the saddle, the state would be pretty much ignored\nexcept when its services might prove useful to such exploitation. The\nplutocracy would oppose the erection of a vigorous state until such\ntime as it felt strong enough to control its activities. The principle\nof the majority-will held grave potentialities that might threaten the\neventual mastership of wealth, and until the plutocracy had created its\nstrongholds within the framework of the democracy it would bitterly\noppose any extension of democratic control.\n\nBroadly two great movements were going forward side by side in the\nunconscious drift of political tendency--the democratic and the\nplutocratic. The former, drawn chiefly from agrarian and labor\nelements with a considerable following of the middle and professional\nclasses, was determined to carry forward and supplement the Jacksonian\nmovement. It was honestly concerned for the development of the\ndemocratic principle. It would purify government by the application of\ncivil service reform, it would steadily enlarge the bounds of social\ncontrol of economic forces, and it would strengthen the political\nstate to enable it to cope with corporate wealth and constrain the\nambitions of the plutocracy into conformity with democratic ends. To\nsuch a democratic program the plutocracy was necessarily opposed. It\nprofessed the warmest loyalty to the abstract principle of democracy\nwhile bending every energy to emasculate effective democratic control.\nThe problem confronting it was the familiar Federalistic problem--how\nto protect the minority from the majority and set property interests\nabove human interests; but the problem had been immensely complicated\nby the strategic advances made by democracy. The democratic principle\ncould not be easily thrust aside, it must be undermined. And so while\nawaiting the time when it should be strong enough to set up boldly\nits mastery of society, plutocracy took refuge in two principles,\nthe superman theory and the _laissez-faire_ theory, both of which it\nasserted to be democratic, the very essence of democracy. The former\nwas \u201cThe public be damned\u201d theory, which held that the economic leaders\nof society must be left free to manage their properties as they saw\nfit; and the latter was the familiar doctrine of individual initiative,\nthat looked with suspicion on any interference by the political state\nwith economic activity. If a bureaucracy may stick its nose into the\ncitizen\u2019s private affairs what becomes of individual liberty?\n\nBut the plutocracy was building its real defenses elsewhere. Shrewdly\naware of the potentialities of a Constitution that had been designed\nfor the protection of property interests, it followed two main lines\nof development: it furthered the popular development of a cult of\nthe Constitution by praising the excellence of a system of checks and\nbalances, and spreading the view that to tamper with any provisions\nof the instrument was little short of sacrilege; and at the same time\nit bent every energy to extend the range of judicial prerogative and\nbring the legislative branch under control of the judiciary. It sought\nextra-constitutional indulgences that were dispensed by the courts in\nthe name of the police power. The way had been prepared by Marbury\nvs. Madison and Dred Scott vs. Sanford, and during the Gilded Age a\nbroad path to judicial control was opened by the elaboration of the\n\u201cdue process of law\u201d principle discovered in the fourteenth amendment.\nWith the development of the plutocracy the extension of the doctrine\nof judicial review went forward rapidly, providing an impregnable\ndefense for property interests that promised ill for the principle\nof democratic control in the interests of the common well-being. The\ndemocracy was being driven from the inner keep of the castle.\n\nWhile the real struggle was thus going on in the court-room, with the\noutcome in the hands of the judges, political speculation was playing\nhavoc with certain of our oldest and most cherished doctrines. Pursuing\nthe path suggested by Webster and Francis Lieber, it turned away from\nthe particularism of Calhoun to explore the reaches of a consolidating\nnationalism. The inevitable drift towards unity--whether democratic\nor plutocratic--was daily gathering momentum. The destruction of the\nstates-rights program and party had cleared the ground for a new\nconception of the dignity and powers of the political state. With the\nsocial shift from dispersion to centralization the federal government\nwas destined to grow in authority; and political theory was destined to\nfollow the same course, seeking to justify in principle what was being\naccomplished in fact. The end of the philosophy of dispersion was in\nsight. The tide was running toward an exaltation of the doctrine of\nsovereignty, with the consequent exaltation of the abstract political\nstate. As the individual coalesced in the mass, the rights and dignity\nof the individual would lessen in the presence of an engulfing\nsovereignty. The traditional doctrine of natural rights was in for a\nslashing attack. Centralization must destroy the shambling Jacksonian\nstructure and erect in its place a grandiose organic theory.\n\nDuring the Gilded Age a number of systematic studies of political\ntheory appeared, amongst which the most significant were, Woolsey\u2019s\n_Political Science, or the State_ (1877), Bryce\u2019s _The American\nCommonwealth_ (1888), Woodrow Wilson\u2019s _The State_ (1889), and\nBurgess\u2019s _Political Science and Constitutional Law_ (1891). Of these\nthe formal studies of Woolsey and Burgess may serve to illustrate\nthe changing thought of the times. Both are academic reflections of\nthe current drift of tendency, and both reveal the academic sympathy\nwith the master movement of centralization. The work of Woolsey was a\nrevision of classroom notes used between 1846 and 1871 and strongly\ncolored by pre-war views; the work of Burgess was the first-fruits of\nthe influence of German speculation on the nature of the leviathan\nstate.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Theodore Woolsey\n\nTheodore Dwight Woolsey, professor of Greek and president of Yale,\nwas an heir in direct succession of Connecticut Federalism. Nephew of\nTimothy Dwight, a minister, and distinguished member of the social\noligarchy that in its decadence still held Connecticut opinion in a\nstrong grip, he could scarcely escape a predilection for the moralistic\nauthoritative dogmatisms that marked the old Connecticut _r\u00e9gime_. The\nprinciple of coercive authority had lain at the heart of the political\ntheory of Timothy Dwight, and Theodore Woolsey was true to his Puritan\nantecedents in asserting the supremacy of authority over liberty.\nThe only important element in his thinking that sets him apart from\nhis uncle was the influence of Francis Lieber, whose conception of\norganic growth in social custom he made his own, and whose disciple\nhe professed to be. Naturally he retained the old Puritan dislike of\nleveling--the traditional Connecticut distrust of democracy. He would\nhave no weakening of authority, no Jacobean license; and for anarchism,\nsocialism, communism, which he reckoned the nastiest spawn of\nJacobinism, his abhorrence was what one would expect of a Connecticut\nFederalist. The two ponderous volumes that he issued in 1877 are\nlearned studies that bear on their dun pages many a telltale mark of\nearlier times. In them Theodore Woolsey was renewing the fight against\nan infidel philosophy that with its doctrine of natural rights denied\nthe authority of the godly to police society.\n\nIn harmony with Lieber and Calhoun he rejected the romantic doctrine\nof natural rights, and substituted a composite social-moralistic\nconception, that from John Winthrop and Roger Williams to Channing and\nEmerson had colored the Puritan thought of New England. Natural rights,\nhe asserted, are those which belong to man by reason of the nature God\nhas endowed him with; and the state is a moral agent, arising out of\ncustom, to secure and guarantee such rights. It is \u201cas truly natural as\nrights are, and as society is\u201d; for established in the social nature of\nman it is the natural repository and guardian of his rights in a social\norder. It is an expression of the teleological purpose that underlies\nall things. The manner in which Woolsey elaborated his moralistic\ntheory will be evident from the following passages:\n\n The considerations that men exist together in society, that they\n have an irresistible impulse towards society, that their perfection\n of soul and of outward condition can be secured only in a social\n life, and, on the other hand, that recognition of rights and\n obligation alone make a social life a tolerable or even a possible\n thing, and that wherever men reflect on their own nature they\n admit the existence of certain classes of rights and shield them\n by public power, show a divine purpose which none who believe in\n a Creator of the world can deny. The Creator of man, having made\n him such that his temporal, moral, and spiritual perfection can be\n found only in society, prepared his moral feelings for the life\n for which he was destined. The destination for society; the means\n within human nature by which it is fulfilled; the means by which\n the individual and the community, when brought into society, are\n able to secure the good and avoid the evils possible in a state\n of coexistence--these form a complete, harmonious whole, which\n manifest comprehension of view and forethought. It is provided\n in our nature, when it is not perverted--that is, when it does\n not swerve from the true idea of human nature--that we shall form\n societies under law. A state of society is a state of nature, and\n the only true one.\n\n When therefore _natural_ rights are spoken of, we can accept the\n term, if it be used to denote such rights as grow out of our\n nature, and may be inferred from the destination to which it\n points us. Another and a heathenish kind of sense was attached\n to the words, when they were taken to mean the rights, or rather\n uncontrolled liberties, which men possessed in a state of human\n nature in which there was no organized society or government....\n [Such a theory] contemplates men as enjoying certain powers of\n free action in this state of nature, and these powers must serve\n for a foundation of their state as members of society, or so many\n of them as it cannot be shown that they gave up, in order to make\n a state of law and order possible. In other words, the theory of\n the derivation of these rights from a state of nature may take a\n hypothetical shape, and deduce rights from what a man could do in a\n state of things which exists only in a jural fiction....\n\n We find no fault with the objects which the theories had in view,\n but with the want of conformity to truth. It must be pronounced,\n in _the first place_, contrary to fact, that such a state of\n nature ever existed. Man has always been under law; he is a \u03b6\u1ff7\u03bf\u03bd\n \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd....\n\n _Secondly_, if it could be shown that he had such an origin, it\n would prove nothing.[606]\n\nHaving thus established both society and the state in the nature of\nman, and dismissed the romantic interpretation of natural rights as\nheathenish, Woolsey turned to examine the true sphere and function of\nthe political state. He rejected in the main the _laissez-faire_ view\nof Mill and Spencer, but he refused to go so far as Burgess. He will\nhave no omnicompetent state. A just mean must be laid down between\nauthority and liberty, and that mean he discovered in the dictum,\n\u201cThe sphere of the state ... may reach as far as the nature of man\nand needs of man and of men reach\u201d;[607] that is to say, its control\nruns far beyond mere police powers, and concerns itself not only with\nmaterial ends but with the \u201cintellectual and aesthetic wants of the\nindividual, and the religious and moral nature of its citizens.\u201d A\nstate swollen to great powers he regarded as likely to swallow up\nliberty in paternalism, and a state immediately responsive to the\npopular will is certain to run into \u201cextreme democracy.\u201d His ideal\ngovernment he discovered in the rule of the Connecticut oligarchy,\nunder which a homogeneous people, with simple agrarian habits,\ndisciplined by religion and responsive to moral leadership, enjoyed\na stable government administered by proved executives. Unfortunately\nwith the nineteenth century began a decline in American government,\nresulting from economic changes, the growth of cities, lower-class\nimmigration, and the \u201cgradual reception of doctrines of political\nrights, which belong to extreme democracy.\u201d Such pernicious doctrines,\nin his judgment, were: the short term of office, popular election of\njudges to hold for a fixed period instead of for life, the debasement\nof the representative system by subjecting the representative to his\nconstituents, and the spoils system.[608] In a later study he added two\nother evils: direct legislation through the initiative, and a popular\nreferendum on war and peace.[609]\n\nIn spite of an imposing display of classical learning these two\nstout volumes reveal a childlike ignorance of _Realpolitik_, a\nna\u00efve inability to grasp the significance of economic groupings\nthat underlie all political alignments. Neither as minister nor as\ncollege president did Theodore Woolsey learn anything about the robust\nmaterialisms which any realistic political theory must take into great\naccount. His knowledge of ancient Greek institutions no doubt was\nadequate, but his knowledge of American constitutional development\nwas singularly inadequate. He accepted without question the argument\nof Story and Webster that the phrase, \u201cWe the people,\u201d proves the\noriginal, consolidating intention of the document; he discussed the\nhistory of party government in the United States without touching on\nthe economic alignment of agrarianism and capitalism; and he could\ndiscover only one thoroughly admirable political party--\u201cthe upright\nfederal party.\u201d He extols the Supreme Court as the triumph of the\nAmerican Constitution, without considering the desirability of a\njudicial veto on legislative enactments, or suggesting a potential\nalignment of the judiciary with the master forces of a generation. The\nmoralistic bias of his thought is perhaps sufficiently revealed in a\ncomment on the functions of the judges. \u201cIn a higher sense, they are\nnot representatives of the community nor of its chief magistrates, but\nof justice and of God.... They are in fact more immediately servants\nof God than any other men who manage the affairs of a country, because\nexpediency, departure from law or from the constitution, is for them in\nno circumstance a thing to be conceived of.\u201d[610] Mark Twain, it would\nseem, was not the only humorist of the Gilded Age.\n\nIn his later years Woolsey was much disturbed by the spread of\ncollectivist doctrine, and in the thick of the economic unrest of the\ntimes he felt it to be his duty to assist in stemming the advance of\nsuch doctrine. In his great work on political theory, he demolished\nthe communist-anarchist-socialist arguments in a few pages, and then\nremarked with excellent candor, \u201cThere is an extensive literature,\nrelating to the subject ... with much of which I am not familiar.\u201d\nFearful that he might not have delivered a death-blow, after further\nreading he returned to the attack three years later, and in 1880\npublished a volume entitled _Communism and Socialism_. For so difficult\na business he was even then inadequately equipped. He did not realize\nthe magnitude of his task. Marx\u2019s _Capital_ could not be undermined\nin ten pages, even with the help of Cairnes, Mill, and Ricardo, and\na political scientist with a theological background was scarcely\ncompetent to untie the close-knit threads of the Marxian economics.\nHis exposition in consequence is incomplete and faulty; it largely\noverlooks the Marxian philosophy of history and ignores the doctrine of\neconomic determinism. What troubles him most is the lack of religious\nfaith amongst socialists. The validity of a theory he is satisfied\nto test by the morality of the theorist. One can easily guess that\nPresident Woolsey\u2019s opinions had turned into dogmatic conviction before\na page of the literature to be examined had come under his eyes. Yet\nthat so shallow a book should have issued from an academic pen will\nsurprise no one who is aware of the incredible number of shallow books\nthat actually have issued from academic pens. Provocative social\nthinking and the American university seem never to have got on well\ntogether.\n\nIn the fact that Woolsey\u2019s speculations on the nature of the state\nwere accounted significant contributions to political science by his\ngeneration of Americans, the historian may find added confirmation\nof the shallowness of the Gilded Age. A stale Connecticut Calvinism,\nmolding in the corner of the cupboard, is poor food to nourish\nthinking, and a man who knows nothing about the deeper springs of\npolitical struggle is singularly unqualified to elaborate a science of\nthe state. Theodore Woolsey\u2019s weighty volumes were a dignified attempt\nto rehabilitate the old Connecticut Federalism and suit it to the taste\nof a new age. But what measure of political intelligence can one expect\nof a people fed on pious fictions by their most authoritative expounder\nof the noble art of government?\n\n\n2 \u2022 John W. Burgess\n\nWoolsey has little to say about sovereignty. The speculations of Austin\nhad not reached his quiet study, and the need for a coercive state in\nharmony with a centralizing industrialism was not likely to be realized\nby a man whose eyes were turned back fondly to a simple village\nlife. It was left for a younger generation to examine the problem of\nsovereignty, and to that business John W. Burgess turned with zest.\nA thoroughgoing Austinian, a disciple of the German state-cult, a\nHegelian, he would seem to have been ill fitted to interpret the\nfunctions of the state to America. And yet by virtue of his European\ndetachment he saw clearly the direction in which America[611]\n\n\nIV \u2022 Buttressing the Democratic Theory\n\n\n1 \u2022 A Democratic Economics--Henry George\n\nWhile the academic economists were thus providing a new body of\ncapitalistic theory, from the ranks of the people came a group that\nwas bent on bringing economic principles into greater conformity to\nwhat they considered democratic needs. The economics of bankers and\nmanufacturers they regarded as a selfish class economics and they\nproposed to democratize the body of economic thought as Tom Paine and\nJefferson had democratized the body of political thought. Since the\ndays of John Taylor such amateur economists had been plentiful in\nAmerica, and in the post-war days when the country was in the throes\nof the Industrial Revolution, they sprang up at every cross-roads.\nGeorge Henry Evans, Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper, Parke Godwin, Wendell\nPhillips, Albert Brisbane, Hinton R. Helper, \u201cCoin\u201d Harvey, were only\na few out of the many who in their own way were seeking in economics a\nroad to freedom. They were not formal economists; they were little read\nin the history of economic thought; in so far as they may be accounted\na school they were mostly the unclaimed progeny of French Physiocratic\ntheory who did not recognize their own father. Yet they were vastly\nconcerned to bring economic theory into some sort of realistic contact\nwith the facts of American experience and the ideals of democracy;\nand their immediate objective was the overthrow of current Manchester\nprinciples and the erection in their stead of a body of theory based on\nthe needs of the producer and the consumer rather than the middleman.\n\nOf this characteristic native group, largely ignored by our formal\nhistorians, by far the ablest and most influential was Henry George,\na thinker created by the impact of frontier economics upon a mind\nsingularly sensitive to the appeal of social justice, singularly\nself-sufficient in its logic. He remains still our most original\neconomist. Beyond the Ricardian theory of rent, with its corollary of\nunearned increment, he owed little to Europe and nothing to academic\nAmerican economists. From the first he was a free-lance, returning\nto the origins of things--as Tom Paine had advised long before--and\nthinking \u201cas if he were the first man who ever thought.\u201d His major\ndoctrines he arrived at largely independently, ignorant of the fact\nthat his _imp\u00f4t unique_ had been earlier elaborated by the Physiocratic\nschool, till long after he had come to identical conclusions. His\nmatured philosophy was the outcome of the meditations of a Jeffersonian\nidealist contemplating the divergence between the crude facts of\nexploitation all about him and the eighteenth-century ideal of natural\njustice; and he became, in consequence, the voice of idealistic America\nseeking to adjust the economics of a rapidly changing society to the\nends of democratic well-being. The passion of the reformer was in him,\nbut wedded to the critical mind of the analyst; and this accounts\nfor the wide appeal of _Progress and Poverty_ that for thousands of\nAmericans removed economic theory from the academic closet and set it\nin the thick of political conflict. Henry George humanized the dismal\nscience and brought it home to the common interest. With his extreme\nsimplification no doubt he fell into the same error the classical\nschool had fallen into before him; he left too many elements out of\nhis equation; but he succeeded in the same way they had succeeded--he\nmade of economic theory a weapon to use in the struggle between the\nexploiters and the exploited. After _Progress and Poverty_ the social\neconomist could cross swords with the Ricardians.\n\nHenry George is readily enough explained in the light of his\nenvironment. He was intellectually native to the West, but it was the\nWest of the Gilded Age with its recollections of an earlier agrarian\norder. Upon the gigantic exploitation of post-war times, carried\nforward in the name of progress, he threw the experience of two\nhundred and fifty years of continental expansion. That experience had\nundergone a subtle change as the settlements moved through the Inland\nEmpire, a change marked by the spirit of capitalistic expansion with\nits crop of unearned increment. On the frontier, land speculation\nwas often the readiest means to wealth. To the west of the Allegheny\nMountains land had long been the staple commodity, with the buying and\nselling of which every community was deeply concerned; and from the\ndramatic repetition of that experience in California, Henry George\nclarified the principle upon which he erected his social philosophy,\nnamely, that a fluid economics begets an equalitarian democracy and\nhomespun plenty, and that with the monopolization of natural resources\na static economy succeeds, with its attendant caste regimentation and\naugmenting exploitation. In the days when he was meditating his social\nphilosophy, California was still in the frontier stage of development,\nbut amidst the hurrying changes a fluid economics was visibly hardening\nto the static, with a swiftness dramatic enough to impress upon him\nthe significance of a story that had been obscured in earlier telling\nby the slowness of the d\u00e9nouement. The vast cupidity of business in\npre\u00ebmpting the virgin resources of California, and in particular the\ntechnique of Leland Stanford and the Central Pacific Railway group,\nprovided an eloquent object-lesson that set him to examining the long\nhistory of land-jobbing in America in its remoter social bearings. From\nsuch inquiry emerged the cardinal principles of an economic theory that\nmust be reckoned the ultimate expression of a school of thought that\nbeginning with Quesnay a hundred years before, and first interpreted\nfor America by John Taylor and the Jeffersonians, was finally buried in\na common grave with the kindred doctrine of natural rights.\n\nIt was no accident that his mind fastened upon land monopoly as the\ndeeper source of social injustice. As a child of the frontier he\nthought in terms of land as naturally as the money-broker thinks in\nterms of discounts. His psychology was that of the producer rather than\nthe middleman. Land, with all its potential wealth of field and orchard\nand forest and stream, with its unmeasured resources of coal and iron\nand oil and timber, was the fruitful gift of nature to man; and the\ntrue measure of social well-being, he believed, is the measure in which\nlabor is free to use such natural resources for productive purposes.\nLand monopoly was an ancient evil that had laid its blight on every\ncivilization. The expropriation of natural resources was the origin of\nrent, and rent was a social tax parasitic in nature. Unearned increment\nwas a moiety wrested from the producer, that waxed ever greater with\nthe increase of production. Henry George was well aware how deeply\nrooted in American psychology was the love of unearned increment.\nSince the far-off days when the agent of the Transylvania Land Company\nwrote in 1775 that the Ohio Valley abounded in land-mongers, the rage\nfor expropriative speculation had mounted steadily; and the railway\nland-grants of his day were a fitting climax to a policy that in every\ngeneration had brought forth such fruits as the Yazoo frauds. The land\nquestion was a perennial western problem. For years Horace Greeley in\nthe _Tribune_, had spread amongst the farmers the \u201cVote Yourself a\nFarm\u201d propaganda. The protest of the small western settler against the\nmiddleman policy of the government in alienating great blocks of the\npublic domain to speculative companies, had added thousands of votes to\nthe Republican party, and the result was the Homestead Act of 1862. But\nthe fruits of the Act were partly destroyed by huge grants to railway\npromoters, and the time had come, George believed, when the problem\nmust be envisaged in all its complexities and the American people\nbrought to understand how great were the stakes being gambled for.\n\nThe disease had so long been endemic in America that the remedy\nmust be drastic. No patent nostrums would serve. The vividness of\nhis experience in the West had thrown into sharp relief his earlier\nexperiences in the East, and made him distrustful of all social\npanaceas that hopeful idealists were seeking in Europe. With any form\nof collectivistic theory he would have nothing to do. Marxian socialism\nhe looked upon as an alien philosophy, inadequate in its diagnosis and\nat fault in its prescription. The ills of America--perhaps of Europe as\nwell--must be cured by another regimen. _Progress and Poverty_ grew out\nof his experience as he watched the heedless alienation of the public\ndomain. It was his reply to the policy of pre\u00ebmption, exploitation, and\nprogress of the Gilded Age. Philadelphia-born, he early suffered in his\npersonal fortune from the periodic hard times that ran so disastrous a\ncycle in the days when America was in thoughtless transition from an\nagrarian order to an industrial. His scanty schooling came to an end\nbefore he had reached his fourteenth year, and at sixteen he saw no\nbetter opening in life than to ship before the mast to Australia. On\nhis return he learned to set type, but times were bad and opportunity\ndeclining to knock at his door, he worked his way through the Straits\nof Magellan, landing in San Francisco in 1858, on his way to Salem,\nOregon, where he worked for a time in a shop. With the exhaustion of\nthe diggings he made his way back to San Francisco, and began a long\nseries of restless ventures in the newspaper field, with only his hands\nfor capital--none very successful, none quite a failure, but returning\nhim useful dividends in the form of a serviceable prose style. At\ntwenty-two he plunged into an improvident marriage with a girl of\neighteen, and the next dozen years brought many privations to the\nlittle family.\n\nFate had not yet taken Henry George in hand to lead him into his\nlife work. All the economics he then knew had been learned in the\nrough and tumble ways of a western print-shop. In 1869, at the age of\nthirty, while on a business trip to New York City, he was confronted\nby the contrast between wealth and poverty there nakedly exposed--so\nunlike what he had known at San Francisco. It was a prod to his social\nconscience, and as he contemplated the wretchedness of the East Side he\nregistered a vow to explore the hidden causes of social disease. He had\ngiven no serious thought to economic questions, and now almost casually\nhe went to the Philadelphia public library to look into John Stuart\nMill\u2019s _Political Economy_. He accepted Mill\u2019s views on wages without\ncritical examination, and wrote his first important article--on the\nChinese question in California. In the meantime a group of California\nrailway promoters had been buying and selling legislators in their work\nof building up private fortunes out of a public monopoly; and it was\nthe contemplation of wealth acquired by such methods, together with the\ngamble of land speculation in Oakland in consequence of the proposal to\nestablish there the western terminal of the continental railway, that\nclarified for Henry George the great principle he was to expound in\n_Progress and Poverty_ ten years later.\n\nThe first drift in his intellectual development had been a drift back\nto the old Jeffersonianism from which the country was swiftly moving.\nAs an editor he was an outspoken Democrat of the primitive school,\nopposed to protectionism, subsidies, a centralizing political state,\nand the corruption that follows in the train of paternalism as sickness\nfollows infection. In a pamphlet written in 1870, he expounded his\npolitical faith thus:\n\n Railroad subsidies, like protective duties, are condemned by the\n economic principle that the development of industry should be\n left free to take its natural direction. They are condemned by\n the political principle that government should be reduced to its\n minimum--that it becomes more corrupt and more tyrannical, and\n less under the control of the people, with every extension of its\n powers and duties.... They are condemned by the experience of the\n whole country, which shows that they have invariably led to waste,\n extravagance and rascality; that they inevitably become a source of\n corruption and a means of plundering the people.[612]\n\nHaving thus indoctrinated himself in the Jeffersonian liberalism\nwith its foundations laid in natural rights and its conception of a\ndecentralized society, the following year, at the age of thirty-two,\nhe sat down to the serious elaboration of his views. _Our Land and\nLand Policy, National and State_, was an explorative pamphlet that\nwent to the heart of the problem as he had come to understand it. The\nkernel of the work is the question of the relation of land to labor,\nof rent to wages; and the conclusion to which it led was the doctrine\nof the social ownership of socially created values, which justice\nrequires shall return to society in the form of an equalized tax that\nshall absorb the unearned increment. Around this fundamental doctrine\nwas grouped a considerable body of ideas that had been expounded by\nearlier liberals. How much he borrowed and how much he arrived at\nindependently, cannot easily be determined; such diverse thinkers as\nJames Harrington, Locke, the Physiocrats, Tom Paine, Karl Marx, John\nStuart Mill, William Ellery Channing, might well have contributed to\nthis provocative document, if George had been acquainted with them.\nLike Harrington was the assumption of economic determinism--that\nownership of the land implies the rulership of society. From the\nschool of Locke came the conception of natural rights, but interpreted\nrather in terms of Tom Paine and of William Ellery Channing. From\nMill came the conception of unearned increment; from Marx the law of\nconcentration; and from the Physiocrats the conception of a natural\norder and the doctrine of an _imp\u00f4t unique_. And all this set in a\nframework of American economic history, which reveals with shrewd\ninsight the disastrous tendency of the traditional policy of land\nalienation in great blocks to middle-men, with the attendant rise of\nrent.\n\nHow intimately he was related in his thinking to the French liberals of\nthe eighteenth century, may perhaps be sufficiently suggested in his\ninterpretation of the doctrine of natural rights--a doctrine the new\nrealistic school from Calhoun to Woolsey and Burgess was subjecting to\ncritical analysis. By uniting the individualism of Locke\u2019s doctrine of\nproperty with the Physiocratic doctrine of social well-being, he gave\na sharp turn to the conception that, like Jefferson\u2019s, set it widely\napart from the exploitative interpretation preferred by the Hamiltonian\nfollowers of Locke. The gist of his conception is thus set down:\n\n Now the right of every human being to himself is the foundation\n of the right of property. That which a man produces is rightfully\n his own, to keep, to sell, to give or to bequeath, and upon this\n sure title alone can ownership of anything rightfully rest. But man\n has also another right, declared by the fact of his existence--the\n right to the use of so much of the free gifts of nature as may be\n necessary to supply all the wants of that existence, and which he\n may use without interfering with the equal rights of anyone else;\n and to this he has a title as against all the world.[613]\n\nMuch of Henry George is compressed within these few lines, that suggest\nas well the diverse liaisons of his thought. In his conception of\nthe right of every man to himself he is in agreement with William\nEllery Channing, who used the argument in his attack on slavery, and\nwith Emerson, Parker, and the Transcendental radicals generally.\nIt is an interpretation of natural rights that sprang easily from\nthe Unitarian-Transcendental conception of the sacredness of the\nindividual, and that was given wide currency by the anti-slavery\npropaganda. From his deduction that the right to property flows\nfrom the right to self, came his theory of tax-equity that was to\nplay a major r\u00f4le in the formulation of his principle of taxation.\nIf society may not justly take from the individual what the\nindividual has created, it must seek its revenues elsewhere than in a\npersonal-property tax; and where should it look if not to those values\nwhich society has created? The inalienable right of the individual to\nwhat he has produced does not extend to the appropriation of wealth\nhe has not produced, and a sharp line is drawn between the rights\nof the individual and the rights of society, between production and\nexploitation. Herein lies the justification of the single-tax--a\nprinciple derived by crossing Locke with the New England school.\n\nFrom the classical economists Henry George got little. He had a quiet\ncontempt for them he was never at pains to conceal. He was convinced\nthat they had distorted the whole science of economics. As the earlier\nTories with their sacred _arcana imperii_ had done with political\ngovernment, they had involved economics in abstract theory, removing\nit from the comprehension of the common man. At the best they had\ndehumanized it to the status of a dismal science, with their postulate\nof an economic man and their pessimistic outlook. At the worst they had\nshaped it into a potent weapon for the exploiting class, who gravely\ninvoked economic law--which none understood--to justify class policies\nof state. In an address delivered at the University of California,\nHenry George paid his respects to the classical school in these words:\n\n The name of political economy has been constantly invoked against\n every effort of the working classes to increase their wages\n or decrease their hours of labour.... Take the best and most\n extensively circulated textbooks. While they insist upon freedom\n for capital, while they justify on the ground of utility the\n selfish greed that seeks to pile fortune on fortune, and the\n niggard spirit that steels the heart to the wail of distress, what\n sign of substantial promise do they hold out to the working man\n save that he should refrain from rearing children?...[614]\n\nFor political economy thus degraded from its high place and become\nthe slut of private interest, Henry George proposed to do what Tom\nPaine had done for political theory a hundred years before--he would\ntransfer it from the closet to the market-place by exposing the\nshabby _arcana imperii_ and bringing it within the comprehension\nof common men. He would bring home to the popular intelligence a\nrealization of the dynamics of economic law and its bearing upon\nsocial well-being, that men might plot a fairer course for society.\nThis was the deeper purpose of _Progress and Poverty_--to humanize\nand democratize political economy, that it might serve social ends\nrather than class exploitation. _The Rights of Man_ and _Progress and\nPoverty_ may be reckoned complementary works, applying to related\nfields the spirit released to the modern world by the great thinkers\nof Revolutionary France. The foundations on which they both rest is\nthe eighteenth-century conception of natural law, all-comprehensive,\nbeneficent, free, enshrined in the common heart of humanity, and\nconducting to the ultimate of social justice.\n\nAs a necessary preliminary to his purpose, Henry George was forced to\nclear the ground of old growths. Before he could declare the truth he\nmust uproot certain of the Malthusian and Ricardian heresies. He must\nsubstitute a sociological interpretation, based on historical reality\nin western civilization, for a set of economic abstractions, based on\nthe political and economic accidents of England in post-Napoleonic\ndays. The Manchester school, it must be remembered, was an embodiment\nof the aspirations of the rising middle class; it was a philosophical\nattack upon the vexatious restrictions laid upon capitalism by\ngovernment in the hands of the landed aristocracy. It conceived of\neconomic principles as of concern only to the owning classes, and\nits theory took a special and narrow form from the current struggle\nbetween the landed and capitalistic interests. In a Parliamentary\ndebate over the corn laws in 1814, Alexander Baring, the banker,\nassumed that the working classes had no interest at stake. To argue\nthat they were affected, he said, was \u201caltogether ridiculous; whether\nwheat was 130s. or 80s., the laborer could only expect dry bread in\nthe one case and dry bread in the other.\u201d[615] In Francis Wayland\u2019s\n_Elements of Political Economy_, published in 1837, a similar narrow\nview of the field of economics was expressed. That an adequate\npolitical economy must be social, that it must be something very much\nmore than a merchant\u2019s _vade mecum_, or handbook of profit rules, Henry\nGeorge grasped as clearly as Ruskin; and he attacked certain of the\nManchester principles with the ardor of a social prophet. Of these\nthe classical wage-fund theory seemed to him the most vicious, and\nhe was at vast pains to prove that wages are drawn from the produce\nof labor and not from a pre\u00ebxistent capital-fund. Having established\nthis to his satisfaction, he turned to consider the economic effects\nof monopolistic expropriation of natural resources, and discovered the\nexplanation of the augmenting poverty of civilization in the shutting\nout of labor from the sources of subsistence, that is in land monopoly.\n\nThe argument is based on the Ricardian theory of rent. Though\nGeorge rejected the classical wage-fund theory, he accepted without\nqualification the classical rent-theory, and discovered the kernel of\nhis philosophy in the doctrine of social fertility. If rent is the\ndifference between the income-value of a given piece of land and that\nof the least valuable in the neighborhood, it measures the difference\nbetween the yields per acre on the richest and the leanest soil with\na like outlay of labor and capital. So in an urban community rent\narises from what may be called social fertility--that is, from a\nmonopoly-value in a given neighborhood. Such monopoly-value arises from\nstrategic location; the desirability of a given tract for dwelling,\nfactory, or shop. The number of persons daily passing will determine\nthe rental value for shop purposes; the the accessibility to docks,\nrailways, raw material, power, markets, labor-surplus, will determine\nits rental value for factory purposes. In every such case, however,\nit is society and not the individual that augments rent, and this\nunearned increment increases with the growth of the community. From\nevery advance of civilization it is the landlord who profits. He is\na social parasite, the nether millstone between which and material\nprogress the landless laborer is ground.\n\n In every direction, the direct tendency of advancing civilization\n is to increase the power of human labour to satisfy human\n desires--to extirpate poverty and to banish want and the fear\n of want.... But Labour cannot reap the benefits which advancing\n civilization thus brings, because they are intercepted. Land being\n necessary to labour, and being reduced to private ownership, every\n increase in the productive power of labour but increases rent--the\n price that labour must pay for the opportunity to utilise its\n power; and thus all the advantages gained by the march of progress\n go to the owners of land, and wages do not increase ...[616]\n\n Labour and capital are but different forms of the same thing--human\n exertion. Capital is produced by labour; it is, in fact, but\n labour impressed upon matter.... The use of capital in production\n is, therefore, but a mode of labour.... Hence the principle that,\n under circumstances which permit free competition, operates to\n bring wages to a common standard and profits to a substantial\n equality--the principle that men will seek to gratify their desires\n with the least exertion--operates to establish and maintain this\n equilibrium between wages and interest.... And this relation fixed,\n it is evident that interest and wages must rise and fall together,\n and that interest cannot be increased without increasing wages, nor\n wages be lowered without depressing interest.[617]\n\nThere is no inherent antagonism between labor and capital, Henry George\nwas early convinced. The Marxians with their theory of a class war\nwere mistaken in their analysis. It is rent that is the true source of\nsocial injustice, and the clash of interests in society lies between\nthe producer and the parasitic rent-collector. In every society the\nappropriation of measured increment has enslaved the ownerless. In all\ncivilizations, from ancient Peru to modern Russia, it has subjected\nthe worker to exploitation. Helot, villein, serf, are only different\nnames for a common slavery, the profits of which go to the landlord.\nIn modern times the Industrial Revolution has changed the form of\nserfdom, only to intensify and embitter it. The Manchester factory-hand\nwas in worse plight than the medieval villein after the Black Plague.\nDispossessed of his acres by the enclosure movement, he had been thrown\ninto the hoppers of industrialism and ground to pieces. He was helpless\nin the hands of the masters, who with their monopoly of land and the\nmachine, in control of the common heritage of trade processes, raw\nmaterials, transportation, credit, and the law-making and law-enforcing\nmachinery, were taking from labor an augmenting toll of its production.\nHence the close correlation between material progress and proletarian\npoverty. Hence the logical outcome of the Industrial Revolution, when\nit should have run its course, was the reduction of the worker to the\nlevel of a slave, compared with whose material condition the status\nof the southern bond-slave was enviable. The southern apologists of\nslavery had been right; the negro on the plantation enjoyed advantages\ndenied to wage-labor under industrialism.[618]\n\nHaving thus analyzed the forces at work in modern society, and wedded\na flamboyant material progress to a slattern poverty, Henry George\nproposed his sovereign remedy--the return to society of social values,\nhitherto expropriated by means of the private ownership of land,\nand the removal of the burden of indirect taxation from the back of\nproductive labor. The Ricardian theory of rent, interpreted in the\nlight of eighteenth-century _laissez faire_--of free competition, of\na beneficent natural law, of social justice--conducted to unforeseen\nsocial issues. If labor and capital are individual, the fruits of both\nshould return to their producers. Society has no just claim on what\nsociety has not produced, and the individual has no just claim to that\nwhich his labor or capital has not produced. Render unto Caesar the\nthings that are Caesar\u2019s, and to the individual citizen the things that\nare his--such to Henry George was the sum of the law of distribution.\nLand monopoly was a refined denial of natural rights. \u201cThe equal right\nof all men to the use of the land is as clear as their equal right\nto breathe the air--it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their\nexistence.\u201d[619] Unearned increment was the shackles wherewith labor\nwas bound. In the name of social justice strike those shackles from the\nlimbs of men and progress would never again have its ears filled with\nthe wailings of poverty. The workman would once again sing at his work,\nand the sunshine of well-being fall pleasantly on the land.\n\nA brilliant thinker, with a passionate sympathy for the exploited of\nearth, this knight-errant from out the newest West ardently believed\nin the sufficiency of his social philosophy to all needs. In him the\nFrench Revolutionary doctrine came to its most original expression\nin America. No doubt, like his progenitors, he oversimplified the\nproblem. Society is more complex than he esteemed it; individual\nmotives are more complex. It is perilous to subordinate psychology\nto abstract theory; the ideal of justice is always running afoul of\nimmediate and narrow interest. Later academic economists have dealt\nsharply with Henry George, but what have they done to justify their\nmagisterial tone? The science of economics is still cousin-german to\nphilosophy in its fondness for spinning tenuous subtleties; it is still\nsystem-ridden, still too much the apologist for things as they are.\nFrom its servitude to a class Henry George essayed to deliver it. In\nfastening upon monopoly as the prime source of social injustice, he\ndirected attention to the origins of exploitative capitalism. He did\nmore than any other man to spread through America a knowledge of the\nlaw of economic determinism. He opened a rich vein and one that needs\nfurther exploring. The suggestive principle of unearned increment calls\nfor further expansion to embrace other forms than rent, to fit it to\nthe needs of a complex society. What he seems not to have seen was the\nwider range of economic determinism--that changes come only when the\nexisting order has become intolerable to great classes, and the grip of\nuse and wont is loosened by the rebellions born of exigent need. \u201cFor\never the fat of the whole foundation hangeth to the priest\u2019s beard,\u201d\nasserted a quaint Beggars\u2019 Petition in appeal to Henry VIII against the\nmonasteries, and in that comment were the seeds of the Reformation.\nWhen the beards are few to which the fat hangs, the time is ripe for\nan upheaval. An arch-idealist, Henry George would hasten the change by\nappeal to reason. Like Godwin and Tom Paine he believed that reason\nwill make its own way, forgetting that reason waits upon interest, and\nthe day of its freedom is long delayed. Yet if he was oversanguine, why\naccount that to his discredit?[620]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[586] See Gide and Rist, _A History of Economic Doctrines_, pp.\n282-284, 327-331.\n\n[587] _Miscellaneous Works_, Preface to _Harmony of Interests_.\n\n[588] _Ibid._\n\n[589] All told he published at his own print-shop some 3000 pages of\npamphlet material of his own writing.\n\n[590] _Contraction or Expansion? Repudiation or Resumption? Letters\nto the Hon. Hugh M\u2019Culloch, Secretary of the Treasury_, Philadelphia,\n1866, p. 20.\n\n[591] _Ibid._, p. 22.\n\n[592] Quoted in W. Elder, _Memoir of Henry C. Carey_, p. 13\n(Philadelphia, 1880. With bibliography).\n\n[593] _Shall We have Peace? Letters to President-elect Grant_, p. 39.\n\n[594] _Contraction or Expansion? etc._, p. 20.\n\n[595] _Land and its Rent_, p. 108.\n\n[596] _Political Economy_, pp. 242, 348.\n\n[597] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, April, 1887. Quoted in Gide and\nRist, _A History of Economic Doctrine_, p. 551.\n\n[598] _Ibid._, p. 549.\n\n[599] For a critical examination see Gide and Rist, _A History of\nEconomic Doctrine_, pp. 551-558.\n\n[600] _Political Economy_, pp. 251-258.\n\n[601] _Land and its Rent_, Preface, p. vi.\n\n[602] _Ibid._, pp. 181-182.\n\n[603] _Political Economy_, p. 394.\n\n[604] _Ibid._, p. 433.\n\n[605] In his original plan Professor Parrington included a third\nsubsection on W. G. Sumner, but evidently decided against its\ninclusion.--_Publisher._\n\n[606] _Political Science_, Vol. I, pp. 23-25.\n\n[607] _Ibid._ p. 216.\n\n[608] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 141.\n\n[609] _Communism and Socialism_, p. 232.\n\n[610] _Political Science_, Vol. II, pp. 330-331.\n\n[611] The discussion of Burgess was not completed by Professor\nParrington. At this point he planned a third section, \u201cThe New Ally:\nthe courts: the police power and the fourteenth amendment; the\ninjunction.\u201d None of this section was written, but he has dealt with\nthese subjects _passim_.--_Publisher._\n\n[612] George, _Life of Henry George_, pp. 216-217.\n\n[613] _Ibid._, p. 223.\n\n[614] _Ibid._, p. 277.\n\n[615] Quoted by Wesley Clair Mitchell in _The Trend of Economics_,\nedited by R. G. Tugwell, p. 5.\n\n[616] _Progress and Poverty_, Book IV, Chapter 4.\n\n[617] _Ibid._, Book III, Chapter 5.\n\n[618] See _Ibid._, Book VII, Chapter 2.\n\n[619] _Ibid._, Book VII, Chapter I.\n\n[620] The discussion of Henry D. Lloyd, planned as the second\nsubsection, was not written.--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 The Beginnings of Criticism\n\n\nFor many thoughtful Americans the welter of frontier individualism was\na severe trial to their faith in American institutions. An ambitious\nindustrialism colliding with a shambling Jacksonian democracy was\nforecasting consequences to government and to society that intelligent\nmen could not shut their eyes to. The America of Fisk and Gould, of\nBoss Tweed and the _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ scandal, was far from satisfying\nthe requirements of any rational civilization. After a hundred years\nto have come to such heroes, to have bogged down in such filth, was an\noutcome to the great experiment that one could not contemplate with\npride. It was no time to be silent. No people was ever saved by dumb\npreachers. The present generation was answerable for the new evils that\nwere springing from the graves of the old, and intelligent Americans\nmust not lose their heads in the thick of the common hurly-burly. So\namidst the ruck and clamor of the times a tiny note of criticism was\nlifted up, timid and uncertain at first, but growing more confident and\nmore strident as the decade grew older. It was not searching criticism.\nSooner or later it was pretty certain to run into a blind alley of\nmoral indignation, overlooking the major issues and leaving the vital\nfactors of the problem unconsidered. Yet such as it was--shallow and\nfeeble enough often to excite wonder in a later generation--it marks\nthe rise of a spirit of skepticism towards the blowsy doctrine of\nmanifest destiny that since the fifties had been blowing about the land.\n\nThe determining factors in the situation confronting criticism were\npolitical and economic, and the immediate problem that pressed for\nsolution was the problem whether an undisciplined people, wedded to\nan old-fashioned agrarian democracy, could cope with an ambitious\nindustrialism that was quite cynically buying and selling the political\nstate. To deal with that problem most of the critics were singularly\nill equipped. Two generations of constitutional debate, seasoned with\na dash of equalitarian dogma, had left them intellectually lean and\nimpoverished. They had forgotten the sober realism of the eighteenth\ncentury that never overlooked the intimate ties between economics\nand politics, and with no anchors down in the plebeian mud they were\nlikely to drift helplessly in the moral squalls they were always\nblowing up. The more distinguished critics--those who commanded the\nmost serious attention--were in a particularly unfortunate situation,\nfor not only were they uninstructed idealists with no understanding\nof _Realpolitik_, but they had been reared in the classical tradition\nand their minds were saturated with a decadent aristocratic culture.\nTo many of them the present evils of America served only to quicken an\ninherited skepticism of democracy. How can society expect to function\nadequately, they asked, without capable and honest leadership; and\nhow can such leadership be hoped for in a rough and tumble democracy\nthat loves the noisiest demagogue? Of this very considerable group of\nbelated Federalists James Russell Lowell was the most distinguished\nrepresentative. In the middle seventies he had come to believe that\nAmerica was suffering from too much democracy, and that competent\ngovernment could be had only by working back to the responsible\nFederalism of earlier times, with leadership reclaimed by the better\nelements of society. To the economics of the problem--the antagonistic\ninterests of capitalist, proletarian, and farmer, with their struggles\nto control the political state--he gave no serious thought, but he\nviewed with instinctive suspicion the mounting ambitions of labor and\nhe foresaw only evil from the bitter unrest of the farmers.\n\nA second very considerable group, of which George William Curtis may\nbe taken as spokesman, rejected all such antiquated Federalistic hopes\nas the foolish dreams of defeatists. They held fast to their faith\nin democracy, but they were convinced that more adequate democratic\nmachinery must be provided. The root of the evil, they had come to\nbelieve, was political and must be sought in the vicious Jacksonian\nspoils system. With every change of administration to turn over the\ncountry to hungry partisans to devour, was not democracy but the\nnegation of democracy? Government would not function satisfactorily\nuntil a trained civil service was provided, and the need of the hour,\nthey pointed out, was an honest civil service reform. A third group,\nvery much smaller than the others, of which Edwin Lawrence Godkin was\nthe spokesman, was inclined to trace the plentiful evils of the times\nto an unwise paternalism, asserting that the real source of the common\npolitical scoundrelism was the lauded American System devised by Henry\nClay, as a result of which government was seduced from its proper\nbusiness of keeping the peace and was turned into a fairy godmother to\nshower gifts on favored interests. The only cure for the evil was to\ndivorce business and politics and re\u00ebstablish in practice the police\ntheory of government.\n\nIn the thinking of all three groups little consideration was given\nto the social consequences of the venture on which America had\nentered with the vigor of thoughtless youth. Concerning the ultimate\nconsequences of the collision between a shambling democracy and an\nambitious industrialism, few troubled themselves greatly. To find\nthose who confronted the problem frankly and realistically, one must\nsearch out obscure men, labor leaders for the most part, or _d\u00e9class\u00e9_\nradicals like Wendell Phillips. The middle-class mind refused to\nsee what its feet were stumbling over. In consequence the Gilded\nAge produced no critics of industrialism comparable to the great\nEnglish critics--Carlyle, Kingsley, Ruskin, Morris, Tawney; no social\nphilosophers like the great continental expounders of proletarian\nideals--Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Sorel; no left-wing economists like\nthe great French school--Louis Blanc, Bastiat, Proudhon. The genteel\nculture of America was no better than bankrupt in presence of brutal\nreality, quite unequipped to interpret the sprawling America that was\ntransforming itself before its eyes into something it hated but did\nnot understand. The time for searching criticism had not come, and\nwould not come until the Industrial Revolution had created in America\na proletariat such as swarmed in the English black country and amongst\nthe hovels of continental cities. Nevertheless such criticism as there\nwas must be taken into consideration, and for our present purpose it\nwill suffice to single out three spokesmen--a grizzled warrior of the\nearlier renaissance who had the courage to face unpleasant fact, and\ntwo critics who brought to bear on political themes the best culture of\nthe time. With these may be conveniently grouped certain novelists who\nmore or less casually suffered their pens to deal with social problems.\n\n\nI \u2022 The New England Conscience and Capitalism--Wendell Phillips\n\nSocial criticism was by no means a new thing in America. For half a\ncentury it had filled all ears with its strident clamors, and from it\nhad issued the motley group of reform movements that had been cheered\nor mocked at by thousands. From Channing and Cooper down to Parke\nGodwin and Horace Greeley it had been mustering its forces, vivid and\npicturesque figures for the most part--men and women like Fanny Wright,\nGeorge Henry Evans, and Hinton R. Helper; ardent souls who beyond the\ndun horizon discovered a golden morrow that only awaited the rising\nof a new sun, and who lectured and wrote and argued till pretty much\nall America had caught something of their contagious enthusiasm. In\nthis work New England came eventually to take the lead, and the golden\nforties were a time when in many an obscure Yankee head programs of\nreform were fermenting like a vat of malt. But unfortunately an excess\nof eagerness wore out the first enthusiasm, and when the shackles had\nbeen loosened from the negro bondmen the militancy of the New England\nleadership subsided and the tired New England conscience went on\nvacation.\n\nBut in these slothful times the conscience of one great New Englander\nwas not tired, though he gave it no rest while life lasted. Wendell\nPhillips was a soldier of Puritan soul who did not lay down his arms\nin \u201965, but for nearly a score of years warred upon the injustices of\nthe Gilded Age as he had warred before upon the obscenities of negro\nslavery. No sooner was the cause of abolitionism won--a cause to which\nhe had sacrificed much in ease and the good opinion of Beacon Street,\nbut from which he had gained more in self-respect and the decent\nopinion of mankind--than he turned to whatever new work offered. The\nlovers of justice, he knew very well, can indulge themselves in no\nvacations, for the devil is on the job day and night, and while the\nassailants sleep he is at work repairing any breaches in the walls of\nhis citadel. When conscience is tired he counts on gaining his greatest\nvictories.\n\nThe love of freedom has always been a dangerous possession in\nMassachusetts, given to exploding in unforeseen moments and unexpected\nplaces. No one could have foretold--certainly not he himself--that\nWendell Phillips would put away all his Brahmin loyalties and devote\nforty-seven years to an unresting attack on the diverse Toryisms from\nwhich he and his class had hitherto prospered. Son of the first mayor\nof the city and a distinguished member of the Boston gentry, he was a\npatrician in the fullest Boston sense. All the loyalties of his caste\nsummoned him to uphold the Brahmin authorities, but something deep\nwithin him, a loyalty to other and higher ideals, held him back. When a\nfrock-coated mob laid its hands on Garrison to lynch him for abolition\npropaganda, he drew back; he refused to follow the Mayor and the\nColonel of his regiment and other gentlemen if they betrayed the Boston\nfor which their grandfathers had fought. An instinctive love of justice\nheld him back. A fierce indignation flamed up within him at the wrong\ndone a citizen of Massachusetts for exercising his natural right of\nfree speech, and in that wild hour he discovered that he was a child of\n\u201976 with the mentality of a revolutionist. His conscience was aroused\nand he proceeded to put it in the safe keeping of Ann Terry Greene,\na brilliant young woman of radical mind, who quickened his sense of\nsocial justice as Maria White was to quicken Lowell\u2019s. There was to\nbe no backsliding in his case. From the December day in 1837 when he\nreplied to Attorney-General Austin\u2019s slanders of the Revolutionary\nfathers in Faneuil Hall, to the end of a life filled with enormous\nlabors--a life daily stabbed by Tory hornets, and that at the last is\nsaid to have inspired the remark of Judge Hoar that he did not attend\nthe funeral of Wendell Phillips but he approved of it[621]--he followed\nhis conscience into many an unpopular cause and spoke for those for\nwhom few were willing to speak.\n\nThe story of his anti-slavery labors belongs to an earlier time and\nneed not be recounted here. His devotion to abolitionism equaled\nGarrison\u2019s and his services were as great. It is rather the nineteen\nyears that remained to him after Appomattox that are of present\nconcern--what later battles he fought and how he bore himself in those\nbattles. It was a difficult time for Puritan liberalism, face to face\nwith a new age that had forgotten the old liberalisms. The Grand Army\nof Abolitionism had disbanded and new armies of other causes had\nnot yet been recruited. Garrison and Edmund Quincy and Whittier had\nlaid aside their arms, and Lowell had long since settled back into a\ncomfortable Brahminism; the long struggle had left them drained of\ntheir energy. But for Wendell Phillips the battle was not over; it was\nunending and he was enlisted for life. At a vast meeting that marked\nthe formal close of the abolition movement he took leave of his old\nassociates with these words: \u201cWe will not say \u2018Farewell,\u2019 but \u2018all\nhail.\u2019 Welcome, new duties! We sheathe no sword. We only turn the front\nof the army upon a new foe.\u201d[622] He had long spoken for prohibition,\nwoman\u2019s rights, the abolition of capital punishment, and he now joined\nheartily with the courageous women engaged in such reform work. But\nmore provocative business was at hand, and more dangerous--causes\nthat touched the northern pocketbook as abolitionism had touched the\nsouthern. The banker\u2019s exploitation of the national currency, and the\nmanufacturer\u2019s exploitation of factory labor--these were issues that a\ncautious man who was careful of his good name would not meddle with.\nBut Wendell Phillips was never cautious and his good name had long\nsince been flung to the wolves. And so in the evening of his days,\nwith a courage that took little counsel of expediency, he embarked on\na campaign that had for its ultimate objective the impregnable citadel\nof State Street. He would destroy capitalistic exploitation in all its\nworks. It was as hopeless a battle as King Arthur\u2019s \u201clast, dim, weird\nbattle of the west,\u201d and entered upon as courageously.\n\nHow he came to hold the heretical views on money and labor that he\nexpounded from the lecture platform cannot easily be traced. Perhaps\nthey came from the radical fringe that envelops every great social\nmovement; perhaps they were the inevitable expression of his left-wing\ntemper. A man who had fought all Tory programs for thirty years must\neventually come to hate the ways of capitalism, and so confirmed a\ndemocrat as Wendell Phillips would be certain to espouse the doctrine\nof thorough. One who had passed through the fires of abolition\nnullification, who had spoken of the Union as \u201cbuilt i\u2019 the eclipse\nand rigged with curses dark,\u201d who had repudiated his citizenship and\nequaled Garrison in contempt for a slave-protecting Constitution,\nwould have pretty well cleared his mind of conventional respect for\ncapitalistic law and order. He was not impressed by political cant. He\nhad taken the measure of existing law and order and was casting about\nfor a juster law and a more generous order.\n\nIn these later years, as a program of social reconstruction took shape\nin his mind, he was coming to essential agreement with the program of\nsocialism. With the Marxians he based his thinking upon economics, and\nhis final objective came to be the substitution of co\u00f6peration for the\nprofit-motive. As ardently as Horace Greeley he asserted the rights\nof labor. As early as 1860-1861 he had come to recognize a similarity\nin the economic status of the wage-slave and the bond-slave, and in\n1865, in a speech on the eight-hour movement, he accepted as true the\nsouthern thesis that in western civilization all labor, whether bond or\nwage, was unfree, held in the grip of a master, bought and sold in the\nmarket;[623] and now that the shackles had been struck from the negro,\nit remained to strike them from the wage-earner. To turn the negro from\na bond-slave to a wage-slave would be a sorry ending of abolitionism;\nbut such must be the inevitable outcome, he believed, unless all labor\nshould win freedom. The question of the hour for Wendell Phillips had\nbecome the question of the relation of labor and capital.\n\nIn his thinking on the currency question--a question that became acute\nin the seventies--he was soon caught up by the Greenback movement. It\nmay have been that his contact with Thaddeus Stevens helped to mold\nhis views on the money question; yet that he should have become a\nGreenbacker was foreordained. He had no amiable illusions in regard to\nState Street. As a tribune of the people he had long been intimately\nacquainted with its ambitions, and he would not turn over the country\nto its custodianship. He would have no bankers\u2019 control of the national\ncurrency, to augment or deflate as banking profits dictated. His\ndemocratic sympathies recoiled from a class control of the common\nmedium of exchange, and in 1875 he offered a drastic solution of the\nvexing question that brought down on his head all the wrath of State\nStreet. His plan provided for three things: the rejection of the\nnational banknote system; the issue of honest greenbacks, secured by\nthe wealth of the country, and receivable in payment for all debts\npublic and private--not dishonest greenbacks like the old, which the\ngovernment had repudiated at issue by refusing to accept them in\npayment of custom dues; and finally the retirement of interest-bearing\nbonds and the return to a cash basis for government business. How\ndeeply he felt in the notorious matter of credit manipulation is\nsuggested in the following passage with its echoes of an older America\nthat looked with suspicion on a consolidating capitalism.\n\n Three times within a dozen years, [he said] capitalists with their\n knives on the throat of the Government, have compelled it to\n cheat its largest creditor, the people; whose claim, Burke said,\n was the most sacred. First, the pledge that greenbacks should be\n exchangeable with bonds was broken. Secondly, debts originally\n payable in paper ... were made payable in gold. Thirdly, silver was\n demonetized, and gold made the only tender. A thousand millions\n were thus stolen from the people.[624]\n\nAt other times he went further. Speaking on the labor question in 1872,\nhe said:\n\n I say, let the debts of the country be paid, abolish the banks, and\n let the government lend every Illinois farmer (if he wants it), who\n is now borrowing money at ten per cent., money on the half-value\n of his land at three per cent. The same policy that gave a million\n acres to the Pacific Railroad, because it was a great national\n effort, will allow of our lending Chicago twenty millions of money,\n at three per cent., to rebuild it.[625]\n\n When we get into power, there is one thing we mean to do. If a\n man owns a single house, we will tax him one hundred dollars. If\n he owns ten houses of like value, we won\u2019t tax him one thousand\n dollars, but two thousand dollars.... We\u2019ll double and treble and\n quintuple and sextuple and increase tenfold the taxes.... We\u2019ll\n crumple up wealth by making it unprofitable to be rich.... You will\n say, \u201cIs that just?\u201d My friends, it is safe. Man is more valuable\n than money. You say, \u201cThen capital will go to Europe.\u201d Good\n heavens, let it go! If other States wish to make themselves vassals\n of wealth, so will not we. We will save a country equal from end\n to end. Land, private property, all sorts of property, shall be so\n dearly taxed that it shall be impossible to be rich; for it is in\n wealth, in incorporated, combining, perpetuated wealth, that the\n danger of labor lies.[626]\n\nThe mad wicked ravings of a demagogue, such talk was accounted by\nsober financiers of Boston. But it was rather the talk of an honest\nequalitarian who understood how incompatible was property rule and\nthe ideal of equality. The arch-enemy of a worthy civilization,\nWendell Phillips had become convinced, was private capitalism with its\ndehumanizing profit-motive. There could be no adequate civilization,\nno Christianity, until co\u00f6peration had displaced competition, and men\nwere become equal in economic rights as they were in franchise rights.\nAt a Labor-Reform Convention held at Worcester on September 4, 1871,\nresolutions drafted by him were adopted--resolutions that reveal \u201cjust\nwhere Mr. Phillips stood for the last thirteen years of his life.\u201d In\nthis \u201cfull body of faith,\u201d and in two later speeches--_The Foundation\nof the Labor Movement_, and _The Labor Question_--the man who called\nhimself \u201ca Jeffersonian democrat in the darkest hour,\u201d wrote down as\nthe great objective of the labor party the principle that has long been\naccepted as the cardinal plank of the Socialist platform.\n\n We affirm, as a fundamental principle, that labor, the creator of\n wealth, is entitled to all it creates.\n\n Affirming this, we avow ourselves willing to accept the final\n results of the operation of a principle so radical,--such as the\n overthrow of the whole profit-making system, the extinction of\n all monopolies, the abolition of privileged classes, universal\n education and fraternity, perfect freedom of exchange, and ... the\n final obliteration of that foul stigma upon our so-called Christian\n civilization--the poverty of the masses.... _Resolved_,--That we\n declare war with the wages system, which demoralizes alike the\n hirer and the hired, cheats both, and enslaves the workingman; war\n with the present system of finance, which robs labor, and gorges\n capital, ... war with these lavish grants of the public lands to\n speculating companies, and whenever in power, we pledge ourselves\n to use every just and legal means to resume all such grants\n heretofore made; war with the system of enriching capitalists by\n the creation and increase of public interest-bearing debts. We\n demand that every facility, and all encouragement, shall be given\n by law to co-operation in all branches of industry and trade,\n and that the same aid be given to co-operative efforts that has\n heretofore been given to railroads and other enterprises....[627]\n\nWhen he was about to take the platform on another occasion his wife is\nreported to have said to him, \u201cWendell, don\u2019t shilly-shally!\u201d Certainly\nin this pronouncement, and in the speeches supporting it, there is no\nshilly-shallying. He will have no halfway measures, but goes straight\nto the economic core of the problem. Pretty much all of Marxianism is\nthere, even to the class war. The capitalists had whetted their swords\nand he would have labor put its sword likewise to the grindstone. If\nthe war were cruel, where did labor learn it--\u201clearned it of capital,\nlearned it of our enemies.\u201d In a world of economic concentration where\ncaste follows property accumulation he had come to rest his hopes\non the international solidarity of labor. The cause of democratic\njustice was committed to the keeping of the workingman, and if he\nwere defeated in his hopes the future was black indeed. The American\nRevolution and the French Revolution had prepared the way gloriously\nfor a greater event, the revolution of labor. He was not afraid\nof revolution. In America he hoped the battle would be fought with\nballots, but if it must come to bullets, so be it. The Paris Commune\nmet with his heartiest approval: \u201cI have not a word to utter--far be\nit from me!--against the grandest declaration of popular indignation\nwhich Paris wrote on the pages of history in fire and blood. I honor\nParis as the vanguard of the Internationals of the world.\u201d[628] And in\nthe Phi Beta Kappa address, delivered in 1881 before all the assembled\nconservatisms of Boston, the old warrior with seventy years upon his\nhead, went so far as to defend Russian Nihilism.\n\n Nihilism is the righteous and honorable resistance of a people\n crushed under an iron rule. Nihilism is evidence of life ...\n the last weapon of victims choked and manacled beyond all other\n resistance.... I honor Nihilism, since it redeems human nature from\n the suspicion of being utterly vile, made up only of heartless\n oppressors and contented slaves.... This is the only view an\n American, the child of 1620 and 1776, can take of Nihilism. Any\n other unsettles and perplexes the ethics of our civilization. Born\n within sight of Bunker Hill, in a commonwealth which adopts the\n motto of Algernon Sydney, _sub libertate quietem_ (\u201caccept no peace\n without liberty\u201d); son of Harvard, whose first pledge was \u201cTruth\u201d;\n citizen of a republic based on the claim that no government is\n rightful unless resting on the consent of the people, and which\n assumes to lead in asserting the rights of humanity,--I at least\n can say nothing else and nothing less; no, not if every tile on\n Cambridge roofs were a devil hooting my words![629]\n\n\u201cIt was a delightful discourse,\u201d said one gentleman, \u201cbut preposterous\nfrom beginning to end.\u201d The doctrine was strange to Harvard\nears--wicked and perverse. And strange and disconcerting also was his\nroll-call of great and noble deeds done in America in which Harvard\nscholarship had had no part. To an audience of Brahmin scholars it\nwas not kind to say, \u201cThe greatest things have not been done for the\nworld by its bookmen\u201d; nor this, \u201cIt is not the masses who have most\ndisgraced our political annals. I have seen many mobs ... I never saw\nor heard of any but well-dressed mobs, assembled and countenanced, if\nnot always led in person, by respectability and what called itself\neducation.\u201d[630] It was a curious scene--that gathering in a Harvard\nhall listening to a son of Harvard who had gone to school to other\nteachers than those brought up on Brahmin culture. The liberalism of\nthe forties was speaking to a generation that was concerned about\nother things than a just and humane civilization. Wendell Phillips\nwas hopelessly old-fashioned in America of the Gilded Age--a lone\nPuritan in a land of Yankees. He used to speak of himself grimly as\n\u201cthat Ishmael\u201d; his home, he said, was the sleeping-car and his only\nfriends the brakeman and the porter. He spent his strength and his\nearnings with generous prodigality, and when he died the only treasures\nhe had laid up were in heaven. He was the last survivor of the great\nage of Puritan conscience, and the words he spoke of Theodore Parker\nmay well stand for his epitaph: \u201cThe child of Puritanism is not mere\nCalvinism--it is the loyalty to justice which tramples under foot the\nwicked laws of its own epoch.\u201d\n\n\nII \u2022 Morality and Politics--George William Curtis\n\nA child of Puritan conscience also was George William Curtis, like\nWendell Phillips sprung from the Puritan gentry, but unlike him wanting\nin a passionate Hebraism that sought justice in all the byways and\nwould not turn aside from pursuing it. A reformer but never a radical,\nhe was a gentleman who was a lifelong friend of civilization. An\nidealist, he refused to serve the gross materialisms that swept so\nmany of his fellows from the old moorings, but throughout a long and\nhonorable career he preserved unshaken his early faith in republican\nideals and the way of liberty. As an abolitionist he faced hostile\naudiences with admirable poise, and as a civil service reformer he\nfought off the attacks of greasy politicians with quiet contempt. A\ncultivated gentleman, high-bred if not heroic, was George William\nCurtis.\n\nBorn in Providence, Rhode Island, of excellent stock, living most of\nhis life in New York City whither his father had removed to engage in\nthe banking business, he was brought up in affluence and spent his days\namidst dignified surroundings. Broad-minded and generous, with wide\nsympathies and urbane manners, he followed his conscience and weighed\nlife in the scales of Puritan morality. He was no friend to compromise\nor expediency, yet he was content to serve God in the station whereunto\nhe had been called, declining to turn rebel and become an outcast\nand pariah. Endowed with excellent parts, his training was unusually\nfortunate. At eighteen with his brother Burrill he went to Brook\nFarm, where he spent two profitable years in an atmosphere he found\nstimulating. After quitting Brook Farm he passed the better part of\ntwo years at Concord with his brother, living at farmhouses, helping\nwith the crops, and for a time indulging in an experiment not unlike\nThoreau\u2019s at Walden Pond. Then followed four years overseas--from\n1846 to 1850--rambling about the continent, sloughing off the\nprovincial asceticism of New England, and practicing his pen by means\nof letters and diaries. On his return he drifted into journalism,\nwrote several volumes of travel essays and social satire, caught the\nLyceum infection, then at its malignant stage, lectured voluminously\nto pay off an unfortunate debt, wrote for _Putnam\u2019s Magazine_, became\nconnected with _Harper\u2019s Weekly_, finally settling into the Easy Chair\nof _Harper\u2019s Magazine_, from which comfortable seat for years he sent\nforth gracefully pointed comments on manners, society, politics, life,\nyet more and more turning to politics as his particular field and\nserving as volunteer political mentor and critic to the Gilded Age.\n\nOf his several early ventures into the field of polite letters little\nneed be said. The work of a high-spirited young man, they were a cross\nbetween Nathaniel Parker Willis and Thackeray with a suggestion of\nDisraeli. He took his place naturally as a member of the New York\ngroup of litterateurs who were gaily exploiting the conventional\nsentimentalism of the fifties. With its pose of clever sophistication\nthe New York school could do no good to a serious young writer, and\nthe pretensions of the new-rich society of the town were a cordial\ninvitation to go wrong. _Nile Notes of a Howadji_ (1851), written\nbefore the young traveler had caught the current note of social\nsatire, was a conscious correction of the ascetic Puritanism imbibed\nat Concord, and with its frank delight in the sensuousness of the East\nit gave offense to the professional bluestockings of the time. But in\n_The Potiphar Papers_ (1853) he turned to satirize New York society,\nthen hastening to transform itself from a staid Knickerbocker world\ninto a Gold Coast of social climbers. That his treatment of the theme\nshould have been a slighter edition of Thackeray\u2019s _Vanity Fair_--less\nsearching and more sentimental--might be guessed even if we did not\nknow how greatly Curtis loved and admired the English satirist. \u201cHe\nseems to be the one of all authors who takes life precisely as he finds\nit,\u201d he wrote of him. \u201cIf he finds it sad, he makes it sad: if gay,\ngay. You discover in him the flexible adaptability of Horace, but with\na deep and consuming sadness which the Roman never knew, and which in\nthe Englishman seems to be almost sentimentality.\u201d[631]\n\nBut in spite of their excellent model these sketches do not now seem\nso sprightly as they seemed to his fellows on the staff of _Putnam\u2019s\nMagazine_. Moralism scented with patchouli is no longer the vogue,\nand they have long since been laid away with the hoops and crinoline\nof the fifties. His most important venture in polite literature--if\nindeed even that deserves the name important--was _Prue and I_ (1856),\nwritten in a golden summer when his pen was dipped into the inkwell of\nlove and he foresaw the years of his life lengthening out in the most\nintimate of companionships. They are charming essays in contentment\nthat teach the familiar lesson that the only abiding riches are the\nriches of mind and character. The old bookkeeper in black coat and\nwhite tie who voyages to the realms of romance while watching from\nthe Battery outgoing ships, has discovered the vicarious pleasure of\nthe imagination, and the Aurelia of his dreams is Prue as she was in\nher youth, and both are Anna Shaw to whom soon after he was married.\nThe first three sketches--\u201cDinner Time,\u201d \u201cMy Chateaux,\u201d and \u201cSea from\nthe Shore\u201d--are humorous and tender fancies in the graceful Victorian\nmanner; but \u201cTitbottom\u2019s Spectacles\u201d is Hawthorne-like in the tenuous\nplay of a grotesquely moralistic fancy, and the succeeding sketches\nreveal the exhaustion of the vein. Later he tried his hand at a\nnovel--_Trumps_--but it refused to turn into anything but a tract and\nin the early sixties he settled down in the Easy Chair which he had\nfirst occupied as early as 1853.\n\nThereafter to his death in 1892 his work followed three diverse lines.\nFor thirty years he was essayist, orator, and political critic, to a\ngeneration sorely in need of wise and urbane counsel. His audience was\nwide and his influence great, and to his work he brought the weight\nof his sane and just character. Not a great scholar and not an acute\ncritic, he was an enlightened and sensitive conscience, and to the bar\nof his conscience he summoned the parties and policies of a heedless\nand selfish generation. From the Easy Chair he sent forth his genial\ncomment on matters of current interest, satisfying his love of creative\nwriting by the grace of his talk, and recognizing his kinship with\nthe age of Queen Ann by adopting the words of _The Tatler_, \u201cI shall\nfrom time to time Report and Consider all Matters of what Kind soever\nthat shall occur to me.\u201d But such work at the best is ephemeral, and\nephemeral likewise were the polished pronouncements of the occasional\norator on which far too much time and labor were expended. But New York\nCity must have its spokesman for formal occasions, and after Bryant\u2019s\ndeath George William Curtis was summoned with increasing frequency.\nThe rich context of his speeches, elaborated with formal dignity and\nembellished with literary allusions, hit to a nicety the taste of a\ngeneration that still delighted in oratory and preferred dignity to\ninformality. His addresses on Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Bryant,\nand Lowell, are excellent examples of a style that is no longer the\nfashion. In their polished sentences eulogy is tempered with criticism,\nbut the criticism is sympathetic and refuses to render judgments that\nmay strike his hearers as severe. It would be ungracious to intrude\nunpleasant facts on dignified occasions.\n\nBut his most significant work during these busy years lay in the field\nof political criticism, and it was as editor of _Harper\u2019s Weekly_, from\n1863 to his death, and as a leader in the movement of civil service\nreform, that he made the deepest impress on the age. The _Weekly_,\nwith Nast as cartoonist, was then at the height of its popularity\nand influence, and by means of its editorial page Curtis was able to\nmarshal a very considerable following for whatever cause or party he\nespoused. He had long taken part in practical politics, was active in\ncaucuses and conventions, was much on the stump and kept his fingers on\nparty wires. Yet influential as he was--the scholar in politics, as his\nown generation loved to say--he was never a serious student of politics\nin the broader meaning. He was essentially an English gentleman\npolitician, with a fine scorn of mean and sordid policies, a warm\nlove of country but an equally warm love of civilization, devoted to\nthe cause of liberty, a friend of justice, yet with all his excellent\ntraits an inadequate political philosopher. Like Lowell\u2019s his horizon\nwas curiously limited. Abstract political theory did not interest him\nand he never critically examined diverse systems of government. Of\neconomics he was as ignorant as his generation. Again like Lowell the\nsingle standard by which he judged politics was the moral standard, and\nin his anxious concern for \u201cgood government\u201d he failed to probe deeply\nthe sources of \u201cbad government.\u201d In presence of the vast corruptions of\nthe Gilded Age he was as helpless in diagnosing the evil as Lowell or\nNorton.\n\nSuch helplessness is the more surprising considering what rare\nopportunities he had enjoyed for intelligent understanding. During\nthe impressionable years of youth he daily associated with the most\nmilitant group of intellectual radicals in America and heard the ideas\nof Saint-Simon and Fourier and Owen eagerly canvassed. Associationism\nas a cure for the evils of competition was the cardinal doctrine of\nthe Brook Farmists; yet his individualism passed unaffected through\nall such discussions. He seems to have sympathized with the skepticism\nof Hawthorne rather than the faith of Ripley and Dana. Writing to his\nfather from Brook Farm he fell into the genial transcendental vein and\ngaily poked fun at those who would make the world over.\n\n No wise man is long a reformer, [he wrote] for Wisdom sees plainly\n that growth is steady, sure, and neither condemns nor rejects what\n is, or has been. Reform is organized distrust. It says to the\n universe fresh from God\u2019s hand, \u201cYou are a miserable business; lo!\n I will make you fairer!\u201d and so deputes some Fourier or Robert Owen\n to improve the bungling work of the Creator.[632]\n\nIt was as a transcendental optimist that he set out on his travels in\n1846. The Europe he visited at the age of twenty was seething with\ndiscontent that was to flame up in the revolutionary year of \u201948, yet\nthough he wandered leisurely through Italy, Hungary, Germany, France,\nand was at Paris during the great overturn, the evidence that his\nbiographer has gathered indicates that he was not deeply affected by\nthe experience. Unlike his friend Margaret Fuller, who was a passionate\nvolunteer in the struggle of Mazzini at Rome, or like Dana, who\nfollowed the movement closely as foreign correspondent, he felt none\nof the promptings of a revolutionist. A romantic sympathy for Kossuth\nis clearly indicated, but his feelings carried him little further\nthan that. Even in England, seething as it was with the proletarian\nunrest that culminated in the great Chartist movement, he came upon\nlittle to quicken his transcendental pulse. It was not till he got\nback home and found himself in presence of negro slavery that his\nreforming ardor took fire and he proposed to engage in the business of\n\u201corganized distrust.\u201d He threw himself into the cause with enthusiasm\nand spoke from many an abolition platform. Then came the war and during\nthose passionate years he was swept unconsciously along the path of\nconsolidation, emerging from the fire a confirmed Hamiltonian with\ntranscendental democratic leanings.\n\n Have you thought [he wrote Charles Eliot Norton in 1864] what a\n vindication this war is of Alexander Hamilton? I wish somebody\n would write his life as it ought to be written, for surely he was\n one of the greatest of our great men, as Jefferson was the least of\n the truly great; or am I wrong? Hamilton was generous and sincere.\n Was Jefferson either?[633]\n\nSuch Hamiltonian sympathies suffice to explain some of his votes in the\nNew York Constitutional Convention of 1867, of which he was a member.\nHe advocated the appointment of the attorney-general and certain\nother state officers, opposed the principle of municipal home rule,\nand approved the extension of the authority of the state over local\npolice systems. With Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed before his eyes it was\nperhaps natural that he should have sought in the power of the up-state\nvoter some external control over the city machine. But in spite of\nsuch obvious leanings towards the Whig branch of the Republican party\nCurtis was never a Whig. The transcendentalism he had imbibed at Brook\nFarm remained with him to color much of his thinking and restrain him\nfrom an uncritical advocacy of capitalism. He never went over body\nand soul to the new gospel of exploitation. He never lent a willing\near to the seductive appeals of the American System. He early became\na free-trader and throughout his life was opposed to all tariffs and\ngrants and subsidies. Discovering in the principle of liberty the\ncardinal principles of American democracy, he was disposed to accept\na wide application of _laissez faire_; yet when it opened the door to\nextortion he was willing to curb an anti-social individualism. When in\nthe seventies it was proposed by the western farmers that a national\nrailroad should be built from Chicago to the Atlantic seaboard, Curtis\nlooked upon the proposal with sympathy as likely to rescue the farmer\nfrom extortionate tolls.[634] Unlike Dana and Godkin, he declined\nto grow bitter and lose his head over the economic proposals of the\nwestern agrarians. In the sharp alignment between agrarianism and\ncapitalism he stood in the main outside both parties, and although\nopposed to greenbackism he discussed the question with moderation and\ngood sense--a rare thing in those blatant times.\n\nBut it was political decency rather than capitalistic or agrarian\nprograms that he was chiefly concerned about. He looked to his\nconscience as guide and as editor of _Harper\u2019s Weekly_ he used his\ninfluence to cleanse America of the corruption he abhorred. Week after\nweek he appealed to the American voter to turn rascals out of office\nand put honest men in. The corrupt political machine was the source of\nthe evil, and the machine had grown powerful through its control of\npatronage. There would be vicious government so long as politicians\ncould create a machine by means of the spoils system. Two remedies, he\nbelieved, were necessary to cure the evil--independent voting and civil\nservice reform; and to the spread of these two ideas he devoted the\nlast twenty years of his life, thereby bringing on his head much abuse\nand incurring eventually a break with the Republican party.\n\nHis troubles began with his proposal of independent voting. To that\nparty-ridden generation on whom the passions of war had fastened a\ntyrannical machine, the scratching of the party ticket seemed no better\nthan treason. It was a Copperhead device to undo the results of the war\nand re\u00ebstablish the rebel leaders at Washington, and it needed courage\nto advocate it publicly. Curtis put the matter fairly in a speech to\nIndependent Republicans at New York in 1880:\n\n The first powerful and conclusive remedy for the tyranny of the\n machine ... is scratching. The word has become a sneer, a taunt,\n a bitter reproach, but the test of the power and effectiveness of\n the remedy is the fury with which it is assailed.... The machine\n denounces scratchers as lustily as Laud denounced the Puritans,\n or George III the rebellious Yankees, or slave-driving Democrats\n Republican woolly heads.... The scratcher is the minute-man of\n politics. He is always in light marching order. He has only to\n consult his own knowledge and conscience, and with one stroke\n his work is done. Fortunately, also, his stroke may be as secret\n as his ballot. Those who do not choose to publish the fact need\n not be known, and may smile serenely at the blind fury of those\n whose plots are quietly foiled. This is the reason of the impotent\n anger with which scratching is assailed. It cannot be reached....\n Scratching is denounced as dishonorable. Oh, no! the secret ballot\n is not dishonorable. The shot of the Middlesex farmer from behind a\n tree was no more dishonorable than the immortal volley from behind\n the breastworks of Bunker Hill.[635]\n\nHe then proceeded to lay open what seemed to him the core of the\nproblem:\n\n But useful as scratching is as a corrective, it does not strike at\n the heart of the machine, and it is therefore _only_ a corrective\n and not a radical remedy. That remedy can be found only by finding\n the source of the power of the machine, and that source is official\n patronage. It is the command of millions of the public money spent\n in public administration; the control of the vast labyrinth of\n place, with its enormous emoluments; the system which makes the\n whole Civil Service, to the least detail and most significant\n position, the spoils of party victory; which perverts necessary\n party organization into intolerable party despotism. It is upon\n this that the hierarchy of the machine is erected. Strike at this\n system strongly, steadily, persistently, and you shiver the machine\n to pieces.[636]\n\nSeeing his duty clearly, Curtis did not spare himself, but while most\nof his fellows were seeking fame or wealth for themselves he gave\nhis time and strength without stint to the cause, and it was due to\nhis efforts more than to those of any other man that a reform in\nthe civil service was eventually brought about. He had to fight his\nway against bitter opposition. It was charged that he was seeking\nto create in America an undemocratic bureaucracy. His old friend\nCharles A. Dana--from whom he had become estranged--was quite frank.\n\u201cAbove all I do not believe,\u201d he said, \u201cin the establishment in this\ncountry of the German bureaucratic system, with its permanent staff of\noffice-holders who are not responsible to the people, and whose tenure\nof place knows no variation and no end except the end of life.\u201d[637]\nBut it was the politicians who fought most bitterly, and when to civil\nservice reform he added the sin of bolting the party, throwing over\nBlaine and supporting Cleveland, he was subjected to plentiful insults.\nNevertheless as the leader of the Mugwumps, preaching to a party-ridden\ngeneration the gospel of independency, he did his country a real\nservice. He could not foresee, of course, how easily the menace of the\nindependent voter was to be met; how through the control of both party\nmachines and both nominees by the political bosses the independent\nwould have only the choice betwixt tweedledum and tweedledee, and in\ndisgust would largely refrain from voting. But the open and crying\npolitical evils of the Gilded Age he saw clearly, and in seeking to\nlessen them he proved himself a useful citizen as well as a cultivated\nAmerican.\n\n\nIII \u2022 English Liberalism and Politics--Godkin and \u201cThe Nation\u201d\n\nThe severest critic of the Gilded Age was Edwin Lawrence Godkin,\nfounder of the _Nation_. More caustic than George William Curtis,\nequipped with a complete social philosophy, and armed with perfect\nself-assurance, he devoted thirty-five years to the task of instructing\nAmerica in the principles of government as those principles were\nunderstood by John Stuart Mill. He was at once an idealist and a\nrealist, and the intellectual history of the critic is revealed in the\nshift from the one to the other. To Godkin the English liberal--who\nhad studied the American experiment from overseas--as to Karl Schurz\nthe German liberal, America was the torchbearer of the democratic\nfaith; and any defection from the cause, any betrayal of that faith,\nwas a desecration of the temple of liberalism by its own priesthood.