Volume 1 / Book 3 — The Romantic Revolution in America [Volume Two]
Reading edition
Foreword
In justification of the choice of writers and allotment of space in the following pages, let it be said frankly that I have been guided by what I