\nLiberalism, he was persuaded, was the handmaid of civilization; the\nhope of any rational progress, rested on the principle of free inquiry\nand free endeavor. To Godkin, therefore, and to Schurz and the hundreds\nof European liberals who sought refuge here following the _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_ of\nthe revolutionary hopes of 1848, it was a matter of deep import that\nAmerica should remain true to its liberal tradition, trusting freedom,\nrefusing to repeat the unhappy experience of a Tory Europe. He would\nsay to America what John Wise had said nearly two centuries before:\n\u201cYe have been called unto liberty, therefore hold your hold, brethren!\nPull up well upon the oars, you have a rich cargo, and I hope ...\nday-light and good piloting will secure all.\u201d But he would do more than\nthat; he would pull an oar himself; and with high hopes, at the age\nof twenty-five, he cast in his lot with America to serve the cause in\nwhatever ways might offer.\n\nGodkin came of an English Protestant strain that for seven centuries\nhad lived in County Wexford, at the extreme southeastern point of\nIreland. He was neither Scotch like the men of Ulster, nor Irish like\nhis neighbors of Kilkenny and Wicklow, but as English in blood and\ntemperament as Jonathan Swift. Educated at Queen\u2019s College, Belfast, he\nstudied law for a time at Lincoln\u2019s Inn, went through the revolutionary\nyears of 1848-1851 with their great hopes, and entered the field of\njournalism as correspondent for the London _Daily News_ during the\nCrimean War. In 1856 he came to America with the intention of entering\nthe law, but returned to journalism. During the Civil War he was\ncorrespondent for the _Daily News_ of London, laboring to counteract\nBritish Tory opinion that ran strongly pro-South, and marshal the\nforces of English liberalism on the side of the North. Three months\nafter Appomattox he founded the _Nation_ as an organ of criticism,\nthrough the columns of which he proposed to appeal to the intelligence\nand the conscience of America in support of the principles of\nVictorian liberalism.\n\nFor this excellent work of criticism Godkin was provided with a sound\nequipment. Endowed with a vigorous intellect, he kept his mind free\nfrom shifting fogs and rarely mistook immediate for ultimate ends.\nHis training had been in a distinguished tradition. His father was a\nPresbyterian minister and journalist, and the strain of robust dissent\nthat contributed so richly to Victorian liberalism came to him as a\nbirthright. He was \u201cbrought up,\u201d he said, \u201cin the Mill-Grote school of\nradicals.\u201d \u201cWhen I was in college,\u201d he wrote in later years, \u201cI and\nthe young men of my acquaintance were Liberals, in the English sense.\nJohn Stuart Mill was our prophet, and Grote and Bentham were our daily\nfood.\u201d[638] Already his heart was overseas; America as it had been\ndescribed by de Tocqueville was his \u201cpromised land,\u201d the home of a free\ndemocracy on which his hopes for civilization were fixed. His first\nbook, written at the early age of twenty-two, was a history of the\nland Kossuth was striving to set free, and he there defined the word\ndemocrat as he had come to interpret it--the democrats, he said, are\n\u201call those whose hopes and sympathies are not bound up in a party or\nclass, but look for the welfare and progress of humanity as the goal of\ntheir striving.\u201d[639]\n\nThus he wrote in the aftermath of the revolutionary years of\n1848-1851. But the glowing idealism of the young radical was to suffer\ndiscouragements and setbacks from the experience of later years. One\nsuspects that his liberalism never possessed the whole of him, never\ngrew from within out, but was overlaid on a nature fundamentally\naristocratic that at heart preferred Tory to liberal ends. Though as\na young man he spread his canvas to the winds of liberalism, he was\nalways a little distrustful of the bellying sails and he never quite\nliked the crew. There is a curious suggestiveness in his changing\nattitude towards England and English society. He had quitted the old\nworld out of dislike for it, and a dozen years later he declined to go\nback except as a \u201clast extremity.\u201d \u201cIt would be going back,\u201d he said,\n\u201cinto an atmosphere that I detest and a social system that I have hated\nsince I was fourteen years old.\u201d[640] At the bottom of this repugnance\nwas an obstinate pride. He was ambitious, capable, and sensitive, and\na caste society that refused to open its doors to him he looked upon\nas pernicious. To assert that his espousal of democracy was due to\nhis brusque rejection by a more distinguished mistress, is a severe\njudgment, yet it is a judgment that his friend Henry Holt quite frankly\nimplied.[641]\n\nHe had come to America in the hope of getting on in the world. He had\na strong regard for social position. His standards were severe and\nhis sympathies so narrow as to lay him open to the frequent charge of\nsnobbery. He would mingle in none but good society, and it was easier\nin America than in England to gain entrance to good society. Until he\nhad made his mark he would not go back; but when as a distinguished\neditor he ventured to return, and found himself accepted by the best\npeople, his hatred for the English social system oozed away, and the\neager delight he experienced in upper-class society was an unconscious\ntestimony to the value he had set upon a system from which as a young\nman he had been excluded. Godkin was too English to make himself\nover into an American, too natively aristocratic to be a democrat.\nA disciple of John Stuart Mill, he lacked the complete intellectual\nintegrity of Mill that brushed aside all caste prejudices and personal\nambitions, as he lacked his vast intellectual accumulation. Godkin\u2019s\nliberalism was founded on Mill, but it was never quite Mill.\n\nThe philosophy to which, as a disciple of the Bentham-Mill-Grote\nschool, the young Godkin gave his allegiance, was a Utilitarian\nadaptation of _laissez faire_--the doctrine that the greatest happiness\nof the greatest number is the ultimate social objective, and that such\nobjective can be attained only through the completest liberty under\nthe sway of reason and justice. As presented by John Stuart Mill it\nwas a singularly persuasive philosophy that awakened a response in\nevery generous mind. Liberty, he insisted, is the thing chiefly to be\ndesired, for where men are free they will shape social organisms to\ntheir needs. Man is both an economic and a political animal, and the\ndifficult problem of the political philosopher is to keep the one from\ntrespassing upon the rights of the other. The economic man, under the\ndrive of the acquisitive instinct, regards the political state as an\nally in the present business of acquisition; and the political man\nlooks upon business as subject to strict regulation and control in\nthe interests of the state. To prevent this meddlesome interference\nof each with the other, Mill laid down the principle of liberty in\nterms as uncompromising as those of the Physiocrats. The \u201csole\nend,\u201d he asserted, \u201cfor which mankind are warranted, individually or\ncollectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their\nnumber, is self-protection,\u201d and \u201cthe only purpose for which power\ncan be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community,\nagainst his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either\nphysical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.\u201d[642]\n\nFrom this excellent school the young Godkin emerged a political\ntheorist of no mean ability; somewhat too dogmatic, perhaps, a\nbit overconfident of the finality of his logic, but with a shrewd\ndialectic, quick to separate reality from pretense, severe upon all\nflummery and buncombe. That his philosophy was sharply opposed to\nthe current tendencies of American political life he saw clearly: to\nWhiggery with its ambitious paternalisms; to centralization with its\nglorification of a Bismarckian state. His thought was erected on a\nfoundation of _laissez faire_, and he sharply differentiated economics\nand politics. As a realist he recognized differences in individual\ncapacity, but he was keenly suspicious of any attempt on the part\nof government to compensate for such differences. Any interference\nwith natural law, he was convinced, entailed greater evils than\nbenefits. Economic competition is a struggle between individuals,\nand government must content itself with its proper r\u00f4le of policeman\nto keep the peace. With Mill he refused to recognize the state as a\nseparate entity. He never confused the personnel of government with\n\u201cwhat is called \u2018the state\u2019\u201d; and as he contemplated the honesty and\ncapacity of the several members who administered government in a given\ncommonwealth, he was disinclined to entrust them with regulative\npowers. Disinterested honesty and capacity, it seemed, too rarely\ngot into office, governments were too little acquainted with common\nmorality, to justify hopes of equalizing the inequality of nature by\npolitical means.\n\nTo the sound philosophical equipment brought from England Godkin added\na very considerable understanding of American political history. The\nten years spent here before the founding of the _Nation_, had been\nemployed in getting at home upon the new scene. He had carefully\nchecked the findings of de Tocqueville and was convinced that the\nFrench critic had gone far astray in his interpretation of the great\nAmerican experiment. In his analysis of democratic tendencies he had\nfallen into the fallacy of _post hoc ergo propter hoc_, with the\nresult that he had got the cart before the horse; and in an article\npublished in the _North American Review_ of January, 1865, Godkin\nentered the lists in defense of America against the criticisms of\nEnglish Tories founded on such fallacies. In its emphasis on historical\nrealism \u201cAristocratic Opinions of Democracy\u201d is a surprisingly modern\nstudy that might almost have been written by one of our younger\nhistorians. It is an interpretation of our political development in\nterms of environment, and it traces the rise of democracy to the\nleveling influence of decentralization. For a hundred and fifty\nyears, he pointed out, old-world habits and customs, the spirit of\naristocracy, prevailed in the closely grouped settlements along the\nAtlantic seaboard, where physical conditions restrained the tendency\nto social disruption; but with the breaking through of the Appalachian\nbarrier, and the influx of new waves of immigration, the conditions\nwere prepared for a vast movement of decentralization. It was the\nInland Empire that made possible the democratic revolution in America.\n\u201cHow was it,\u201d he asks, \u201cthat that democratic tide, which within the\nlast fifty years, has overwhelmed everything, during the previous\nhundred and fifty years gave so few signs of rising?\u201d And his reply to\nthe question antedates Professor Turner\u2019s theory of the frontier by\nthirty years:\n\n If we inquire what are those phenomena of American society which it\n is generally agreed distinguish it from that of older countries,\n we shall find ... that by far the larger number of them may be\n attributed in a great measure to what, for want of a better name,\n we shall call \u201cthe frontier life\u201d led by a large proportion of the\n inhabitants, and to the influence of this portion on manners and\n legislation, rather than to political institutions, or even to the\n equality of conditions. In fact, we think that these phenomena,\n and particularly those of them which excite most odium in Europe,\n instead of being the effect of democracy, are partly its cause, and\n that it has been to their agency more than aught else, that the\n democratic tide in America has owed most of its force and violence.\n\n The agency which, in our opinion, gave democracy its first great\n impulse in the United States, which has promoted its spread ever\n since, and has contributed most powerfully to the production of\n those phenomena in American society which hostile critics set down\n as peculiarly democratic, was neither the origin of the Colonists,\n nor the circumstances under which they came to the country, nor\n their religious belief; but the great change in the distribution of\n the population, which began soon after the Revolution, and which\n continues its operation up to the present time.[643]\n\nGodkin was thirty-four when he entered upon his life work of pouring\na stream of fresh and free thought upon the ways of the Gilded Age.\nIt was somewhat in the spirit of Matthew Arnold that he interpreted\nthe function of criticism. \u201cThe highest allegiance of every man,\u201d he\nwrote Norton in 1865, \u201cis due to liberty and civilization, or rather\ncivilization and liberty\u201d;[644] and the creed of the _Nation_, which\nGodkin unconsciously modified as culture dispossessed liberty in his\naffections, may be summed up in the words democracy, individualism,\nmorality, culture, to the end of a free life in a humane and\nwell-ordered society. Throughout the Gilded Age this transplanted\nEnglish liberal was the high priest of criticism in America. His\ncaustic intelligence played ironically about the current shibboleths\nand fetishes, reducing them to shreds and patches. He could discover\nlittle that was good in the Gilded Age, in its tariffs and land grants,\nits _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ and other scandals, its buccaneer plutocracy,\nits undisciplined proletarianism, its bitter agrarianism; and he was\nprompted to a severity of judgment that easier-going natures thought\nharsh. Enemies sprang up in his every footprint; but too much was at\nstake, he believed, to temper his criticism to flabby minds, and he\nlaid about him with what he considered a fine impartiality.\n\nIt was a cold plunge into a dirty pool, and a nature less robust would\nhave scrambled out quickly. His realism was a profound discouragement\nto his idealism, and his native aristocracy of temperament closed\nhis mind to the virtues of certain homely American liberalisms. As\nan intellectual he distrusted all Jacksonian frontier freedoms.\nThe doctrine of liberty did not appear to advantage in the garb of\nagrarians and proletarians; Thaddeus Stevens and Terence V. Powderly\nwere an ungainlier breed of libertarians than Gladstone and Mill; with\nsuch leadership it seemed to Godkin that liberty was running away\nwith civilization and a smash-up was likely. It was the duty of the\n_Nation_, therefore, to arouse the culture of America to its political\nobligations, to the end that the custodianship of liberty should be\ntaken over by the intelligence of America. It proved a discouraging\njob, and slowly on the horizon of his mind rose the shadow of the doubt\nthat had troubled de Tocqueville and Cooper and Fisher Ames--must a\ndemocracy prove a leveling influence that destroys a fine individuality\nand a generous social culture? Careless of his trusteeship, was not\nthe American democrat throwing his heritage to the demagogue and the\nspoilsman?\n\nAs he watched the scrambling heedlessness of the times his liberalism\noozed away, his democratic faith lost its sanctions, and he slowly\ndrifted to the right and the dead-sea of pessimism. The mass was too\npowerful in America, and the mass was shot through with the spirit of\nselfish leveling. The democracy had been distorted by the frontier,\nand the sense of responsibility, of individual duty, was well-nigh\natrophied. The vulgar West threw its crudity upon all America. \u201cI do\nnot like the western type of man,\u201d Godkin confessed to Norton; and to\nanother friend who praised California, he wrote, \u201cNo scenery or climate\nI had to share with western people would charm me.\u201d He never spared\nhis mordant adjectives in commenting privately on all America west of\nthe Hudson River. In his gloomy later years he found consolation in\nBrahmin culture. For years he lived in Cambridge, and in the company\nof Lowell and Norton he felt at home. Here were democratic gentlemen\nworthy of his ideal. If all America were only like Cambridge his faith\nin a cultivated liberalism would be justified. In those years he called\nhimself \u201can American of the _vieille roche_,\u201d which being interpreted,\nmeant a liberal of the Brahmin school.\n\nThe immediate problems on which Godkin was called to pass judgment\nbrought him into the thick of the struggles of the Gilded Age. As\nan editor he confronted the bitter antagonisms that sprang from\nthe rivalries of the farmer, the wage-earner, and the industrial\ncapitalist. Each group was seeking to enlist government on its side\nand use the political state for special and narrow ends. To a disciple\nof Mill all such attempts were no better than treason to democracy,\nand when such treason was justified by what he considered specious\neconomic theory Godkin\u2019s hostility was edged with acerbity. All the\ntrenchant dogmas of his philosophy--his police theory of the state, his\nRicardian _laissez faire_, his individualism--rushed to the attack of\nsuch impudent impostors. With no organized forces at his back he made\nwar on every major group in America. He essayed to rally the scattered\nminority of the intellectuals and overthrow the citadel of economic\npower by appeal to reason. It was magnificent but it was scarcely war.\nThe culture of the Gilded Age was undisciplined, lacking faith and\nunnurtured in philosophy, fastidious rather than vigorous--the poorest\nof material for shock troops. It applauded every clever thrust of its\ncaptain, but preferred to keep its own hands unsoiled. In consequence,\nto the end of his life Godkin was a leader without a following, little\nmore than a voice crying in the wilderness.\n\nFor the rising plutocracy Godkin felt the scorn of a gentleman for the\nvulgar new-rich. Its hands were dirty, and it was soiling all American\nlife. Its gospel of Whiggery, that under pretense of furthering\nprosperity had turned Congress into an auction room, was an insult to\nhis Manchester liberalism. Just as surely as government meddles with\nsubsidies and tariffs and grants, he pointed out, will it be defiled.\nMen are but indifferent honest, and if statesmen are not to become\nmere political hucksters they must stand apart from the temptations of\nbusiness. The plea for a national economy had brought Congress to the\n_Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_ scandals, and it would breed other scandals so long\nas it was heeded. The only cure for Whiggery was to destroy it. In a\nscathing leader he early paid his respects to the Whiggish system of\ngovernmental subsidies:\n\n The remedy is simple. The Government must get out of the\n \u201cprotective\u201d business and the \u201csubsidy\u201d business and the\n \u201cimprovement\u201d and the \u201cdevelopment\u201d business. It must let trade,\n and commerce, and manufactures, and steamboats, and railroads, and\n telegraphs alone. It cannot touch them without breeding corruption.\n We care nothing about the wonderful stories we hear about what can\n be achieved in the way of \u201cpromoting industry\u201d by all these canal\n and steamboat and railroad schemes. Were the material prospect\n twice as tempting, the state could not profitably meddle with\n them, because neither it nor any other government in the world\n _can command the virtue necessary to carry them on_. This is not\n a matter of speculation; we know it as a matter of experience. It\n is almost as much as this Government can do to maintain order and\n administer justice. It may one day be able to do a great deal more,\n but not until a great change has occurred in the social condition\n of the country. We have gone far enough, heaven knows, on the road\n of \u201cprotection\u201d and \u201cpromotion,\u201d and have found at every step that\n it leads straight to the bottomless pit; that for every hundred\n dollars voted by these poor men to whom we pay scanty wages for\n passing bills at Washington, we lessen, and perceptibly lessen, the\n stock of individual honor, of self-respect, and of public spirit,\n of a loyalty to ideals, to which far more than to any triumphs of\n material industry, we must look for continued national greatness.\n We are making money fast enough in all conscience; what needs\n fostering just now is honesty.[645]\n\nGodkin found it exceedingly difficult to foster the austere honesty\nthat he desired in the body politic, and in his fury at the common\npolitical scoundrelism he came to ascribe much of the virus that was\npoisoning America to the party of western agrarians. He was rapidly\ndrifting to the right and the defense of capitalism, and as the\nagrarian platform was slowly built up of successive planks--greenbacks,\nfree silver, subtreasuries, railway regulation, the income tax--he\nturned upon it all the batteries of his wrath. Godkin never understood\nthe American farmer, but he professed to understand economics and\npolitical science, and the agrarian platform aroused his implacable\nhostility. In his frequent discussions of the currency question, a\nquestion that for thirty years was a subject of passionate debate,\nhe was at some disadvantage. Intellectually he was ill equipped to\ndeal with it. Although a Ricardian he failed to grasp Ricardo\u2019s\nquantitative principle of money or the function of paper currency. As\na gold-standard advocate he accepted the English monetary system as\nit was given form by the Parliamentary Bank Act of 1844, and he would\nhave no tampering with it. To Godkin money was a measure of value,\nand a fluctuating standard, implied in the quantitative theory, was\nas immoral as a fluctuating yardstick. The use of greenbacks--\u201crag\nmoney\u201d--he reckoned a scheme by which dishonest debtors might cheat\ntheir creditors.[646] He was forced to regard gold and silver as\ncommodities, fluctuating in price with supply and demand; but he looked\nupon them as possessing a stable natural value that placed them beyond\npolitical manipulation. Any attempt to disturb this natural value by\nartificial means he called dishonest.[647] He was almost indecent\nin the vehemence of his adjectives applied to the \u201cdishonest money\nmen.\u201d He called the Greenbackers \u201ccommunists,\u201d[648] and speaking of\nthe Grangers, he said, \u201cThere is nothing unnatural or deplorable in a\nGranger turning from one form of swindle to another.\u201d[649]\n\nBy the middle nineties it was hard to distinguish Godkin\u2019s views on\nthe agrarian program from those of a Wall Street banker. In discussing\nfree silver he abandoned economic principles and fell to mouthing\nlike any newspaper writer. The currency question he regarded as a\nsimple question of public morality. There was only one issue, the\nissue between honest and dishonest money. \u201cThe demand for free-silver\ncoinage is a demand for a division of property,\u201d[650] he said in the\nearly days of the campaign of 1896, and a fortnight later he took\nextreme ground:\n\n ... the bold and wicked scheme of repudiation ... is presented\n without a blush in the platform. Upon this question the campaign\n must be fought. If the party of repudiators cannot be put down, the\n republic cannot be preserved and is not worth preserving.[651]\n\nSuch pronouncements bear none of the earmarks of dispassionate\ncriticism. It may seem severe to suggest that they are the comments of\na very ignorant or shallow critic, blinded by his prejudices; yet it is\ntrue. The equipment of Manchester economics with which he had outfitted\nhimself in the late forties, was no longer adequate in the nineties;\nyet he seems not to have been aware of the fact. The mid-Victorian\nstill regarded himself as an authority on all economic questions,\nalthough he seems to have done no serious reading in economic theory\nfor half a century, and was scarcely conscious how far he had drifted\ntowards the right. The old liberal was fighting the battles of\ncapitalism with weapons as antiquated as the old cap-and-ball musket.\n\u201cThe great trouble with all silverites and currency lunatics, North\nand South,\u201d he said, \u201cis that, when monetary crises arise, they cannot\nbe got to go to the right quarter for information\u201d--a comment that one\nmight retort upon Godkin himself. The intellectual knew far less about\nmoney than \u201cCoin\u201d Harvey, whom he would have laughed at.\n\nThe same drift to the right is evident in the pronouncements on the\nPopulist movement of the times. Writing on \u201cThe Kansas Situation,\u201d when\nthe farmers\u2019 unrest was becoming militant, he remarked:\n\n Such an unexpected outbreak as this of the last two or three\n years shows at least that it is not only in the cities, where the\n foreign-born swarm, that demagogues may thrive and the doctrine of\n revolution be preached.[652]\n\nThe \u201cravings of the Farmers\u2019 movement\u201d he regarded as no more than a\n\u201cvague and visionary discontent,\u201d that was seeking political cures for\nits economic ills. The hard times from which the West was suffering\nwere the result of economic law. It was not the currency or excessive\nrailway rates that were the cause. The vast extension of railway\nsystems had brought under cultivation too many acres, and the reduction\nof transportation costs would serve only to bring additional acres\nunder cultivation, thereby increasing competition and forcing prices\nstill lower. High railway rates were the surest safeguard against\nfurther extension of an industry much overdeveloped; and for state\nlegislatures to attempt to fix railway tariffs by law--to attempt to\ncontrol economic forces by statutes--was sheer folly. In discussing the\ncelebrated Illinois railway legislation Godkin spoke in defense of the\nroads:\n\n The locomotive is coming in contact with the framework of our\n institutions. In this country of simple government, the most\n powerful centralizing force which civilization has yet produced\n has within the next score years, yet to assume its relation to\n that political machinery which is to control and regulate it....\n The corporations of course contested the validity of the law. If\n the legislature could establish one rate at which they should do\n the work of transportation, it could establish another. They were\n fighting for their lives and property; it was against taxation\n without representation.... An arbitrary power is claimed in the\n supreme legislative body to decide on the reasonable rates of the\n cost of private services. Just as three hundred years ago the price\n of bread and labor was regulated by act of Parliament, so now the\n cost of transportation is to be fixed by a jury of twelve men....\n Thus far, therefore, the results of the Illinois railroad war must\n be regarded as rather portentous than satisfactory.[653]\n\nThe \u201cwatered-stock hallucination,\u201d that had taken possession of the\nagrarian mind and aroused such bitterness, he dismissed with a curious\ncomment that did no great credit to his intelligence.\n\n There is ... one difficulty in the way, which is the difficulty\n common to many of the proposed reforms in railroad management--the\n practice alleged has absolutely no existence except in the heated\n brain of the agitators who have imagined it. There are no roads in\n the United States on which any attempt has been made to increase\n the freight earnings in proportion to the watered stock or\n debt.[654]\n\nThe passions aroused by the campaign of \u201996 swept Godkin from his\nmoorings and left him adrift. He quickly convinced himself that the\nreal issue at stake was the moral integrity of the nation. As he\nstudied the platforms and leaders he found little comfort in either.\nFor McKinley he had the contempt of the intellectual for a purveyor\nof heavy platitudes, and he flayed him in a two-column leader with\nhis old skill.[655] But for Bryan, the \u201cboy orator of the Platte,\u201d his\ndislike passed the bounds of decency; and for the Chicago convention\nthat put him in nomination--\u201cthe roaring mob\u201d with its \u201cPopulistic,\nanarchistic platform\u201d--his contempt outran his command of invective.\n\n No such collection of inflammatory and reckless men ever put\n themselves on exhibition in a national convention. Beside them\n the Populists are lamb-like, and the socialists sucking doves.\n The country has watched their mad proceedings with disgust and\n shuddering, only impatient for the coming of November to stamp out\n them and their incendiary doctrines.[656]\n\nTo what lengths his overheated brain carried him in those political\ndogdays, how starkly reactionary he had become, is suggested by his\ncomment on the plank in the Democratic platform attacking the scandal\nof injunctions:\n\n This blow at the courts shows how true are the instincts of the\n revolutionaries. They know their most formidable enemies. Judicial\n decisions have again and again drawn the fangs of confiscatory and\n revolutionary legislation, and the courts have come more and more\n to stand as the great bulwarks of property and personal rights.[657]\n\nGodkin\u2019s last years were not happy. The wave of imperialism that swept\nover England and America, with its Boer War and Spanish War, brought\nhim acute concern. The world that he knew was slipping from its\nmoorings, and he was fearful of the seas into which it was plunging.\nThe conquest of the Philippines seemed to him a badge of national\ndegradation. Writing in November, 1899, he said:\n\n We are dragging wearily in the old way, killing half a dozen\n Filipinos every week, and continually \u201cnear the end.\u201d The folly of\n ignorance and rascality we are displaying in the attempt to conquer\n and have \u201csubjects\u201d would disgrace a trades union.[658]\n\nAs he watched the tedious process of subjugation he inclined to\nattribute to Kipling a large share of the current imperialism. \u201cI think\nmost of the current jingoism on both sides of the water is due to him,\u201d\nhe wrote a few weeks later. \u201cHe is the poet of the barrack-room cads,\u201d\na \u201cmost pernicious, vulgar person\u201d; and his \u201cWhite Man\u2019s Burden,\u201d\ncabled to America and printed on the front pages of the newspapers as\na message to imperialist America, must have rubbed across Godkin\u2019s raw\nnerves. The pious cant of Kipling\u2019s imperialism was a bitter cup for a\ndisillusioned liberal. The Jubilee with its fulsome laudation of \u201cfat,\nuseless royalty,\u201d was fittingly commemorated by this noisy poet of\nimperialism, and Godkin turned away from it all in disgust.\n\nBut turn where he might he found no comfort. His old dreams of a free\nand enlightened democracy rising in America, were dead. Victorian\nliberalism had been laid away in the grave of John Stuart Mill, and\nonly its ghost was walking in these latter times. Godkin\u2019s last days\nwere bitter, and the gloom that was settling upon him crept into his\nletters. It is a malady common amongst liberals, and how deeply it had\nstruck in is revealed in such passages as these:\n\n I am not sanguine about the future of democracy. I think we shall\n have a long period of decline ... and then a recrudescence under\n some other form of society.[659]\n\n I do not know what the future of our modern civilization is to be.\n But I stumble where I firmly trod.[660]\n\n Things look very black. I think that while money-making will long\n continue on a great scale, the government will shortly undergo\n great changes which will be presided over not by men of light and\n learning, but by capitalists and adroit politicians.[661]\n\n I came here fifty years ago with high and fond ideals about\n America.... They are now all shattered, and I have apparently to\n look elsewhere to keep even moderate hopes about the human race\n alive.[662]\n\nThe idealist is prone to be exigent in his demands upon civilization.\nHe marks out a straight path to the goal of his hopes, and takes it\ngreatly to heart when society chooses to follow other ways to other\nends. Godkin\u2019s mind was keenly critical, but his sympathies were narrow\nand his prejudices great. It is well to be a friend to civilization,\nbut it is foolish to set up as a custodian; for civilization, like\nTopsy, will shift for itself. A just and liberal government is an\nexcellent ideal, but it is one for which few amongst the mass of men\ngreatly care; and because America chose to follow its own nose, because\nit would not become like the America of his dreams, Godkin allowed his\nheart to fill with bitterness. It is true that his recompense for long\nyears of labor was scanty; the Gilded Age was not to be frightened\nfrom its fleshpots by his warnings. But long ago it was said, \u201cWisdom\ncrieth in the streets and no man regardeth her,\u201d and why should Godkin\nhave become discouraged with civilization because certain blackguard\nyears clove to their blackguardry, instead of mounting to the somewhat\narid heights he pointed out? One must choose at the last between\ntolerance and pessimism, and Godkin chose pessimism.\n\nIt is difficult today to understand his great influence with cultivated\nreaders of his generation. In part perhaps it was due to his crisp\nassurance. He put things so plumply, he wrote so brilliantly, that his\nreaders were persuaded he must think as neatly. Yet his trenchant prose\nstyle cannot hide a certain slightness of matter. His later comments\ntended to become ever thinner and shriller--not criticism at all, but\nthe sharp expression of aging prejudice. When he talked about the\ntariff he had Mill at his elbow; but when he talked about the agrarian\nor the proletarian movements he was little more than a blue-jay\nscolding at a world he disliked. Unlike his great master he did not go\nforward to meet new times; he did not reinterpret Victorian liberalism\nin the light of the lessons taught by the Industrial Revolution; but by\nstanding still he did liberalism a real disservice.\n\n\nIV \u2022 Fiction Considers the State of the Country\n\nIt was only a question of time before the novel would throw off the\ninhibitions of the genteel and turn to consider the state of the\ncountry. A changing social order would not fail of reflection in\nthe pages of fiction, and as the novelists fell to scrutinizing the\nfamiliar scene, comparing the reality with the patriotic professions,\nit was certain that the workings of democracy would come in for sharp\ncriticism. In the last decades of the century the problem novel spread\nswiftly, expanding the field of its inquiry, and seeking to understand\nthe new ways. Making its first essays in the familiar field of the\npolitical, it soon turned to consider the economic problems arising out\nof the new industrialism, espousing either capitalism or labor as the\nsocial sympathies of the author might determine. The class passions\nof the times found a reflection in its pages, and in consequence the\nsociological novel became increasingly a repository of the social ideas\nof a perplexed and troubled generation.\n\n\n1 \u2022 The Political Novel\n\nOf the early political novels three are of sufficient interest to\nreward attention: _The Gilded Age_ (1873), _Democracy_ (1881), and\n_An American Politician_ (1884). The first, written by Mark Twain\nin collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, is a satire of Gilded\nAge ways with particular attention to the political corruption of\nGeneral Grant\u2019s administration. The fictional disguise is slight.\nThe actual Washington is presented vividly and familiar figures--Ben\nButler, Oakes Ames, President Grant, Secretary Boutwell--move through\nthe scene. The central figure, Senator Dillworthy, was modeled upon\nSenator Pomeroy of Kansas, who had recently lost a re\u00eblection through\nan unlucky exposure of an attempt to bribe the Kansas legislature.\nThe heroine, Laura Hawkins, is a western lobbyist who in order to put\nthrough a congressional steal under pretense of providing an industrial\nschool for the freedmen, twists Congressmen about her fingers, turns\nadventuress and ends in tragedy. Out of the West comes the spirit of\ncorruption that the respectable East is unable to withstand, until the\nitch of speculation infects the whole country. It is Colonel Sellers\nwho embodies the slackness of frontier political morals, that in turn\nvitiates his political principles. The genial Colonel is quite frankly\na Greenbacker.\n\n The country is getting along very well, [he said] but our public\n men are too timid. What we want is more money. I\u2019ve told Boutwell\n so. Talk of basing the currency on gold; you might as well base it\n on pork. Gold is only one product. Base it on everything! You\u2019ve\n got to do something for the West. How am I to move my crops? We\n must have improvements. Grant\u2019s got the idea. We want a canal from\n the James River to the Mississippi. Government ought to build\n it.[663]\n\nThe analysis is not penetrating. The real sources of political\ncorruption--the rapacious railway lobbyists that camped in brigades\nabout the capitol building--are passed over, and attention is\nfastened on small steals--the Knobs University bill and the Columbus\nRiver Navigation scheme--that do not touch the real rascals of the\nday. The implication is unmistakable that the source of corruption\nis the Jacksonian West with its heritage of the spoils spirit. The\nFederalistic East is victimized by the rapacities of mid-western\npoliticians with their religious cant, their talk of the rights of the\npeople and the greatness of the plain democracy. Senator Dillworthy is\nfairly unctuous in his oily Christian spirit, and Brother Balaam is his\nfellow. The portraits, one suspects, need not be taken seriously as\npictures of the chief apostles of pre\u00ebmption and exploitation. To have\nsketched the real leaders of the great barbecue might have involved too\nmany unpleasantries.\n\n_Democracy_, written seven years later, is an inferior book in\nevery way, less penetrating, less amusing, less creative. To essay\nto penetrate the dark places of political jobbery through the eyes\nof a society woman, too high-bred to turn lobbyist and inveigle\nsecrets out of ambitious politicians, is sufficiently absurd, yet not\nuncharacteristic of the Henry Adams whose home was a distinguished\nsalon and who in pottering about the political world of Washington\ndeceived himself in thinking he had his finger on the web of intrigue.\nIt is an amazing book for such a man to write. The attitude is that of\nthe kid-gloved reformer who goes in for civil service reform, and who\nviews the uncultivated West as the source of all political corruption.\nThe hero, Senator Silas Ratcliffe of Peoria, Illinois, like Senator\nDillworthy, is a past master in political organization who covers his\ndishonesty with religious cant. The economic sources of political\ncorruption are ignored, and the evil is traced to the principle of\ndemocracy. Whatever political convictions are in the book are expressed\nby Representative Gore, a civil service reformer from Massachusetts,\nand quite evidently Henry Adams himself; and the conclusion is thus set\nforth:\n\n \u201cDo you yourself think democracy the best government, and universal\n suffrage a success?\u201d\n\n Mr. Gore saw himself pinned to the wall, and he turned at bay with\n almost the energy of despair:\n\n \u201cThese are matters about which I rarely talk in society.... But\n since you ask for my political creed, you shall have it. I only\n condition that it shall be for you alone, never to be repeated\n or quoted as mine. I believe in democracy. I accept it. I will\n faithfully serve and defend it. I believe in it because it appears\n to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it.\n Democracy asserts the fact that the masses are now raised to a\n higher intelligence than formerly. All our civilization aims at\n this mark. We want to do what we can to help it. I myself want to\n see the result. I grant it is an experiment, but it is the only\n direction society can take that is worth its taking; the only\n conception of its duty large enough to satisfy its instincts; the\n only result that is worth an effort or a risk. Every other step\n is backward, and I do not want to repeat the past. I am glad to\n see society grapple with issues in which no one can afford to be\n neutral.\u201d\n\n \u201cAnd supposing your experiment fails,\u201d said Mrs. Lee; \u201csuppose\n society destroys itself with universal suffrage, corruption, and\n communism.\u201d\n\n \u201c... I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in the new\n ones.... faith in science; faith in the survival of the fittest.\n Let us be true to our time, Mrs. Lee! If our age is to be beaten,\n let us die in the ranks. If it is to be victorious, let us be first\n to lead the column. Anyway, let us not be skulkers or grumblers.\n There! have I repeated my catechism correctly? You would have it!\n Now oblige me by forgetting it. I should lose my character at home\n if it got out.\u201d[664]\n\nAnd the conclusion of the matter is thus summed up:\n\n \u201cI want to go to Egypt,\u201d said Madelaine, still smiling faintly;\n \u201cdemocracy has shaken my nerves to pieces. Oh, what rest it would\n be to live in the Great Pyramid and look out forever at the polar\n star!\u201d\n\nNot a hint of the Industrial Revolution; not a hint of the sordid\nWhiggery that was fouling American politics; not a suggestion of any\ncreative social philosophy on which to establish an adequate theory of\ndemocracy. A dreary place at best, with no faith in human nature and no\ntrust in democratic machinery, but only a gentlemanly belief that an\nantiquated Federalism may somehow pull this venture in republicanism\nout of the bog in which Jacksonianism had mired it. No wonder Henry\nAdams would not set his name on the title-page, but left it an orphan\nto make its own way in the world. In his life of John Hay, William\nRoscoe Thayer has explained the situation thus:\n\n The Adamses, the Hays, and Clarence King formed an inner circle,\n which somebody named \u201cThe Five of Hearts,\u201d and out of this came,\n in 1882, a novel entitled _Democracy_, a strikingly clever satire\n on Washington society. Its authorship was at once attributed to\n them, but one after another denied it. If it was a joint product\n no individual could monopolize the credit; and as it seems to have\n been read chapter by chapter to the group, and discussed by them\n all, it might be said, technically, to be a composite. Clarence\n King is still commonly regarded as its author; and there are many\n supporters of Hay; but I believe that only Mr. Adams possessed the\n substance, and style, and the gift of Voltairean raillery which\n distinguish it.[665]\n\nMr. Thayer is generous in his praise.\n\n_An American Politician_ is even less consequential as a political\nstudy than _Democracy_. Marion Crawford was a professional romancer\nand in this na\u00efve venture into a field little known to him he carried\nhis complete romantic kit. The political theme is tied about with so\nmany love strands as almost to strangle it. The hero, John Harrington,\nwe are assured is a very remarkable man, a Bostonian with a Mayflower\nteapot in his family treasures, an idealist of primitive Puritan\nintensity. But we must take him upon hearsay. Nothing that he does\nor says suggests his greatness. Politically the book is reduced to a\nlittle glimpse of the methods of selecting a United States senator--an\nIrish ward boss with twenty votes in his belt, a gentlemanly railway\nattorney who handles offal skillfully with a handkerchief at his\nnose--set in between two set speeches by the hero. The rest is Newport\nand the Back Bay, not quite stupid yet with no distinction. The\nromancer does not move easily in an unfamiliar field, and he sends\nhis hero forth to battle for righteousness with small intellectual\nequipment. His speeches are heavily oratorical and his political\nphilosophy is na\u00efve; it is pretty much George William Curtis, the\nsufficiency of civil service reform and the virtues of non-partisanship.\n\nThe unreality of the book is furthered by a conception worthy of\nPoe--a mysterious council of three that meets in London and directs\npolitical movements in America. We are dimly aware that the council\nis both ancient and honorable; that it goes back historically to\npost-Revolutionary days and is self-perpetuating; and its uncanny\npower has resulted from supreme intelligence supplemented by exact\ninformation gathered during many years. In its secret archives every\npublic man in America is tagged and docketed; his political and\nfinancial affiliations are set down in detail; and on the basis of this\nknowledge the cryptic three send forth instructions that are faithfully\ncarried out. The danger to America lies in sectionalism--North, South,\nand West struggling for supremacy in the national councils; and upon\nthe three rests the self-imposed responsibility of saving America\nfrom itself. The idea is sufficiently absurd, as the book is absurd.\nCrawford was a cosmopolitan who knew little about American political\nconditions, and the crisis of the novel is the Hayes-Tilden _impasse_\nof 1876. The influence of the novel, one may safely assume, was\nnegligible.[666]\n\n\n2 \u2022 The Economic Novel\n\nThe theme of these earlier novels was politics as revealed by the\nGilded Age; on the other hand _The Bread-winners_ was one of the early\neconomic novels. Like _Democracy_ it was an outcome of the discussions\nof the vivacious trio, John Hay, Clarence King, and Henry Adams.\nWritten in 1882 by Hay, it was published anonymously in the _Century\nMagazine_ from August, 1883, to January, 1884. Hay never publicly\nacknowledged the authorship, and it was not until the edition of 1915\nappeared with an introductory note by his son, that his name appeared\non the title-page. It achieved a notable success--far beyond that of\n_Democracy_; was warmly praised and sharply criticized; was replied to\nin other novels; all of which goes to show that it fanned the coals\nthat were smoldering in the industrial life of the day, threatening\na general conflagration. It was the first recognition on the part of\nliterature that a class struggle impended in America--a first girding\nof the loins of polite letters to put down the menace that looked\nout from the underworld of the proletariat; and as such it assumes\nimportance as an historical document quite beyond its significance as a\nwork of art.\n\nThe motive of _The Bread-winners_ is the defense of property against\nthe \u201cdangerous classes\u201d; its immediate theme is a satire of labor\nunions. In an introductory note to the later edition, Clarence Leonard\nHay explicitly denies this. \u201c_The Bread-winners_,\u201d he says, \u201cis not\ndirected against organized labor. It is rather a protest against the\ndisorganization and demoralization of labor by unscrupulous leaders\nand politicians who, in the guise of helping the workingman, use his\nearnings to enrich themselves.\u201d He then states the theme thus:\n\n It is a defense of the right of an individual to hold property, and\n a plea for the better protection of that property by law and order.\n Civilization rests upon law, order, and obedience. The agitator\n who preaches that obedience to lawful authority is a sin, and\n patriotism an illusion, is more dangerous to society than the thief\n who breaks in at night and robs the householder.\n\nThe editor thinks well of the American workingmen. At heart they are\nsound; their motives are honest; but their ignorance of fundamental\neconomic principles too easily suffers them to fall victim to\nunscrupulous demagogues whose only object is their exploitation. To\nprevent such \u201cdisorganization and demoralization of labor,\u201d which\ncan bring only suffering and failure upon men ill prepared to endure\nthem, is therefore the patriotic duty of the educated classes. The\nproletariat is groping blindly for leadership; it is stirring uneasily;\nif the educated classes do not offer an enlightened leadership, the\nlaborer will follow low cunning to immoral ends and blind leaders of\nthe blind will bring irretrievable disaster upon civilization. Selfish\nappeal will kindle envy and hate; the rich and prosperous will go down\nbefore brute force; the rights of property will be destroyed; law,\norder, and obedience will give place to anarchy.\n\nSuch, briefly developed, is Clarence Hay\u2019s exposition of _The\nBread-winners_; and the exposition seems to suggest the social views of\nJohn Hay. He probably had no antipathy to labor unions which are guided\nin their policy by \u201csound economic principles\u201d and right \u201cmorality\u201d--as\nthe capitalist understands such things. But labor unions which follow\ntheir own leaders, which persist in thinking out a proletarian economy,\nwhich are bent on substituting a social morality for a property\nmorality, which refuse to be led by the \u201ceducated classes,\u201d he was\nbitterly hostile to. It is the unrest furthered by rebellious labor\nunions that he fears, and it is this that gives point and animus to\nhis satire. That _The Bread-winners_ was conceived in a spirit of\nbeneficent paternalism towards the proletariat, the present-day reader\nwill have difficulty in discovering. It is too frank in defense of\nvested interests, it looks with too stern a disfavor upon all labor\nleaders who refuse to accept the finality of the present industrial\norder, it exudes too strong an odor of property-morality, to deceive\nan intelligent reader. Read today it is clearly a partisan defense\nof economic individualism, an attack upon the rising labor movement,\na grotesque satire smeared with an unctuous morality--and because of\nthis, a perfect expression of the spirit of upper-class America in\nthose uneasy eighties with their strikes and lockouts and Haymarket\nriots.\n\nThe plot of the book is slight--it is the story of the oily\nmachinations of Ananias Offitt, a professional agitator who lives off\nsimple honest workmen whom he seduces, organizes a secret Brotherhood\nof the Breadwinners, urges on riot and robbery at the time of a great\nstrike, is checkmated by the hero--a cultivated and elegant clubman by\nthe name of Captain Arthur Farnham--betrays his tool, and in the end\nis murdered by him. Fortunately for the welfare of property interests\nthere are \u201chonest\u201d workmen, men like Leopold Grosshammer, who rally\nto the support of law and order and eventually break the strike. The\nlove-story is provided with two heroines, and the contrast between them\nemphasizes the class line which property draws. The upper-class heroine\nis as correct and colorless as Cooper\u2019s Eve Effingham: the lower-class\nheroine is as vulgarly handsome and as brazen as \u201csuch people\u201d are\nsupposed to be. A high-school education has spoilt her for the factory\nor domestic service, filling her empty head with foolish ambitions, but\nit could not make a lady of her.\n\nHay was in Cleveland at the time of the great strike in 1877, and\nhe was profoundly disturbed by the experience. Writing to his\nfather-in-law, he said:\n\n The prospects of labor and capital both seem gloomy enough.\n The very devil seems to have entered into the lower classes of\n workingmen, and there are plenty of scoundrels to encourage them\n to all lengths.... I am thankful you did not _see_ and _hear_\n what took place during the strikes. You were saved a very painful\n experience of human folly and weakness, as well as crime.[667]\n\nThe crying evils of a buccaneer industrialism which lay behind the\nstrikes, Hay ignored completely. To provide his idyllic background of\ncontented labor before it is seduced by demagogues, he goes back to\na decadent domestic economy. His \u201chonest and contented workman\u201d is a\ncarpenter who works for another carpenter--not a factory-hand tending\na machine; and when the demagogue comes with his specious appeal he is\ntriumphantly refuted.\n\n \u201cWhat are we, anyhow?\u201d continued the greasy apostle of labor. \u201cWe\n are slaves; we are Roossian scurfs. We work as many hours as our\n owners like; we take what pay they choose to give us; we ask their\n permission to live and breathe.\u201d\n\n \u201cOh, that\u2019s a lie,\u201d Sleeny interrupted, with unbroken calmness.\n \u201cOld Saul Matchin and me come to an agreement about time and pay,\n and both of us was suited. Ef he\u2019s got his heel onto me, I don\u2019t\n feel it.\u201d[668]\n\nJohn Hay was convinced that an \u201ceducated leadership\u201d alone could save\nAmerican democracy. But unfortunately--despite his great reputation\nin diplomacy and statesmanship--his own education seems to have been\nfaulty. He had lately risen into the exploiting class, and he accepted\nthe ready-made opinions of that class. His biographer has admirably\nstated his position during the days of the strike riots when he was\nclarifying his views:\n\n Those riots of 1877 burnt deep into Colonel Hay\u2019s heart. Like\n the rest of the world, he had theorized on the likelihood of war\n between Capital and Labor; but he had reassured himself by the\n comfortable assumption that under American conditions--equal\n opportunity for all, high wages, equal laws, and the ballot-box--no\n angry laboring class could grow up. The riots blew such vaporing\n away: for they proved that the angry class already existed, that\n the ballot-box instead of weakening strengthened it, and that not\n only the politicians of both parties but also the constituted\n authorities would avoid, as long as possible, grappling with it.\n\n The event was too large to be dismissed as an outburst of temper:\n it must be accepted as a symptom, a portent. Did it mean that\n a cancer had attacked the body politic and would spread to the\n vital organs? Was Democracy a failure,--Democracy--for more than\n a century the dream of the down-trodden, the ideal of those who\n loved mankind and believed in its perfectibility, the Utopia which\n good men predicted should somehow turn out to be a reality? Hay\n had sung his paean to liberty; Hay had throbbed at the efforts of\n patriots in Spain and in France to overthrow their despots; he had\n even exulted over the signs of democratization in England. Had he\n been the victim of mirage? Was Democracy not the final goal of\n human society, but only a half-way stage between the despotism of\n Autocracy and the despotism of Socialism?\n\n These questions he could not evade.... But he held, as did many of\n his contemporaries, that the assaults on Property were inspired\n by demagogues who used as their tools the loafers, the criminals,\n the vicious,--Society\u2019s dregs who have been ready at all times to\n rise against laws and government. That you have property is proof\n of industry and foresight on your part or your father\u2019s; that you\n have nothing, is a judgment on your laziness and vices, or on your\n improvidence. The world is a moral world; which it would not be if\n virtue and vice received the same rewards.[669]\n\nJohn Hay, it must be recalled, had enjoyed a college education through\nthe aid of relatives, he had been taken under the wing of Lincoln and\nbecome his private secretary, he had been thrust forward by influential\npoliticians, and finally he had married wealth--were these things\nproofs of virtue in a moral world that rewards foresight and punishes\nimprovidence? Or were they rather the marks of a skillful climber? John\nHay was a charming and cultivated gentleman, but he was also a child of\nthe Gilded Age, with the materialisms of his generation in his blood.\nThe young man had been an Abolitionist and a political radical; the old\nman was a McKinley conservative whose chief claim to reputation lay\nin the \u201copen-door\u201d policy in China. The beginnings of this shift to\nconservatism seem to have coincided with his marriage to Miss Stone,\ndaughter of a Cleveland capitalist whose interests were threatened by\nthe great strike. He was temperamentally one of John Adams\u2019s \u201cnatural\naristocrats,\u201d and having gained entr\u00e9e into aristocratic circles he\ntook the coloring of his new environment. A son of the frontier, he\nbecame a man of the world. Prosperity was necessary to him.\n\nProfessing a deep attachment to democratic institutions and hatred of\nall monarchical principles--in Spain and France--John Hay ceased to\nbe a Lincoln democrat, and took his place amongst the ruling class,\naccepting the principles of the rising plutocracy. _The Bread-winners_\nis a dramatization of the Federalistic principle that government\nexists for the protection of property. \u201cRemembering the date when _The\nBread-winners_ was written,\u201d says his biographer, \u201cwe must regard\nit as the first important polemic in American fiction in defense of\nProperty.\u201d[670] John Hay had become a thoroughgoing Hamiltonian. In\nhis younger days his sympathies had gone out to radical republicans\neverywhere, and he watched the rising tide of liberalism with great\nsatisfaction. In his first visits to Europe he followed closely the\nliberal movements. He was a warm admirer of Castelar, eulogizing him\nas one of the heroic figures of modern times. In a lecture in 1869 on\n\u201cThe Progress of Democracy in Europe\u201d he spoke with the zeal of an\nadvanced liberal. But soon thereafter the ardor of his zeal lessened.\nOn later trips to Europe he did not display a like sympathy with\nthe program of the Social Democrats. As economic unrest crept into\npolitics, as strikes and boycotts began to disturb his father-in-law\u2019s\nbusiness, he discovered less sympathy for revolutionary movements.\nPolitical revolutions sponsored by respectable middle-class leaders,\nwere one thing; economic revolutions sponsored by the proletariat were\nquite another thing. A democracy that breeds more democracy is clearly\ndangerous. So much as has already been accomplished is excellent, of\ncourse; but nothing further must be attempted.\n\nThere is sound strategy in offensive epithets. And so, taking counsel\nof fear, he applied to the current economic unrest the words most\noffensive to polite American ears, and called it socialism, anarchism.\nWithout pausing to weigh the demands of the farmer and the workingman,\nwith no understanding of the meaning of the great proletarian movement\nthen going forward in Europe, he appealed in defense of property to the\nspecter of economic leveling before which every good American of the\neighties recoiled in horror. As early as 1869, speaking of Castelar, he\nsaid: \u201cHe has too much sense and integrity to follow the lead of the\nSocialist fanatics.\u201d[671] Commenting on the unsettled state of things\nin Paris in 1883, he wrote: \u201cThe laborers have had the mischief put\ninto their heads by trade-unions.\u201d[672] As he contemplated the agrarian\nunrest of the seventies and later, he discovered in Greenbackism and\nPopulism only another form of this hateful socialism. It was the work\nof agitators who were plain rascals.\n\nHe was greatly disturbed in 1875 at the state of politics, \u201cwith\nhalf the Republicans and all the Democrats inflationists at heart,\nand carrying on a campaign on the bald issue whether the nation\nshall be a liar and a thief or not.\u201d[673] And so late as 1900 he\nexclaimed petulantly: \u201cThis last month of Bryan, roaring out his\ndesperate appeals to hate and envy, is having its effect on the\ndangerous classes. Nothing so monstrous has as yet been seen in\nour history.\u201d[674] Unhappily even in free America with its equal\nopportunity, and equal laws, there had come to be \u201cdangerous\nclasses\u201d--rather a good many of them, taking the populistic farmers and\ndiscontented wage-earners into the account--so many, indeed, that John\nHay grew gloomy over the outlook. And the outlook was all the gloomier\nbecause of our form of government; for is not the ultimate test of\nour democratic institutions the test of whether they are adequate to\nprotect the property and \u201ccivilization\u201d of the few against the \u201chate\nand envy\u201d of the discontented many?\n\nThat _The Bread-winners_ was a dishonest book Hay certainly\ncould not have been brought to believe; nevertheless a Tory who\ncovers his Tory purpose with a mantle of democracy can scarcely\nbe reckoned intellectually sincere. The men of the seventies and\neighties--cultivated and intelligent gentlemen like Godkin and Aldrich\nand Hay--were little more than demagogues in their fustian attacks\non agrarian Greenbackers and militant labor unions; they feared and\nhated them too much to understand them, and they took advantage of\ntheir social position to cry them down. The \u201ceducated leadership\u201d of\nthe Gilded Age was a somewhat sorry thing; it was ethically bankrupt\nwhile appealing to high moral standards. The best of such leaders were\nsecond-rate men--mediocre minds cramped by a selfish environment,\nimbued with no more than a property-consciousness. Of such a world\nJohn Hay in his _Bread-winners_ was a distinguished spokesman and\nrepresentative.[675]\n\n\n3 \u2022 The Beginnings of the Sociological Novel\n\nIt was in the nineties that the sociological novel expanded into\na great movement that in the next decade and a half was to engulf\npretty much all American fiction and bring it into service to the\nsocial conscience. Such a development was in the nature of things. The\nartist would not sit forever in his ivory tower, content to carve his\nstatuettes while the country without was turmoiled with revolution.\nSooner or later he would venture forth and once he had been caught up\nin the swirl his art would take new forms and serve other purposes than\nthe traditional genteel. Realism was in the air, the realism of Zola\nand the Russians, and from such a realism would come in America a more\ncritical attitude towards the social revolution at work in the land.\n\nIt was the city that played havoc with our older fictional methods,\nas it played havoc with our traditional social philosophy. America\nwas late in discovering the import of the huge Babbitt warrens it had\nbeen building with such fierce energy; but slowly the realities of the\neconomic city rose to challenge the respectability of the romantic\ncity. It was the discovery of this new lair of business that created\nthe school of sociological fiction. The older city of literature had\nbeen a polite world wherein ladies and gentlemen drank tea and made\nlove and talked proper scandal--a pleasant background of clubs and\ndrawing-rooms, against which moved well-dressed figures. It was an echo\nof Thackeray--the world of the West End and Beacon Street and Fifth\nAvenue, too well-bred and prosperous to recognize slums or stockyards\nor stock-gambling. But with the nineties the old complacency was\ndisturbed. A note of unrest crept into the current fiction. As the\n_prot\u00e9g\u00e9s_ of Mr. Howells looked out upon their world in search of\nreality, they discovered that polite society was being undermined.\nToo many social climbers were thrusting themselves forward; too much\nvulgarity was displayed by the new-rich. The social primacy of the old\nfamilies was being challenged by western pork-packers. Here was a rich\nfield to harvest. _Le document humain_ was the latest cry of realism,\nand so under the inspiration of M. Paul Bourget a new crop of realism\ncame to fruit--clever studies in feminine psychology--the last word\nin contemporary reality. The social climber was analyzed mercilessly,\nher shallow and silly ambitions revealed to the least petty maneuver;\nher blighting influence upon an idealistic husband or her stimulus\nto a money-grabbing mate, is traced shrewdly. Such are Boyesen\u2019s\n_Mammon of Unrighteousness_, Robert Grant\u2019s _Unleavened Bread_, and\nEdith Wharton\u2019s _House of Mirth_--studies that were symptomatic of a\ngeneration disturbed by the consciousness of a vulgar plutocracy rising\nin its midst, and yet ignorant of the nature of the disease.\n\nNevertheless their vogue was brief. As economic unrest rose more\nmenacingly upon the horizon of the new century, realism quickly\ntired of its Kate Van Schaaks and Selma Whites and Lily Barts, and\nturned away to prospect for a richer vein. Psychology was losing its\nfascination and social analysis was supplying a new inspiration; M.\nBourget was yielding authority to \u00c9mile Zola. Even so whole-hearted a\nromantic as Mary Johnston was to turn from tales like _To Have and to\nHold_ to write _Hagar_, a novel of suffrage propaganda. There was to\nbe not less realism but more. The change may be summarized in the word\n_background_. The old individualism had unconsciously insulated its\nhero from economic contacts; he moved in a polite environment detached\nfrom the larger play of social forces. An individualism so wanting\nin sociological verity could make scant appeal to the new spirit of\nsociology. That old world is dead. With the rise of the philosophy\nof determinism came another mood. To the realism of environment that\nconceived of the individual as a pawn on the chessboard of society,\nM. Zola had given the name _naturalism_. It was realism wedded to a\ndeterministic sociology--the first reaction of a generation awakening\nto the subjugating power of the mass, and bent on studying the\nresultant phenomena in the clear light of science. The change was no\nless than revolutionary. The new school thought in terms of group and\nclass and movement, rather than in terms of individuals each nursing\nhis petty hopes and fears. The individual counts for so little in the\nenveloping stream of social tendency. Let us have no more shoddy\nheroes, foolish little egoisms in an unreal world; but figures of\nmen and women, encompassed by the great stream, carried along on a\nresistless current. If they prove to be little better than puppets the\nnovelist is not to blame, but society that reduces them to impotency.\nSo the emerging school abandoned Howells and James and followed Frank\nNorris into the camp of the naturalists. Their work might be bad\nart--as the critics love to reiterate--but it was the honest voice of a\ngeneration bewildered and adrift.\n\nThe discovery of environment led imperceptibly to another\ndiscovery--the economic basis of society; and this in turn led to the\nrejection of the polite city of older literature. Once the eyes of the\nnovelist opened to the significance of the economic, the world of the\nspenders became less significant than the world of the makers, the\ndrones became less interesting than the workers. If a novel were to be\ntrue to American life, it must adjust its perspectives to the facts of\nthe great American game of money-chasing; it must shift its habitat\nfrom Fifth Avenue to Wall Street, from the club to the factory. So the\nbusiness man entered the portals of fiction, no longer the stock figure\nin broadcloth and top-hat who discarded business with his dirty collar\nin order to shift into respectability; but bringing with him his talk\nof deals and squeeze-outs, playing the great game of exploitation at\nhis mahogany desk--the central, dominating figure in a capitalistic\nworld. He was subjected to acute analysis--his philosophy, his ethics,\nthe machine of industrialism he was creating, the intricate system\nof exploitation that he had elaborated, the jungle city that was his\nlair where he fought his battles. The more acutely he was analyzed\nthe clearer it became that here was a figure greater than kings or\npresidents--a figure that had taken our traditional American life in\nhis hands and was reshaping it to his ends; and that if realism were\nto be true to its ideal it must paint him as he was without detraction\nand without glorification. So of necessity the younger novelists turned\nfrom polite society to economics, and fell to dramatizing the life of\nthe city jungle where business men fought their fierce battles.\n\nThe forerunner of the new school was a Norwegian-American, Hjalmar\nHjorth Boyesen. An essayist and philologist, for a number of years\nprofessor of German at Columbia University, Boyesen began publishing\nas early as 1874, and thereafter contributed freely to the several\nfields of the essay, poetry, and fiction; but it was not until 1891\nthat he opened the new vein of realism which he worked industriously\nthe remaining four years of his life, the life brought to a premature\nclose in 1895. Three novels belong to this last phase of his work: _The\nMammon of Unrighteousness_ (1891), _The Golden Calf_ (1892), and _The\nSocial Strugglers_ (1893). The books made considerable stir upon their\npublication, for they were the nearest approach to the Tolstoian type\nof realism which till then had appeared in America. They contain in\ngerm many of the ideas which the later city realists were to amplify\nand develop; but these ideas were still entangled in the mesh of the\ncurrent psychological realism and their sociological bearings obscured.\nIn consequence they largely failed of their purpose, and within a\ndecade they had fallen into oblivion. They are of interest today\nchiefly as historical documents of the early nineties.\n\nIn the preface to _The Mammon of Unrighteousness_ Boyesen sets forth\nhis purpose thus:\n\n My one endeavor in this book has been to depict persons and\n conditions which are profoundly and typically American. I have\n disregarded all romantic traditions, and simply asked myself in\n every instance, not whether it was amusing but whether it was true\n to the logic of reality--true in color and tone to the American\n sky, the American soil, the American character.\n\nThis, very evidently, is the realism of _milieu_--an endeavor to catch\nthe reality of atmosphere; and as such it is of no great significance.\nIn his choice of \u201ctypes,\u201d moreover, he reflected the current taste.\nThe crude self-made millionaire who dimly conscious of failure founds\na university; the young idealist who fails because he is conscientious\nand the young realist who succeeds because he has no scruples against\nplaying the game; and the aristocratic climber who marries to further\nher social ambitions--these are the stock figures of the realism that\nwas to culminate in Robert Grant\u2019s _Unleavened Bread_, nine years\nlater. But in the delineation of the character of Horace Larkin--the\nhero of a book that does not realize its promise--the note of the\nnew realism is heard distinctly for the first time. The business\nman frankly breaks with the old ethics and erects a new ethics in\nconformity with his ambition; and it is the elaboration of the ethics\nof the Will to Power that justifies one in regarding _The Mammon of\nUnrighteousness_ as a first study in the new city realism.\n\nHorace Larkin, like Herrick\u2019s Van Harrington, is a Nietzschean who\nlearned his ethics not from the German philosopher, but from the world\nof cut-throat business. It is the flower of the competitive system. The\nold pretense that business is an uplifting and civilizing agency--that\ntrade breaks down barriers and carries in its shipments the gospel of\nfraternity and good will--is flung out on the scrap heap. Horace Larkin\nis no smug hypocrite. He faces the facts frankly; he will not deceive\nothers any more than himself.\n\n He was a beast of prey, asserting his right of survival; nothing\n more. If he succumbed to sentiment (and it is far easier to succumb\n to it than to resist it) he would merely be eliminating himself\n from the battle of existence as a potent and considerable force,\n and consigning himself to the rear ranks. And he felt in every\n fibre of his being that he was born for leadership.[676]\n\n ... nobody has a right to sacrifice himself to anybody else. If he\n does he simply eliminates himself from the struggle for existence,\n proves his unfitness to survive. It is natural for every strong man\n to try to make every other life tributary to his own; but the man\n who consents to make his life tributary to somebody else\u2019s is from\n Nature\u2019s point of view a weak man.... She may allow him to exist\n in a small way; but what is existence without predominance?...\n The man who is in advance of the morality of his age is, for\n practical purposes, a fool. It is no use quarreling with Fate; and\n in the United States the average man is the Fate that rules us and\n determines our place in the world.[677]\n\n \u201cThe majority of our politicians are a low-lived lot, and many of\n them corrupt. But they have the courage to be American--crudely and\n uncompromisingly American--and that is, in my eyes, a virtue which\n is not to be lightly rated.\u201d\n\n \u201cAnd may I ask, Mr. Larkin, what do you mean by being American?\u201d\n\n \u201cBeing frankly, ably, enterprisingly plebeian. It is the plebeian\n after all, who shall inherit the earth--\u201d\n\n \u201cI beg your pardon. According to the Bible it is the meek.\u201d\n\n \u201cI must differ with the Bible, then; for the meek, in my\n experience, if they inherit anything, never manage to keep it.\n It passes, sooner or later, into the hands of the strong, the\n self-assertive, the grasping. But these, as you will admit, are\n plebeian characteristics. A universally prosperous, comfortable,\n impudent, and enterprising mob--that is the goal toward which\n we are steering; and in my opinion it is a good and desirable\n one.\u201d[678]\n\nThis is a note that is to be heard more insistently as the new realism\nwent further in its probing. Armed with this conviction Horace Larkin\nset forth as a conqueror, and it only adds to the dramatic fitness\nof things that in his rise he came across a will to power stronger,\ncleverer, than his own. Kate Van Schaak climbs upon his back to\nrise with him; she buys him with her money and social position, and\nhaving made the deal she realizes on the investment. She is mistress\nhenceforth, and the Nietzschean smiles at the irony of the situation.\n\nIn the third work Boyesen fails to maintain the level of _The Mammon\nof Unrighteousness. Social Strugglers_ is simpler, more dramatic,\nbetter told. It carries the reader forward more easily. But it belongs\nwith such novels of social analysis as Charles Dudley Warner\u2019s _The\nGolden House_--mildly critical of the vulgarizing influence of the\nnew-rich, mildly sympathetic with the slum workers--rather than to the\nnew realism. The heroine--daughter of a new-rich family that has come\nto New York to climb socially--awakens to the realization of parting\nways: one the path of luxury which the four hundred travel, the other\nthe path of service which leads to the slums and settlement work. It is\na sentimental awakening, not an intellectual, induced by the hero, who\non the fringe of the four hundred is mildly discontented with the ways\nof luxury. The vague idealism of the latter has been stirred by the\nToynbee Hall experiment in London, and the persuasiveness of the lover\nrather than the conclusions of the thinker carries Maud Bulkley away\nfrom her conventional moorings.\n\nThe movement of the book is little clogged with sociological\ndiscussions; there is too little, indeed, to justify the conclusion.\nOnly once does Philip Warburton lift the curtain upon the idealism\nwhich ostensibly is the determining factor in his life.\n\n \u201cI frankly confess that I am something of a red. I think the world\n is out of gear, and I can perfectly well conceive of a civilization\n far better than ours, without yet proposing any radical amendment\n to human nature....\u201d\n\n There was to Maud something so wholly unexpected in this ebullition\n that she scarcely knew what to say. She had never philosophized\n concerning life and its problems; nay, she had never suspected that\n to a person who had money enough, and the access to good society,\n it could present any problems whatever. She knew that some terribly\n disreputable, shaggy, and wild-faced foreigners came here from\n Europe and proposed to turn our admirable civilization upside down;\n but that a gentleman of Warburton\u2019s culture and social standing\n could sympathize with such criminals had never occurred to her as a\n remote possibility....\n\nAfter this disturbing introduction Warburton proceeds to disclose what\nbeing \u201ca red\u201d means to him in the way of social revolutions:\n\n \u201cHave you ever heard of a London experiment known as Toynbee Hall?\u201d\n he asked....\n\n \u201cYes: it\u2019s a place in the slums, where young men of good family go\n to live; isn\u2019t that it?\u201d\n\n \u201cYes; and, do you know, that is to me the most beautiful modern\n instance of a real desire to help the poor and helpless--to lift\n the world to a higher level. It is what I should like to do\n myself--and what I shall hope some day to do....\u201d\n\n \u201cThen you really think it a misfortune to be rich?\u201d she\n ejaculated....\n\n \u201cYes, if wealth entails the loss of human sympathies, as in nine\n cases out of ten it seems to do, I regard it as a misfortune.\n If it means, as in this country it seems to mean, the loss of\n vital contact with humanity, the contraction of one\u2019s mental and\n spiritual horizon, a callous insensibility to social wrongs and\n individual sorrows, a brutal induration in creature comforts and\n mere animal well-being, the loss of that divine discontent and\n noble aspiration which alone makes us human--if it means this\n or any part of it, it is the greatest calamity which can befall\n a man. And it is because Christ foresaw that these were the\n natural effects of great wealth, and the security and ease which\n it engenders, that he declared that it was easier for a camel to\n pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the\n kingdom of heaven.\u201d[679]\n\nThat is all. There is no dramatic justification of Warburton\u2019s views;\nthey are without motive and foundation. _Social Strugglers_ does not\nadvance far along the path of the new realism.\n\nAs the years drew nearer the new century, the business man usurped\nan ever larger place in American fiction; the romance which had been\nsought in the deeds of 1776 was now discovered in the achievements of\nenterprise. It was the unconscious testimony of literature to the hold\nwhich business had got on the imagination of Americans. In the golden\ndays of the \u201cfull dinner-pail,\u201d following the great victory of \u201996,\nthe Captain of Industry reached the apogee of his fame. The voice of\ndetraction had not yet been lifted against him; the muckraker had not\nyet set forth on his devastating career. To young reporters on city\npapers looking ambitiously towards fiction as the goal of success,\nwhat could offer greater appeal than the unwritten romance of Wall\nStreet and the Stock Exchange? They had described it for the daily\nnews columns, they had seen it extolled on the editorial page, why not\ndramatize it in fiction? Here was the real interest of America--the\nonly reality that signified; yet the novelists had stupidly overlooked\nit, because they lacked the journalist\u2019s sense of news values, his\n_flair_.\n\nOf the abundant crop of fiction which resulted from this discovery, no\nmore characteristic examples need be sought than _The Short Line War_\n(1899) and _Calumet \u201cK\u201d_ (1901), written in collaboration by Samuel\nMerwin and H. K. Webster. Their popular success was immediate and\nmaintained surprisingly. The former ran to six editions, the last in\n1909; the latter, to twelve editions, the last so late as 1915. They\nare brisk stories, all action stripped of descriptive superfluities,\nwith plenty of newspaper punch: dramatizations of hustle and bluff\nand the tricks of a cut-throat game. Charlie Bannon, hero of _Calumet\n\u201cK\u201d_, is the boss who does things, who is on the job, who takes long\nshots and \u201cmakes good\u201d--a \u201cmovie\u201d hero of efficiency. He has no time\nnor inclination to think, possesses no philosophy, asks no questions\nand is troubled by no doubts or scruples; his fertile brain and cool\nnerve make him a first-class fighting man, and he fights as the good\nsoldier should on orders from above. The hero of _The Short Line War_,\nJim Weeks, is another Bannon with the same fertile brain, cool nerve,\ncalm tenacity of purpose, quick decisiveness, and the same lack of\nintellectual interests. In war it is sound strategy to strike quick and\nhard; and the Captain of Industry, let it be clearly known, is a war\ncaptain. To play the game hard, to beat the other fellow by whatever\nmeans serve, that is the ideal of a competitive _bourgeoisie_: not to\nbe too nice about the law, for everybody knows that the law is the\nchief weapon of the strong; not to cherish foolish idealisms, for\neverybody knows that success alone pays. No more heartless, brutal,\nanarchistic books could be conceived--a mad philosophy for a mad world.\n\nThe broad movement towards a realistic portrayal of the economic city\nproduced its eddies and minor currents, which at times brought such\na commotion of the waters as to appear like the main current. Such\nwas the flood of political novels which came with the new century\nand lasted well upwards of a decade. These were a by-product of the\nmuckraking movement--a part of the propaganda of the group of young\ninsurgents within the Republican party who were bent on rescuing the\nparty from control of the old bosses, and who prepared the way for the\nmore significant movement of Progressivism which followed. Such studies\nas Francis Churchill Williams\u2019s _J. Devlin--Boss_ (1901), and Elliott\nFlower\u2019s _The Spoilsmen_ (1903), were early examples; and Winston\nChurchill\u2019s _Coniston_ and _Mr. Crewe\u2019s Career_ were probably the most\nnotable. They were journalistic for the most part, _expos\u00e9s_ of the\n\u201cBoss\u201d and the evils of the political machine. The \u201cBoss\u201d is painted in\nvarious guises, as brutal, cunning, thoroughly vicious, or as a man\nwho plays the game with the same unsocial conscience that marks the\ncapitalist. Most frequently Lincoln Steffens is followed and the human\nside of the \u201cBoss\u201d is \u201cplayed up\u201d equally with his political cunning.\nIt is the characteristic journalistic touch--a bit cheap but immensely\neffective. As the movement of naturalism gained headway it became\nincreasingly apparent that the \u201cBoss\u201d was only a part of the \u201cSystem,\u201d\nand the political novel merged in the economic. These brisk studies\nconstitute, however, a suggestive episode in our history--the literary\necho of our political history between the years 1900 and 1910.\n\nLittle in the way of social analysis was to be expected from a group\nof clever journalists. They were reporters of fact, transcribers of\nexternals. They note the social unrest, but it is little more than\nan undertone of the chorus of prosperity--a snarl of inconsequential\ncriticism. It is the sting of a troublesome mosquito that is brushed\noff by the Captain of Industry who is too busy with big projects\nto bother about insects. Such is Will Payne\u2019s _Mr. Salt_ (1903)--a\nsympathetic study of a coal-baron who is caught in the panic of \u201993\nbut pulls out and rises higher. To provide dramatic contrast there is\nthe ineffective idealist who is growly and surly--\u201cThe whole thing is\nrotten--the whole business scheme. It\u2019s just a gold brick game operated\nby Salt and his kind. I\u2019d like to stick a fuse to it and touch it\noff.\u201d[680] It is feeble enough--this protest. The rebel joins wildly\nin the great strike, is struck down by the hand of the law, rebels and\nstrikes again and gets nowhere. Only a bitter, ineffective hate rankles\nin his heart, while Salt goes on triumphantly to greater power and a\nsort of moral regeneration through love--a regeneration that does not\ninterfere with his keeping the title-deeds to his loot. An earlier\nstudy--_The Money Captain_ (1898)--seemed to give promise of honester\nwork than this. It is the story of a struggle between a corrupt\ngas-magnate and an enterprising editor whose _expos\u00e9_ puts the magnate\nafoul of the law as interpreted by the magnate\u2019s judges, and who is\nsaved from disaster by the timely death of the \u201cduke.\u201d At the end is a\ntouch of prophecy, quite startling in its forecast. These money-kings\nwith their strong prehensile fingers are the spawn of a common\nplebeian America; the world of the makers is vulgarly democratic;\nbut there follows the age of the spenders, and that shall be finely,\naltruistically aristocratic. The death of the hero \u201cexpunged from his\nfortune that color of greedy vulgarity and left its gold untarnished.\u201d\n\n Dexter, for all his success, was a figure in the common democratic\n foreground of business; he was intimately and solely of the great\n everyday warp and woof of toil. He bore all his fruit at once--when\n he died. An heirship was required to give the fortune value....\n\n In a way it was fine and beautiful--all that huge accumulation of\n pillage coming to the white, firm hands of this pretty, amiable\n capable, goodhearted woman. The sudden substitution of her graceful\n and gracious figure for the swart and iron figure of the duke was\n like an apt transformation scene, prophetic of the future.[681]\n\nThese earlier books are mere preliminary sketches--first studies\nin economic backgrounds, hesitating between admiration and\ncensure--satisfied to exploit the \u201chuman interest\u201d in the dour figure\nof the money-grabber. The clever newspaper men did not know enough\nto do better, more realistic work; they saw the daily activities of\nbusiness but they understood little of economics, less of sociology.\nAnd the new realism was soon to yield itself captive to sociology--to\ninscribe the name of Zola boldly on its pennant and go forth to\nconquer. It was Frank Norris who wrote the pronunciamiento of the new\nschool, boldly, magnificently, with immense faith in the finality of\nhis own conclusions. _The Responsibilities of the Novelist_ was to\nbecome the textbook of the young naturalists.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[621] See Charles Edward Russell, _The Story of Wendell Phillips_, p.\n53.\n\n[622] Quoted in Martyn, _Wendell Phillips: The Agitator_, p. 372.\n\n[623] See _Speeches_, Second Series, p. 139.\n\n[624] Quoted in Martyn, _op. cit._, pp. 412-413.\n\n[625] _Speeches_, Second Series, p. 176.\n\n[626] _Ibid._, p. 167.\n\n[627] _Ibid._, pp. 152-153.\n\n[628] _Ibid._, p. 154.\n\n[629] See _Ibid._, pp. 356-359.\n\n[630] See _Ibid._, p. 347.\n\n[631] Edward Cary, _George William Curtis_, p. 78.\n\n[632] See _Ibid._, pp. 25-26.\n\n[633] See _Ibid._, pp. 180-181.\n\n[634] See _Harper\u2019s Weekly_, Sept. 20, 1873.\n\n[635] _Orations and Addresses_, \u201cMachine Politics and the Remedy,\u201d Vol.\nII, pp. 157-159.\n\n[636] See _Ibid._, p. 160.\n\n[637] J. H. Wilson, _The Life of Charles A. Dana_, p. 466.\n\n[638] Ogden, _Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence Godkin_, Vol. I, p. 11.\n\n[639] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 17.\n\n[640] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 140.\n\n[641] _Nation_, July 8, 1915, p. 47.\n\n[642] _On Liberty_, Chapter I.\n\n[643] \u201cAristocratic Opinions of Democracy,\u201d in _Problems of Modern\nDemocracy_, pp. 25-26, 30-31.\n\n[644] Ogden, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 48.\n\n[645] _Nation_, January 30, 1873, p. 68.\n\n[646] See \u201cPublic Opinion and the Currency,\u201d _Ibid._, February 27,\n1873; \u201cThe Political Situation in 1896,\u201d in _Problems of Modern\nDemocracy_.\n\n[647] See \u201cOn Gold and Silver,\u201d _Ibid._, July 6, 1876.\n\n[648] _Ibid._, May 25, 1876.\n\n[649] _Ibid._, June 1, 1876.\n\n[650] \u201cThe Issue of the Campaign,\u201d _Ibid._, July 2, 1896.\n\n[651] \u201cThe Platform of Revolution,\u201d _Ibid._, July 16, 1896.\n\n[652] _Ibid._, January 19, 1893.\n\n[653] _Ibid._, April 10, 1873.\n\n[654] \u201cThe Watered Stock Hallucination,\u201d _Ibid._, October 9, 1873.\n\n[655] \u201cProsperity\u2019s Advance Orator,\u201d _Ibid._, June 18, 1896.\n\n[656] \u201cThe Chicago Platform,\u201d _Ibid._, July 16, 1896.\n\n[657] \u201cThe Platform of Revolution,\u201d _Ibid._, July 23, 1896.\n\n[658] Ogden, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 238-239.\n\n[659] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 199.\n\n[660] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 217.\n\n[661] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 243.\n\n[662] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 237.\n\n[663] Vol. II, Chapter 13, p. 128.\n\n[664] Chapter 4, p. 78.\n\n[665] Vol. II, pp. 58-59.\n\n[666] In his original scheme Professor Parrington included Tourg\u00e9e\u2019s\n_A Fool\u2019s Errand_, but the text shows that he decided against its\ninclusion.--_Publisher._\n\n[667] William Roscoe Thayer, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, Vol. II,\npp. 5-6.\n\n[668] Chapter V.\n\n[669] Thayer, _op. cit._, Vol. I., pp. 6-7.\n\n[670] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 15.\n\n[671] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 321.\n\n[672] _Ibid._, p. 414.\n\n[673] _Ibid._, p. 426.\n\n[674] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 256.\n\n[675] In his plan Professor Parrington included here H. F.\nKeenan\u2019s _The Money-Makers_, but apparently he decided against its\ninclusion.--_Publisher._\n\n[676] Chapter XXXI.\n\n[677] Chapter XXXVI.\n\n[678] Chapter XXXIII.\n\n[679] Chapter VII.\n\n[680] Chapter IX.\n\n[681] _The Money Captain_, Chapter 22.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: New Patterns of Thought\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 Disintegration and Reintegration\n\n\nThe figures of the Gilded Age, colossal yet grotesque, belonged to an\nAmerica that was passing. Another world of thought and experience was\nrising above the horizon--a world in which the divinities were science\nand the machine--that was to disintegrate the traditional society of\nthe dispersion and reshape the plastic materials in new forms. The long\ntide that for two centuries and a half had been running out had come\nat last to the turn. For six generations the pattern of life had been\nwoven by the impulse of dispersion that in scattering men along a wide\nfrontier had disintegrated the philosophies and rejected the social\norder brought from the old world, transforming America into such a\nsociety of free men as the Enlightenment had dreamed of--decentralized,\nindividualistic, democratic. Dispersion, disintegration, individualism,\nanarchism--such was the inevitable drift under the compulsions of a\nfluid economics and frontier ways, of which the ultimate philosophical\nexpression had been Thoreau at Walden Pond, discovering in his bean\npatch the same anarchistic principles that Godwin had learned of the\nFrench naturists--of which the prophet had been Walt Whitman, dreaming\namidst the formless crowds of Manhattan his generous dreams of the\ndemocratic brotherhood--and of which Jay Gould the sordid wrecker in\nWall Street was the prosaic reality.\n\nThen had come the Industrial Revolution that in creating great cities\nand in drawing men from the plow to the machine was to undo in a few\nbrief years the long work of the dispersion, repudiate the ideals of\nthe Enlightenment, and provide a new pattern for a consolidating urban\nsociety. Thenceforward the drift was increasingly toward concentration,\nwith its compulsions to reintegration and conformity--the imperious\nsubjection of the individual to a standardizing order, the stripping\naway of the slack frontier freedoms in the routine of the factory, the\nsubstitution of the ideal of plutocracy for the ideal of Jacksonian\ndemocracy. And this revolutionary work of the machine was hastened\nby the new spirit of science that spread silently through the land,\neffecting a revolution in men\u2019s thinking as great as the machine was\neffecting in men\u2019s lives. Provincial America had been theological-\nand political-minded; but with the staying of the dispersion and the\ncreation of an urban psychology, the ground was prepared for the\nreception of new philosophies that came from the contemplation of\nthe laws of the material universe. The incoming of science had two\nimmediate results: the application of technology to industry that was\nto further the Industrial Revolution; and the impact on speculative\nthought of the newly discovered laws of science that was to create\na new philosophy. In the second of these twin influences lay an\nintellectual revolution that was to disintegrate the old theological\ncosmos, push far back the boundaries of space and time, reorient the\nmind towards all ultimate problems, and bring into question all the\ntraditional faiths--political and social as well as theological and\nphilosophical. Out of science was to come a new spirit of criticism and\nrealism that was to set the pattern for later thought.\n\nThe story of disintegration and reintegration is a striking chapter\nin American life, a story that runs through two generations--the\ngeneration that came to maturity in the seventies, and the generation\nthat came to maturity in the nineties. Between 1870 and 1900 the\nbroad movement of thought passed through two sharply differentiating\nand contradictory phases: the extension of the philosophy of the\nEnlightenment, and the final rejection of the Enlightenment in\nconsequence of a more rigid application of the law of causality in\nthe light of a mechanistic universe. During the seventies biological\nevolution was interpreted in the light of earlier philosophies that\nhad come out of the eighteenth century. It was reckoned a fulfillment\nand justification of the ideals of the Enlightenment, sanctioning\nthe doctrine of progress that had risen from the conception of human\nperfectibility by a teleological conception of cosmic progress,\nglorifying the ideal of democratic individualism, and putting the seal\nof scientific approval on the philosophy of anarchism that had been the\nflower of two and a half centuries of the dispersion. And then in the\nnineties the clouds drew over the brilliant Victorian skies. With the\nsubstitution of physics for biology came a more somber mood that was\nto put away the genial romanticism of Victorian evolution, substitute\na mechanistic conception for the earlier teleological progress, and\nreshape its philosophy in harmony with a deterministic pessimism that\ndenied purpose or plan in the changing universe of matter. It was an\nunconscious return to the dark spirit long before brought hither by\nPuritanism from the complexities of English society--the spirit that\ndominated Calvinistic dogma before it disintegrated in the freedoms\nmade possible by the great dispersion.\n\nThe great changes came swiftly because the machine had made ready\nthe soil. Farmers and bankers do not think alike; country and town\ncreate different psychologies. A simple, decentralized America had\nbeen content with theology and metaphysics, and the intellectual\nhistory of New England for two hundred and forty years is not greatly\nskimped by being compressed into three words, Calvinism, Unitarianism,\nTranscendentalism. What was true of New England was true of America\ngenerally, except for the lesser influence of metaphysics. So long\nas society was mainly agricultural--and in those portions where the\nfrontier spirit lingered on into later days--the church would retain\nits dominant influence and theology would still bound men\u2019s thought.\nBut with the revolutions in economics and industry, with the rise of an\nurban society, the mind of America was making ready for the reception\nof science and the realism that was eventually to spring from science.\n\nVenturesome pioneers had been at work long before, digging about under\nthe thick crust of theology. Even in theocratic Massachusetts Increase\nand Cotton Mather had professed a zeal for scientific investigation,\nand the latter was vastly proud of his membership in the Royal Society.\nIn the eighteenth century Franklin and Rittenhouse and William Bartram\nwere evidences of a new spirit, and at Yale College President Ezra\nStiles made a small beginning of scientific study that was swept away\nby his successor Timothy Dwight. In the early decades of the nineteenth\ncentury an interest in science was spreading widely, as _Silliman\u2019s\nJournal_ witnesses. Asa Gray, Le Conte, and Agassiz encouraged the\ngeneral interest in geology, and in the sixties and seventies Lewis H.\nMorgan turned to anthropology and R. L. Dugdale stimulated sociology by\nhis significant study of the Jukes family.\n\nOur present concern, however, is not with the contributions of America\nto abstract science, but rather with the changing mental attitude that\nresulted from familiarity with scientific methods--the shift from\ndeductive reasoning to inductive investigation, with the consequent\nbreakdown of theology and the slow drift from metaphysical idealism\nto scientific materialism; and such a changing attitude concerns us\nbecause of its enormous influence on the fabric of our later thinking,\nthe total body of our intellectual and cultural life. Considered in\nthis light the intellectual revolution that resulted when the mind of\nAmerica, long shaped by theological dogmas, turned away from those\ndogmas to consider the new universe presented by science, cannot be\nmade too much of. With the pushing out of the frontiers of space and\ntime, the discovery of a vast impersonal cosmos that annihilated the\npetty egocentric world of good and evil postulated by the theologians,\nthe substitution of universal energy for a beneficent providence,\nthe conception of a ceaseless flux and flow that took no account of\nteleological ends, the assumption of universal law and universal\ncausality, the mind of America quitted its quiet theological retreats\nand set forth on a great adventure that was to carry far and the\nresults of which were to unsettle what before had been sure.\n\nIn this great work we have been engaged since European science first\nrose on our horizon a half-century and more ago. To speak exactly,\nit is not so much science that has taken possession of the mind, as\ncertain postulates of science, certain philosophies presumably derived\nfrom science and justified by science, which we have felt bound to\nincorporate in our thinking as a hundred years before the conclusions\nof the Enlightenment had been incorporated. In that earlier philosophy\nof the Enlightenment the whole drift had been towards a dissolvent\nindividualism, a disintegration of the earlier integration. In the new\ninterpretation after 1870 the emphasis came to rest on the whole rather\nthan the parts: in sociology, upon the historical growth of human\nsocieties; in biology, upon the evolution of the higher from lower\nforms. The individual, thus conceived of socially and politically, is\nno longer an isolated, self-determining entity, but a vehicle through\nwhich is carried the stream of life, with a past behind and a future\nbefore. He is a portion of the total scheme of things, tied by a\nthousand invisible threads to the encompassing whole. From the parts to\nthe totality, from freedom to determinism--such has been the drift of\nthought that science has laid upon us and from which there is no easy\nescape.\n\nWith the advent of such a conception the long movement towards\nphilosophical anarchism was brought to a stop. The integrating\nprinciple of unity must eventually shoulder aside the disintegrating\nprinciple of individualism; order must supersede willfulness. In the\noutcome a conception so coercive was to deny all the aspirations of\nour traditional social philosophy, surrendering society to a new\nregimentation and reducing the individual to an impotent victim of\nthings as they are. Out of it was to spring the passionate protests\nof later rebels like Theodore Dreiser and Thorstein Veblen. Yet for\nthe moment the rigid determinism of the premise was overlooked and man\nwas accepted as the first-born and heir of God\u2019s benevolent universe.\nIn the seventies the new postulates of science were looked upon as no\nother than fresh sanctions for the Comtean principle of continuity--of\nevolution from lower to higher in biology, of growth and progress in\nsociology. It was this middle ground that Herbert Spencer came to\noccupy in the minds of his American disciples--holding to the older\nindividualism with its implications of anarchism, yet creating a cosmic\nphilosophy that foreshadowed the eventual dwarfing of the individual.\n\n\nI \u2022 The Victorian Mood\n\nThe sturdy optimism that was a genial hallmark of the Victorian,\nwas erected on more substantial foundations than a middle-class\nprosperity arising out of the Industrial Revolution; it was founded on\na systematic philosophy, built of excellent materials and laid up with\nnice mortar-work, to which many hands contributed and in the finality\nof which many minds believed. Its master idea was the conception of\ngrowth, a conception that by contrast with the ideal of the static\nof earlier times, was profoundly revolutionary. Perhaps the most\nstimulating suggestion that came out of the Enlightenment, it was\nevolved by Turgot in France and by Price and Priestley in England,\nfrom the psychology of John Locke. If the human mind at birth is an\nempty vessel, wanting in innate ideas and waiting to be filled by sense\nperceptions, or if--to accept the familiar figure--it is a clean slate\non which the finger of experience writes what it will, then it follows\nfrom the philosophy of Locke that the shaping of the individual is\ndetermined by the environment that cradles him. It is not an unfolding\nfrom within but a molding from without. Hence the idea of growth, and\nhence the vast preoccupation of the Enlightenment with sociology--or\nthe science of environment--the hand of the sculptor that models the\nplastic clay. From such a conception the principle of progress was an\ninevitable deduction.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Sociology and the Enlightenment\n\nIt is convenient, if not quite exact, to trace the rise of the new\ngospel to Condorcet, who in the midst of the Terror and whilst in\nhiding from the Jacobins, wrote his stimulating _History of the\nProgress of the Human Mind_[682]--a work that was early reprinted in\nAmerica and profoundly influenced Jefferson, who professed to find its\nprinciples exemplified in the history of his native Virginia. Condorcet\nwas a humane and liberal spirit, a mathematician, a physicist, a\nsociologist, one of those eager Revolutionary minds passionately\ndevoted to the creation of a more generous social order; and his\ncelebrated work deserves a distinguished place in the history of social\nthought. He begins as a good Lockean with the psychology of sense\nperception, on which he erects his entire superstructure. Here is his\nopening paragraph:\n\n Man is born with the faculty of receiving sensations; of perceiving\n and distinguishing the simple sensations of which they are\n composed; of retaining them, reproducing them, combining them; of\n comparing these combinations; of grasping what they have in common\n and what sets them apart; of fixing signs on all such objects\n in order to reproduce them more clearly and to facilitate new\n combinations.[683]\n\nHe then proceeds to trace the growth of the scientific attitude from\nthe time of Bacon, till it culminated in the rise of social science,\nwith the new politics of natural rights and the new conception of man\nas perfectible. It is commonly believed that the philosophers of the\nEnlightenment were speculative dreamers who created a fantastic natural\nman that flouted the sober realism of experience. Such a notion is\ngrossly absurd. Condorcet was immersed in the scientific spirit of his\nage; it was to science that he looked for guidance and he had acquired\na remarkable understanding of the data already gathered in western\nEurope. When he set down the following passages, therefore, he was\nwriting not as a speculative dreamer, but as a sociologist who relied\nsolely on scientific inquiry to find a way out of the social mess into\nwhich western civilization was plunged by the selfish stupidity of\nrulers who were hostile to scientific truth.\n\n After long errors, after having lost their way in incomplete or\n vague theories, the publicists have finally come to recognize the\n true rights of man, to deduce them from this single truth, that he\n is a being endowed with sense perceptions (_un \u00eatre sensible_),\n capable of shaping a train of reasoning (_capable de former des\n raisonnements_), and of acquiring moral ideas.[684]\n\n Finally, we have seen a new doctrine appear.... It is that of the\n indefinite perfectibility of the human species, a doctrine of which\n Turgot, Price and Priestly, were the first and most distinguished\n apostles; it belongs to the tenth epoch, in which we shall develop\n it broadly.[685]\n\nIn such passages is contained the kernel of Condorcet\u2019s philosophy, the\ngrounds of that hope for human betterment which awakened his generous\nsympathies. The _Esquisse_ is a noble contribution to the work which\nthe heirs of the Enlightenment, from Turgot to Comte, so eagerly and\nhopefully engaged in--the work of tracing scientifically the changes of\nthe past in order to forecast the path of the future. After dividing\nthe history of social evolution into nine periods, Condorcet projects\nthe outlines of the tenth which is still to come.\n\n If man can predict, with almost complete assurance, the phenomena\n of which he knows the laws; if, while they are still unknown in\n him, from the experience of the past he can forecast, with much\n probability, the events of the future; why should one regard as a\n chimerical undertaking the attempt to trace with some likeness the\n picture of the future destiny of the human species, in accordance\n with the facts of its history (_d\u2019apr\u00e8s les r\u00e9sultats de son\n histoire_)? The sole ground of faith in the natural sciences is\n this idea, that the general laws, known or unknown, that rule the\n phenomena of the universe, are necessary and constant; and on what\n grounds would this principle be less true for the development of\n the intellectual and moral faculties of man, than for the other\n operations of nature? Finally, since opinions formed from the\n experience of the past, in matters of the same kind, are the\n sole rule of conduct for the wisest men, why should one deny the\n philosopher the right to rest his conjectures on the same base,\n provided he does not attribute to them a certainty beyond that\n which springs from the number, the constancy and the exactness of\n his observations?\n\n Our hopes for the future state of the human species may be\n reduced to these three important points: the destruction of\n inequality between nations; the progress of equality amongst a\n common people; finally, the growth of man towards perfection\n (_le perfectionnement r\u00e9el de l\u2019homme_). May not all nations one\n day approach the state of civilization to which have arrived the\n most enlightened peoples, the freest, the most emancipated from\n prejudice, such as the French and the Anglo-Americans? The vast\n distance that divides these peoples from the servitude of nations\n subject to kings, from the barbarism of African tribes, from the\n ignorance of savages, must it not gradually disappear?[686]\n\nCondorcet was an idealist, and the grand object towards which he was\nworking was an adequate social philosophy that should interpret justly\nthe evolution of civilization. True to the genius of the Enlightenment\nhe believed that in reason and in the moral sense man possessed the\nkeys to his own progress--that the general reason under the guidance\nof humane feeling must assure a progressive amelioration of life that\nwill eventuate in the common well-being of men in a rational society.\nThe age of the Enlightenment, he believed, had \u201copened new paths to the\npolitical and moral sciences,\u201d and laid bare what to him were \u201cthe true\nprinciples of social happiness.\u201d The American Federalists, who were\nprodigal of vituperative rhetoric in assailing all French theorists,\nmight have read the pages of Condorcet with profit.\n\nThe idea of progress with its corollary of a philosophy of history,\nthus elaborated by Condorcet, was taken over by Saint-Simon, but\ncame to its most elaborate expression in the work of Auguste Comte.\nThe grandiose philosophy of history to which Comte gave the name\nof Positivism, was an attempt to formulate the law of progress in\ncivilization; and his dynamic sociology, which emerged naturally\nfrom his conception of history, was an attempt to apply that law to\nsociety. That the principle of progress is the law of nature Comte\nprofessed to discover in the unity of all natural processes and the\nhistorical unfolding of all systems; there are no breaks and no fresh\nbeginnings, but everywhere and always, continuity. From this principle\nemerged the Comtean law of historical evolution with its three phases:\nthe theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific-industrial.\nIf continuity is the law of nature, such continuity presupposes an\nobjective--presumably benevolent; and in view of such continuity\ntowards a benevolent objective, it is only logical to endeavor to\ndispose the forces of society in harmony with the teleological purpose,\nand through the application of positive knowledge hasten the advent\nof the Golden Age. Hence the grand science, hitherto neglected, is\nsociology. Earlier generations had placed the Golden Age in a dim past;\nComtean philosophy, in harmony with the Enlightenment, placed it in\nthe future as the ultimate goal of an evolving society. To forecast\nthe lines along which such progress will move, to read the future as a\nchild of the past, became therefore a prime objective of the new school\nof history. The tracing of social laws was the great business at hand,\nand as the founder of a new social science Comte carried further and\nsystematized the work begun by the Physiocrats. Before Comte history\nhad been little more than chronicles, without pattern or meaning,\nunconcerned with the sources of change and providing no basis for\nforecast; after Comte history became an interpretation and a philosophy.\n\nOne would have supposed that Positivism would have appealed to\nAmerican intellectuals, as it appealed to liberal English thinkers\nlike Mill and Spencer. Not only has the American mind taken kindly\nto sociology, but the history of America, as Woodbridge Riley has\npointed out, offers too pat an illustration of the Comtean law of\nprogress to be overlooked.[687] The three centuries of American\nexistence--the seventeenth with its theocracy, the eighteenth with its\nabstract theories of political rights and its faith in constitutions,\nand the nineteenth with its industrialism based on science--would\nseem to be pages out of the Positivist philosophy of history. That\nComte made so slight an impression on the mind of New England was\ndue, no doubt, to the current influence of transcendentalism with its\nmetaphysical backgrounds. Although eager young intellectuals like John\nFiske might accept it while awaiting a more adequate evolutionary\nphilosophy, the country was not yet ripe for Positivism. When that\ntime came it was Spencer rather than Comte who became the master of\nAmerican intellectuals--Spencer and in a lesser degree John Stuart\nMill. Both Spencer and Mill had come under the influence of the French\nsociological school, and it was through their writings that the new\nsocial philosophy penetrated America.[688]\n\n\n2 \u2022 Biology and the Enlightenment\n\nThe appeal of Spencer to the generation born after the Civil War was\nextraordinary. Ardent young minds, for whom the candles of theology\nwere burnt out and who were seeking new light to their feet, were drawn\nto him irresistibly. Young rebels who had thrown off the guidance of\ntheir elders and were bent on discovering fresh paths through the\ntangle of dead faiths--independent souls like Hamlin Garland and\nJack London and Theodore Dreiser who were to become leaders of the\nrealistic revolt against the genteel tradition in life and letters and\nfaith--went to school to him to prepare themselves for the great work\nof freeing the American mind from the old theological inhibitions.\nYoung men in colleges no longer read _Butler\u2019s Analogy_, as their\nfathers had done before the war, but turned with zest to Spencer\u2019s\n_Data of Ethics_ to discover a more scientific theory of conduct.\nEverywhere the influence of the great Victorian penetrated, and\nwherever that influence spread the old theological prepossessions\ndisintegrated. It is probably no exaggeration to say that Spencer laid\nout the broad highway over which American thought traveled in the later\nyears of the century.\n\nIf the supreme excellence of Comte, as has been suggested by Lester\nF. Ward, was his insistence on the ultimate unity of all processes\nof nature,[689] if before him the continuity of forces had been\ninadequately understood, his intellectual kinship with Spencer\ncannot fail to be remarked. The latter\u2019s master conception, which he\narrived at independently of Darwin and which life-long he applied\nsystematically to the several fields of thought, was the master\ncreative conception of the nineteenth century--the conception of\npervasive unity and organic growth. In his well-known phrase it\nwas the law of continuous development from the homogeneous to the\nheterogeneous, from the simple to the complex; and this principle he\nfound exemplified in the total history of nature and man. Here then\nis the Comtean law of continuity, but vastly strengthened and given a\ncosmic significance by deductions from the new science. Lamarck and\nDarwin laid the foundations for Spencer\u2019s philosophy, as Condorcet and\nSaint-Simon had provided the backgrounds for Comte. Trained thus in\nthe new school of biology, Spencer erected his synthetic philosophy\nupon the broadest foundations; the principle of organic evolution\nsufficed to explain for him not only the history of civilization,\nbut the total history of life in a physical universe; and biology,\npsychology, sociology, politics, ethics--all the congeries of ideals\nand institutions and bodies of knowledge that shape civilization--were\nbut variant expressions of the development from the homogeneous to the\nheterogeneous.\n\nThe final effect of the synthetic philosophy was not to overset but\nto confirm the major postulates of the Enlightenment. In his social\ntheory are unforeseen confirmations of the glowing hopes of Turgot\nand Condorcet. From his studies in biology Spencer had come to think\nprimarily in terms of the individual, and only secondarily in terms of\nthe species and the genus. Now variation is the mark of the individual,\nfor strictly considered, nature knows no duplication of life forms,\nbut always and everywhere individual differentiation; yet since\nlikenesses are far greater and more cohesive than unlikenesses, the\ninstinct of gregariousness impels individuals to associate in ever\nlarger groups, interacting through association and co\u00f6peration, whence\narises a human society that tends continuously to pass from the simple\nto the complex. On these two major premises then--individual variation\nand the instinct of association--Spencer established his social and\npolitical theory; and when the elaborate data drawn from biology and\nethnology and psychology are stripped away, the underlying conceptions\nreveal a curious likeness to the master principles of French romantic\nphilosophy. This likeness becomes more striking as he explores the\nfields of sociology and politics; and his final deductions tally so\nclosely with earlier theory as to warrant a disciple of Jefferson in\nbecoming a disciple of Spencer.\n\nThere is no break between Condorcet and the synthetic philosophy.\nThe great Victorian completed the work of the Enlightenment. In\nestablishing his individualism on the principle of biological\nvariation, Spencer was only restating in scientific terms the earlier\nmetaphysical individualism; in establishing his psychology upon an\nunbroken sequence \u201cfrom the simple reflex action by which an infant\nsucks, up to the elaborate reasoning of the adult man,\u201d with its\ncorollary of continuously expanding powers, he was rebuilding on the\nfoundation of Locke a fresh argument for the doctrine of indefinite\ndevelopment, or perfectibility; in establishing his sociology on\nthe organic principle of \u201cnatural development,\u201d which shapes the\nindividual to social ends, with an accruing wealth of individuation\nthat is the final objective of true social life, he justified the\nFrench enthusiasm for liberty as the great desideratum, but liberty\nenriched and augmented by association in a free society; and finally,\nin establishing his ethics on the principle that \u201cincreasing fullness\nof life is the \u2018end\u2019 of evolution,\u201d and the \u201chighest conduct is that\nwhich conduces to the greatest length, breadth, and completeness of\nlife\u201d--that the ultimate criterion of social ethics is justice and that\n\u201cevery man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not\nthe equal freedom of any other man\u201d--he rephrased the earlier Godwinian\nprinciple that rational liberty under the reign of justice is the\nultimate end of society.[690]\n\nThat Spencer\u2019s social theory should have been shot through with\nolder ideals is not surprising when one considers his origins and\ntraining. Sprung from radical nonconformist stock, a congenital rebel,\nextraordinarily self-sufficient and coming to intellectual maturity in\nthe tempestuous forties with their Benthamism, their Chartism, their\nexigent democracy, he was molded by forces that in large part were a\nre\u00ebmbodiment of the aspirations nullified by the Napoleonic wars and\nthe Tory reaction, and now come again to birth. As a consequence his\npolitical theory, like Mill\u2019s, was deeply affected by the revolutionary\nheritage. He accepted the social contract as a \u201ctheoretical, though\nnot a historical, basis of political authority and institutions\u201d;[691]\nthe doctrine of natural rights, which, with Jefferson, he interpreted\nin terms of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;\nand the theory of a constantly diminishing political state, on the\nhypothesis that the ultimate form of society--as in Godwin\u2019s _Political\nJustice_--will, be anarchistic.\n\nAt least, such he conceives to be the forecast suggested by the law\nof social evolution. As the coercive authority of the political\nstate diminishes, its place will be supplied by the cohesive force\nof association, until voluntary co\u00f6peration extends to all the\nnecessary functions of society; and since the state tends to disappear\nwith the growth of a rational society, the great desideratum is an\nadequate sociology rather than a political theory. The net result,\ntherefore, of Spencer\u2019s wide studies was a fresh justification, based\non the findings of Victorian science, of the master principles of\neighteenth-century speculation; its individualism, its liberalism, its\npassion for justice, its love of liberty and distrust of every form of\ncoercion. The power of the majority must be curbed equally with that\nof the minority and he concluded his _The Man versus the State_ with\nthe well-known words, \u201cThe function of Liberalism in the past was\nthat of putting a limit to the powers of kings. The function of true\nLiberalism in the future will be that of putting a limit to the powers\nof Parliament.\u201d In the scientific speculations of the great Victorian\nthe aspirations of romantic thought came to fresh vitality; embodied in\na comprehensive evolutionary system they were given a fresh currency.\nHerbert Spencer completed the work begun by Locke a hundred and fifty\nyears before, and his _Synthetic Philosophy_ brought to conclusion the\ngreatest intellectual movement of modern times.\n\nAs the young intellectuals, trained in the school of Spencer, looked\nout on the universe in the last quarter of the nineteenth century,\nthey discovered, amid all its complexities an encompassing unity, a\ncontinuous growth, a creative purpose; and from such assumptions they\njustified the theory of progress, cosmic in scope and plan, that opened\nwide the doors to a vaster future. If in the backgrounds of their minds\nlurked the conception of determinism, it gave them no concern, for a\nbenevolent determinism that shapes all things to a divine end, is no\nmonster to be feared. In the evolutionary science were the grounds of\na genial optimism that nothing could shake. If they had lost something\nof the jauntiness of the transcendental faith that beheld God plowing\nfurrows at Brook Farm, they were armed with a scientific faith that\nby tapping stones and comparing fishes they should find His plan in\nan evolving series of life forms. Browning\u2019s Fra Lippo was a good\nSpencerian in his vigorous pronouncement:\n\n This world\u2019s no blot for us,\n Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:\n To find its meaning is my meat and drink.\n\nThat progress was the law of the universe was held to be axiomatic\nby the new evolutionary school, and the American read in the new\nphilosophy an added confirmation of a prepossession common to all\nAmericans since Franklin and Jefferson, and become the common faith\nafter the War of 1812. In sober minds it led to a complete reshaping\nof the outlook upon life, and in unbalanced minds it ran riot in all\nsorts of blowsy enthusiasms. Freedom, love, benevolence, progress\ntowards a millennial perfection--these were the clarion notes in a huge\nsymphony in praise of human perfectibility that assaulted American\nears in the Gilded Age. Not Henry Ward Beecher alone was the prophet\nof the new day. In the early seventies Mrs. Victoria Woodhull, one of\nthe minor prophetesses, established a paper dedicated to the high end\nof \u201cthe Universal Religion of the Future ... the Universal Home ...\nthe Universal Science, called Universology, based on the discovery and\ndemonstration of Universal Laws ... and an accompanying Philosophy of\nIntegralism\u201d--the \u201corgan of the most advanced thought and Purpose in\nthe World ... the Organ of Cardinary News ... News of the Aspiration\nand Progression of Mankind toward Millennial Perfection.\u201d[692] By\ncontrast with such rhythmic enthusiasms the familiar lines of Tennyson\nare sober prose.\n\n Yet I doubt not thro\u2019 the ages one increasing purpose runs,\n And the thoughts of men are widen\u2019d with the process of the suns.\n\nHow logically to young intellectuals of the seventies it all followed\nfrom the premises! If man is a rational being, potentially excellent\nand capable of indefinite development, the idea of a humane and\nrational progress in civilization is an inevitable deduction; and the\nevolutionist above all men was certain to build into his philosophy\nthe cardinal idea of a unified progress, but given a cosmic sweep,\naccepted as the master principle in all fields of the material and the\nspiritual. It was the law of life, as the static was the law of death.\nNo thinker who had grasped the idea of organic growth, could escape\nits larger implications; and no student in the seventies could think\nseriously without coming upon it.\n\n\n3 \u2022 The End of the Hopes of the Enlightenment\n\nThen a film of haze slowly gathered upon the face of the brilliant\nsun and the light of men\u2019s hopes grew dimmer. As physics encroached\nupon the interest in biology, and leadership in speculation based\non scientific findings passed from Spencer to Ernst Haeckel, young\nAmericans of the next generation found the membership of the current\nphilosophical trinity changed for them, and instead of unity, growth,\npurpose, they discovered unity, flux, chance. Purpose had disappeared\nfrom the grim face of the material universe, and they found themselves\nin the coils of a determinism that was more likely to prove malignant\nthan benevolent. The idea of progress slipped quietly from their\nminds, and in its stead was only a meaningless and purposeless flux\nof things. But unity remained to bind the individual upon the whole\nand dwarf him to a pin-point in a vast macrocosm. The intellectual\nhistory of the last quarter of the nineteenth century--in America as\nwell as elsewhere--in its teleological aspects is the history of the\nshift from the benevolent evolutionism of Spencer to the mechanistic\nmaterialism of Haeckel, with all the dislocations and readjustments\ninvolved in the cataclysmic change; and _The Education of Henry Adams_,\nthat curiously suggestive study in disillusion, is saturated with the\npessimism that followed upon the transition--a pessimism exuding from\nthe contemplation of the bleak unity of a mechanistic universe. Of the\nearlier period before hope was gone, he wrote thus:\n\n For the young men whose lives were cast in the generation between\n 1867 and 1900, Law should be Evolution from lower to higher,\n aggregation of the atom in the mass, concentration of multiplicity\n in unity, compulsion of anarchy in order; and he would force\n himself to follow wherever it led, though he should sacrifice five\n thousand millions more in money, and a million more lives.[693]\n\nWas there purpose in it all? To this Adams and the younger men more and\nmore declined to make answer. Yet this much is clear, for them the end\nof the theological age had come, and the end also of the great hopes of\nthe Enlightenment. The idea of progress was given over henceforth to\nthe middle class to become the plaything of material expansion.\n\n\nII \u2022 The School of Spencer--John Fiske\n\nOf the distinguished group that labored to naturalize in America\nthe philosophy of evolution John Fiske was the most authoritative\nspokesman. As a brilliant popularizer of the Synthetic Philosophy, and\nan historian who applied the Comtean law of continuity to the American\npast, he brought to the Gilded Age the revolutionary influence of\nEnglish and French thought. Deeply immersed in Victorian speculation,\nhe threw over his acquisitions the genial mood of his generation and\ninfused the doctrines of evolutionary science with the spirit of\nreligion. He reveled in the cosmic philosophy of Herbert Spencer, but\nwithin the material cosmos the scientists were revealing, controlling\nits eternal flux, he perceived a directing will that was shaping man\u2019s\ndestiny to noble ends. New England scholarship had served God for too\nmany generations to put aside its teleological prepossessions, and John\nFiske was too completely New England to deny his spiritual obligations.\nThe duty laid upon his conscience was plain. It was not enough to lay\nopen to the New England mind the wealth of evolutionary science; he\nmust justify its conclusions by binding them back upon the old faith\nand discover God revealed in biology as before he had been revealed in\nthe Bible. And so in the heyday of Spencerian influence, before the\nbleak conception of a mechanistic universe had risen upon the horizon\nof men\u2019s thought to disperse the genial glow of optimism, this learned\nson of Connecticut was the prophet in America of the new order of\nthought.\n\nJohn Fiske was a brilliant Yankee with a voracious appetite for ideas\nand a passion for cosmic syntheses. In certain respects he was the most\nrichly endowed of the young students of his generation of Americans.\nIntellectually curious and acquisitive, he refused to be confined\nby orthodox fences but ranged far in pursuit of knowledge. The pale\nnegations of the current New England theology, on which he had fed in\nhis youth, soon lost their savor, and following his natural impulses he\nsought out the strongest food available. While still in his teens he\nhad absorbed Emerson, Theodore Parker, and other New England radicals,\nand was reaching out for an ampler diet. That was in the late fifties,\nwhen a new cosmos was taking shape in men\u2019s minds and old faiths were\ndisintegrating. The several rivulets of science--geology, zo\u00f6logy,\nchemistry, physics--that hitherto had followed diverse and vagrant\ncourses, were slowly converging and making ready to mingle their waters\nin a vast common stream. Some further dredging needed to be done first,\nand on that great job Darwin had long been patiently engaged. It was\na time of high hopes and young John Fiske, about to enter Harvard\nCollege, was not one to miss the significance of so great an awakening.\n\nAmidst his quiet Connecticut lanes he had already been making his own\ndiscoveries. Although he had early gone through a form of conversion\nto dogmatic Calvinism he had not long been content with its arid\nprovender, but turned to the English disciples of Positivism--George\nHenry Lewes, Buckle, Mill--and was absorbing Comte with the help\nof Voltaire and Goethe. In June, 1860, two months before taking\nhis examinations for advanced standing at Harvard, he came upon a\nprospectus of Herbert Spencer\u2019s proposed system of philosophy, and this\nboy of eighteen was one of the first dozen Americans to subscribe to\nthe undertaking. It was a golden day in his life, that was to determine\nhis whole intellectual development. He became a devoted disciple of\nSpencer, dedicating his labors to the great cause of evolution. To that\nend he felt called to study prodigiously. As a Harvard undergraduate\nhe found it difficult to treat his conventional instructors with\ndue respect, for while his classmates were struggling with Greek\nroots he was exploring the whole field of philology and rioting in\nComtean sociology. Instead of exhausting his energies with the usual\nundergraduate themes, he wrote in his junior year, at the age of\nnineteen, a critical examination of _Buckle\u2019s History of Civilization_\nfor the _National Quarterly Review_; and while preparing for his final\nexaminations he wrote a learned article on \u201cThe Evolution of Language\u201d\nthat was accepted by _The North American Review_.\n\nSuch intellectual precocity, suggesting to timid souls a lack of\nrespect for orthodox opinions, was not without its dangers. From\nhis first entrance to Harvard he was marked by certain tutors as a\ndangerous influence. Positivism and evolution were in ill repute in\nthe college circles, and he was eventually summoned before the faculty\nand admonished for undermining the faith of Harvard undergraduates.\nOutside the college he was becoming known as the \u201cyoung atheist of\nCambridge.\u201d The reasons for such a reputation were quite sufficient\nto Unitarian dogmatists who had forgotten the cardinal principle of\nUnitarianism--the principle of devout free thought--for young John\nFiske had already gathered a huge pile of combustible materials that\nthreatened the established orthodoxy. Before entering Harvard he had\nplanned to write a history of early Christianity, but his interest in\nscience drew him into other fields--the new sociological interpretation\nof history that he discovered in Grote\u2019s _History of Greece_, and\nthe broad field of scientific speculation that opened to him in\nHumboldt\u2019s _Cosmos_. To this latter field he turned greedily, reading\namongst other works Cuvier\u2019s _R\u00e8gne Animal distribu\u00e9 d\u2019apr\u00e8s son\nOrganisation_, Herschel\u2019s _Outlines of Astronomy_, Laplace\u2019s _Syst\u00e8me\ndu Monde_, Agassiz\u2019s _Zo\u00f6logy_ and his _Essay on the Classification\nof the Animal Kingdom_ (1857), and with the joy of a great discovery\nDarwin\u2019s _Origin of Species_ (1859). From Agassiz\u2019s defense of special\ncreation he dissented vigorously, and this dissent prepared him for an\nenthusiastic reception of Darwin\u2019s careful exposition. Certainly no\nother young student in America followed so closely or so intelligently\nthe unfolding of the English school of evolutionary thought. In solid\nacquisition and in intellectual curiosity he was far in advance of\nHenry Adams, then a young diplomat in London.\n\nUpon his graduation in 1863 he determined upon the law, read through\nthe two-year course of the Harvard Law School in nine months, was\nadmitted to the bar, waited two years for clients who never came, threw\nit over, and turned to his first love, the life of the scholar. He had\nhis eye on a chair at Harvard, but so long as the old orthodox _r\u00e9gime_\nlasted no opening offered there. In the first year of President Eliot\u2019s\nadministration (1869) an opportunity was provided and he was invited to\ngive a course of lectures in Holden Chapel on the Positive Philosophy.\nThe opposition was still too strong to permit the offer he sought--a\nchair in history--but he was eventually given a place as Assistant\nLibrarian, where he spent five years amongst the books of Gore Hall.\nDriven to other means of support he turned to lecturing, was received\nwith immense applause in London, and thereafter to the end of his\nlife he suffered much of his vast energy to drain off into that most\nfruitless of jobs for a creative mind. A certain genial egoism was to\nblame for his playing willingly the r\u00f4le of lackey to women\u2019s clubs. He\nliked to talk to sympathetic audiences, and he was greatly effective\non the platform. The inevitable result was that he fell short in\naccomplishment of the fine promise of his early years. His style became\ndiffuse, his materials picturesque rather than solid, his thinking\nflabby. Pretty much all his significant work was done before he was\nforty.\n\nThe greater part of Fiske\u2019s intellectual life, despite his later\nincursions into certain waste places of history, was dedicated to the\nindoctrination of the American people in the principle of evolution\nas that principle was outlined in Spencer\u2019s _Synthetic Philosophy_.\nHe was a man of one idea, but that idea was so vast and germinal,\nso comprehensive in its implications and so constructive in its\nsuggestions, as to set afoot the greatest intellectual revolution in\nwestern civilization. He called himself a philosopher, but he meant by\nthe term not a metaphysician, but a cosmic historian whose business\nwas to interpret the universe in the light of the great laws that\nscience was revealing. By 1860 science had revealed three such general\nlaws: the law of gravitation, the law of biological variation and the\nsurvival of the fittest, and the law of the conservation of energy; and\nfrom them Spencer had deduced the principle of a unitary cosmos, with\na common force sustaining both the organic and the inorganic, working\nto a single \u201cfar-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves.\u201d\nAn intimate friend of Fiske\u2019s, and an ardent Spencerian, puts the\nintellectual situation in these terms:\n\n The conceptions of the Universe generally held at the time when\n Fiske was in college were fragmentary and chaotic, each phenomenon\n or each group of phenomena being, like language, a special\n creation of an anthropomorphic God, turning out different jobs\n piecemeal like a man. The conception of one power behind all had\n been a dream of not a few philosophers and poets, but as a fact\n comprehensible by the average mind, it was not known until the\n discovery about 1860 of the Conservation of Force. About the same\n time was discovered the unity of all organic life, in its descent\n from protoplasm, and the identity of its forces with those of the\n inorganic universe. The nebular cosmogony, the persistence of\n force and the biologic genesis, united together, showed the power\n evolving, sustaining and carrying on the entire universe known to\n us, to be _one_, and constantly acting in one unified process;\n and that every detail--from the most minute known to the chemist,\n physicist and biologist, up to the greatest known to the geologist\n and astronomer, and including all known to the psychologist,\n economist, and historian--was caused by a previous detail. It\n having been established that the same causes always produced the\n same results, these uniformities were recognized as Laws, and it\n was also recognized that conduct in conformity with these laws\n produced good, and conduct counter to them produced evil....\n\n These great discoveries were at once grasped by Fiske\u2019s great\n intelligence, and welcomed with enthusiasm. To their dissemination\n he mainly devoted his next twenty years, and to their illustration\n in the origins and foundation of our national commonwealth, the\n rest of his career.[694]\n\nWhile still at Harvard, as a result of the publication of his two\nundergraduate essays already referred to, he was sought out by Edward\nL. Youmans and urged to join with him in spreading the new evolutionary\nphilosophy.[695] Youmans was an ardent proselytizer who had volunteered\nfor the job of instructing the American people in the meaning of\nscience. He attached himself to Spencer as spokesman and publicity\nagent, and was on the lookout for helpers. Encouraged thus by Youmans,\nFiske threw himself impetuously into the work of furthering the new\nphilosophy of evolution. As the task unfolded before his maturing mind\nit came to involve three major problems: to dissociate in the popular\nmind the potential theism of Spencer\u2019s _First Principles_ from the\nmaterialism of Comte\u2019s Positivism, with which it was widely confused;\nto elaborate the teleological implications of evolution and demonstrate\nthat the grand objective of all natural processes was \u201cthe production\nof happiness, and that, despite occasional lapses, all records of them\nprove that, on the whole, they tend not only to produce happiness, but\nto increase it\u201d;[696] and finally to apply the principles of the cosmic\nphilosophy to historical writing and reveal how the law of evolution\ndetermines the forms of social institutions--to do more adequately in\nthe field of American history what Buckle had tried to do in a larger\nfield without the aid of evolution.\n\nIn all his intellectual interests and attitudes Fiske was a complete\nNew England Victorian, but scarcely a British Victorian. In his\nerection of the doctrine of progress into a cosmic law, and in his\nresultant optimism, he was at one with Spencer and the English group.\nBut he was a son of New England before he was an evolutionist, and\nalthough he had broken with the grotesque, anthropomorphic dogmas of\nCalvinism, he remained profoundly religious, and like Henry Drummond\nhe sought to transfuse science with spiritual qualities. He was\neffectively a Unitarian, the leader of the Cambridge intellectuals who\nwere carrying on the work that Theodore Parker would have done had\nhe lived twenty years longer--the work of bridging the chasm between\nscience and religion. To that end his vast concern with teleology--that\nGod is the great wellspring out of which flows the unfolding cosmos,\nand that the unfolding is guided and controlled to beneficent ends.\nNatural law, working in a realm of causation, and shaping matter to\nforms more and more complex, to John Fiske was no other than the\nbeneficent purpose known to theology as Divine Providence.\n\nPretty much all that he had to say on the question is contained in\nthe four volumes of _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_, published when\nhe was only thirty-two. Written with great enthusiasm and complete\nconfidence, it was an attempt to summarize and restate the conception\nof cosmic evolution as Spencer had defined it in _First Principles_,\nand partly elaborated it in his _Biology_ and _Psychology_. It\nwas a timely presentation, and with its lucid exposition of the\nevidence drawn from the several fields of science it furthered the\nspread of the evolutionary philosophy. But it sought to do more.\nNot content with arraying in due order the scientific proofs of a\nvast unitary cosmos--as Spencer had done--Fiske essayed the r\u00f4le of\napologist and supplemented the facts of science with ontological and\nteleological speculations. Whereas Spencer had remained agnostic,\nrefusing to speculate on the unknowable, and clearly implying a\ndeterministic cosmos, Fiske took high theistic ground, asserting\nthat evolution implies the existence of a creative mind, vaster than\nthe anthropomorphic conceptions of theology and far nobler, whose\ncosmic plan unfolding in the material universe compels a belief in\na benevolent God, and a belief also in the \u201ceternal source of a\nmoral law which is implicated with each action of our lives, and in\nobedience to which lies our only guarantee of the happiness which is\nincorruptible.\u201d And this \u201ceternal Power, not ourselves, that makes\nfor righteousness\u201d--to use Arnold\u2019s phrase which Fiske was fond of\nquoting--is making also for altruism and the spirit of love that lies\nat the heart of Christianity; for is not the prolongation of infancy\nwith its demands on altruism--a principle that was Fiske\u2019s contribution\nto evolution, of which he was justly proud--a master biological device\nfor individual variation? In consequence the evolutionist becomes not\nonly a theist, but a Christian in the truest meaning of the term. The\nfatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man--to which New England\nUnitarianism had come to restrict its dogmas--are in reality \u201ctwo great\ninterrelated cosmic truths--the existence of righteousness as an active\nprinciple in the Infinite Power or Reality back of the cosmos, and its\ncorrelative manifestation in the altruistic consciousness of man.\u201d[697]\n\nSuch speculation concerning the unknowable exercised an increasing\nfascination for Fiske as his deeply religious nature slowly colored\nthe acquisitions of the scientist, and in a succession of tracts--_The\nDestiny of Man_ (1884), _The Idea of God_ (1885), _Through Nature to\nGod_ (1899), and _Life Everlasting_ (1900)--he definitely rejected\nthe negative attitude of agnosticism that was a common mark of the\nEnglish evolutionary school, and turned to outline the religious faith\nof an evolutionist. George Eliot\u2019s dictum that God is unknowable and\nimmortality is unthinkable, was too thin a diet for his robust nature;\ninstead he elaborated the argument that faith in God and immortality\nis reasonable in the light of the evolving cosmos that science was\nrevealing. To John Fiske that cosmos was not bleak and impersonal,\na vast congeries of physical forces that reduced man to the status\nof a flea on the epidermis of earth, but the expression rather of a\nbenevolent will unfolding in accordance with a divine purpose. \u201cThe\nprocess of evolution is itself the working out of a mighty Teleology,\nof which our finite understandings can fathom but the scantiest\nrudiments.\u201d To Henry Holt this recovery of teleology was Fiske\u2019s great\ncontribution to evolutionary thought.\n\n He did more just there than any modern philosopher, perhaps than\n any philosopher, to show that this teleology is beneficent, and to\n restore in this way the attitude of mind which it may not yet be\n too late to call Faith in God and Immortality.[698]\n\nNo doubt it was due to such emphasis on the theistic implications of\nevolution that the doctrine was so quickly accepted in New England\namongst the Unitarians and liberals; but for Fiske it marked the end of\nhis intellectual leadership. After the battle had been won he turned\naway to engage in less fruitful activities, no longer followed keenly\nthe new discoveries of science, and finally set himself to write the\nhistory of America. The venture on the whole was not fortunate. In\nhis attempt to reinterpret the American past he suffered from grave\nhandicaps, an inadequate knowledge and an inadequate philosophy. He was\nled into the field of history by his interest in the English school\nof Grote and Maine and Stubbs and Freeman, and his ultimate purpose\nwas to present \u201cthe drama of American civilization, of which the\npolitical organization of the United States was the crowning feature,\nas an evolutionary development from antecedent causes and of great\nsignificance to the future civilization of the world.\u201d[699] But for\nthis undertaking he was inadequately equipped and his conscious search\nfor a Comtean continuity in social growth did him a real disservice.\nThe economics of historical change he seems never to have considered,\nand his analyses of social forces are never acute or penetrating.\nAlthough he attempted to apply sociological evolution to history he\nwas really little more than a political and military historian with\na special fondness for wars and the details of battle strategy. In\nhis first venture, _American Political Ideas_--written for his London\nlectures of 1880--he simplified American political development to two\ngerminal ideas--the town meeting and the principle of federation, and\nthese two conceptions he traces back to the Teutonic folkmote and the\nTeutonic principle of shire representation. The theme with which he\ndeals is thus stated in the preface:\n\n The government of the United States is not the result of special\n creation, but of evolution. As the town-meetings of New England\n are lineally descended from the village assemblies of the early\n Aryans; as our huge federal union was long ago foreshadowed in the\n little leagues of Greek cities and Swiss cantons; so the great\n political problem which we are (thus far successfully) solving is\n the very same problem upon which all civilized peoples have been\n working ever since civilization began. How to insure peaceful\n concerted action throughout the Whole, without infringing upon\n local and individual freedom in the Parts,--this has ever been the\n chief aim of civilization, viewed on its political side; and we\n rate the failure or success of nations politically according to\n their failure or success in attaining this supreme end. When thus\n considered in the light of the comparative method our American\n history acquires added dignity and interest, and a broad and\n rational basis is secured for the detailed treatment of political\n questions.[700]\n\nOnly a New England historian could write so na\u00efvely as that, for only\nto a New Englander does the town meeting become a germinal source of\nAmerican democracy. Not a great historian, Fiske ceased to be in his\nwandering later years a great intellectual influence. The rare promise\nof his young manhood he never fulfilled, but like his generation he\nsuffered his energies to be dissipated and he ended in a somewhat\nblowsy optimism. To Henry Holt he was a very great and learned man, but\nto a later generation it is difficult to make out his vast stature.\nNevertheless as a purveyor of Victorian science to the American people\nhe did a useful and important work.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[682] The French title is, _Esquisse d\u2019un tableau historique des\nprogr\u00e8s de l\u2019esprit humain_. See _\u0152uvres_, Vol. VI, Paris, 1847.\n\n[683] _\u0152uvres_, Vol. VI, p. 11, Paris, 1847.\n\n[684] _Ibid._, p. 176.\n\n[685] _Ibid._, Vol. VI, pp. 194-195.\n\n[686] _Ibid._, _Dixi\u00e8me \u00c9poque_, pp. 236-237.\n\n[687] _American Thought_, p. 172, New York, 1915.\n\n[688] Woodbridge Riley, _American Thought_, Chapter XI.\n\n[689] _Ibid._, p. 401.\n\n[690] For a brief exposition of Spencer\u2019s major ideas see, William\nHenry Hudson, \u201cHerbert Spencer,\u201d in _Philosophies Ancient and Modern_,\nLondon, 1908.\n\n[691] William Archibald Dunning, _A History of Political Theories from\nRousseau to Spencer_, New York, 1920, p. 400.\n\n[692] Quoted in Constance Mayfield Rourke, _Trumpets of Jubilee_, p.\n201.\n\n[693] _The Education of Henry Adams_, p. 232.\n\n[694] Henry Holt, _Garrulities of an Octogenarian Editor, with Other\nEssays somewhat Biographical and Autobiographical_, Boston, 1923, pp.\n327-328.\n\n[695] See John Spencer Clark, _Life and Letters of John Fiske_, Vol. 1,\npp. 273-278.\n\n[696] Henry Holt, _op. cit._, p. 328.\n\n[697] John Spencer Clark, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 50.\n\n[698] Henry Holt, _op. cit._, p. 339.\n\n[699] John Spencer Clark, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 456.\n\n[700] John Fiske, _American Political Ideas_, Preface, pp. 4-5.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Skepticism of the House of Adams\n\n\nIn the welter of change that resulted from the revolutionary\ntransitions of the Gilded Age, one man at least stood apart, skeptical\nabout the worth of the current revolutions, unconvinced that all the\nhurly-burly meant a rational progress. To Henry Adams skepticism\nearly became a habit. Doubt persistently dogged his footsteps and the\nmore critically he examined the ways of his generation of Americans,\nthe more certain it seemed to him that any were unworthy the name of\ncivilization. He was not at home in the new world of the Gilded Age;\nand as he watched the disintegrations of the older New England in which\nhe had been brought up, an incurable nostalgia seized upon him and he\nset about seeking another home where he might live the good life he had\nnot lived heretofore. The America of the Gilded Age was alien to him;\nits gods were not his gods, nor its ends his ends. And so began for him\na long pilgrimage of the spirit that was to carry him far and return\nhim at last with no solider gains than a handful of curious relics in\nhis pilgrim\u2019s scrip.\n\nThe sturdy New England character, with its self-sufficing individualism\nand granite integrity, never came to finer flower than in the\nBraintree-Quincy house of Adams. Intellectually curious, given to\nrationalism, retaining much of the eighteenth-century solidity of\nintellect and honest realism, refusing to barter principle for the good\nwill of men, the Adams line produced no more characteristic offshoots\nthan came in the fourth generation. In Charles Francis Adams, Jr.,\nHenry Adams, and Brooks Adams, the family virtues of independence,\nintellectual integrity, and disinterested criticism, found abundant\nexpression. All three were children of an earlier century, endowed with\nthe solidest Yankee-Puritan qualities of mind and heart, unyielding\nas the rock ledges of their native fields; and they found the\nexperience of living in the late nineteenth century, of adjusting their\neighteenth-century minds to the demands of a sordid capitalistic order,\na difficult business. Though they tried to bridge the chasm between\nthe two worlds, though they honestly sought some working compromise\nthat would suffer them to share in the work of their generation, they\nmet with failure. It was not possible for the House of Adams, with its\nold-fashioned rectitude, to accept the ways of the Gilded Age, and in\nthe end they turned aside from the main-traveled road to follow their\nown paths.\n\n\nI \u2022 Charles Francis Adams--The Business Failure\n\nOf the three Charles Francis Adams most nearly succeeded in his\nexperiment of a _rapprochement_ with capitalism, with the result that\nhis life came nearest to shipwreck. Perhaps there was less of the Adams\ngranite in his character. He refused to turn rebel but consciously\nsought to win the prizes offered by his generation, training himself\nto serve financial interests, making overtures to business, and\nachieving a very considerable financial success. Yet nothing was more\nincongruous than an Adams serving as lackey to State Street, and when\nafter abundant experience he came finally to realize it he turned away\nto pick up the scattered threads of a life largely wasted. For years\nhe had suffered from a long maladjustment. When he quitted the army\nat the close of the war with the brevet rank of brigadier-general, he\nfound himself adrift. The world of his youth was gone and the future\nseemed drab and unpromising. Intellectually he was caught between\ntides. The traditional idealisms had burnt out in the bitter struggle,\nand in the sterile post-war years his Puritan nature found no adequate\nnourishment. The crusading ardor was gone, and the new world of science\nhad not yet risen on the horizon of young men who had given their youth\nto the army. In 1865 he came upon John Stuart Mill\u2019s essay on Auguste\nComte, which he said revolutionized his whole mental attitude--\u201cI\nemerged from the theological stage, in which I had been nurtured, and\npassed into the scientific.... From reading that compact little volume\nof Mill\u2019s ... I date a changed intellectual and moral life.\u201d Yet from\nthis accidental foray into Victorian rationalism he got little more\nthan a sense of release from a dead Puritanism. Creative intellectual\nenthusiasms were not to be his portion.\n\nDisillusioned with the law, over which he had been pottering, and\nwanting to ally himself with the dominant forces of his generation, he\n\u201cfixed on the railroad system as the most developing force and largest\nfield of the day.\u201d He delved into the history of certain railways and\nestablished a reputation as a student of transportation. For upwards of\na quarter century--from 1866 to 1890--as a member of different public\ncommissions and finally as president of the Union Pacific system--Jay\nGould\u2019s road--he devoted his best energy to the work, only to be\ndisillusioned in the end. In 1912 he wrote this confession:\n\n Indeed, as I approach the end, I am more than a little\n puzzled to account for the instances I have seen of business\n success--money-getting. It comes from a rather low instinct.\n Certainly, as far as my observation goes, it is rarely met with in\n combination with the finer or more interesting traits of character.\n I have known, and known tolerably well, a good many \u201csuccessful\u201d\n men--\u201cbig\u201d financially--men famous during the last half-century;\n and a less interesting crowd I do not care to encounter. Not one\n that I have ever known would I care to meet again, either in\n this world or the next; nor is one of them associated in my mind\n with the idea of humor, thought, or refinement. A set of mere\n money-getters and traders, they were essentially unattractive and\n uninteresting.... In the course of my railroad experiences I made\n no friends, apart from those in the Boston direction; nor among\n those I met was there any man whose acquaintance I valued. They\n were a coarse, realistic, bargaining crowd.[701]\n\nYet not till he had reached his late fifties did he finally cut the\nties that held him to the \u201cbargaining crowd,\u201d and turn to the business\nof salvaging the remnant of his days. He gave himself over with zest to\nthe writing of Massachusetts history, but it was then too late to do\nnotable work. He had laid too many offerings on an altar he had come to\nloathe. Not a lifelong student like Henry, he had been unable to gather\ngreat stores of knowledge. Not a militant rebel like Brooks, he had\nnever been given to searching inquiries into the laws of civilization.\nAnd so when he found himself free at last, he set himself to the\nbusiness of local chronicles. That was better than nothing; it was the\none thing in his life he took solid pride in; the work was honestly and\ncapably done; but it was small savings from a lifetime of conscientious\nwork. His venture into the realm of business had been a disaster.\n\n\nII \u2022 Henry Adams--Intellectual\n\nFrom a similar disaster Henry Adams was saved by an early\ndisillusionment. His efforts at _rapprochement_ were little more than a\ngesture. While casting about after the war for a promising opening for\na career he hit upon finance as a likely field and published a number\nof essays that drew attention to him. But it was quite impossible\nfor him to go forward along such lines. He was too completely the\nintellectual, too aloof from his generation in spirit and will, to ally\nhimself with the economic masters of the Gilded Age. Sooner or later\nhe would go his own way, and luckily good fortune took the matter in\nhand promptly. No suitable opportunity offering, he was dragooned by\nfamily and friends into an assistant-professorship at Harvard, where\nhe spent seven years trying to explain to himself and his students\nthe meaning of the Middle Ages. Those years were his introduction to\nhistory. The passion of the student was in his blood, and he turned\nwith zest to brood over the scanty records of past generations, seeking\na clue to the meaning of man\u2019s pilgrimage on earth, trying to arrange\nthe meaningless fragments in some sort of rational pattern, in the hope\nof discovering an underlying unity in what seemed on the face only a\nmeaningless welter of complexity and irrationality. A rationalist, he\nfollowed his intellect in an eager quest for the law of historical\nevolution, and he ended fifty years later in mysticism. It was a\nnatural outcome for a lifetime of rationalizing--a compensation for the\nmordant dissatisfactions that issued from the restless play of mind.\n\nDissatisfied with his labors he quitted the Harvard post in 1879 and\nthereafter made his home at Washington in the atmosphere of politics.\nFrom the Middle Ages he turned to the American past and set out to\nexplore the period during which the first Adams had played his part.\nHe could not deal with narrow parochial themes; he would not fall\ninto the \u201csink of history--antiquarianism,\u201d that satisfied Charles\nFrancis Adams. From the beginnings of his intellectual life he had\nbeen concerned with the ideas and ideals that presumably lie behind\nperiods and civilizations; so he went back to what he regarded as the\ngreat age of American political history, to inquire into the meaning\nof the struggle between Federalism and Jeffersonianism for control of\nthe venture in republicanism. But finding little satisfaction there, as\nhe had earlier found none in Victorian England, where he had studied\nclosely contemporary English statesmen--Palmerston and Lord Russell and\nGladstone--only to convince himself that they were bankrupt of ideas\nand morality, and had nothing to teach concerning the good life, he\nabandoned the field, threw over his familiar studies, and set about the\ngreat business of re\u00ebducating himself.\n\nFrom his long studies in the American past one significant thing\nhad emerged--he had come to understand the source of certain of his\ndissatisfactions with current American ideals that set him apart\nfrom his fellows. He had gone back to his own origins and had traced\nthe rise of the defiant Adams prejudices that were as strong in the\nfourth generation as they had been in the first. The Adams family was\neighteenth-century--Henry Adams had come to understand--and he himself\nin mind and education and prejudices, was of that earlier time. He\nwas a child of Quincy rather than Boston--a simple world with simple\nvirtues that capitalism and industrialism were destroying in the name\nof progress. From such village loyalties he could not rid himself.\nPerhaps in reason he should not have preferred that earlier homespun\nworld; but affection does not heed logic, and as Henry Adams traced the\ndecline of Quincy to Hamilton\u2019s financial policy that started the new\ncapitalism on its triumphant career, he was filled with bitterness.\nIt was a vulgar order that was rising and an evil day. Since 1865 the\nbankers had ruled America, and they were coming finally to cajole\nthe American people into accepting their vulgar ideals and putting\ntheir trust in a bankers\u2019 paradise. As he watched the temples of the\nnew society rising everywhere in the land, his gorge rose at the\nprospect. He had no wish to dwell in a bankers\u2019 paradise. Dislike of\na capitalistic society was in his blood. From father to son all the\nAdamses had distrusted capitalism and hated State Street. The \u201conly\ndistinctive mark of all the Adamses,\u201d he said late in life, \u201csince old\nSam Adams\u2019s father a hundred and fifty years before, had been their\ninherited quarrel with State Street, which had again and again broken\nout into riot, bloodshed, personal feuds, foreign and civil war,\nwholesale banishments and confiscations, until the history of Florence\nwas hardly more turbulent than that of Boston.\u201d[702]\n\nAnd so when at the climax of the capitalistic revolution he watched\nthe change going on noisily all about him, when the transition to\nthe bankers\u2019 paradise was called progress and capitalistic feudalism\nwas hailed as the advent of Utopia, he seemed to himself a somewhat\npathetic anachronism. Shades of the prison house were falling about\nhim. \u201cHe had hugged his antiquated dislike of bankers and capitalistic\nsociety,\u201d he said bitterly, \u201cuntil he had become little better than a\ncrank.\u201d\n\n He had known for years that he must accept the r\u00e9gime, but he\n had known a great many other disagreeable certainties--like age,\n senility, and death--against which one made what little resistance\n one could.... For a hundred years, between 1793 and 1893, the\n American people had hesitated, vacillated, swayed forward and back,\n between two forces, one simply industrial, the other capitalistic,\n centralizing, and mechanical. In 1893, the issue came on the single\n gold standard, and the majority at last declared itself, once for\n all, in favor of the capitalistic system with all its necessary\n machinery. All one\u2019s friends, all one\u2019s best citizens, reformers,\n churches, colleges, educated classes, had joined the banks to force\n submission to capitalism; a submission long foreseen by the mere\n law of mass. Of all forms of society or government, this was the\n one he liked least, but his likes and dislikes were as antiquated\n as the rebel doctrine of State rights. A capitalistic system had\n been adopted, and if it were to be run at all, it must be run by\n capital and by capitalistic methods.[703]\n\nBut while he clung tenaciously to his obsolete prejudices in favor of\nan earlier century, the pugnacious realism of that century was oozing\nout of him. The middle years of his life, between the acceptance of the\nHarvard post in 1870 and the final break with Victorianism in 1892,\nwere intellectually an unhappy period. He was losing his grasp on\nrealities and becoming narrowly and exclusively political-minded. It\nwas not good for him to live daily in the presence of politics. In so\n\u201cfar as he had a function in life,\u201d he said of the Henry Adams of 1877.\n\u201cit was as stable-companion to statesmen, whether they liked it or\nnot.\u201d[704] The term \u201cstatesmen\u201d was of course only a polite euphemism\nfor the breed of politicians who played their sordid game under his\ncritical eyes. He was rarely under any illusions in regard to them\nexcept when blinded by friendship. Certainly his etchings of Grant and\nBlaine and Sherman and Conkling and other servants of democracy were\ndone with acid.\n\nYet in all his penetrating comment on men and measures there is a\ncurious failure to take into account the economic springs of action. He\nhad let slip the clue old John Adams had followed so tenaciously. An\nacute historian, not thus wanting, would never have traced the triumph\nof the gold standard to the \u201cmere law of mass,\u201d would never have\nsubstituted a physical determinism for an economic, would never have\nconfused the principle of mass with a minority. How far an intelligent\nman and a competent historian could go astray in his criticism of\ncurrent ways is suggested by the curious novel _Democracy_, that he\nwrote in 1880 while living in the daily companionship of John Hay and\nClarence King. In dealing with the phenomena of political corruption\nhe had none of the acuteness of old John Taylor of Carolina, who would\nhave put his finger unerringly on the cause, or of the first Adams. If\nhe had written _Democracy_ after he had studied the funding operations\nof the Federalists under Hamilton\u2019s leadership, very likely he would\nhave dealt with the problem more searchingly; but in 1880 Henry Adams\nrevealed no more critical intelligence than did Godkin or Lowell or\nother critics of the Gilded Age.\n\nThe historical work done during those middle years at Washington\nwas abundant and excellent, marked by rigorous use of sources, a\ndispassionate attitude towards partisan issues, and excellent form.\nIt was easy for an Adams to take middle ground between Jefferson and\nHamilton, however much his sympathies inclined to the former. In\nall this work, however, in the _Life of Albert Gallatin_ (1879), in\n_John Randolph_ (1882), as well as in the nine-volume _History of the\nUnited States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison_\n(1889-1891), the point of view remains too narrowly political, with the\nresult that it fails to thrust into adequate relief the economics of\nthe great struggle between agrarianism and capitalism; and without that\nclue the interpretation is wanting in substantial realism.\n\nBy 1891 he was convinced that he had got all he could from the curdled\nmilk of politics, and he became dissatisfied with his work. There can\nbe little doubt that it was a growing realization of the inadequacy\nof his analysis of social forces that determined him to abandon the\nfield he had tilled so long and set about the business of re\u00ebducating\nhimself. If _Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_ and _The Education_ tell\nanything about Henry Adams they reveal that his dissatisfactions\nwelled up from deep springs within himself--from the consciousness\nof his failure to penetrate beneath the surface, to probe the hidden\nforces that move the puppets on the historical stage. He had long\nbeen seeking an adequate philosophy of history--for a unity behind\nthe multiplicity--and in these early years of the nineties he was\nstimulated by Brooks Adams, who was then deep in his theory of the law\nof civilization and decay and had come to lean heavily on the principle\nof economic determinism.[705] \u201cBrooks Adams had taught him,\u201d he said\nlater, \u201cthat the relation between civilizations was that of trade,\u201d and\nstimulated by this rediscovery of the philosophy of the first Adams he\nset about the business of orienting himself to the realm of science,\nof substituting for a meaningless political interpretation a broader\nphilosophical interpretation.\n\nVery likely it was his reading in the sociology of the Enlightenment\nthat first turned his thought to the philosophy of history--chiefly\nTurgot and Comte. Speaking of the years 1867-1868 he said he \u201cbecame\na Comteist, within the limits of evolution.\u201d[706] He had long been\ninterested in such clues as science offered--in the geological theories\nof Sir Charles Lyell and the biological deductions of Darwin. But the\ntheory of biological evolution with its implications of a benevolent\nprogress from the simple to the complex, failed to satisfy him; and\nhe turned to the physical sciences for a guide, discovering as the\nultimate reality behind all appearances--force. This physical principle\nhe transferred to the field of sociology. Coal-power, electrical\npower, he concluded, were to civilization what the gaseous theory was\nto physics. It was a creative suggestion and it revolutionized his\nconception of history. It runs through all his later speculations and\nprovided the basis of his thinking. \u201cAdams never knew why,\u201d he said,\n\u201cknowing nothing of Faraday, he began to mimic Faraday\u2019s trick of\nseeing lines of force all about him, where he had always seen lines of\nwill.\u201d[707] \u201cTo evolutionists may be left the processes of evolution;\nto historians the single interest is the law of reaction between\nforce and force--between mind and nature--the law of progress.\u201d[708]\n\u201cThe great division of history into phases by Turgot and Comte\nfirst affirmed this law in its outlines by asserting the unity of\nprogress.\u201d[709]\n\nThus by the aid of the physical sciences Henry Adams came back to\nthe philosophy of determinism--a conception that may lead either to\npantheism or to mechanism as one\u2019s temperament determines. In such a\nchoice there would be no doubt which way Henry Adams would go; he must\nsomehow reconcile determinism and progress, he must discover unity\nin multiplicity--and that unity and progress he found in a mystical\npantheism. \u201cContinuous movement, universal cause, and interchangeable\nforce. This was pantheism, but the Schools were pantheist ... and their\ndeity was the ultimate energy, whose thought and action were one.\u201d[710]\nHow creatively this pantheistic mysticism was to determine his later\nthinking is sufficiently revealed in the pages of _Mont-Saint-Michel\nand Chartres_. With incredible labor Henry Adams had at last made his\nway out of the Sahara of politics in which he had long wandered.\n\nPhrased in less transcendental terms his philosophy of history, as he\ncame finally to understand it, was expressed thus:\n\n The work of domestic progress is done by masses of mechanical\n power--steam, electric, furnace, or other--which have to be\n controlled by a score or two of individuals who have shown capacity\n to manage it. The work of internal government has become the task\n of controlling these men, who are socially as remote as heathen\n gods, alone worth knowing, but never known, and who could tell\n nothing of political value if one skinned them alive. Most of them\n have nothing to tell, but are forces as dumb as their dynamos,\n absorbed in the development or economy of power. They are trustees\n for the public, and whenever society assumes the property, it\n must confer on them that title; but the power will remain as\n before, whoever manages it, and will then control society without\n appeal, as it controls its stokers and pit-men. Modern politics\n is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become\n every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central\n power-houses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but\n between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to succumb\n to their own motive forces. This is a moral that man strongly\n objects to admit, especially in mediaeval pursuits like politics\n and poetry, nor is it worth while for a teacher to insist upon\n it.[711]\n\nFrom a civilization thus tyrannized over by coal-power and electrical\npower, he turned away to discover if possible a civilization in which\nmen had lived the good life that he longed for; and in his second\nincursion into medieval times he found what he had long been seeking.\nTwo centuries, from 1050 to 1250, came to represent for him in the\nevening of his days the crown and glory of all human endeavor; the\nfirst century with its Norman Mont-Saint-Michel and its _Chanson de\nRoland_, with its forthright strength and simplicity, its uncritical\nacceptance of life and God, its hope encompassed by a sufficing\nunity--a strong, na\u00efve, credulous world, yet with men\u2019s minds\nbuttressed like their cathedrals by a faith that held in equilibrium\nthe soaring arches of their aspirations, with every cranny and nook\nflooded with radiant color: and the second century, that expressed\nitself in the cathedral of Chartres, with its adoration of the Virgin,\nits courtly love of Guillaume de Lorris and Marie de Champagne, its\npassionate mysticism of Saint Louis and Saint Bernard and Saint\nFrancis, and its soaring scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas--a tender,\nfeminine age, that worshiped woman and erected its altars to Our Lady\nof Love rather than to Our Lady of Sorrows, that found in Isolde the\nideal woman and expressed itself in Eleanor of Guienne and Blanche\nof Castile, in H\u00e9lo\u00efse and Marie de Champagne, more adequately than\nin Richard C\u0153ur-de-Lion, till it finally went the way of mortality\n\u201cwith the death of Queen Blanche and of all good things about the\nyear 1250\u201d:--to such idealization of medievalism did this child of\nPuritanism come in the wistful twilight of his days. He had never\nevaded life, nor professed himself satisfied with mean or cheap\nsubstitutes, but had sought persistently till he had come to believe\nthat the good life had been lived once, though it might not ever be\nlived again. So much at least was clear gain, even though it should end\nin wistfulness.\n\n_Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_ is a beautiful book, the more\nbeautiful because of its wistfulness; and the theme that runs through\nits pages is a denial of the values that embodied for his countrymen\nthe sum of all excellence. It is an account of certain happy\ngenerations--so few amongst the countless many--who worshiped in love,\nbefore fear had come to the western world and crept into the message\nof the church; a love that elevated Mother Mary above the Christ of\nthe Cross, and that in her shrine at Chartres would allow no hint of\nsorrow or suffering to appear, but represented her as looking out upon\nthe world with a gracious and regal kindliness and mercy, quick to\nsuccor and to forgive--the spirit of love that suffices life in all its\nneeds. _Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_ is rich and tender and wise,\nperhaps beyond anything else that his generation of Americans wrote,\nwith a mellow scholarship that walks modestly because it has learned\nhow little it knows. Yet in its every implication it is a sharp and\nsearching criticism of Boston and America of the nineteenth century. It\nrepudiates every ideal of a generation that had gambled away the savor\nof life--that does not comprehend \u201cand never shall,\u201d the greatness of\nthat earlier time, \u201cthe appetite\u201d for living, the \u201cgreed for novelty,\u201d\n\u201cthe fun of life.\u201d[712] It was precisely these things, unimportant\nthough they might seem to the acquisitive mind, that Henry Adams had\nmissed in his own life and passionately resented having missed. To come\nto know great men and great deeds and great ages is perhaps of doubtful\nexpediency for one who must live amongst small men; and Henry Adams\nwas forced to pay a heavy penalty for his catholic understanding and\nsympathy.\n\nThe profound suggestiveness of _Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_ lies in\nthe skill with which the brilliant threads of medieval art and thought\nand aspiration are woven into a single pattern, and the splendor of its\nunity traced to a mystical _\u00e9lan_ that found its highest expression\nin faith. It was the ideal of love that he discovered in the golden\ntwelfth century--love above law, above logic, above the church and the\nschools: a love that explains for him the passionate worship of Mother\nMary, together with the new \u201c_courtoisie_\u201d that sought to shape manners\nand morals to humane ends. The humanity of the Virgin set her above\nthe Trinity, as the humanity of Saint Francis set him above Thomas\nAquinas, for all the latter\u2019s soaring scholasticism. To one who entered\nthose bygone times through the portals of Chartres cathedral, it was\nnatural to interpret the total age in the light of the gentle smile of\nthe Mother of God, and to feel her presence as a transforming spirit\namongst men. Has any other Yankee interpreted so lovingly the mission\nof the Virgin, as Henry Adams analyzed it in such a passage as this?\n\n True it was, although one should not say it jestingly, that the\n Virgin embarrassed the Trinity; and perhaps this was the reason,\n behind all the other excellent reasons, why men loved and adored\n her with a passion such as no other deity has ever inspired: and\n why we, although utter strangers to her, are not far from getting\n down on our knees and praying to her still. Mary concentrated\n in herself the whole rebellion of man against fate; the whole\n protest against divine law; the whole contempt for human law as\n its outcome; the whole unutterable fury of human nature beating\n itself against the walls of its prison-house, and suddenly seized\n by a hope that in the Virgin man had found a door of escape. She\n was above law; she took feminine pleasure in turning hell into an\n ornament; she delighted in trampling on every social distinction\n in this world and the next. She knew that the universe was as\n unintelligible to her, on any theory of morals, as it was to her\n worshippers, and she felt, like them, no sure conviction that it\n was any more intelligible to the Creator of it. To her, every\n suppliant was a universe in himself, to be judged apart, on his\n own merits, by his love for her,--by no means on his orthodoxy,\n or his conventional standing in the Church, or according to his\n correctness in defining the nature of the Trinity. The convulsive\n hold which Mary to this day maintains over human imagination--as\n you can see at Lourdes--was due much less to her power of saving\n soul or body than to her sympathy with people who suffered under\n law,--divine or human,--justly or unjustly, by accident or design,\n by decree of God or by guile of Devil. She cared not a straw\n for conventional morality, and she had no notion of letting her\n friends be punished, to the tenth or any other generation, for the\n sins of their ancestors or the peccadilloes of Eve.\n\n So Mary filled heaven with a sort of persons little to the taste\n of any respectable middle-class society, which has trouble enough\n in making this world decent and pay its bills, without having to\n continue the effort in another. Mary stood in a Church of her own,\n so independent that the Trinity might have perished without much\n affecting her position; but, on the other hand, the Trinity could\n look on and see her dethroned with almost a breath of relief....\n Mary\u2019s treatment of respectable and law-abiding people who had no\n favours to ask, and were reasonably confident of getting to heaven\n by the regular judgment, without expense, rankled so deeply that\n three hundred years later the Puritan reformers were not satisfied\n with abolishing her, but sought to abolish the woman altogether\n as the cause of all evil in heaven and on earth. The Puritans\n abandoned the New Testament and the Virgin in order to go back to\n the beginning, and renew the quarrel with Eve.[713]\n\nThus at last, in another land and a remote age, Henry Adams found\nthe clue that explained for him his own failure and the source of\nthe dissatisfactions that had tracked him doggedly through his far\nwanderings. He had come to understand the reasons for the sterility of\nhis Massachusetts past, and the last shreds of his Puritan-Federalist\nheritage were cast off. In comparison with the vision that came to\nhim in the choir of Chartres, how unspeakably poor and mean were\nthe activities he had portrayed in _Democracy_, or even those he\nhad dealt with in his history of the early days of the republic. He\nhad discovered the highest existence in emotional response to noble\nappeal; the good life was the unified life, possible only on a grand\nscale in those rare and great periods of social _\u00e9lan_ when the\nindividual is fused in an encompassing unity. Of that golden age of\nthe Transition--so he finally cast up the account--\u201cthe sum is an\nemotion--clear and strong as love and much clearer than logic whose\ncharm lies in its unstable balance.\u201d\n\n The Transition is the equilibrium between the love of God--which\n is faith--and the logic of God--which is reason; between the round\n arch and the pointed. One may not be sure which pleases most, but\n one need not be harsh toward people who think that the moment\n of balance is exquisite. The last and highest moment is seen at\n Chartres, where, in 1200, the charm depends on the constant doubt\n whether emotion or science is uppermost. At Amiens, doubt ceases;\n emotion is trained in school, Thomas Aquinas reigns.[714]\n\n Of all the elaborate symbolism which has been suggested for the\n Gothic cathedral, the most vital and most perfect may be that the\n slender nervure, the springing motion of the broken arch, the leap\n downwards of the flying buttress,--the visible effort to throw off\n a visible strain,--never let us forget that Faith alone supports\n it, and that, if Faith fails, Heaven is lost. The equilibrium is\n visibly delicate beyond the line of safety; danger lurks in every\n stone. The peril of the heavy tower, of the restless vault, of the\n vagrant buttress; the uncertainty of logic, the inequalities of\n the syllogism, the irregularities of the mental mirror,--all these\n haunting nightmares of the Church are expressed as strongly by the\n Gothic cathedral as though it had been the cry of human suffering,\n and as no emotion had ever been expressed before or is likely to\n find expression again. The delight of its aspiration is flung up\n to the sky. The pathos of its self-distrust and anguish of doubt\n is buried in the earth as its last secret. You can read out of it\n whatever else pleases your youth and confidence; to me, this is\n all.[715]\n\nOne may enter the past, of course, through such portals as one chooses;\nbut one is likely to choose the portals that promise to open upon the\nworld of one\u2019s desires. It was a fortunate accident, no doubt, that\nled Henry Adams to Chartres to study the cathedral glass under the\nguidance of John La Farge; nevertheless it finally determined for him\nhis total interpretation of the Middle Ages and of all history, and\nthat interpretation followed naturally a subtle ancestral bias. Even\nin his rebellion against his past he could not get away from it, but\nlike Ruskin and John Henry Newman he came to affirm--whether rightly\nor wrongly, who shall say?--that the singular glory of the Middle Ages\nwas the mystical _\u00e9lan_ that came to expression in the adoration of the\nVirgin. As a child of generations of Puritans he came back finally, in\nthe twilight of his studies, to the great ideal of faith. And yet it\nis not without suggestion that William Morris, who more nearly than\nany other modern expressed in his daily life the spirit of the Middle\nAges, never concerned himself much with the medieval church--neither\nits cathedrals nor its scholasticism nor its miracles--never talked\nabout an age of faith, would scarcely have understood, indeed, what\nwas meant by the drive of a mystical _\u00e9lan_; but discovered the secret\nof that earlier civilization in the gild rather than the church, and\ntraced the source of the haunting beauty that clings to all its works\nto the psychology of craftsmanship that found delight in shaping the\nraw material to the craftsman\u2019s dreams.\n\nThe difference between Morris and Adams is great enough, and at\nbottom it is the difference between the artist and the intellectual;\nyet it is a pity that Henry Adams, with his wide acquaintance in\nEngland, should never have known the one Victorian he should most\nhave delighted in--the nineteenth-century craftsman who found in his\nworkshop the good life the historian dreamed of, and was unhappy\nbecause it had been lost. Perhaps it would not have greatly changed the\nlatter\u2019s interpretation. He was not a pagan in temperament to enter\nsympathetically into the medieval world that Morris had discovered and\nof which the Church was only a drapery--a drapery that never quite\ncovered a frank _joie de vivre_ that was an emotion far more realistic\nand human than any mystical _\u00e9lan_, and that persisted long after the\napogee of faith in the early twelfth century, filling all the later\nMiddle Ages with its abundant beauty till it was finally destroyed by\nthe economic revolution that came out of the Reformation. But at any\nrate he might have been led by such knowledge to set the craftsman\nbeside the poet and the schoolman and the mystic--the nameless artist\nwho wrought such marvels beside the patron who took care to have his\nname and his arms emblazoned on window and wall to remind posterity\nof his generosity; and certainly, his interpretation of the Middle\nAges would not have suffered by such addition. Instead, an excessive\nintellectualism drove him back upon the na\u00efve.\n\nThe disillusion of Henry Adams is abundantly instructive to the student\nof our flamboyant transition, so different from the golden Transition.\nHere was an honest man and an able--none honester and none abler in\nhis generation--who devoted his life to finding a path out of the maze\nof middle-class America, that should lead to a rational and humane\nexistence. He was never overconfident of his conclusions. All arrogant\ndogmatisms he had long since left behind; they had become for him\npathetically futile and foolish. Creeds and faiths, whether in religion\nor politics or economics, he no longer subscribed to; but a certain\nresiduum remained, from his long meditations--a sense of interfusing\nunity, mystical, pantheistic, that his lurking skepticism dealt\ntenderly with. \u201c_Inter vania nihil vanius est homine_,\u201d he asserted as\na skeptic, and as a mystic he replied, \u201cMan is an imperceptible atom\nalways trying to become one with God. If ever modern science achieves\na definition of energy, possibly it may borrow the figure: Energy is\nthe inherent effort of every multiplicity to become unity.\u201d[716] In\nthese later years he called himself half whimsically a \u201cconservative\nChristian Anarchist\u201d[717] and the explanation probably is to be\nfound in his shift from intellectualism to emotion as the crown of\na satisfying life. \u201cThe two poles of social and political philosophy\nseem necessarily to be organization or anarchy; man\u2019s intellect or\nthe forces of nature.\u201d[718] In rare and happy periods--as in the\nglorious Transition--freedom finds its fullest life in a spontaneous\ndrawing together of the whole; but as the social _\u00e9lan_ dies away,\ninstitutions, organization, remain. Thomas Aquinas follows Saint\nFrancis, form remains after emotion has subsided. Nevertheless the free\nman must cling to his freedom, in spite of society, in spite of the\npolitical state.\n\n Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is\n restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible\n only to himself. This principle is the philosophical foundation of\n anarchism, and, for anything that science has yet proved, may be\n the philosophical foundation of the universe; but it is fatal to\n all society and is especially hostile to the State.[719]\n\nThough he lived in the midst of a centralizing politics and found\nhis friends in such servants of centralization as John Hay and Henry\nCabot Lodge, Henry Adams had no faith in the dominant ideals. He was\nnever a friend to an acquisitive society with its engrossing political\nstate. In the light of his favorite dictum that \u201cPower is poison,\u201d\nhe may perhaps be regarded as an old-fashioned Jeffersonian; it is\nanother evidence of the persistence of his eighteenth-century mind. He\nwas an arch-individualist who would go his own way and reach his own\nconclusions, quite unconcerned that his views were wholly at variance\nwith those of his generation. How could it be otherwise? How should\nmen who lived in the counting-house understand even the language of\nthis pilgrim returned from other and greater worlds? It was foolish to\ntalk of what he had seen. And so when he wrote _Mont-Saint-Michel and\nChartres_ he published it privately, and was incredulous when it was\nproposed to republish it and give it to the world. What had he, or the\ntwelfth century, to say to the land of Theodore Roosevelt and Pierpont\nMorgan? Was not this America of theirs peopled by the descendants of\nthe _bourgeoisie_ who, six hundred years before, resentful at having\nbeen cheated--as they supposed--in their heavy investments in shrines\nand churches of Our Lady, had turned away from all such unprofitable\nbusiness, and put their savings in lands and houses and ships and\nrailways and banks--of which things politics was the sluttish servant?\nHow should one who had known Saint Francis and Eleanor of Guienne take\nsuch men or such a world seriously?\n\n\nIII \u2022 Brooks Adams--Rebel\n\nThe difference between Henry Adams and Brooks Adams is, perhaps,\nsufficiently revealed in the distinction between the intellectual and\nthe rebel. The youngest of the brothers was a militant nonconformist,\na searching and outspoken critic of all the faiths of his generation.\nIn Brooks Adams the family skepticisms were pointed and barbed,\nand the family distrust of capitalism issued in a broadside attack\nupon the hateful system. Few Americans of his day were so little\npleased with the bankers\u2019 Utopia dreamed of by the middle class,\nor subjected the capitalistic mind to such critical analysis. Not\ncontent with rejecting that Utopia, he pursued his studies in the\nhistory of western civilization with a view to determining whether\nthe economic mind, instead of being the friend and ally of a human\nsociety--as it professed to be--were not rather the foul wellspring\nof a disintegrating egoism that must destroy every civilization that\nyields to its siren appeal. In the theory he eventually elaborated,\nthe capitalistic mind proves to be a greedy spider spinning his web\nto catch the simple imaginative minds--warrior and priest and artist\nand craftsman--and suck them dry. The sterile middleman becomes master\nof society and with the inevitable enslavement of the producer, and\nthe drying-up of production at its source, civilization withers and\ndecays, to be followed by another cycle in the long struggle between\nthe creative and acquisitive instincts.\n\nNone but a congenital rebel could have arrived at such conclusions from\nthe studies in which his youth was passed. As a son of the house of\nAdams the profession of the law was the predestined path to politics\nand diplomacy, and like Charles and Henry he devoted his younger\nyears to the ancestral study, receiving such training as the Harvard\nLaw School could give. He made greater progress than his brothers,\neventually getting so far as to write legal treatises; but finding such\nwork a bit arid he supplemented his legal studies with the writing of\nMassachusetts chronicles. His dissatisfactions seem to have culminated\nin the late eighties, during the lean years that preceded the crash\nof 1893; and he turned away from local chronicles to speculate on\nthe deeper causes of social vigor and decline. The result was the\npublication in 1895 of _The Law of Civilization and Decay_, a study\nin social dynamics that took its point of departure from psychology,\nand based its conclusions on physics and economics. Before Henry Adams\nhe elaborated the theory that civilization is the product of social\nenergy, and social energy obeys the physical law of mass, accelerating\nor retarding in ratio to the density of population reduced to order.\nAs society draws together in great centers its activity increases\nuntil exhaustion finally slows it down; whereupon follows a period\nof disintegration that breaks up the integrated mass and disperses\nits energy. The social ebb and flow, therefore, is always from\ndecentralization to centralization and back again to decentralization,\nand as it flows it thrusts into the foreground different types of mind\nthat express themselves in diverse ideals.\n\nThe master types that appear and disappear in this ceaseless flux are\ndetermined by two psychological drives that always and everywhere\nshape human activity--fear and greed: the one culminating in the\nsocial rule of the priest, the other in the social rule of the usurer.\nDecentralization with its isolation breeds the imaginative mind which,\nseeing more devils than vast hell can hold, turns to the priest for\nsuccor--to one who deals in miracles and professes to be able to fend\noff malignant powers, and who in consequence grows rich by his traffic\nin relics and rises to economic power. But imagination produces as well\nthe creative mind that finds in isolation the promptings to revery,\nexpresses its dreams in terms of beauty, and fashions a realm of art\nin which to dwell. Priest, artist, and warrior,--shrine, cathedral,\nand castle--were the creation of medieval times, the na\u00efve products\nof the golden age of decentralization. Whereas centralization, with\nthe rubbing away of singularity by daily contact and the greater\nrewards that lie open to activity, breeds automatically the economic\nmind--a mind that is necessarily unimaginative, practical, competitive,\nacquisitive, skeptical, preferring administration to creation, and\nsetting exploitation as the single object of activity. And since\ncentralization offers increasing rewards to greed, the economic mind\nsubdues the imaginative, and the money-lender with his control of\nwealth rises to mastery. As he expropriates the resources of society\nhe inevitably dominates the political state. His wealth enables him to\nmaintain a hired police to safeguard his gains, until expropriation\nhaving run its course, the police fail to hold in check the mass of the\nexploited, and an unmartial class discovers that money can no longer\nbuy security against the strength of numbers. The usurer is overthrown,\nhis wealth is expropriated, and the social cycle must be run again.\n\nThis suggestive theory, which he works out with conspicuous skill in\nhis interpretation of the Middle Ages and the rise of capitalism,\nimplies a perennial conflict between fear and greed, that turns finally\nupon the relative development of the arts of attack and of defense.\nCentralization, it is clear, results from the superiority of the\nformer; when attack is superior to defense the lesser strongholds of\nexploitation must fall and the defeated must become subject to the\ncoalescing masters. After the disruption of the Roman Empire western\nEurope created its feudal system, by means of which the baron in\nhis stout castle flouted the centralizing ambitions of the impotent\nmonarchy; and it was not till the wealth of the church and of the\n_bourgeoisie_ was thrown on the side of the king, and the development\nof the art of attack through the use of gunpowder, that the rise of the\nmonarchical state was possible. But having aided the king to reduce the\npower of the barons, thereby rendering trade secure on a large scale,\nthe _bourgeoisie_ turned against the medieval church with its vast\nwealth that invited expropriation. In the primitive age of faith, under\nthe dominion of fear, the burgesses had spent their money prodigally\nto build shrines and churches and cathedrals--in France alone between\nthe years 1170 and 1270, eighty cathedrals and nearly five hundred\nlarge churches had been built, that by a calculation made in 1840,\nwould cost a billion dollars to replace[720]--but with the development\nof the economic mind such amazing expenditures seemed wasteful, and\nthe _bourgeoisie_ looked about for a cheaper way of salvation. The\nmoney cost to the worshipers of saints and relics was a sharp prod to\ntheir skepticism as to the efficacy of such worship. This explains for\nBrooks Adams the origins of the Reformation; it was due to the economic\ndissatisfaction of the burgess class; the church had grown rich and\ngrasping from its monopoly power. Speaking of the rise of English\nLollardry, he argued:\n\n The Lollards were of the modern economic type, and discarded the\n miracle because the miracle was costly and yielded an uncertain\n return ... gifts as an atonement for sin were a drain on savings,\n and the economist instinctively sought cheaper methods of\n propitiation. The monied class, therefore, proceeded step by step,\n and its first experiment was to suppress all fees to middle-men,\n whether priests or saints, by becoming their own intercessors with\n the deity ... [and] as the tradesman replaced the enthusiast, a\n dogma was evolved by which mental anguish, which cost nothing, was\n substituted for the offering which was effective in proportion\n to its money value. This dogma was \u201cJustification by Faith,\u201d the\n cornerstone of Protestantism....\n\n But the substitution of a mental condition for a money payment\n led to consequences more far-reaching than the suppression of\n certain clerical revenues, for it involved the rejection of the\n sacred tradition which had not only sustained relic worship, but\n which had made the Church the channel of communication between\n Christians and the invisible world. That ancient channel once\n closed, Protestants had to open another, and this led to the\n deification of the Bible.... Thus for the innumerable costly\n fetishes of the imaginative age were substituted certain writings\n which could be consulted without a fee. The expedient was evidently\n the device of a mercantile community, ... and made an organized\n priesthood impossible. When each individual might pry into the\n sacred mysteries at his pleasure, the authority of the clergy was\n annihilated.[721]\n\nWith warrior and priest superseded by the tradesman as the dominant\ntype--the imaginative mind by the economic--came the inevitable triumph\nof greed over fear. The ancient defenses of the church were razed and\nit stood naked to its enemies. In presence of the skepticism of the\nburgesses it could no longer sell its miracles in the open market,\ncould no longer persuade men that it was God\u2019s vicegerent with powers\nof binding and loosing; and with its divine sanctions gone, its\nwealth-hoards lay unprotected before the cupidity of king, noble, and\ncommoner. The spoliation of the monasteries was the prelude to the long\nmovement of the Reformation in England, and made possible its success.\nSo long as the church retained its lands and treasure it could not\neasily be overturned; so a greedy King and greedy nobles took effective\nmeasures to disarm it, and having got their hands on the substantial\nplunder they left to Genevan ministers the lesser business of disputing\nover the form and doctrine of the new church. The revolution had\nalready been accomplished; and this revolution--the transfer from\npriest to layman of a third of the wealth of England--was but prelude\nto still greater revolutions that were preparing, and which began\nwith the pouring into England of the gold and silver from the Spanish\ntreasure-ships. The spoiling of Rome and the spoiling of the Spaniard\nwere both buccaneering adventures undertaken by zealous Protestants.\nDrake and Hawkins--pirate and slaver--were \u201chot gospellers,\u201d ready\nto fight, plunder, or rape for the glory of God and the profit of\nEngland; and it was such men who diverted to London the flood of\nSpanish-American silver that issued from the rich mines of Potosi.\n\nPotosi was discovered in 1545, and from that event Adams dates the\nrise of the commercial activity that was to prepare the way for the\nIndustrial Revolution, which came to flower two centuries later.\nThis vast upheaval that destroyed the older feudal England, was the\nimmediate outcome of the plundering of India that brought to London the\nvast treasure-hoards of the East. The eviction of the peasants from\ntheir lands had already provided a plentiful supply of cheap labor,\nthe machinery of credit and exchange had been created, and with this\nimmense influx of capital the Industrial Revolution was a matter of\ncourse. The manufacturers seized control of England and ruled till\napproximately 1810, when their authority was disputed by the financiers\nwho gradually displaced them. The Bank Act of 1844, which yielded the\ncontrol of the currency to the bankers, marked the definite transfer\nof sovereignty to Lombard Street; Samuel Lloyd, the banker, completed\nthe work begun in 1523 by Thomas Cromwell, burgess-adventurer--the\nwork of bringing England under the authoritative sway of the principle\nof greed. Since 1844 western civilization has lain helpless under the\nheel of the usurer, who levies his tax upon production by expanding and\ncontracting the currency at will, and rules society through his control\nof the political state. The triumph of the economic mind is complete.\n\n The aristocracy which wields this autocratic power is beyond\n attack, for it is defended by a wage-earning police, by the side of\n which the legions were a toy--a police so formidable that, for the\n first time in history, revolt is hopeless and is not attempted. The\n only question which preoccupies the ruling class is whether it is\n cheaper to coerce or bribe.[722]\n\n_The Law of Civilization and Decay_ is an extraordinarily provocative\nstudy, the main principles of which he elaborated and applied in later\nhistorical studies, the result of which was to emphasize for him the\ndetermining influence of economics and geography in the rise and fall\nof empires.[723] Equipped thus with a comprehensive philosophy of\nhistory, he turned in a later work to examine certain aspects of the\nplay of social forces in America, in the light of universal social\nexperience. The particular object of his inquiry in _The Theory of\nSocial Revolutions_ is the machinery of social control developed in\nAmerica during the movement of capitalistic centralization, and its\nprobable adequacy to meet the future stresses of acceleration. The\nproblem of security for the capitalistic order resolves itself, he\ndecides, into the problem of a sufficient protective police; and\nsince every non-military masterclass must depend upon some form of\nmercenary Swiss guard, the solution in America has assumed a form not\nuncommon in earlier European experience, but which every European\ncountry has learned at bitter cost to reject. In the face of a strong\nanti-militaristic public sentiment that forbids a coercive army and\nnavy, the financial masters have had recourse to the courts; and it is\nthe eventual effect of such perversion of the courts to non-judicial\nends that he considers in this frank inquiry.\n\nHistorically, he points out, the courts have at times exercised two\ndiverse functions, the judicial and the political; and the problem\nof justice and equity before the law, it has been found by long and\nbitter experience, resolves itself into the total separation of\nthe one from the other. The judicial function is that of impartial\narbitrament in accordance with an established _corpus juris_; it is\njudgment and not will. The enactment of the law, on the other hand,\nis a political function, residing in the legislature. When therefore,\nthe courts exercise the political function, they not only assert\nthat the judicial will is sovereign, but they engage in a perilous\nstruggle for mastership and involve themselves in all the passions\nof partisan objectives. Every \u201cdominant class, as it has arisen, has\ndone its best to use the machinery of justice for its own benefit.\u201d\nThe temptation to such perversion is perennial; it is the particular\nand besetting temptation of an unmartial monied class; and in times\nof social stress it becomes acute. In revolutionary crises--as in\nEngland under Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys and in France under the\nRevolutionary Tribunal--the political function overrides the judicial,\nthe last protection of the individual is swept away, and society lies\nhelpless before the ruling power. Thus to pervert the legitimate\nfunctions of the courts is a dangerous game to play--most dangerous\nfor a non-military group for whom the courts are protectors; and yet\nit is precisely this game that capitalism in America, heedless of the\nteachings of experience, has long been playing. Using the courts as a\npolice power it has brought contempt upon them and thereby weakened the\narm upon which alone it can hope to rely in periods of acute stress. In\nshort, capitalism has assumed the functions of sovereignty in America,\nbut it has refused to assume the responsibilities of sovereignty. To\ngain immediate ends it has shut its eyes to future consequences; and\nwhat those future consequences are likely to be Brooks Adams is at\npains to point out.\n\nThe kernel of his argument, obviously, lies in the thesis that the\nfederal courts have assumed political functions; and into this question\nhe delves with the equipment of the lawyer added to that of the\nphilosophical historian. \u201cPolitics,\u201d he asserts realistically, \u201cis the\nstruggle for ascendancy of a class or a majority.\u201d Under the \u201cAmerican\nsystem, the Constitution ... is expounded by judges, and this function,\nwhich, in essence, is political, has brought precisely that quality\nof pressure on the bench which it has been the labor of a hundred\ngenerations of our ancestors to remove.\u201d[724] Hence, \u201cfrom the outset,\nthe American bench, because it deals with the most fiercely contested\nof political issues, has been an instrument necessary to political\nsuccess. Consequently, political parties have striven to control it,\nand, therefore, the bench has always had an avowed partisan bias.\u201d[725]\nFrom so anomalous a situation two curious developments have resulted:\nin the r\u00f4le of guardians of the Constitution the courts have assumed\nsovereign powers over the legislature, and at the same time, by a\nclever nonjudicial hocus-pocus they have declared themselves superior\nto the Constitution, possessed of the prerogative of dispensation.\nHow the first came into being Adams traces in detail from the time\nof Marbury vs. Madison in 1803, when Marshall asserted a supervisory\njurisdiction over Congress, to Standard Oil Company vs. United States\nin 1911, when the Court amended an act of Congress that Congress\nhad declined to amend. How the second came into being is a curious\nstory. It arose, according to Adams, from the rigidity of a written\nconstitution, that having been interpreted narrowly must somehow be\nstretched to meet public needs. In such an emergency the \u201cSupreme Court\nof New York imagined the theory of the Police Power,\u201d saying in effect,\n\u201cin our discretion, we suspend the operation of the Constitution, in\nthis instance, by calling your act an exercise of a power unknown to\nthe framers of the Constitution.\u201d[726]\n\nIn other words, having, by the assumption of sovereignty, nullified\nthe legislative power from which relief would naturally come, and\nhaving awakened a hostile public opinion by its narrow interpretation\nof contractual rights, the court was embarrassed and looked about for\na loophole of escape; and the most convenient loophole was the novel\ndoctrine of judicial prerogative:\n\n No legislature could intervene, and a pressure was brought to bear\n which the judges could not withstand; therefore, the Court yielded,\n declaring that if impairing a contract were, on the whole, for\n the public welfare, the Constitution, as Marshall interpreted it,\n should be suspended in favor of the legislation which impaired it.\n They called this suspension the operation of the \u201cPolice Power.\u201d\n It followed, as the \u201cPolice Power\u201d could only come into operation\n at the discretion of the Court, that, therefore, within the limits\n of judicial discretion, confiscation, however arbitrary and to\n whatever extent, might go on.[727]\n\n The effect of the adoption by the Supreme Court of the United\n States of the New York theory of the Police Power was to vest\n in the judiciary, by the use of this catch-word, an almost\n unparallelled prerogative. They assumed a supreme function which\n can only be compared to the Dispensing Power claimed by the\n Stuarts, or to the authority which, according to the Council\n of Constance, inheres in the Church, to \u201cgrant indulgences for\n reasonable causes.\u201d I suppose nothing in modern judicial history\n has ever resembled this assumption....[728]\n\nIt is this amazing principle of the judicial prerogative which sets\nthe Courts above the Constitution and grants them the privilege of\ndispensing Indulgences, that has perverted their functions from the\njudicial to the political. If Indulgences are for sale, naturally the\nwealthy will buy them. And since corporate wealth is regarded by the\njudiciary with a more than friendly eye, it rarely finds difficulty\nin securing such Indulgences as it seeks. The Courts have become, in\nconsequence, not so much the Swiss Guards of capitalism, as a pliant\nsovereign lord who dispenses rewards to his favorites. The capitalist\nis \u201cthe most lawless\u201d of citizens. In his attitude towards the state he\nis essentially anarchistic; he evades or nullifies a law that he does\nnot like, while clamorous for the enforcement of a law that works in\nhis favor.\n\n If the capitalist has bought some sovereign function, and wishes to\n abuse it for his own behoof, he regards the law which restrains him\n as a despotic invasion of his constitutional rights, because, with\n his specialized mind, he cannot grasp the relation of a sovereign\n function to the nation as a whole. He, therefore, looks upon the\n evasion of a law devised for public protection, but inimical to\n him, as innocent or even meritorious.\n\n This attitude of capital has had a profound effect upon shaping\n the American legal mind. The capitalist, as I infer, regards the\n constitutional form of government which exists in the United\n States, as a convenient method of obtaining his own way against a\n majority, but the lawyer has learned to worship it as a fetish. Nor\n is this astonishing, for, were written constitutions suppressed,\n he would lose most of his importance and much of his income. Quite\n honestly, therefore, the American lawyer has come to believe that\n a sheet of paper soiled with printers\u2019 ink and interpreted by\n half-a-dozen elderly gentlemen snugly dozing in armchairs, has some\n inherent and marvellous virtue by which it can arrest the march of\n omnipotent Nature. And capital gladly accepts this view of American\n civilization, since hitherto capitalists have usually been able to\n select the magistrates who decide their causes.[729]\n\nThe skepticisms of the House of Adams came to their frankest expression\nin the writings of Brooks Adams. The passion for social justice\nhad brought him at last to a philosophy of history that made him a\ntrenchant critic of the American of his generation. He rejected alike\nthe humanitarian optimism that, from Condorcet to Herbert Spencer,\nhad inspired generous souls with hope for future progress--and that\neven Henry Adams clung to--and the economic optimism that from the\nbeginnings of the westward movement had inspired acquisitive souls with\nthe hope of continuous gain. Nothing perhaps marked him more clearly as\na rebel than his denial of the god worshiped by his fellows. The gospel\nof progress was for him no more than a fetish of the economic mind.\nIn the ebb and flow of civilizations under the attraction of fear and\ngreed, what justification was there for faith in a benevolent progress?\nHis lot had been cast, unfortunately, in an age of capitalism, when\nthe acquisitive mind was triumphing over the imaginative, the banker\nover the priest and craftsman and mystic; but he could see no reason in\nheaven or earth to brag of that fact, and he would have held himself\na fool to apply the term progress to the spread of greed that was\ncrowning the usurer as master of men. A thorough skeptic, with the\ncomfortable illusions of his generation dissipated, he was in worse\nplight than Henry Adams, for he had created no golden twelfth century\nas a refuge against the present.\n\nBut if he was under no illusions, he was under no intellectual\ntyrannies; he had cleared his mind of all middle-class fetishes\nand could look out calmly upon a mad world. After a century and a\nquarter this youngest of the House of Adams was still true to the\nsturdy intellectual honesty of his race. He refused to cry up a fool\u2019s\nparadise where his fellows were crowning the banker as king--professing\nto serve high ends while seeking vulgar profits: he would not shut his\neyes to disagreeable truth or hold his tongue. In Brooks Adams one\ncan almost hear the voice of the first Adams elaborating his doctrine\nof determinism, pointing out to a romantic generation the unpleasant\nrealities that confuted its optimism, expatiating on the abundant\nfollies of men that lay snares in their own path, yet clinging to a\nfaith in justice that has become old-fashioned. Possibly Brooks Adams\nis not to be reckoned a great figure, but he was an honest man and\nworthy of his name--no mean accomplishment, for all in all the Adams\nfamily is the most distinguished in our history.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[701] _Autobiography_, pp. 190-195.\n\n[702] _The Education of Henry Adams_, p. 21.\n\n[703] _Ibid._, pp. 343-344.\n\n[704] _Ibid._, p. 317.\n\n[705] _Ibid._, pp. 338-339.\n\n[706] _Ibid._, p. 225.\n\n[707] _Ibid._, p. 426.\n\n[708] _Ibid._, p. 493.\n\n[709] _Ibid._, p. 493.\n\n[710] _Ibid._, pp. 428-429.\n\n[711] _Ibid._, pp. 421-422.\n\n[712] _Ibid._, p. 139.\n\n[713] _Mont-Saint-Michel_, pp. 276-277.\n\n[714] _Ibid._, pp. 321-322.\n\n[715] _Ibid._, p. 383.\n\n[716] _Mont-Saint-Michel_, p. 332.\n\n[717] _The Education_, p. 405.\n\n[718] _Mont-Saint-Michel_, p. 344.\n\n[719] _Ibid._, p. 372.\n\n[720] See Henry Adams, _Mont-Saint-Michel_, pp. 94-95.\n\n[721] _The Law of Civilization and Decay_, pp. 150-151.\n\n[722] _Ibid._, p. 292.\n\n[723] See _America\u2019s Economic Supremacy_, New York, 1900; _The New\nEmpire_, New York, 1902.\n\n[724] _The Theory of Social Revolution_, p. 45.\n\n[725] _Ibid._, pp. 47-48.\n\n[726] _Ibid._, p. 128.\n\n[727] _Ibid._, p. 93.\n\n[728] _Ibid._, p. 91-92.\n\n[729] _Ibid._, pp. 213-215.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Victorian Realism\n\n\nIt was not till the eighties that the movement of realism in fiction\nbegan to excite wide interest, and then began a brisk and often\nacrimonious discussion of the merits and shortcomings of the new\ntechnique that filled the pages of the literary magazines. The\nprejudices against it were many and robust. To most Victorians realism\nmeant Zola, sex, and the exploitation of the animal, and all the\npruderies of the Age of Innocence rose up in protest against defiling\nletters with such themes. The judgment of Aldrich\u2019s on realism--\u201cA\nmiasmatic breath blown from the slums\u201d--was a characteristic Yankee\necho of Tennyson\u2019s condemnation, \u201cwallowing in the slough of\nZolaism.\u201d All the high priests of the genteel rallied to combat such\na desecration of literature, and when it knocked at the door of a\nrespectable magazine in the person of Stephen Crane\u2019s _Maggie_ the\neditor could do nothing else than turn it into the street. In the\nlate nineties, when _Jude the Obscure_ appeared in one of the family\nmagazines, even the great reputation of Hardy was reckoned a poor\nexcuse for such an offense to morality.\n\nAmerican taste was still romantic, and from his villa at Florence, F.\nMarion Crawford regularly sent forth heavy romances that were regarded\nas contributions to our literature. In defense of his wares he threw\ninto the discussion of realism a compact little volume, _The Novel;\nWhat It Is_, in which he defined the novel as a pocket drama, the chief\ninterest of which lies in the plot--a retort courteous to Howells\u2019s\ncontention that plot is childish and a story ends well that ends\nfaithfully; wedding bells at the end are of no interest to grown men\nand women, but rather what life brings after the wedding bells. To the\naid of Crawford came the brilliant Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, the\nliterary idol of America in the nineties, whose brave tales were on\nevery center-table. A confirmed romantic, Stevenson could not resist\nbreaking a lance in the cause, and his _Humble Remonstrance_ was a\npersuasive defense of the perennial appeal of romance.\n\nBut in spite of protests the spirit of realism spread quietly through\nthe lesser works of fiction and the high-flown romantic was laid\naway in the grave of John Esten Cooke. The new realism was a native\ngrowth, sprung from the soil, unconcerned with European technique. In\nits earlier expression it inclined to a romantic or idyllic coloring,\nbut as it developed it came to rely more and more on the beauty of\ntruth. This primitive realism issued chiefly from the local color\nschool of the short story, but it was supplemented by the sociological\nschool. The influence of Lowell and the _Atlantic Monthly_ on the\ndevelopment of the realistic short story had been encouraging, and in\nthe next decade that development was to go forward swiftly. With the\nexploitation of local materials came a sharp division on sectional\nlines, and as Howells pointed out, America was soon parceled out\ngeographically into local groups. Edward Eggleston in southern Indiana,\nGeorge Washington Cable in New Orleans, Charles Egbert Craddock in\neastern Tennessee, James Lane Allen in Kentucky, Octave Thanet in\nArkansas, Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins Freeman in New England,\nwere representative of the new concern for local truth in fiction that\nwas to tell against the romantic. In fixing attention on narrow and\nhomely fields they were turning towards realism, for the charm of their\nwork lay in fidelity to the _milieu_, the exact portrayal of character\nand setting. With the spread of an interest in the local the vogue\nof the strange and the remote declined and a quiet sobriety of tone\ndisplaced the romantic. The way was being prepared for a more adequate\nrealism. \u201cNothing could testify with more force,\u201d said H. H. Boyesen in\n1894, \u201cto the fact that we have outgrown romanticism than this almost\nunanimous desire, on the part of our authors, to chronicle the widely\ndivergent phases of our American civilization.\u201d[730]\n\nBut that waited upon profound changes in the American outlook on\nlife. In the seventies and eighties conditions were not ripe for it\nand the naturalism that in France, Russia, Germany, and Scandinavia,\nwas carrying everything before it, was still alien to the American\ntemper. It was not so much that it offended our innate Puritanism\nas that it seemed to us belied by the open facts of American life.\nThe psychology of the dispersion still marked us. Although we were\nfeverishly building great cities we were still emotionally a country\npeople, far from urban-minded. We still thought in terms of the slack\nearlier freedoms, uncritical of our ways, untroubled about the future.\nFor the American born before the Civil War, naturalism was impossible;\nhis mind had not been shaped by the industrial city or come under the\ndominion of science. The traditional outlook on life was unchanged; he\nstill clung to the old moralities, the old verities, the old faith in\nthe goodness of life in America. The intellectual revolution must be\ngone through with before naturalism should be at home in America, a\nnative expression of native conditions; and it would then be a vehicle\nonly for writers born and bred in the new city environment. In the\nmeanwhile--in the genial years when the earlier optimisms still veiled\nthe harsher realities of science and industrialism--the movement of\nrealism got under way in the work of two distinguished craftsmen who,\nbred up in Victorian culture, interpreted life in terms of the middle\nand upper classes.[731]\n\n\nII \u2022 Henry James and the Nostalgia of Culture\n\nThere is a suggestion of irony in the fact that one of our earliest\nrealists, who was independent enough to break with the romantic\ntradition, should have fled from the reality that his art presumably\nwould gird itself up to deal with. Like his fellow spirit Whistler,\nHenry James was a lifelong pilgrim to other shrines than those of his\nnative land, who dedicated his gifts to ends that his fellow Americans\nwere indifferent to. Life, with him, was largely a matter of nerves.\nIn this world of sprawling energy it was impossible to barricade\nhimself securely against the intrusion of the unpleasant. His organism\nwas too sensitive, his discriminations too fine, to subject them to\nthe vulgarities of the Gilded Age, and he fled from it all. He early\nconvinced himself that the American atmosphere was uncongenial to the\nartist.[732] The grotesqueries of the frontier irruption, the crude\nturmoil released by the new freedoms, were no materials to appeal to\none in search of subtleties, to one who was a lover of nocturnes in\ngray. And so, like Whistler, he sought other lands, there to refine a\nmeticulous technique, and draw out ever thinner the substance of his\nart.\n\nThe explanation of the curious career of Henry James, seeking a\nhabitation between worlds and finding a spiritual home nowhere, is\nthat he was never a realist. Rather he was a self-deceived romantic,\nthe last subtle expression of the genteel, who fell in love with\nculture and never realized how poor a thing he worshiped. It was the\nfirst mistake of Henry James that he romanticized Europe, not for its\nfragments of the medieval picturesque, but for a fine and gracious\nculture that he professed to discover there. With the na\u00efvet\u00e9 of the\nAge of Innocence he assumed that an aristocratic society--shall we\nsay that of Mayfair or the Quartier Saint Germain?--is a complex of\nsubtle imponderables that one comes to understand and embody only\nthrough heritage; and it was an assumption even more romantic that\nthese imponderables were so subtly elusive as to escape any but the\nsubtlest art. Like Edith Wharton he erected this suppositious culture\ninto an abstract _tertium quid_, something apart from social convention\nor physical environment, something embodied in the choicer spirits of\na class that for generations presumably had cherished them. Born of\nan unconscious inferiority complex in presence of a long-established\nsocial order to which he was alien, this romanticization of European\nculture worked to his undoing, for it constrained the artist to a\nlifelong pursuit of intangible realities that existed only in his\nimagination. The gracious culture that James persistently attributed\nto certain choice circles in Europe was only a figment of his romantic\nfancy--a fact that after long rambling on the Continent and nearly\nforty years\u2019 unbroken residence in England, he came finally to\nrecognize. It was this failure to find the substance of his dream that\nimparted to his work a note of wistfulness. He had quitted the land of\nhis birth to seek his spiritual home elsewhere, yet increasingly he\ncame to question the wisdom of his act. He suffered the common fate of\nthe _d\u00e9racin\u00e9_; wandering between worlds, he found a home nowhere. It\nis not well for the artist to turn cosmopolitan, for the flavor of the\nfruit comes from the soil and sunshine of its native fields.\n\nThe spirit of Henry James marks the last refinement of the genteel\ntradition, the completest embodiment of its vague cultural aspirations.\nAll his life he dwelt wistfully on the outside of the realm he wished\nto be a free citizen of. Did any other professed realist ever remain\nso persistently aloof from the homely realities of life? From the\nexternal world of action he withdrew to the inner world of questioning\nand probing; yet even in his subtle psychological inquiries he remained\nshut up within his own skull-pan. His characters are only projections\nof his brooding fancy, externalizations of hypothetical subtleties.\nHe was concerned only with _nuances_. He lived in a world of fine\ngradations and imperceptible shades. Like modern scholarship he came\nto deal more and more with less and less. It is this absorption in the\nstream of psychical experience that justifies one in calling Henry\nJames a forerunner of modern expressionism. Yet how unlike he is to\nSherwood Anderson, an authentic product of the American consciousness!\n\n\nIII \u2022 William Dean Howells and the Realism of the Commonplace\n\nFrom such nostalgia, that left a note of wistfulness in his pages,\nWilliam Dean Howells was saved by his frank and undivided loyalties.\nIntellectually and emotionally he was native to the American soil, and\nhowever widely he might range he remained always a conscious American.\nHe had no wish to Europeanize his mind; he felt no secret hankerings\nfor the ways of Mayfair or the culture of the Quartier Saint Germain.\nThe homely American reality satisfied the needs of his art, and he\naccepted it with the finality of Walt Whitman. If he failed to depict\nit in all its sprawling veracity, if much of its crude robustness never\ngot into his pages, the lack was due to no self-imposed alienation, but\nto the temperament of the artist and the refined discretions of his\nenvironment.\n\nThe current school of realism is inclined to deal harshly with Howells.\nHis quiet reticences, his obtrusive morality, his genial optimism,\nhis dislike of looking ugly facts in the face, are too old-fashioned\ntoday to please the professional purveyors of our current disgusts.\nThey find his writings as tedious as the gossip of old ladies. To\ntheir coarser palates his respectable commonplace is as flavorless as\nbiscuit and tea. Yet it must not be forgotten that for years he was\nreckoned new-fashioned. Whatever may be one\u2019s final judgment on his\nwork it is certain that for twenty years he was a prophet of realism to\nhis generation, the leader of a movement to turn American literature\nfrom the path of romanticism and bring it face to face with the real\nand actual. It was not his fault that the ways of one generation are\nnot those of another, and it is well to remember that if his realism\nseems wanting to a generation bred up on Theodore Dreiser, it seemed\na debasement of the fine art of literature to a generation bred up on\nThomas Bailey Aldrich. Realism like dress changes its modes.\n\nThe Howells we know best was not a simple child of the frontier, like\nMark Twain, whom all could laugh with and love because the sallies\nof his wit awakened a native response. He did not remain completely\nnative to the older folk-ways. He was rather a composite of the ideals\nreckoned excellent by the post-war generation--an American Victorian,\nkindly, urbane, tolerant, democratic, accepting America as a land that\nGod\u2019s smile rests on, and convinced that here, wedded to a generous\ndemocracy, culture must eventually produce offspring finer than the\nworld has hitherto known. Bred up in the mystical Swedenborgian faith,\nhe shrank from all fleshliness and loved purity with the devotion\nof a Galahad. A child of the Ohio frontier, he retained to the\nlast the western feeling of democratic equality. An adopted son of\nBrahmin Cambridge, he immersed himself in culture--Italian, English,\nYankee--and served the ideal of excellence with a lifelong devotion;\na reverent pilgrim to the shrine of truth, he followed such paths as\nhis generation knew to lay his art at the high altar. In all these\nthings--in his ample culture, his kindly democracy, his high standards\nof workmanship--as well as in the instinctive reverences of a clean\nand sweet nature, he was an embodiment of the best in American life, a\nchild of Jacksonian democracy who made use of his freedoms to serve the\nexcellent cause of culture.\n\nBut he was much more than that, and if the critics who are wont to\ndamn his Victorian squeamishness would penetrate to the inner core of\nHowells they would discover an intellectual, alert and sensitive to\nchanging currents of thought, seeing with his own eyes, pursuing his\nown ends, who wrought out for himself a culture that was individual\nand native. If he was not, like Henry Adams, plagued with an itch\nof curiosity, he traveled widely in the realm of the mind. Culture\nmeant to him open-mindedness, familiarity with diverse schools of\nthought, a willingness to venture upon the unorthodox and to defend\nthe unpopular. He was never a child of the Gilded Age. He was unsoiled\nby its vulgarity, unconcerned with its sordid ambitions. Neither at\nheart was he a child of Brahmin culture. He loved Lowell and Norton\nand Godkin and Aldrich, and he wanted to be approved by them; but he\nranged far more widely than they, into places they thought indiscreet.\nThe mature Howells came to stand apart from Brahminism, dissatisfied\nwith a literary Toryism, convinced that a sterile genteel tradition\ncould not suffice the needs of American literature. His very drift\ntoward realism was a negation of the Brahmin influence. On the whole\nit was unfortunate that he lived so long in the Cambridge atmosphere.\nThe New England influence may not have been a factor in shaping his\ntoo leisurely technique, but certainly it postponed the day of his\nintellectual release. If he had removed to New York a decade earlier,\nbefore his literary method hardened into rigidity, his technique might\nhave changed with his more radical intellectual outlook and become the\nvehicle of a more adequate realism than he ever achieved.\n\nBut the significant thing is that the mind of Howells refused to\nimprison itself in Brahmin orthodoxies, but set forth on perilous\nexpeditions while Lowell and Norton were discreetly evading the\nintellectual heresies raging outside their libraries. While Henry James\nwas moving towards aristocratic Mayfair, Howells was journeying towards\nthe proletarian East Side. The scientific revolution seems early to\nhave washed in upon him, undermining the theological cosmos of his\nyouth and turning him into a liberal freethinker. His scientific views\nvery likely came to him secondhand, through the medium of literature;\nbut with his wide reading in Continental fields--Spanish, French,\nGerman, Scandinavian--he could not fail to become saturated with the\nevolutionary view then permeating all current letters. In this he was\nonly following with John Fiske and Henry Holt and Henry Adams the path\nof a new orthodoxy; nevertheless in applying the scientific spirit to\nfiction and espousing an objective realism, he quite definitely broke\nwith Brahmin tradition. And when, under the guise of fiction, he turned\nto social questions, and wove into the placid texture of his work the\nvexing problem of social justice, he ventured on perilous ground where\nhis Brahmin friends would not follow. To espouse the teachings of\nHerbert Spencer was one thing, to espouse the teachings of Karl Marx\nwas quite another.\n\nHowells came late to an interest in sociology, held back by the strong\nliterary and aesthetic cast of his mind. But in the eighties, when\nhe had reached middle life, he was no longer able to ignore or evade\nthe economic maladjustments of the Gilded Age. The social unrest that\nwas coming to bloody issue in strikes and lockouts gave him acute\nconcern, and slowly under pressure of a sensitive social conscience\nthere began a quiet intellectual revolution that was to transform the\ndetached observer of the American scene into a Marxian socialist.\nA democrat, a lover of his kind, a just soul endowed with a tender\nconscience, an idealist who dreamed of a brotherhood of free men who\nshould create in America a civilization adequate to human needs, what\nelse could he do? He loved peace but war was all about him. And so\nin the mid-afternoon of life he turned to the work of spreading the\ngospel of social democracy in the America of the Gilded Age. He had no\nprivate or personal causes to serve. He had not, like Godkin and Dana,\ngiven hostages to fortune in the shape of a newspaper or magazine; he\nhad no call to be partisan to his own interests. He was free to plead\nthe cause of justice in his own way and at his own time. It is easy\nfor the later radical to sneer at him as a parlor socialist who talked\nwell but carefully refrained from disturbing the capitalistic machine\nfrom which he drew his income; but that is to ignore the courage of the\nartist in confronting a hostile world. He stood stoutly for the rights\nof workingmen that the passions of the times swept rudely away. When\nthe Haymarket Riot in Chicago brought its shameful hysteria, and all\nrespectable America was crying for blood, Howells was one of the few\nintellectuals who spoke for justice, one of the few who held aloof from\nthe mob spirit, thereby bringing on his head a wave of criticism. It\nwas a brave thing in 1886 to speak for the \u201cChicago anarchists.\u201d\n\nBut it was not till his removal to New York, where he found himself\nat the center of the great revolution, that he set about seriously\nstudying the ways of plutocracy. For the student of Cambridge society\nit involved a mental upheaval. The urbanity of his literary-manner\nconceals for most readers the intensity of emotion that underlies\nhis quiet style; yet it is clear enough that having examined the\nways of private capitalism and considered its works, he rejected it.\nThenceforth to the end of his life he hated the thing and quietly\npreached against it. His affections went back fondly to the earlier\nagricultural order that had shaped his youth, and in the character\nof Dryfoos, in _A Hazard of New Fortunes_, he suggests the moral\ndegeneration that he believed followed in the train of the substitution\nof a speculative capitalist economy for the wholesomer agrarian\neconomy. But though, remembering his frontier youth, he might prefer\nthe older ways, he was realist enough to understand that capitalism\nwas the order of his generation, and he turned eagerly to explore the\nnew proletarian philosophies that came out of Germany. Howells was\nthe first distinguished American man of letters to espouse Marxian\nsocialism. For a cultivated American in the Gilded Age to sympathize\nwith proletarian theory and to proclaim himself a socialist, was enough\nto excite amazement in his fellows. In the eighties American social\nthought was still na\u00efve and provincial. Old-world theories were as\nalien as old-world institutions, and in spite of the wide interest\naroused by _Looking Backward_ the intelligent American in 1890 knew as\nlittle about Marxianism as he knows today about Bolshevism.\n\nThe doubts and hesitations that troubled Howells during these years\nof changing outlook, are skillfully dramatized in _A Hazard of New\nFortunes_. The story of the removal of the Marshes from New England to\nNew York, told with more than usual leisureliness, is the story of the\ntransition from the peacefulness of his earlier literary life to the\nanxieties of his later thought. Slowly into a story of the familiar\nHowells commonplace comes the note of social dissension. Antagonistic\nsocial philosophies meet and clash, and the movement draws inevitably\nto the great climax of the strike that brings tragedy into the scene.\nOf the mood that grew upon him as he wrote he afterwards said:\n\n It became, to my thinking, the most vital of my fictions; through\n my quickened interest in the life about me, at a moment of great\n psychological import. We had passed through a period of strong\n emotioning in the direction of humaner economics, ... the rich\n seemed not so much to despise the poor, and the poor did not\n so hopelessly repine. That shedding of blood which is for the\n remission of sins had been symbolized by the bombs and scaffolds of\n Chicago, and the hearts of those who felt this bound up with our\n rights, the slavery implicated in our liberty, were thrilling with\n griefs and hopes hitherto strange to the average American breast.\n Opportunely for me there was a great street-car strike in New York,\n and the story began to find its way to issues nobler and larger\n than those of the love-affairs common to fiction.[733]\n\nThe years of unrest marked by the great agrarian revolt were years of\ngreat intellectual activity for Howells, during which his thought\nripened and mellowed. His own liberal spirit drew to him the liberal\nspirits of the younger generation, and he became the counselor and\nfriend of many of the young rebels of the day. His sympathy went out\nto all who were concerned at the injustice of the world. He questioned\nthe right of none to uphold his creed, nor sought to impose his own\nbeliefs upon others. As he watched the great struggle of the times his\nheart was always on the side of the weak and exploited. Very likely he\nknew little about the economics of money and finance, over which rival\npartisans were quarreling savagely, but he understood the human side of\nthe farmers\u2019 problem and it was always the balance in the human ledger\nthat weighed with him.\n\nHe was a friend of Hamlin Garland and rejoiced when _Main-Travelled\nRoads_ was given to the world, writing for it an introduction warmly\nand tenderly sympathetic. As an artist he grew concerned lest under\nthe stimulus of B. O. Flower the zeal of the propagandist should\nsubmerge the art of the story-teller; but he had no quarrel with the\n\u201ccauses\u201d that were fermenting in the mind of the young Populist, and\nwould not lessen one whit the ardor of his social faith. Throughout\nthe passionate campaign of 1896, that brought most of his friends to a\nblind and scurrilous partisanship of the gold standard, his heart kept\nhis mind just and his sympathy for the unrequited producers served as\ncounterbalance to the shrill vituperation of his friend Godkin. He had\nthought too long and too honestly to be moved by the _claque_ of the\npress.\n\nIt was in the black days of the panic of \u201993 that he seems to have\nbrooded most thoughtfully over the ways of capitalistic America, and\nin the following year he published _The Traveller from Altruria_, the\nfirst of his two Utopian romances in which he subjected the system of\ncapitalism to critical analysis. It is a clever book that quite disarms\nthe reader. Howells delivers no broadside attack on the capitalistic\nsystem, and he suggests its mean and selfish exploitation with such\ngenial urbanity, such sly satire, as to arouse no sleeping lions. The\nconcern in his heart is belied by the twinkle in his eye. He hints that\nthe Altrurian critic is only the figment of a dream, and he smilingly\nsuggests the sources of the Altrurian commonwealth in the long line of\nUtopian dreamers from Plato and Sir Thomas More to Bellamy and William\nMorris. But the urbanity is only a mask. Protected by it Howells\ndelivers many a shrewd thrust at the ways of capitalism. American\ndemocracy does not show to advantage under his analysis. The Altrurian\ncomes upon the canker of social injustice in every chink and cranny\nof life--a canker that is slowly destroying democratic America; and\nHowells takes a sly pleasure in contrasting our democratic professions\nwith our plutocratic practice. There is a delightful irony in his\nattack on the professional classes--the professor, the minister, the\nwriter--for their quick defense of the exploiting classes. What may\nwe expect of the science of economics, he suggests, when our academic\neconomists are only apologists for the existing order?\n\n_The Traveller from Altruria_ is a shrewd analysis of American life set\nagainst a Marxian background, and in forecasting the future Howells\nfollows the Marxian law of concentration. The Age of Accumulation,\nwith its gigantic monopolies gathered in ever fewer hands, prepared\nthe way for a new order when industrialism, grown overbig, falls into\nthe control of the state as naturally as the harvest is gathered\ninto the granary. There was no need of a class war. When the times\nwere ripe political means sufficed, for the democracy retained the\neffective weapon of the vote. Thirteen years later Howells completed\nhis Utopian venture with _Through the Eye of the Needle_, in which\nhe sketches in fuller detail the order of life in Altruria. It was\nnot till men learned that co\u00f6peration is a better social cement than\ncompetition, altruism than egoism, that the new order was possible; and\nin this later work he depicts the kindly, rational society that emerged\nwhen men left off fighting each other and turned to working together\ninstead. On every page the influence of William Morris is revealed--not\nonly in the rejection of an urban society founded on the machine and a\nreturn to a decentralized anarchistic order, but in the emphasis on the\npsychology of work and the satisfactions that spring from free creative\nlabor. _Through the Eye of the Needle_ is curiously reminiscent of\n_News from Nowhere_ and suggests how sympathetically Howells followed\nEnglish social thought in its reaction against industrialism.\n\nIt was while he was thus engaged that he put into compact form his\nspeculations on the theory of realism. For more than a decade he had\nbeen the most distinguished advocate of realism in America, and for\nlonger still his successive novels had revealed to a critical world\nwhat substance and form he believed the realistic novel should possess.\nThe immediate sources of his theory are obscure, though it is clear\nenough that the work of Jane Austen was a creative influence. From\nthe school of French and Russian naturalism, then at the height\nof its vigor, he drew back in repulsion, and it was not till after\nhis technique was matured that Tolstoi became an influence in his\nintellectual life. It is reasonable to assume that his realism was a\nnative growth, the result of temperament unfolding through quiet years\nof reading in the English classics. A quizzical observer with the\ngift of humor is not likely to run into romanticism, and a youthful\npassion for Pope and Heine is not the best preparation for it. His\nintense dislike of the romantic, that led him to an inadequate and\npartial conception of it, seems to have sprung from certain instinctive\nfeelings and convictions that strengthened with the years: a deep and\nsincere love of truth, a native sympathy with the simple homely phases\nof life, a quiet loyalty to American fact, and a sharp distrust of the\naristocratic spirit. Endowed with such feelings he came to ascribe\nhis own partisanships to literary methods; the romantic became for\nhim the aristocratic, and the realistic became the democratic. As an\nAmerican he was content to take the common stuff of life, as he found\nit in America, and depict it in unpretentious sincerity. Plain American\nlife was not only worthy of literature, he was convinced, but the only\nmaterial worthy of American literature. The path to the universal runs\nas directly through the commonplace American parlor as through the hall\nof the medieval baron or the drawing-room of Mayfair.\n\nIn _Criticism and Fiction_ (1894), Howells ascribes the rise of modern\nrealism to the twin sources of science and democracy. From science it\nderives its passion for truth, for \u201crealism,\u201d he asserts, \u201cis nothing\nmore and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.\u201d \u201cWe\nmust ask ourselves before we ask anything else, Is it true?--true to\nthe motives, the impulses, the principles, that shape the life of\nactual men and women.\u201d The question, what is essential truth, that\nhas been the apple of discord amongst the realists, Howells answers\nin democratic fashion by appealing to the average. The \u201cfoolish man,\u201d\nhe says, \u201cwonders at the unusual, but the wise man at the usual.\u201d The\nrealist, therefore, will deal objectively with the usual and common\nrather than with the unusual or strange, and in so doing he draws\ncloser to the common heart of humanity, and learns the respect for\nsimple human nature that is the source and wellspring of democracy.\nIn delineating truthfully the prosaic lives of common people realism\nreveals the essential dignity and worth of all life. The romantic,\non the other hand, is aristocratic. \u201cIt seeks to withdraw itself,\nto stand aloof; to be distinguished and not to be identified.\u201d \u201cThe\npride of caste has become the pride of taste,\u201d and romance is the last\nrefuge of the aristocratic spirit that, defeated elsewhere, has taken\nrefuge in culture. Not aloofness, but comradeship, is the need of the\nworld; not distinction, but identity. Realism is the child of democracy\nbecause the realist is one who \u201cfeels in every nerve the equality of\nthings and the unity of men,\u201d and the great artist is one with a talent\n\u201crobust enough to front the everyday world and catch the charm of its\nwork-worn, care-worn, brave, kindly face.\u201d\n\nTo this characteristic conception that realism is democratic Howells\nadds certain other dicta that to his own generation seemed as true\nas to ours they seem doubtful: that art must serve morality, that\nit must teach rather than amuse, and that truthfulness to American\nlife requires a note of cheerfulness. Art cannot flout the \u201ceternal\namenities,\u201d Howells asserted, for \u201cmorality penetrates all things, it\nis the soul of all things.\u201d Nor can it stand aloof, disdaining the\noffice of teacher, for unless it \u201ctends to make the world better and\nkinder\u201d it is empty and futile; and it can do this only \u201cfrom and\nthrough the truth.\u201d But the truth that will uplift society does not\ndwell in the kennel and pigsty; it will not be come upon by exploring\nthe animal in man, or in wrapping the shroud of pessimism about life.\nIn America at least, realism must concern itself with the \u201clarge\ncheerful average of health and success and happy life,\u201d for after\nall \u201cthe more smiling aspects of life\u201d are \u201cthe more American.\u201d From\nsuch postulates Howells developed his familiar technique, which in\nminimizing plot, rejecting the unusual and strange and heroic, reduced\nhis stories to the drab level that bores so many of his readers, and\nevokes the criticism that in elaboration of the commonplace he evades\nthe deeper and more tragic realities that reach to the heart of life.\n\nThe criticism is just. More than any other thing this concern for\nthe usual weakens Howells\u2019s work and renders it trivial. He does not\nprobe the depths of emotional experience. Neither the life of the\nspirit nor the passions of the flesh is the stuff from which he weaves\nhis stories. The lack--and allowing for all his solid excellence it\nremains grave--sprang in part from his own timid nature that recoiled\nfrom the gross and the unpleasant, and in part from the environment in\nwhich he perfected his technique. For years he lived in an atmosphere\nof complacent convention, a society dominated by women, culture, and\nconscience. Cambridge and Boston in the seventies and eighties were\nstill in the Age of Innocence greatly concerned with erecting defenses\nagainst the intrusion of the unpleasant, reverencing the genteel\nin life and letters, soberly moral and making much of the eternal\nverities. In such a world of refined manners and narrow outlook what\nshould the realist do but report faithfully of what he saw and heard?\nAnd so Howells, perforce, became a specialist in women\u2019s nerves, an\nanalyst of the tenuous New England conscience, a master of Boston\nsmall-talk. It was such materials that shaped his leisurely technique\nuntil it falls about his theme with the amplitude of crinoline.\n\nThrough these chronicles of the Age of Innocence runs a persistent note\nof the neurotic. There are more scruples to a page of Howells than in\nany other writer except Henry James--for the most part filmy cobwebs\ninvisible to the coarser vision of a later generation. The action\npercolates through the sand of small-talk, welling up from the tiniest\nsprings and stopped by the smallest obstruction. Like Franklin\u2019s\ntwo-headed snake his characters are in danger of dying from thirst\nbecause of much argument over the right path to water. It is hard to\nweave a substantial fabric from such gossamer threads, and when in\n_The Rise of Silas Lapham_ endless pages are devoted to the ethical\nsubtleties of a woman\u2019s accepting the hand of a man who the family had\nbelieved was in love with her sister, or when in _April Hopes_ the\nfantastic scruples of a neurotic girl are elaborated with a refinement\nof art worthy of a Fra Angelico Madonna, the stuff is too filmy to wear\nwell. Commonplace men and neurotic women are poor materials from which\nto fashion an adequate realism, and with the passing of the Age of\nInnocence the scruples of Howells went out of fashion.\n\nThe fault, in part at least, must be traced to the artist\u2019s deep\nreverence for New England. From his youth he had cherished an exalted\nnotion of the sufficiency of New England culture, and had accepted its\nparochialisms as ultimate standards. To a bookish lad, inclined to be\ntoo consciously literary, such loyalty to a declining school could\nonly accentuate his native aloofness from life. His four years at\nVenice had been given over to an ardent pursuit of culture, as culture\nwas understood by Lowell and Norton. It was the natural impulse of a\nsensitive mind, conscious of its limitations, reveling for the first\ntime in the wealth that had been denied his frontier boyhood. His\npoetic _Venetian Days_ was an infallible passport to Boston favor,\nand when after his return he was taken up by the _Atlantic_ group he\ncarried with him to Boston an unconscious inferiority complex that did\nhis genius an evil turn. It was natural for the self-taught western\nyouth to be reverent in presence of the great of earth; but it is not\nwell for the artist to be humble in the presence of his masters. Unless\nhe is something of a rebel, given to questioning the dogmas of the\nschools, he will never ripen into creative originality.\n\nAn inferiority complex is a common mark of the frontier mind that\nfinds itself diffident in presence of the old and established, and\nHowells suffered from it greatly. For years his keen eyes lacked their\nusual shrewdness in judging Boston ways, and to the end of his life he\noverestimated the greatness of the men to whom his youthful loyalty\nhad gone out. Not only did he accept Lowell and Holmes and Longfellow\nat the Boston rating, but he regarded the lesser group of cultivated\nBoston gentlemen with partial eyes. It would have been far better\nfor his art if like Hamlin Garland he had never been received within\nthe charmed circle; if he had had to make his way alone. To justify\nhis acceptance Howells felt that he must prove himself as completely\nBostonian as the best, and in consequence he sloughed off his western\nheritage, perverted his genius, and shaped his realism to the slender\nmaterials discovered in Back Bay drawing-rooms. The genteel tradition\nwas in the way of strangling his realism.\n\nSubjected to such refinements his realism in the end became little more\nthan technique--a meticulous transcription of New England conventions,\nthe casual action submerging itself in an endless stream of talk. No\ndoubt Howells was true to what he saw; certainly no one has ever fixed\nmore exactly the thin substance of the Age of Innocence. Nevertheless\nthe fidelity of his observation, the refinement of his prose style,\nand the subtlety of his humor that plays lambently about the edges\nof his words, do not compensate for the slightness of his materials.\nThe record he has left is not that of a great soul brooding over the\nmeaning of life, puzzled, uncertain, yet tender toward the victims that\nfate has seized and crushed. He was restrained by too many inhibitions\nto deal frankly with natural human passions. He felt deeply and\ntenderly, but he was too diffident to let himself go. It is likely\nthat Howells never realized the inadequacy of his temperament and the\nfutility of his method to any serious realism. Even in his acutest\nstudy _A Hazard of New Fortunes_, which comes upon brutal economic\nreality, the story is entangled in a mass of minute detail and never\nquite breaks through. The indecisions, the repetitions, the whimsical\ndescriptions, the drifting talk, are all true to life, but they are\nnot essential or vital truth. The real issue toward which the story\nmoves--the problem of social justice and the contrasting systems of\nwage-slavery, bond-slavery, and social democracy--is obscured in a\nwelter of asides and never quite reaches the front of the stage. He is\nmore effective in such works as _Indian Summer_, when he deals with\ncharacters on vacation who play whimsically with love, and in _April\nHopes_, when he dwells fondly on the infinitely eloquent trivialities\nof young love-making. In such studies the minute fidelity to word and\ngesture, the humorous playing with invisible scruple, is a pleasant\nsubstitute for solider material.\n\nHowells had real gifts, of which he made the most. Refinement, humor,\nsympathy--fidelity to external manner and rare skill in catching the\nchanging expression of life--a passion for truth and a jealous regard\nfor his art: he had all these qualities, yet they were not enough\nto make him a great realist. He belonged to the Age of Innocence\nand with its passing his works have been laid away. He has had no\nfollowers to keep his method alive. If one may hazard an explanation\nof the lot that has befallen him, it would be this. Howells the\nartist mistook his calling. He was not by temperament a novelist. He\nlacked the sense of drama, a grasp of the rough fabric of life, the\npower to deal imaginatively with the great and tragic realities. His\ngenius was rather that of a whimsical essayist, a humorous observer\nof the illogical ways of men. He was an eighteenth-century spirit--a\nsubtler Goldsmith--set down in another age and an uncongenial world.\nIn his later years he must have come to realize this, for more and\nmore he turned to the essay form. There his quiet humor and shrewd\nobservation fitted his sinuous prose style to a nicety. In such sketchy\nautobiography as _My Literary Passions_, and more whimsically in such\ngenial travel essays as _Certain Delightful English Towns_, his refined\nart arrived at its most perfect expression. Not an original genius like\nMark Twain, far from a turbulent soul like Herman Melville, Howells\nwas the reporter of his generation--the greatest literary figure of a\ndrab negative age when the older literary impulse was slackening, and\nthe new was slowly displacing it. He marks the transition between the\nearlier idealism and the later naturalism. A humane and lovable soul,\nhe was the embodiment of all that was kindly and generous in an America\nthat was not wholly given over to the ways of the Gilded Age--an\nAmerica that loved beauty and served culture even amidst the turmoil of\nrevolution.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[730] _Literary and Social Silhouettes_, p. 73.\n\n[731] The first subsection of this chapter in the Contents is entitled\n\u201cWilliam James and Pragmatism.\u201d None of this appears in the manuscript,\nand it seems likely that Professor Parrington planned to transfer the\nsubject to a later part of the book. The numbering is, however, left as\nit is given in the Contents.--_Publisher._\n\n[732] \u201cCivilization at its highest pitch was the master passion of his\nmind, and his preoccupation with the international aspects of character\nand custom issued from the conviction that the rawness and rudeness\nof a young country were not incapable of cure by contact with more\ndeveloped forms.\u201d Pelham Edgar, _Henry James, Man, Author_, pp. 40-41.\n\n[733] Quoted in \u201cThe Social Consciousness of William Dean Howells,\u201d\n_New Republic_, Vol. 26, p. 193.\n\n\n\n\nBook Two \u2022 The Old and the New: Storm Clouds\n\n\nThe quarter-century between the panic of 1873 that rudely disturbed\nthe revelry of the Great Barbecue, and the campaign of 1896 that\nbroke the agrarian opposition to capitalism, was marked by a fierce\nagrarian attempt to nullify in America the law of concentration. The\nsilent drift toward plutocracy was too evident to escape comment even\nin the Gilded Age, and the ideal of plutocracy was too repugnant to a\npeople drenched in Jeffersonian and Jacksonian prejudices to escape\nbitter hostility. The pursuit of wealth was an accepted democratic\nright, but it was assumed to be a fair race and no favors. The use\nof the political state by greater wealth to lay handicaps on lesser\nwealth had not been in the reckoning, and the law of progress that\ndiminished the number of beneficiaries from the national policy of\npre\u00ebmption and exploitation had not been so interpreted. Something was\nwrong with a progress that augmented poverty as it increased wealth,\nand with the alarmist cry in their ears--the rich are growing richer\nand the poor poorer--the untutored democracy of the seventies and the\neighties turned to question the drift of tendency that quite evidently\nwas transforming a democratic people into a vast engulfing plutocracy.\nAn older agrarian America was confronted by a younger capitalistic\none, and the conflict of ideals and purposes was certain to bring on a\nbitter debate.\n\nIn the fierce struggle that turmoiled the politics of three decades\nthe democracy went into battle as ill-equipped intellectually as it\nhad been a hundred years before in the struggle over the Constitution.\nIt was reaping the harvest of the long Jacksonian slackness that,\ncontent with the vote, had given no thought to the ultimate program\nof democracy but had suffered the lawyers to have their way. The\nEnlightenment had long since been submerged by Whiggish ambitions, and\nsince the days of the Abolition Movement there had been no serious\nconsideration of political theory. The success of the Jacksonian\nrevolution had brought about its undoing. The abstract principle of\ndemocracy having won common acceptance, it was assumed to be competent\nto shift for itself. But unfortunately a supposedly democratic state\nwas functioning under a Constitution designed to thwart democracy,\nand, interpreted by lawyers, it buttressed the rights of property far\nmore securely than the rights of man. Within this fundamental law\ncapitalism had long been entrenching itself. Its stronghold could not\nbe taken by frontal attack and its flanks were protected by the courts\nthat had assumed the high prerogative of voiding statutory enactments\nby judicial decree. As a result in no other country was capitalism so\nsafeguarded from hostile attack; it plowed its fields and gathered its\nharvests secure from disturbance.\n\nUnfortunately the political state did not realize that it was not\nin reality the democracy it professed to be. The most intelligent\nliberalism of the times, failing to take into account the economic\nbasis of politics, was satisfied to spend its energy in Civil Service\nReform and similar tinkering with the political machinery, convinced\nthat it was only necessary to recover the old aristocratic sense of\nresponsibility in political agents to perfect a democratic government.\nNot till another generation did liberalism come to understand that the\ndemocratic program was still largely unfulfilled, and set about in all\nearnestness to complete it; but that did not happen till the philosophy\nof democracy had been far more adequately explored and the simple faith\nof Jacksonianism had been instructed by the experience of other lands.\nPopular discontent with the drift toward plutocracy was intensified\nby the successive economic crises that marked the transition from\nagrarianism to capitalism. The gospel of progress, it seems, had\nnot taken due account of the price that must be paid in social\ndisturbances, and the breakdowns of 1873-1879 and 1887-1896 with their\nharsh dislocations aroused a spirit of revolt that issued in broad\npopular movements. Those movements spun the thread of liberalism that\nruns through the years from the Gilded Age to the World War--a thread\nwoven of the earlier liberalism that came from the frontier, and the\nnew collectivistic theories that came from Europe. In the eighties and\nnineties it was still largely native agrarian, but in the early years\nof the new century it drew heavily on the proletarian philosophies of\nEurope--seeking to apply old-world experience to American problems.\nThrough it all runs increasingly a note of sobering realism. After a\nhundred years political romanticism was slowly dying in America.\n\n\n\n\nPart One: The Middle Border Rises\n\n\n\n\nChapter I \u2022 The Plight of the Farmer\n\n\nI \u2022 Democratic Reactions to Plutocracy\n\nThe Middle Border was the first to recover from the heady romanticisms\nof Whiggery. The malady of pre\u00ebmption and exploitation quickly ran\nits course there and after the first enthusiasm of settlement had\nsubsided--the staking of claims, the scramble over townsites, the\nbidding for railway lines--the farmer settled down amidst his corn\nand wheat and cattle and hogs to learn what sort of living the\nprairies might provide. With his feet on the sobering earth he was no\nmiddle-class adventurer, no buccaneer lying in wait for the golden\nargosies of Spain, but a sober realist kept sane by wind and weather\nand kept honest by his daily occupation of tilling and reaping.\n\nAs the first wave of settlers spread over the prairies a mood of\nbuoyant hopefulness colored their dreams. The earlier conquest of the\nInland Empire had entailed exhausting labor in preliminary clearings,\nand the stumpage from great forests remained for years to obstruct\nclean tillage; but here in the Middle Border were treeless fields\nof black soil, level, uncluttered by stones, inviting the plow. For\nages the prairie grass had been growing there, tall as a horseman\nin the bottoms and plentiful on the uplands; and as the unmarked\nseasons passed, the potash from the decaying vegetation added a richer\nfertility to the soil. In natural productiveness it was the fairest\nportion of America, and as the land-hungry settlers made their pitch\nthere, filing on broad homesteads and building their cabins, a mood\nof buoyant expectation filled the land. It was not the flamboyant\nspirit of the Gilded Age, but the hopefulness of those who within a few\nshort years were to transform a wilderness into the world\u2019s granary.\nIn his wistful account of the glamour that lay upon the prairies in\nthose first pioneer years--a glamour that soon passed like the morning\ndews--Hamlin Garland was no frontier romantic but a sober historian.\n\nBut as the seventies gave place to the eighties a subtle change came\nover the mood of the Middle Border. Disappointment and disillusion\nsettled upon a land that before had smiled in the spring sunshine.\nThe harvest was not fulfilling the expectations of the seedtime.\nThe changed mood came in part from the harsh toil and meager living\nthat were the necessary price the frontiersman must pay for his\nsmall winnings. It is no holiday job to subdue an untamed land and\nwrest abundance and comfort from a virgin soil. Only for the young\nwho can project their hopes into the future is it endurable; for the\nmiddle-aged and the old it is a heart-breaking task. The history of\nthe western frontier is a long drab story of hardship and privation\nand thwarted hopes, of men and women broken by the endless toil, the\nwindows of their dreams shuttered by poverty and the doors to an\nabundant life closed and barred by narrow opportunity. It is true that\nthe prairies took no such toll as the forests had taken; the mean and\nsqualid poverty through which Lincoln passed was not so common in the\nMiddle Border as it had been along the earlier frontier. Nevertheless\na fierce climate and a depressing isolation added their discomforts\nto a bleak existence. The winds were restless on the flat plains, and\nthe flimsy wooden houses, stark and mean, unprotected by trees and\nunrelieved by shrubbery, were an ill defense against their prying\nfingers. In winter the blizzards swept out of the North to overmaster\nthe land, and in summer the hot winds came up from the Southwest to\nsear the countrysides that were rustling with great fields of corn.\nOther enemies appeared, as it were, out of a void. Endless flights of\ngrasshoppers descended like a plague of locusts, and when they passed\nthe earth was bare and brown where the young wheat had stood. Armies\nof chinch-bugs came from nobody knew where, and swarming up the tender\ncorn-stalks left them sucked dry and yellow. It is nature\u2019s way, to\ndestroy with one hand what it creates with the other; and for years the\nwestern farmers were fighting plagues that had possessed the prairies\nbefore the settlers came.\n\nThe disillusion of the Middle Border deepened into gloom as the\nwidespread economic depression of the times added its discouragements.\nA period of falling prices was curtailing industry and forcing down the\nmarket values of all produce. From such depressions a debtor community\nalways suffers most severely, for falling produce-prices mean rising\nmoney-values and a shifting standard of value for deferred payments.\nThe farms of the Middle Border were heavily encumbered to provide\ntools and livestock and buildings, and the earnings were consumed by\nthe interest that went East to the mortgage-holders. Debt was a luxury\nthe farmer could ill afford, and when the debt was silently augmenting\nby the rising value of the dollar he was forced to consider his\nsituation. The plight into which he had fallen was graphically summed\nup in the phrase \u201cten-cent corn and ten per cent interest\u201d--a phrase\nthat was to become a spark to all the tinder that was gathering from\nfrontier hardships and disappointments. Falling market-values were at\nthe bottom of his troubles. The prices of his staples were sinking\nbelow the cost of production. With four-cent eggs, five-cent butter,\nten-cent corn, and fifty-cent wheat, with more hogs and cattle than\nthe stockyards would take, and with debts contracted at interest-rates\nfixed by a higher scale of values, the economic position of the Middle\nBorder was becoming desperate, and in the later eighties a sullen\nbitterness took possession of the land. As the farmer sat by the\nkitchen stove and stoked the fire with great ears of corn that were\ncheaper than coal, he had ample time to contemplate his lot. Ungathered\ncrops for which there was no market would not pay interest. There was\ncoming to be \u201ctoo much hog in the dollar,\u201d as one commentator remarked\nquaintly. The Middle Border, all too clearly, was strangling from its\nown productiveness.\n\nIt was easy for newspaper critics, armed with the wisdom of the\nBoard of Trade, to point out that overproduction was the trouble\nwith the western farmer, and that so vast a development of staple\ncrops resulting from sowing the prairie states to corn and wheat was\ncertain to bring on disastrous market slumps. It was true. Production\nhad outrun consumption; quantity output had brought on a glut. But\nit was also true--as the armchair critics were not so careful to\npoint out--that other causes contributed equally to the deflation\nof the western farmer, the result of which was to despoil him of\nthe last moiety of his earnings. He was in the grip of a complex\nmiddleman organization that gouged him at every turn. The gap between\nproducer and consumer was widening to a chasm. The railways charged\ntwenty cents a bushel cartage for wheat from the Mississippi to\nChicago, and fifty-two and a half cents to the Atlantic seaboard.\nThe elevator companies fixed monopoly tolls, swindled the farmer in\ntheir grain-gradings, and combined to force down the market price at\nharvest time and raise it after the crop came under their control. The\n\u201cLivestock Ring,\u201d managed by the railways, controlled the Union Stock\nYards at Chicago and squeezed the marginal profits from the farmer\u2019s\ncattle and hogs.[734] When on the other hand he bought implements or\ngroceries or household goods he was at the mercy of a non-competitive\nmarket, protected by patent-rights and tariffs, to which were added\nextortionate transportation and middleman charges.\n\nIt was his own fault, of course. Due to his own political slackness\nthe farmer had allowed himself to become the common drudge of society.\nAll the exploiting classes had their hands in his pockets. His was the\nonly considerable economic group that exerted no organized pressure to\ncontrol the price he sold for or the price he paid. While capitalism\nhad been perfecting its machinery of exploitation he had remained\nindifferent to the fact that he himself was the fattest goose that\ncapitalism was to pluck. He had helped indeed to provide the rope\nfor his own hanging. He had voted away the public domain to railways\nthat were now fleecing him; he took pride in the county-seat towns\nthat lived off his earnings; he sent city lawyers to represent him\nin legislatures and in Congress; he read middle-class newspapers and\nlistened to bankers and politicians and cast his votes for the policy\nof Whiggery that could have no other outcome than his own despoiling.\nAnd now in the middle eighties he began to feel the rope about his\nneck, and realized the predicament he was in. It was not alone the\nlocal middlemen, or even the railways--he had come to believe--that\nwere to blame. It was the money-power of the East, the grip of Wall\nStreet, that was strangling him--a power that controlled the government\nat Washington, that manipulated the currency system, and that was\nengaged in a scheme to augment its holdings by forcing up the value of\nthe dollar and automatically increasing the value of the indebtedness\nit had gathered in its vaults. Clearly it was high time for the\ndeflated farmer to get into politics on his own account if he were to\nsave himself from beggary, and so during the Gilded Age began a great\nagrarian revolt against capitalism that was to turmoil the next quarter\nof a century--a revolt that was to mark the last effective organization\nof the farmers to combat the new order, the last flare-up of an\nold-fashioned agrarian America before it was submerged by the middle\nclass.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Farmer Considers Politics\n\nBy the early seventies it was becoming clear to the Middle Border\nthat the policy of Whiggery took no account of the needs of the\nfarmer. Government was indifferent to him, whether at the capital of\nhis state or at Washington, and governmental programs--whether in\nthe matter of protective tariffs and land-grants, in its unconcern\nat monopoly extortion, or in the contraction of the currency with\na view to the resumption of specie payments--ran so counter to his\ninterests that the dullest began to question the fairness of the\nstate. It had ceased to concern itself with the welfare of the whole.\nThe combination of paternalism and _laissez faire_ that marked the\nWhiggery of the times could be interpreted by the suspicious farmer,\nindeed, only as a surrender of government to capitalism. It had lost\nall pretense of fairness in the distribution of governmental favors,\nand withheld or granted aid with the single objective of furthering\nthe interests of powerful groups. It sanctioned the use of the state\nby business interests for purposes of exploitation, and declined to\nexercise its power in the interests of the consumer. It granted tariffs\nand subsidies, yet refused to regulate the monopoly power it had\ncreated. It was no longer a government of the people but a government\nof business, concerned for the interests of exploitation, and if the\nfarmer were to gain a hearing he must first make himself feared.\n\nOf necessity, therefore, the agrarian program entailed a political\nstruggle of great bitterness. There would be no adequate relief granted\nuntil the farmers had wrested control of government from the class that\nwas exploiting them. The battle between agrarianism and capitalism,\nin consequence, from the outset was a struggle for control of the\npolitical state, that beginning in single commonwealths was eventually\ncarried to the federal government. Hope of effective aid from state\ngovernments quickly proved illusory, for when the Illinois farmers\npassed a law to curb the railways the federal courts set aside their\nenactment and bade the farmers--to use a later phrase--go home and slop\nthe hogs. They must not meddle with matters beyond their comprehension.\nIn consequence of such slaps in the face the farmers fell to perfecting\ntheir organizations and arousing class consciousness until there issued\nfrom the long debates of the Grange and the Farmers\u2019 Alliance the great\nmovement of Populism that proposed to reach as far as Washington,\ninstall there the representatives of the producing classes, and\nrefashion the political state in accordance with the democratic needs\nof the plain people.\n\nSo ambitious a program needed time, not only for the farmers to\norganize but to clarify their policy. They were ill equipped for a\nserious struggle. With the rise of capitalism agriculture had been\nsteadily falling in social prestige. As a result of the decline of the\nlanded squirearchy in the North and the overthrow of the plantation\neconomy in the South, agriculture had lost its traditional leaders\nwho had furnished the brains and supplied the spokesmen in earlier\npolitical struggles. In the seventies agriculture was no longer\nreckoned a pursuit peculiarly suitable to gentlemen. The business\nman had risen in social prestige as the farmer declined, and instead\nof being recruited from the natural leaders of society agriculture\nsuffered a draining-off of the more energetic and capable to the\ncities, leaving the farms in the hands of the less ambitious, who were\nsupplemented in the seventies and eighties by European peasants who\nsettled great portions of the Middle Border. With this loss of social\nprestige came a new urban contempt for farm life that expressed itself\nin \u201cHayseed\u201d cartoons, and in the heedlessness of politicians who were\nquick to transfer allegiance from a decaying to a rising order.\n\nThe farmers of the Middle Border, drawn from many commonwealths\nand with a high percentage of aliens, were far from a homogeneous\nclass-conscious group like the southern planters. Race, language,\nand cultural antecedents held them apart, intensifying the aloofness\nthat was a common characteristic of the frontier. Week-days they\nstuck to their plows and Sundays, unlike the New England farmer, they\nwere little given to churchgoing. The landholdings were commonly a\nhomestead of a hundred and sixty acres, often running to an entire\nsection of six hundred and forty acres. Much land was held idle by\nspeculators, with the result that the isolation of the farmer--dwelling\nconvenient to his fields rather than to neighbors--deepened the\nsuspicious individualism that was an obsession of the agrarian mind,\nand unfitted him for effective co\u00f6perative effort. No political or\nsocial philosophy answerable to his needs was at hand, no intellectual\nleaders like Jefferson or John Taylor to adapt old-world theory to\nthe conditions of the Middle Border, no commanding figure like Old\nHickory to marshal the scattered hosts. The Physiocratic theory with\nits prestige of distinguished advocates and its elaborate social\neconomics had never taken root in the Middle Border; although certain\nof its prejudices--that the farmer is the sole producer and the sterile\nmiddleman must somehow be got rid of--had taken possession of the\nwestern mind and largely influenced the ultimate program. But if the\nwestern farmer inherited no ready-made philosophy he was daily prodded\nby harsh reality. He got up and went to bed under the prick of economic\nnecessity, and this made of him a realist and an opportunist, eager\nto apply homely remedies to homely ills. With the discipline got from\nhard times he was not easily gulled by bright young city lawyers with\ntheir handbooks of capitalistic economics. The new agrarianism of the\nprairies, in consequence, was a hard-headed, homespun theory, fashioned\non the farms, intended to serve the producer rather than the middleman.\nIt had behind it none of the high authority of the schools, and\nnaturally it was mocked and scoffed at by all the spokesmen--editors,\nlawyers, bankers, scholars, intellectuals--of the prosperous middle\nclass. The farmer had to make his way against the embattled prejudices\nand contempt of the rest of America.\n\nBut before he could become a power in political councils he must\norganize and use his voting strength as a unit; and as early as the\nlate sixties the work of organization was got under way. It began\nas a social movement with the Grange that spread widely through the\nSouth and Middle West and even gained foothold in the East, bringing\ntogether in social groups the farmer families of the neighborhood. It\nprofessed to stand outside politics and strove to awaken an interest\nin co\u00f6perative buying and selling, but the community gatherings were\ncertain to find politics waiting for them at the schoolhouse door,\nand after the program of co\u00f6peration had been discussed the talk ran\neasily into political debate. From the Grange issued in the eighties\nthe Farmers\u2019 Alliance, more consciously political in its objective,\nactive in arousing the farmers to political action; and with the hard\ntimes that came with the turn of the decade the different groups merged\nin the broad movement of Populism--a militant political uprising with\na definite party program and organization. The flare-up came swiftly\nand in the first years of the nineties the prairies were aflame and\neven the cotton-fields of the South were fired. Populism swept from\ntownship to township, a militant agrarian movement, providing its\nown leaders--Tom Watson in Georgia, General Weaver in Iowa, Ignatius\nDonnelly in Minnesota, sockless Jerry Simpson in Kansas, with Hamlin\nGarland, and B. O. Flower, and other intellectuals rallying to the\nfarmers\u2019 standard. It set up the banner of agrarian democracy, summoned\nits followers and drilled them for the battles that lay ahead. Huge\nmeetings gathered of the farmers of a county and day-long they listened\nto speeches that came straight from the hay-fields and the corn-rows,\nspeeches that were an echo of the daily experience of the farmer and\nthe farmer\u2019s wife.\n\nIt was Mary Ellen Lease of Kansas who struck from the common bitterness\na phrase that embodied the militant spirit of Populism. Week after week\nshe traveled the prairie country urging the farmers to \u201craise less corn\nand more hell,\u201d and at her call the sunburned faces settled into grim\npurpose. The farmers had become class-conscious. They were enlisted in\na class struggle. They used the vocabulary of realism, and the unctuous\npolitical platitudes and sophistries of county-seat politicians rolled\noff their minds like water from a duck\u2019s back. They were fighting\na great battle--they believed--against Wall Street and the eastern\nmoney-power; they were bent on saving America from the plutocracy;\nand they swept over the county-seat towns, burying the old machine\npoliticians under an avalanche of votes, capturing state legislatures,\nelecting Congressmen and Senators, and looking forward to greater\npower. In 1896 Populism gained control of the Democratic party and\nentered on its great campaign to establish the principle of democracy\nat Washington. It was the last mortal struggle between agrarianism\nand capitalism, and to understand it one must turn back to the long\nagitation over the money question.\n\n\nIII \u2022 The Greenback Movement\n\nIf in the early nineties the currency question had come to overshadow\nthe questions of the tariff and railway regulation, it was because that\nproblem lay at the heart of the struggle between the rival agrarian and\ncapitalistic economies. The control of the national monetary system\nby the bankers was vital to the smooth functioning of a capitalistic\norder, and to assure such control it was desirable that monetary\nstandards and emissions of currency be removed from the sphere of\npolitical action and lodged in the hands of business. The problem was\ndifficult, for the right to \u201ccoin money and to regulate the value\nthereof\u201d were functions of sovereignty specifically recognized in the\nConstitution; and it was a series of moves designed to transfer such\nfunctions to private groups that brought on a long political debate\nover systems of currency.\n\nThe intellectual background against which the struggle was set may be\nsketched briefly. Despite the long battle over the Bank in Jackson\u2019s\ntime, little serious thinking on the principles of money and currency\nhad been done in America. Financiers and economists alike followed the\ncurrent English school, and since the appearance of the famous Bullion\nReport of 1811 that school had adhered to the intrinsic-value theory\nof money. While accepting banknotes as a useful medium of exchange,\nthe English classical economists held that only coin is real money,\nand that the issue of notes must bear a definite ratio to the amount\nof coin and bullion in the vaults. Money is not a creature of the law.\nGovernment cannot create it. Rather it is a convenient token of labor\ndone, and the stamp of the mint is only a certification of weight\nand fineness. There are but two ways, indeed, in which government\ncan acquire money--through taxation and by borrowing. The \u201cnatural\noperation of the specie standard\u201d was reckoned one of the fundamental\n\u201claws of trade,\u201d and for government to tamper with it--setting aside\nthe intrinsic-value principle by the emission of irredeemable paper\nmoney--was to violate the sanctity of contracts, cheat creditors,\nincrease prices, and disorder business. The law of supply and demand\nanswered all the needs of money regulation.\n\nThis was no more than the application of the current theory of\n_laissez faire_ to the problem of currency. But between the Bullion\nReport of 1811 and the Parliamentary Bank Act of 1844, English theory\nand practice had undergone two important modifications: the vast\ndevelopment of credit had suggested a free use of banknotes based on\nsecurities other than coin or bullion, and the bimetallic standard had\nbeen superseded by the gold standard. By the terms of the Act of 1844\nall banknotes were to be issued against securities and gold and silver\ncoin and bullion in the bank vaults. The margin of issue was fixed at\nfourteen million pounds sterling. The total amount of banknotes thus\n\u201cissued on the Credit of such Securities, Coin and Bullion,\u201d might not\nbe increased, but within the limits set the Bank was free to increase\nor decrease issues at will. The Act further provided that \u201cwhereas\nit is necessary to limit the Amount of Silver Bullion on which it\nshall be lawful ... to issue Bank of England notes,\u201d it should \u201cnot\nbe lawful for the Bank of England to retain in ... said Bank at any\ntime an Amount of Silver Bullion exceeding One Fourth Part of the Gold\nCoin and Bullion.\u201d...[735] That gold should eventually have thrust\nsilver aside was natural. In addition to its convenience as a commodity\nfor international shipment, it was less in quantity, not widely\ndispersed or popularly held, and therefore more easily controlled\nby the money-brokers. With the function of government restricted to\ncoining such gold as came to the mint, the whole business of currency\nemissions, with the attendant power of inflation and deflation of\ncredit, would lie in the hands of the bankers who became the custodians\nof the national monetary system.\n\nDuring the bitter discussions of currency policies that followed the\ndislocations of the Civil War, the two most authoritative spokesmen in\nAmerica on the subject were Senator John Sherman of Ohio, for years\nChairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, and David A. Wells,\nstatistician, special Commissioner of the Revenue Bureau, and a scholar\ndeservedly distinguished as an economist. In their views on the\ncurrency question both were followers of the classical English school.\nIn two speeches in the Senate, of January 27, 1869, and January 24,\n1870, the former stated his position definitely. \u201cLet us,\u201d he said,\n\u201crecognize as an axiom that nothing but coin is real money before we\nundertake to deal with the currency\u201d; and in another place, narrowing\nhis definition in terms of the English Bank Act, he asserted, \u201cWe must\n... recognize the immutable law of currency; and that is, there is but\none true standard, and that standard is gold.\u201d[736] The weakness of\npaper money, he believed, was its instability; the ratio of exchange\nwith gold fluctuates too greatly to make it a safe or convenient medium\nof business. \u201cLast year the fluctuation in paper money amounted to\nforty-five per cent. Gold, however, remained as stable as the eternal\nhills, because it was not only the product of labor, but it was labor\nand value itself.\u201d[737] One may make of such an assertion what one\nwill, but it is clear that John Sherman thought ill of the greenbacks,\nand wanted substituted for them a system of banknotes.\n\n It is impossible [he argued] to give a currency issued by\n a Government the flexibility to meet the movement of the\n exchanges.... It must have a flexibility which will enable it to be\n increased in certain periods of the year, and to flow back again\n into the vaults of the bank at others. I am convinced ... that in\n time it will be wise to retire our United States notes and all\n forms of Government circulation, and depend upon notes issued by\n private corporations.[738]\n\nBrief as these passages are, they suffice to make clear Sherman\u2019s\nposition. He accepted without question the English theory and practice,\nand he wished to shape American legislation in conformity with them.\nThe experience of the Civil War, and--shall we add--his intimate\nconnections with Wall Street,[739] had confirmed him in his preference\nfor a _laissez-faire_ policy in currency matters. He would establish\nthe gold standard, encourage the issue of banknotes, and turn over the\ncustodianship of the national currency to private interests.\n\nThe position of David A. Wells was essentially similar. Wells wrote\nmuch and skillfully and he seems to have been the chief authority on\nwhom such intellectuals as Godkin and Dana relied for materials for\ntheir editorials on the currency question. Indirectly, therefore,\nthrough the medium of editors and newspaper writers his opinions came\nto have wide influence. During the discussion of resumption of specie\npayments in the seventies his pen was particularly active. Amongst\nother things he then wrote _The Cremation Theory of Specie Resumption_,\nin which he advocated a policy of progressive contraction by the\nexpedient of burning annually a fixed sum in greenbacks; _Robinson\nCrusoe\u2019s Money_, an exposition of the bullion theory of money for\npopular reading, illustrated by Nast and containing some witty thrusts\nat such well-known expansionists as Ben Butler, Wendell Phillips, Henry\nC. Carey, and Senator O. P. Morton; _Contraction_, in which he defended\nthe thesis, \u201cHe who is not in favor of contracting the currency is\nnot in favor of paying it, and he who is not in favor of paying it\nis a repudiator\u201d; and certain other papers later gathered into his\n_Practical Economics_ (1885).\n\nWells was an uncompromising bullionist and his theory of money is as\nsimple as the doctrine of _laissez faire_ on which it rests. Honest\nmoney represents labor and therefore possesses intrinsic value. The\nexperience of the ages has demonstrated that of all commodities gold\nand silver are the most convenient for the purpose and in consequence\nthey have come to be accepted universally as real money. Every dollar\u2019s\nworth of gold represents a dollar\u2019s worth of labor, always and\neverywhere, measured by the test of the world\u2019s needs. It is foolish\nfor politicians and theorists to worry their poor heads over the supply\nof money, or attempt to predetermine the quantity best suited to the\nneeds of business. The amount of money in circulation will always be\nregulated by the law of supply and demand. There is limitless gold\nlocked up in the treasure-house of nature, and just so much is unlocked\nby human labor as the immediate needs of the world require. Gold can\nneither be inflated nor deflated, for, \u201cThere is one and the same law\ngoverning alike the supply of gold and of wheelbarrows. They are both\ntools or commodities, and the country will have and use all of either\nthat it can use profitably.\u201d[740] Let government keep its hands off\nand money will regulate itself. \u201cThe value of the gold dollar is fixed\nand cannot be altered. The value of the paper dollar is constantly\nfluctuating.\u201d[741] That business conditions would be seriously affected\nby the withdrawal of the greenbacks, or that injustice would be done\nto debtors, Wells refused to believe. When the poison is withdrawn\nfrom the system a state of health re\u00ebstablishes itself. \u201cI also count\nas an absurdity the idea that the business of the country is likely\nto be unfavorably affected by a deficiency of currency consequent\nupon contraction in the manner proposed.\u201d[742] The gold to take its\nplace would be provided automatically by the infallible law of supply\nand demand. Thus triply armed with the logic of economic theory Wells\npronounced for deflation, immediate and drastic:\n\n I desire the federal government to get out of and abandon forever\n and as soon as possible this whole business of creating and issuing\n paper money, be it redeemable or irredeemable, for I believe as\n long as the federal government continues to recognize anything as\n money except hard matter-of-fact \u201clabor representing\u201d gold and\n silver, just so long the country will not have [a] stable and\n unfluctuating currency....[743]\n\nSuch neat logic was out of date on the day that Wells penned it.\nThe needs of business had outgrown the bullion theory of money and\ncredit was taking the place of a metallic currency. The fiction of a\ngold standard would be adhered to till another seismic dislocation\nproved its utter inadequacy to a world in confusion and it would be\nunofficially abandoned. Yet it was such logic that prevailed in America\nin post-war days, bringing acute distress upon the country as a whole\nand particular hardship to the Middle Border; and it prevailed because\nthe banking interests followed a selfish and narrow policy marked out\nfor them by the English theory and practice.\n\nThe financing of the war had been wasteful and slovenly beyond all\nprecedent, and it had been fiercely criticized by the agrarians. It was\na system, said the militant Greenbacker, Thaddeus Stevens, the like\nof which \u201cno human folly had ever before witnessed.\u201d[744] When the\nwar was over and the reorganization of the public finances was up for\nsettlement, the bankers were shrewd enough to make the confusion serve\ntheir interests. Their great objective was to get back once more the\ncontrol of the national credit that the war had taken from them. The\nNational Bank Act of 1863--foolishly opposed by shortsighted state-bank\nadvocates who were jealous of local rights--had been the first great\nstep. By the provisions of the act the national banks were permitted to\nissue currency on the security of government bonds, in such quantities\nas they chose, on highly favorable terms, and the result was to drive\nout of circulation the wild-cat issues of state banks. But the crux of\nthe problem was the question of the greenbacks that the necessities of\nthe war had forced upon the government. The greenbacks were reckoned\npolitical money, the control of issues of which lay wholly with\nCongress. At any moment, responding to popular demand, Congress might\ndeflate the bankers by the emission of new bills. At the time of first\nissue the financial interests had succeeded in vitiating the greenbacks\nby writing into the bill a repudiation of the issue by the government\nitself, and no sooner was the war over than they set about the business\nof retiring them. Their objective was the same end that English bankers\nhad reached in 1844.\n\nIn the reorganization three broad policies were insisted upon by the\nbanking interests: the speedy retirement of the greenbacks, in order\nto take government out of the credit market, the refunding of all\ndebts on a gold basis, and an immediate return to specie payments. The\nresult was a drastic policy of deflation that brought further turmoil\nto the country. In ten years the money in circulation was reduced\nfrom somewhat over $2,100,000,000 to a little over a billion, or from\nfifty-eight dollars per capita in 1865 to seventeen dollars per capita\nin 1876.[745] The inevitable results followed, a swift appreciation in\nthe value of the dollar and the automatic increase in the debt of the\ncountry, both public and private, with the fall of commodity prices.\nWithin a decade, measured in commodity values, the liabilities of the\nAmerican people were nearly doubled by the simple device of changing\nthe standard of deferred payments. Gold might remain as stable as\nthe eternal hills, but somehow all other commodities were shrinking\ndaily. \u201cThem steers,\u201d Solon Chase indeed said aptly, \u201cwhile they grew\nwell, shrank in value as fast as they grew.\u201d This remarkable result\nwas brought about, it is well to remember, by the plea for honest\nmoney and the plighted faith of the nation. Keeping the public faith,\nit would seem, meant permitting the creditors to change the terms of\ntheir payments after the contract was made. \u201cWho are these reasoners,\u201d\ncried Thaddeus Stevens, in disgust, \u201cwho talk so learnedly of the\nlaws of finance and the morality of human dealings, whose consciences\nare so raw and stick out so far from their excited coverings that no\npharmaceutist can heal their inward wound?\u201d[746]\n\nAs a debtor community the Middle Border felt the pinch of deflation\nacutely, and in consequence the money question was thrust sternly upon\nagrarian attention. On this issue it came finally to fight its great\nbattle, pitting its homespun experience against the authority of the\nbankers and the teaching of the schools. To the bankers\u2019 argument that\nnote issues should be taken out of politics and lodged in the hands\nof business men, it replied that the issue of currency was a function\nof sovereignty, and to surrender it to private corporations, as was\ndone by the National Bank Act, was undemocratic. The monetary system\nof the nation must not become the football of class interests. To the\nargument of the bullionists that gold was the only fixed and stable\nstandard for deferred payments, it replied that the gold standard was\ntoo narrow a base on which to erect a monetary system for an expanding\ncountry, that it was notoriously susceptible to manipulation, and that\nit had been devised by Lombard Street in the interests of capitalism.\nSince the days of the great struggle over the Bank a remarkable\nchange had come over the agrarian mind in its thinking on monetary\naffairs. In their distrust of all banks and bank-issues Jackson and\nBenton had swung sharply back to the bullion theory of money. They\nwere militant hard-money men. But in the intervening years a new and\nrevolutionary conception had been slowly making its way to recognition.\nIn the minds of obscure economists the quantitative theory of money\nhad risen to challenge the bullion theory. In unorthodox pamphlets and\nnewspaper discussion it was being pointed out that the value of money\nis dependent on the amount in circulation, that gold and silver are\ncommodities fluctuating in value like other commodities, and that it\nis the plain duty of the state to regulate the per capita circulation\nin accordance with business needs. To allow the bankers to erect a\nmonetary system on gold is to subject the producer to the money-broker\nand measure deferred payments by a yardstick that lengthens or shortens\nfrom year to year. The only safe and rational currency is a national\ncurrency based on the national credit, sponsored by the state,\nflexible, and controlled in the interests of the people as a whole.[747]\n\nBy far the most suggestive of these obscure pamphleteers was Eleazar\nLord, a New York banker, who for thirty-five years was a propagandist\nfor a new currency system and who watched the bungling of the war\nfinance with acute concern.[748] With the undemocratic nature of\nbanknotes he was not concerned. As a banker he accepted them as\ndesirable and wished to establish them on a sound national basis. He\nwas in ardent sympathy with the patriotic nationalism of Henry C.\nCarey. The loose system of state-bank issues seemed to him chaotic\nand he was earnest in espousal of a common national system. Lord was\nan acute and stimulating thinker on monetary matters. He was one of\nthe first Americans to understand the significance of credit, and he\nwas realist enough to foresee that the system of the future would\nbe a credit system. This was the clue to his dissatisfaction with\nthe bullion theory of money, which he attacked with vigor, and to\nhis acceptance of the quantitative theory.[749] He had the scantest\nrespect for Sherman\u2019s dogma that gold is as stable as the eternal hills\nbecause it is \u201clabor and value itself,\u201d or for Wells\u2019s belief that the\nlaw of supply and demand automatically produces gold enough to meet\nthe needs of business. He would treat gold and silver as commodities\nvarying in price with supply and demand, and make no attempt to\nrelate the money scale to their fluctuations. For years, he said,\nAmerica accepted the English \u201cstandard of currency, their aristocratic\ndefinition of wealth, and their distinction between capital and\ncredit,\u201d to its disaster.\n\n The so-called specie basis, whenever there is a foreign demand\n for coin, proves to be a mere fiction, a practical humbug; and\n whenever, by an excess of imports, this pretended basis is exported\n to pay foreign debts, the bank-notes are withdrawn from circulation\n or become worthless, the currency for the time is annihilated,\n prices fall, business is suspended, debts remain unpaid, panic and\n distress ensue, men in active business fail, bankruptcy, ruin, and\n disgrace reign.[750]\n\nTo provide a safe, flexible, and convenient currency, Lord proposed a\nsystem of national banknotes, based on the wealth of the country and\nresponsive to the needs of a business world founded on credit.\n\n Necessity must teach us whether we can and must have a currency of\n purely representative value, wholly disconnected from the precious\n metals, as a basis and standard, or prolong the conflict between\n coin and paper, commerce and exchange. The existing theory on the\n subject is too firmly fixed by education, prescription, prejudice\n and interest, to be overthrown.... Such words as _safe, secured,\n national, uniform, economical, inalienable_, when predicated of\n any thing but gold as currency, are to the specie-paying theorist\n mere sounds devoid of significance.... Credit must triumph. Can any\n one blame the well-meaning theorist if he manifests some degree of\n doubt and alarm in view of the extent to which the actual use of\n credit, and of the confidence in the use of credit, has already\n attained?[751]\n\nIn the writings of these obscure economists are to be found the seeds\nof the later agrarian program. Some of them were clear-headed and able\nmen, but they underestimated the power of the banking group. They\nfailed to realize that in a capitalistic society no monetary system\nwould be tolerated that was not to the bankers\u2019 liking, and that if\nit were to their liking they would easily convince the public that\nit was the only honest and just system. It was this lesson that the\nGreenbackers and Free Silver men were to learn. No sooner was the issue\njoined between paper money and the gold standard than a scurrilous\nhue and cry was raised by the \u201csound-money\u201d men. The bitter dispute\nthat marked American politics for more than a score of years is a\nclassic example of the distortion of fact for partisan ends that seems\nto be an inevitable consequence of referring a matter of policy to a\ndemocratic electorate. Denunciation took the place of exposition, and\nhysteria of argument; and in this revel of demagoguery the so-called\neducated classes--lawyers and editors and business men--were perhaps\nthe most shameless purveyors of humbuggery. Stripped of all hypocrisy\nthe main issue was this: Should the control of currency issues--with\nthe delegated power of inflation and deflation--lie in the hands of\nprivate citizens or with the elected representatives of the people?\nIt is a question on which wide disagreement may well exist, for it\ninvolves important differences of social and political theory. But\nthe significant thing is that throughout the years when the subject\nwas debated in every newspaper and on every stump the real issue was\nrarely presented for consideration. The bankers did not dare to present\nit, for too much was at stake and once it was clearly understood by a\nsuspicious electorate their case was lost. Hence the strategy of the\nmoney group was to obscure the issue, an end they achieved by dwelling\non the single point of inflation and charging the agrarians with a\ndishonest policy of repudiation.\n\nCertainly in the minds of many conscientious men the fear of\nrepudiation was very real and acute, and their fears made timid souls\npanicky. The newspapers took their cue from this bogey and beat the\ndrums so loudly in the cause of \u201chonest money\u201d that all hope of\ncalm discussion was lost. The issue became so distorted from class\nfeeling that later historians find it difficult to view the question\ndispassionately. So late as 1916 Joseph Gilpin Pyle in his _Life\nof James J. Hill_ could still speak of the Greenback movement as a\nvicious scheme of \u201cinflation, the boon of the demagogue and the dream\nof the great debtor class in this new country,\u201d who \u201cincreased ... by\nthe opening up of the West on borrowed capital, welcomed any measure\nthat might give them a specious justification for discharging their\nobligations with something worth less than what they had promised to\npay.\u201d Describing the genesis of the free silver movement, he said:\n\n Hence grew up a formidable coalition between mine owners, debtors\n unable or unwilling to pay, ambitious politicians, honest theorists\n led captive by barren and unpractical abstractions, and a host of\n men too ignorant to inform themselves, too impassioned by what they\n heard to wish to know the truth.[752]\n\nObviously it was not so simple--or so wicked--as that. To determine\nthe justice of the charge of repudiation certain facts must be borne\nin mind. The gist of the money problem pressing so heavily on the\nMiddle Border was the question of stabilizing the currency with a view\nto stabilizing prices. Under the prick of war-necessities a sharp\ninflation of prices had taken place. With the drastic contraction of\nthe currency following the war, prices fell as sharply. From 1873 to\n1896 a world-wide appreciation in the value of gold, aggravated by\nrecurrent economic crises, further depressed the market values of\ncommodities, rendering the question of the solvency of the Middle\nBorder increasingly doubtful. Falling prices are only the obverse of\nrising money-values, and to stop the one it was proposed to cheapen\nthe other, either through the issue of greenbacks as proposed by the\nGreenback party, or through the free coinage of silver as proposed in\nthe plank of the Democratic platform of 1896. It was not a question of\nrepudiation in favor of debtors, but a question of correcting an unjust\ndeflation that favored the creditor class.\n\n\nIV \u2022 Greenbackism and Peter Cooper\n\nThe opposition to the program and methods of the rising plutocracy was\nnot confined to the farmers of the Middle Border. It was nourished by\na widespread distrust of banks and bank-currencies that was a heritage\nof the Jacksonian struggle. Amongst the leaders of the Greenback\nmovement were many eastern men, some of wide industrial experience,\nwhose economic views and prejudices were a hold-over from the days\nof John Taylor, and who discovered in the post-war finances the same\nclass manipulations of public credit that marked the funding operations\nof Washington\u2019s administration. Men as dissimilar as Horace Greeley,\nThaddeus Stevens, Wendell Phillips, Henry C. Carey, and Peter Cooper,\nmade common cause with the western farmers in seeking to wrest control\nof government from the bankers, and establish what they conceived\nto be a just democratic economy. Picturesque militants grown old in\nwarfare, they were of an earlier generation, inheritors of the ideals\nof simpler times before production for consumption had been superseded\nby consumption for profit, ardent equalitarians who would not see their\nhopes frustrated and America become a plutocracy without a struggle.\nGreeley, Carey, and Phillips have been considered elsewhere; Stevens\nwas the last of the rugged equalitarians who followed their principles\nto the bitter end; and Peter Cooper was an unregenerate Jeffersonian\nwho dedicated his last years to combating Wall Street, accepting in\n1876, at the age of 85, nomination for the presidency by the National\nIndependent Party, commonly called the Greenback Party.\n\nLike Thaddeus Stevens an ironmaster, grown wealthy by a long life\nof useful and adventurous industry, builder of the first American\nlocomotive that made possible the success of the Baltimore and Ohio\nrailway, Peter Cooper was the most picturesque figure in New York City\nin the seventies. With Bryant he shared the distinction of being the\npatriarch of Broadway. Bred up amidst stern and harsh conditions, at a\nperiod when, he said, within his \u201cown recollection unmarried white men\ncould be sold for debt in the State of Connecticut,\u201d[753] he was not\nhardened by the struggle for subsistence. A tender social conscience\nmellowed an old-fashioned probity and gave character and dignity to\na simple rugged nature. Transparently honest, with a certain innate\nausterity softened by a homely courtesy, he was not a reed to sway\nin every vagrant breeze, but a great oak with fibers toughened by\nthe storms of years. Like Horace Greeley, whom he much resembled in\nhonest kindliness, he carried the burdens of his country on his heart,\nand in the midst of abundant prosperity still reckoned himself his\nbrother\u2019s keeper. By \u201cnature and temperament a radical reformer,\u201d his\nstrongest instinct was a quick sense of justice. He was oppressed by\nthe poverty and misery he saw about him, and he gave so generously to\nall good causes that he was known to his generation as \u201cthe greatest\nphilanthropist in the world.\u201d His chief accomplishment was the founding\nof Cooper Union for free instruction in \u201cpractical art and science,\u201d\non which he expended a fortune.[754] But he was not one to salve his\nconscience with a gift of superfluous wealth. His heart was as open as\nhis pocketbook, and he must explore to its hidden sources the infection\nthat was breeding social injustice in the new world. His private\ninterests never blinded him to his larger duties, but he gave his time\nand strength as readily as his money to whatever cause he espoused.\n\nSuch a man was morally incapable of the buccaneering exploitation\nthat marked the Gilded Age. Between Peter Cooper and Jim Fisk was an\nimpassable gulf; they were products of different worlds and different\neconomies. The speculative middleman who thrust himself between the\nproducer and the consumer, with no sense of responsibility to either,\nbut concerned only with immediate profit, was a figure to excite the\nwrath of an older-fashioned industrialist who had been taught that the\nonly just reward is the reward that comes from productive labor; and\nin the days of the great barbecue Peter Cooper became deeply concerned\nfor the future of America. It was the new breed of bankers with their\ncontrol of the money system that were to blame, he came to believe, and\nhe would have reckoned himself false to the obligations of citizenship\nif he failed to protest against their selfish manipulation of the\npublic credit. He had watched the callous juggling of the national\nfinances by the money-lenders during the Civil War, and had seen a debt\nof some three billions nearly doubled in the decade after Appomattox\nby the bond-holders. The new system of National Banks that issued\nfrom the emergencies of war had come to control the financial policy\nof the country, and to Peter Cooper it seemed that their purpose was\nto perpetuate a debt that enabled them to tax the productive labor\nof America and to squeeze wealth from a calculating expansion and\ncontraction of the currency. To surrender to such mercenaries the\nsovereign power of issuing and regulating money seemed to him the\nabdication of sovereignty, and in so far as he could he felt called in\nhonor to prevent it.\n\nIt needed rare courage and complete self-sacrifice to take up the gage\nof battle and in his old age to renew the war that Andrew Jackson\nhad engaged in forty years before. His good name and his honorable\ncareer could not save him from the gibes of politicians or the caustic\ncriticism of honest men. It was a losing fight at best. The struggle\nhad been venomous in Jackson\u2019s day when the money-power was in its\ninfancy; and now that the banking interests had grown mighty it was\nas hopeless as the charge of the Light Brigade. The cause had been\nlost on the day when Congress wrote into the bill establishing a legal\ntender for war purposes the single word \u201cexcept,\u201d thereby invalidating\nthe greenback for interest payments on bonds and duties on imports--an\nact that \u201cdrew tears from the eyes of Thaddeus Stevens\u201d; and the\nbankers who could assert their control in war times had no intention a\ndozen years later of suffering that control to pass from hands that had\ngrown enormously stronger.\n\nYet Peter Cooper refused to consider the outlook hopeless. With all\nthe resources he could command he threw himself into the struggle. He\nscattered \u201cmore than a million of documents\u201d broadcast--most of the\nmatter of which he wrote; he appealed to Congress and the President,\nhe challenged candidates, he cited the opinions of the Fathers, and\nwhen he was buried under an avalanche of votes--as Horace Greeley\nhad been four years before--he preserved his faith in the \u201cpeople\u2019s\ncause\u201d and to the last day of his life kept up the great battle. \u201cI\nalways have been, am, and ever shall be with the poor toilers and\nproducers; therefore I desire Congress to legislate for the poor as\nwell as for the rich, who can take care of themselves,\u201d[755] he wrote\nin his ninety-second year, and the spirit that stirred in his old veins\nappears from such a comment as this:\n\n I consider the persistent class legislation of Congress since\n the war, a worse despotism than that of Great Britain before the\n Revolution; because it reduces the laboring classes to periodic\n distress and starvation, that are worse than any despotism ever\n was; for monopolizing corporations, whether in the shape of banks\n or railroads, have no soul.[756]\n\nPeter Cooper\u2019s political philosophy was simple and transparent. His\nteachers were Albert Gallatin, Henry C. Carey, and George William\nCurtis, and from them he drew three major ideas that had emerged from\nthree generations of American experience: the need for a national\nmonetary system based on legal tender; the necessity for a protective\ntariff; and the need for an effective civil service. The first was\nan adaptation of the old agrarian dislike of banknotes; the second\ncame out of Clay\u2019s American System as it had been elaborated by Henry\nC. Carey in the fifties; and the third issued from the Civil Service\nReform movement of the seventies. The exigencies of the political\nsituation, however, thrust into the foreground the money question,\nand nine-tenths of his writings deal with that pregnant issue. As an\nardent Jacksonian he was deeply suspicious of the rising money-power,\nwith its corporations and monopolies, its land-grants and railways and\nbanks, for behind them he saw the specter of aristocracy. \u201cIn America,\u201d\nhe said in 1882, \u201cwe have no aristocrats except those who have sprung\nup in a night--as toad-stools do in a dung-hill.\u201d[757] But class\nlegislation must end in creating classes, and at another time he said,\n\u201cThere is fast forming in this country an aristocracy of wealth--the\nworst form of aristocracy that can curse the prosperity of any\ncountry.... Such an aristocracy is without soul and without patriotism.\nLet us save our country from this, its most potent, and, as I hope, its\nlast enemy.\u201d[758]\n\nHis deep interest in political measures was quickened by an anxious\nconcern at the hard times that resulted from the policy of drastic\ncurrency deflation. That matters were going ill in America during the\nmiddle seventies every fool knew, and Peter Cooper was only giving\nexpression to the common knowledge in describing to President Hayes, in\na letter dated August 6, 1876, the \u201cappalling\u201d economic situation. That\nit was equally bad in England he did not point out.\n\n More than two hundred thousand men, within the last few weeks, have\n joined in \u201cstrikes\u201d on the various railroad lines, the workshops\n and the mines of the country, on account of the further reduction\n in their wages, already reduced to the living point. That some of\n these strikes have been attended with lawless and unjustifiable\n violence, only shows the intensity of the evils complained of,\n and the despair of the sufferers. For four years past, since the\n \u201cpanic of 1873,\u201d millions of men and women, in this hitherto rich\n and prosperous country, have been thrown out of employment, or\n living on precarious and inadequate wages, have felt embittered\n with a lot, in which neither economy nor industry, nor a cheerful\n willingness to work hard, can bring any alleviation. Is it to be\n wondered at, that _enforced idleness_ has made tramps of so many of\n our laboring population, or induced them to join the criminal and\n dangerous classes?[759]\n\nAfter pointing out the disastrous effects of such hard times on mining,\nrailways, real estate, and the western farmers, he asserted that the\nbankers, although they also were embarrassed, were \u201cvery patient with\ntheir troubles ... for they know, that _money is appreciating in value\nall the time_.\u201d He then uncovers the kernel of his thought--that it is\na sovereign duty of government to provide an adequate national currency.\n\n This bondage has its manifold centre and its secret force in more\n than two thousand banks, that are scattered through the country.\n All these banks, are organized expressly to loan out their own\n money and the money of all those, who will entrust them with\n deposits. These loans are made to men, whose business-lives will\n soon become dependent on money, borrowed from corporations, that\n have a special interest of their own. Such a power of wealth,\n under the control of the selfish instincts of mankind, will always\n be able to control the action of our Government, unless that\n Government is directed by strict principles of justice and of\n the public welfare. The banks will favor a course of special and\n partial legislation, in order to increase their power ... they will\n never cease to ask for more, as long as there is more, that can be\n wrung from the toiling masses of the American people.\n\n Such a power should never be allowed to go out from the entire and\n complete control of the people\u2019s Government. The struggle with this\n money-power, intrenched in the special privileges of banks, has\n been going on from the beginning of the history of this country.\n It has engaged the attention of our wisest and most patriotic\n statesmen. Franklin, Jefferson, Webster, Calhoun, Jackson, have all\n spoken of the danger of such a power and the necessity of guarding\n against it.[760]\n\nThe solution he offered for the vexing monetary problem accorded with\nthat of the Greenback Party,[761] namely, refusal to recharter those\nbanks \u201c_deceitfully styled national_\u201d and the retirement of all bank\ncurrency; the abandonment of the policy of currency contraction; the\nissue of legal-tender notes to the amount last found necessary for the\nfunctions of industry and business; the rejection of a specie basis,\nthe notes to be interconvertible with government bonds bearing interest\nat 3.65 per cent; issued on demand in any amount in exchange for\nlegal-tender notes; and the establishment of a Postal Savings Bank. No\nman ever believed more ardently in the sufficiency of his program than\nPeter Cooper. It was a suggestive proposal, that only a knave would\ncall the visionary scheme of a fool. He was tireless in explanation and\nargument, the quality of which may be judged from the following passage\nfrom a letter to Hayes and Tilden written during the campaign of 1877:\n\n The worth or exchangeable value of gold is as uncertain as other\n products of human labor, such as wheat or cotton. The exchangeable\n value of anything depends on its _convertibility into something\n else_ that has value _at the option of the individual_. This\n rule applies to paper money as to anything else. But how shall\n Government give an exchangeable value to a paper currency? Can\n it be done by a standard which is beyond its control and which\n naturally fluctuates, while the sign of exchange indicated by the\n paper remains the same?...\n\n ... we must trust our Government with this _whole function_ of\n providing the standards and measures of exchange, as we trust\n it with the weights and measures of trade.... We must require\n the Government to make this currency, at all times, and, at the\n option of the individual, _convertible_. But the currency must be\n convertible into something over which the Government has entire\n control, and to which it can give a definite as well as a permanent\n value. This is its own _interest-bearing bonds_. These are, in\n fact, a mortgage upon the embodied wealth of the whole country.\n The reality of their value is as sound and as permanent as the\n Government itself, and the degree of their value can be determined\n exactly by the rate of interest the Government may think proper to\n fix.[762]\n\nThe Jeffersonianism of Peter Cooper, like the Jeffersonianism of the\nMiddle Border, had taken a bias from the confident nationalism that\nduring the fifties so deeply colored American thought. To assure\nan adequate national economy, superior in its self-sufficiency to\nEuropean--and especially English--policies, was a persuasive program\nthat Henry C. Carey devoted his later life to formulating, and that\nmen like Horace Greeley and Peter Cooper disseminated amongst their\nwide agrarian following. That such a program implied a paternalistic\ngovernment did not trouble them. Peter Cooper accepted paternalism as\na necessary governmental function. He would have the state build and\nown the great western railway systems; he would use the national domain\nfor the benefit of the settler; he would not turn over the state to\nplunderers nor the resources of the nation to speculators. An honest\nman with a sensitive social conscience, he would have no hand in the\ngreat barbecue that wasted more than it consumed; but the times were\nheedless of the counsels of honest men, and he was loved and laughed\nat and ignored. Like Franklin in the Constitutional Convention, he had\noutlived his generation and was thrust aside by the new economy that\nwas taking over the custodianship of America.[763]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[734] See Nevins, _The Emergence of Modern America_, pp. 163-164\n\n[735] _The Statutes at Large: 7 & 8 Victoriae_, Vol. 84, pp. 188-189.\n\n[736] _Speeches and Reports on Finance and Taxation_, pp. 188, 190.\n\n[737] _Ibid._, p. 233.\n\n[738] \u201cSpeech of January 24, 1870,\u201d _ibid._, pp. 225-226.\n\n[739] This laid him open to frequent and often bitter attack. See,\namong many, Mrs. Marion Todd, _Pizzaro and John Sherman_, Chicago, 1891.\n\n[740] _Practical Economics_, p. 54.\n\n[741] _The Cremation Theory of Specie Resumption_, p. 10.\n\n[742] _Ibid._, p. 10.\n\n[743] _Ibid._, p. 13.\n\n[744] J. A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus Stevens_, p. 573.\n\n[745] _Ibid._, p. 573.\n\n[746] _Ibid._, pp. 573-574.\n\n[747] See, amongst many, _Homo\u2019s Letters on a National Currency_,\nWashington, 1817; _Currency Explosions, their Cause and Cure_, New\nYork, 1858; _Our Currency: Some of Its Evils, and the Remedies for\nthem_, by a Citizen of North Carolina, Raleigh, 1861.\n\n[748] His titles are: _Credit, Currency and Banking_, New York, 1828;\n_A Letter on the National Currency_, New York, 1861; _Six Letters on\nthe Necessity and Practicability of a National Currency, etc._, New\nYork, 1862; and _National Currency: A Review of the National Banking\nLaw_, New York, 1863.\n\n[749] From what source Lord, and the other amateur economists, derived\ntheir theory is not clear. It is possible, of course, to assume that\nit was from Ricardo and the English economists. For an analysis and\nrejection of the quantity theory, see J. Lawrence Laughlin, _The\nPrinciples of Money_, Chapter VIII.\n\n[750] _A Review of the National Banking Law_, p. 8.\n\n[751] _Ibid._, p. 34.\n\n[752] Vol. I, p. 485.\n\n[753] _Ideas for a Science of Good Government_, p. iii.\n\n[754] _Political and Financial Opinions of Peter Cooper_, p. 23.\n\n[755] _Ideas for a Science of Good Government_, p. 272.\n\n[756] _Ibid._, p. 271.\n\n[757] _Ibid._, p. 261.\n\n[758] _Ibid._, p. 123.\n\n[759] _Ibid._, p. 117-118.\n\n[760] _Ibid._, pp. 109-110.\n\n[761] See _Ibid._, pp. 59-60.\n\n[762] _The Political and Financial Opinions of Peter Cooper_, pp. 22-23.\n\n[763] In his original plan Professor Parrington included here a\ndiscussion entitled \u201cBimetallism: A heritage of Jacksonian democracy;\nIgnatius Donnelly, \u2018Coin\u2019 Harvey,\u201d but from the references in the next\nchapter it seems evident that as he worked out his plan he decided to\nomit this.--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nChapter II \u2022 The Democracy of the Age of Innocence\n\n\nI \u2022 Capitalistic Encroachments\n\nWith its heritage of Jacksonianism it was natural for the agrarian\nmovement to attempt to carry further the exploration of the democratic\nprinciple, seeking to complete the program that had been left\nunfulfilled by the Fathers. There were few as yet who questioned\nthe finality of democracy as a political system or its adequacy to\nall social needs. The growing evils of American life were traced\nunhesitatingly to an imperfect democratic control of the forces of\nexploitation. If the plutocracy were making gains at the expense of the\nplain people it was due to defective governmental machinery, and the\nimmediate problem was the readjustment of that machinery. There must be\nan extension of democratic control over the economics of society. The\ngreat principle of _laissez faire_, that had proved so useful in the\nearlier struggle against aristocratic paternalisms, was become a shield\nand buckler for the plutocracy that was rising from the freedoms of a\nlet-alone policy. To curb the ambitions of that plutocracy and preserve\nthe democratic bequest for the common benefit of all, was therefore the\nimmediate problem of the times.\n\nTo this end two things remained to be achieved: to wrest possession\nof the government from the hands of the plutocracy that was befouling\nit, and to use it for democratic rather than plutocratic ends. The\ndifficulties in the way were many. Entrenched behind the checks and\nbalances of a complex constitution the plutocracy could not easily be\ndislodged from power; even if it were driven out of the legislative\nand executive branches of government it would find aid and succor in\nthe judiciary, where a masterful corporation law was interpreted by a\nbench tender toward all property rights, and jealous of its sovereign\nprerogative of reviewing all legislative enactments. A surprising\nchange had come over the attitude of the governing class towards\ndemocracy. Having gained control of the machinery of government the\nplutocracy found no cause to quarrel with a situation wholly to its\nliking. It had mastered the gentle art of guiding the majority will,\nand secure--as it believed--in its control of the political state,\nit counted on an indefinite continuation of the policy of pre\u00ebmption\nand exploitation. From such a group, whether in Wall Street or at\nWashington, no new theories of government were to be expected. Business\nmen wanted to be let alone. They clung to the anarchism of the\nEnlightenment and were stout in defense of the principle of individual\ninitiative. So late as 1916 a group of confirmed individualists\nreissued Spencer\u2019s _Man Versus the State_, with an introduction by\nElihu Root, to combat the rising spirit of governmental control. They\nregarded the American system of government as adequate and final, and\nwanted no subversive changes. The Constitution had been completed by\nthe post-war enactments that fixed the status of the negro, and for a\ngeneration thereafter--except for the silent changes wrought by the\njudiciary--it remained static. East of the Allegheny Mountains popular\ninterest in political theory had come to an end. A group of academic\nthinkers like John W. Burgess and Woodrow Wilson, an occasional\nintellectual like Brooks Adams, isolated radicals like Johann Most\nand small Marxian groups in Chicago and New York, and leaders of the\nnew proletarian movement like Terence V. Powderly, were still acutely\nconcerned about political theory; but these men and their theories\ncounted for little in the stodgy mass of capitalistic America. The\npolitical phase had passed over into the economic; politics was wholly\ndivorced from reality.\n\nBut throughout the Middle Border and on to the Pacific Coast the\nspirit of political democracy was alive and vigorous. There the older\nfrontier Jacksonianism still lingered. For upwards of a half a century\ncreative political thinking in America was largely western agrarian,\nand from this source came those democratic ideas that were to provide\nthe staple of a later liberalism. The conscious objective of this great\nmovement was to complete the work begun by Jacksonianism, and create a\npolitical machinery that should enable the democracy to withstand the\nshock of the Industrial Revolution. Many thinkers contributed to the\nwork--U\u2019Ren of Oregon, Jerry Simpson of Kansas, Tom Watson of Georgia,\n\u201cCoin\u201d Harvey of Arkansas, General Weaver of Iowa, Ignatius Donnelly\nof Minnesota, Henry D. Lloyd of Chicago, to name a handful out of the\nmass--homespun realists who have been forgotten by a later generation,\nbut whose labors were given to the necessary work of refashioning\nthe political machinery of America, and whose program provided the\nmaterials for the later Progressive party. They were commoners, men of\nthe people, unversed in the dogmas of the schools, idealists who drew\ntheir inspiration from the Declaration of Independence; they spoke\nfor an older America that feared the rising plutocracy, and they were\ncasting about for ways and means to cut its claws. From their labors\ncame the Greenback Movement, the Farmers\u2019 Alliance, Populism; and from\nthem came in turn the Progressive Movement that reaped what they had\nsown.\n\n\nII \u2022 Third-Party Movements\n\nIt is, perhaps, not extreme to interpret the political history of\nAmerica since 1790 as largely a struggle between the spirit of the\nDeclaration of Independence and the spirit of the Constitution, the one\nprimarily concerned with the rights of man, the other more practically\nconcerned with the rights of property. The humanitarian idealism of the\nDeclaration has always echoed as a battle-cry in the hearts of those\nwho dream of an America dedicated to democratic ends. It cannot be long\nignored or repudiated, for sooner or later it returns to plague the\ncouncils of practical politics. It is constantly breaking out in fresh\nrevolt. When the major parties have grown callous and indifferent to\nthe wishes of the common people, it has reformulated its principles in\nthird-party platforms. Without its freshening influence our political\nhistory would have been much more sordid and materialistic. With the\nexception of such sporadic outbursts as Antimasonry and Knownothingism,\nthe third-party movements of the nineteenth century were democratic\nmovements, inspired by a sense of social justice, founded on the\nDeclaration of Independence, and promulgated to recall the American\npeople to their heritage of idealism. The Locofoco party, the Freesoil\nparty, the early Republican party, the Greenback party, the Populist\nparty, the Progressive party, however they differed in immediate\nprograms, have had a common objective, namely, to set man above\nproperty as the great object of governmental concern, and preserve in\nAmerica the democratic principle of equal opportunity.\n\nDespite the fact that they failed in their immediate objectives they\nserved the larger purpose of reminding the major parties that America\nprofesses to be a democratic country, and that party platforms must be\nbrought to square with that fact. Thus interpreted the history of party\nstruggle since 1790 falls into three broad phases: the Jeffersonian\nmovement that established the ideal of political democracy; the\nJacksonian movement that established equalitarianism crudely in\npractice; and the successive third-party movements that attempted, in\nsuccessive reactions, to regain such ground as had been lost, to extend\nthe field, and to perfect the machinery of democratic government. Since\nthe rise of the slavery controversy the major parties, allied with\nmasterful economic groups, have persistently ignored the Declaration\nof Independence, and repudiated in practice the spirit of democracy.\nTo prevent if possible so grave a treason to our traditional ideals,\nto assert the rights of the common man against the encroachments of\na class, has been therefore the common mission of the third-party\nmovements. The significance of their somewhat scanty success is\nsomething the thoughtful American may interpret as he will.\n\nSince Civil War days, discontent has been endemic in the Middle Border,\nand it has broken out in three great political upheavals: the Greenback\nmovement of the seventies; the Populist movement of the eighties and\nnineties; and the Non-Partisan League movement of the second decade\nof the present century. Issuing from a profound resentment at the\nexploitation from which the farmer suffered, they mark a persistent\ndrift away from the old Jacksonian individualism and an advance toward\na socialized conception of the political state. Disciplined by hard\ntimes the farmers were learning a lesson from capitalistic Whiggery;\nif the political state had proved serviceable to business why should\nit not prove serviceable to agriculture? Why should not a democratic\nstate consider the producers as well as the middleman? Why should it\nnot provide a national currency, a national system of transportation,\na democratic banking system, a standard system of grain-grading,\npublic elevators, crop insurance, and the like? Why should the farmer\nbe squeezed at every turn by private companies who did badly what the\nstate could do well? By 1917, in short, the Middle Border had got far\nfrom the simple individualism of earlier days and was well advanced\ntoward state socialism; and it was only the ruthless opposition of the\nbusiness interests, that had no wish to see their private preserves\nthus rudely invaded, that put a stop to the movement.\n\nBack of all these agrarian programs was the greater problem of the\npopular control of the political state. How could the undisciplined\nmajority hold in check the disciplined minority? How could poverty meet\nwealth on an equal footing? The control of politics had fallen into\nthe hands of the machine, and the machine served property interests.\nLegislatures were bought and sold like corner lots; senatorships went\nto the highest bidder; judges were more responsive to the wishes of\nbankers than to those of farmers. To break the power of the machine\nthere must be an extension of democratic control, and to that end\nnew machinery must be provided. Hence the vast agrarian concern\nwith political machinery. From the agrarian agitation--supplemented\nby proletarian and middle-class recruits--has come the Australian\nballot, the Initiative and the Referendum, the Recall, the Direct\nPrimary, and popular election of Senators. The only important agrarian\nprinciple that has not been adopted is the principle of proportional\nrepresentation. If agrarianism lost its great battle over the currency,\nit won the battle over the income tax. Nullified by a scandalous court\ndecision after it had been long accepted, the income tax was finally\nestablished by the tedious method of constitutional amendment--an\noutcome that owed much to the Middle Border. In casting up the accounts\nof American democracy, the largest sums must be credited to the Middle\nBorder, as in earlier years they were credited to the Jacksonian\nfrontier. Whether the new machinery is useful or merely cumbersome,\nthere is much disagreement, but it is agrarian in origin and it came\nfrom an honest attempt to democratize American politics.[764]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[764] The Contents here calls for a third section on the \u201cPopulistic\nProgram\u201d (see p. xxxiv for details) and a fourth on \u201cWilliam Jennings\nBryan.\u201d--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 Literature and the Middle Border[765]\n\n\nIII \u2022 Hamlin Garland and the Middle Border\n\nIt was not till the end of the eighties that the bitterness of the\nfrontier began to creep into literature. Its slackness and drab\npoverty had got into the pages of _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_, as its\nneighborliness had got into Riley; but in these earlier studies there\nwas no brooding sense of social injustice, of the wrongs done the\nMiddle Border by unjust laws, of the hardships that are increased\nby the favoritism of government. In the year 1887, however, came a\nsignificant change of temper. Three very different writers--Harold\nFrederic, Joseph Kirkland, and Hamlin Garland--turned to the theme of\nfarm life, and dealt with it in a mordantly realistic vein. It was the\nfirst conscious literary reaction to the subjection of agriculture to\ncapitalistic exploitation and it was marked by the bitterness of a\ndecaying order.\n\n_Seth\u2019s Brother\u2019s Wife_, by Harold Frederic, is a drab tale of farm\nlife in upper York State, as bitter as any tale of the western border.\nIt is a story of defeat, of flight from country to town. The blight\nof failure is upon the farming community--a blight that embitters old\nand young; and the sketches of country louts, of soured lives, of\nbroken men and women, do not make pleasant reading. No gentle idyllic\nlight rests on the landscape such as Sarah Orne Jewett discovers on\nthe fields and villages of New England. Sabrina Fairchild, an old maid\nembittered by the family failure, yet clinging to the family pride\nand hopeful that the family prestige will be restored, is a pathetic\nand desolate figure, gaunt and sharp-tongued; at mortal feud with\nanother pathetic old woman, who with her husband had emigrated from\nMassachusetts years before, and held herself proudly above the mean and\nvulgar neighborhood in which they had settled. The slack servants,\ngossipy and impudent, the petty lives, the grasping ways unrelieved by\nany grace or beauty, and set in a world of petty machine politics, make\na drab and unattractive picture. Harold Frederic quite evidently hates\nthis countryside that bred him. He will not, like Hamlin Garland, take\nup the battle for it against the town. He sees no hope in political\nprograms; he is no Populistic agrarian fighting for justice; he wants\nonly to escape from it to the city, where life may be lived more\ngenerously. The \u201ctrail of the serpent is over it all,\u201d he remarks,\n\u201crich and poor, big and little. The nineteenth century is a century of\ncities; they have given their own twist to the progress of the age--and\nthe farmer is almost as far out of it as if he lived in Alaska. Perhaps\nthere may have been a time when a man could live in what the poet calls\ndaily communion with Nature and not starve his mind and dwarf his soul,\nbut this isn\u2019t the century ... get out of it as soon as you can.\u201d[766]\n\nMuch less bitter and hopeless is _Zury: The Meanest Man in Spring\nCounty_ (1887), by Joseph Kirkland, son of Matilda Kirkland, who a\ngeneration before had written sketches of the Michigan frontier.\nIn the preface the author points out that his study is \u201ca palpable\nimitation of Thomas Hardy\u2019s \u2018Far from the Madding Crowd,\u2019\u201d an \u201cattempt\nto reproduce, on American soil, the unflinching realism ... of life\ndown in actual contact with the soil itself.\u201d It is a tale of pioneer\ndays in Illinois, in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and\nit draws a full-length portrait of the son of a Pennsylvania immigrant\nwho struggles up from mean beginnings to prosperity. The niggardliness\nof frontier life is drawn unsparingly--the harsh struggle for\nsubsistence--but there is no outcry against governmental favoritisms or\nthe law\u2019s injustice. It is nature that must be fought and conquered,\nand the battle needs strong men who must subdue their finer natures\nand more generous impulses to the work of acquisition. Zury Prouder\nis a masterful fellow who bends every energy to the business of\naccumulation. He makes one hand wash the other, and by dint of saving\nand squeezing and trading and foreclosing he slowly amasses wealth and\npower. He is a thrifty farmer as well as a shrewd trader, but his soul\nis seared by the frontier meanness--squeezed into land and stock and\nmortgages, consumed with the passion for grabbing. It was a reaction\nfrom the skimpiness of his youth. The bitterness of poverty had\nentered his heart as a boy, and his life took shape from the youthful\nresolve--\n\n \u201cDad, I\u2019m goin\u2019 t\u2019own a mortgage \u2019fore I die; mind what I say.\u201d\n\n \u201cHope ye will, Zury,\u201d his father replies. \u201cYew\u2019ll have a holt of\n the right eend of the poker then; \u2019n\u2019 t\u2019other feller he\u2019ll have a\n holt o\u2019 the hot part, same\u2019s we\u2019ve got naow.\u201d\n\n \u201cYou bet! An\u2019 it\u2019ll sizzle his hands, tew, afore I\u2019ll ever let up\n on him.\u201d\n\nBut Kirkland will not let Zury remain a crabbed and hard-fisted son of\nthe frontier. As the frontier hardships grow less the soul that has\nbeen seared by poverty is awakened to more generous impulses. Late\nin life Zury is taken in hand by a Boston woman who had come out as\na schoolteacher years before, and whom Zury had given up for a bride\nwith a rich farm, but to whom he eventually returns. Under her care\nthe plates of mail are stripped from his heart, his better nature\nexpands, and the meanest man in Spring County ripens into a kindly and\nlovable old age. What poverty and hardship had warped and twisted, love\nstraightens out and ennobles; the meanness of the frontier is washed\naway as the rich soil yields a more abundant life. It is not a great\nbook, but it is vigorous and honest, and its earlier chapters contain\nsome admirable bits of realism. As one of the first stories of the\nwestern farmer it is secure of a place in the history of our American\nfiction.\n\nIt was this same year, 1887, that Hamlin Garland, alone and brooding\nover his studies at the Boston Public Library, wrote his first sketches\nof life in the Middle Border. The romance was fading from the prairies\nwhen he took up his pen. The Golden West of Mark Twain and the bucolic\nWest of Whitcomb Riley had both slipped into the past and the day that\nwas rising was to bring its discouragements that seared men\u2019s hopes\nas the hot winds seared the fields of rustling corn. The burdens of\nthe western farmer were heavy on his shoulders and he could foresee\nno time when they would be lighter. Depression had settled on the\nMiddle Border, and Hamlin Garland returning to the familiar fields\nfrom his Boston studies felt the depression in every fiber of his\nbeing. This was his land and his people. The blight laid upon men and\nwomen and children by the drab pioneer life was a familiar fact to\nhim. The Garlands and the McClintocks had suffered from it as their\nneighbors suffered, and a rebellious wrath filled his heart as he\ncontemplated the Middle Border--the barnyards where tired men did the\nevening chores, the ungainly houses where tired women stood over hot\nstoves, the fertile acres that produced more than the markets consumed.\nIt was a life without grace or beauty or homely charm--a treadmill\nexistence that got nowhere. If this were the Valley of Democracy\nthen the democracy was a mean thing and hopeless, and having himself\nescaped from it he would do what he could to help others escape. In\nthe completeness of his disillusion the glamour of romance was swept\naway and he proposed to set down in honest plain words the manner of\nlife lived by these Middle Border folk, and the sort of earnings won by\ntheir toil. He would speak frankly out of the common bitter experience.\nThe way to truth was the way of realism.\n\nTo a later generation that never knew the pioneer hardships of the\nMiddle Border, Hamlin Garland seems strangely remote and old-fashioned;\nyet his intellectual antecedents are both ancient and honorable. At\nbottom he is an idealist of the old Jeffersonian breed, an earnest\nsoul devoid of humor, who loves beauty and is mightily concerned about\njustice, and who, discovering little beauty and finding scant justice\nin the world where fate first set him, turned rebel and threw in his\nlot with the poor and the exploited. As a young man, consumed with a\ndesire to speak for his people, he espoused a somber realism, for only\nby and through the truth could he hope to dislodge from men\u2019s minds the\nmisconceptions that stood in the way of justice. The Middle Border had\nno spokesman at the court of letters and if he could gain a hearing\nthere he must not betray his father\u2019s household by glossing ungainly\nreality; he must depict the life of the western farmer as it was lived\nunder the summer sun and the winter cold, what harvests were brought to\ncrib and what sort of wealth was finally gathered.\n\nAnd yet in the light of his total work one hesitates to call Garland a\nrealist. Perhaps more justly he might be called a thwarted romantic,\nand his early rebellious realism be traced to its source in a\npassionate refusal to be denied the beauty that should be a portion of\nany rational way of living; for when later he found himself in a land\nof nobler horizons, unsoiled as yet by crude frontier exploitation,\nwhen he looked out upon vast mountain ranges and felt the warm sun on\nthe gray plains, he discovered there the romance of his dreams and\nfell to describing the strange splendors with the gusto of a na\u00efve\nromantic. _Main-Travelled Roads_ and _Prairie Folks_ are the protest\nof one oppressed with the meanness of a world that takes such heavy\ntoll of human happiness; _Her Mountain Lover_ is the expression of\na frank romantic who glories in the nobility of nature\u2019s noblemen;\nand _The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop_ is a tale in which romance\nis justified by ethics and the hero discovers in the protection of a\nweaker race the deepest satisfactions of life. Beauty is excellent, but\nbeauty should walk hand in hand with service--not art for art\u2019s sake,\nbut art subdued to the higher good of humanity.\n\nBetween these extremes of a stark realism and an ethical romanticism,\nstand two books, separated by many years and great changes, that embody\nin more finished form the theme which after all was the master passion\nof Garland\u2019s life--the Middle Border and the rebellions it bred. _Rose\nof Dutcher\u2019s Coolly_ is a full-length portrait of an idealist in revolt\nagainst the narrowness of farm life, and _A Son of the Middle Border_\nis an idyll of the past, autobiography done in mellower years when the\npassions of youth have been subdued to less exigent demands. These\nbooks, together with the sketches of _Main-Travelled Roads_ and the\nmilitant critical theory of _Crumbling Idols_, contain pretty much the\nwhole of Hamlin Garland that after years have cared to remember--the\nsaga of the Middle Border in the days of its great rebellion when the\nearlier hopes of boundless prosperity were turning to ashes in the\nmouth.\n\nThe striking originality of Garland\u2019s work, that sets it apart from\nother studies of the local-color school, sprang from the sincerity of\nhis reaction to environment. His intellectual development followed the\nneeds of his ardent, inquisitive nature. After quitting the little\nAcademy at Osage, Iowa, he went forth in quest of an education that\nshould explain to him the meaning of life as he had known it. In this\nsearch he was singularly fortunate. He was his own mentor and he took\nwhat he needed. Boston had long been the Mecca of his dreams and when\nhe found himself there--having made a pious pilgrimage as Howells had\ndone a generation earlier--he threw himself upon his studies with\nascetic zeal. Fortunately he enrolled in the Boston Public Library\ninstead of at Harvard, and his formless radicalisms there found food\nin plenty. Though he lived in Boston some ten years and made friends,\nhe never penetrated the inner literary sanctuary. A somewhat forlorn\noutsider, unknown and unvouched for, he found no welcome as Howells and\nTwain had found, and he never entered the pleasant circles where Holmes\nand Lowell and Fields and Norton and Aldrich and Howells held sway.\n\nPerhaps that fact unconsciously determined his scornful rejection\nof the Boston genteel in literature; at any rate his denial of the\nsovereignty of the New England literary rulers left him free to follow\nother masters who seemed to him more significant. In his bleak little\nroom his ear had caught the greater voices then sounding in Europe\nand America. His masters were men of intellectual horizons unbounded\nby Beacon Street and Harvard Square: Taine and Ibsen and Bj\u00f6rnson,\nTurgenev and Tolstoi, Zola and Millet, Darwin and Spencer and Fiske,\nWalt Whitman and Henry George, and the later Howells with his deeper\nsociological concern and graver realism. His three great masters came\nfinally to be Whitman, Spencer, and Henry George. To these greater\nnames should be added that of Edward Eggleston, who had been his\nboyhood idol, and that of Joseph Kirkland, who did much to stimulate\nand guide his earliest sketches. He did not absorb all these men had\nto give. He could not stretch his provincial mind suddenly to compass\nthe intellectual realm of his masters. But something he got and that\nsomething, woven into the fabric of his thinking, was to make him\nfree. It was the best school of the times, and from his studies Hamlin\nGarland emerged an uncompromising radical, one of a group of eager\nyoung men who gathered about B. O. Flower, and in the sympathetic pages\nof the _Arena_ published their divers radicalisms to a hostile world.\nHe was ready to proclaim new social and literary creeds, ready to go\nforth to do battle for democratic justice and a democratic art.\n\nThe gist of Garland\u2019s new literary creed is set forth in _Crumbling\nIdols_, written in the earliest years of the nineties, when Chicago was\npreparing the setting for the World\u2019s Fair, and gathered into book form\nin 1894. It is realism modified by the local-color school, by French\nimpressionism, and by Whitman--intensely individualistic, ardently\nsocial, and militantly democratic. It would sweep away every fetish of\ngreat reputations and authoritative schools, and insist that the artist\nconfront the life that he knows and tell of it truthfully. Following\nthe French example he calls this iconoclastic realism, Veritism. \u201cThe\n_theory_ of the veritist,\u201d he says, \u201cis, after all, a statement of his\npassion for truth and for individual expression,\u201d and he then goes on:\n\n Art, I must insist, is an individual thing,--the question of one\n man facing certain facts and telling his individual relations to\n them. His first care must be to present his own concept. This is,\n I believe, the essence of veritism. \u201cWrite of those things of\n which you know most, and for which you care most. By so doing you\n will be true to yourself, true to your locality, and true to your\n time.\u201d[767]\n\nBut Veritism in the hands of a disciple of Taine, Whitman, Henry\nGeorge, and Herbert Spencer must take on ethical values and serve the\ncommon well-being. All art, he insists, is \u201csociologic,\u201d and realism is\nharsh because it is hopeful.\n\n Because the fictionist of to-day sees a more beautiful and\n peaceful future social life, and, in consequence, a more beautiful\n and peaceful literary life, therefore he is encouraged to deal\n truthfully and at close grapple with the facts of his immediate\n present. His comment virtually amounts to satire or prophesy, or\n both. Because he is sustained by love and faith in the future, he\n can be mercilessly true. He strikes at thistles, because he knows\n the unrotted seed of loveliness and peace needs but sun and the air\n of freedom to rise to flower and fragrance.\n\n The realist or veritist is really an optimist, a dreamer. He sees\n life in terms of what it might be, as well as in terms of what it\n is; but he writes of what is, and, at his best, suggests what is\n to be, by contrast.... He aims to hasten the age of beauty and\n peace by delineating the ugliness and warfare of the present; but\n ever the converse of his picture rises in the mind of the reader.\n He sighs for a lovelier life. He is tired of warfare and diseased\n sexualism, and Poverty the mother of Envy. He is haggard with\n sympathetic hunger, and weary with the struggle to maintain his\n standing place on this planet, which he conceives was given to all\n as the abode of peace. With his hate in his heart and this ideal\n in his brain the modern man writes his stories of life. They are\n not always pleasant, but they are generally true, and always they\n provoke thought.[768]\n\nIt is an excellent self-portrait of the young realist of that early\ntime when all the rebellions of his blood cried out for expression--the\ntroubled years between 1887 and 1893 when the Border was rising and\nthe son of the Border found the flames of his discontent fanned by\nmany winds. From such roots came the most acrid tales that had as yet\nfruited in American fiction. Few as were the stories of _Main-Travelled\nRoads_ and _Prairie Folks_, they constitute a landmark in our literary\nhistory, for they were the first authentic expression and protest of an\nagrarian America then being submerged by the industrial revolution. No\nother man in our literature had known so intimately the Middle Border\nas Hamlin Garland--its restless swarmings from the old hive, never\npausing long enough to gather the honey of the new fields, its heedless\nventurings for the reputed gold that lay beyond the farthest sunsets.\nHe had responded to the spell that kept the pioneer moving West; the\nallurement of the untamed prairie, the poetry of dawn and twilight. But\nthe poignant spell had been broken for him by the drab realities that\nlay between the dawn and the twilight--the crushing round of toil that\ntook such heavy toll of men\u2019s development and women\u2019s happiness. He was\nfamiliar with the blight as well as the bloom of the frontier. He had\nseen his uncle David McClintock broken by the Border--the great wistful\nman with the soul of a musician; he had seen his mother fail under the\nburden--the cheerful, uncomplaining wife, joining with her rich voice\nin the pioneer\u2019s song of \u201cO\u2019er the hills in legions, Boys!\u201d And after\nthe disillusion of his final defeat on the bleak Dakota plains--by\n1883 woodland and meadow were pretty much alienated from the public\ndomains and only plains and deserts and mountain valleys and forests\nremained--his eyes were opened at last. \u201cI clearly perceived,\u201d he said\nafterwards, \u201cthat our Song of Emigration had been, in effect, the hymn\nof fugitives!\u201d So he turned his face to the East to seek the land of\ndesire in Boston.\n\nThat chapter of his life was ended. He had learned that the old\nromantic tales of the Border were lies to him, whatever they may have\nbeen to earlier generations; but he had yet to naturalize himself in\nthe realm of ideas, and analyze the experiences of his youth in the\nlight of current social liberalisms. He had begun that work in 1883\non his raw Dakota claim where his leisure hours were given to Taine\u2019s\ntheory of literary determinism, and Henry George\u2019s new gospel of\nsingle-tax; and he carried it rapidly forward during three years of\neager reading. During those quiet months in Boston when he was making\nhimself at home in the world of contemporary thought, he sketched the\nfirst of the stories of western life which later he gathered together\nin _Main-Travelled Roads_ and _Prairie Folks_. \u201cYou\u2019re the first actual\nfarmer in American fiction,\u201d said his friend Kirkland, \u201cnow tell the\ntruth about it.\u201d This handful of short stories, fierce in the repressed\npassion of the writer\u2019s heart, was Garland\u2019s reply to the old romantic\nmyths of the West. In these acrid pages life is not bucolic, it does\nnot chew the cud of contentment \u201cknee-deep in June,\u201d but it is stained\nwith dust and sweat, lacerated by raw nerves, depressed by a sense of\neconomic failure.\n\nOf the lives of these labor-burdened men and women he intended to tell\nthe whole truth. But, as he confessed later, he could not. \u201cEven my\nyouthful zeal faltered in the midst of a revelation of the lives led by\nthe women on the farms of the middle border. Before the tragic futility\nof their suffering, my pen refused to shed its ink. Over the hidden\nchamber of their maternal agonies I drew the veil.\u201d It was hard for\nhim to view it all with the calm detachment of the objective realist;\nthe Border life was too deeply and intimately personal to him, it had\nmarked him too harshly. And yet in the sense of conveying the spirit of\nreality he succeeded greatly, and these earliest tales remain notable\nwork which later years have not forgotten. The subdued words of the\nPrologue offer the fittest of commentaries on the spirit in which they\nwere done.\n\n The Main-travelled road in the West (as everywhere) is hot and\n dusty in summer, and desolate and drear with mud in fall and\n spring, and in winter the winds sweep across it; but it does\n sometimes cross a rich meadow where the songs of the larks and\n bobolinks and blackbirds are tangled. Follow it far enough, it may\n lead past a bend in the river where the water laughs eternally\n over its shallows. Mainly it is long and weariful, and has a dull\n little town at one end and a home of toil at the other. Like the\n main-travelled road of life it is traversed by many classes of\n people, but the poor and the weary predominate.\n\n_Main-Travelled Roads_, in its harsh objectivity, belonged to the\nearlier eighties, to the time when the spirit of unrest was still\nobscurely fermenting in the western mind, before it had clarified in\ndefinite agrarian movements and measures. It is clouded by doubt and\nharassed by uncertainty. No hope offers a way out of the weary tangle.\nIts psychology is that of the first mood of dejection that came with\nthe failure of western agriculture with its virgin fields, its new\nmachinery, and its specialized crops, to adjust itself to the new\ncapitalistic order. The simple agrarian mind had not learned to play\nthe new game. The sons of the Middle Border were children of the Gilded\nAge as truly as Colonel Sellers or Commodore Vanderbilt; they were\nplungers and speculators in land and crops; but they were no match for\nthe Main Street plungers and speculators; and when bankruptcy instead\nof riches rewarded their hardships, they were embittered. Out of that\nvery natural bitterness sprang the movement of Populism that proposed\nto take government out of the hands of Main Street and make it serve\nagriculture. It was the understanding of this fact that made Howells\nso sympathetic a critic of Garland. But he would encourage the artist\nrather than the reformer.\n\n ... these stories are full of the bitter and burning dust, the foul\n and trampled slush, of the common avenues of life, the life of the\n men who hopelessly and cheerlessly make the wealth that enriches\n the alien and the idler, and impoverishes the producer.\n\n If any one is still at a loss to account for that uprising of the\n farmers of the West which is the translation of the Peasants\u2019 War\n into modern and republican terms, let him read _Main-Travelled\n Roads_, and he will begin to understand.... The stories are full of\n those gaunt, grim, sordid, pathetic, ferocious figures, whom our\n satirists find so easy to caricature as Hayseeds, and whose blind\n groping for fairer conditions is so grotesque to the newspapers and\n so menacing to the politicians. They feel that something is wrong,\n and they know that the wrong is not theirs. The type caught in Mr.\n Garland\u2019s book is not pretty; it is ugly and often ridiculous; but\n it is heart-breaking in its rude despair.[769]\n\nToo soon, however, the will to remain objective weakened and his work\ntook on a different note. \u201cObscurely forming in my mind,\u201d he says of\nthe year 1889, \u201cwere two great literary concepts--that truth was a\nhigher quality than beauty, and that to spread the reign of justice\nshould everywhere be the design and intent of the artist. The merely\nbeautiful in art seemed petty, and success at the cost of the happiness\nof others a monstrous egotism.\u201d[770] With this ethical conception of\nart he returned in 1889 to the old home, after a six years\u2019 absence,\nto experience a poignant reaction to the change that had come over\nthe Border. \u201cAnother dry year was upon the land and the settlers were\ndeeply disheartened,\u201d he wrote later. \u201cThe holiday spirit of eight\nyears before had entirely vanished. In its place was a sullen rebellion\nagainst government and against God.\u201d[771]\n\n Every house I visited had its individual message of sordid struggle\n and half-hidden despair.... All the gilding of farm life melted\n away. The hard and bitter realities came back upon me in a flood.\n Nature was as beautiful as ever. The soaring sky was filled with\n shining clouds, the tinkle of the bobolink\u2019s fairy bells rose from\n the meadow, a mystical sheen was on the odorous grass and waving\n grain, but no splendor of cloud, no grace of sunset, could conceal\n the poverty of these people; on the contrary, they brought out,\n with a more intolerable poignancy, the gracelessness of these\n homes, and the sordid quality of the mechanical routine of these\n lives. I perceived beautiful youth becoming bowed and bent. I saw\n lovely girlhood wasting away into thin and hopeless age. Some of\n the women I had known had withered into querulous and complaining\n spinsterhood, and I heard ambitious youth cursing the bondage of\n the farm. \u201cOf such pain and futility are the lives of the average\n man and woman of both city and country composed,\u201d I acknowledged to\n myself with candor, \u201cWhy lie about it?\u201d[772]\n\nIn such a mood the call of social justice was too insistent to be\ndenied. \u201cWith William Morris and Henry George I exclaimed, \u2018Nature\nis not to blame. Man\u2019s laws are to blame\u2019!\u201d And so the young man of\ntwenty-nine threw himself into the agrarian cause. He took the platform\nwith Mary Ellen Lease and was glad of the farmers\u2019 approval of the\nnew doctrine of less corn and more hell. Under the urging of his\nfriend Flower he planned to put the Populist movement into fiction and\nwrote _A Spoil of Office_. The familiar Iowa backgrounds are in the\nstory--the harsh lives and bent weary figures of men and women--but\nthere is also an idealized heroine who suggests what life may become\nwhen injustice is done away with and the blighting toil is lessened--a\nfigure who, as Grange lecturer and Farmers\u2019 Alliance speaker, may\nhave been suggested by Mary Ellen Lease. Much inferior as it is to\n_Main-Travelled Roads_--a social tract rather than a work of art--we\ncannot well spare it from our Middle Border literature, for it has\ncaptured and preserves for later times the spirit of the passionate\nuprising of the farmers, and it recalls the vast hopes that fermented\nin that revolt--not well grounded, perhaps, but warm and human. \u201cThe\nheart and center of this movement,\u201d says Ida Wilbur, \u201cis a demand for\njustice, not for ourselves alone, but for the toiling poor wherever\nfound.... It is no longer a question of legislating for the farmer; it\nis a question of the abolition of industrial slavery.\u201d[773] There are\nechoes of an older and simpler America in these pages, of discontents\nthat were put down but not removed--Jacksonianisms, Greenbackisms,\nanti-monopolistic crusades. Yet they look forward to a time when beauty\nand well-being shall be the common portion of those who do the work\nof the world. The way, alas, is \u201clong and weary, and thousands and\nmillions of us must die on the road, I am afraid,\u201d says the heroine;\nbut go forward they must, along other paths than the path of capitalism.\n\nLess significant is _Jason Edwards: An Average Man_ (1891), that is an\nelaboration of the note, \u201cThe air is full of revolt against things as\nthey are.\u201d It is a single-tax reply to the question of a young girl,\n\u201cAre there any happy people in the world--any working people, I mean?\nAre they all cross and tired and worried and full of care, as we are\nhere?\u201d The story is two chapters in the life of a workingman--his\nstruggle in Boston as a mechanic, and his struggle in Minnesota,\nwhither he flees for a refuge on a homestead. Defeat awaits him in\nthe end, and the conclusion is an illustration of Henry George\u2019s\nthesis that poverty is the entail of land rent. In this and in other\nstudies done under the influence of B. O. Flower, whose appetite for\nreform literature was insatiable, Hamlin Garland had ceased to be an\nobjective realist and turned propagandist, bringing down on his head\nthe criticisms of conservative readers. One of his friends went so far\nas to expostulate over the folly of his course. \u201cIt is a mistake for\nyou to be associated with cranks like Henry George and writers like\nWhitman,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a mistake to be published in the _Arena_.\nYour book should have been brought out by one of the old established\nfirms. If you will fling away your radical notions and consent to amuse\nthe governing classes, you will succeed.\u201d[774]\n\nIt is the agrarian background of Garland\u2019s mind that makes him seem\nold-fashioned to a generation that has forgotten the agrarian roots\nof our past growth. He was so deeply colored by this earlier native\nAmerica that he never outgrew it; and when the Populistic revolt had\ndied down, when this last organized agrarian rebellion against the\nexploiting middle class had become only an episode in our history,\nhe had outlived his day. He was too deeply stirred by Whitman\u2019s\nromantic faith in democracy, too narrowly a disciple of Henry George\u2019s\nJeffersonian economics, to fit into an industrializing America. Despite\nhis discipleship to European realism he refused to go with the group\nof young left-wing naturalists who were boldly venturing on new ways\nof fiction. He would not follow the path of naturalism. Of Norris\u2019s\n_McTeague_ he said, \u201cWhat avail is this study of sad lives? for it\ndoes not even lead to a notion of social betterment.\u201d[775] He could\nnot bring himself to accept the major criteria of naturalism as they\nwere exemplified in the work of Zola and Strindberg and Hauptmann.\nA native Jeffersonian, inspired by Whitman and instructed by Henry\nGeorge and Herbert Spencer, would reject the somber, mechanistic\nbackground of naturalist thought. He had learned his science of the\nVictorian evolutionists, with their grandiose conception of a far-flung\nbeneficent progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, and\nthe backgrounds of his mind were radiant with promise. Neither a\nmechanistic science nor a regimented industrialism had risen in his\noutlook to bank the fires of his hope. No impersonal determinism had\nchilled his belief in man as a free-will agent in a moral universe.\nThe vast bleak chemical cosmos that bewildered Theodore Dreiser\ndid not rise before him to dwarf the individual nor overwhelm his\naspirations. Like a French romantic of a hundred years before, he\nremained a confirmed optimist who believed that the future will correct\nthe mistakes of the past, and the peace and beauty for which the\nhuman race longs lie immediately ahead. The art of the young man was\nbecoming old-fashioned in the world of Stephen Crane; his ideals were\nVictorian in the days of Mark Hanna. And so after the agrarian revolt\nhad failed and America lay fat and contented in the lap of McKinley\nprosperity, he found himself a man without a country, an alien in\nan industrializing order, and he turned away to the newer West and\nthe romance he had always sought. While America was driving towards\nregimentation he traveled backward in time to recover a vanishing world\nof individualism, and the distance rapidly widened between them.\n\nIn those romantic wanderings through Colorado and California and\ninto the far Northwest he found a new interest in the frontiersman\u2019s\nexploitation of the Indian, and in _The Captain of the Gray-Horse\nTroop_ and _The Eagle Heart_ he has wedded his social ethics to French\nromanticism, and endowed man in a state of nature with exalted social\nresponsibilities. The old theme is dressed in new clothes and Captain\nCurtis of the Gray-Horse Troop becomes an Indian agent fighting the\nlawless and cruel encroachment of the frontiersmen upon the Indian\nrights; but the theme remains. Garland hated the frontier as fiercely\nas Cooper hated it, and like him he loved the clean free spaces; but\nwhen after his long and somewhat futile rambles he returned to the\nMiddle Border, he found there a new light upon the familiar fields and\nin that light he wrote his saga of the Garlands and the McClintocks.\nThis was to be his great bequest to American letters. To have sought\nthe spirit of the Middle Border in its hopes and its defeat, to have\nwritten the history of the generation that swept across the western\nprairies, is to compress within covers a great movement and a great\nexperience--one of the significant chapters in our total American\nhistory.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[765] In Professor Parrington\u2019s plan the section given here was to be\npreceded by a first section on \u201cEdward Eggleston and Frontier Realism,\u201d\nand a second on \u201cWhitcomb Riley and Folk Romance.\u201d--_Publisher._\n\n[766] Chapter IV, pp. 26-27.\n\n[767] Chapter III, p. 35.\n\n[768] Chapter IV, pp. 51-53.\n\n[769] Introduction to _Main-Travelled Roads_.\n\n[770] _A Son of the Middle Border_, Chapter XXVIII, p. 374.\n\n[771] _Ibid._, Chapter XXIX.\n\n[772] _Ibid._, Chapter XXVIII, pp. 364-365.\n\n[773] _Ibid._, p. 245.\n\n[774] _A Son of the Middle Border_, Chapter XXXI, p. 417.\n\n[775] _Critic_, Vol. 42, pp. 216-218.\n\n\n\n\nPart Two: Proletarian Hopes[776]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[776] The first chapter of this section was to have been \u201cPlutocracy\nand the Workingman,\u201d the second \u201cThe Rise of the Left.\u201d For the\ncontents see p. xxxv.--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nChapter III \u2022 The Quest of Utopia\n\n\nFrom the welter of unrest of the later years of the century, with\nits labor struggles, its agrarian bitterness, its concern over the\nexhaustion of the public lands and a pinching monetary system, its\nacute distrust of monopolies and corporate power, sprang a very natural\neagerness to forecast the future and blaze new roads that might\nlead to the democratic Canaan. Whither the main-traveled road would\nlead, discerning idealists knew only too well. To bog down in a mire\nof plutocracy would be a sorry ending to the great experiment; yet\nthe mud was deepening with every mile of advance and unless another\nhighway appeared the situation was unpromising. The crux of the problem\nseemed to reside in an extension of the powers of the political state,\nconverting to social ends powers that hitherto had been serving private\ngain. The plutocracy was pointing the way. If the political state were\nfairly dedicated to democratic ends, why should not society go forward\ntoward a true commonwealth, founded on a social economy and dedicated\nto common justice and the common well-being? There was need only to\nsubordinate private interests to collective interests, and substitute\nco\u00f6peration for the present mad scramble of selfish individualism.\n\nIn elaboration of this pregnant thought a surprising number of social\nromances appeared during the last quarter of the century, that were\nnative counterparts of the greater studies in collectivism by European\nthinkers. A recent study lists forty-eight titles of Utopian romances\nwritten between 1884 and 1900.[777] Of these several are communistic,\nand the rest are socialistic; yet in keeping with the American temper\nnone openly makes use of the terms, and few apply the Marxian doctrine\nof the class war. Their appeal was directed primarily to the middle\nclass of small business and professional men, and they were content to\nrely on political means to achieve economic ends. Troubled as was the\nAmerican mind by the rise of a cutthroat exploitation, it was not yet\nready to entertain ideas of direct action or trust the proletariat to\nenforce its will by mass strength. In one story, to be sure--Ignatius\nDonnelly\u2019s _Caesar\u2019s Column_ (1890)--there is a gloomy picture of the\ndownfall of civilization caused by the class struggles; but the temper\nof Donnelly had lost its genial optimism through his long immersion in\nunder-dog contests and had grown mordant and gloomy.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Edward Bellamy and \u201cLooking Backward\u201d\n\nWhen in 1888 Edward Bellamy published _Looking Backward_ he gave a huge\nimpetus to the Utopian romance. Third in the list of titles collected\nby Mr. Forbes, it was to have a wide influence on the thought of the\ntimes. It made instant appeal and successive editions were issued\nto meet the popular demand. Not since _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_ had an\nAmerican novel reached so many readers, and Bellamy became at once\na national figure, the prophet of a new industrial order. There is\nabundant evidence to the effect produced upon thoughtful readers. E. C.\nStedman, the first critic of the times, spoke of it as a \u201cremarkable\nand fascinating novel\u201d; Frances E. Willard called it \u201ca revelation and\nan evangel\u201d; and Howells remarked on \u201cthe extraordinary effect which\nMr. Bellamy\u2019s romance has had with the public.\u201d More significant still,\n_Looking Backward_ speedily became the source and inspiration for a\nseries of social organizations that beginning at Boston soon spread\nover the country. _The Nationalist_ was established as the organ of\nthe movement and thousands of eager men and women threw themselves\ninto the work of reshaping American society to conform to the new\nsocial ideal. No doubt the enthusiasm was na\u00efve, no doubt it sprang\nfrom a social inexperience that underestimated the complexity of the\nproblem, yet the sources, clearly, were a sharp distrust of private\ncapitalism and an idealistic faith in co\u00f6peration. In a pronouncement\nof the Boston \u201cNationalist Club,\u201d January 9, 1889, the cause was rested\non two fundamental truths--\u201cThe principle of competition is ... the\napplication of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most\ncunning\u201d; and, \u201cThe principle of the Brotherhood of Humanity is one of\nthe eternal truths that govern the world\u2019s progress on lines which\ndistinguish human nature from brute nature.\u201d[778]\n\nIt is not easy to trace the origins of Bellamy\u2019s interest in\ncollectivism or the sources of his thought. A journalist and lawyer,\nhe had studied in Germany, where presumably he had come in contact\nwith Marxian socialism. Writing in the _Nationalist_ for May, 1889, he\ncommented thus on the origins of _Looking Backward_:\n\n I never had, previous to the publication of the work, any\n affiliations with any class or sect of industrial or social\n reformers nor, to make my confession complete, any particular\n sympathy with undertakings of the sort. It is only just to myself\n to say, however, that this should not be taken to indicate any\n indifference to the miserable condition of the mass of humanity,\n seeing that it resulted rather from a perception all too clear\n of the depth and breadth of the social problem and a consequent\n skepticism as to the effectiveness of the proposed solutions which\n had come to my notice.\n\n In undertaking to write _Looking Backward_ I had, at the outset, no\n idea of attempting a serious contribution to the movement of social\n reform. The idea was of a mere literary fantasy, a fairy tale of\n social felicity. There was no thought of contriving a house which\n practical men might live in, but merely of hanging in mid-air, far\n out of the reach of the sordid and material world of the present, a\n cloud-palace for an ideal humanity.[779]\n\nThat the impulse did not come from the Marxians is sufficiently\nclear from his explanation of the idea of an industrial army. \u201cThe\nidea of committing the duty of maintaining the community to an\nindustrial army, precisely as the duty of protecting it is entrusted\nto a military army,\u201d came to him, he said, from the object-lesson\nof European militarism. But however little he owed to the Marxians\nit is clear that Bellamy--the literary amateur who had dabbled in\nHawthornesque fantasies--possessed a warm social conscience and a\nvigorous inquiring mind; and once his attention had been drawn to the\nevils of industrialism he would respond with the same direct competence\nthat marked the thinking of Henry George. Nine years before _Looking\nBackward_ he had dealt with a sociological theme. In 1879 he wrote _The\nDuke of Stockbridge, A Romance of Shay\u2019s Rebellion_, for the _Berkshire\nCourier_, which was reissued in book form in 1900. It was a hasty piece\nof work that falls off greatly in the latter part; yet in its sympathy\nfor the agrarian rebels and its probing of the economic sources of\nthe post-Revolutionary unrest, it was far removed from the temper of\nFederalist historians. It is an account of the tyranny of property\nrule--of the exploitation of the debtor farmer by the creditor\ngentleman made possible by the economic maladjustments resulting\nfrom the war. A bitter discontent is in the hearts of the common\npeople. Hatred of lawyers and courts and process-servers, has taken\nthe place of hatred of Tories. Soldiers who had conquered Cornwallis\nwere returning home only to be conquered by writs and imprisoned by\nsheriffs. The exactions of a brutal law fell upon helpless victims;\ntaxes outran incomes and there was no money to pay. Economic injustice\nwas daily whetting the edge of class bitterness. The animus of Shays\u2019s\nRebellion is compressed into a few paragraphs that suggest how clearly\nBellamy had analyzed the social struggle.\n\n \u201cI use ter think ez there wuzn\u2019t no sech varmint ez a tory; but\n I didn\u2019t know nothin\u2019 \u2019bout lawyers and sheriffs them times. I\n calc\u2019late ye could cut five tories aout o\u2019 one lawyer an\u2019 make a\n dozen skunks aout o\u2019 what wuz left over.\u201d\n\n \u201cI hearn as haow Squire Woodbridge says taxes is ten times what\n they wuz afore the war, an\u2019 its sartin that there ain\u2019t one\n shillin\u2019 inter folks\u2019 pockets ter pay \u2019em with where there wuz ten\n on \u2019em in them days.... It seems darn curis, bein\u2019 as we fit ag\u2019in\n the red coats jest ter git rid o\u2019 taxes.\u201d[780]\n\nSo felt the agrarian. Now for the gentleman:\n\n \u201cThat is the trouble nowadays, ... these numskulls must needs\n have matters of government explained to them, and pass their own\n judgment on public affairs. And when they cannot understand them,\n then, forsooth, comes a rebellion. I think none can deny seeing in\n these late troubles the first fruits of those pestilent notions of\n equality, whereof we heard so much from certain quarters, during\n the late war of independence. I would that Mr. Jefferson and some\n of the other writers of disturbing democratic rhetoric might have\n been here in the State the past winter, to see the outcome of their\n preaching.\u201d[781]\n\nNine years after _Looking Backward_ Bellamy published _Equality_, a\ncritical examination of economic history with a view to creating an\nadequate social economics. The earlier work had drawn the outlines\nof the democratic society of the future, the later supplied a\njustification and a commentary. The great theme involved a twofold\nproblem: an analysis of the failure of social justice under private\ncapitalism, and a defense of the working of social capitalism. The two\nthreads are closely interwoven, and the effect is heightened by the\ncontrasts resulting from setting the two social orders over against\neach other. Innumerable questions, touching diverse phases, are\npropounded and answered. The apologist of private capitalism is pursued\ninto every stronghold of his logic; he is assailed by a hundred vivid\nanalogies which seek to lay bare the folly of a social system that\nbreeds waste only to breed poverty, that puts a premium upon greed and\nyet takes away the security of possession, that bids the workers fight\neach other instead of uniting for the common welfare. But men must see\na better before they will leave a worse, and so there is drawn the\npicture of another commonwealth that must arise when men shall put off\nthe ass\u2019s head from their shoulders, and set intelligently to work.\nAmerica is moving towards such a commonwealth, Bellamy is persuaded,\nand yet how slow it is to grasp the meaning of democracy! It holds\nback from its own good, loath to probe the depths of the revolutionary\nphilosophy of liberty, equality, fraternity. Julian West awakes in this\nnew world; his eyes are opened; the ass\u2019s head is gone; he knows for\nthe first time the goodness of life in a rational society. And when\nin a hideous nightmare he returned to the old Boston he had lived in\nbefore he fell asleep, he tasted for the first time the full iniquity\nof the old pigsty arrangement. \u201cI have been in Golgotha,\u201d he cried, \u201cI\nhave seen Humanity hanging on a cross!\u201d It is knowledge of the good\nthat must destroy the evil.\n\nIt was as a political economist that Bellamy attacked the problems\nof a democratic society, and his radicalism begins and ends with the\ninterpretation he puts on the phrase. He was far from being a political\neconomist of the schools. His contempt for the older classical dogmas\nwas measureless. Manchesterism with its fetish of _laissez faire_ he\nreckoned no better than a pseudo-science. \u201c\u2018There were no political\neconomists before the Revolution,\u2019\u201d remarks one of the scholars of\nthe later age.[782] Such books as the _Wealth of Nations_, properly\nspeaking, should be called \u201cExaminations into the Economic and Social\nConsequences of trying to get along without any Political Economy.\u201d\nBefore we shall get forward we must examine our terms.\n\n Economy ... means the wise husbanding of wealth in production\n and distribution. Individual economy is the science of this\n husbandry when conducted in the interest of the individual without\n regard to any others. Family economy is this husbandry carried\n on for the advantage of a family group without regard to other\n groups. Political economy, however, can only mean the husbandry\n of wealth for the greatest advantage of the political or social\n body, the whole number of the citizens constituting the political\n organization. This sort of husbandry necessarily implies a public\n or political regulation of economic affairs for the general\n interest. But before the Revolution there was no conception of\n such an economy, nor any organization to carry it out. All systems\n and doctrines of economy previous to that time were distinctly\n and exclusively private and individual in their whole theory and\n practice. While in other respects our forefathers did in various\n ways and degrees recognize a social solidarity and a political\n unity with proportionate rights and duties, their theory and\n practice as to all matters touching the getting and sharing of\n wealth were aggressively and brutally individualistic, antisocial,\n and unpolitical.[783]\n\nA social arrangement based on an individual economy must necessarily\nresult in such monstrosities as the system of private capitalism with\nits cash nexus. It is no other than an organized system of social\nwarfare, with all the appalling waste of war. Habit has blinded our\neyes or we should see the utter bankruptcy of individual competition,\nthat prides itself on its \u201cfamous process for beggaring a nation.\u201d\n\u201cWere these serious men I saw about me,\u201d cried Julian West as he\nwatched the folly of Washington Street, with its thousand shops madly\nbidding against each other, its vulgar advertising and cheating and\nswindling, \u201cor children, who did their business on such a plan? Could\nthey be reasoning beings, who did not see the folly which, when the\nproduct is made and ready for use, wastes so much of it in getting it\nto the user? If people eat with a spoon that leaks half its contents\nbetween bowl and lip, are they not likely to go hungry?\u201d[784] What is\nit but such folly which prevents society from doing the thousand things\nwhich cry aloud to be done? So long as men must fight each other for\nindividual subsistence how shall they be able to join forces to fight\nthe common enemies, cold, hunger, disease? Our individualism keeps us\npoverty-stricken; we are too poor to destroy the social squalor, too\npoor to save our own lives.\n\nIf competition entails irretrievable waste, he points out, the system\nof competitive profit involves economic suicide. It is a pistol which\nprivate industrialism points at its own head. The struggle for profit\nis the hidden cancer that is eating out the heart of modern society,\nand Bellamy examines it searchingly in the chapter, \u201cEconomic Suicide\nof the Profit System.\u201d[785] Under private industrialism profits are\nthe oil to the wheels of industry, which turn in response to the\nmarket. By the market is meant those who have money to buy with; and\ndemand is brisk or slack according to the diffusion of economic means.\nWhen the buyers are satisfied and abstain from further purchases, the\nmarket becomes glutted and the wheels of production cease to turn\n\u201cthough starving and naked mobs might riot in the streets.\u201d Profits,\nhowever, must come out of somebody\u2019s pocket; and the greater they are\nthe more the pocket that pays is emptied; unless replenished by other\nprofits, taken from still other pockets, it ceases to be able to buy in\nlike proportion. In consequence the market slacks off and the wheels\nof industry run slower. The manufacturer takes his profits out of his\nworkmen, the merchant takes his out of the public--which is another\nterm for the workman; he who takes most grows rich fastest and is most\nsuccessful. Obviously, however, such riches are acquired at the expense\nof the public capacity to buy; and such lessening capacity is ominous\nof gluts and crises to ensue, with losses which must be made good by\ngreater profits when the wheels turn again. It is only too clear that\nsociety is suffering from a chronic dyspepsia of its industrial system;\nit cannot digest its food. The current maxim that a fair exchange is no\nrobbery--so confidently urged--cannot apply to the profit system, for\nif the exchange is fair there is no profit, and if there is no profit\nthere will be no exchange. The further maxim that demand governs supply\nand supply keeps pace with demand, refers only to the profit-market,\nand quite overlooks the important detail of social need.\n\nThe stupidity of such a system Bellamy never tires of pointing out.\nHis striking analogy of the stage-coach has become a classic; the less\nknown parable of the water-tank[786] is equally vivid; a hundred other\nshafts are directed at the profit-theory which underlies our individual\neconomy. Until the sway of such anarchy is broken, until society learns\nto regulate its industrialism on the principles of a wise political\neconomy, there can be no hope of betterment. To create and apply this\nwise political economy is the urgent business of democracy if it is not\nto perish. It must be such an economy as shall satisfy both our ethical\nideals and our material needs. It must embody the spirit of democratic\nsolidarity and it must look beyond the demands of the profit-market to\nthe well-being of all. It must substitute co\u00f6peration for competitive\nwarfare. The criminal waste which keeps the gray wolves forever\nsnarling at the threshold of society, must cease; the specter of\npoverty which disorders the lives of men and distempers their hopes,\nmust be banished by the united strength of all. If democracy cannot\nachieve such a democratic political economy it must flounder through\ndeepening bogs until finally it sinks in the morass of plutocracy.\n\nThe fatal mistake of democracy heretofore has been the insufficiency\nof its program. It is incredible how limited has been its vision and\nhow few and how minor have been its greatest revolutions. To overthrow\nmonarchy was excellent, but it did not bring in democracy; rather,\nthe unchecked sway of plutocracy. \u201c\u2018The people, indeed, nominally\nwere sovereigns; but as these sovereigns were individually and as a\nclass the economic serfs of the rich, and lived at their mercy, the\nso-called popular government became the mere stalking-horse of the\ncapitalists.\u2019\u201d[787] Political revolutions have proved heretofore to be\nmere flashes in the pan; not until the economic revolution has been\neffected will the old tyranny be blown to pieces:\n\n The second phase in the evolution of the democratic idea began with\n the awakening of the people to the perception that the deposing of\n kings, instead of being the main end and mission of democracy, was\n merely preliminary to its real programme, which was the use of the\n collective social machinery for the indefinite promotion of the\n welfare of the people at large....\n\n Which amounts to saying ... that there never was a democratic\n government properly so called before the twentieth century.... The\n so-called republics of the first phase we class as pseudo-republics\n or negative democracies....\n\n Regarded as necessary steps in the evolution of society from pure\n monarchy to pure democracy, these republics of the negative phase\n mark a stage of progress; but if regarded as finalities they were\n a type far less admirable on the whole than decent monarchies.\n In respect especially to their susceptibility to corruption and\n plutocratic subversion they were the worst kind of government\n possible.... How could intelligent men delude themselves with the\n notion that the most portentous and revolutionary idea of all time\n had exhausted its influence and fulfilled its mission in changing\n the title of the executive of a nation from king to President,\n and the name of the national Legislature from Parliament to\n Congress?... The American people fancied that they had set up a\n popular government when they separated from England, but they were\n deluded. In conquering the political power formerly exercised by\n the king, the people had but taken the outworks of the fortress of\n tyranny. The economic system which was the citadel and commanded\n every part of the social structure remained in possession of\n private and irresponsible rulers, and so long as it was held, the\n possession of the outworks was of no use to the people, and only\n retained by the sufferance of the garrison of the citadel. The\n Revolution came when the people saw that they must either take the\n citadel or evacuate the outworks.[788]\n\nThe significance of the title of Bellamy\u2019s supplementary volume\nshould now be clear. The problem of democracy always and everywhere\nis the problem of achieving economic equality. Without that all talk\nof liberty and fraternity, all equality before the law, is empty and\nsinister mockery. How can a man call himself citizen who must beg a\nfellow citizen to become his master? How shall the wage-taker treat\nhis boss as a brother? Of what worth is equality before the law to\none without a job? Democracy and servitude cannot lie down together.\nWage-slavery debases the dignity of man; it puts upon him the greatest\nof indignities, servitude to things; it cheats him of his right to\nlife, liberty, and happiness; it is the evil thing which degrades human\nsociety to the level of the pigsty, and puts a premium upon the hoggish\ninstincts of men. It sows suspicion and hate between equals, changes\nthe unsuccessful into cringing sycophants, sets its heel upon the weak\nand the helpless. The thing were too monstrous to be conceivable were\nit not the everyday fact of life--more than that, were it not the ideal\nof a supposedly democratic society, apologized for by our plutocratic\nculture, defended by all that accounts itself respectable, buttressed\nby the formidable turrets of the law, written down as a major premise\nin our treatises on political science: and all in the sacred name of\nindividual enterprise. It is familiarity that blinds us to its evils,\nand makes its victims only callous or sullen. And it endures because\nmen are deceived by its half-truths, seduced by its specious freedoms,\nled astray by its fatuous promises. Being taught to set the privilege\nof fighting above the privilege of helping, how should they not account\ntheir egoism more sacred than their altruism?\n\nWhen men shall leave off bounding their democratic horizons by the\nold political economy and the old law, Bellamy was persuaded, they\nwill see more clearly. The political science of private property\nconceived of government as a police power to safeguard the stake\nof the individual in society. Very well, democracy needs only to\nredefine the terms \u201cstake-in-society\u201d and \u201cpolice power\u201d to arrive at\na competent philosophy. The definition of the former is ready to hand\nin the familiar words of the Declaration of Independence--the stake\nof every man in society is no less than his life, his liberty, and\nhis happiness. To secure him in this stake is the primary function\nof government. The property interpretation of the stake-in-society\nprinciple was sound in its assumption of the economic as the\ndetermining basis; we need only to democratize the interpretation to\narrive at our end.\n\n \u201cThe primal principle of democracy is the worth and dignity of\n the individual. That dignity, consisting in the quality of human\n nature, is essentially the same in all individuals, and therefore\n equality is the vital principle of democracy. To this intrinsic\n and equal dignity of the individual all material conditions\n must be made subservient, and personal accidents and attributes\n subordinated. The raising up of the human being without respect of\n persons is the constant and only rational motive of the democratic\n policy. Contrast with this conception that precious notion of your\n contemporaries as to restricting suffrage. Recognizing the material\n disparities in the circumstances of individuals, they proposed to\n conform the rights and dignities of the individual to his material\n circumstances instead of conforming the material circumstances to\n the essential and equal dignity of man.\u201d\n\n \u201cIn short ... while under our system we conformed men to things,\n you think it more reasonable to conform things to men?\u201d\n\n \u201cThat is, indeed,\u201d replied the doctor, \u201cthe vital difference\n between the old and the new orders.\u201d[789]\n\nAs a preliminary to this necessary end of conforming things to men\nthere must be a reinterpretation of the functions of the state. Here\nagain Bellamy\u2019s political economy gives a surprising twist to the\ncurrent police theory of government.\n\n \u201cIn my day ... it was considered that the proper functions of\n government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace\n and defending the people against the public enemy, that is to the\n military and police powers.\u201d\n\n \u201cAnd in heaven\u2019s name, who are the public enemies?\u201d exclaimed Dr.\n Leete. \u201cAre they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and\n nakedness?\u201d[790]\n\nThe plutocratic interpretation of the police power signifies no other\nthan the protection of the individual in the enjoyment of the fruits\nof his exploitation--that his right to keep and use what he has got\nmust be held more sacred than the welfare of society; that the law,\nthe military, the police, shall defend him in his right to do with his\nwinnings as he will. The democratic interpretation of the police power,\non the other hand, holds that the state must intervene to the end that\nproperty shall serve a social and not a private interest; that the weak\nshall not be exploited by individual enterprise; that all shall be\nprotected in their right to life, liberty, and happiness. It demands an\nethical basis for the social economy. The legal maxim that a man may do\nas he will with his own, is open to question. The matter of ownership\nceases to be a legal question of title, and becomes a moral question\nof right and justice. Land, the machinery of production, the profits\nof organized industry, coal, ores, oil, lumber--are such things justly\nsubject to private pre\u00ebmption? Shall the complex structure of society\nbe bottomed on the law of contract, or on the ethics of social justice?\nSubstitute one for the other and a revolution is accomplished.\n\n Our ethics of wealth is ... extremely simple. It consists merely in\n the law of self-preservation, asserted in the name of all against\n the encroachments of any. It rests upon a principle which a child\n can understand as well as a philosopher, and which no philosopher\n ever attempted to refute--namely, the supreme right of all to live,\n and consequently to insist that society shall be so organized as to\n secure that right.[791]\n\nThus in the political science of democracy the old police theory of\ngovernment merges in an all-embracing trustee theory. To a paternal\nstate is entrusted the protection of the interests of society. That the\nwelfare of all shall be faithfully served, it is essential that the\ncommon will control and direct the machinery for the production and\ndistribution of wealth. The anarchy of individualism must give place\nto an ordered regimentation, under a centralized authority. The social\nmeaning of property must be probed to the bottom and the exact line\nbetween public and private rights be marked off. This brings Bellamy to\nhis fundamental principle--the collectivistic organization of industry\nas the _sine qua non_ of a democratic society. How effectively such a\ncentralized state must wage war upon poverty, how adequately it must\nprotect the citizen against the common enemies of cold, hunger, and\nnakedness, it was the purpose of _Looking Backward_ and _Equality_ to\npicture. \u201cA horrible cockney dream,\u201d William Morris called _Looking\nBackward_; and by way of answer sketched his _News from Nowhere_,\nloveliest of Utopias with its anarchistic freedom set in country\nfields. Morris was an artist with an ample share of Ruskinian prejudice\nagainst the machinery that Bellamy so greatly developed; nevertheless\nBellamy was far more modern and realistic in his understanding of the\npart the machine will play in the society of the future. To socialize\nthe machine--to put upon it the slave-work of society, surely means\nmuch to human freedom.\n\n_Looking Backward_ is a brief for no particular school of socialism,\nalthough it inclines somewhat to Fabianism. Not through strikes,\nboycotts and lockouts, was the great change brought about, but in\nconsequence of the spread of social intelligence and social ethics.\nUnionism was not the father of the Revolution, nor agrarianism its\nmother. Direct action and violence in any form rather hindered than\nhelped. Class propaganda was too narrow and too selfish. The anarchists\nwith their \u201cred flag and talk about burning, sacking, and blowing\npeople up,\u201d retarded the Revolution by frightening the timid and making\n\u201ca thousand enemies of their professed cause to one friend.\u201d \u201cThe labor\nparties, as such, never could have accomplished anything on a large or\npermanent scale.\u201d\n\n It was not till a rearrangement of the industrial and social system\n on a higher ethical basis, and for the more efficient production\n of wealth, was recognized as the interest, not of one class, but\n equally of all classes, of rich and poor, cultured and ignorant,\n old and young, weak and strong, men and women, that there was any\n prospect that it would be achieved. Then the national party arose\n to carry it out by political methods.[792]\n\nTo wait for the consent of all would seem to the impatient a long\npostponement of the millennium; yet the postponement, Bellamy argued,\nneed not be long. The overreaching greed of private capitalism was\ndaily hastening it. The new order must come about speedily as a\nnecessary consequence of two forces; the compulsion of economic\nfact, and the stimulus of ideas. As the monopolistic tendencies of\nprivate capitalism open the eyes of the dullest to the growth of a\nplutocratic power beyond the control of the majority, a quick fear of\nthe impending tyranny must lead men to question the larger scope and\nultimate significance of the whole system. Under the lash of this fear\ntheir minds will open to ideas which have long been knocking in vain\nfor admission. The sources of monopolistic power will be examined,\nand the successive steps by which the few have gained control of the\nmachinery of production will become clear. Already the fertile idea of\nthe unearned increment which the land-taxers have got hold of and are\nspreading widely, has prepared the way for the revolutionary doctrine\nof the social fund. Let the common man once understand how small a\nportion of wealth is produced by his private effort, and how large\na portion by the agency of social organization with its heritage of\nexperience and invention, and he will understand how unjustly private\ncapitalism appropriates what it has not earned. The conclusion that\nwealth should belong to him who produces it, is a deduction of the\nmost elementary ethics; and since the production of wealth in quantity\nis a consequence of the social organization and social heritage, the\nconviction becomes irresistible that such wealth belongs to society\nand cannot justly be appropriated by the individual.[793] Let such\nan idea spread widely and the way is prepared for the taking over\nby the state of the machinery of production, and the assumption by\nit of the obligation of universal trusteeship. Then will come the\nRevolution. Co\u00f6peration will take the place of competition; production\nand distribution for the common well-being will destroy the malevolent\ntrinity of rent, interest, and profit, which have so long held the\nworld in poverty; the intelligent strength of all will stand between\nthe individual and cold, hunger, and nakedness. The noble words of\nthe Declaration of Independence will no longer be a catch-vote and\na mockery to the exploited multitude, but a reality. The democratic\nideal, with its social philosophy summarized in the phrase, \u201cthe only\nwealth is life,\u201d will destroy the last vestiges of ancient tyranny\nand men will be free. Rooted in economic equality the fine flower\nof individualism will expand as it cannot now in unfertile soil; a\ngenerous and unstinted culture will spread the spirit of kindliness\nthrough society, and a new and nobler art and religion will go hand in\nhand with the new fellowship.\n\nOnly too clearly Edward Bellamy was an incorrigible idealist. He looked\ninto the future with more confident eyes than most of us; he saw in\nthe East the quickening of a new day where we see only darkness. A\nchild of the Enlightenment, he put his trust in the natural goodness\nof men. They are not inherently base and ignoble, but the victims of\nan evil system that breeds what is base and ignoble. \u201cThe folly of\nmen, not their hard-heartedness, was the great cause of the world\u2019s\npoverty. It was not the crime of man, nor of any class of men, that\nmade the race so miserable, but a hideous, ghastly mistake, a colossal\nworld-darkening blunder.\u201d[794] In an arid land shall we waste the\nlittle store of water, or shall we regulate it strictly, that the\ndesert may be brought to bloom as a garden?\n\n The labor of men, I explained, was the fertilizing stream which\n alone rendered earth habitable. It was but a scanty stream at best,\n and its use required to be regulated by a system which expended\n every drop to the best advantage, if the world were to be supported\n in abundance. But how far from any system was the actual practice!\n Every man wasted the precious fluid as he wished, animated only\n by the equal motives of saving his own crop and spoiling his\n neighbor\u2019s, that his might sell the better. What with greed and\n what with spite, some fields were flooded while others were\n parched, and half the water ran wholly to waste. In such a land,\n though a few by strength or cunning might win the means of luxury,\n the lot of the great mass must be poverty, and of the weak and\n ignorant bitter want and perennial famine.\n\n Let but the famine-stricken nation assume the function it had\n neglected, and regulate for the common good the course of the\n life-giving stream, and the earth would bloom like one garden, and\n none of its children lack any good thing. I described the physical\n felicity, mental enlightenment, and moral elevation which would\n then attend the lives of all men. With fervency I spoke of that new\n world, blessed with plenty, purified by justice and sweetened by\n brotherly kindness, the world of which I had indeed but dreamed,\n but which might so easily be made real. But when I had expected\n now surely the faces around me to light up with emotions akin\n to mine, they grew ever more dark, angry, and scornful. Instead\n of enthusiasm, the ladies showed only aversion and dread, while\n the men interrupted me with shouts of reprobation and contempt.\n \u201cMadman!\u201d \u201cPestilent fellow!\u201d \u201cFanatic!\u201d \u201cEnemy of society!\u201d were\n some of their cries, and the one who had before taken his eyeglass\n to me exclaimed, \u201cHe says we are to have no more poor. Ha! ha!\u201d\n\n \u201cPut the fellow out!\u201d exclaimed the father of my betrothed, and\n at the signal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced upon\n me.[795]\n\nLike Henry George\u2019s noble study of social poverty, _Looking Backward_\nis a suggestive document of a generation that saw its finer spirits\nrepelled by the vulgar individualism of the Gilded Age. In the long\nrun, no doubt, its influence was slight and the hopes of the Bellamy\nNationalists, like the hopes of the Single-taxers, were doomed to\ndisappointment. Nevertheless it remains as a testimony to the fact\nthat in a blatant world of pre\u00ebmption, exploitation, and progress,\nwere some who were concerned for a juster social order than the Gilded\nAge dreamed of--a true commonwealth that free men might build if they\nwould.[796]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[777] Allyn B. Forbes, _The Literary Quest for Utopia, 1880-1900_.\n\u201cSocial Forces,\u201d Vol. VI, No. 2, December, 1927.\n\n[778] _Nationalist_, Vol. I, p. 18.\n\n[779] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 1.\n\n[780] _The Duke of Stockbridge_, Chapter II, pp. 22, 28.\n\n[781] _Ibid._, Chapter XXVI, p. 349.\n\n[782] _Equality_, Chapter XXII, p. 189.\n\n[783] _Ibid._, p. 189.\n\n[784] _Looking Backward_, Chapter XXVIII, p. 314.\n\n[785] _Equality_, Chapter XXII.\n\n[786] _Equality_, Chapter XXIII, p. 195.\n\n[787] _Equality_, Chapter II, p. 21.\n\n[788] _Ibid._, Chapter II, pp. 19, 20, 21, 22.\n\n[789] _Ibid._, Chapter III, p. 26.\n\n[790] _Looking Backward_, Chapter VI, p. 59.\n\n[791] _Equality_, Chapter XI, p. 74.\n\n[792] _Looking Backward_, Chapter XXIV.\n\n[793] See _Equality_, Chapter XIII--\u201cPrivate Capital Stolen from the\nSocial Fund.\u201d\n\n[794] _Looking Backward_, Chapter XXVIII, p. 328.\n\n[795] _Ibid._, pp. 328-9.\n\n[796] At this point was to come a second section entitled \u201cAfter\nBellamy; \u2018Naturalism\u2019; Tourg\u00e9e\u2019s _Murvale Eastman_.\u201d--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV \u2022 The Darkening Skies of Letters\n\n\nSo late as 1893, in spite of the stark ugliness of Hamlin Garland\u2019s\npictures of the Middle Border, American realism was still unlike in\ntemper those somber etchings, burnt into dark patterns by the caustic\nacids of European experience, that came from the hands of Russian and\nGerman and French naturalists--sketches that in their bitter gloom\nseemed tragically untrue to the homelier experience of America. In\nappraising such difference in temper Howells ascribed it to the gulf\nthat separated American well-being from the poverty and injustice of\nEuropean societies. American realism was hopeful because American\nlife was hopeful. The novelist in this singularly favored land must\nreflect the temper of a people made kindly by an abundant prosperity\nand democratic justice, and in the sincerity of his realism he will\nnecessarily concern himself with the \u201cmore smiling aspects of life,\nwhich are the more American.\u201d Whoever should strike a \u201cnote so\nprofoundly tragic in American fiction\u201d as was struck in Dostoevsky\u2019s\n_Crime and Punishment_, he asserted in 1891, \u201cwould do a false and\nmistaken thing.\u201d[797] And in a later work he spoke casually of our \u201cgay\nAmerican horizons\u201d--surely the most romantic phrase ever applied to a\nsad and joyless people by a professed realist.\n\nBut while Howells was thus summing up the achievements of American\nrealism and somewhat overconfidently forecasting its future temper, he\nwas in fact writing the history of a past phase. Already the clouds\nwere gathering upon our \u201cgay\u201d horizons, and the current optimisms were\nfinding less food to feed on. The economics of this happy America were\ncoming to be regarded by vast numbers as a class economics, forecasting\na less democratic future. Young men born in the early seventies, when\nMr. Howells was entering upon his new realistic studies, were coming\nto intellectual maturity in a very different age; a new science and\na consolidating economics were creating a somber temper that was\neventually to produce in _An American Tragedy_, a story not greatly\nunlike that Russian tale which Mr. Howells, a short generation before,\nhad pronounced impossible to American experience. Stephen Crane and\nFrank Norris and Theodore Dreiser were the intellectual children of\nthe nineties, and their art was a reflection of that sober period of\nAmerican disillusion.\n\nThe artist, of course, in his creative work is only mediately\ninfluenced by the current science and philosophy; yet even in his\naloofness from the specific problems of the laboratory and the study\nhe can scarcely escape the pervasive influence of the _Zeitgeist_.\nAnd so, after Hamlin Garland, the realistic novel again took a new\ncourse from the shifting winds of scientific doctrine. The generation\nthat succeeded the rebellious son of the Middle Border came too late\nto maturity to share his faith in the benevolent universe of Herbert\nSpencer, and got little comfort from a promised Utopia that only\nawaited the enactment of certain statutory laws--laws that would\nassure economic justice to all--to lay open its hospitable realm.\nFar-reaching changes were coming over the temper of scientific\nthought. The conclusions of the physical sciences were ravaging the\norderly preserves of biological evolution, with its cardinal doctrine\nof organic growth and historical continuity; the hurrying march of\nscientific investigation was leaving far behind the benevolent universe\nconceived of by Victorian thinkers and was coming out upon higher and\nbleaker tablelands of speculation. The universe that unfolded itself to\nchemistry and physics was vaster and colder than biological evolution\nwith its doctrine of the conservation of energy, had imagined--a\nvibrating mechanism shot through with energy, that revealed itself in\naction and reaction, impersonal, amoral, dwarfing all the gods dreamed\nof hitherto; a universe in which the generations of men have shrunk to\na pin-point in limitless space and all teleological hopes and fears\nbecome the emptiest of futilities. It was the conception of determinism\nthat after long denial was at last coming to wide acceptance--a\nconception that underlay the thinking of such diverse men as Comte and\nSpencer and Marx, a conception implicit in the doctrine of continuity,\nin the law of causality, in the Marxian law of concentration; and now\ndisencumbered of its teleological wrappings, disillusioned with the\ndoctrine of progress, it was to shape the new intellectual attitude\ntowards life.\n\nIn presence of such an extraordinary intellectual revolution the old\nanthropomorphisms of metaphysics and ethics were doomed, and from\nthe revelations of physics and chemistry and psychology must come\nan endeavor after a fresh evaluation of man\u2019s duty and destiny in a\nuniverse of immeasurable energy. An ethics that should square with the\nnew data of science must take its departure from the bleak fact of a\ndepersonalized universe, wherein man is but a single form of imprisoned\nenergy, localized for a brief instant and rising to momentary\nconsciousness in the eternal flux, about and through whom flows\nthe energy of an unprobed universe. As this mechanistic conception\nfound lodgment in minds prepared by a mechanical economics, the last\nremaining vestiges of the old French romanticism were swept away; a\nbenevolent, egocentric universe was become unthinkable; progress was no\nlonger the inherent law of matter and of life; but instead, everywhere\nchange, disintegration and reintegration, a ceaseless and purposeless\nflux to what final end the human mind could not forecast. Thus at a\nstroke the benevolent cosmos of the fathers, wherein for generations\nmen had been providing themselves with sure refuges, was swept away;\nand with its passing passed the old faiths--faith in freedom of the\nwill, in a purposive providence, in a universe that had been long in\ntravail to bring forth man, its last and dearest offspring for whom all\nthings work together for good. And with the decay of the traditional\nfaiths the younger generation was left to wander as best it might upon\nthe bleak tablelands of impersonal energy. Spencer\u2019s \u201cultimate of\nultimates,\u201d the Permanence of Force, that follows the law of evolution\nand dissolution, had given way to Faraday\u2019s electro-energy that is\nindifferent to purpose.\n\nThe intellectual backgrounds were thus preparing for a gloomier realism\nthan Howells\u2019s or Garland\u2019s, a realism that took its departure from two\npostulates: that men are physical beings who can do no other than obey\nthe laws of a physical universe; and that in the vast indifferentism of\nnature they are inconsequential pawns in a game that to human reason\nhas no meaning or rules. To assume that fate which rules human destiny\nis malignant, is to assume a cosmic interest in man which finds no\njustification in science; Man at best is only an inconsequential atom\nin a mechanical flux, or at worst, as Jurgen puts it picturesquely,\nonly a bubble in fermenting swill. Such a conception, of course, made\nslow headway against the traditional order of thought; and if it had\nnot been aided by a changing economics it would have found few to\nfollow a line of reasoning that led to such unpleasant conclusions.\nThe mind of the artist is more susceptible to concrete social fact\nthan to abstract physical principle, and the swift centralizing of\neconomics in the eighties and the nineties provided the stimulus for\nthe extraordinary reversal of thought marked by the contrast between\nEmerson and Theodore Dreiser. Emerson was the apotheosis of two\ncenturies of decentralization that destroyed the pessimism brought\nto the new world by refugees from the old, and found its inevitable\nexpression in the exaltation of the individual, free and excellent, the\nchild of a beneficent order; whereas Dreiser was the first spokesman of\na later America once more falling within the shadow of the pessimism\nthat springs from every centralized society shut up within the portals\nof a static economics; that dwarfs the individual and nullifies his\nwill, reducing him from a child of God to a serf. Oddly enough it was\nin the West that the new spirit first expressed itself most adequately;\namidst a society that was taking its first steps away from the\ntraditional philosophy of the dispersion. Frank Norris in California,\nDreiser in Indiana, Sherwood Anderson in Ohio, Masters and Sandburg\nand Vachel Lindsay in Illinois, were the spokesmen of the resentment\nwelling up in the American heart at the loss of the older freedom and\nindividual dignity.[798]\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[797] _Criticism and Fiction_, p. 128.\n\n[798] The manuscript ends here. The first section of this chapter\nwas to be \u201cEdwin Markham and \u2018The Man with the Hoe.\u2019\u201d The second\nwas to be on \u201cThe Rise of Naturalism: Stephen Crane; Frank Norris.\u201d\nThe first item of the addenda gives material on this subject and on\nthe two authors. The third would have been \u201cFiction Discovers the\nCity.\u201d--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nAddenda\n\n\n The material given here comes from various sources, as indicated\n by the notes. The syllabus referred to is that for Professor\n Parrington\u2019s lectures at the University of Washington, _The\n American Novel Since 1890_ (1925). The order here follows that of\n the contents of this book.\n\n\n\n\nNaturalism in American Fiction[799]\n\n\nNaturalism originated in France. Term first used by Zola. Chief\nexample--Flaubert\u2019s _Mme. Bovary_. Contrast between Zola and Flaubert\nreveals two diverse tendencies of the movement--a sociological study of\nbackground, with a multitude of characters dwarfed by the _milieu_; and\npsychological study of individual character.\n\nNaturalism a child of nineteenth-century thought--offspring of Darwin,\nMarx, Comte, Taine. The scientific movement created a scientific\nattitude of mind and emphasized the law of causation. From this\nemerged two fruitful ideas: (1) biological determinism, (2) economic\ndeterminism. So Zola and Flaubert. Influence of Claude Bernard--\u201cWe\ntake men from the hands of the physiologist solely ... to solve\nscientifically the question of how men behave in society.\u201d\n\nThe criteria of naturalism are:\n\n1. Objectivity. Seek the truth in the spirit of the scientist. \u201cWe\nnaturalists, we men of science,\u201d Zola says, accepting Bernard\u2019s\nposition, \u201cwe must admit of nothing occult; men are but phenomena and\nthe conditions of phenomena.\u201d\n\n2. Frankness. A rejection of Victorian reticence. The total man and\nwoman must be studied--the deeper instincts, the endless impulses. The\nthree strongest instincts are fear, hunger, sex. In the life of the\nordinary person, the third is most critical, hence the naturalist makes\nmuch of it.\n\n3. An amoral attitude toward material. The naturalist is not a judge,\nhe holds no brief for any ethical standards. He records what happens.\nHe \u201cmust possess a knowledge of the mechanisms inherent in man, show\nthe machinery of his intellectual and sensory manifestations, under\nthe influence of heredity and environment, such as physiology shall\ngive them to us, and then finally, to exhibit man living in social\nconditions, produced by himself, which he modifies daily and in the\nheart of which he is undergoing constant transformation.\u201d (Zola.) This\nis difficult to accept. Puritanism.\n\n4. A philosophy of determinism. This is the vital principle of\nnaturalism, setting it off from realism. The scientist has turned\nphilosopher. It is the residuum of much pondering over life and its\nmeaning, and may result from:\n\n a. Sociological emphasis--study of heredity and environment.\n\n b. A broader mechanistic philosophy--Flaubert, Dreiser.\n\n c. Fatalism: a world of malignant chance--Hardy.\n\n5. A bias toward pessimism in selecting details. A reaction from the\nromantic conception of a purposive will.\n\nRomance springs from the longings of a baffled and thwarted will,\ncreating a world as we should like it wherein to find refuge. But the\nnaturalist will tolerate no such refuge. He will envisage the truth,\nand the truth that he sees is that the individual is impotent in the\nface of things. Hence it is as the victim, the individual defeated by\nthe world, and made a sardonic jest of, that the naturalist chooses\nto portray man. Always that conception creeps in. It is seen and felt\nthroughout the texture of the story--a fate lurking in the background\nand visible to the reader--and at some dramatic moment the conviction\ncomes home to the victim and is crystallized in bitter words wrenched\nfrom his baffled will. The business of the story is to lead him up to\nthis crystallization.\n\nThere are two main forms--(1) Life is a trap. (2) Life is mean. So\nStrindberg\u2019s Countess Julie: \u201cEverything is wreckage, that drifts over\nthe water until it sinks, sinks.\u201d So Ray Pearson in Sherwood Anderson\u2019s\n_Winesburg, Ohio_: \u201cTricked, by Gad, tricked by life and made a fool\nof.\u201d So D. H. Lawrence: \u201cWe are prostituted, oh, prostituted by life.\u201d\nTo Ma Westcott: \u201cLife is duty. It is a lie.\u201d This pressure may come\nfrom without--_milieu_--or from within--imperious desires--but the\noutcome is usually hopeless sorrow--sometimes stolid resignation,\nsometimes fierce protest, but with no other end than annihilation. An\nexception is Maugham\u2019s _Of Human Bondage_.\n\n6. A bias in selection of characters. The naturalist commonly chooses\none of three types:\n\na. Characters of marked physique and small intellectual\nactivity--persons of strong animal drives. They range all the way\nfrom morons like Norris\u2019s McTeague, Zola\u2019s Nana, and Dreiser\u2019s Jennie\nGerhardt to natures like Hardy\u2019s Tess, and Sallie in _Of Human Bondage_.\n\nb. Characters of excited, neurotic temperament, at the mercy of\nmoods, driven by forces that they do not stop to analyze. Such are\nStrindberg\u2019s Countess Julie, Sue, Emma Bovary, and the hero in _Of\nHuman Bondage_. Sometimes this is aggravated by some physical defect,\nlike a club-foot.\n\nc. An occasional use of a strong character whose will is broken. Thus\nHardy\u2019s Jude and the doctor in Strindberg\u2019s _By the Open Sea_. But such\nare comparatively infrequent.\n\nNaturalism is pessimistic realism, with a philosophy that sets man\nin a mechanical world and conceives of him as victimized by that\nworld. _Certain unconscious exaggerations of naturalism._ Since men\nare victimized either by outer forces--the _milieu_--or by inner\ndrives--impulses and instincts--the naturalist from much brooding is\nsubject to certain temptations:\n\n1. From concern over a devastating _milieu_ he may end in desiring\nto change that _milieu_ to the end that men may achieve happiness.\nHence he tends to lose his objectivity and scientific detachment,\nand becomes a partisan to a cause. Such was the fate of Zola. The\nphilosopher of naturalism, in practice he abandoned his principles and\nbecame a reformer, attacking the church, the capitalistic order, etc.\nHis _J\u2019accuse_ letter is characteristic of this. _Nana_, almost alone,\npreserves the naturalistic attitude. This was the failure of the first\ngroup of American naturalists--Frank Norris, Robert Herrick, Jack\nLondon.\n\n2. From much study of inner drives of low-grade characters the\nnaturalist is in danger of creating grotesques. Behavioristic\npsychology may prove to be a further temptation, in creating a \u201csex\ncomplex.\u201d So Masters\u2019s _Spoon River Anthology_, Sherwood Anderson,\nD. H. Lawrence, Frank Norris. Most common in the later American\nnaturalists. So Brander Matthews.\n\n3. From much emphasis on animal impulses the naturalist may turn man\ninto an animal. Men are more than sex-driven creatures--the city is\nmore than the slums. There are sewers, but why not accept the sewer\nwithout messing over its contents as they flow to disintegration? This\nis the commonest objection to naturalism. So Meredith: \u201cThe naturalist\nsees the hog in nature, and takes nature for the hog.\u201d It is certainly\nan overcorrection--a reaction against the complacent optimism of\nromanticism--against too much shutting of the eyes to slums and filth\nand sewers. To a mechanist like Dreiser, who traces life and conduct\nback to chemistry, or to the behaviorist, who traces it to ducts\nand glands, it is rational. The charge may be true of Zola, of De\nMaupassant, of Anderson, of Lawrence, but it is not true of Hardy, of\nMaugham.\n\n_Naturalism and the Conception of Tragedy._ Naturalistic books are\nalmost inevitably tragedies, but the philosophy of naturalism that\nunderlies them has played havoc with the Aristotelian conception of\ntragedy. As Ludwig Lewisohn says, it has \u201crendered the traditional\nprinciple of tragedy wholly archaic.\u201d According to the Aristotelian\ntradition, tragedy results when an essentially noble character\nof heroic proportions transgresses an immutable moral law by a\nself-originating will and suffers the punishment dealt by poetic\njustice. So Macbeth, Othello, Lear, Hamlet. But this assumes two\nthings: (1) an eternally changeless moral law; (2) the existence of a\npurposive will. Both of these the naturalist refuses to accept. Compare\nHardy.\n\n It became clear that the self-originating element in human action\n is small. The individual acts in harmony with his character,\n which is largely the result of complex and uncontrollable causes.\n It became even clearer that among the totality of moral values\n an absolute validity can be assigned to a few only. Hence the\n basic conception of tragic guilt was undermined from within and\n from without. The transgression of an immutable moral law by a\n self-originating will was seen to be an essentially meaningless\n conception, since neither eternally changeless moral law nor\n an uncaused volition is to be found in the universe that we\n perceive.[800]\n\nThe tragedy of naturalism lies in the disintegration and the pity or\nirony with which we contemplate man and his fate in the world.\n\n_Naturalism and the Traditional American Temper._ The two most\ncharacteristic qualities of the American temper are Puritanism and\noptimism--the belief in the supremacy of the moral law, and the\nconviction that this is a good world that man shapes to his will. This\nis to be explained historically: the former is traditionally English,\nthe latter a product of new-world economics--a decentralized society.\nPessimistic determinism results inevitably from the sense of social\npressure on the individual. Social complexity entails a feeling of\ncoercive regimentation by forces too strong to contend against. These\nforces are both internal and external: environment or the social\nmachine; heredity or the physical machine. The most complete dwarfing\nof the individual will and significance takes place in the most crowded\nsocieties, producing a corresponding philosophy and psychology. So the\nfatalism of the Orient and the dream of Nirvana. The first widespread\nphilosophy of determinism among English people was spread by Calvinism.\nPredestination was an alien thought, the last expression of a world\ndepressed by Roman regimentation and degeneration. Augustine preached\nthat men are evil, and men are doomed. This old-world dogma was brought\nto America, where regimentation was impossible. A free economics\ncreated a free-will philosophy and psychology. The will to succeed.\nThis flowered in Emerson. Philosophical optimism. The world is good,\nman is good: let him stand upon his instincts and there abide and the\nwhole world will come round to him. \u201cTrust thyself.\u201d Since Emerson\u2019s\ntime a new world has been emerging. The old shadow is falling across\nthe American mind. Determinism is in the air.\n\n_Complexity and American Determinism._ Complexity springs from:\n\n1. Machine industrialism. The bigness of the economic machine dwarfs\nthe individual and creates a sense of impotency.\n\n2. The great city reduces the individual to a unit. By machine methods\nof transportation and quantity output individual differences are worn\naway. We dress, live, think, work, play, alike. The _Saturday Evening\nPost_ is fast regimenting the American mind. Standardization.\n\n3. Centralization of wealth is creating a caste regimentation.\n\n4. A mechanistic psychology. Behaviorism: stimulus and response; ducts\nand glands. The individual conceived as a mechanism driven by instincts\nand habits.\n\nAmerica today is the greatest, most complex machine the world has\never known. Individualism is giving way to regimentation, caste,\nstandardization. Optimism is gone; pessimism is on the horizon. The\npsychology of naturalism is being prepared.\n\nThree American writers began an experiment in naturalism in the middle\nnineties--Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Harold Frederic. The early\ndeath of all three stopped the movement, which was speedily overwhelmed\nby the romantic deluge and the muckraking zeal. Crane was tubercular\nand died at twenty-nine; Norris was cut down in the early thirties;\nHarold Frederic removed to England, where he died.\n\n\n1 \u2022 Stephen Crane[801]\n\nStephen Crane was the genius of his generation. His work began with\n_Maggie: A Girl of the Streets_ (1893). \u201cIt was the first bit of\nnaturalism in American letters ... an episodic bit of slum fiction\nending with the tragic quality of Greek drama.\u201d \u201cThe first ironical\nnovel ever written by an American.\u201d It was privately printed at first,\nand not published until 1896. It is detached, objective, amoral,\ndealing with a world without virtues but tyrannized by taboos. It is a\nbit of life, beginning and ending casually. Here is the end:\n\n In a room a woman sat at a table, eating like a fat monk in a\n picture. A soiled, unshaven man pushed open the door and entered.\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d said he, \u201cMag\u2019s dead.\u201d[802]\n\nIt is a world without virtue and yet one that uses the social taboo\nto condemn Mag--the only pure one of the lot. The story was an attack\non everything that was respectable in American literature--a notable\nachievement in a world of shoddy romanticism. It was an affront to\nevery instinct of the genteel tradition, and was rejected by a public\nsteeped in that same shoddy romanticism.\n\nCrane\u2019s next novel was the first great American war story--_The Red\nBadge of Courage_ (1894). It was a _tour de force_, inspired by\nZola\u2019s _Le d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_, but more by Tolstoi--_War and Peace_ and perhaps\n_Sebastopol_. The individual is caught between the external war machine\nand the inner instinct machine. There is a conflict of impulses--fear,\npride, the instinct of self-preservation, chiefly the fear of fear. The\nhero is at the mercy of the crowd psychology and blind chance. Crane\nfollows Tolstoi in assuming that victories are accidents, the outcome\nof a blind clash of unintelligent forces, rather than due to strategy\nand generalship. The study is psychological--that of the fear of the\nrecruit, his feeling that he alone is marked as the target of the\nenemy. The impression of helplessness is the same as in _Maggie_--both\nare atoms among a host of other atoms.\n\n_Short Stories._ The best are \u201cThe Blue Hotel,\u201d \u201cThe Experiment in\nMisery,\u201d \u201cThe Open Boat.\u201d The first is a story of social responsibility\nand social guilt. The murder of the Swede is just part of the backwash\nof a topsy-turvy life: the victim of things. \u201cEvery sin is the result\nof a collaboration.\u201d The second is a story of a \u201chobo\u201d--down-and-outer,\nwho hears \u201cthe war of the city in his ear.\u201d \u201cThe protest of the wretch\nwho feels the touch of the imperturbable granite wheels, and who then\ncries with an impersonal eloquence, with a strength not from him,\ngiving voice to the wail of a whole section, a class, a people.\u201d[803]\n\n\n2 \u2022 Frank Norris[804]\n\nThe most stimulating and militant of our early naturalists--the only\none who wrote consciously with a definite creed. He had thought out a\nnaturalistic philosophy under the inspiration of Zola. \u201cHe was never\nwithout a yellow paper-covered novel of Zola in his hand,\u201d wrote his\nbrother of him. His two chief novels reveal the twin tendencies as\nrevealed in _Nana_ and _Le d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_: The study of the individual in\nhis reaction to environment, and the study of social forces and their\nimpact upon a group of related individuals.\n\n_His Work._ Falls into three groups: (1) Romance--_Blix_, _Moran of the\nLady Letty_, (2) Naturalism--_McTeague_, _Vandover and the Brute_; (3)\n_The Pit_ and _A Deal in Wheat_. Between the two latter groups stands\n_The Octopus_. The dates of the earlier works uncertain. Commonly\nbelieved that Norris began as a romantic and worked out of it slowly.\nAnother view that he wrote romances as a means of arriving, side by\nside with his serious work. Thus he seems to have begun _McTeague_\nabout 1894--although it was not published till 1899.\n\n_Theory._ His passion for truth more ardent--or more noisy--than\nCrane\u2019s: his objectivity less. The strong conviction of a deterministic\nuniverse was on him, but he never quite attained the scientific\ndetachment. His nature large and eager. Like Zola he loved large\ncanvases. This induced him rather to the sociological than to the\nindividualistic study. _The Octopus_ more representative of his genius\nthan _McTeague_. Man in society, his theme: not mere men and women as\nends in themselves. This grew on him--the second phase. The novelist\nmust deal \u201cwith elemental forces, motives that stir whole nations.\nThese cannot be handled as abstractions in fiction.... The social\ntendencies must be expressed by means of an analysis of the characters\nof the men and women who compose that society, and the two must be\ncombined and manipulated to evolve the purpose--to find the value of\n_x_.\u201d[805] Above all, avoid propaganda.\n\n Unskillfully treated, the story may dwindle down and degenerate\n into mere special pleading, and the novelist becomes a polemicist,\n a pamphleteer, forgetting that although his first consideration is\n to prove his case, his _means_ must be living human beings, not\n statistics, and that his tools are not figures, but pictures of\n life as he sees it....\n\n Consider the reverse--_Recondite_, for instance. The purpose for\n which Zola wrote the book ran away with him. He really did care\n more for the depopulation of France than he did for his work.\n Result--sermons on the fruitfulness of women, special pleading,\n a farrago of dry, dull incidents, overburdened and collapsing\n under the weight of a theme that should have intruded only\n indirectly.[806]\n\nHe never quite arrives at the amoral attitude. Ethical values\npersist in intruding themselves, sometimes quite incidentally, as in\n_McTeague_, but increasingly, as in _The Octopus_ and _The Pit_.\n\n\n\u201cMcTeague\u201d\n\nDedicated to Gates. The first considerable contribution to naturalism\nby an American writer. His carefully written work over which he labored\nfive years.\n\n_Theme._ A study in character disintegration that follows upon economic\npressure. The unmaking of a man and woman by the caprice of events.\nThe characters are simple. McTeague is heavy and stupid, slow in his\nmovements but a blind bull when aroused. Trina neat and pretty but\nwith unhappy potentialities in her thrift. In neither is there a\nwill-to-power strong enough to give strength of character.\n\n_The Note of Determinism._ A world of chance that victimizes them.\nThe note struck by the lottery and the $5,000. By chance McTeague\nbecame a dentist, met Trina, proposed. But the chance that was making\na man of him and a woman of Trina was preparing their downfall through\nMarcus Schouler. The wrestling-match was the turning-point. The two\ndisintegrate together, each aggravating the weakness of the other. As\nTrina\u2019s neatness was pulling Mac up and making him self-respecting,\nso her thrift grew into miserliness under pressure of his failure to\nprovide, and this embittered the essentially fair and generous nature\nof Mac.\n\n_Inner Drives._ Little sex in the book after the first complication.\nBoth Mac and Trina caught unexpectedly, yet handled differently. The\nlatter pure naturalism. \u201cThe Woman is awakened, and, starting from her\nsleep, catches blindly at what first the newly awakened eyes light\nupon. It is a spell, a witchery, ruled by chance alone, inexplicable--a\nfairy queen enamored of a clown with ass\u2019s ears.\u201d[807] But in McTeague,\noddly enough, the same instinct is judged and pronounced evil. Norris\nabandons the amoral attitude and argues that heritage from the lower\nlife is evil. It is the weeds that spring up and stifle, as in Sherwood\nAnderson\u2019s \u201cSeeds.\u201d\n\n Below the fine fabric of all that was good in him ran the foul\n stream of hereditary evil, like a sewer. The vices and sins of\n his father and his father\u2019s father, to the third and fourth and\n five hundredth generation, tainted him. The evil of an entire race\n flowed in his veins. Why should it be? He did not desire it. Was he\n to blame?[808]\n\nThe entire handling of sex in Trina, from the first frightened yielding\nto the later docile submission to Mac\u2019s brutality, his sadism, is\nadmirably handled from the point of view of modern psychology. Norris\nwas not a psychologist but in this he succeeded surprisingly.\n\n_Romantic Elements._ Yet even in this severe study Norris has yielded\nto his romantic tendencies.\n\n1. His patent effort to give dramatic unity to the whole through the\nsymbol of gold. An exaggeration that is almost Dickens-like, with its\nwarping singleness. The gold tooth, the $5,000, Trina\u2019s twenty-dollar\ngold pieces, the imaginary gold plate of Maria Macapa, the absurd\ncanary in the gilt cage, the discovery of the gold mine. The wonder is\nthat he didn\u2019t give Trina gold hair instead of black.\n\n2. The use of a minor action: Maria Macapa and old Zerkow. The same\npursuit of a phantom and the same outcome in murder. McTeague and Trina\nare real; Maria and Zerkow are grotesques.\n\n3. The use of foils: Old Grannis and Miss Baker. Justified in romantic\nliterature by contrast. The self-effacing, timid drawing together\ncontrasted with the brute directness of McTeague. They do not marry,\nand preserve their dream world.\n\n4. The use of the revenge motive: Marcus Schouler--the dramatic pursuit\ninto Death Valley and the end.\n\n\n\u201cVandover and the Brute\u201d\n\nAn unfinished work--but a huge and terrible torso.\n\n_Theme._ Revealed in the title. The two natures of man and the\nsloughing-off of the higher till the wolf is left. Done with a terrible\ndirectness, till the naked man is on all fours, padding up and down in\nhis room. A grim and sordid theme but not quite achieved. The thing got\naway from him. If he had chiseled it as he chiseled _McTeague_, holding\nit off objective and amoral, it would have been a tremendous piece. But\nit is insufficiently motivated.\n\n_Determinism._ A study in will. Vandover set over against Charlie\nGeary and Dolly Haight. The latter a victim of momentary weakness; the\nformer a victim of constitutional pliability. A sensuous egotism that\ngrows and consumes. Geary alone survives--the egoist who drives forward\nruthlessly. A study of the slow, long descent--a chain of circumstances\nthat finally binds him hand and foot. His props knocked away one by\none--partly by fate, partly by himself: his father, the girl whom he\nloves, his concern for respectable opinion, his art, his money. The\nconclusion intensely dramatic--more so than the romance of _McTeague_.\n\nThe comment of Garland on _McTeague_ applies equally to _Vandover_:\n\u201cWhat avail is this study of sad lives? for it does not even lead to a\nnotion of social betterment.\u201d His interest is \u201cnot that of the ethical\nteacher.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cThe Octopus\u201d\n\n_McTeague_ and _Vandover_ are of the city and its sordid evil ways.\nThey are studies in psychology. _The Octopus_ is of the great\nCalifornia valleys and the evils that have come into the farm life\nwith the railroad. It is a study in economics--the first of a long\nseries of such studies. One can easily see how the theme caught the\nimagination of Norris, how his mind felt the relief from the narrow\nworld and sordid wretchedness of _Vandover_. A certain magnificence\nin Norris responded to the epic breadth of the valleys--they fired\nhis imagination--the vast sweep and power of nature: the rich soil,\nthe brilliant sun that lays its palpitating heat upon the land, the\nquick response in flowers and fruit. The land is eager to produce;\nits fruitfulness is overpowering. There is an epic sweep of life and\nreproduction here; and this epic of the soil is linked with the\ntragedy wrought by the Southern Pacific--the economic machinery of\nman\u2019s making. The facts were well known and they took hold of Norris\u2019s\nimagination. His sympathy is aroused and yet instead of attacking the\nrailroad he weaves it into his deterministic philosophy.\n\n_Theme._ Ostensibly the wheat. Norris planned a huge trilogy of its\ngrowing (_The Octopus_), marketing (_The Pit_), consumption (_The\nWolf_--never written). In reality, the impotence of unimportant\nindividuals in the struggle with things as they are. In _The Octopus_\nthe individual is dwarfed by the vast spaces, he is crumpled and\ndespoiled by the railroad. The flock of sheep destroyed by the train is\nonly a symbol of the men and women of the valley, under the wheels of\nmodern industrialism.\n\n_Action._ A huge canvas with crowding figures and abundant action.\n\u201cThe canvas swarms with actualities--plowing, planting, harvesting,\nsheep-herding, merry-making, rabbit-killing, love, labor, birth,\ndeath\u201d--all keyed high and swept into a palpitating background. A\n\u201cstrongly interwrought group of episodes,\u201d that fall into certain\nseries of developments too:\n\n1. The atrophy of Magnus Derrick, which might well be a story in itself.\n\n2. The development of Annixter, \u201cout of an absolute, yet not gross,\nmateriality,\u201d through the love of Hilma Tree; and then their final\nannihilation.\n\n3. A host of background characters--supernumeraries--that give a sense\nof epic sweep.\n\n_The Note of Romance._ The riot of color, of life, arouse the latent\nromance of his nature. He cannot remain detached but projects himself\ninto the story in the person of Vanamee. He returns to the use of the\nsymbol as in _McTeague_--the wheat. He allows his villain to perish\nmelodramatically. How much more convincing is the figure of Charlie\nGeary setting Vandover to work than S. Behrman in the hold of the\nvessel.\n\nIn the end he abandons the amoral attitude. After proclaiming the\ndoctrine of determinism--that the railroads are the masters--not the\npuppets of men--he takes refuge in a moral order. In the large balance,\nthe wheat remains, rectifying wrong--saving other lives to make good\nwhat it here destroys. \u201cThe larger view always and through all shams,\nall wickednesses, discovers the Truth that will, in the end, prevail,\nand all things, surely, inevitably, resistlessly, work together for\ngood.\u201d[809] Nevertheless in contemplating the injustice done by the\nrailroads, Norris neither demands nor expects relief.\n\n_The Octopus_ exemplifies Norris\u2019 theory of broad-scale work. It \u201cdraws\nconclusions from a whole congeries of forces, social development, race\nimpulses.\u201d It \u201cdevotes itself not to the study of men but of man.\u201d\n\n\nSidney Lanier[810]\n\nAn original nature. Rejects both the genteel tradition and the ideals\nof the rising middle class. An artist to whom life means beauty.\n\nHe revivifies nature--is almost pagan in his adoration of the beauty\nof the sun and water. A half-personification of the sun-myth. He is\nessentially religious. To Longfellow and Tennyson nature is pretty\nembroidery; to Emerson it is a dwelling-place of the oversoul; to\nLanier it is an object of adoration. See \u201cThe Marshes of Glynn.\u201d\n\nHe attacks industrialism--the first of the poets to cry out against\nit as a deadly blight on life and civilization. See \u201cCorn,\u201d \u201cThe\nSymphony,\u201d \u201cThe Jacquerie.\u201d\n\nHe seeks a new religion, recognizing a quantitative element.\n\n\nThe Incomparable Mr. Cabell[811]\n\nThe successive volumes of James Branch Cabell have provided the\ntribe of critical Jeffries with a rich vein of diversion. They have\nrecognized no closed season in their full-lunged pursuit of the\nstrange heirs of Mr. Cabell\u2019s invention, and such Homeric absurdities\nof comment have been flung at him, that he is in a fair way to become\nour classic example of the fatuousness of contemporary estimates. As\nwhimsical as Bernard Shaw, as provocative as Chesterton, he is more\nincomprehensible than either to all readers who do not choose to like\nwhat they have not always liked. Professing to be a romancer, and\ndefending the glory of romance with inimitable witchery of phrase,\nhe writes no romance that lovers of convention can understand. The\nlovely fabrics of his tales of Poictesme are all shimmer and sheen,\nwoven of magic and veiling mysteries, instead of the correct taffeta\nand grosgrain; and the brilliant stuff of his tales of gallantry is\nfashioned of wit and poetry, instead of the customary wigs and sword\nplay. Those to whom romance suggests _When Knighthood Was in Flower_,\nwill find only obscurities and coarseness in _Figures of Earth_\n(1921) and _Jurgen_ (1919, _enl._ ed. 1921); and those who delight\nin the stage rufflings of _Monsieur Beaucaire_, will discover only a\nlibertine in _The Cords of Vanity_ (1909, rev. ed. 1920). And if the\nreader boggles at such tales what can he hope to make of that strange,\nironical whimsy, _The Cream of the Jest_ (1917, rev. ed. 1922)? One\nneeds to walk warily in dealing with Mr. Cabell, or the jest of which\nhe is such a master will turn sardonically upon the critic. In all\nhis thinking vague hinterlands lie behind the commonplace, cryptic\nmeanings lurk behind the obvious; and the credulous, easy-going reader\nfinds himself puzzled, and at last floundering quite hopelessly in a\nland of bogs and marsh-lights. And yet was ever another writer born\nto us Americans so insistent upon being understood? He has elaborated\nhis views of life and art at length, and repeated them in successive\nvolumes over nearly a score of years; and finally in what may have\nbeen a mood of sheer disgust at the stupidity of those who buy books,\nhe re\u00eblaborated his philosophy and wrote it out in good set terms\nwithin the covers of a single volume. _Beyond Life_ is an essay\naltogether remarkable for its haunting beauty of phrase, its honest\nagnosticism, its brooding irony. It is enough to turn one cynic to\nconsider that so noble a book should have called forth from a reputable\ngentleman, presumably of good taste and sound judgment, the comment\nthat it \u201ccontains cheap and shallow pessimistic observations on human\nlimitations.\u201d\n\nThat _Beyond Life_ (1919), with other of Mr. Cabell\u2019s books, contains\n\u201cobservations on the limitations of human nature,\u201d is quite obvious;\nfor Mr. Cabell deals in comedy, and what is to become of comedy if\nit shall not observe those limitations and laugh at them? That it is\neven pessimistic may likewise be argued with some plausibility; but to\nassert that it is cheap and shallow is preposterous. An inquisitive\nmind, deeply concerned with ultimate values, cannot be cheap and\nshallow. And yet the fault of such widespread misinterpretation may lie\nin part at Mr. Cabell\u2019s own doorstep. An inveterate jester, his sallies\noften carry implications far beyond the obvious; his strange whimsies\nspring from depths of thought and emotion beyond the understanding of\nthe careless. His attitude towards life is an odd mixture of the modern\nand the medieval: there is a medieval simplicity and frankness, a\nna\u00efve wonder at the mystery that underlies the common, an incorrigible\nidealism; and this medieval attitude is drenched in modern agnosticism.\nHe passes easily from a broad Chaucerian humor that laughs frankly at\nthe relations of men and women, to a mystical idealization of those\nrelations; and the problem of reconciling the humor and the ideal\nbecomes a serious business with him. He hates the cant and dishonesty\nof our _bourgeois_ existence, and he refuses to take seriously the\nhost of petty concerns that most of us are very serious about. If\nhe were less the artist he would join the disaffected and turn to\nrend this foolish world; but the spirit of comedy saves him and he\ncontents himself with a jest. But the Cabellian jest uncovers depths\nof meditation that reveal the philosopher and the poet. In his own\nlarge meaning of the word Mr. Cabell is an economist. He is greatly\ndissatisfied with the \u201cfutile body-wasting,\u201d which under the \u201cdynamic\nillusion known as common sense\u201d passes for life, and is concerned to\ndiscover what abiding increment a man may get from his body during\nits brief existence as an entity. His mind is haunted with a sense of\nrealities that lie beneath the surface appearances, and that insist on\ntrickling from his pen in strange comments. It is a careless reader\nwho is deceived or put off the scent by his whimsical vocabulary, who\ninsists on conventional meanings for words which Mr. Cabell chooses\nto use otherwise than conventional persons use them. Romance and\nrealism--words with which he plays constantly and upon which he hangs\nhis philosophy--do not signify the spurious romance of childish minds,\nor the shoddy realism of practical minds. If one must insist upon\ntranslating his vocabulary into ordinary terms, let us understand that\nto Mr. Cabell romance and realism mean idealism and conventionalism;\nand to the profound distinction between these two attitudes towards\nlife, he dedicates his work.\n\nI have called Mr. Cabell a poet, and the justification lies in his\npersistent idealization of life in terms of beauty. At his birth he was\nendowed by an unkind fate with imagination. Now imagination may be a\nvery pretty and amiable gift, highly useful for gilding one\u2019s egoism,\nputting honey in thistles, proving itself practical by arraying life in\ngay robes in order that it may seem an altogether lovely and desirable\nmistress; or it may prove a decidedly parlous faculty to play with.\nIt can summon bogies, and terrors that are vaster and more real than\nbogies. A brooding imagination can work havoc with one\u2019s complacency.\nWhen Carlyle was in a mood to enjoy his nerves he would let his\nimagination range beyond the comfortable confines of convention, to\nconsider the universe and the position of man therein--the black flow\nof time and the terrifying immensity of background against which man\nis set; and he would come back to dinner with Jane Welsh Carlyle with\na sick stomach and an ill temper. It was not very gallant, but it was\nvery natural to a man unnerved by what he had contemplated. Considered\nwith open eyes reality is too overpowering for weak man, and because\nhe could not relieve the tension with a jest, Carlyle\u2019s imagination\ninflicted chronic dyspepsia upon him. To conventional persons the\ndyspepsia and Jane Welsh Carlyle\u2019s sharp replies to her husband\u2019s ill\nhumor, seem the important reality, and the overpowering visions of\ntime and space that were at the root of the family discord, seem no\nother than romance. In this curious world of convention all things are\ntopsy-turvy, and it needs a tremendous effort of will to set them only\na little right.\n\nTo this effort Mr. Cabell\u2019s life work has been dedicated with unruffled\nurbanity. Like Carlyle he chooses to roam far in his philosophic\nquests, and like Thoreau he comes home at nightfall with little\nmore than a handful of stardust in his wallet. He loves to sally\nforth on the greatest of adventures--the pursuit of reality where it\nlies broadcast, hidden from practical eyes that refuse to see. He is\nimpelled by the old wonder that has haunted men from the beginning\nof their long upward climb; the wonder and the fear of life. Now to\nanyone but a fool or a poet, only too plainly life is petty and gross\nand inconsequential, from the moment when with superfluous blood and\npain we are brought into the world, to the time when we return by an\nunlovely process to chemical elements. It is compounded of vanity,\nas the old poet long ago observed. The practical, about which we\nmake so much pother and over which we chatter so foolishly, is only\nan illusion which men hug because it keeps them in self-conceit. Mr.\nCabell refuses to accept any such illusions at their face value. He\nwill not be humbugged by foolish persons who pretend to talk wisely.\nWhat is man? he insists on asking: A parasite on the thin rind of a\nplanet that swings silently through interstellar space--\u201can ape who\nchatters to himself of kinship with the archangels while filthily he\ndigs for groundnuts.\u201d If this is the reality to which the philosopher\nmust come finally--and like Hamlet Mr. Cabell does not shirk the\ncontemplation of graveyard facts--then must the thoughtful man accept\nlogically a frank pessimism, and on this foundation build such a hut\nas may best shelter him for the few days of his unintelligible life.\nOver this sorry conclusion Mr. Cabell broods much, and because he is\na human being with a will to enjoy life and think well of himself, he\nuses every faculty to scramble out of the pit and find a pleasanter\nrefuge for the brief time of his existence. The idealist in him engages\nthe pessimist, and like so many other moderns he goes out in quest of\nthat which may keep him sane. It is true that man is an ape reft of his\ntail and grown rusty at climbing, but is that the whole story? It is\nevident that men in all times have refused to believe that they are not\nsomething other than apes--their very dreams seem to belie a conclusion\nso mean and ignoble. Is there not some deeper _\u00e9lan vital_, some hidden\nimpulse that drives man forward and upward even while his mind is on\ngroundnuts? \u201cYet more clearly do I perceive,\u201d argues the idealist,\n\u201cthat this same man is a maimed god.... He is under penalty condemned\nto compute eternity with false weights and to estimate infinity with a\nyardstick; and he very often does it.... There lies the choice which\nevery man must make--or rationally to accept his own limitations? or\nstupendously to play the fool and swear that he is at will omnipotent.\u201d\n\nThis would seem to be a hard choice, but Mr. Cabell does not hesitate.\nHe patches up his agnosticism with the will to believe, on the\npragmatic grounds that it seems to work. For man \u201crationally to accept\nhis own limitations,\u201d is to defeat everything worth while in life; it\nis to yield the battle to a black pessimism. Whereas \u201cstupendously to\nplay the fool and swear that he is at will omnipotent,\u201d may end in\ncreating the will to omnipotence, and the fool in some preposterous\nfashion may prove that he is indeed divine. Let man but accept his\nlogical limitations and he returns to the ape reft of more than his\ntail, fallen to gibbering in the mud, refusing to take hold of that\nrope of sand by which miraculously he has drawn himself forward\nhitherto. For accepting his limitations means contenting himself\nwith material fact, and \u201cthe trouble with facts seems to be, that\nif one treats them out of relation to the rest of life, they become\nlies.\u201d In the \u201cstupefying mist of common sense\u201d men walk blindly. The\npractical, the conventional, are alien to the deeper reality which is\nshadowed forth by emotions and dreams; which refuses to disclose itself\nnakedly, but hides behind symbols, haunting the mind even while one\nis pottering among inconsequentials. This deeper reality itself may\nbe but a dream, but nevertheless it possesses the power of creating\na will to believe, upon which hangs man\u2019s destiny. Hence the tales\nwhich we tell ourselves are significant because through some occult\nprocess they foreshadow the thing that may be; they prod the foolish\nwill to omnipotence to believe that we shall outgrow the ape. For grown\nrusty at climbing, the ape-man \u201chowever dimly, feels himself to be a\nsymbol, and the frail representative of Omnipotence in a place that is\nnot home; and so strives blunderingly, from mystery to mystery, with\npathetic makeshifts, not understanding anything, greedy in all desires,\nand honeycombed with poltroonery, and yet ready to give all, and to die\nfighting, for the sake of that undemonstrable idea.\u201d\n\nIt is because he is terrified at the meanness of what practical men\ncall reality, that Mr. Cabell turns away from it to find the true life\nin dreams. Not only are they pleasanter, they are more useful; they are\nall that man has to aid him in the appalling task of getting himself\nout of the slime, that he may walk in green fields. We need to turn\nProspero\u2019s words around--our dreams are such stuff as we are made\non. They alone are real and salutary, for amid all their ramblings\nthey seem dimly to suggest some end; amidst their rank egoisms they\nseem to foreshadow a purpose: and may not that end and purpose be\nthe eventual creation of a life for man that shall be worthy of his\ndreams? It is illogical to assume that man can pull himself up by his\nown bootstraps, but how else shall he pull himself up? Is not man the\ninveterate romancer somehow blindly creating a noble romance of man?\n\u201cTo what does the whole business tend?\u201d he asks at the conclusion of\n_Beyond Life_, \u201c--why, how in heaven\u2019s name should I know? We can but\nbe content to note that all goes forward, toward something.... It may\nbe that we are nocturnal creatures perturbed by rumors of a dawn which\ncomes inevitably, as prologue to a day wherein we and our children\nhave no part whatever. It may be that when our arboreal propositus\ndescended from his palm tree and began to walk upright about the earth,\nhis progeny were forthwith committed to a journey in which today is\nonly a way-station. Yet I prefer to take it that we are components\nof an unfinished world, and that we are but as seething atoms which\nferment toward its making, if merely because man as he now exists can\nhardly be the finished product of any Creator whom one could very\nheartily revere. We are being made into something quite unpredictable,\nI imagine: and through the purging and the smelting, we are sustained\nby an instinctive knowledge that we are being made into something\nbetter. For this we know, quite incommunicably, and yet as surely as we\nknow that we will have it thus. And it is this will that stirs in us to\nhave the creatures of earth and the affairs of earth, not as they are,\nbut \u2018as they ought to be,\u2019 which we call romance. But when we note how\nvisibly it sways all life we perceive that we are talking about God.\u201d\n\nFrom this persistent will to romance--the incorrigible propensity to\nfollow the dynamic illusion of dreams that is so deep an instinct of\nhuman nature--Mr. Cabell deduces a conception of art that to careless\nreaders seems whimsically perverse; and from it likewise emerges the\nlambent irony that plays like diffused lightning about the horizons\nof his thought. The function of art in society, he insists, is to\ncomfort and inspire man with its divine beauty. Without the artist this\nis but a grim and forbidding place where men live; and unless every\nman is somewhat the artist, and seeks his compensations in the lure\nof romance, it must remain grim and forbidding. It is therefore the\nprivilege and the duty of the artist \u201cto prevaricate tenderly about\nthe universe\u201d; to create for life a meaning that is not apparent, by\nclothing it in beauty and adducing for it a noble significance. It is\nhis mission to lure men away from the contemplation of facts which\nterrify or debase, from all ignoble and depressing realism, to pursue\nthe ideal and entice the imagination to enter and dwell in a world as\nit ought to be. The artist, therefore, is a Moses in the wilderness,\npointing men to the Promised Land, and even enabling them to go forward\nand taste its fruits while they still dwell in the wilderness.\n\nNow of all the dreams which lure men, the one universal and potent\ndream, Mr. Cabell asserts with Freudian understanding, is the woman\ndream. Its roots are deep in the ape-animal; it drives men inexorably,\nfor upon it depends the very existence of the race. And therefore, a\nshrewd mother-nature has somehow transmuted its base materials into\nthe very stuff of romance, commingling with it all high and generous\nimpulses, making of it the loveliest dream that visits man\u2019s weak\nhead. In consequence of which ironic transmutation this lovely dream\n\u201choodwinks humanity through the dynamic illusion known as love,\nin order that humanity may endure, and the groans of a lover be\nperpetuated in the wails of an infant.\u201d Considered in one light this\nis the very \u201ccream of the jest\u201d that nature perpetrates upon man; but\nconsidered in another light, does it not turn out to be the supreme\njest which man has perpetrated upon nature? For once he has been\ntaught the alphabet of romance, through the crude necessity of race\npreservation, he has gone far in his studies, and turned romancer on a\ngreat scale. From this raw material of biological sex-love he has woven\nthe fabrics of his religion, of his art, of his idealism; he has dipped\nit in gleaming dyes, twisted it to quaint patterns, fashioned from it\nlovely robes to cover what is ugly. It is the wellspring and source of\nall romance.\n\nThrough this open door of woman-worship Mr. Cabell chooses to enter his\nworld of deeper realities. \u201cThere is in every human being that which\ndemands communion with something more fine and potent than itself,\u201d\nand this something more fine and potent he seeks in the woman of his\ndreams. It was so when the world was young, and it will be so as long\nas there is youth left in the world. In early times this object of\nadoration was the witch-woman, the Circes and Calypsos of ancient\ntales; later it became the lady-mistress of chivalric ideals; today\nit is the dream maiden whom the young man woos but never finds in\nmarriage, and not finding her is impelled to turn to the ever-young\nand ever-lovely Helens and Ettarres of old romance. A good half\nof Mr. Cabell\u2019s work is given over to this curious celebration of\nwoman-worship. It is elaborated in _Domnei_ (1920), in _Jurgen_, in\n_Figures of Earth_. In the strange tales of the land of Poictesme the\ndrama flows from the balking and thwarting of this woman quest by the\nDame Niafers and Dame Lisas of the commonplace world, to man\u2019s undoing.\nNevertheless \u201cthe long, high, fruitless questing does not ever end,\nbut, rather, is temporarily remitted for the society of Dame Niafer and\nof Dame Lisa. For ... one perceives that, even in remote Poictesme,\nthose aging nympholepts, Dom Manuel and Jurgen--they also--were\nheartened to endure the privileges of happily married persons by a sure\nfaith, discreetly left unvoiced, that these hard-won, fond, wearisome,\nand implacable wives were, after all, just temporary makeshifts. By\nand by would Freydis and Helen return, at their own season.\u201d--For the\ndream persists in the very face of present fact, and in this lies\nman\u2019s hope. \u201cIn youth all men that live have been converts if but in\ntransitory allegiance, to that religion of the world\u2019s youth--to the\ncreed of _domnei_, or woman-worship.\u201d Now it is \u201cthe very essence\nof _domnei_, that the woman one loves is providentially set between\nthe lover\u2019s apprehension and God, as the mobile and vital image and\ncorporeal reminder of Heaven, as a quick symbol of beauty and holiness,\nof purity and perfection. In her the lover views all qualities which\ncan be comprehended by merely human faculties.\u201d \u201cIf but in honor, his\nheart stays bound to his first and only real love, that woman of whom\nhe never tires. Her coming is not yet. He can but wait, sustained by\nhis sure faith ... that some day her glory will be apparent, and he\nwill enter gladly into her secret kingdom, and will find her kisses all\nthat in youth he foreknew to be not impossible.... And meanwhile this\nprescience, somehow, informs all art ... and makes it to him a vital\nthing.... And there seems to be no beauty in the world save those stray\nhints of her, whose ultimate revealment is not yet.... And it is very\noften through desire to express his faith in this withheld perfection,\nof which he has been conscious in broken glimpses from afar, that he\nturns artist.... For every art is a confession of faith in that which\nis not yet.\u201d\n\nBut however adroitly man has turned the jest against nature, and\nerected a noble palace from base materials, the jest remains,\nmixed with the mortar, and the structure cannot endure for long.\nIt is insubstantial, and at any moment the cloud-capped towers may\ndisintegrate and the dream palace disappear, leaving not a rack behind.\nThere remains only the jest. This unhappy ending Mr. Cabell foresees,\nand hence emerges the profound irony that underlies all his writing.\nTo such disillusionment must all things come. Life is no more than a\ncomedy, played by puppets; bitter, with more tears than laughter in\nit; yet because tears are futile and unnerving, what remains for the\ngallant gentleman but to confront life with a jest? Mr. Cabell does not\nwholly forego his chivalric ideal even while he is contemplating the\nvanity of all endings in the light of their beginnings. As Horvendile\nthe clerk, he clings to it, even though he is doomed to walk the\nstreets of Lichfield, Virginia, in the form of Felix Kennaston, who\npasses--to his own incredulous amusement--as a personage of some\nimportance, with two automobiles and money in four banks. He possesses\nthe magic sigil of Scoteia, by the potency of which he can send forth\nhis soul to meet Ettarre, and recover the raptures that Felix Kennaston\nno longer knows. But the sigil of Scoteia turns out to be the half-top\nof a pomade glass from his wife\u2019s dressing-table; the potency is gone;\nand he remains at last no more than a respectable citizen with his\nautomobiles and money in four banks. _The Cream of the Jest_ reduces\nthe chivalric ideal to pure irony.\n\nBy a transition more natural, perhaps, to a Virginian than to another\nAmerican, Mr. Cabell turns from the contemplation of chivalry to the\nstudy of gallantry; and shifts the theme of his romances from the\necstatic adoration of the Woman, whom to possess is to lose, to the\ngay pursuit and enjoyment of women. In \u201cThe Rivet in Grandfather\u2019s\nNeck\u201d he chooses to set a decidedly shabby and roue gallantry over\nagainst a somewhat futile and antiquated southern chivalry. He loves\nboth the gallant and the gentleman, and he spares neither; they are\nequally the descendants of that Cavalier ideal which flourished so\nrankly in the soil of the old planter society; nevertheless the\nquaint and lovable Rudolph Musgrave with his gentle heroics comes\noff distinctly better than his brilliant half-brother, the novelist\nJohn Charteris. One might, indeed, wonder at Mr. Cabell\u2019s treatment\nof the artist Charteris, were it not so distinctly Shavian. It is\nodd how similar is his conception of the artist to the definition\nof Shaw--one who wriggles into the confidence of women to learn\ntheir secrets only to betray them. Nevertheless Jack Charteris, the\nbrilliant thinker and talker of _Beyond Life_, mouthpiece of the\nCabellian philosophy, deserves better treatment than he gets in the\nstory of this sorry escapade; he comes quite too near the likeness\nof the mountebank Sheridan. In _The Cords of Vanity_ gallantry\nreveals itself more attractively; it is gilded with youth and wit\nand poetry. It is Congreve at his best, scintillating, brilliant,\nwith a delightful affectation of pose and gesture; and it is Marlowe\nalso, with its galloping wit steeped in pure poetry. There is the\ntrue Elizabethan rapture of fine words and lovely images and quaint\nconceits. \u201cMeantime,\u201d says young Robert Townsend, \u201cbeing in love, I\nrefined upon the notions of love with the ingenuity of an Elizabethan.\u201d\nThere you have the spirit of the book. It is more than a pretty piece\nof paganism; it is the brightest tale of gallantry in our literature,\nmasterly in the restrained irony of its inimitable conclusion.\n\nIt is obvious, however, that the mood which finally will receive\ndramatization from Mr. Cabell cannot be summed up in the ideal of\ngallantry. What that mood is one finds revealed at length by John\nCharteris in _Beyond Life_. It is the quintessence of irony distilled\nfrom long observation of human life, but it is not Congreve, much\nless is it Sheridan. Those shameless and selfish roues began as\nartists but they ended as mountebanks; life taught them cynicism and\nnot tenderness; it sharpened their wit and dulled their sympathy.\nThe higher irony lay quite beyond their natures. But with Mr. Cabell\ntenderness, sympathy, an ardent concern for the inevitable failure\nthat lies in wait upon aspiration, are so strong and urgent that under\nthe governance of a mind less intellectual, they must inevitably run\ninto sentimentality. But there is in Mr. Cabell something of the\nintellectual austerity of Matthew Arnold, and it conducts him to\nthe same ends. Consider such a passage as this: \u201cThrough a merciful\ndispensation, we are one and all of us created very vain and very\ndull.... Vanity it is that pricks us indefatigably to play the ape to\nevery dream romance induces; yet vanity is but the stirrup-cup: and\nurgent need arises that human dullness retain us (as it does) securely\nblinded, lest we observe the wayside horrors of our journey and go mad.\nOne moment of clear vision as to man\u2019s plight in the universe would\nbe quite sufficient to set the most philosophic gibbering. Meanwhile\nwith bandaged eyes we advance: and human sanity is guided by the brave\nand pitiable and tireless dullness of mankind.... Yet how varied are\nthe amiable activities of human dullness, which tend alike to protect\nand to enliven human progress! Dullness it is, of course, that brews\nand quaffs Dutch courage; ... that fosters salutary optimism as to the\ndestiny of mankind, in flat defiance of everything mankind can do,\nand does unblushingly.... And finally dullness it is that lifts up\nheart and voice alike, to view a parasite infesting the epidermis of a\nmidge among the planets, and cries. _Behold, this is the child of God,\nAll-mighty and All-worshipful, made in the likeness of his Father!_...\nThese and how many other wholesome miracles are daily brought about by\nour dullness, by our brave and pitiable and tireless dullness, by our\nreally majestic dullness, in firm alliance with the demiurgic spirit\nof romance.... For that to which romance conducts, in all the affairs\nof life ... is plain enough--distinction and clarity, and beauty and\nsymmetry, and tenderness and truth and urbanity.\u201d\n\nHere then is the note that still awaits adequate dramatization in a\ncomedy greater than he has yet written--a cosmic irony suffused with\ntenderness and truth and urbanity. Above all, urbanity. Mr. Cabell\nhas played too long with the ideal of gallantry; he has devoted too\nmuch precious time to creating Millamants to fall in love with; he has\nlistened too credulously to the voice of Congreve. \u201cI have read,\u201d says\nCharteris, out of Congreve, \u201cthat the secret of gallantry is to accept\nthe pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug;\nas well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always\nconsider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with\na smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not\ndistrustful--being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the\ngenteel would regard as rational.\u201d Surely the cosmic irony that loves\nmen\u2019s dullness because it alone can preserve them from madness, and\nretorts upon the cosmic terrors with a jest, is higher than gallantry\nand more enduring. It arrives at tolerance for all human shortcomings;\nit embraces high and low in its sympathies; it achieves urbanity as a\nfinal goal. It is the stuff of which great literature is made. And Mr.\nCabell is creating great literature. A self-reliant intellectual, rich\nin the spoils of all literatures, one of the great masters of English\nprose, the supreme comic spirit thus far granted us, he stands apart\nfrom the throng of lesser American novelists, as Mark Twain stood\napart, individual and incomparable.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[799] Notes for a lecture delivered at the University of California in\n1922.--_Publisher._\n\n[800] Ludwig Lewisohn, _Modern Drama_, New York, 1915, p. 3.\n\n[801] From lecture notes and the syllabus.--_Publisher._\n\n[802] Stephen Crane, _Works_, New York, 1926, Vol. 10, p. 216.\n\n[803] _Ibid._, Vol. 11, p. 21.\n\n[804] Lecture notes.--_Publisher._\n\n[805] _The Responsibilities of the Novelist_, \u201cThe Novel with a\n\u2018Purpose,\u2019\u201d Garden City, N. Y., 1928, Vol. 7, p. 22.\n\n[806] _Ibid._, p. 22.\n\n[807] Frank Norris, _Complete Works_, New York, n. d., Vol. III, p. 58.\n\n[808] _Ibid._, p. 22.\n\n[809] Frank Norris, _The Octopus_, New York, 1906, p. 652.\n\n[810] Lecture notes.--_Publisher._\n\n[811] Reprinted by permission from _The Pacific Review_, December,\n1921.--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nThe Problem Novel and the Diversion from Naturalism[812]\n\n\nNo sooner was naturalism fairly under way than it was well-nigh\nsubmerged under a wave of social speculation and inquiry. The years\n1903-1917 were a distinctive period--a time of extraordinary ferment,\nwhen America was seeking to readjust her ideals and institutions\nto a revolutionary economic order that had come upon her. The\npopular phase was revealed in the muckracking movement, a movement\nwhich instructed the American middle class in certain elements of\neconomics--particularly the close connection between economics and\npolitics. But underneath, an intellectual revolution was in progress,\nsetting steadily towards a new social philosophy. The old America had\nbeen intensely conservative, na\u00efvely provincial and self-satisfied,\ncompassed by a complacence founded on optimism--the gospel of the\nbusiness man. The new America was eager and hopeful, impatient to\nsquare institutions to the new conditions. The total movement was\nprofoundly democratic--a new Jacksonianism rising in protest against a\nmenacing plutocracy.\n\n1. _The Movement of Criticism._ The work of a vigorous social idealism.\nPassed through three broad phases:\n\na. Political. The movement of Progressivism, 1903-1912. An attempt to\ndemocratize the machinery of government to the end that the will of\nthe majority shall prevail. Its impulse and much of its program came\nfrom Populism; and it resulted in a clarification of the issue between\nrepublicanism and democracy. An attack on the representative system\nand the checks and balances of the Fathers. It gave rise to a critical\nexamination of the spirit and purpose of the Constitution.[813]\n\nb. Economic. A growing conviction that talk of political democracy is\nfutile except in so far as it leads to economic democracy. That power\nis economic in origin and that those who control the economics will\ncontrol the government. The gospel of economic determinism. Certain\nconclusions emerged:\n\n1. That capitalism is no longer competitive but monopolistic.\n\n2. That _laissez-faire_ism no longer suffices.\n\n3. That centralization has submerged the individual citizen; that he\nis impotent before the leviathan corporation; and that henceforth the\nstruggle is to be between organized groups for the control of the\nstate.[814]\n\nc. Literary. An examination and rejection of traditional literary and\ncultural ideas. An attack upon:\n\n1. Puritan reticence and smug respectability.\n\n2. Middle-class optimism and sentimentality.\n\nLed by H. L. Mencken, Ludwig Lewisohn, and the younger intellectuals.\nThe bias aristocratic.\n\n2. _The Incoming of Old-World Thought._ The breaking-down of the older\nprovincialism and the reception of new ideas.\n\na. The philosophy of collectivism. Derived chiefly from Germany and\nEngland; largely Marxian and Fabian. The conviction that the state\nmust absorb the trust. Later the appearance of syndicalism and guild\nsocialism, based on a distrust of the bureaucratic, omnicompetent\nstate. Anarchism has remained alien in spirit.[815]\n\nb. The new aristocracy. A reversion from an easy-going Jacksonianism\nbased on the doctrine of equalitarianism. A direct denial of that\ndoctrine and the theory of leadership. In business the doctrine of the\nexpert and the rule of efficiency. In philosophy the doctrine of the\nintellectual aristocrat--a suggestion of Nietzsche and the will to\npower. Thus Mencken joins hands with Judge Gary in upholding the ethics\nof the strong. The total result an effective denial of our traditional\nideal of democracy.\n\nc. The problem novel. All this ferment entered into literature,\ntyrannizing in its insistence. Old forms became old-fashioned\novernight. The novel was so useful that it was drafted by the new\ncrusading enthusiasm. Romance and naturalism alike were swept away;\nthe political novel and the economic novel took their place to arouse\npublic opinion to action. It was the glorification of propaganda.\nExcept for James Branch Cabell and Edith Wharton not a writer escaped.\nThere is something pathetic in the way the harmless bleating\nromantics were dragged at the chariot wheels of social problems. Booth\nTarkington, Mary Johnston, Winston Churchill, William Allen White, were\nsacrificed equally with potential naturalists like Robert Herrick,\nUpton Sinclair, and Ernest Poole. Their careers may be seen from\nChurchill, Poole, and Herrick.\n\n1. Winston Churchill. [The most representative of the spirit of\nProgressivism.] A conscientious middle-class romantic. Churchill was a\nfaithful reflector of middle-class movements. His work falls into three\nphases:\n\n[a. _Romantic historical tales._ _Richard Carvel_ (1899) the type\nof Cavalier romance. A blend of Thackeray\u2019s _Henry Esmond_ and _The\nVirginians_, John Paul Jones added for extra historical flavor. A\ndouble background: (1) the old South of the Revolution with a Loyalist\nvillain and a patriot hero; (2) the London of Brooks Club and a gaming\naristocracy, with Charles Fox. The heroine another edition of Beatrix\nEsmond the hero another Henry Esmond. _The Crisis_ (1910) a romance\nof the borderland of the Civil War: a fire-eating Southern heroine\nand a sober Yankee-Puritan hero. _The Crossing_ (1904) a romance of\nthe settlement of the Inland Empire. A theme not yet adequately dealt\nwith in American fiction. The story breaks in two: the first half\nChurchill\u2019s best work in romance; the last half his worst.[816]]\n\nb. _Political novels._ Coincided with the rise of the Progressive\nmovement. _Coniston_ (1906) a study of the legislative boss in New\nHampshire. A reflection of his experience in the state legislature.\nHow the \u201cinterests,\u201d and in particular the railroads, manage to put\ntheir bills through. Jethro Bass sells political control to the highest\nbidder.\n\n_Mr. Crewe\u2019s Career_ (1908): the same theme a generation later.\nConsolidation of the railroads has brought about absentee dictatorship\nof state politics. The boss has removed to New York and manages the\nlegislature through his local lawyer. The philosophy of big-business\nprosperity rests on property rights, held in trusteeship by the\ncorporations that fill the empty dinner pails, make and unmake business\nconfidence. The revolt of the younger generation--Austen Vane and\nVictoria Flint, in whom stirs a new social conscience.\n\nc. _Economic novels._ Began with _The Inside of the Cup_ (1913), a\nventure in higher criticism and social interpretation. So compare\n_Robert Elsmere_ (1888). An attack on old dogmas and an attempt to\ndiscover the democratic springs of Christianity. The clash between\nthe reborn Son of God and an unregenerate society, and the need to\nestablish the Kingdom of God in this world. The church today controlled\nby business subscriptions. The solution to be sought in a free pulpit,\nsupported by the common people, preaching a new social Christianity.\n\n_A Far Country_ (1915), a study in the emptiness of the profit motive.\nA background of banking--J. P. Morgan and Company. The dissatisfaction\nof the prodigal son who has wasted his intellectual and moral\npatrimony--the lawyer who sells his brain to rise and loses the\nthings that make life worth while. His conversion brings the call to\nself-education.\n\n_The Dwelling Place of Light_ (1917), a study of the blighting effect\nof industrialism on the native Yankee stock that has failed to rise\ninto the exploiting class. The restlessness of modern life due to the\nfailure of normal instincts to find satisfaction in daily existence--an\nemptiness due to loss of beauty, freedom, creative craftsmanship. The\nsearch for compensation brings death and not life. A background of the\nLawrence strike and syndicalism.\n\n2. Robert Herrick. The most promising of the potential naturalists.\nAn intellectual fascinated by the crude materialism of Chicago in the\nlate nineties. Suffered from the inhibitions of a Puritan idealism;\nthe problems of this raw world cried aloud for solution--the woman\nquestion, the labor question, the problem of the professions--and\nwarped him away from naturalism, making him an easy victim of the new\nsocial enthusiasm. The key to his thought--economic determinism.\n\n_The Memoirs of an American Citizen_ (1905). His best work and the\nnearest approach to naturalism. A detailed study of the American\nbusiness man--the captain of industry who rises in a competitive\nsociety by his own will. The competitive order, he perceives, requires\nan ethics different from the Christian ideal. The survival of the\nfittest means the survival of the strongest, the most cunning and\nunscrupulous. The realist who deals with facts discovers that he lives\nin a world of pigs--little pigs of the village, larger hogs of the\ncity. To get in the trough a man must have fingers and toes and use\nthem. The world belongs to the strong. That which gives dignity is\nbigness: the larger the hog, the more imposing. Little business is\ndirty and petty, but big business may become poetic. To grind a mess of\nsausages is messy, but to provide sausages for every breakfast table\nin America is grandiose. To realize his ambition Van Harrington plays\nfast and loose with conventional ethics, but unlike Frank Cowperwood\nhe seeks a new ethics. As a superman his work will be justified by its\ncreativeness, by its service to humanity.\n\n_A Life for a Life_ (1910). In certain other of his work Herrick\nbetrays naturalistic tendencies, notably in _The Web of Life_ (1900),\nwhere he considers the problem of social complexity and how it binds\nthe life of men and women and determines their fate. But in _A Life\nfor a Life_ he surrenders wholly to the problem. His theme is how the\npredatory egoism of the profit-struggle may be cured, and he presents\nalternative solutions: syndicalism and Christianity. The cure lies in\nindividual self-conquest--breaking through the web of \u201cthings as they\nare\u201d and choosing life instead of power.\n\nHerrick was on the threshold of naturalism. He felt the complexity of\nlife and the determining force of that complexity; but he failed to\nachieve the attitude of objectivity.\n\n3. Ernest Poole. _The Harbor_ (1915). The culmination of the novel of\nnaturalistic propaganda and the most widely read. A dramatic record of\na changing industrial order, traced through three stages: (1) The old\nworld of small competitive business that is dead; (2) The present world\nof corporation control; (3) The world of syndicalistic control that\nstruggles to be born.\n\nAgainst this changing world stands the young idealist troubled in\nhis loyalties, who sets up different gods to worship: (1) The idol\nof art--aloofness from the mass struggle; (2) The idol of efficiency\nby the supermen who rule in trusteeship; (3) The idol of mass\nsolidarity and workers\u2019 control--the conclusion that is on the dawn of\nrealization: \u201cThe world for all the workers.\u201d _Conclusion._ The ferment\nof social thought, shot through with Marxianism, familiarized the\nAmerican novelists with one doctrine important for the naturalist--the\ndoctrine of economic determinism. In none of them did it pass over\ninto a larger conception of philosophical determinism, and this sets\nthe limitation to their naturalism. The common zeal for reform or\nrevolution, moreover, kept them from objectivity. In none is there the\ncalm detachment and the amoral presentation of material without which\nnaturalism sinks into propaganda. Their position presupposes a large\nconfidence in individual initiative--a confidence in the power of men\nto alter the world they live in. It is admirable, but it is not the way\nof the naturalists, who do not seek to change what they regard as an\nessentially unresponsive world that changes only after its own way.\n\n\nJack London: The Novelist of the Proletariat[817]\n\nExperienced the harsh contacts of a seasonal worker and tramp. Became a\nMarxian socialist and revolutionist, preaching the war of the classes\nin _The Iron Heel_ (1908), _The Revolution_ (1910), and other works. A\nman of strong vital energy with a philosophy shaped by Darwin, Spencer,\nand Nietzsche. Emphasizes a passionate will-to-power, a superman of\nswift and violent action.\n\n_The Call of the Wild_ (1903); a study in atavism, brilliant, poetic,\nset against a wild Alaska background. The resurgence of the primitive\nwolf-instincts in a domesticated dog.\n\n_The Sea Wolf_ (1904); the frankest statement in American literature\nof the unbridled will-to-power, egoistic, amoral. A malignant ferocity\nin a philosophical, herculean sea captain, whose body is destroyed by\nparesis, but whose malignancy is unconquered.\n\n_Martin Eden_ (1909); autobiographical. So compare _John Barleycorn_\n(1913). The former deals with his struggle to educate himself, to\nwrite, and to gain recognition. A background of his experience at the\nUniversity of California. A profound contempt for _bourgeois_ standards\nof life and thought. The note of revolution and the lapsing of the\nwill-to-live.\n\nLondon carries to the extreme the \u201celemental\u201d of Norris, translating it\ninto the primitive and abysmal. A potential naturalist in his amoral\nattitude and his underlying pessimism, but carried away by zeal of\nrevolution. Lacks restraint and finish.\n\n\nUpton Sinclair[818]\n\nThe most insistent and outspoken of the muckrakers. Began as a\nnovelist, but his art submerged by propaganda--a profound suspicion of\ncapitalism and all its ways.\n\n_The Jungle_ (1906); a story of the packing houses and the immigrant:\nthe technique of \u201cspeeding up\u201d and the labor scrap-heap. The social\nconsequences of the profit principle--saving everything but the squeal\nof the hog and the health of the laborer.\n\n_King Coal_ (1917); a story of the Rockefeller coal fields in Colorado\nand the miners\u2019 union. Probably his most skillful story.\n\nNumerous other titles, among them: _The Brass Check_, an examination\nof the American newspaper--the charge that these are the tools\nof plutocracy; _The Goose Step_, an examination of the American\nuniversity--the charge that these serve wealth; _The Goslings_, an\nattack upon the public school as an agent of capitalism.\n\n\nTheodore Dreiser: Chief of American Naturalists[819]\n\nAgainst this background of eager ferment and various propaganda stands\nTheodore Dreiser, who is of this changing world and yet apart from\nit: the most detached and keenly observant of all our writers, a huge\nfigure of ungainly proportions--a heavy-footed peasant with unslaked\ncuriosity and a boundless pity, who is determined to examine critically\n\u201cthis animal called man\u201d and portray him truthfully. He tramps across\nfields straight to his objective, messing sadly the neat little beds\nof American convention, peering into the secret places that are marked\n\u201cNot Open To The Public,\u201d keeping nothing hidden, ashamed of nothing,\napologizing for nothing. Not since Walt Whitman has there been another\nsuch frank and detached projection of reality, such insistence that the\nworld shall stop and consider those facts which convention has politely\nagreed to ignore. Naturally a great hue and cry of the Pharisees\nhas been raised against him. The respectable middle class will have\nnone of this peasant directness and brutal truth. He has entered our\n_bourgeois_ society \u201cmurmurous of morality\u201d with an alien philosophy,\nwhich he must defend. At every moment he feels under the necessity\nof assisting the truth as he sees it, and instead of suffering his\nportrayal to stand on its own feet he props it up with argument and\ninterminable debate. The artist suffers at the hands of the disputant.\n\n_The Man and his Philosophy._ Marked by an immense and open-eyed\ncuriosity that ends in agnosticism. His anthropocentric conceptions:\n\n I have lived now to my fortieth year and have seen a good deal of\n life.... But I am one of those curious persons who cannot make up\n their minds about anything. I read and read.... But I find that one\n history contradicts another, one philosopher drives out another.\n Essayists, in the main, point out flaws and paradoxes in the\n current conception of things, novelists, dramatists and biographers\n spread tales of endless disasters, or silly illusions concerning\n life, duty, opportunity and the like. And I sit here and read and\n read, when I have time, wondering.[820]\n\n\u201cNothing is proved, all is permitted,\u201d he says in _The Titan_. Men\nwill do what they think they can get away with. In briefest terms his\nphilosophy may be phrased thus:\n\n1. The world is without reason or meaning to us. Why we are here and to\nwhat end is unknowable.\n\n2. Men are chemical compounds, existing in a world where they play\nabout like water-flies, skipping restlessly and unintelligently as\ntheir legs drive them, whom the universe in its vast indifference\nsuffers for a time.\n\n3. Men divide into the strong and the weak; not the good and the bad.\nThe will to power, the desire for pleasure, drive men on their courses.\nWhat restrains? Moral codes and social conventions, often useful, often\nharmful.\n\n A metaphysical idealism will always tell him that it is better to\n preserve a cleanly balance, and the storms of circumstance will\n teach him a noble stoicism. Beyond this there is nothing which can\n reasonably be imposed upon the conscience of man.[821]\n\n4. Hence the profound need of sympathy and mercy.\n\n Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony\n universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely. From the\n prowling hunger of the Hyrcan tiger to the concentric grip of\n Arcturus and Canopus there is the same ruthless, sightless\n disregard of the individual and the minor thing. Life moves in\n an ordered hierarchy of forces of which the lesser is as nothing\n to the greater ... And in the midst of the rip of desperate\n things--in odd crannies and chance flaws between forces--there\n spring and blossom these small flowers of sentiment. Tenderness!\n Mercy! Affection! Sorrow! The Hindus worship an image of pain.\n And well they may. It is a classic amid the painless, the\n indifferent--Nirvana. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall\n receive mercy! No, no. Blessed are the merciful, for they create\n mercy. Of such is the kingdom of the ideal.[822]\n\n_His Attitude toward his Material._ Dreiser possesses a vast and\nterrifying imagination. Like James Branch Cabell he broods over the\nplight of man in the universe. But he does not seek refuge in the\nideal. He will confront things as they are. The very chemistry of\ndecaying flesh fascinates him. It is a phenomenon of this impersonal\nand relentless universe. Compared with the realities of time and space\nand force--what is man and what are his puny efforts and ideals?\n\n The damnable scheme of things which we call existence brings about\n conditions whereby whole masses suffer who have no cause to suffer,\n and ... whole masses joy who have no cause for joy.... We suffer\n for our temperaments, which we did not make, and for our weaknesses\n and lacks, which are no part of our willing or doing.[823]\n\n_His Objectivity._ The larger view of life gives detachment. Only one\nwho has emerged from the jungle can see the whole in broad perspective.\nIn no other American writer, except Whitman, is such complete\ndetachment achieved. His life is a long process of stripping away group\nillusions, of casting off group conventions. And for this the mass\ncannot forgive him, for the mass live in the strait-jacket of custom,\nthinking in no other terms than group or tribal terms, worshiping the\ncommunal idols, clinging to the tribal taboos. They cannot achieve\nindividuality themselves and they hate Dreiser. It puts him outside the\ntribe, for the first law of the tribe is tribal-mindedness. Whoever is\nnot of us is against us. Whoever questions the validity of the tribal\nsanctions is an enemy and must be destroyed. It is in vain that Dreiser\nasserts vehemently that he is telling the truth. Another version of the\ntruth than the tribal version is not wanted.\n\nThe significance of Dreiser lies in the fact that he is an individual\napart--one who has broken with the group and sits in judgment on the\ngroup sanctions. He is an anarchist who will be partisan to no taboos.\nThis is a rare and perilous thing to do. He stands outside.\n\n_His Amoral Attitude._ It is on this score that Dreiser stands\ncondemned by our _bourgeois_ censors. His amoral attitude is strangely\nmetamorphosed into immorality. His indifference to the common\npreachments, his inability to accept Christian maxims, his refusal to\ndo lip service to creeds--this is set down as evidence of viciousness,\nfor _ipso facto_ there can be no other moral standards than the\ntribal standards. What is Dreiser\u2019s justification? This, that in the\nphysical universe he can discover no morality--no justice, mercy,\npity, but everywhere great and indifferent force. And in society--in\nthe instincts of men and in their hidden desires and secret acts--a\ndisregard of conventional morality. Society is steeped in hypocrisy.\n\n He saw no morals anywhere--nothing but moods, emotions, needs,\n greeds. People talked and talked, but they acted according to their\n necessities and desires.[824]\n\nBut in frankly revealing the hypocrisy of men Dreiser is no cynic.\nThere is in him a profound morality--the morality of truth and pity\nand mercy. Let us not stone men for their sins but deal generously and\nkindly with them. What he protests against is superimposed codes. There\nis, for him, \u201cin Nature, no such thing as the right to do, or the right\nnot to do.\u201d[825]\n\nBut is there not social expediency? To which the individual for his own\ngood should conform? Experience has taught men some excellent things.\n\n_His Work._ Dreiser has given us full-length portraits of two\nwomen--Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt--and of two men--Eugene\nWitla and Frank Cowperwood. These constitute his major contribution\nand on them his reputation rests.[826] In addition there is _Hey\nRub-a-Dub-Dub_, a book of essays in which his philosophy is set forth,\na naturalistic play, _The Hand of the Potter_--a study in pathology\nwhere the hand of the potter slipped--a book of travel, and some\nshort stories. Of his four major characters the two women are passive\nand pliable, easily made victims of circumstance. Of the two men\none--Eugene Witla--is weak, and the other--Frank Cowperwood--is the\nsupreme example in American literature of the will to power.\n\n_The Financier_ and _The Titan_. A colossal study of the American\nbusiness man, in two volumes of a total of 1332 pages. Compared with\nthis all other studies are crude and unconvincing. Here the thing has\nbeen done once for all.\n\n\u201cThese crude and greedy captains of finance had to be given some kind\nof literary embodiment, and Dreiser has hammered a raw epic out of\ntheir lives.\u201d[827]\n\nWhere did Dreiser get his intimate and detailed information concerning\nhigh finance? Where his knowledge of such a character? Out of his own\npowerful mind. Cowperwood a portrait of Charles Yerkes. Two periods:\nhis Philadelphia life to 1873; his Chicago life to 1898. In both he\nmolds circumstance to his advantage; in both he is caught by chance and\nfails.\n\n_The Man._ Driven by three impulses: love of power, love of women, love\nof art. There is in him a unity of character and an inevitability of\ndevelopment that are overwhelming. Dreiser does not judge, apologize,\npraise, or condemn; he is content to permit the character to develop.\nFrom first to last he is detached and objective. He presents Cowperwood\nas a magnificent physical and mental machine: a born fighter and\nleader, strong, alert, with a cool resourceful mind. A pronounced\nhardness that goes with strength--contempt for the weakling, impatience\nwith the inefficient. In his sex passages there is no glamour of\nromance. They are direct and brutal--but more moral than glamorous.\nNevertheless great personal charm--the magnetism of a virile mind and\nindomitable will. To men he is an inspiration, to women a fascination.\nAnd yet a frank egoist, self-centered, imperturbable.\n\nThe fate of the individualist: in pitting his will against life\nCowperwood feared chance, which undid him in Philadelphia. But his\nvery prevision, which carried him to triumph, brought his downfall.\nThe many are stronger than the superman. And in the end, failure.\nStrength endures for so short a time and is so weak. Age, weakness,\nsocial forces--these undermine the strong. A vast irony. Cowperwood is\npunished not because he is evil but because he is a man.\n\n_Cowperwood\u2019s Philosophy._ From his youth up life was a puzzle to him.\nNothing was certain, for beyond and above all was a blind, irrational\nchance. Nevertheless within reasonable limits it was plain enough that\nstrength and intelligence prevail. This lesson he first learned from\nthe squib and the lobster, and it became his guiding principle. When\nchance had brought him within the shadow of the penitentiary, he summed\nit up:\n\n It is a grim, bitter world we are all born into.... Who was to\n straighten out the matter of the unjust equipment with which most\n people began? Who was to give them strong minds in place of feeble\n ones, able bodies instead of wretched ones? Where were they to get\n pure-tendencies instead of impure ones, as the world looked on\n these things?... Some were sent into the world with a great lust\n and great ability for wealth like himself, a mind swift to see, a\n body strong to endure; and some were sent half equipped, almost\n shapeless and formless.... Strength and weakness--there lay the\n key, the answer.[828]\n\nStuart Sherman on Dreiser:\n\n By eliminating distinctively human motives and making animal\n instincts the supreme factors in human life, Mr. Dreiser reduces\n the problem of the novelist to the lowest possible terms.... His\n philosophy quite excludes him from the field in which the great\n realist must work. He has deliberately rejected the novelist\u2019s\n supreme task--understanding and presenting the development of\n character; he has chosen only to illustrate the unrestricted flow\n of temperament. He has evaded the enterprise of representing human\n conduct; he has confined himself to representation of animal\n behavior.[829]\n\nAnd the two novels he says are \u201clike a club sandwich composed of slices\nof business, alternating with erotic episodes.\u201d It is true, but the\nfailure is one of art that does not merge them. What would Sherman\nhave? Shall these impulses be eliminated from literature, or from human\nnature itself?\n\n\nSinclair Lewis: Our Own Diogenes[830]\n\nAs the row of his pudgy orange-backed volumes lengthens on the shelf,\nit becomes evident that Sinclair Lewis is the bad boy of American\nletters whose thoughts are on bent-pins while the deacon is laboring\nin prayer. His irrepressible satire belongs to a new and irritatingly\neffective school. He has studied the technique of the realists, and\nunder the beguiling pretense of telling the truth objectively and\ndispassionately, he insists on revealing to us unaccommodated man as a\npoor, bare, forked animal, who like Jurgen persists in thinking himself\na monstrous clever fellow. He is maliciously severe on all respectable\ndignities. In his hands the noble _homo sapiens_ of common repute\nis translated into an ignoble _homo libidinus et ventosissimus_--an\nunattractive animal that runs in herds, serves its belly, and has a\ntaking way with the dams. The free-born American citizen, master of the\nearth and its destiny, is little flattered by the portrait he draws,\nand Mr. Lewis finds himself, in consequence, _persona non grata_ in any\nconvention of Elks or Rotarians.\n\nThe method he has chosen to adopt is a clever advance over the\ntechnique of the eighteenth century, when pricking balloons was the\nbusiness of every wit. Those older satirists--nagging souls like Pope\nand bold bad fellows like Churchill--were mainly concerned to annoy\ntheir victims with pin-pricks. They were too completely the gentleman\nto grow chummy with base fellows whom they frankly despised; and in\nconsequence they never discovered half the possibilities of the gentle\nart of satire. Sinclair Lewis is wiser than they were. He has learned\nthat before one can effectively impale one\u2019s victim, one must know all\nhis weaknesses and take him off his guard. So he ingratiatingly makes\nup to George F. Babbitt of Zenith, drinks chummily with him, swaps\ngreasy jokes, learns all the hidden vanities and secret obscenities\nthat slip out in the confidences of the cups, beguiles him into\npainting his own portrait in the manly midnight hours; and when the\nlast garment that covers his nakedness is stripped off, the flashlight\nexplodes and the camera has caught the victim in every feature of his\nmean and vacuous reality.\n\nNo doubt it is an ungentlemanly thing to do--a calculating betrayal of\ntrusting human nature done in the sacred name of art; and it is certain\nthat the unhappy victim will hate the artist when he sees the developed\nprint next morning. Yet the picture is extraordinarily lifelike. All\nthe unlovely details of fat stomach and flabby muscles are sharply\nrevealed. It is too late to put on one\u2019s clothes, and _homo sapiens_ in\nthe person of George F. Babbitt is revealed as a shambling, two-legged\nanimal, for the world to laugh at. The method is immensely clever;\nit is the last word in the technique of despoiling one\u2019s victim of\nadventitious dignity, without which life becomes a mean, bleak affair;\nbut it is scarcely charitable. To think well of oneself and to wish\nto impose that good opinion upon others, are common human weaknesses\nthat every tailor blesses. Without clothes man is only a caricature of\nthe godlike, and the artist who betrays our nakedness to our enemies\nis very far from a gentleman. The confidences of the cups must be held\nsacred, for if we cannot drink without fear of our babbling being\nreported, what becomes of goodfellowship?\n\nBut the charge of betraying goodfellowship leaves Sinclair Lewis\nunconcerned. His satire knows no compunctions. An irreverent soul, he\ndares the wrath not only of George F. Babbitt, but of the innumerable\nclubs to which Babbitt belongs. A buoyant scoffer, he does not permit\neven the organized wrath of the Chamber of Commerce to disturb his\nequanimity. He provokes respectable people on principle, and he has\nlaid a devilish plan to work systematically through our sacred American\ndecalogue, smashing one commandment after another. Already behind him\nis strewn a sorry wreckage of established creeds and authoritative\nslogans--a wreckage that delights the wicked and gives aid and comfort\nto all evil-wishers in our comfortable and excellent society. Not even\na banker is sacred to him. Rotarians and Kiwanians, Billy Sundays and\nBilly Bryans, voluble Congressmen and silent Presidents, even our\nvenerable Constitution itself, he scoffs at and makes merry over. And\nto add insult to injury, he prospers in his sins. His calculating\nwickedness returns him a fattening bank account. His impudent satires\nsell like bargain-counter silk stockings. We pay handsomely to see\nourselves most unhandsomely depicted. If we would only take a lesson\nfrom the strategy of the heathen Chinese, we might boycott Mr. Lewis\u2019s\nwares and reduce him to the beggary that is more becoming to wickedness\nthan a wanton prosperity. But a Christian people will not go to school\nto the heathen, and so Mr. Lewis prospers in his wickedness and waxes\nvulgarly rich.\n\nNow what is the tremendous discovery that Sinclair Lewis makes so\nmuch of, and that we pay so great a price to learn? It is no other\nthan this: that the goodly United States of America are peopled by a\nmighty herd, which like those earlier herds that rumbled about the\nplains, drives foolishly in whatever direction their noses point--a\nherd endowed with tremendous blind power, with big bull leaders, but\nwith minds rarely above their bellies and their dams. In the mass and\nat their own romantic rating they are distinctly imposing--big-necked,\nred-blooded, lusty, with glossy coats got from rich feeding-grounds,\nand with a herd power that sweeps majestically onward in a cloud of\ndust of its own raising, veritable lords and masters of a continent.\nBut considered more critically and resolved into individual members,\nthey appear to the realist somewhat stupid, feeble in brain and will,\nstuffed with conceit of their own excellence, esteeming themselves the\ngreat end for which creation has been in travail, the finest handiwork\nof the Most High who spread the plains for their feeding-grounds: with\na vast respect for totems and fetishes; purveyors and victims of the\nmysterious thing called Bunk, who valiantly horn to death any audacious\nheretic who may suggest that rumbling about the plains, filling their\nbellies, bellowing sacred slogans, and cornering the lushest grass, are\nscarcely adequate objectives for such immense power: a vast middleman\nherd, that dominates the continent, but cannot reduce it to order or\ndecency.\n\nConsider, suggests Mr. Lewis, what this rumbling herd signifies in\nthe light of rational and humane ideals. What sort of custodians of\ncivilization are these lumbering mobsters with their back-slappings and\nbellowings? What becomes of the good life in a society that flowers in\nRotarian conventions? The banker has reduced America to the level of a\nbanker\u2019s Utopia, and now bids us admire his handiwork. Other societies,\naristocratic and feudal, honored the priest and knight and artist above\nthe usurer and tradesman; other generations professed to serve truth\nand beauty and godliness in their daily lives; but the great American\nherd cares nothing for such things. In the name of democracy priest\nand knight and artist are turned lackeys to merchants and realtors, to\nmen who would not recognize faith or chivalry or imagination if they\nmet them on the golf course, and who understand democracy as little as\nthey understand Christianity. In this land of material abundance the\ngood life is reduced to being measured in commissions and percentages;\ncivilization comes to flower in the broker; the mahogany desk is the\naltar at which we sacrifice in a land of triumphant materialism. \u201cGod\nhelp the country,\u201d said Fenimore Cooper, years ago when the herd was\nsmall, \u201cthat has only commercial towns for its capitals.\u201d \u201cSuch a\ncountry is past helping,\u201d retorts Sinclair Lewis. \u201cGod cannot help\nit, or the Devil. In the name of George F. Babbitt and Dr. Almus\nPickerbaugh and the Reverend Elmer Gantry, what can be expected of such\na country? A people that worships the great god Bunk shall have its\nreward!\u201d\n\nTo prove his amiable thesis Mr. Lewis has been at enormous pains to\ngather his materials at their sources. He has taken upon himself to\nbecome a specialist in depicting the _genus Americanus_. He has loafed\nalong Main Street, played poker in back rooms with wicked young men,\ndrunk in respectable clubs, and exchanged hearty back-slappings with\nthe sons of Rotary. He has devoted days to the smoking-compartments of\nPullmans, garnering the ripest wisdom and choicest stories of traveling\nsalesmen. He has listened to philosophic brokers discourse on ethics,\nstudied political and constitutional theory with realtors, learned\nall about Bolshevism from presidents of Chambers of Commerce, been\ninstructed in the elements of economics by Republican Congressmen,\ndiscovered the fallacies in Darwinian evolution from clerical\nfundamentalists and the superiority of Fascism over democracy from\nthe greatest captains of industry. No field of American experience\nhas escaped his minute investigation, no authority has eluded his\ncatechizing. In the course of his studies he has come to master the\nlusty American language in its subtlest shades and manliest _nuances_,\nfrom the comic supplement to Dunn and Bradstreet, and he talks easily\nwith Main Street in its own vernacular. His rich and copious vocabulary\nfills a commonplace scholar with envy, and his ebullient slang, his\neasy slovenliness of enunciation, inflict on the simple-minded user of\nthe King\u2019s English a hopeless inferiority complex.\n\nThus amply equipped with all the resources of scholarship, he has\nwritten four learned treatises in exemplification of the thesis that\nthe _genus Americanus_ is cousin-german to the scoffing Mr. Mencken\u2019s\nlately discovered _boobus Americanus_. The introductory study,\n_Main Street_, provided a comprehensive background and setting for\nthe full-length portraits he was to draw later. Gopher Prairie,\nsituated in the heart of agricultural America--in Meredith Nicholson\u2019s\nValley of Democracy where the old-fashioned, kindly, neighborly,\nwholesome, democratic virtues are presumed to thrive in a congenial\nhabitat--becomes in his unsympathetic analysis a place that William\nAllen White would not recognize as his home town. Here, he tells us, is\nrespectability made sluggish and sterile. Here is \u201cslavery self-sought\nand self-defended.\u201d Here is \u201cdullness made God.\u201d Here, diluted and\nspread over a vast territory, the spirit of Babbitt has erupted\nin cheap and pretentious county-seats, parasites on the producing\nhinterland over whose politics and credit and morals Main Street\ntradesmen have set up a strict custodianship--futile and complacent and\ndrab, mere echoes of the greater cities that lie on the horizon and to\nwhich the sons of Main Street turn for light and guidance.\n\nIt is these greater cities that constitute the true capitals of our\nred-blooded Americans who proclaim themselves \u201cthe greatest race in\nthe world\u201d--fruitful centers from which radiates the philosophy of\npep, punch, and progress for the upbuilding and enlightenment of the\nworld. Of these centers the hustling and mighty Zenith is the wonder\nand admiration of all right-minded citizens; it is the brightest and\nbloomiest sunflower of the great American garden. And in Zenith dwells\nGeorge F. Babbitt, realtor, Sinclair Lewis\u2019s full-length portrait of\na hero sprung from the loins of America, the completest embodiment of\nthe triumphant American genius that is conquering the earth. Babbitt as\nan upstanding he-member of the great herd is a marvel, the apotheosis\nof the regnant middle class, the finished product of our snappy\ncivilization. Other lands, no doubt, have produced men accounted great.\nPlato and Saul of Tarsus, St. Francis and Leonardo, Pascal and Galileo\nand Hegel, were no doubt esteemed in their own times and by their own\ncities; but Zenith does not go in for out-of-date merchandise; it is\nup-to-the-minute and it specialized in George F. Babbitts. And so when\nthe Reverend Elmer Gantry rises to influence in Gopher Prairie, he is\ncalled to Zenith as its spiritual counselor, and becomes the custodian\nof the Zenith moralities, the apostle of Zenith Bunk, the devotee\nof the Zenith Mumbo Jumbo. And through Zenith passes also Martin\nArrowsmith the rebel, the perverse outlandish scientist who refuses\nto worship Mumbo Jumbo, on his solitary way to discover reality in a\nworld of Zenith chicanery. Babbitt, Gantry, Arrowsmith--these are the\nfigures that Sinclair Lewis comes upon in his exploration of the land\nof the free and the home of the brave. A somewhat curious showing at\nthe best.\n\nSo slashing an attack upon our common creed and practice has naturally\naroused vigorous protest. Human nature does not like to have its idols\nassailed; even the devotees of Mumbo Jumbo will defend their god\nagainst the heretics; and Sinclair Lewis has become the target for\nmany a shaft. The critics have pressed home their counter attack with\nardor. They insist that he is suffering from an aggravated case of\nastigmatism, and that in consequence he does not see eye to eye with\nthose of normal vision. The world is out of focus to him--askew in all\nits structural lines; and this distorted vision prompts those jaundiced\nopinions and malicious judgments in regard to the ideals cherished by\nour best citizens. He has deliberately cultivated a spleen that makes\nhim dislike his neighbors because they are comfortable and contented.\nDiogenes railing at mankind gained a vast reputation, but it is a nice\nquestion if Diogenes was a useful citizen. What did he do to further\nthe well-being of his community? How much time and money did he give\nto charity and the upbuilding of his city? For all his talking Mr.\nLewis does not seem to know what the good life is. He rails at Babbitt\nfor not being Plato, but does he understand the A B C of service? To\ntake a homely figure: the family cow, standing knee-deep in June and\nchewing the cud of contentment, would excite his Diogenic scorn. As a\nfault-finder and knocker, Brindle is not the equal of Diogenes; but\nto criticize her mentality and manners, forgetful of the fact that\nfrom the contented chewing of a plentiful cud will come a plentiful\nsupply of milk and cream and butter to sweeten the bread of life, is\na somewhat sorry business. In her modest, democratic sphere she is\ndevoted to service, and if there is a nobler function, Rotary humbly\nconfesses it had not discovered it. One must not, of course, press too\nfar the analogy between Brindle and Babbitt; the figure is useful only\nto suggest that even in the lowliest spheres Mr. Lewis completely fails\nto understand the fine ethical values that underlie and animate the\ncommon American life at which he rails. How, then, shall he understand\nthem in the higher? Comfort and service are excellent things in\nthemselves, and if they can be merged in everyday experience, surely\nthe good life is in the way of achievement.\n\nThe point is of vast importance, for it is here that Diogenes Lewis,\nhis critics assert, has totally misread the meaning and faith of\nAmerica. Here in this prosperous land the union between comfort and\nservice--or to put it in more dignified phrase, the synthesis of\nHellenism and Hebraism--has been achieved in practice. A rich and\nabundant life, motivated by a fine sense of ethical responsibility\nand disciplined by a democratic public school, is, in sober fact, the\ndistinguishing characteristic of America that sets our country apart\nfrom all other lands in western civilization. Call it a Babbitt warren\nif you will, nevertheless where else has the industrial revolution been\nbrought so completely and happily under dominion to the democratic\nideal, or been so ennobled by ethical values? Here it has scattered\nits wealth amongst the plain people with a bountiful hand, until the\npoorest family enjoys its nickel-plated plumbing, its flivver, its\ntelephone, its radio, its movies, its funnies, and all the thousand\naids to comfort and intelligence which a few generations ago were\ndenied kings--the result of all which is a standard of living that our\nforefathers would have envied. Our Hellenism is, happily, not Greek.\nThat, as every schoolboy in America knows, was established in slavery;\nwhereas our modern Hellenism is established in democracy and ennobled\nby a sensitive social conscience. Here the master serves. The richest\nand greatest amongst us--our Judge Garys and Andrew Mellons--are\nservants of the nameless public, and dedicate their creative genius to\nthe common democratic prosperity. Our Hellenism, in short, is engrafted\non a sturdy Hebraic root and flowers in righteousness--in charity, in\neducation, in free clinics and hospitals, in scientific foundations, in\ngreat public libraries, in all the vast gifts that wealth freely offers\nto the cause of social amelioration. The Puritan strain is fortunately\nstill the American strain, and we owe much to those excellent\norigins that Mr. Lewis scoffs at without understanding. Comfort and\nservice--Hellenism and Hebraism: if this is not the good life, where\nshall one find it? In Bolshevik Russia? After all Diogenes Lewis is\nno more important--or useful--than the gad-fly that Brindle brushes\nfrom her glossy sides as she chews her cud. What gad-fly ever produced\nbutter?\n\nIf Sinclair Lewis is unimpressed by such arguments it is because he\nis quite disillusioned with the current ideal of material progress.\nHis dreams do not find their satisfaction in good roads and cheap\ngasoline. He would seem to be an incorrigible idealist who has been\nbred up on the vigorous Utopianisms of the late nineteenth century.\nIn the golden days before the deluge he had gone blithely to school to\nall the current idealisms that flourished in the land--to Jeffersonian\ndemocracy and to Marxian socialism; and in the well-stocked\npharmacopoeias of hopeful young liberals he professed to discover\nspecifics for all our social ills. But the war destroyed his faith\nin nostrums and removed his Utopia to a dim and foggy future. He has\nnot yet traveled so far in disillusion as Mr. Cabell, who has seen\nfit to dwarf man to the compass of a flea on the epidermis of earth;\nnor has he achieved the irony--or the technique--of Clarence Darrow,\nwho suggests casually: \u201cOf course I know that Confucius was as great\na philosopher as Billy Sunday, and that as a thinker Buddha was the\nequal of Billy Bryan. But still all orthodox people know that Confucius\nand Buddha were spurious and the Billy brothers genuine.\u201d He has not\neven achieved the smug satisfaction of the psychologists who impose\ntheir preposterous intelligence tests on simple folk and triumphantly\ndiscover morons in respectable neighbors. Some lingering faith in our\npoor human nature he still clings to. In the great American mass that\nhuman nature is certainly foolish and unlovely enough. It is too often\nblown up with flatulence, corroded with lust, on familiar terms with\nchicanery and lying; it openly delights in hocus-pocus and discovers\nits miracle-workers in its Comstocks and Aimee Semple McPhersons. But\nfor all its pitiful flabbiness human nature is not wholly bad, nor is\nman so helpless a creature of circumstance as the cynics would have us\nbelieve. There are other and greater gods than Mumbo Jumbo worshiped\nin America, worthier things than hocus-pocus; and in rare moments even\nBabbitt dimly perceives that the feet of his idol are clay. There are\nMartin Arrowsmiths as well as Elmer Gantrys, and human nature, if it\nwill, can pull itself out of the trap. Bad social machinery makes\nbad men. Put the banker in the scullery instead of the drawing-room;\nexalt the test-tube and deflate the cash register; rid society of the\ndictatorship of the middle class; and the artist and the scientist\nwill erect in America a civilization that may become what civilization\nwas in earlier days, a thing to be respected. For all his modernity\nand the disillusion learned from Pullman-car philosophers, Sinclair\nLewis is still an echo of Jean Jacques and the golden hopes of the\nEnlightenment--thin and far off, no doubt, but still an authentic echo.\n\nWhether we like Mr. Lewis\u2019s technique or not, whether we agree with\nhis indictment of middle-class ideals or dissent from it, his writings\nare suggestive documents symptomatic of a dissatisfied generation\ngiven over to disillusion. The optimistic dreams of middle-class\ncapitalism are not so golden as they seemed to us before the war; and\nthese pudgy novels are slashing attacks on a world that in mouthing\nempty shibboleths is only whistling to keep up its courage. The faith\nof America is dead. These brisk pages are filled with the doings\nof automata--not living men but the simulacra of men, done with\nastonishing verisimilitude, speaking an amazingly realistic language,\nprofessing a surprising lifelikeness; yet nevertheless only shells from\nwhich the life has departed, without faith or hope or creative energy,\nnot even aware that they are dead.\n\nIt is this consciousness of sketching in a morgue that differentiates\nMr. Lewis from the earlier satirists of middle-class America, who in\nthe hopeful years before the war were busily engaged in rebuilding the\nAmerican temple. The preceding generation--earnest souls like Robert\nHerrick and Jack London and Upton Sinclair--were as well aware of the\nshortcomings of our industrial order as Sinclair Lewis, and hated them\nas vigorously. From the days of Emerson and George Ripley, of Carlyle\nand Ruskin, capitalistic society had been persistently subjected to\nsharp and devastating analysis; its drabness and regimentation, its\nsterility and emptiness and joylessness, had been pointed out by\nmany pens. The Victorians long ago discovered that no generous or\nhumane civilization was to be expected from the hands of Plugson of\nUndershot--that the banker conceiving of human felicity in terms of\neight per cent. is a mean and shabby fellow in comparison with St.\nFrancis or Michelangelo. Long before Sherwood Anderson, William Morris\nhad observed that the workman no longer sings in the factory as in\nother days he sang over his tool, and concluded that the creation of\nbeauty is more important for human happiness than figuring profits from\nmass production.\n\nBut those earlier analysts were dealing with causes of which they\ncould only forecast the ultimate consequences, whereas Sinclair Lewis\nis dealing with effects. Plugson of Undershot is now the universal\ndictator. Before the war there was still life and hope in western\ncivilization; it was not yet reduced to being a common Babbitt warren,\nwith its Billy Sundays and Almus Pickerbaughs, its artists and editors\nand scientists, on the Plugson pay-roll. What emerges from the drab\npages of Sinclair Lewis that is suggestive is the authoritative\npronouncement that the effects forecast by the earlier critics have\nbecome in our day the regnant order of things. Babbitt is the son of\nPlugson of Undershot, and Babbitt is a walking corpse who refuses to\nbe put decently away to make room for living men. An empty soul, he is\nthe symbol of our common emptiness. Historically he marks the final\npassing in America of the civilization that came from the fruitful\nloins of the eighteenth century. For a hundred and fifty years western\ncivilization had sustained its hopes on the rich nourishment provided\nby the great age of the Enlightenment. Faith in the excellence of\nman, in the law of progress, in the ultimate reign of justice, in the\nconquest of nature, in the finality and sufficiency of democracy,\nfaith in short in the excellence of life, was the great driving force\nin those earlier, simpler days. It was a noble dream--that dream of\nthe Enlightenment--but it was slowly dissipated by an encompassing\nmaterialism that came likewise out of the eighteenth century. Faith in\nmachinery came to supersede faith in man; the Industrial Revolution\nsubmerged the hopes of the French Revolution. And now we have fallen\nso low that our faith in justice, progress, the potentialities of\nhuman nature, the excellence of democracy, is stricken with pernicious\nanemia, and even faith in the machine is dying. Only science remains\nto take the place of the old romantic creed, and science with its\npsychology and physics is fast reducing man to a complex bundle of\nglands, at the mercy of a mechanistic universe. Babbitt, to be sure,\nhas not yet discovered the predicament he is in, but Martin Arrowsmith\nknows; and while Babbitt is whistling somewhat futilely, Arrowsmith is\nhard at work in the laboratory seeking a new philosophy to take the\nplace of the old. The outlook is not promising, but until a new faith\nemerges from the test-tube Sinclair Lewis will wander in the fogs of\ndisillusion.\n\nBut enough of such crape-hanging at a time when our best minds\nare engaged in the great work of stabilizing prosperity. What are\ntest-tubes in comparison with the infallible statistics patriotically\ndisseminated by the National City Bank? To parade such heresies in\nthe face of the progressive American public is enough to damn any\nman, genius or not. We want no carpers or cynics in our congenial\nmembership. We must all get together to put across the drive for a\nbigger and richer and better America; and so, reluctantly, despite the\nfact that in many ways he is a good fellow, we blackball Sinclair Lewis.\n\n\nSherwood Anderson: A Psychological Naturalist[831]\n\nUnlike our earlier naturalists in handling of material and dramatic\ninterests. Concerned with inner life rather than outer, with hidden\ndrives rather than environment. Accepts the main criteria of\nnaturalism: determinism, distortion, pessimism. A lean and sparing\nwriter whose symbolisms are obscure and puzzling. A single theme:\nthe disastrous effect of frustrations and repressions that create\ngrotesques. Due to (1) Crude, narrow environment that drives to strange\naberrations; (2) Repressed instincts that break forth in abnormal\naction. The consequence a black loneliness--the hunger of fellowship\nand its denial. Limited in scope to episodic crises--hence his better\nstories short. Many failures: _Marching Men_; _Windy McPherson\u2019s Son_;\n_Poor White_ (1920); _Many Marriages_ (1923)--a clumsy account of a\nBabbitt gone on a psychological spree; _Horses and Men_ (1923)--some\nmore Grotesques; see in particular \u201cA Chicago Hamlet.\u201d\n\n_Winesburg, Ohio_ (1918). A prose _Spoon River Anthology_, with an\nexcellent collection of grotesques. Sharp vignettes; lonely, thwarted\nlives, \u201cconfused and disconcerted by the facts of life.\u201d A background\nof earlier America, crude and ugly, that drives to religious fanaticism\nin Steve Bentley; to passionate rebellion in Kate Swift; to bitter\nirony in Ray Pearson. Note the deterministic conclusion of \u201cThe Untold\nLie\u201d--\u201cTricked, by Gad, that\u2019s what I was; tricked by life and made\na fool of\u201d; and the pessimism: ... \u201che shouted a protest against his\nlife, against all life, against everything that makes life ugly.\u201d\n\n_The Triumph of the Egg_ (1921). A strange and difficult book with\nits subtle symbolisms. The theme is the common hunger for romance and\nfellowship that confuses itself with sex and is unsatisfied. Suggested\nin prefatory poem: \u201cI have a wonderful story to tell but know no way to\ntell it.\u201d\n\n1. _The Egg._ An epitome of his philosophy of grotesques. The egg\nbreeds life that is futile, and life reproduces the egg. A morbid\ndisgust that would bottle the egg, and the failure.\n\n2. _Out of Nowhere Into Nothing._ Theme is the \u201cwhite wonder of\nlife\u201d--what it is and the part it plays in shaping life; a sex illusion\nthat in its mystic appeal to youth guarantees the perpetuation of the\nrace. To age there is no \u201cwhite wonder,\u201d but the life processes are\ndirty, and lead to final imprisonment in a common trap. Hence the\n\u201cwhite wonder\u201d is the supreme jest of nature, sardonic, beguiling,\ngathering its victims who eagerly run their predetermined course.\n\n3. _Brothers._ A suggestion of the true \u201cwhite wonder of life\u201d--the\nbrotherhood of man in a lonely world--\u201cbeyond words, beyond\npassion--the fellowship in living, the fellowship in life.\u201d But men\ncannot break through the walls of themselves to grasp it, and the\ndirt of the world destroys its beauty. \u201cThe whole story of mankind\u2019s\nloneliness, of the effort to reach out to unattainable beauty, tried to\nget itself expressed from the lips of a mumbling old man, crazed with\nloneliness.\u201d \u201cWe have different names but we are brothers.\u201d \u201cAlready\nI have written three hundred, four hundred thousand words. Are there\nno words that lead into life?\u201d See conclusion of \u201cThe Man in the Brown\nCoat.\u201d\n\n_A Story Teller\u2019s Story_ (1924). An attempt to lay bare the emotional\nlife of one seeking to be an artist in America; to plumb his own\nconsciousness, to escape from a world he hates. Such escape comes from\nreaching down \u201cthrough all the broken surface distractions of modern\nlife to that old craft out of which culture springs.\u201d He must pull\nhimself free from a deadening and devastating routine of an industrial\nsociety with its empty ambitions. And having found his craft he finds a\nrecompense in life. \u201cI sang as I worked, as in my boyhood I had often\nseen old craftsmen sing and as I had never heard men sing in factories.\nAnd for what I had written at such times I had been called unclean by\nmen and women who had never known me, could have no personal reasons\nfor thinking me unclean. Was I unclean? Were the hands that, for such\nbrief periods of my life, had really served me, had they been unclean\nat such moments of service?\u201d A stimulating and suggestive document of\nmodern life.\n\nThe note of determinism in Anderson expressed in two images, the wall\nand escape--running to get away from what holds us fast. But in running\naway from the old self to find a new, we carry the old self with us.\nAnderson one of the three or four most important men now writing\nfiction in America. Compare with D. H. Lawrence.\n\n\nA New Romance\n\nThe new romance and the new naturalism both spring from a common\nroot--hatred of the meanness and ugliness of modern life; but romance\nseeks to evade and forget what naturalism examines curiously. It is a\ndefense mechanism against things as they are and springs from:\n\n1. Disgust at the verisimilitude of naturalism that parades the crude\nugliness of life as if it were the reality. The dream more important\nthan the fact, for our real existence is within the imagination,\nremoved from material futilities, where we may satisfy our hunger for\nbeauty, for far-ranging adventure, for ideal existence.\n\n2. The impulse to free creation. Real life overshadowed and darkened by\na sense of impotence; men are flies caught in the web of circumstance.\nBut in romance the will is unshackled and the free imagination plays\nwith time and space, shaping fate to its liking in terms of beauty,\ndwelling in a world as we should like it to be. Romance hence is the\nideal cosmos of the ego.\n\n3. The spirit of youth that has brooded over life and refuses to\nabandon its dreams. The inevitable outcome irony, an undertone of\nsadness, a recognition of the pessimism against which it desires to be\na defense. This the final note. So compare the _Eros et mors_ of old\nromance....[832]\n\n\n1917-1924[833]\n\n_Introduction_: With the entry of America into the war came a sharp\nchange in literary development. Regimentation due to war psychology\ndestroyed the movement of social criticism which dominated fiction\nbetween 1903 and 1917. The liberal movement in economics and politics\ncame to an abrupt end, and the problem novel ceased to be written.\nAlmost overnight it became old-fashioned. The year 1918 sterile.[834]\nWith the year 1919 began a new literary period. Three major movements:\n\n1. A resurgence of naturalism, inspired by psychology rather than by\neconomics, with a tendency to impressionism in handling: represented by\nSherwood Anderson.\n\n2. A new romanticism, seeking ideal beauty as a defense against reality\nand emerging in irony: represented by James Branch Cabell.\n\n3. A new criticism: A revolt of the young intellectuals against\nthe dominant middle class--its Puritanism, its Victorianism, its\nacquisitive ideals: represented by Sinclair Lewis.\n\n\nI \u2022 The Small Town in Fiction\n\nThe first expression of the new literature. Chiefly a middle-western\ndevelopment--and a late phase of the literature of the local. A\nreaction from the \u201ceconomic city,\u201d with its centralizing economics,\nwhich dominated the problem novel. Two antagonistic interpretations:\n(1) The romantic small town, or the theory of a kindly, democratic\nworld; (2) The realistic small town, or the theory of a petty,\ncompetitive world.\n\nI. _The Romantic Interpretation of the Small Town._ A hold-over from\nan earlier period. Derives from Riley; elaborated and defended by\nMeredith Nicholson, _The Valley of Democracy_ (1918). According to\nthis theory the middle-western village is: (1) A land of economic\nwell-being, uncursed by poverty and unspoiled by wealth; (2) A land\nof \u201cfolksiness\u201d--the village a great family in its neighborliness,\nfriendliness, sympathy; (3) Primarily middle-class, and therefore\ncharacteristically American, wholesome, and human in spite of its\nprosaic shortcomings; (4) The home of American democracy, dominated\nby the spirit of equality, where men are measured by their native\nqualities.[835]\n\n\nWilliam Allen White: A Son of the Middle Border\n\nProduct of middle-class, Puritan Kansas. Dominated by sentiment,\nbelieves in the essential fairness of men. Two major ideas: (1)\nBelief in the excellence of western village life; (2) Fear lest\nthis life be submerged by industrialism. A romantic and political\nProgressive. Formulated his political theory in _The Old Order\nChangeth_ (1910)--thesis, that America is changing from representative\nrepublicanism to democracy. The problem is to make business honest. Not\nan intellectual. His plots resemble Thackeray\u2019s--leisurely, gossipy,\nconfidential asides, a large canvas, many figures, a long period of\ntime. His attitude admirably expressed in _Emporia and New York_ (1906).\n\n_At the Court of Boyville_ (1899). The romance of youth set against\nthe background of the small town. A world of dreams and loveliness:\nadventures that await beyond the horizon; the glory of pigtails and\noveralls. The democracy of the vacant lot: rivalry in marbles and\nhand-springs--the leadership of the capable. Sincerer work than\nTarkington\u2019s _Penrod_. Contrast with Garland\u2019s _Son of the Middle\nBorder_, and Mark Twain\u2019s _Tom Sawyer_.\n\n_A Certain Rich Man_ (1909). His plunge into the problem novel. Theme:\nfear of the economic city that draws the villager into its web. A\ncontrast between the two worlds and two social ideals--the friendly\ndemocracy of the older America threatened by economic centralization.\n\n_In the Heart of a Fool_ (1918). One of the last of the problem\nnovels. Theme--the invasion of the small town by industrialism and the\ndisintegration of village virtues. The story of an idealist who opposes\nthe ends of Main Street and his destruction by the herd. A suggestion\nof Sinclair Lewis. The conclusion--the excellence of love and the\nfoolishness of selfishness. The background characters, studies in the\nreaction of the older ideal to the new egoism.\n\n\nBooth Tarkington: The Dean of American Middle-Class Letters\n\nPossesses the virtues of cleverness, optimism, humor, respectability.\nHonors all the Victorian taboos. Life is an agreeable experience--to\nthe successful, hence it is well to rise. His chief theme, middle-class\nromance as exemplified in the \u201cvalley of democracy\u201d: courtship of\nnice young people through the agencies of parties and picnics. A\nskillful writer, with a light touch, but his art destroyed by love of\npopularity--a novel ends well that ends happily. A perennial sophomore,\npurveyor of comfortable literature to middle-class America.[836]\n\n_The Gentleman from Indiana_ (1899). A dramatization of the \u201cgood, dear\npeople\u201d theme. The college man who goes back to his people to live and\nwork with them. A satisfying life results from merging individual life\nin the common village life. A flabby and somewhat saccharine philosophy.\n\n_Alice Adams_ (1921). The story of an instinctive actress and her\ncompetitive struggle for social position and a man. A clever,\nattractive, lovable girl defeated by her background--led into foolish\nlittle deceits to keep up appearances--victim of middle-class\nconventionality. Shabby parlors versus conservatories as settings for\nproposals. The Adams family has fallen behind their acquaintances in\nthe business of rising in the world, and Alice sinks to a lower social\nscale. An overrated book.\n\n_The Midlander_ (1923). A contribution to booster literature and\nan unconscious satire on the emptiness of the middle-class mind. A\nreal-estate venture and what came of it. The conception that \u201cman\nis a wealth-and-comfort-producing machine.\u201d Supposed to be tragedy,\nbut the tragedy lies in preferring the imported to the domestic\narticle--choosing a New York girl instead of a local one. The suburb\nthrives, the automobile business goes forward, and the gods of getting\non smile in the end.[837]\n\nThe other numerous titles of Tarkington signify nothing except to\nlovers of comfortable literature. The clever Hoosier has ceased to be\nan artist--the great failure in contemporary American fiction.\n\n\nDorothy Canfield (Fisher)\n\nA clever dramatizer of the obvious: believes in the Woman Triumphant,\nand discovers in the right education of children--particularly\ngirls--the solution of all problems. Two main themes:\n\n1. A protest against the demands of \u201csocial life.\u201d _The Squirrel\nCage_ (1912). A contribution to the problem novel. A William Morris\nsuggestion of the sufficiency of handicraft as an escape from social\ndemands. An arraignment of the American home where the father scarcely\nknows the children and the mother is shut away from the outside world.\n\n_The Bent Twig_ (1915). A study of university community life--the\nstruggle between plain living and high thinking--of social pleasure and\nno thinking.\n\n2. The defense of the village. The belief that community fellowship--a\ngathering to watch a century plant bloom--breeds an artistic spirit\nfiner than old-world art and culture can offer. Especially a Vermont\ntown is ideal for the proper bringing up of children. _The Brimming\nCup_ (1920). A story of the right bringing up of children. _Rough Hewn_\n(1922). The love of art and travel which leads inevitably to a Vermont\ntown and marriage. _Raw Material_ (1923). Sketches. The point of view\ngiven in \u201cPaul Meyer\u201d--the folly of thinking that a normal girl should\nprefer philology to matrimony.\n\n\nII \u2022 The Realistic Small Town and the New Naturalism\n\nThe work of the younger intellectuals, more disciplined than the\nmuckrakers, with wider culture and severer standards. Concerned for\ncivilization, the things of the spirit, a free creative individualism,\nrather than political liberalism. A searching criticism of the\ntriumphant middle class, its ideals and its habitat, the town and\ncity; the repressive tyrannies of its herd mind; the futility of\nits materialism. Back of the novelists is a group of essayists,\nyoung critics of established ways: Van Wyck Brooks, Ludwig Lewisohn,\nRandolph Bourne, H. L. Mencken. They embody a reaction from: (1) The\nacquisitive ideal of a machine civilization. (2) \u201cThe great illusion\nof American civilization, the illusion of optimism\u201d--the staple of\nmiddle-class business morale. (3) The sentimentalism of \u201ccomfortable\nliterature,\u201d that evades reality and weakens the intellectual fiber.\n(4) The inhibitions of a Puritanism that has lost its sanctions. (5)\nThe White-Tarkington doctrine of the \u201cbeautiful people\u201d and \u201cfolksy\nvillage.\u201d\n\nThe movement began with Masters\u2019s _Spoon River Anthology_ (1915). An\nearlier work is E. W. Howe\u2019s _Story of a Country Town_ (1883):--stark,\ngrim, unrelieved, revealing the \u201csmoldering discontent of an\ninarticulate frontier.\u201d\n\n\nZona Gale--The Transition from Romance to Realism\n\nI. Friendship Village romance. _The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre_\n(1907). Everyone is helpful, everyone loves, or wants to, or is unhappy\nfor lack of it. _Friendship Village_ (1908). A world where there is no\nsorrow, or sickness, and where brotherly love rules. Of the \u201cfolksy\u201d\nschool.\n\nII. The shift to realism. _Miss Lulu Bett_ (1920). A homely village\ntragedy of the repressed soul that rebels under the irritation of\ndomestic pin-pricks. Plebeian characters, thin, cheap, tiresome; set in\na shoddy world and rubbing each other\u2019s nerves. Deacon Dwight a sadist;\nMiss Lulu a grotesque. Treated from the outside in contrast with\nSherwood Anderson\u2019s method. _Faint Perfume_ (1923). A glorification of\nmartyrdom. The conviction that life is hard, and the excellence of the\neconomy of pain. A partial return to the _Friendship Village_ note, but\nlike _Miss Lulu Bett_ in the picture of a self-worshiping family.[838]\n\n\nDonn Byrne[839]\n\nAmerican born but Irish bred. His early work, _The Stranger\u2019s Banquet_\n(1919), half problem novel--industrialism--which offered little scope\nfor the Celtic wistfulness in which he conceives romance to lie.\n\n_Messer Marco Polo_ (1921). The romance of distant times and places,\nof unfamiliar backgrounds and lovely worlds: medieval Venice and its\npageantry; a far quest over burning sands; the loveliness of little\nGolden Bells at the court of Kubla Khan; the ardor of love that tangles\nitself in religion. A wistfulness and beauty of phrase that remind\none of Synge\u2019s _Riders to the Sea_. The loveliest romance of recent\nyears.[840]\n\n_The Wind That Bloweth_ (1922). A rich fabric--Gaelic folk; the woman\nof the boulevard; the white sun-baked road to Damascus; the fire of\nrevolution; the crack of cordage as the ship rounds the Horn--a saga of\nthe unquiet heart.\n\n_The Changeling_ (1923). Short stories of quaint places, forgotten\npeople; the Bible and love of Ireland. Done with excellent\ncraftsmanship.\n\n_Blind Raftery_ (1924). A tale of a blind harpist in Dean Swift\u2019s\nIreland and of his wife, Hilaria, who sings the song of the women of\nthe streets in Cadiz. Life teaches them a philosophy expressed by\nthe harpist in these words: \u201cWe sit a little while by ourselves in\nan apart, dark place, and we learn truths, of how certain things one\nbelieves to be good are but vulgar selfish things, and how certain\nthings the small think evil are but futile accidents. And we learn to\nbe kind; such wisdom comes when we are dead. And those who have never\ndied in life ... are pleasant shallow people, soulless as seals.\u201d\n\n\nRobert Nathan\n\nBegan like Donn Byrne with a problem study--_Peter Kindred_ (1919). A\ndual personality cut asunder and embodied in two characters: David the\nromantic fades out of the story, and Peter becomes a modern, absorbed\nin eugenics. A background of Phillips Exeter and Harvard.\n\n_Autumn_ (1921). An idyll of loneliness, with a commentary on\nmaterialism, done in simple, wistful language.\n\n1. Mr. Jeminy, a village philosopher, disciple of Bo\u00ebthius and St.\nFrancis, half pagan and yet Christian. Troubled over the poverty of the\nworld that does not amass \u201clove, peace, the quiet of the heart, the\nwork of one\u2019s hand.\u201d\n\n2. A village background. Mr. Jeminy wished to teach the children the\nsecret of happiness instead of the folly of plus and minus, and was\nturned out of his school. An echo of _Main Street_ in its commentary\non village narrowness, hardness, gossip. A frigid Puritanism that\ndisapproves Mr. Jeminy for speaking disrespectfully of God and denies\nhappiness to Mrs. Wicket who is under God\u2019s sentence of unhappiness.\n\n3. A note of determinism. A world of grotesques--all are hemmed in\nand cramped, longing for fresh experience and strange adventures, all\nare unhappy. So Aaron Bade with his flute and his \u201cawkward thoughts\nand clumsy feelings.\u201d Margaret Bade with her conviction, \u201cLife is so\nmuch spilt milk\u201d; Farmer Barly with his commentary, \u201cFolks are queer\ncrotchets\u201d; Anna Barly with her yearning for the \u201cwhite wonder of life\u201d\nand the trap. An indictment of New England for its destruction of\nnatural happiness and the simple joy of life.\n\n4. A profound irony. The end of Mr. Jeminy\u2019s hopefulness is\ndisillusion. \u201cHere within this circle of hills, is to be found faith,\nvirtue, passion, and good sense. In this valley youth is not without\ncourage, or age without wisdom.\u201d The outcome disproves this faith. Of\nhis many pupils, \u201cNot one is tidy of mind, or humble of heart. Not one\nhas learned to be happy in poverty, or gentle in good fortune.\u201d Life as\na whole is futile. The dead alone can ask God the meaning of life. \u201cBut\nfor us, who remain, it has no meaning.\u201d The tale is Robert Frost done\nin prose--compare \u201cMending Wall.\u201d\n\n_The Puppet Master_ (1923). The most graceful fantasy in American\nliterature. Papa Jonas, the puppet creator and master, watches the\nlove of Annabelle Lee, a rag doll with shoe-button eyes, and Mr.\nAristotle, a red-nosed, philosopher-clown puppet; and of Mary Holly and\nChristopher Lane, the poet. The theme is love--\u201cLove is a man\u2019s soul:\nit does not grow like his hopes, it does not break like his heart....\nBut love goes by after a while.\u201d Papa Jonas is Mr. Jeminy, converted\nto the Stoic philosophy but lacking love. The note of determinism\npersists, but the Stoic attitude overcomes. \u201cYes,\u201d he said slowly, \u201cone\nmust make the best of what one has.\u201d\n\n\nJoseph Hergesheimer: a Sophisticated Romantic\n\nBegan as a painter. After fourteen years\u2019 apprenticeship was accepted\nby the _Saturday Evening Post_, and began a career in popularity that\nrivals Tarkington\u2019s. Possesses the virtues and vices of the _Post_\nschool. In earlier work a colorist, painting statuesques against\nartfully arranged backgrounds; a connoisseur of fabrics and poses and\nnature settings--nearly as \u201cmuch concerned with the stuffs as with the\nstuff of life.\u201d In _Cytherea_ the setting a sophisticated manipulation\nof the theme, as the hot Cuban night in Cobra with its naked primitive\npassions. A dabbler in psychology that develops into a crude\nFreudianism, particularly in _Cytherea_. Always a hint of artistic\ninsincerity; something of a poseur yet a sensuous artist nature. His\ngorgeous prose style spotty and streaked by amazing crudeness.\n\n_The Three Black Pennys_ (1917). A study in the breaking out of\nwillfulness in successive generations, set against a background of\nthe history of iron-making in Pennsylvania. An elaboration of _Tubal\nCain_. An anticlimax arranged for dramatic significance, suggesting the\ndecay of romance in a hundred and fifty years of American industrial\ndevelopment. The first episode is Hergesheimer at his best. Howat\nPenny a study in moods that make him \u201cangry at life\u201d; but swept on by\nthe will to possess. Ludowica Winscomb embodies a favorite theme--the\nsuggestion of an older culture contrasted with the crude American\nreality. So compare Taou Yuen.\n\n_Linda Condon_ (1919). A study in the decay of surface beauty--an\nempty form caught in the web of a shallow mother and the demands of\nstronger natures, but preserved by lack of emotional concern. Handled\nskillfully, with a somewhat forced unity symbolized by Linda\u2019s straight\nblack bang; but the story leaves one with a sense of unconcern for\nLinda and her fate. The ending melodramatic. Note Van Doren\u2019s curious\ncomment--\u201cnearly the most beautiful American novel since Hawthorne and\nHenry James.\u201d\n\n_Java Head_ (1919). The story of an exotic that languishes in an\nuncongenial habitat. A contrast in backgrounds: the romance of old\nSalem in the days of the clipper ship; the romance of a far older\nEast that makes Salem seem raw and crude. Taou Yuen a decorative lay\nfigure, with aristocratic suggestions beyond anything the West knows.\nThe dramatic significance of opium, that hangs like a pall over the\nEast and brings degeneration and death to Puritan Salem. The end\nwith its cheap love adventure, a conscious satire on western life.\nHergesheimer\u2019s best work. A romantic atmosphere got without archaic\ntrappings of speech and manners; nevertheless makes much of costume.\n\n_Balisand_ (1924). A romance of a Virginia Federalist in the days of\nthe Revolution and after. A rich background of plantation life, with a\ntouch of somewhat cheap mysticism. Of the school of Washington rather\nthan Jefferson. A better work than _The Bright Shawl_ or _Cytherea_.\n\nHis other titles signify little. Yet see the _Saturday Evening Post_\nfor a series of furniture stories. Characteristic of his concern for\nthe \u201cstuffs of life.\u201d See in particular, \u201cMahogany\u201d (Vol. 195, no. 53,\nJanuary, 1923); \u201cPewter\u201d (Vol. 196, no. 23, January, 1924); \u201cOak\u201d (Vol.\n196, no. 3, July, 1923).[841]\n\n\nIV \u2022 Certain Other Writers\n\n\nEdith Wharton--The Genteel Tradition and the New Plutocracy\n\nA temperamental aristocrat, endowed with keen intelligence and ripe\nculture. Observes the ways of a wealthy society without culture and\nunconcerned with standards. A protest against the domination of\nthe middle class. Mrs. Wharton isolated in America by her native\naristocratic tastes. The older New York society without real\ndistinction, bound by convention and with middle-class concern for\nrespectability; the new society a vulgar plutocracy; outside both a\npushing _nouveau-riche_ class eager to climb. Hence she turns to the\nauthentic aristocracy of Europe for satisfaction of her genteel tastes.\nIn spirit she belongs to the _ancien r\u00e9gime_. The highest law of\nsociety is convention, but it must be noble, not vulgar.\n\n_The House of Mirth_ (1905). A story of New York\u2019s gilded society,\nand how it served one of its daughters. Lily Bart, trained for social\nleadership in a plutocracy, a finished and costly parasite, seeking\na market for her beauty, yet restrained by instinctive refinement\nfrom seeing the game through. Lacking money she is caught in a web of\nconvention and destroyed. In her world convention is the social law,\nand the tragedy flows from her inability to rise above it or to keep it\nwholly. The contrast between Selden and Trenor--the aristocrat and the\nplutocrat--characteristic of Mrs. Wharton.\n\n_Ethan Frome_ (1911). A dramatization of the \u201cnarrow house\u201d theme--life\nheld relentlessly in the grip of poverty and duty. A bleak and joyless\nexistence that seeks escape and suffers lingering tragedy. Thereafter a\nstern isolation and iron repression. Mrs. Wharton\u2019s finest work.\n\n_The Custom of the Country_ (1915). A study of the social climber. The\nbest of a series of novels satirizing the encroachments on New York\nexclusiveness by the rising plutocracy and its daughters. The western\nplutocracy of pork presumably more vulgar than the eastern plutocracy\nof Wall Street, yet between them the older gentry crushed. So compare\nBoyesen, _Social Strugglers_ (1893); Robert Grant, _Unleavened Bread_\n(1900). Undine Spragg, like Selma White, pushing, heartless, vulgar,\nshowy, is set over against Ralph Marvell, a refined \u201cdabbler with\nlife\u201d; Peter Van Degen, the \u201cplunger\u201d; and Elmer Moffatt, the self-made\nman. She embodies all that Mrs. Wharton most hates; all climbers are\nvulgar, she believes, both men and women.\n\n_The Age of Innocence_ (1920). A study of the older world of the\neighteen-seventies. A loving yet satirical picture of a Pharisaic\nsociety, \u201cwholly absorbed in barricading self against the unpleasant\u201d;\nthat lives secluded, protected by its taboos, and fears reality.\nA sterile world of clan conventions and negations; a decadent\nVictorianism. The Van der Luydens of Skuytercliff are of the same stuff\nas the Dagonets in _The Custom of the Country_; and the dilettante\nNewland Archer is another Ralph Marvell. Into this dead world enters\nEllen Olenska with her vivid old-world experiences, who threatens to\nrebel, yet finally yields to the clan taboos. The book fades out like\nthe lives of the Van der Luydens. An admirable work.\n\n_Old New York_ (1924). Four carefully done tales that sketch New York\nin the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. A return to her best\nmanner, with the finish of _The Age of Innocence_.\n\nHer other later work not important. _Glimpses of the Moon_ (1922)\ninconsequential; and _A Son at the Front_ (1923)--an attempt to\ndocument the reactions of an artist with a son in the army--only half\nsuccessful.\n\nMrs. Wharton a finished artist who grasps her material firmly; an\nintellectual attitude, delighting in irony. Unaffected by the problem\nnovel, and schools of naturalism or romanticism. Not a thinker like\nCabell, whose irony springs from an imagination that contemplates man\nin his relation to cosmic forces, but an observer whose irony springs\nfrom noting the clash between men and social convention. The last\nof our literary aristocrats of the genteel tradition. Her attitude\nexpressed in the words, \u201c_Je suis venue trop tard dans un monde trop\nvulgaire._\u201d\n\n\nWilla Cather: Epics of Women\n\nThe Middle Border of Hamlin Garland seen through different eyes. She\nlooks back lovingly to a pioneer West, as the cradle of heroic lives.\nAn epic breadth of prairie spaces and industrious years, with a note\nof regret--_Optima dies prima fugit._ Against this background she sets\nher immigrant women, with their vigor and wealth of life, and considers\nhow the West has dealt with them. Peasant heroines, with their strong\nnatures hidden under queer speech and garb, set in a waste of wild\nred grass, bitter winters, burning summers, virgin soil and great\nloneliness. A long-ignored theme--the lot of the immigrant who has come\non a desperate adventure--the struggle of their children with the soil.\nCompare _The Jungle_, for the industrial exploitation of the immigrant.\n\nHas matured slowly. _The Troll Garden_ (1905), and _Alexander\u2019s Bridge_\n(1910), are inconsequential. Her real work done late. Belongs to no\nschool. Is neither naturalistic nor romantic. Is unconcerned with\nproblems. Except for a single attack on the ugliness of the small\nwestern town--\u201cThe Sculptor\u2019s Funeral\u201d in _The Troll Garden_--she\nignores middle-class America and its Main Streets. An individual\nartist, sincere, capable; an excellent craftsman.\n\n_O Pioneers_ (1913). The story of Alexandra Bergson, a daughter of the\nMiddle Border; calm, tenacious, capable; loving the soil and bringing\nit to abundant productiveness. The new world had brought out diverse\nqualities in the Swedish peasant family; the older brothers common,\ndull, vulgarized by Americanization; the younger brother suggestive\nof the better side of American opportunity. Alexandra the directing\nmind and controlling will. Over against her is set the Bohemian Marie\nTovesky, childlike in her spontaneous enthusiasm. The tragic ending\nhandled with great skill. Thrown about the whole, a harsh Nebraska\ncountryside through changing periods. One who had not lived through\nsimilar experiences and loved the memory could not write so.\n\n_The Song of the Lark_ (1915). The story of Thea Kronberg, who by\nvirtue of fierce energy and iron strength rises to triumph as an\nartist. There are no romantic stage-effects, only the passionate\nstruggle of a tenacious will. Thea a peasant nature of vast solidity.\nThe most convincing story of artist life written by an American. A\nchanging background: the mean little Colorado town, the loneliness of\nChicago, Europe, the great spaces of the Southwest.\n\n_My \u00c1ntonia_ (1918). The story of \u00c1ntonia Shimerda: an opulent peasant\nnature with strong mother instinct, thwarted by meager opportunities\nand vulgar environment. Her life runs a narrow round: the early\npioneer experience with its loneliness and black tragedy; the town\nexperience of the hired girl, who lives eagerly; the later life of a\nhard-working mother on a lonely farm. \u00c1ntonia \u201ca rich mine of life like\nthe founder of early races,\u201d loving, generous, eager, yet belonging\nto the soil. To vulgarize such natures by cramming them into a\nconventional mold, passes for Americanization--this the implied thesis.\n\n_One of Ours_ (1922). The story of Claude Wheeler, with strength\nimprisoned by a society that opens its opportunities to Main Street\nnatures like Bayliss Wheeler. A suggestion of naturalism in the\nhandling of the theme: Claude caught by the negative character Enid\nRoyse because he fails to appreciate the complementary strength of\nGladys Farmer--a true Cather woman, enmeshed in Gopher Prairie. A\nfutile, ironical ending: better to die in battle than be destroyed by\nthe pettiness of Gopher Prairie. The war atmosphere seems curiously\nold-fashioned.\n\n_The Lost Lady_ (1923). A change of theme. The story of Mrs. Forester,\nan embodiment of traditional feminine charm, quite superior to such\nincidents as age or loyalty--a type of woman outside Miss Cather\u2019s\nexperience and understanding.[842]\n\n\nV \u2022 Some War Books\n\nThe late war the first in our history that has produced an aftermath\nof searching criticism in fiction or drama. The romantic note dominant\nin all earlier accounts, particularly of the Revolution and the\nRebellion. Such stories written by men who took no part in them. The\nCivil War produced only one book of realistic criticism, that was\nmutilated by the publisher to temper its cynicism, and that enjoyed no\npopularity--_The Recollections of a Private_, by Warren Goss. The late\nwar is producing a considerable group, all realistic and critical; the\nromantic note has not yet appeared.\n\n\nJohn Dos Passos\n\n_Three Soldiers_ (1921). A naturalistic handling of war that serves\nas a commentary on _One of Ours_. The most notable American work on\nthe theme since Stephen Crane\u2019s _The Red Badge of Courage_. Similar\nin temper to Henri Barbusse, _Under Fire_, but dealing with the\nbarracks and the drill field. Compare with Andreas Latzko, _Men in\nWar_--impressionistic in handling. Dos Passos a young artist from the\nuniversity, an idealist who enlists and is disillusioned. A study of\nthe war machine and the effect of regimentation on different types of\nmen--the contrast between army discipline and a lax individualism,\nand the disasters that may ensue from sudden change. Fuselli a\nlow-grade character who wants to rise; Chrisfield a solid animal who\nbecomes sullen; Andrews a highly nervous organism, to whom routine is\nkilling. Coarse episodes set in a brilliant background: the glamour of\nmilitarism gone.\n\n\nE. E. Cummings\n\n_The Enormous Room_ (1922). A brilliant revelation of the tortures\nendured by an artist unjustly imprisoned in a French military prison.\nSupplements _Three Soldiers_ in destroying the appeal of military\nglamour. An attack particularly on the common notion of heroic,\nchivalrous France.\n\n\nThomas Boyd\n\n_Through the Wheat_ (1923). An impressionistic handling of the\nreactions of a normal American soldier, Private Hicks, to the war.\nThe keynote is numbness--a deadly numbness which offers the sole\ndefense of the normal mind against the horrors it confronts. Its\nmatter-of-factness, detached point of view, and the ordinariness of the\nhero, set it apart from _Three Soldiers_ and _The Enormous Room_. An\nexcellent bit of impressionism.\n\n\nLaurence Stallings\n\n_Plumes_ (1924). A story of war by one who has suffered mutilation\nfrom it. The theme--\u201cIf you are smashed badly ... and if you have any\nintelligence you must remake a world to live in.\u201d A study of post-war\ndisillusionment, naturalistically handled. So compare the play in which\nhe collaborated--_What Price Glory?_\n\n\nVI \u2022 Youth in Revolt--Certain Purveyors of the Hectic\n\nA group of youthful poseurs at the mercy of undigested reactions to\nNietzsche, Butler, Dadaism, Vorticism, Socialism; overbalanced by\nchanges in American critical and creative standards, and in love with\ncopious vocabularies and callow emotions. Given to satirizing the\neducational methods of _alma mater_; quick to espouse new causes;\nenthusiastic for revolt as a profession. A prolific movement which as\nyet has accomplished nothing seriously creative.\n\n\nF. Scott Fitzgerald\n\n_This Side of Paradise_ (1921); _The Beautiful and the Damned_ (1922).\nA bad boy who loves to smash things to show how naughty he is; a bright\nboy who loves to say smart things to show how clever he is. Precocious,\nignorant--a short candle already burnt out.\n\n\nStephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t and Floyd Dell\n\nBen\u00e9t: _Heavens and Earth_ (1920); _The Beginning of Wisdom_ (1921);\n_Young People\u2019s Pride_ (1923); _Jean Hugenot_ (1923). Floyd Dell: _Moon\nCalf_ (1921); _Briary Bush_ (1922); _Janet March_ (1923).\n\nLuminaries of the school which holds that the sufficient tests of\nintellectual emancipation are rolled hose, midnight discussions, black\ncoffee, and the discarding of wedding rings. Floyd Dell the most\nserious and ablest of the group.\n\n\nBen Hecht\n\n_Eric Dorn_ (1921); _Gargoyles_ (1922). An almost naturalistic distrust\nof formal education, love, and government, and an unsubstantiated\nbelief in the efficacy of revolt in general and the romance of city\nstreets in particular. A burnt-out rocket. His last books--_1001\nAfternoons in Chicago_ (1923) and _Florentine Dagger_ (1924) worse than\ninconsequential.\n\n\nOle R\u00f6lvaag\u2019s \u201cGiants in the Earth\u201d[843]\n\nThe dramatic contrast between Per Hansa, type of the natural pioneer\nwho sees the golden light of promise flooding the windswept plains, and\nBeret, child of an old folk civilization who hungers for the home ways\nand in whose heart the terror of loneliness gathers, penetrates to the\ndeeper reality of life as it was lived for three hundred years on the\nAmerican frontier. It is not a late or rare phenomenon; it is only late\nand rare in literature. We have been used to viewing the frontier in\nbroad and generous perspective and have responded most sympathetically\nto the epic note that runs through the tale of the conquest of the\ncontinent. It is the great American romance that gives life and drama\nto our history. It was this epic quality that de Tocqueville felt when\nhe discovered the poetry of America in the silent march of a race\ntoward the far-off Pacific, hewing its way triumphantly through forests\nand mountains to arrive at its objective. But the emotional side, the\nfinal ledger of human values, we have too little considered--the men\nand women broken by the frontier, the great army of derelicts who\nfailed and were laid away, like the Norse immigrant lad, in forgotten\ngraves. The cost of it all in human happiness--the loneliness, the\ndisappointments, the renunciations, the severing of old ties and\nquitting of familiar places, the appalling lack of those intangible\ncushions for the nerves that could not be transported on horseback or\nin prairie schooners: these imponderables too often have been left out\nof the reckoning in our traditional romantic interpretation. But with\nthe growth of a maturer realism we are beginning to understand how\ngreat was the price exacted by the frontier; and it is because _Giants\nin the Earth_, for the first time in our fiction, evaluates adequately\nthe settlement in terms of emotion, because it penetrates to the secret\ninner life of men and women who undertook the heavy work of subduing\nthe wilderness, that it is--quite apart from all artistic values--a\ngreat historical document.\n\nIf in one sense the conquest of the continent is the great American\nepic, in another sense it is the great American tragedy. The vastness\nof the unexplored reaches, the inhospitality of the wilderness, the\nwant of human aid and comfort when disaster came, these were terrifying\nthings to gentle souls whom fate had not roughhewn for pioneering. Fear\nmust have been a familiar visitor to the heart of the pioneer woman,\nand for a hundred and fifty years this fear of the dark wilderness was\none reason why the settlements clung to the more hospitable seaboard.\nThere, at least, was an outlook toward the old home. But with the\ncrossing of the Allegheny Mountains, following the Revolutionary War,\nthe frontier spirit came into its own. A spirit of restlessness took\npossession of men, and the thin line of settlements advanced swiftly,\noverrunning the Inland Empire with its interminable forests and\nmalarial swamps, sprawling rudely from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of\nMexico. To subdue the land was no easy task. Upon the old and the weak\nthe wilderness laid a ruthless hand, and even of the strength of the\nyoung it took heavy toll. Tragedy was always lurking at the door of\nthe backwoods cabin. In Beveridge\u2019s _Life of Lincoln_ there is a grim\nstory of the hardships suffered by the Lincoln family in Indiana that\nleaves no room for romance--husband, wife, two children, and later an\nold couple, were forced to pig together all winter in a brush camp open\non one side to the weather, with only a fire in front for cooking and\nheating--a mode of life below that of the Indian in his skin teepee.\nAnd then a mysterious disease fell upon them, virulent and fateful,\nand the old couple were taken from their cots on the ground and put\naway beneath the soil to find what rest they might there. That men\nshould break and women go mad under such strain is no more than may be\nexpected of human nature. Beret, the wife of Per Hansa, brooding in her\nsod-hut in Dakota, afraid of life and of her own thoughts, and turning\nfor comfort to a dark religion, is a type of thousands of frontier\nwomen who--as the historian Ridpath said of his parents--\u201ctoiled and\nsuffered and died that their children might inherit the promise.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nVery likely we should have felt the tragedy of the frontier long\nago if we had been as much concerned with inner experience as with\noutward act, if we had been psychologists as well as chroniclers.\nBut we have been too prone to romanticize the objective reality and\ndisguise slatternly ways with the garb of backwoods independence. The\nrealistic eighteenth century made no such mistake. Such infrequent\nglimpses of the first frontier as we catch in our early literature\nsuggest a swift descent into grossness as the settlements were left\nbehind. In the _Journal of Madam Sarah Knight_, which dates from the\nopening years of the eighteenth century, are brief notes of what fell\nunder her sharp eyes on a horseback trip from Boston to New York. The\nsketches she has penciled are far from bucolic. Certain of the figures\nthat emerge casually from her pages are no other than decivilized\ngrotesques--animal-like creatures for whom returning to a state of\nnature meant living filthily in mean huts, traveling back centuries\ntoward the primitive ways of the cavemen. Of the emotional reactions of\nthese early children of the wilderness Madam Knight tells us nothing;\nso casual an observer would have no opportunity to penetrate beneath\nthe unlovely surface.\n\nA quarter century later Colonel William Byrd, the first gentleman of\nVirginia, wrote his graphic _History of the Dividing Line_, an account\nof a boundary survey run between the colonies of Virginia and South\nCarolina. As the survey leaves the seacoast behind and approaches the\nfrontier, the same characteristics appear that Madam Knight noted--a\nrough and surly independence, a dislike of established law and order,\nand a shiftless way of life that is content to subsist off the country.\n\u201cLubberland,\u201d Colonel Byrd called the Carolina backwoods where a new\nrace of poor whites was springing up--a rude decivilized existence that\nbore heavily on the women and was heedless of the common amenities of\nsocial life. In _Letters from an American Farmer_ (1773) written by\nSt. John de Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur, a cultivated Norman who established himself\nin the colonies after serving in the French army under Montcalm, the\nsame sharp judgment is passed on the frontier. Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur was of the\nromantic school of Rousseau and eloquent in praise of life lived close\nto nature, yet even he discovers the frontier to be a blot on colonial\ncivilization, the abode of rude and lawless figures who precede by a\ndecade the sober army of occupation.\n\nIn the eighteenth century the testimony is clear that the\nfrontiersmen--or \u201cborderers,\u201d as they were commonly called--were rough\nbumptious fellows who fled the settlements partly because of a dislike\nof ordered and seemly ways. The colonial gentry, men like the Rev.\nTimothy Dwight, held them in deep contempt and rejoiced when they\nquitted the settlements and plunged deep into the wilderness beyond\nthe jurisdiction of church and state. Lawlessness, shiftlessness, a\npassion like Jurgen\u2019s to follow after their own wishes and their own\ndesires, seem to have been the characteristics of these rude men and\nslatternly women, as the aristocratic eighteenth century judged them.\nThat is very far from the whole story, to be sure. Our later historians\nhave made clear that from this same leveling frontier issued the\nspirit of American democracy, and that from these rough individualists\ncame the great movement of Jacksonianism that swept away the class\ndistinctions of an earlier century. Accepting so much, and recognizing\nthe part played by the frontier in shaping the institutions and the\npsychology of America, it remains true, nevertheless, that the lot of\nthe backwoodsman was hard and the price he paid in civilization for his\nfreedom was great. The sod house of the Dakota plains was only a late\nadaptation of the primitive huts that were strung along the earlier\nfrontier. What loneliness filled the hearts of the drab women who made\nhoecakes and dressed deer skins, what rebellions at their lot stirred\ndumbly within them, no record remains to tell and no literature has\ncared to concern itself about.\n\nIt was not till the nineteenth century that authentic accounts of the\nfrontier, written by men who had come out of it, began to appear,\nyet even then in too scant volume. In Longstreet\u2019s _Georgia Scenes_,\nJoseph G. Baldwin\u2019s _Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi_, and Davy\nCrockett\u2019s _Autobiography_, the frontier is painted in homely colors\nthat time cannot fade. Their brisk pages seem to have been dipped\nin the butternut dye-pot of the backwoods cabin. By far the most\nsignificant of them is the braggart but na\u00efvely truthful narrative\nof the life of Cane-brake Davy who in his several removals followed\nthe advancing frontier the length of the State of Tennessee. Davy\nwould seem to have been the authentic backwoodsman, and the life of\nthe individual may be taken as a description of the genus. Restless,\nassertive, unsocial, buoyantly optimistic and obsessed with the faith\nthat better land lay farther west, cultivating a bumptious wit that\nwas a defense mechanism against the meanness of daily life, he was\nonly an improvident child who fled instinctively from civilization.\nAs a full-length portrait of the Jacksonian leveler, in the days when\nthe great social revolution was establishing the principles of an\nequalitarian democracy, the picture is of vast significance. But it\nis incomplete. Concerning the wife and daughters who were dragged at\nhis heels in the successive removals, the narrative is silent. It is a\nman\u2019s tale, unenriched by the emotional experiences of a woman, and as\nsuch it tells only half the story of the frontier.\n\nThe _Autobiography_ was the last pungent note of realism before the\nromantic revolution swept over American literature; and it was not till\ntwo generations later, when the war was over and the glories of the\nGilded Age were fading, that the frontier came to realistic expression\nagain in the works of Hamlin Garland. _Main-Travelled Roads_, the first\nchapter in the tale of the Middle Border, is a prologue to _Giants in\nthe Earth_, telling the story of the prairie settlement in the idiom\nof the generation that undertook the great adventure. In these brief\ntales is compressed the harsh temper of the eighties, when the spirit\nof revolt was running like wildfire across the prairies and the Middle\nBorder was arming for battle. For a decade or more the farmers\u2019 affairs\nhad been out of kilter, and a note of discontent had begun to appear\nin fiction. Before Garland, western life had been dealt with by Edward\nEggleston in _The Hoosier Schoolmaster_ and _The Circuit Rider_, and\nmore searchingly by Ed Howe in _The Story of a Country Town_--a drab\ncommentary on life in Atchison, Kansas, in the early eighties. But\nit is in Joseph Kirkland\u2019s _Zury, The Meanest Man in Spring County_\n(1887), that a deep sense of the meanness of frontier life is first\nadequately felt. The harsh constrictions of pioneer existence tightened\nabout Zury as a boy when his father was struggling with debt, turning a\nnaturally generous nature into a skinflint mortgage grabber. He early\nlearned that he must fight to survive, and as a result his life was\nshut up in a narrow round of sordid accumulation. It was the poverty of\nthe frontier, in Kirkland\u2019s eyes, that was the great hardship.\n\nHamlin Garland\u2019s more adequate story of the Middle Border, beginning\nmilitantly with _Main-Travelled Roads_ (1887-92) and flowering in the\nidyllic saga of the Garlands and McClintocks (1914), is a chronicle\nthat grows more significant as the times it deals with draw further\ninto the past. Throughout his interpretation run two dominant notes:\nthe promise of future fulfillment when the prairies have been brought\nunder the plow--the Per Hansa note of pioneer optimism; and then\nlater, rising slowly into a ground swell, a note of discouragement\nsuggesting the utter futility of a laborious existence. Underlying\n_Main-Travelled Roads_ is a mood of bitterness that springs from a deep\nsense of failure--a mood that grew harsher with the economic depression\nof the Middle Border in the eighties. The harvest was not fulfilling\nthe expectations of seed time, and the bow of promise was gone from\nthe prairie fields. The figures of bitter men and despondent women\nfill his pages and darken the colors of his realism. It is the cost of\nit all that depresses him--the toll exacted of human happiness. These\nearly studies of Garland\u2019s strike the first note of the tragedy of\nthe frontier. Starkly objective, they are sociological sketches, the\nmilitant expression of a rebellious mood that had been deepening since\nthe panic of 1873 burst the romantic bubble of frontier hopes. The\nhistory of two decades of economic maladjustment, with their Granger\nPopulism, their passionate resentment at the favoritisms of government,\ntheir blind striking out at the plutocracy that was visibly rising amid\nthe American democracy, is compressed within a few acrid tales that\nproposed to tell the plain truth about life on the Middle Border farm.\n_Main-Travelled Roads_ is as complete an expression of the mood of the\nlast years of the century--the outlook upon life, the economic and\npolitical problems, the objective treatment of materials--as _Giants in\nthe Earth_ is an expression of the vastly different outlook and mood of\nour own day.\n\n * * * * *\n\nFor a generation before 1917, when the movement was brought to a\nsudden stop, the mind of America was deeply concerned with problems of\nsociology. The growing spirit of realism was absorbed in politics and\neconomics and concerned itself little with subjective analysis. The\nintellectuals were busily examining the Constitution in the light of\nits economic origins and interpreting American history in the light of\nfrontier experience. The novelists, reflecting the current interests,\nwere fascinated by the phenomena of industrialism and were studying\ncuriously the new race of captains of industry who were weaving a\nstrange pattern of life for America. The city had already come to dwarf\nthe country. Chicago bestrode the Middle Border like a colossus, and\nthe novelists found material for their realism in the cut-throat ways\nof business men. Their stories--harsh and strident as the grinding\nwheels on the overhead \u201cLoop\u201d--were set against a background of\nsprawling cities hastening to grow big, where the battles of giants\nwere fought and where the _milieu_--a vast network of impersonal\nforces--was more significant than the individual men and women who\nwere borne onward in the stream of tendency to submerge or rise as\nchance determined. A note of stark determinism runs through much of\nthe work; but it was a determinism of environing forces--the objective\nworld of the machine--rather than of character, and in consequence the\ndeeper concern of fiction was sociological, the understanding of this\nimpersonal machine order and the subduing of it to democratic ends.\nIn such a world the farmer and the problems of the Middle Border were\nbecome as old-fashioned as ox-carts.\n\nTen years later, when _Giants in the Earth_ was published, such\nobjective treatment of materials was no longer the vogue. Since the\nwar a revolutionary shift of interest has taken place, a shift from\nthe sociological to the psychological. It is no longer the world of\nobjective fact that obtrudes as the significant reality, but the\nsubtler world of emotional experience, the furtive inner life of\nimpulse and desire that Sherwood Anderson probes so curiously. The\nchange of theme was first marked, perhaps, by _Spoon River Anthology_,\nwith its mordant sketches of stunted and thwarted lives that Mr.\nMasters professes to regard as the natural harvest of a sterile village\nlife. _Spoon River Anthology_ is bitter in its sardonic rebellion\nagainst the genial optimisms of the \u201cValley of Democracy.\u201d From the\nepic thrust of expansion issued, as its natural progeny, a race of\nabortive grotesques, starved figures which suggest to Mr. Masters the\ncost in human values of severing the ties of kin and kind and throwing\naside like an old shoe the creative wealth of social experience. The\nsoil of the frontier village is too thin for men and women to strike\ndeep root and grow to generous stature.\n\nSince the publication of _Spoon River Anthology_, concern for\npsychological values has pretty much taken possession of our\nliterature. In the lovely pages of Willa Cather\u2019s _O Pioneers!_ and\n_My \u00c1ntonia_ there is revealed a warm sympathy with the emotional life\nof pioneer women and a poignant understanding of their bleak lot.\nBut the analysis--as in Hamlin Garland\u2019s work--draws back from the\nthreshold of final tragedy, pausing before it has penetrated to the\nhidden core of futility. The waste of all finer values exacted by the\nprairies is suggested by the queer figures of lonely immigrants who\nfade in the uncongenial environment, but it is not thrust into the\nforeground to dominate the scene. The vast stretches of the prairies\nare there--stern, inhospitable, breeding a dumb homesickness in alien\nhearts--where the red grass bends before the restless winds and the\nforces of nature are not easily tamed; but in the end the prairie is\nsubdued and the scars it has laid on men\u2019s lives are forgotten. Since\nWilla Cather, others have dealt with the West--Ruth Suckow, Margaret\nWilson, and Herbert Quick, to name a few--yet in none of their work\nis there the profound insight and imaginative grasp of the theme that\ngives to _Giants in the Earth_ so great a sense of tragic reality.\n\nIn this creative return to the theme of the great American adventure\nthe causes of human failure lie deeper than politics or economics.\nThey are to be found in the impersonal forces of nature that are too\npowerful for the human will to cope with; and in the hidden weakness\nof fearful souls that cannot live when their roots have been pulled up\nfrom the congenial home soil. For all his titanic labors, Per Hansa,\nthe viking, is struck down at last. There are few nobler passages in\nour fiction--the more telling for its restraint--than the final scene\nwhere, driven inexorably by circumstance, Per Hansa sets forth into the\nFebruary blizzard to fetch a minister to the bedside of his stricken\ncomrade. The note of determinism is there, subtle, pervasive. The Norns\nof his fathers had decreed that it should be so--in the urgings of the\nmystical Beret, in the dumb pleadings of the dying Hans Olsa and his\nbroken-hearted wife. Per Hansa the strong, the capable one who never\nfailed, who was cunning enough to outwit fate itself--Per Hansa would\ngo out into the storm and return with the minister who would point\nthe way to heaven to the troubled Hans Olsa. And so, driven by all\nthe imperatives of fate, he sets out, skis on his feet and others at\nhis back, to face the last great adventure. The blinding snow quickly\nwraps him about, the cold grips his heart, and Per Hansa is seen no\nmore until on a soft May day, when the wheat is green in his fields and\nthe corn is ready for planting, he is found seated by a haystack, his\nskis beside him and his face turned to the untrodden West. For all the\nheroic labors of Per Hansa, for all the tragic loneliness of Beret, the\nend is futility.\n\nAnd Beret, the sick one, likewise is in the hands of the Norns. She had\nsinned through love of Per Hansa, and in the long brooding hours on\nthe Dakota plains her mind gives way. She cannot rise to Per Hansa\u2019s\ndelight in the newborn son. Peder Victorious--symbol of Per Hansa\u2019s\nbuoyant faith--for her is only another evidence of sin. This dark land\nof Dakota is marked by God\u2019s displeasure, and life for her becomes\na silent struggle of renunciation and atonement. A primitive Norse\nCalvinist, victimized by a brooding imagination that sees more devils\nthan vast hell can hold, she dwells \u201con the border of utter darkness\u201d\nwhere the forces of good and evil struggle for the human soul. Across\nthe gloomy Puritanism of her nature fall the shadows of an older and\ndarker faith, and in her nostalgia the old Northland superstitions\nmerge with the somber Northland religion to her undoing. The tragedy of\nBeret works itself out in the tender corridors of her own heart and,\nas Professor Commager has suggested, it is as universal as the tragedy\nof Goethe\u2019s Margarethe. In his portrayal of the \u201csick soul\u201d of Beret\nhungering for the far homeland the Norse artist has achieved a triumph.\nThe epic conquest of the continent must be read in the light of women\u2019s\nsufferings as well as in that of men\u2019s endurance. In whichever light it\nis read, it becomes something far more suggestive than a drab tale of\nfrontier poverty or a sordid tale of frontier exploitation; it becomes\nvital and significant as life itself.\n\n_Giants in the Earth_ is a great and beautiful book that suggests the\nwealth of human potentialities brought to America year after year by\nthe peasant immigrants who pass through Ellis Island and scatter the\nlength and breadth of the land. Written in Norwegian, and stemming\nfrom a rich old-world literary tradition, it is at the same time\ndeeply and vitally American. The very atmosphere of the Dakota plains\nis in its pages, and it could have been written only by one to whom\nthe background was a familiar scene. The artist has lived with these\npeasant folk; he is one of them, and he penetrates sympathetically to\nthe simple kindly hearts hidden to alien eyes by the unfamiliar folk\nways. To gather up and preserve in letters these diverse folk strains\nbefore they are submerged and lost in the common American _mores_,\nwould seem to be a business that our fiction might undertake with\nprofit.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOle Edvart R\u00f6lvaag is himself a viking of the Per Hansa strain. Born\nof fisher folk, 22 April, 1876, on the island of Donna at the very\nedge of the Arctic circle, he took his name, following a common\nNorwegian custom, from the name of a cove on the shores of which he\nwas brought up. It is a land barren except for the gorse and heather,\nand the long winter nights and the restless sea were certain to bring\nthe imagination under their somber spell. At the age of fourteen,\ndiscouraged from further schooling by the family that contrasted him\nunfavorably with a brilliant brother, he turned fisherman, and for\nfive years went off to the Lofoten Islands some two hundred miles away\nfor the winter catches. Distrustful of the future, he made his great\ndecision to come to America, landing in New York in 1896 with only a\nrailway ticket to South Dakota. In the great West, still turmoiled\nby the agrarian upheaval of the nineties, he joined an uncle who had\nprovided him transportation money, tried his hand at farming, worked at\nother jobs, and at the age of twenty-three, not having found himself,\nhe turned once more to the formal business of schooling. In the fall\nof 1899 he entered Augustana College, a preparatory school in Canton,\nSouth Dakota. From there he went to St. Olaf College, Northfield,\nMinnesota, graduating in 1905 at the age of twenty-eight. After a year\nat the University of Oslo in Norway, he joined the staff of St. Olaf\nCollege, where he is now Professor of Norwegian Literature. In the\nlarger sense, however, his education has been got from life, which he\nseems to have lived with a rich and daring intensity; and it is his\nown venturesome experience, certainly, that finds expression in the\ncreative realism and brooding imagination of his work. Intellectually\nand artistically he is of the excellent old-world culture. How greatly\nhis professional studies determined his literary technique only a\ncompetent Norwegian critic can judge; yet it is worth while comparing\n_Giants in the Earth_ with Johan Bojer\u2019s _The Emigrants_--a work which,\nwhen announced as being in preparation, dramatically influenced his own\nnovel.\n\n\nThe Short Story[844]\n\n_Introduction._ With the ferment of the seventies and eighties a new\nschool of literature, that was effectively a denial of the genteel\ntradition: it was effectively a popularization--a taking it out of the\nsevere realm of the _Atlantic Monthly_. It was an appeal to the middle\nclass. From Henry James to Hamlin Garland a steady shift from right to\nleft. This implied:\n\n1. A shift from genteel to homely material.\n\n2. A shift to realism from the earlier sentimentality. This genteel\ntradition constantly cropping out anew--in Margaret Deland, in a\nchanged form in Zona Gale. It has been strongest in New England--from\nRose Terry Cooke through Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Wilkins.\n\nThe short story commonly believed to be peculiarly representative of\nour genius--the stripping-away of the superfluous and the love of\ntechnical refinement. Derived from Poe and Hawthorne: both artists yet\nfar removed from the tendencies which have controlled the development\nof the short story since.\n\n_Theme._ The American short story has dealt largely with the two great\nthemes of all romance, love and adventure. The form constitutes the\ngreat staple--is largely provided by women for women. The handling of\nthis love theme reveals the inevitable shift from the genteel tradition\nto middle-class efficiency, and the spirit of the change is revealed\nin the changing dress of the heroine. In the seventies, crinoline,\ninnumerable flounces of white muslin, lace parasols--no tan, no\nfreckles, but a gentle pallor. Such dress and such heroines will exude\nsentiment. It will concern itself with atmosphere. Action brisk and\nefficient will appear unladylike, almost vulgar. What a change when the\nheroine clothes herself in a silk flour-sack--showing silk stockings,\nbare arms and neck--cultivating tan and freckles, bobbing her hair,\ngoing in for automobiles and golf and tennis! The older heroine dwelt\nin a world of sentiment without sex; the present-day heroine lives in\na world of sex interest without sentiment. The more flounces in life\nand literature, the less the animal is exposed. Hence action has\nsuperseded sentiment--plot has superseded atmosphere. The hero becomes\na Hart, Schaffner and Marx young business man and the middle-class note\nis struck loudly in the honk of the motor-car. The genteel tradition is\nlaid away with the flowers.\n\n_Major Influences during the Sixties._ Through the fifties, and sixties\nliterature uncertain and halting. The style largely set by old-world\nfashions. Three in particular:\n\n1. Influence of Charlotte and Emily Bronte. A sort of sentimental and\nmawkish passion. Stilted style, as in Harriet Beecher Stowe. This\nfell in with the Irving note of the picturesque and was exploited in\n_Godey\u2019s Lady\u2019s Book_.\n\n2. Influence of Dickens. At its height in the fifties: an emphasis upon\nthe vulgar--plain and homely characters. Exploited in the _Atlantic_ by\nLowell. So Rose Terry Cooke in _Miss Lucinda_ (1861).\n\n3. Influence of the French realistic movement: Balzac, Flaubert. Only a\nfaint beginning. Still a lot of romance stuff but given a local color\nand garnished with humor.\n\n_Counter Tendencies._ The inevitable development of the middle-class\ncity and the middle-class magazine, persistently affected by certain\nthrow-backs to an older American tradition. America is of the city\ntoday, but day before yesterday it was still country, and in the\nbackgrounds of our minds is a country setting and love of simple\npeople. Three main tendencies:\n\n1. The discovery of the local. The picturesqueness of the strange and\nremote in character, manners, speech. The charm of dialect and interest\nin out-of-the-way places. This a reaction from too much pavement\nand the rubbing-down of individual differences from city contact.\n\u201cCharacters\u201d are bred in isolated places. This the dominant note in\nthe short story from 1870 to 1900: to follow it from Bret Harte on is\nalmost to write a history of the short story. It does not dominate the\nlonger story. Constance Fenimore Woolson.\n\n2. The discovery of \u201chuman interest.\u201d The feeling that men in the\nrough--with the bark on--may prove more interesting than the products\nof an artificial civilization. This had been spread by Dickens and by\ncertain of the _Atlantic_ writers.\n\n3. The growing interest in realism. At first confused with the\ncommonplace--so Pattee in his comment on Rose Terry Cooke\u2019s _Miss\nLucinda_. A good deal of this earlier work is only another form of\nromance--little affected by the rising French movement. Realism was\nto come slowly and late. All three of these made against the genteel\ntradition.\n\n_Henry James._ His position peculiar. From his youth _d\u00e9racin\u00e9_--his\nfather hated American vulgarity, American journalism, and would not\npermit his son to take root. He grew up with an aristocratic conception\nof civilization--his sole interest lay in such civilization, and the\nmanners of the polite society of that civilization. No other American\nhas so hated and feared contamination from the vulgar. He was thus the\nlast flower of the Genteel Tradition, transplanted to an environment\nmore congenial. As the middle-class became more clamorous, he withdrew\nto the Continent, to England, where the older ideas still lingered.\nThere in the spirit of the realist he wrote with refined art and\npersistent detachment--even to a punctilious and princely refinement.\nAs Mr. Howells says, \u201cTo enjoy his work, to feel its rare excellence,\nboth in conception and expression, is a brevet of intellectual good\nform.\u201d\n\n_His World._ Always that of the spender, of assured position. His main\ninterest lies in women; their refinement appeals to his refinement--no\nflappers or vulgarians but elegantly gowned women who never did the\nfamily washing. He is concerned with that which is dearest to the heart\nof aristocracy--standards of excellence. And in this he was true to his\nconception of civilization, for civilization begins after a competence\nhas been assured. Those who are struggling to acquire have not the\nleisure, the inclination, for civilization. Hence _Daisy Miller_ is a\ntype of much of his work--the contrast between civilized Europe and\nuncivilized America, the one with standards of culture and manners\nand the other vulgarian. And his interest in American women results\nfrom the fact that they alone in America care for civilization and are\npainfully seeking to achieve it.\n\n_His Realism._ The beginnings of the movement which has been called\npsychological realism, concerning itself with motives and processes of\nthought--the inner life. Developed by Bourget and far more fully by\nDorothy Richardson in such a book as _Pilgrimage_, the inner life of\nMiriam Henderson in many volumes. Far removed from later psychological\nfiction founded on Freudian theory--as in D. H. Lawrence, Sherwood\nAnderson. Again the genteel tradition dealing with people who in the\nmain have genteel impulses only. James held in horror this later\nnaturalism--it was merely vulgarian.\n\n_The Spirit of the Local._ Into this prim world with its incipient\nrealism came the note of the Far West: Mark Twain and Bret Harte, who\nset a new style--the romantic, picturesque, human-interest story. This\nis a part of the Pike County idea of literature--a native rogue-tale\nbut with touches of sentiment and shortened to effective form. This\nfollowed by Eggleston\u2019s _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ (1871) and this in turn\nby the flood of local work of the eighties. The most notable the work\nof Charles Egbert Craddock, Joel Chandler Harris, Sarah Orne Jewett,\nand Mary Wilkins. The first discovered the hill people, the second\ndiscovered the Negro--his primitive folk-poetry. In the work of the\nlast, a struggle between the genteel tradition and realism--and the\nfinal triumph of the latter.\n\n\nA Chapter in American Liberalism[845]\n\nLiberals whose hair is growing thin and the lines of whose figures are\nno longer what they were, are likely to find themselves today in the\nunhappy predicament of being treated as mourners at their own funerals.\nWhen they pluck up heart to assert that they are not yet authentic\ncorpses, but living men with brains in their heads, they are pretty\ncertain to be gently chided and led back to the comfortable armchair\nthat befits senility. Their counsel is smiled at as the chatter of a\nbelated post-Victorian generation that knew not Freud, and if they\nmust go abroad they are bidden take the air in the garden where other\nold-fashioned plants--mostly of the family _Democratici_--are still\npreserved. It is not pleasant for them. It is hard to be dispossessed\nby one\u2019s own heirs, and especially hard when those heirs, in the\ncheerful ignorance of youth, forget to acknowledge any obligations\nto a hard-working generation that laid by a very substantial body of\nintellectual wealth, the income from which the heirs are spending\nwithout even a \u201cThank you.\u201d If therefore the middle-aged liberal\noccasionally grows irritable and indulges in caustic comment on the\nwisdom of talkative young men it may be set down as the prerogative of\nthe armchair age and lightly forgiven.\n\nYet in sober fact there are the solidest reasons for such irritation.\nThe younger liberals who love to tweak the nose of democracy are\ntoo much enamored of what they find in their own mirrors. They are\nindisputably clever, they are spouting geysers of smart and cynical\ntalk, they have far outrun their fathers in the free handling\nof ancient tribal totems--but they are afflicted with the short\nperspective of youth that finds a vanishing-point at the end of its\nown nose. There is no past for them beyond yesterday. They are having\nso good a time playing with ideas that it does not occur to them to\nquestion the validity of their intellectual processes or to inquire\ninto the origins of the ideas they have adopted so blithely. Gaily\nengaged in smashing _bourgeois_ idols, the young intellectuals are too\nbusy to realize that it was the older generation that provided them\nwith a hammer and pointed out the idols to be smashed. It is the way of\nyouth.\n\nMiddle-aged liberals--let it be said by way of defense--at least know\ntheir history. They were brought up in a great age of liberalism--an\nage worthy to stand beside the golden forties of last century--and\nthey went to school to excellent teachers. Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Karl\nMarx, Haeckel, Taine, William James, Henry George, were masters of\nwhich no school in any age need feel ashamed; nor were such tutors and\nundermasters as Ruskin, William Morris, Matthew Arnold, Lester Ward,\nWalt Whitman, Henry Adams, to be dismissed as incompetent. To the\nsolution of the vexing problems entailed by industrialism--in America\nas well as in Europe--was brought all the knowledge that had been\naccumulating for a century. It was a time of re\u00ebvaluations when much\nsubstantial thinking was done; when the flood of light that came with\nthe doctrine of biological evolution lay brilliant on the intellectual\nlandscape and the dullest mind caught some of the reflection. Few of\nthe young scholars attended the lectures of Friedrich Nietzsche, and\nbehavioristic psychology had not yet got into the curriculum; but Ladd\nand James were inquiring curiously into the mechanism of the brain, and\nanimal psychology was preparing the way for the later Freudians. It was\nthe end of an age perhaps, the rich afterglow of the Enlightenment, but\nthe going down of the sun was marked by sunset skies that gave promise\nof other and greater dawns.\n\nTo have spent one\u2019s youth in such a school was a liberal education.\nThe mind opened of its own will. Intellectual horizons were daily\nwidening and the new perspectives ran out into cosmic spaces. The cold\nfrom those outer spaces had not yet chilled the enthusiasms that were\na heritage from the Enlightenment, and the social idealism begotten by\nthe democratic nature school still looked confidently to the future.\nThey were ardent democrats--the young liberals of the nineties--and\nnone doubted the finality or sufficiency of the democratic principle,\nany more than Mill or Spencer had doubted it. All their history and\nall their biology justified it, and the business of the times was to\nmake it prevail in the sphere of economics as it prevailed in the\nrealm of the political. The cure for the evils of democracy was held\nto be more democracy, and when industrialism had been brought under\nits sway--when America had become an economic democracy--a just and\nhumane civilization would be on the threshold of possibility. To the\nachievement of that great purpose the young liberals devoted themselves\nand the accomplishments of the next score of years were the work of\ntheir hands. Certain intellectuals had been democrats--Paine and\nJefferson and Emerson and Thoreau and Whitman and Melville--but they\nwere few in comparison with the skeptical Whigs who professed democracy\nonly to bind its hands. The Republican party had not been democratic\nsince former days--and as Henry Adams said in 1880, it was accounted\nfoolishness to believe in it in 1880. Autocracy was a toy to distract\nthe voting man from the business of money-getting.\n\nIt was from such a school--richer in intellectual content, one might\nargue, than any the younger liberals have frequented--that the ferment\nof twenty years ago issued; a school dedicated to the ideals of the\nEnlightenment and bent on carrying through the unfulfilled program\nof democracy. Democratic aspirations had been thwarted hitherto by\nthe uncontrolled play of the acquisitive instinct; the immediate\nproblem of democracy was the control of that instinct in the common\ninterest. Economics had controlled the political state to its narrow\nand selfish advantage; it was for the political state to resume its\nsovereignty and extend its control over economics. So in the spirit of\nthe Enlightenment the current liberalism dedicated itself to history\nand sociology, accepting as its immediate and particular business a\nre\u00ebxamination of the American past in order to forecast an ampler\ndemocratic future. It must trace the rise of political power in America\nin order to understand how that power had fallen into the unsocial\nhands of economics. The problem was difficult. American political\nhistory had been grossly distorted by partisan interpretation and\npolitical theory had been dissipated by an arid constitutionalism. The\nspeculative thinker had long been dispossessed by the eulogist and\nthe lawyer, both of whom had subsisted on a thin gruel of patriotic\nmyths. Even the social historians, though dealing in materials rich in\nsuggestion, had been diffident in the matter of interpretation, without\nwhich history is no more than the dry bones of chronicle. Inheriting\nno adequate philosophy of historical evolution, the young school of\nhistorians must first provide themselves with one, in the light of\nwhich the American past should take on meaning, and the partisan\nstruggles, hitherto meaningless, should fall into comprehensible\npatterns.\n\nThat necessary work was to engage them for years, but in the meanwhile,\nas critical realists, their immediate business was with facts and the\ninterpretation of facts. John Fiske a few years before had essayed to\ninterpret the rise of democracy in America by analogy from biological\nevolution, tracing the source of American democracy to the New England\ntown meeting, which he explained as a resurgence of ancient Teutonic\nfolk-ways. The theory was tenuous and it was not till Professor Turner\ndrew attention to the creative influence of the frontier on American\nlife that the historians were provided with a suggestive working\nhypothesis. Before that hypothesis could be adequately explored,\nhowever, and brought into just relations to a comprehensive philosophy\nof history, the rise of liberalism was well under way, marked by a\nrich ferment of thought that made the early years of the new century\nsingularly stimulating. That ferment resulted from pouring into the\nvial of native experience the reagent of European theory--examining the\nways of American industrialism in the light of continental socialism;\nand the result was an awakening of popular interest in social control\nof economics, a widespread desire to bring an expanding industrialism\ninto subjection to a rational democratic program, that was to provide\nabundant fuel to the social unrest that had burst forth in sporadic\nflames for a generation. The great movement of liberalism that took\npossession of the American mind after the turn of the century--a\nmovement not unworthy to be compared with the ferment of the eighteen\nforties--was the spontaneous reaction of an America still only half\nurbanized, still clinging to ideals and ways of an older simpler\nAmerica, to an industrialism that was driving its plowshare through\nthe length and breadth of the familiar scene, turning under the rude\nfurrows what before had been growing familiarly there. It was the first\nreaction of America to the revolutionary change that followed upon the\nexhaustion of the frontier--an attempt to secure through the political\nstate the freedoms that before had come from unpre\u00ebmpted opportunity.\n\nFor a quarter of a century following the great westward expansion\nof the late sixties America had been drifting heedlessly towards a\ndifferent social order. The shambling frontier democracy that had\nsufficed an earlier time was visibly breaking down in presence of the\nimperious power of a centralizing capitalism. The railways were a\ndramatic embodiment of the new machine civilization that was running\nhead on into a primitive social organism fashioned by the old domestic\neconomy, and the disruptions and confusions were a warning that the\ncountry was in for vast changes. New masters, new ways. The rule of the\ncaptain of industry had come. The farmers had long been in ugly mood,\nbut their great rebellion was put down in 1896, and never again could\nthey hope to wrest sovereignty from capitalism. The formal adoption\nof the gold standard in 1900 served notice to the world that America\nhad put away its democratic agrarianism, that a shambling Jacksonian\nindividualism had had its day, and that henceforth the destiny of the\ncountry lay in the hands of its business men. Capitalism was master\nof the country and though for the present it was content to use the\npolitical machinery of democracy it was driving towards an objective\nthat was the negation of democracy.\n\nThe immediate reaction to so broad a shift in the course of manifest\ndestiny was a growing uneasiness amongst the middle class--small\nbusiness and professional men--who looked with fear upon the program\nof the captains of industry. Industrialization brought its jars and\nupsets. The little fish did not enjoy being swallowed by the big, and\nas they watched the movement of economic centralization encroaching\non the field of competition they saw the doors of opportunity closing\nto them. It was to this great body of _petite bourgeoisie_ that\nmembers of the lesser intellectuals--journalists, sociologists,\nreformers--were to make appeal. The work was begun dramatically with\nthe spectacularly advertised _Frenzied Finance_, written by Thomas W.\nLawson, and appearing as a series in _McClure\u2019s Magazine_ in 1903. The\nimmense popular success of the venture proved that the fire was ready\nfor the fat, and at once a host of volunteer writers fell to feeding\nthe flames. The new ten-cent magazines provided the necessary vehicle\nof publicity, and enterprising editors were soon increasing their\ncirculations with every issue. As it became evident how popular was the\nchord that had been struck, more competent workmen joined themselves to\nthe group of journalists: novelists--a growing army of them--essayists,\nhistorians, political scientists, philosophers, a host of heavy-armed\ntroops that moved forward in a frontal attack on the strongholds of the\nnew plutocracy. Few writers in the years between 1903 and 1917 escaped\nbeing drawn into the movement--an incorrigible romantic perhaps, like\nthe young James Branch Cabell, or a cool patrician like Edith Wharton;\nand with such popular novelists as Winston Churchill, Robert Herrick,\nErnest Poole, David Graham Phillips, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London\nembellishing the rising liberalism with dramatic heroes and villains,\nand dressing their salads with the wickedness of Big Business; with\nsuch political leaders as Bob La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt and\nWoodrow Wilson beating up the remotest villages for recruits; with such\nscholars as Thorstein Veblen, Charles A. Beard, and John Dewey, and\nsuch lawyers as Louis Brandeis, Frank P. Walsh, and Samuel Untermyer,\nthe movement gathered such momentum and quickened such a ferment as\nhad not been known before in the lands since the days of the Abolition\ncontroversy. The mind and conscience of America were stirred to their\nlowest sluggish stratum, and a democratic renaissance was all aglow on\nthe eastern horizon.\n\nAt the core it was a critical realistic movement that spread quietly\namongst intellectuals, but the nebulous tail of the comet blazed across\nthe sky for all to wonder at: and it was the tail rather than the core\nthat aroused the greatest immediate interest. Lincoln Steffens, Charles\nEdward Russell, Ida Tarbell, Gustavus Myers, and Upton Sinclair were\nread eagerly because they dealt with themes that many were interested\nin--the political machine, watered stock, Standard Oil, the making of\ngreat fortunes, and the like--and they invested their exposures with\nthe dramatic interest of a detective story. Up to 1910 it was largely\na muckraking movement--to borrow President Roosevelt\u2019s picturesque\nphrase; a time of brisk housecleaning that searched out old cobwebs\nand disturbed the dust that lay thick on the antiquated furniture.\nThe Gilded Age had been slovenly and such a housecleaning was long\noverdue. There was a vast amount of nosing about to discover bad\nsmells, and to sensitive noses the bad smells seemed to be everywhere.\nEvidently some hidden cesspool was fouling American life, and as the\ninquisitive plumbers tested the household drains they came upon the\nsource of infection--not one cesspool but many, under every city hall\nand beneath every state capitol--dug secretly by politicians in the pay\nof respectable business men. It was these cesspools that were poisoning\nthe national household, and there would be no health in America till\nthey were filled in and no others dug.\n\nIt was a dramatic discovery and when the corruption of American\npolitics was laid on the threshold of business--like a bastard on the\ndoorsteps of the father--a tremendous disturbance resulted. There was\na great fluttering and clamor amongst the bats and owls, an ominous\ncreaking of the machine as the wrenches were thrown into the well-oiled\nwheels, and a fierce sullen anger at the hue and cry set up. To many\nhonest Americans the years between 1903 and 1910 were abusive and\nscurrilous beyond decency, years when no man and no business, however\nhonorable, was safe from the pillory; when wholesale exposure had grown\nprofitable to sensation-mongers, and great reputations were lynched\nby vigilantes and reputable corporations laid under indictment at the\nbar of public opinion. Respectable citizens did not like to have their\ngoodly city held up to the world as \u201ccorrupt and contented\u201d; they did\nnot like to have their municipal housekeeping brought into public\ndisrepute no matter how sluttish it might be. It was not pleasant for\nmembers of great families to read a cynical history of the origins of\ntheir fortunes, or for railway presidents seeking political favors to\nfind on the newsstand a realistic account of the bad scandals that had\nsmirched their roads. It was worse than unpleasant, it was hurtful to\nbusiness. And so quietly, and as speedily as could be done decently,\nthe movement was brought to a stop by pressure put on the magazines\nthat lent themselves to such harmful disclosures. Then followed a\ncampaign of education. Responding to judicious instruction, conducted\nin the columns of the most respectable newspapers, the American public\nwas soon brought to understand that it was not the muck that was\nharmful, but the indiscretion of those who commented in print on the\nbad smells. It was reckoned a notable triumph for sober and patriotic\ngood sense.\n\nSo after a few years of amazing activity the muckraking movement came\nto a stop. But not before it had done its work; not before the American\nmiddle class had been indoctrinated in the elementary principles of\npolitical realism and had rediscovered the social conscience lost\nsince the days of the Civil War. Many a totem had been thrown down by\nthe irreverent hands of the muckrakers, and many a fetish held up to\nridicule, and plutocracy in America would not recover its peace of\nmind until at great cost the totems should be set up again and the\nfetishes reanointed with the oil of sanctity. The substantial result\nof the movement was the instruction it afforded in the close kinship\nbetween business and politics--a lesson greatly needed by a people long\nfed on romantic unrealities. It did not crystallize for the popular\nmind in the broad principle of economic determinism; that remained\nfor certain of the intellectuals to apply to American experience.\nBut with its sordid object--service--it punished the flabby optimism\nof the Gilded Age, with its object-lessons in business politics; it\nrevealed the hidden hand that was pulling the strings of the political\npuppets; it tarnished the gilding that had been carefully laid on\nour callous exploitation, and it brought under common suspicion the\ncaptain of industry who had risen as a national hero from the muck of\nindividualism. It was a sharp guerilla attack on the sacred American\nSystem, but behind the thin skirmish-line lay a volunteer army that was\nmaking ready to deploy for a general engagement with plutocracy.\n\nWith the flood of light thrown upon the fundamental law by the\nhistorians, the movement of liberalism passed quickly through\nsuccessive phases of thought. After the first startled surprise it\nset about the necessary business of acquainting the American people\nwith its findings in the confident belief that a democratic electorate\nwould speedily democratize the instrument. Of this first stage the\nlate Professor J. Allen Smith\u2019s _The Spirit of American Government_\n(1907) was the most adequate expression, a work that greatly influenced\nthe program of the rising Progressive Party. But changes came swiftly\nand within half a dozen years the movement had passed from political\nprograms to economic, concerned not so greatly with political democracy\nas with economic democracy. Of this second phase Professor Beard\u2019s\nnotable study, _An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution_ (1913),\nwas the greatest intellectual achievement. Underlying this significant\nwork was a philosophy of politics that set it sharply apart from\npreceding studies--a philosophy that unsympathetic readers were quick\nto attribute to Karl Marx, but that in reality derived from sources\nfar earlier and for Americans at least far more respectable. The\ncurrent conception of the political state as determined in its form\nand activities by economic groups is no modern Marxian perversion of\npolitical theory; it goes back to Aristotle, it underlay the thinking\nof Harrington and Locke and the seventeenth-century English school,\nit shaped the conclusions of Madison and Hamilton and John Adams, it\nran through all the discussions of the Constitutional Convention, and\nit reappeared in the arguments of Webster and Calhoun. It was the\nmain-traveled road of political thought until a new highway was laid\nout by French engineers, who, disliking the bog of economics, surveyed\nanother route by way of romantic equalitarianism. The logic of the\nengineers was excellent, but the drift of politics is little influenced\nby logic, and abstract equalitarianism proved to be poor material for\nhighway construction. In divorcing political theory from contact with\nsobering reality it gave it over to a treacherous romanticism. In\nseeking to avoid the bog of economics it ran into an arid desert.\n\nTo get back once more on the main-traveled road, to put away all\nprofitless romanticisms and turn realist, taking up again the method\nof economic interpretation unused in America since the days of Webster\nand Calhoun, became therefore the business of the second phase of\nliberalism to which Professor Beard applied himself. The earlier\ngroup of liberals were ill equipped to wage successful war against\nplutocracy. Immersed in the traditional equalitarian philosophy, they\nunderestimated the strength of the enemies of democracy. They did\nnot realize what legions of Swiss Guards property can summon to its\ndefense. They were still romantic idealists tilting at windmills,\nand it was to bring them to a sobering sense of reality that _The\nEconomic Interpretation of the Constitution_ was written. If property\nis the master force in every society one cannot understand American\ninstitutional development until one has come to understand the part\nproperty played in shaping the fundamental law. Interpreted thus the\nmyths that had gathered about the Constitution fell away of themselves\nand the document was revealed as English rather than French, the\njudicious expression of substantial eighteenth-century realism that\naccepted the property basis of political action, was skeptical of\nromantic idealisms, and was more careful to protect title-deeds to\nlegal holdings than to claim unsurveyed principalities in Utopia. If\ntherefore liberalism were to accomplish any substantial results it\nmust approach its problems in the same realistic spirit, recognizing\nthe masterful ambitions of property, recruiting democratic forces to\novermaster the Swiss Guards, leveling the strongholds that property had\nerected within the organic law, and taking care that no new strongholds\nshould rise. The problem confronting liberalism was the problem of the\nsubjection of property to social justice.\n\nYet interesting as was the muckraking tail of the comet, far more\nsignificant was the core--the substantial body of knowledge gathered by\nthe scholars and flung into the scale of public opinion. The realities\nof the American past had been covered deep with layers of patriotic\nmyths, provided in simpler days when the young Republic, suffering\nfrom a natural inferiority complex, was building up a defense against\nthe acrid criticism of Tory Europe. Those myths had long since served\ntheir purpose and had become a convenient refuge for the bats and owls\nof the night; it was time to strip them away and apply to the past\nobjective standards of scholarship, and to interpret it in the light\nof an adequate philosophy of history. To this work, so essential to\nany intelligent understanding of the American experiment, a group of\nhistorians and political scientists turned with competent skill, and\nthe solid results of their labor remained after the popular ferment\nsubsided, as a foundation for later liberals to build on.\n\nThe journalistic muckrakers had demonstrated that America was not in\nfact the equalitarian democracy it professed to be, and the scholars\nsupplemented their work by tracing to its historical source the\nweakness of the democratic principle in governmental practice. America\nhad never been a democracy for the sufficient reason that too many\nhandicaps had been imposed upon the majority will. The democratic\nprinciple had been bound with withes like Samson and had become a\nplaything for the Philistines. From the beginning--the scholars\ndiscovered--democracy and property had been at bitter odds; the\nstruggle invaded the Constitutional Convention, it gave form to the\nparty alignment between Hamilton and Jefferson, Jackson and Clay, and\nthen during the slavery struggle, sinking underground like a lost\nriver, it nevertheless had determined party conflicts down to the\npresent. In this ceaseless conflict between the man and the dollar,\nbetween democracy and property, the reasons for persistent triumph of\nproperty were sought in the provisions of the organic law, and from\na critical study of the Constitution came a discovery that struck\nhome like a submarine torpedo--the discovery that the drift toward\nplutocracy was not a drift away from the spirit of the Constitution,\nbut an inevitable unfolding from its premises; that instead of having\nbeen conceived by the fathers as a democratic instrument, it had been\nconceived in a spirit designedly hostile to democracy; that it was, in\nfact, a carefully formulated expression of eighteenth-century property\nconsciousness, erected as a defense against the democratic spirit that\nhad got out of hand during the Revolution, and that the much-praised\nsystem of checks and balances was designed and intended for no other\nend than a check on the political power of the majority--a power\nacutely feared by the property consciousness of the times.\n\nIt was a startling discovery that profoundly stirred the liberal\nmind of the early years of the century; yet the really surprising\nthing is that it should have come as a surprise. It is not easy to\nunderstand today why since Civil War days intelligent Americans\nshould so strangely have confused the Declaration of Independence\nand the Constitution, and have come to accept them as complementary\nstatements of the democratic purpose of America. Their unlikeness is\nunmistakable: the one a classical statement of French humanitarian\ndemocracy, the other an organic law designed to safeguard the minority\nunder republican rule. The confusion must be charged in part to the\nlawyers who had taken over the custodianship of the Constitution, and\nin part to the florid romantic temper of the middle nineteenth century.\nWhen the fierce slavery struggle fell into the past, whatever honest\nrealism had risen from the passions of the times was buried with the\ndead issue. The militant attacks on the Constitution so common in\nAbolitionist circles after 1835, and the criticism of the Declaration\nthat was a part of the southern argument, were both forgotten, and with\nthe Union re\u00ebstablished by force of arms, the idealistic cult of the\nfundamental law entered on a second youth. In the blowsy Gilded Age\nthe old myths walked the land again, wrapped in battle-torn flags and\nappealing to the blood shed on southern battlefields. It was not till\nthe advent of a generation unblinded by the passions of civil war that\nthe Constitution again was examined critically, and the earlier charge\nof the Abolitionists that it was designed to serve property rather\nthan men, was heard once more. But this time with far greater weight\nof evidence behind it. As the historians dug amongst the contemporary\nrecords they came upon a mass of fact the Abolitionists had been\nunaware of. The evidence was written so plainly, in such explicit and\nincontrovertible words--not only in _Elliott\u2019s Debates_, but in the\nminutes of the several State Conventions, in contemporary letters\nand memoirs, in newspapers and pamphlets and polite literature--that\nit seemed incredible that honest men could have erred so greatly in\nconfusing the Constitution with the Declaration.\n\nWith the clarification of its philosophy the inflowing waters of\nliberalism reached flood-tide; the movement would either recede or pass\nover into radicalism. On the whole it followed the latter course,\nand the years immediately preceding 1917 were years when American\nintellectuals were immersing themselves in European collectivistic\nphilosophies--in Marxianism, Fabianism, Syndicalism, Guild Socialism.\nNew leaders were rising, philosophical analysts like Thorstein Veblen\nwho were mordant critics of American economics. The influence of\nsocialism was fast sweeping away the last shreds of political and\nsocial romanticism that so long had confused American thinking. The\ndoctrine of economic determinism was spreading widely, and in the light\nof that doctrine the deep significance of the industrial revolution\nwas revealing itself for the first time to thoughtful Americans. In\nits reaction to industrialism America had reached the point Chartist\nEngland had reached in the eighteen-forties and Marxian Germany in the\neighteen-seventies. That was before a mechanistic science had laid its\nheavy discouragements on the drafters of democratic programs. Accepting\nthe principle of economic determinism, liberalism still clung to its\nolder democratic teleology, convinced that somehow economic determinism\nwould turn out to be a fairy godmother to the proletariat and that\nfrom the imperious drift of industrial expansion must eventually issue\nsocial justice. Armed with this faith liberalism threw itself into\nthe work of cleaning the Augean stables, and its reward came in the\nachievements of President Wilson\u2019s first administration.\n\nThen the war intervened and the green fields shriveled in an afternoon.\nWith the cynicism that came with post-war days the democratic\nliberalism of 1917 was thrown away like an empty whiskey-flask. Clever\nyoung men began to make merry over democracy. It was preposterous, they\nsaid, to concern oneself about social justice; nobody wants social\njustice. The first want of every man, as John Adams remarked a hundred\nyears ago, is his dinner, and the second his girl. Out of the muck of\nthe war had come a great discovery--so it was reported--the discovery\nthat psychology as well as economics has its word to say on politics.\nFrom the army intelligence tests the moron emerged as a singular\ncommentary on our American democracy, and with the discovery of the\nmoron the democratic principle was in for a slashing attack. Almost\novernight an army of enemies was marshaled against it. The eugenist\nwith his isolated germ theory flouted the perfectional psychology of\nJohn Locke, with its emphasis on environment as the determining factor\nin social evolution--a psychology on which the whole idealistic\ninterpretation was founded; the beardless philosopher discovered\nNietzsche and in his pages found the fit master of the moron--the\nbiological aristocrat who is the flower that every civilization\nstruggles to produce; the satirist discovered the flatulent reality\nthat is middle-class America and was eager to thrust his jibes at the\ncomplacent denizens of the Valley of Democracy. Only the behaviorist,\nwith his insistence on the plasticity of the new-born child, offers\nsome shreds of comfort to the democrat; but he quickly takes them away\nagain with his simplification of conduct to imperious drives that\nstamp men as primitive animals. If the mass--the raw materials of\ndemocracy--never rises much above sex appeals and belly needs, surely\nit is poor stuff to try to work up into an excellent civilization, and\nthe dreams of the social idealist who forecasts a glorious democratic\nfuture are about as substantial as moonshine. It is a discouraging\nessay. Yet it is perhaps conceivable that our current philosophy--the\nbrilliant coruscations of our younger intelligentsia--may indeed not\nprove to be the last word in social philosophy. Perhaps--is this\n_l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9_--when our youngest liberals have themselves come to\nthe armchair age they will be smiled at in turn by sons who are still\ncleverer and who will find their wisdom as foolish as the wisdom of\n1917 seems to them today. But that lies on the knees of the gods.\n\n\nFootnotes\n\n[812] Lecture notes.--_Publisher._\n\n[813] See J. Allen Smith, _The Spirit of American Government_; W. A.\nWhite, _The Old Order Changeth_.\n\n[814] Representative books are: C. A. Beard, _An Economic\nInterpretation of the Constitution_ (1913) and _The Economic Basis of\nPolitics_ (1922); Walter Lippmann, _Public Opinion_ (1922).\n\n[815] See Bertrand Russell, _Proposed Roads to Freedom_ (1919); Richard\nRoberts, _The Unfinished Programme of Democracy_ (1920).\n\n[816] From the syllabus.--_Publisher._\n\n[817] From the syllabus.--_Publisher._\n\n[818] From the syllabus.--_Publisher._\n\n[819] Lecture notes.--_Publisher._\n\n[820] _Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub_, New York, 1920, p. 1.\n\n[821] _The Financier_, New York, c. 1912, p. 250.\n\n[822] _Ibid._, p. 409.\n\n[823] _Ibid._, p. 479.\n\n[824] _The Financier_, p. 432.\n\n[825] _Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub_, p. 87.\n\n[826] When this was written of course _The American Tragedy_, _A Book\nabout Myself_, Dreiser\u2019s poems, _Moods Cadenced and Declaimed_, and his\nfurther books of travel had not been published.--_Publisher._\n\n[827] Randolph Bourne, _History of a Literary Radical_, p. 203.\n\n[828] _The Financier_, p. 660.\n\n[829] Stuart P. Sherman, _On Contemporary Literature_, New York, 1923,\np. 94. In the syllabus Professor Parrington says: \u201cThe most intelligent\nestimates of Dreiser are in Randolph Bourne, _History of a Literary\nRadical_; H. L. Mencken, _Prefaces_; and Carl Van Doren, _Contemporary\nAmerican Novelists_. All other commentators are stupid.\u201d\n\n[830] Published as Number Five of _University of Washington Chapbooks_,\n1927.--_Publisher._\n\n[831] The notes that follow are from the syllabus.--_Publisher._\n\n[832] Cabell omitted, as there is a fuller discussion of him\ngiven.--_Publisher._\n\n[833] From the syllabus.--_Publisher._\n\n[834] For a statement of the reaction of a young intellectual to the\nwar, see Randolph Bourne, _Untimely Papers_, 1919.\n\n[835] For a criticism of Nicholson, see Randolph Bourne, _The History\nof a Literary Radical_, p. 128.\n\n[836] See Mr. Cabell\u2019s criticism in _Beyond Life_, pp. 301-307.\n\n[837] For a review see the _Nation_, March 19, 1924.\n\n[838] Sinclair Lewis omitted, as fuller material has been\ngiven.--_Publisher._\n\n[839] From the third section in the syllabus, which deals with \u201cA New\nRomance.\u201d--_Publisher._\n\n[840] See Cabell\u2019s review of _Messer Marco Polo_ in _Straws and\nPrayer-Books_, pp. 52-59. The writer\u2019s full name is Brian Oswald\nDonn-Byrne.\n\n[841] For a striking characterization of Hergesheimer, see _The\nBookman_, May, 1922 For an appreciation, see Cabell, _Straws and\nPrayer-Books_, pp. 195-221.\n\n[842] See remarks on Miss Cather in the introduction to the text\nedition of Ole R\u00f6lvaag\u2019s _Giants in the Earth_, which follows these\nsyllabus notes.--_Publisher._\n\n[843] Introduction to the text edition of R\u00f6lvaag\u2019s _Giants in the\nEarth_. Copyright 1929 by Harper and Brothers, by whose permission it\nis reprinted here.--_Publisher._\n\n[844] Lecture notes. This subject was not included in the contents, but\ncontains some matter of interest.--_Publisher._\n\n[845] This was apparently not intended as the introduction to Part I of\nBook Three, but covers much of the ground indicated there.--_Publisher._\n\n\n\n\nBibliography\n\n\n[Professor Parrington left no bibliography apart from the works\nmentioned in the text. It has been possible to formulate one with\nsome certainty by reference to his personal library, theses written\nunder his supervision, and the record of the books he borrowed from\nthe University of Washington Library. In the two earlier volumes the\nbibliography is rigidly selective. Needless to say, I have not presumed\nsuch knowledge of his intentions. All the pertinent material which it\nis known that he used is included.--E. H. Eby.]\n\n\nBook I: Part I\n\nI. The American Scene. For history of the period see Allan Nevins,\n_The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878_ (in the series _A History\nof American Life_, Vol. VIII, New York, 1927); E. P. Oberholtzer,\n_History of the United States since the Civil War_ (3 vols., New York,\n1917-1926); Frederick L. Paxson, _Recent History of the United States_\n(Boston and New York, c. 1921).\n\nFor economic backgrounds see Harold Underwood Faulkner, _American\nEconomic History_ (New York and London, 1924); Gustavus Meyers,\n_History of Great American Fortunes_ (3 vols., Chicago, 1910); Robert\nIrving Warshaw, _Jay Gould: The Story of a Fortune_ (New York, 1928);\nand for the part played by railroads see John P. Davis, _The Union\nPacific Railway_ (New York, 1894); C. E. Russell, _Stories of Great\nRailroads_ (Chicago, 1912); and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., and Henry\nAdams, _Chapters of Erie and Other Essays_ (Boston, 1871).\n\nFor political corruption see Don Carlos Seitz, _The Dreadful Decade_\n(Indianapolis, 1926); and Denis Tilden Lynch, _\u201cBoss\u201d Tweed: The Story\nof a Grim Generation_ (New York, 1927).\n\nFor journalism see Allan Nevins, _The Evening Post: A Century of\nJournalism_ (New York, c. 1922); and Frank M. O\u2019Brien, _The Story of\nthe Sun_ (New York, c. 1918).\n\nGeneral Ulysses S. Grant, _Personal Memoirs_ (2 vols., New York,\n1885-1886). For biography see W. E. Woodward, _Meet General Grant_ (New\nYork, 1928).\n\nJay Cooke. See E. P. Oberholtzer, _Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil\nWar_ (2 vols. Philadelphia, c. 1907).\n\nCharles A. Dana, _Recollections of the Civil War_ (New York, 1902); J.\nH. Wilson, _Life of Charles A. Dana_ (New York, 1907).\n\nII. The Culture of the Seventies. For valuable sidelights on culture\nin the decade see Constance Mayfield Rourke, _Trumpets of Jubilee_\n(New York, c. 1927); Paxton Hibben, _Henry Ward Beecher: An American\nPortrait_ (New York, c. 1927); Horace Greeley, _Recollections of a Busy\nLife_ (New York, 1868); James Parton, _The Life of Horace Greeley_\n(Boston, c. 1896); Lewis Mumford, _The Golden Day: A Study in American\nExperience and Culture_ (New York, 1926); and his _Sticks and Stones, A\nStudy of American Architecture and Civilization_ (New York, c. 1924).\n\nFor history of literature see Fred Lewis Pattee, _A History of American\nLiterature since 1870_ (New York, 1915); his _Sidelights on American\nLiterature_ (New York, 1922); his _The Development of the American\nShort Story_ (New York and London, 1923); and Carl Van Doren, _The\nAmerican Novel_ (New York, 1921).\n\nThomas Bailey Aldrich, _Prose Works_ (7 vols., Boston, 1897); _The\nPoems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ (2 vols., Boston, c. 1907). For his\nlife see Ferris Greenslet, _The Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ (Boston\nand New York, 1908).\n\nMrs. Elizabeth Stuart Ward (Phelps), _The Silent Partner_ (Boston, c.\n1899); _A Singular Life_ (Boston and New York, 1899); _Chapters from a\nLife_ (Boston and New York, 1896).\n\nSarah Orne Jewett. _A Country Doctor_ (Boston and New York, c. 1884);\n_A Native of Winby and Other Tales_ (Boston and New York, c. 1893);\n_Deephaven_ (Boston and New York, 1894). _Tales of New England_ (Boston\nand New York, 1894); _The Life of Nancy_ (Boston and New York, 1895);\n_The Queen\u2019s Twin and Other Stories_ (Boston and New York, 1899); _The\nCountry of Pointed Firs_ (Boston and New York, c. 1910). For her life\nsee _The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett_ (Boston and New York, 1911).\n\nMrs. Mary E. (Wilkins) Freeman, _A Humble Romance, and Other Stories_\n(New York, 1887); _The New England Nun, and Other Stories_ (New\nYork, 1891); _The Pot of Gold, and Other Stories_ (Boston, c. 1892);\n_Pembroke; a Novel_ (New York, c. 1894); _People of Our Neighborhood_\n(New York, 1901); _The Portion of Labor_ (New York, c. 1901). _Young\nLucretia, and Other Stories_ (New York, 1903); _By the Light of the\nSoul_ (New York and London, 1907).\n\nWalt Whitman, _Leaves of Grass_ (Inclusive edition edited by Emory\nHolloway, Garden City, New York, 1927); _The Complete Prose Works of\nWalt Whitman_ (New York, 1898); _The Half-breed and Other Stories_\n(New York, 1927); _Autobiographia: or, the Story of a Life_ (New York,\n1892); _The Gathering of Forces_ (New York and London, 1920); and _The\nUncollected Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman_ (2 vols., Garden City,\nNew York, 1921). For Whitman\u2019s life see Horace Traubel, _With Walt\nWhitman in Camden_ (3 vols., New York, 1908-1914); Emory Holloway,\n_Whitman_ (New York, 1926); John Addington Symonds, _Walt Whitman: a\nStudy_ (London, 1893); L\u00e9on Bazalgette, _Walt Whitman, the Man and his\nWork_ (Garden City, New York, 1920); John Burroughs, _Whitman: a Study_\n(Boston and New York, c. 1924); Bliss Perry, _Walt Whitman: his Life\nand Work_ (Boston and New York, 1906); and J. Johnston, M. D., and J.\nW. Wallace, _Visits to Walt Whitman_ (New York, 1918).\n\nFor critical studies of his work see Norman Foerster, _American\nCriticism_, pp. 157-222 (New York, 1928); Basil De Selincourt, _Walt\nWhitman; a Critical Study_ (London, 1914); Horace Traubel (ed.), _In re\nWalt Whitman_ (Philadelphia, 1893).\n\nSamuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), _The Writings of Mark Twain_ (25\nvols., New York and London, c. 1910-1911); _The Mysterious Stranger,\nand Other Stories_ (New York and London, 1922); _What is Man?_ (New\nYork, 1917).\n\nFor his life see _Mark Twain\u2019s Autobiography_ (New York and London,\n1924); Albert Bigelow Paine, _Mark Twain, a Biography_ (3 vols., New\nYork, c. 1912); Van Wyck Brooks, _The Ordeal of Mark Twain_ (New York,\nc. 1920); W. D. Howells, _My Mark Twain_ (New York, c. 1910).\n\nIII. Changing Theory. For a general history of economic theory see,\nCharles Gide and Charles Rist, _A History of Economic Doctrines from\nthe Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day_ (Authorized translation\nfrom the second revised and augmented edition of 1913, Boston, New\nYork, Chicago, 1913); _The Trend of Economics_ (Edited by R. G.\nTugwell, New York, 1924).\n\nFor material covered in this section see Francis Wayland, _Elements of\nPolitical Economy_ (New York, 1837); Henry Charles Carey, _Principles\nof Social Science_ (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1858-1860); his _The Harmony\nof Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial_ (2nd ed.,\nNew York, 1852); and his _Miscellaneous Works_ (Philadelphia, 1875).\nFrancis A. Walker, _The Wages Question, a Treatise on Wages and the\nWages Class_ (New York, 1891); his _Land and Its Rent_ (Boston, 1891);\nand his _Political Economy_ (New York, 1888).\n\nFor a general treatment of political theories see William A. Dunning,\n_A History of Political Theories from Rousseau to Spencer_ (New York,\n1920); Charles E. Merriam, _History of American Political Theories_\n(New York, 1920); and his _American Political Ideas: Studies in the\nDevelopment of American Political Thought, 1865-1917_ (New York, 1920).\n\nTheodore Dwight Woolsey, _Political Science: or, the State\nTheoretically and Practically Considered_ (New York, 1900); and his\n_Communism and Socialism in Their History and Theory_ (New York, 1894).\n\nJohn W. Burgess. _Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law_\n(2 vols., Boston and London, 1896-1898); and his _The Sanctity of the\nLaw; Wherein Does It Consist?_ (Boston and New York, c. 1927).\n\nJ. Allen Smith, _The Growth and Decadence of Constitutional Government_\n(New York, 1930) is an invaluable aid to those wishing to get\nParrington\u2019s viewpoint in political theory.\n\nHenry George, _The Writings of Henry George_ (Memorial edition, 10\nvols., New York, 1898-1900). See particularly _Progress and Poverty_\n(Vols. I and II), and Henry George, Jr., _The Life of Henry George_\n(Vol. X).\n\nHenry D. Lloyd, _Wealth Against Commonwealth_ (New York, c. 1894);\n_Lords of Industry_ (New York and London, 1910); _Men the Social\nCreator_ (New York, 1906); _Strike of Millionaires Against Miners,\nor the Story of Spring Valley, with an Open Letter to Millionaires_\n(Chicago, 1890). For his life see Caroline Augusta Lloyd, _Henry\nDemarest Lloyd, 1847-1903_, (2 vols., New York and London, 1912).\n(Parrington had intended to discuss Lloyd.)\n\nIV. The Beginnings of Criticism. Wendell Phillips, _Speeches, Lectures,\nand Letters_ (2 vols., Boston, 1891-1892). For his life see Carlos\nMartyn, _Wendell Phillips, the Agitator_ (Revised ed., New York, 1890);\nand Charles Edward Russell, _The Story of Wendell Phillips_ (Chicago,\nc. 1914).\n\nGeorge William Curtis, _Nile Notes of a Howadji_ (New York, 1851);\n_Trumps_ (New York, 1861); _Potiphar Papers_ (New York, 1854); _Prue\nand I_ (New York, n. d.); _Orations and Addresses_ (3 vols., New York,\n1894); _From the Easy Chair_ (3 vols., New York, 1894-1902); _Early\nLetters of George William Curtis to John S. Dwight; Brook Farm and\nConcord_ (New York and London, 1898). For his life see Edward Cary,\n_George William Curtis_ (Boston and New York, 1894).\n\nEdwin Lawrence Godkin, _Reflections and Comments, 1865-1895_ (New York,\n1895); _Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy_ (Boston, 1893); _Problems\nof Modern Democracy; Political and Economic Essays_ (Third ed., New\nYork, 1898). For his life see, _The Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence\nGodkin_ (Ed. by Rollo Ogden, 2 vols., New York and London, 1907). See\nalso Gustav Pollak, _The Nation, Fifty Years of American Idealism: the\nNew York Nation, 1865-1915_ (New York, 1915).\n\nThe political novel: Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, _The Gilded\nAge_ (2 vols., New York, 1873); Henry Adams, _Democracy_ (New York,\n1880); F. Marion Crawford, _An American Politician_ (New York, 1884).\nSee also Albion W. Tourg\u00e9e, _A Fool\u2019s Errand_ (New York, 1880).\n\nThe economic novel: John Hay, _The Bread-Winners_ (New York, 1883); H.\nF. Keenan, _The Moneymakers_ (New York, 1885).\n\nThe sociological novel: Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, _The Mammon of\nUnrighteousness_ (New York, 1891); his _The Golden Calf_ (New York,\n1892); and his _Social Strugglers_ (New York, 1893); Robert Grant,\n_Unleavened Bread_ (New York, 1900); Samuel Merwin and H. K. Webster,\n_Calumet K_ (New York, 1901); and their _Short Line War_ (New York,\n1899). Francis Churchill Williams, _J. Develin-Boss_ (New York, 1901);\nElliot Flower, _The Spoilsman_ (Boston, 1903); Winston Churchill,\n_Coniston_ (New York, 1907); and his _Mr. Crewe\u2019s Career_ (New York,\n1908); Will Payne, _Mr. Salt_ (Boston and New York, 1903); and his _The\nMoney Captain_ (New York, 1898).\n\nFor general accounts see Carl Van Doren, _The American Novel_ (New\nYork, 1921); Fred Lewis Pattee, _A History of American Literature\nsince 1870_ (New York, 1915); John Curtis Underwood, _Literature\nand Insurgency_ (New York, 1914); and W. D. Howells, _Criticism and\nFiction_ (New York, 1891).\n\nFor material dealing with Henry Adams and John Hay see William Roscoe\nThayer, _The Life and Letters of John Hay_ (2 vols., Boston and New\nYork, c. 1915). See also the bibliography on Henry Adams, Part II,\nsection II.\n\n\nBook I: Part II\n\nI. Disintegration and Reintegration. For a general survey of\nphilosophical thought during the period see W. H. Hudson, _Philosophies\nAncient and Modern_ (London, 1908); Woodbridge Riley, _American Thought\nfrom Puritanism to Pragmatism_ (New York, 1915); William Archibald\nDunning, _A History of Political Theories from Rousseau to Spencer_\n(New York, 1920).\n\nCondorcet, Isidore, August Marie Fran\u00e7ois Xavier, _Ouvres_ (Paris,\n1847). See also _A General View of Positivism_ (Translated by H. J.\nBridges, London, c. 1908).\n\nHerbert Spencer, _Works_ (18 vols., New York, 1915); see also his\n_Illustrations of Universal Progress; a Series of Discussions_ (New\nYork, 1890).\n\nErnst Heinrich Haeckel, _The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the\nNineteenth Century_ (New York and London, 1900); and his _History of\nCreation_ (2 vols., New York, 1914).\n\nJohn Fiske, _American Political Ideas, Viewed from the Standpoint of\nUniversal History_ (New York, 1899); _Darwinism and Other Essays_\n(New ed. rev. and enl., Boston, 1892); _The Destiny of Man, Viewed\nin the Light of his Origin_ (18 ed., Boston and New York, 1892);\n_Essays Historical and Literary_ (2 vols., New York and London, 1902);\n_Excursions of an Evolutionist_ (Boston and New York, 1892); _The Idea\nof God as Affected by Modern Knowledge_ (Boston and New York, 1892);\n_Life Everlasting_ (Boston and New York, 1902); _Outlines of Cosmic\nPhilosophy, Based on the Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms of the\nPositive Philosophy_ (4 vols., Boston and New York, c. 1903); _Through\nNature to God_ (Boston and New York, 1899); _Unseen World and Other\nEssays_ (11th ed., Boston, 1876). For his life see J. S. Clark, _Life\nand Letters of John Fiske_ (2 vols., Boston, 1917); and Henry Holt,\n_Garrulities of an Octogenarian Editor, with Other Essays Somewhat\nBiographical and Autobiographical_ (Boston and New York, 1923).\n\nII. The Skepticisms of the House of Adams. Henry Adams, _The\nDegradation of the Democratic Dogma_ (New York: 1920); _Democracy,\na Novel_ (New York, 1880); _The Education of Henry Adams_ (New\nYork, 1918); _History of the United States during the Administration\nof Jefferson and Madison_ (9 vols., New York, 1890-1898); _John\nRandolph_ (Boston, 1895); _Letters to a Niece and Prayer to the Virgin\nof Chartres; with a Niece\u2019s Memoirs by Mabel La Farge_ (Boston and\nNew York, 1920); _Life of Albert Gallatin_ (Philadelphia, 1880);\n_Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_ (Boston and New York, 1913).\n\nBrooks Adams, _America\u2019s Economic Supremacy_ (New York, 1900); _Law of\nCivilization and Decay: an Essay on History_ (New York, 1895); _The New\nEmpire_ (New York, London, 1902); _The Theory of Social Revolutions_\n(New York, 1913).\n\nCharles Francis Adams, Jr., and Henry Adams, _Chapters of Erie and\nOther Essays_ (Boston, 1871); Charles Francis Adams, Jr., _Charles\nFrancis Adams 1835-1915; an Autobiography_ (Boston and New York, 1916).\nSee also W. C. Ford, _A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-1865_ (2 vols.,\nBoston and New York, 1920).\n\nIII. Victorian Realism. For material in Parrington\u2019s introduction to\nChapter III see Francis Marion Crawford, _The Novel: What It Is_ (New\nYork, 1908); and H. H. Boyesen, _Literary and Social Silhouettes_ (New\nYork, 1894).\n\nHenry James, _The Novels and Tales of Henry James_ (24 vols., New\nYork, 1907-1909); _Views and Reviews_ (Boston, 1908); _The Letters of\nHenry James_ (2 vols., New York, 1920). For criticism and biography\nsee Pelham Edgar, _Henry James, Man and Author_ (Boston and New York,\n1927); Rebecca West, _Henry James_ (New York, c. 1916); Van Wyck\nBrooks, _The Pilgrimage of Henry James_ (New York, 1925).\n\nWilliam Dean Howells, _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ (New York, 1891);\n_A Modern Instance_ (Boston and New York, 1881); _Through the Eye of\nthe Needle_ (New York and London, 1907); _A Traveler from Altruria_\n(New York, 1908); _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ (Boston, c. 1912);\n_April Hopes_ (New York, 1888); _Certain Delightful English Towns;\nwith Glimpses of the Pleasant Country Between_ (New York and London,\n1906); _Indian Summer_ (Boston, c. 1914); _Venetian Life_ (19th ed.,\nnew and enl., Boston, c. 1907); _Criticism and Fiction_ (New York,\n1891); _Literary Friends and Acquaintance_ (New York and London,\n1901); _Literature and Life_ (New York and London, 1902); _My Literary\nPassions_ (New York, c. 1895). For his life see _Life in Letters of\nWilliam Dean Howells_ (2 vols., Garden City, N. Y., 1928); _Years of\nMy Youth_ (New York, c. 1916). For critical estimates see Delmar Gross\nCooke, _William Dean Howells; a Critical Study_ (New York, c. 1922);\nOscar W. Firkins, _William Dean Howells_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1924);\nAlexander Harvey, _William Dean Howells; a Study of the Achievement of\na Literary Artist_ (New York, 1917).\n\n\nBook II: Part I\n\nI. The Plight of the Farmer. For general surveys of the Agrarian\nmovement see Solon Justus Buck, _The Granger Movement_ (In _Harvard\nHistorical Studies_, Vol. XIX, Cambridge, 1913); and his _The Agrarian\nCrusade_ (New Haven, c. 1920); F. E. Haynes, _Third Party Movements\nsince the Civil War_ (Iowa City, Iowa, c. 1916); F. J. Turner, _The\nFrontier in American History_ (New York, 1920).\n\nFor discussions of the currency see _Homo\u2019s Letters on a National\nCurrency_ (Washington, 1817); _Currency Explosions, their Cause and\nCure_ (New York, 1858); _Our Currency: Some of Its Evils, and the\nRemedies for Them_ (By a Citizen of North Carolina, Raleigh, N. C.,\n1861); D. H. Robertson, _Money_ (New York, c. 1922); J. Lawrence\nLaughlin, _The Principles of Money_, (New York. 1911).\n\nDavid Ames Wells, _Practical Economics; a Collection of Essays\nRespecting Certain of the Recent Economic Experiences of the United\nStates_ (New York, 1885); _Robinson Crusoe\u2019s Money_ (New ed. New York,\n1896); _The Cremation Theory of Specie Resumption_ (New York, 1875);\n_Contraction of Legal Tender Notes vs. Repudiation and Disloyalty_ (New\nYork, 1876).\n\nEleazar Lord, _Credit, Currency and Banking_ (New York, 1828); _A\nLetter on the National Currency_ (New York, 1861); _Six Letters on the\nNecessity and Practicability of the National Currency, etc._ (New York,\n1862); _National Currency: A Review of the National Banking Law_ (New\nYork, 1863).\n\nPeter Cooper, _Ideas for a Science of Good Government_ (New York,\n1883); _The Political and Financial Opinions of Peter Cooper_ (New\nYork, 1877).\n\nWilliam Hope Harvey, _Coin\u2019s Financial School_ (Chicago, c. 1894); and\nJ. A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus Stevens_ (Indianapolis, c. 1913.)\n\nIII. Hamlin Garland and the Middle Border. For studies of the Middle\nBorder see D. A. Dondore, _The Prairie and the Making of Middle\nAmerica: Four Centuries of Description_ (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1926);\nLucy Lockwood Hazard, _The Frontier in American Literature_ (New York,\n1927).\n\nFor early realism of the Middle Border see Harold Frederick, _Seth\u2019s\nBrother\u2019s Wife_ (London, 1898); and Joseph Kirkland, _Zury: The Meanest\nMan in Spring County_ (Boston and New York, 1887).\n\nHamlin Garland, _Back-Trailers from the Middle Border_ (New York,\n1928); _Boy Life on the Prairie_ (Revised ed., New York and London, c.\n1899); _The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop: a Novel_ (New York, c.\n1902); _Crumbling Idols_ (Chicago, 1894); _A Daughter of the Middle\nBorder_ (New York, 1921); _The Eagle\u2019s Heart_ (New York, 1900); _Jason\nEdwards, An Average Man_ (New York, 1897); _Main-Travelled Roads_ (New\nYork, c. 1891); _Her Mountain Lover_ (New York, 1901); _Prairie Folk_\n(New and rev. ed., New York, 1899); _Rose of Dutcher\u2019s Cooly_ (New\nYork, c. 1899); _A Son of the Middle Border_ (New York, 1917); _A Spoil\nof Office_ (New York, 1897); _Trailmakers of the Middle Border_ (New\nYork, 1926).\n\n\nBook II: Part II\n\nII. The Quest of Utopia. Edward Bellamy, _The Duke of Stockbridge; a\nRomance of Shay\u2019s Rebellion_ (New York and Boston, 1901); _Equality_\n(3d ed., New York, 1897); _Looking Backward, 2000-1887_ (Boston, c.\n1889); see also _The Nationalist, a Monthly Magazine_ (Vols. 1-3, May,\n1889, to April, 1891. Edited by H. W. Austin).\n\nFor general material see Allyn B. Forbes, _The Literary Quest for\nUtopia, 1880-1900_ (_Social Forces_, Vol. VII, 1927, pp. 179-189).\nLewis Mumford, _The Story of Utopias_ (New York, c. 1922); J. O.\nHertzler, _The History of Utopian Thought_ (New York, 1923).\n\n\n\n\nIndex [Volume Three]\n\n\n Adams, Brooks, 212, 214, 218, 227-236, 284.\n\n Adams, Charles Francis, 212, 213-214, 215, 227.\n\n Adams, Henry, 54, 90, 94, 96, 170, 171, 173, 203, 206, 212, 214-227,\n 228, 235, 242, 243, 402, 403.\n\n Adams, John, xxviii, 177, 217, 408, 412.\n\n Adams, Sam, 51, 216.\n\n Addison, Joseph, vi.\n\n Agassiz, Louis, 191, 205.\n\n _Age of Innocence, The_, 382.\n\n Alcott, Louisa M., 50.\n\n Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 53, 54-60, 65, 86, 92, 102, 178, 237, 242,\n 243, 292.\n\n _Alexander\u2019s Bridge_, 383.\n\n _Alice Adams_, 375.\n\n Allen, James Lane, 238.\n\n _American Commonwealth_, 120.\n\n _American Political Ideas_, 210.\n\n _American Politician, An_, 169, 171.\n\n _American Tragedy, An_, 316.\n\n Ames, Fisher, 160.\n\n Ames, Oakes, 169.\n\n Anderson, Sherwood, xv, 241, 319, 324, 325, 326, 331, 361, 370-371,\n 373, 377, 393, 399.\n\n _April Hopes_, 250, 252.\n\n Aquinas, Thomas, 221, 222, 223, 226.\n\n _Arena_, 293, 299.\n\n _Aristocratic Opinions of Democracy_, 159.\n\n Armour, Philip, 15.\n\n Arnold, Matthew, xxvii, 65, 83, 160, 209, 344, 402.\n\n _At the Court of Boyville_, 374.\n\n _Atlantic Monthly, The_, 52, 54, 57, 61, 238, 251, 397, 398.\n\n\n Bakunin, Mikhail, 139.\n\n Baldwin, Joseph G., 92, 390.\n\n _Balisand_, 381.\n\n Balzac, Honor\u00e9 de, 398.\n\n Banks, General Nathaniel Prentiss, 39.\n\n Barbusse, Henri, 385.\n\n Baring, Alexander, 133.\n\n Barnum, P. T., 12, 14, 27.\n\n Bartram, William, 191.\n\n Bastiat, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric, 105, 106, 139.\n\n Baxter, Richard, 67.\n\n Beard, Charles A., xiii, 406, 408, 409.\n\n _Beautiful and Damned, The_, 386.\n\n Beecher, Henry Ward, 12, 14, 75, 90, 202.\n\n _Beginning of Wisdom, The_, 386.\n\n Bellamy, Edward, xii, 246, 302-315.\n\n _Bells, The_, 54.\n\n Ben\u00e9t, Stephen Vincent, 386.\n\n _Bent Twig, The_, 376.\n\n Bentham, Jeremy, 156, 157.\n\n Benton, Thomas A., 25, 71, 273.\n\n Berger, Victor, xii.\n\n Bergh, Henry, 12.\n\n Berkeley, Bishop George, 109.\n\n _Berkshire Courier, The_, 303.\n\n Bernard, Claude, 323.\n\n Beveridge, Albert J., 388.\n\n _Beyond Life_, 336, 340, 344.\n\n _Beyond the Toll-Gate_, 64.\n\n Biddle, Nicholas, 104.\n\n _Biglow Papers_, 56.\n\n Bj\u00f6rnson, Bj\u00f6rnstjerne, 293.\n\n Blaine, James G., 12, 38, 154, 217.\n\n Blanc, Louis, 105, 139.\n\n Blanche of Castile, 221.\n\n _Blind Raftery_, 378.\n\n _Blix_, 329.\n\n Bloomer, Amelia, 52.\n\n Bojer, Johan, 396.\n\n Boker, George Henry, 52.\n\n Bourget, Paul, 180, 399.\n\n Bourne, Randolph, xiii, 376.\n\n Boutwell, George Sewall, 41, 169.\n\n Boyd, Thomas, 385.\n\n Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth, 181, 182, 184, 238, 282.\n\n Brandeis, Louis, 406.\n\n _Brass Check, The_, 353.\n\n _Breadwinners, The_, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179.\n\n _Briary Bush, The_, 386.\n\n _Brimming Cup, The_, 376.\n\n Brisbane, Albert, 125.\n\n Bronte, Charlotte, 398.\n\n Bronte, Emily, 398.\n\n Brook Farm, 43, 47, 60, 147, 148, 151, 152, 201.\n\n _Brooklyn Eagle_, 71.\n\n Brooks, Van Wyck, 89, 376.\n\n _Brothers_, 371.\n\n Brown, Alice, 62.\n\n Browning, Robert, 201.\n\n Bryan, William Jennings, xi, 46, 166, 178, 361, 367.\n\n Bryant, William Cullen, 41, 54, 108, 150, 277.\n\n Bryce, James, 120.\n\n Buchanan, James, 30.\n\n Buckle, Henry Thomas, 204, 205, 208.\n\n \u201cBuffalo Bill,\u201d 16, 17.\n\n Burgess, John W., 120, 122, 124-125, 130, 284.\n\n Burke, Edmund, 144.\n\n Butler, Ben, 12, 13, 14, 169, 269, 386.\n\n _Butler\u2019s Analogy_, 198.\n\n _By the Open Sea_, 325.\n\n Byrd, Col. William, 389.\n\n Byrne, Donn, 377-378.\n\n\n Cabell, James Branch, xiii, 91, 100, 335-345, 347, 355, 367, 373,\n 382, 405.\n\n Cable, George Washington, xii, 238.\n\n _Caesar\u2019s Column_, 302.\n\n Cairnes, John Elliott, 124.\n\n Calhoun, John C., xxviii, 119, 120, 130, 281, 408, 409.\n\n _Call of the Wild, The_, 352.\n\n _Calumet K_, 186.\n\n Cameron, Senator Simon, 12.\n\n Canfield (Fisher), Dorothy, 376.\n\n \u201cCaptain Kidd,\u201d 12, 45.\n\n _Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop, The_, 292, 300.\n\n Carey, Henry C., 22, 23, 103, 105-111, 112, 113, 116, 269, 273, 276,\n 277, 279, 282.\n\n Carey, Matthew, 105.\n\n Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 337.\n\n Carlyle, Thomas, 65, 83, 139, 337, 368.\n\n Carnegie, Andrew, 15, 87.\n\n Carver, Captain, 16, 17, 92.\n\n Castelar, Emilio, 177, 178.\n\n Cather, Willa, 63, 383-384, 393, 394.\n\n Central Pacific Railway, 127.\n\n _Century Magazine_, 173.\n\n _Certain Delightful English Towns_, 252.\n\n _Certain Rich Man, A_, 374.\n\n Champagne, Marie de, 220.\n\n _Changeling, The_, 378.\n\n Channing, William Ellery, viii, 72, 76, 121, 130, 131, 140.\n\n _Chanson de Roland_, 220.\n\n Chase, Salmon P., 32, 34, 35, 272.\n\n Chatterton, Thomas, 54.\n\n Chesterton, Gilbert K., 335.\n\n _Christian Union_ (Beecher), 38 n.\n\n Churchill, Winston, xiv, 186, 348-349, 360, 406.\n\n _Circuit Rider, The_, 391.\n\n Claflin, Tennessee, 12.\n\n Clay, Henry, 20, 22, 23, 104, 105, 139, 279, 410.\n\n Clemens, Olivia, 90, 92.\n\n Cleveland, Grover, 46, 59, 154.\n\n C\u0153ur-de-Lion, Richard, 221.\n\n \u201cCoffee House Wits,\u201d 48.\n\n _Coin, The_, 334.\n\n Colfax, Schuyler, 38.\n\n _Communism and Socialism_, 123.\n\n Comstock, Anthony, xvi, 12, 14, 75, 367.\n\n Comte, Auguste, 195, 196, 197, 198, 204, 208, 213, 219, 317, 323.\n\n Condorcet, Marquis de, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 235.\n\n Congreve, William, 344, 345.\n\n _Coniston_, 186, 348.\n\n Conkling, Roscoe, 12, 217.\n\n _Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u2019s Court, The_, 91, 97, 98, 99.\n\n _Contraction_, 269.\n\n Cooke, Henry, 32, 34, 35, 38, 42.\n\n Cooke, Jay, 29, 31-43.\n\n Cooke, John Esten, 238.\n\n Cooke, Pitt, 32, 33.\n\n Cooke, Rose Terry, 62, 397, 398.\n\n Cooper, James Fenimore, 175, 300, 363.\n\n Cooper, Peter, 22, 69, no, 125, 140, 160, 276-282.\n\n _Cords of Vanity, The_, 335, 344.\n\n Cornwallis, General Charles, 304.\n\n _Cosmos_, 205.\n\n _Country Doctor, A_, 63.\n\n _Country of the Painted Firs_, 64, 65.\n\n Craddock, Charles Egbert, 238, 400.\n\n Crane, Stephen, xii, 55, 237, 300, 317, 327, 328-329, 385.\n\n Crawford, F. Marion, 171, 172, 237.\n\n _Cream of the Jest, The_, 335, 343.\n\n _Cr\u00e9dit Mobilier_, 24, 38, 39, 40, 137, 160, 162.\n\n _Cremation Theory of Specie Resumption, The_, 269.\n\n Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur, St. John de, 389.\n\n _Crime and Punishment_, 316.\n\n _Crisis, The_, 348.\n\n _Criticism and Fiction_, 248.\n\n Crockett, Davy, 15, 16, 92, 390.\n\n Cromwell, Thomas, 231.\n\n _Crossing, The_, 348.\n\n _Crumbling Idols_, 292, 293.\n\n Cummings, E. E., 385.\n\n Curtis, Burrill, 147.\n\n Curtis, George William, 138, 147-154, 172, 279.\n\n _Custom of the Country, The_, 382.\n\n Cuvier, Georges, 205.\n\n _Cytherea_, 380, 381.\n\n\n _Daily News_ (London), 155.\n\n _Daisy Miller_, 399.\n\n Dana, Charles A., 43-47, 151, 152, 154, 244, 269.\n\n Darrow, Clarence, 367.\n\n Darwin, Charles, 198, 204, 205, 206, 293, 323, 352, 402.\n\n _Data of Ethics_, 198.\n\n _Deadlock_, 399.\n\n _Deal in Wheat, A_, 329.\n\n _D\u00e9b\u00e2cle, Le_, 328, 329.\n\n Debs, Eugene V., xii.\n\n Deland, Margaret, 397.\n\n DeLeon, Daniel, xii.\n\n Dell, Floyd, 386.\n\n _Democracy_, 94, 169, 170, 171, 173, 217, 218, 223.\n\n _Destiny of Man, The_, 209.\n\n Dewey, John, 406.\n\n Dickens, Charles, 331, 398.\n\n Disraeli, Benjamin, 148.\n\n _Domnei_, 342.\n\n Donnelly, Ignatius, 12, 266, 284, 302.\n\n Dos Passos, John, 385.\n\n Dostoevsky, Feodor, 316.\n\n Douglas, Stephen A., 25.\n\n Drake, Sir Francis, 231.\n\n Dreiser, Theodore, xiv, 193, 198, 241, 300, 317, 319, 324, 325,\n 354-359.\n\n Drew, Daniel, 12, 13, 14, 84.\n\n Drummond, Henry, 208.\n\n Dugdale, R. L., 191.\n\n _Duke of Stockbridge, The_, 303.\n\n _Dwelling Place of Light, The_, 349.\n\n Dwight, Timothy, 120, 191, 390.\n\n\n _Eagle Heart, The_, 300.\n\n _Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, An_, 408, 409.\n\n _Education of Henry Adams, The_, 203, 218.\n\n _Egg, The_, 370.\n\n Eggleston, Edward, xi, 238, 293, 391, 400.\n\n Eleanor of Guienne, 221, 227.\n\n _Elements of Political Economy_, 104, 111, 133.\n\n Eliot, George, 209.\n\n _Elliott\u2019s Debates_, 411.\n\n Emerson, Ralph Waldo, viii, 50, 52, 53, 70, 72, 75, 76, 78, 80, 82,\n 88, 121, 131, 204, 319, 327, 334, 368, 403.\n\n _Emigrants, The_, 396.\n\n _Emporia and New York_, 374.\n\n Engels, Friedrich, 76, 105, 139.\n\n _Enormous Room, The_, 385.\n\n _Equality_, 304, 311.\n\n _Erik Dorn_, 386.\n\n _Essay on the Classification of the Animal Kingdom_, 205.\n\n _Ethan Frome_, 382.\n\n Evans, George Henry, 125, 140.\n\n _Evening Post_, 71, 108.\n\n _Evolution of Language_, 205.\n\n\n _Faint Perfume_, 377.\n\n _Far Country, A_, 349.\n\n _Far from the Madding Crowd_, 289.\n\n Faraday, Michael, 219.\n\n Fessenden, William Pitt, 35.\n\n Fields, James Thomas, 65, 292.\n\n _Figures of Earth_, 335, 342.\n\n _Financier, The_, 357.\n\n Fink, Mike, 92.\n\n _First Principles_, 208.\n\n Fisk, Jim, 12, 13, 14, 27, 84, 137, 278.\n\n Fiske, John, 13, 197, 203-211, 243, 293, 404.\n\n Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 386.\n\n Flaubert, Gustave, 64, 323, 324, 398.\n\n _Florentine Dagger_, 386.\n\n Flower, B. O., 246, 266, 293, 298, 299.\n\n Flower, Elliott, 186.\n\n _Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi_, 92, 390.\n\n _Foundation of the Labor Movement, The_, 145.\n\n Fourier, Fran\u00e7ois Charles Marie, 151.\n\n _Fra Lippo Lippi_, 201.\n\n Franklin, Benjamin, viii, 191, 201, 250, 281, 282.\n\n Frederic, Harold, xii, 288, 289, 327.\n\n Freeman, Edward Augustus, 210.\n\n Freeman, Mary Wilkins, 62, 63, 66, 68, 238.\n\n _Frenzied Finance_, 405.\n\n Freud, Sigmund, 401.\n\n _Friendship Village_, 377.\n\n Frost, Robert, xiv, 379.\n\n Fuller, Henry B., xii.\n\n Fuller, Margaret, 151.\n\n\n Gale, Zona, xv, 377, 397.\n\n Gallatin, Albert, 279.\n\n _Gargoyles_, 386.\n\n Garland, Hamlin, xi, 89, 198, 246, 251, 259, 266, 288-300, 316, 317,\n 318, 332, 374, 383, 391, 392, 393.\n\n Garrison, William Lloyd, 141, 142.\n\n Gary, Judge Elbert Henry, 347, 366.\n\n _Gentleman from Indiana, The_, 375.\n\n George, Henry, 12, 52, 104, 105, 111, 116, 125-136, 293, 294, 295,\n 298, 299, 303, 314, 402.\n\n _Georgia Scenes_, 92, 390.\n\n _Giants in the Earth_, 387-396.\n\n _Gilded Age, The_, 91, 92, 93, 169.\n\n Gilder, Richard W., 87.\n\n Gladstone, W. E., 160, 215.\n\n Glasgow, Ellen, xiii.\n\n _Glimpses of the Moon_, 382.\n\n Godkin, Edwin Laurence, 10, 48, 82, 138, 152, 154-168, 178, 218, 243,\n 244, 246, 269.\n\n Godwin, Parke, 125, 140.\n\n Godwin, William, xxviii, 72, 189, 200.\n\n Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 204, 395.\n\n _Golden Calf, The_, 182.\n\n _Golden House, The_, 184.\n\n Goldsmith, Oliver, 252.\n\n _Goose Step, The_, 353.\n\n _Goslings, The_, 353.\n\n Goss, Warren, 385.\n\n Gough, John B., 12.\n\n Gould, Jay, 12, 13, 14, 84, 137, 189, 214.\n\n Grady, Henry W., xii.\n\n _Grammarian\u2019s Funeral, The_, 56.\n\n Grant, General Ulysses S., 20, 27-31, 33, 37, 38, 43, 46, 169, 217.\n\n Grant\u2019s _Memoirs_, 31.\n\n Grant, Robert, xii, 180, 182, 382.\n\n Gray, Asa, 191.\n\n _Gray Man, The_, 64.\n\n Greeley, Horace, 20, 22, 23, 43, 87, 108, 125, 128, 140, 143, 276,\n 277, 279, 282.\n\n Greene, Ann Terry, 141.\n\n Grote, George, 156, 157, 205, 210.\n\n\n Haeckel, Ernst, 202, 203, 402.\n\n _Hagar_, 180.\n\n Hall, G. Oakey, 12, 13, 14.\n\n Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 56.\n\n Hamilton, Alexander, 152, 216, 218, 408, 410.\n\n Hanna, Marcus A., 15, 43, 300.\n\n _Hand of the Potter, The_, 357.\n\n _Harbor, The_, 350.\n\n Harding, Rebecca, 61.\n\n Hardy, Thomas, 237, 289, 324, 325, 326.\n\n _Harmony of Interests: Agricultural, Manufacturing and Commercial,\n The_, 106.\n\n _Harper\u2019s Weekly_, 148, 150, 152.\n\n Harrington, James, xxviii, 130, 408.\n\n Harris, Joel Chandler, xii, 400.\n\n Harte, Bret, 93, 396, 400.\n\n Harvey, \u201cCoin,\u201d 125, 164, 284.\n\n Hauptmann, Gerhart, 299.\n\n Hawkins, Sir John, 231.\n\n Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 53, 70, 151, 303, 380, 397.\n\n Hay, Clarence Leonard, 173, 174, 175.\n\n Hay, John, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 218, 226.\n\n Hayes, Rutherford B., 38 n, 280, 281.\n\n _Hazard of New Fortunes, A_, 244, 245, 252.\n\n _Heavens and Earth_, 386.\n\n Hecht, Ben, 386.\n\n Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 78, 124, 364.\n\n Heine, Heinrich, 248.\n\n Helper, Hilton R., 125, 140.\n\n _Henry Esmond_, 348.\n\n _Her Mountain Lover_, 291.\n\n Hergesheimer, Joseph, 379-381.\n\n Herrick, Robert, xiv, 182, 325, 348, 349-350, 368, 406.\n\n Herschel, Sir John Frederick, 205.\n\n _Hey Rub-a-Dub-Dub_, 357.\n\n Hickok, Wild Bill, 16, 17, 92.\n\n _Histoire de la Litt\u00e9rature Anglaise_, vii.\n\n _History of Greece_, 203.\n\n _History of the Dividing Line, The_, 389.\n\n _History of the Progress of the Human Mind_, 194.\n\n _History of the United States During the Administration of Jefferson\n and Madison_, 218.\n\n Hoar, Ebenezer, 141.\n\n Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 52, 53, 55, 251, 292.\n\n Holt, Henry, 157, 210, 211, 243.\n\n _Hoosier Schoolmaster, The_, 288, 391, 400.\n\n Horace, 148.\n\n _Horses and Men_, 370.\n\n _House of Mirth, The_, 180, 381.\n\n Howe, E. W., xi, 377, 391.\n\n Howells, William Dean, 32, 87, 88, 89, 99, 179, 181, 237, 238,\n 241-253, 292, 293, 296, 302, 316, 317, 318, 399.\n\n _Huckleberry Finn_, 57, 65, 91, 92, 94.\n\n _Humble Remonstrance_, 237.\n\n _Humble Romance, A_, 66.\n\n Humboldt, Alexander, 205.\n\n Huneker, James, xiv.\n\n Huntington, Collis P., 15, 25.\n\n\n Ibsen, Henrik, 293.\n\n _Idea of God, The_, 209.\n\n Illinois Central Railroad, 25, 165.\n\n _In the Heart of a Fool_, 374.\n\n _Indian Summer_, 252.\n\n Industrial Revolution, 168, 171, 189, 193, 231.\n\n Ingersoll, Robert, 12.\n\n _Innocents Abroad_, 9.\n\n _Inside of the Cup, The_, 349.\n\n _Iron Heel, The_, 352.\n\n Irving, Washington, 398.\n\n\n Jackson, Andrew, 26, 267, 273, 278, 281, 410.\n\n James, Henry, 54, 181, 239-241, 243, 250, 380, 397, 399.\n\n James, Jesse, 16.\n\n James, William, 402.\n\n _Janet March_, 386.\n\n _Jason Edwards: an Average Man_, 298.\n\n _Java Head_, 380.\n\n _J. Devlin--Boss_, 186.\n\n _Jean Hugenot_, 386.\n\n Jefferson, Thomas, viii, ix, x, 26, 72, 83, 125, 130, 152, 199, 200,\n 201, 218, 264, 281, 304, 381, 403, 410.\n\n Jeffries, Lord Chief Justice, 232.\n\n Jewett, Sarah Orne, 57, 63, 64, 66, 238, 288, 397, 400.\n\n _Joan of Arc_, 91, 99.\n\n _John Barleycorn_, 352.\n\n _John Randolph_, 218.\n\n Johnson, Andrew, 19, 20, 30.\n\n Johnston, Mary, 180, 348.\n\n _Jude the Obscure_, 237.\n\n _Jungle, The_, 353, 383.\n\n _Jurgen_, 335, 342.\n\n\n _Kansas Situation, The_, 164.\n\n Keats, John, 54.\n\n King, Clarence, 171, 173, 218.\n\n _King Coal_, 353.\n\n Kingsley, Charles, 139.\n\n Kipling, Rudyard, 56, 59, 166, 167.\n\n Kirkland, Joseph, 288, 289, 290, 293, 295, 391.\n\n Kirkland, Matilda, 289.\n\n Knight, Madam Sarah, 389.\n\n Kossuth, Lajos (Louis), 151, 156.\n\n\n _Labor Question, The_, 45.\n\n Ladd, George Trumbull, 402.\n\n La Farge, John, 224.\n\n La Follette, Robert, xiii, 406.\n\n Lamarck, Jean Baptiste, 198.\n\n Langdon, Olivia, 87, 88.\n\n Lanier, Sidney, xiii, 56, 334.\n\n Laplace, Pierre Simon, 205.\n\n Latzko, Andreas, 385.\n\n _Law of Civilization and Decay, The_, 228, 231.\n\n Lawrence, D. H., 324, 325, 326, 371, 399.\n\n Lawson, Thomas W., 405.\n\n Lease, Mary Ellen, 266, 298.\n\n _Leaves of Grass_, 73, 74, 76, 79, 82.\n\n Le Conte, 191.\n\n Leggett, William, 71, 72.\n\n _Letters from an American Farmer_, 389.\n\n Lewes, George Henry, 204.\n\n Lewis, Sinclair, xv, xvi, 360-369, 373, 374.\n\n Lewisohn, Ludwig, 326, 347, 376.\n\n Lieber, Francis, 119, 120.\n\n _Life Everlasting_, 209.\n\n _Life for a Life, A_, 350.\n\n _Life in the Iron Mills_, 61.\n\n _Life of Albert Gallatin_, 218.\n\n _Life of James J. Hill_, 275.\n\n _Life of Lincoln_, 388.\n\n _Life on the Mississippi_, 13, 91.\n\n Lincoln, Abraham, 19, 26, 27, 30, 31, 87, 99, 176, 177, 260.\n\n _Linda Condon_, 380.\n\n Lindsay, Vachel, 319.\n\n List, Friedrick, 105, 108.\n\n Lloyd, Henry D., xiii, 284.\n\n Lloyd, Samuel, 231.\n\n Locke, John, xxviii, 98, 130, 131, 193, 199, 201, 408, 412.\n\n Lodge, Henry Cabot, 226.\n\n London, Jack, xiv, 198, 325, 352, 368, 406.\n\n _London Times, The_, 38 n.\n\n Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 251, 334.\n\n Longstreet, Gus, 92, 390.\n\n _Looking Backward_, xii, 254, 302-315.\n\n Lord, Eleazar, 273, 274.\n\n Lorris, Guillaume de, 220.\n\n _Lost Lady, The_, 384.\n\n _Loves of Pelleas and Etarre_, 377.\n\n Lowell, James Russell, 52, 55, 65, 66, 138, 141, 150, 161, 218, 238,\n 243, 250, 231, 292, 398.\n\n Lyell, Sir Charles, 219.\n\n\n Mabie, Hamilton W., 57.\n\n _McClure\u2019s Magazine_, 405.\n\n McCulloch (Secretary of the Treasury), 35.\n\n McKinley, William, 165, 176, 300.\n\n McPherson, Aimee Semple, xvi, 367.\n\n _McTeague_, 299, 329, 330-332, 333.\n\n _Madame Bovary_, 323.\n\n Madison, James, 233, 408.\n\n _Maggie: A Girl of the Streets_, 55, 237, 328.\n\n _Main Street_, 364, 378.\n\n Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner, 210.\n\n _Main-Travelled Roads_, 246, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 391.\n\n Malthus, Thomas Robert, 104, 132.\n\n _Mammon of Unrighteousness_, 180, 182, 184.\n\n _Man versus the State_, 200, 284.\n\n _Man with the Hoe, The_, xii.\n\n Mansfield, Josie, 13.\n\n _Many Marriages_, 370.\n\n _Marching Men_, 370.\n\n Marie Antoinette, 96.\n\n _Marjorie Daw_, 57.\n\n Markham, Edwin, vii.\n\n Marlowe, Christopher, 344.\n\n Marshall, John, 233, 234.\n\n _Marshes of Glynn_, 334.\n\n _Martin Eden_, 352.\n\n Marx, Karl, 76, 105, 111, 112, 114, 116, 123, 124, 128, 130, 139,\n 243, 317, 323, 402, 408.\n\n Masters, Edgar Lee, xiv, 319, 325, 377, 393.\n\n Mather, Cotton, ix, 191.\n\n Mather, Increase, 191.\n\n Matthews, Brander, 325.\n\n Maugham, Somerset, 324, 326.\n\n Maupassant, Guy de, 326.\n\n Mazzini, Giuseppe, 151.\n\n Mellon, Andrew, 366.\n\n Melville, Herman, 14, 252, 403.\n\n _Memoirs of an American Citizen, The_, 349.\n\n _Men in War_, 385.\n\n Mencken, H. L., xiv, 347, 363, 376.\n\n Meredith, George, 325.\n\n Merwin, Samuel, 186.\n\n _Messer Marco Polo_, 377.\n\n _Midlander, The_, 375.\n\n Mill, John Stuart, 113, 114, 122, 124, 129, 130, 155, 156, 157, 158,\n 160, 161, 167, 168, 197, 200, 204, 213, 402.\n\n Millet, Jean Fran\u00e7ois, 293.\n\n _Minister\u2019s Wooing, The_, 64.\n\n _Miss Lucinda_, 398.\n\n _Miss Lulu Bett_, 377.\n\n _Mr. Crewe\u2019s Career_, 186, 348.\n\n _Mr. Salt_, 187.\n\n _Money Captain, The_, 187.\n\n _Monsieur Beaucaire_, 335.\n\n _Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres_, 218, 220, 221, 222, 226.\n\n Moody, Dwight L., 12, 13, 14.\n\n _Moon Calf_, 386.\n\n _Moran of the Lady Letty_, 329.\n\n More, Sir Thomas, 246.\n\n Morgan, J. Pierpont, 226, 349.\n\n Morgan, Lewis H., 191.\n\n Morris, Nelson, 15.\n\n Morris, William, 48, 68, 96, 139, 224, 225, 246, 247, 298, 312, 368,\n 376, 402.\n\n Morton, Sarah Wentworth, 62.\n\n Morton, Senator O. P., 269.\n\n Most, Johann, 284.\n\n Motley, John Lothrop, 52.\n\n Murfree, Mary, xii.\n\n _My \u00c1ntonia_, 384, 393.\n\n _My Literary Passions_, 252.\n\n Myers, Gustavus, xiii, 406.\n\n _Mysterious Stranger, The_, 91, 100.\n\n\n _Nana_, 325, 329.\n\n Nasby, Petroleum V., 92.\n\n Nathan, Robert, 378-379.\n\n _Nation, The_, 154-168.\n\n _National Quarterly Review_, 205.\n\n _Nationalist, The_, 302, 303.\n\n Newman, John Henry, 224.\n\n _New York Sun_, 43, 44.\n\n _New York Tribune_, 22, 108.\n\n _News from Nowhere_, 247, 312.\n\n Nicholson, Meredith, xi, 364, 373.\n\n Nietzsche, Friedrich, 347, 352, 386, 402, 412.\n\n _Nile Notes of a Howadji_, 148.\n\n Norris, Frank, xii, 181, 188, 299, 317, 319, 324, 325, 327, 329-334,\n 382.\n\n _North American Review_, 159, 205.\n\n Northern Pacific Railway, 16, 29, 37.\n\n Norton, Charles Eliot, 150, 152, 160, 161, 243, 250, 292.\n\n _Novel; What It Is, The_, 237.\n\n Noyes, John Humphrey, 74.\n\n\n _Octopus, The_, 329, 330, 332-334.\n\n _Of Human Bondage_, 324, 325.\n\n _Ohio State Journal_, 32.\n\n _Old New York_, 382.\n\n _Old Order Changeth, The_, 374.\n\n _Old-Town Folks_, 64.\n\n _One of Ours_, 384, 385.\n\n _1001 Afternoons in Chicago_, 386.\n\n _O Pioneers_, 383, 393.\n\n _Origin of Species, The_, 205.\n\n Otis, Harrison Gray, 58.\n\n _Our Land and Land Policy; National and State_, 130.\n\n _Our National Debt a National Blessing_, 40.\n\n _Out of Nowhere into Nothing_, 371.\n\n _Outlines of Astronomy_, 205.\n\n _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_, 208.\n\n Owen, Robert, 151.\n\n\n Pacific Railroad, 25, 144.\n\n Page, Thomas Nelson, xii.\n\n Paine, Robert Treat, 59.\n\n Paine, Tom, viii, 71, 72, 73, 125, 126, 130, 132, 136, 401.\n\n Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 215.\n\n Parker, Theodore, viii, 51, 76, 81, 131, 147, 204, 208.\n\n Parkman, Francis, 52.\n\n _Passage to India, A_, 81.\n\n Pattee, Fred Lewis, 398.\n\n Payne, Will, 187.\n\n _Pearl of Orr\u2019s Island, The_, 64.\n\n _Pembroke_, 63, 66.\n\n _Penrod_, 374.\n\n _Peter Kindred_, 378.\n\n Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 61, 62, 66, 68.\n\n Phillips, David Graham, 406.\n\n Phillips, Wendell, 22, 50, 58, 125, 139, 140-147, 150, 269, 276, 277.\n\n Phoenix, John, 92.\n\n _Pilgrim\u2019s Progress_, 14.\n\n Pillsbury, Charles A., 15.\n\n _Pit, The_, 329, 330, 333.\n\n Plato, 246, 364.\n\n _Plumes_, 386.\n\n Poe, Edgar Allan, xxi, 54, 56, 172, 397.\n\n _Poganuc People_, 64.\n\n _Political Economy_, 129.\n\n _Political Justice_, 200.\n\n _Political Science and Constitutional Law_, 120.\n\n _Political Science, or the State_, 120.\n\n _Ponkapog Papers_, 57.\n\n Poole, Ernest, 348, 350-351, 406.\n\n _Poor White_, 370.\n\n Pope, Alexander, vi, 248, 360.\n\n Porter, General Horace, 380.\n\n _Portion of Labor, The_, 62, 66, 68.\n\n _Potiphar Papers_, 148.\n\n Powderley, Terence V., xi, 160, 284.\n\n _Practical Economics_, 269.\n\n _Prairie Folks_, 291, 294, 295.\n\n Price, Richard, 193, 195.\n\n Priestly, Joseph, 73, 193, 195.\n\n _Prince and the Pauper, The_, 91, 97.\n\n _Progress and Poverty_, 116, 126, 128, 129, 132.\n\n _Progress of Democracy in Europe_, 177.\n\n Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 105, 139.\n\n _Prue and I_, 149.\n\n _Psychology_, 208.\n\n _Puppet Master, The_, 379.\n\n _Putnam\u2019s Magazine_, 148, 149.\n\n\n Quesnay, Fran\u00e7ois, 127.\n\n Quick, Herbert, 394.\n\n Quincey, Edmund, 50, 141.\n\n Quincey, Josiah, 51.\n\n\n _Raw Material_, 376.\n\n _Recessional_, 56.\n\n _Recollections of a Private, The_, 385.\n\n _Red Badge of Courage, The_, 328, 385.\n\n _R\u00e8gne Animal distribu\u00e9 d\u2019apr\u00e8s son Organisation_, 205.\n\n Reid, Whitelaw, 87.\n\n _Responsibilities of the Novelist, The_, 188.\n\n _Revolution, The_, 352.\n\n Ricardo, David, 104, 106, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 124, 126, 132,\n 163, 274 n.\n\n _Richard Carvel_, 348.\n\n Richardson, Dorothy, 399.\n\n _Riders to the Sea_, 378.\n\n _Rights of Man, The_, 132.\n\n Riley, James W., xi, 56, 288, 290, 373.\n\n Riley, Woodbridge, 197.\n\n Ripley, George, 151, 368.\n\n _Rise of Silas Lapham, The_, 250.\n\n Rittenhouse, David, 191.\n\n _Rivet in Grandfather\u2019s Neck, The_, 343.\n\n _Robert Elsmere_, 349.\n\n _Robinson Crusoe\u2019s Money_, 269.\n\n Robinson, Edward Arlington, xiv.\n\n Rockefeller, John D., 15.\n\n Rogers, Henry H., 90.\n\n R\u00f6lvaag, Ole, 387-396.\n\n Roosevelt, Theodore, xiii, 226, 404.\n\n Root, Elihu, 284.\n\n _Rose of Dutcher\u2019s Cooly_, 292.\n\n _Rough Hewn_, 376.\n\n _Roughing It_, 15, 91, 92, 98, 100.\n\n Rousseau, Jean Jacques, xxviii, 367, 389.\n\n Ruskin, John, 133, 139, 224, 368, 402.\n\n Russell, Charles Edward, xiii, 406.\n\n Russell, Lord William, 215.\n\n\n Sage, Russell, 12.\n\n Saint-Simon, 105, 151, 196, 198.\n\n Sandburg, Carl, xiv, 319.\n\n Sankey, Ira David, 13.\n\n Santayana, George, 53.\n\n _Saturday Evening Post, The_, 327, 379, 381.\n\n _Scarlet Letter, The_, 65.\n\n Schurz, Karl, 155.\n\n Scott, Evelyn, xv.\n\n Scott, Sir Walter, 96.\n\n _Sea Wolf, The_, 352.\n\n _Sebastopol_, 328.\n\n Sedgwick, Catherine, 62.\n\n Sellers, Colonel Beriah, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 37, 88, 92, 93, 94,\n 116, 169, 296.\n\n _Seth\u2019s Brother\u2019s Wife_, 288.\n\n Shaw, Anna, 149.\n\n Shaw, George Bernard, 335, 343.\n\n \u201cShaw Memorial Ode,\u201d 58.\n\n Sheridan, Richard Brimsley, 344.\n\n Sherman, General William Tecumseh, 29, 217.\n\n Sherman, Senator John, 32, 34, 38 n, 268, 269.\n\n Sherman, Stuart P., 274, 358, 359.\n\n _Short Line War, The_, 186.\n\n Sidney, Sir Philip, 89.\n\n _Silent Partner, The_, 61, 62.\n\n _Silliman\u2019s Journal_, 191.\n\n Simons, A. M., xiii.\n\n Simpson, Jerry, 266, 284.\n\n Sinclair, Upton, xiv, 348, 368, 406.\n\n Sismondi, Jean Charles, 105.\n\n _Sisters\u2019 Tragedy, The_, 55.\n\n Smith, Adam, 107.\n\n Smith, J. Allen, vii, xvii, 408.\n\n _Social Strugglers, The_, 182, 184, 185, 382.\n\n _Son at the Front, A_, 382.\n\n _Son of the Middle Border, A_, 292, 374.\n\n _Song of Myself_, 81.\n\n _Song of the Lark, The_, 384.\n\n Sorel, Albert, 139.\n\n Spencer, Herbert, 80, 122, 193, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203,\n 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 235, 253, 284, 293, 294, 299, 317,\n 318, 352, 402.\n\n _Spirit of American Government, The_, 408.\n\n Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 62.\n\n _Spoil of Office, A_, 298.\n\n _Spoilsmen, The_, 186.\n\n _Spoon River Anthology_, 325, 370, 377, 393.\n\n _Squirrel Cage, The_, 376.\n\n Stallings, Laurence, 386.\n\n Stanford, Leland, 15, 127.\n\n _Starting from Paumanok_, 73, 79.\n\n _State, The_, 120.\n\n Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 52, 53, 302.\n\n Steffens, Lincoln, 187, 406.\n\n Stevens, Thaddeus, 69, 143, 160, 271, 272, 276, 277, 279.\n\n Stevenson, Robert Louis, 237.\n\n Stewart, A. T., 29.\n\n Stiles, Ezra, 191.\n\n Stoddard, Richard Henry, 52, 53.\n\n _Story of a Bad Boy_, 57.\n\n _Story of a Country Town, The_, 377, 391.\n\n _Story Teller\u2019s Story, A_, 371.\n\n Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 62, 63, 64, 398.\n\n _Stranger\u2019s Banquet, The_, 377.\n\n Strindberg, August, 299, 324, 325.\n\n Stubbs, William, 210.\n\n Suckow, Ruth, 394.\n\n Sumner, Charles, 150.\n\n Sunday, Billy, 361, 367, 368.\n\n Swift, Jonathan, vi, 89, 155, 378.\n\n Sydney, Algernon, 146.\n\n Synge, John M., 378.\n\n _Synthetic Philosophy_, 201, 206.\n\n _Syst\u00e8me du Monde_, 205.\n\n\n Taine, Hippolyte, vii, 89, 293, 294, 295, 323, 402.\n\n Talmage, T. De Witt, 12.\n\n Tarbell, Ida, 406.\n\n Tarkington, Booth, xi, 348, 374, 375, 377, 379.\n\n _Tatler, The_, 149.\n\n Taylor, Bayard, 38 n.\n\n Taylor, John, xxvii, 125, 127, 218, 264, 276.\n\n Tennyson, Lord Alfred, 54, 202, 237, 334.\n\n Thackeray, William Makepeace, 148, 179, 348, 374.\n\n Thanet, Octave, 238.\n\n Thayer, William Roscoe, 171.\n\n _Theory of Social Revolution, The_, 232.\n\n _This Side of Paradise_, 386.\n\n Thoreau, Henry David, viii, 50, 72, 73, 76, 148, 189, 337, 403.\n\n _Three Black Pennys, The_, 380.\n\n _Three Soldiers_, 385.\n\n _Through Nature to God_, 209.\n\n _Through the Eye of the Needle_, 247.\n\n _Through the Wheat_, 385.\n\n Tilden, Samuel Joves, 281.\n\n Tilton, Libby, 13.\n\n _Titan, The_, 355.\n\n _To Have and to Hold_, 180.\n\n Tocqueville, Alexis de, 156, 158, 160, 387.\n\n Tolstoi, Leo, 64, 65, 248, 293, 328.\n\n _Tom Sawyer_, 94, 95, 100, 374.\n\n Train, George Francis, 12.\n\n Traubel, Horace, 85.\n\n _Traveller from Altruria, The_, 246, 247.\n\n _Tribune_, 38 n, 43, 44, 128.\n\n _Triumph of the Egg, The_, 370.\n\n _Troll Garden, The_, 383.\n\n _Trumps_, 149.\n\n Turgenev, Ivan, 64, 293.\n\n Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques, 193, 195, 199, 219.\n\n Turner, Frederick Jackson, 159, 404.\n\n Twain, Mark, vi, 10, 14, 15, 31, 53, 54, 55, 86-101, 102, 123, 169,\n 242, 252, 290, 292, 345, 374, 400.\n\n Tweed, Boss, 12, 13, 14, 137, 152.\n\n Twitchell, Joe, 87.\n\n\n _Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin_, 302.\n\n _Under Fire_, 385.\n\n Union Pacific, 16, 24, 39, 103, 214.\n\n _Unguarded Gates_, 58.\n\n _Unleavened Bread_, 180, 182, 382.\n\n Untermyer, Samuel, 406.\n\n U\u2019Ren, William S., 284.\n\n\n _Valley of Democracy_, 373.\n\n Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 12, 14, 27, 296.\n\n Van Doren, Carl, 380.\n\n _Vandover and the Brute_, 329, 332.\n\n\n _Vanity Fair_, 148.\n\n Veblen, Thorstein, 193, 406, 412.\n\n _Venetian Days_, 251.\n\n _Virginians, The_, 348.\n\n Voltaire, 204.\n\n\n Wade, Ben, 38 n.\n\n Walker, Amasa, 111.\n\n Walker, Francis A., 103, 111-117.\n\n Wall Street, 12, 14, 110, 163, 181, 185, 189, 262, 266, 269, 277,\n 284, 382.\n\n Walsh, Frank P., 406.\n\n Ward, Artemus, 92.\n\n Ward, Lester F., 198, 402.\n\n _War and Peace_, 328.\n\n Warner, Charles Dudley, 87, 169, 184.\n\n Washburn, C. C., 15.\n\n _Washington Chronicle_, 38 n.\n\n Washington, George, 381.\n\n Watson, Tom, 266, 284.\n\n Wayland, Francis, 104, 105, in, 133.\n\n _Wealth of Nations_, 305.\n\n Weaver, General James Baird, 266, 284.\n\n _Web of Life, The_, 350.\n\n Webster, Daniel, xxviii, 119, 281, 408, 409.\n\n Webster, H. K., 186.\n\n Wells, David A., 103, 108, 268, 269, 270, 274.\n\n Wharton, Edith, xii, 180, 240, 347, 381-383, 405.\n\n _What is Man?_, 91.\n\n _What Price Glory?_, 386.\n\n _When Knighthood Was in Flower_, 335.\n\n Whistler, James McNeil, 239.\n\n White, Maria, 141.\n\n White, William Allen, xi, 348, 364, 374, 377.\n\n Whitman, Walt, 13, 14, 54, 55, 36, 69-86, 87, 88, 90, 102, 189, 241,\n 293, 294, 299, 354, 356, 402, 403.\n\n Whittier, John Greenleaf, 52, 141.\n\n Wilbur, Ida, 298.\n\n Wilkins, Mary, 395, 400.\n\n Willard, Frances E., 302.\n\n Williams, Francis Churchill, 186.\n\n Williams, Roger, viii, ix, 121.\n\n Wilson, Margaret, 394.\n\n Wilson, Woodrow, xiii, 120, 284, 406, 412.\n\n _Wind Bloweth, The_, 378.\n\n Windom, William, 38 n.\n\n _Windy McPherson\u2019s Son_, 370.\n\n _Winesburg, Ohio_, 63, 324, 370.\n\n Winter, William, 53.\n\n Winthrop, John, 121.\n\n Wise, John, 155.\n\n _Wolf, The_, 333.\n\n Wood, Fernando, 12, 14.\n\n Woodberry, George E., 58.\n\n Woodhull, Victoria, 12, 13, 202.\n\n Woodward, W. W., xiii.\n\n Woolsey, Theodore Dwight, 119, 120-124, 130.\n\n Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 398.\n\n Wright, Fanny, 71, 73, 140.\n\n\n Youmans, Edward L., 207.\n\n _Young People\u2019s Pride_, 386.\n\n\n Zola, \u00c9mile, 64, 179, 180, 188, 237, 293, 299, 323, 324, 325, 326,\n 328, 329, 330.\n\n _Zo\u00f6logy_, 205.\n\n _Zury, The Meanest Man in Spring County_, 289, 391.\n\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s notes:\n\nItalic text is rendered with _underscores_, and small-cap text\n(when used as emphasis) with +plus signs+.\n\nMulti-line headings have been consolidated to one line with a bullet\ncharacter separating their components. These headings represent one\nlevel in the book's organization: a Volume, Book, Part, Chapter, or\nsection. All-capitalized headings in the original have been changed to\ntitle case and moved to the left margin. Volume information in [square\nbrackets] has been added to the headings of the tables of contents and\nindices to clarify document structure in this large work.\n\n\"Book\" headings were printed twice, first on interior title pages, then\non the next page; one of each has been removed as redundant.]","title":"Main currents in American thought : $b An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":550854}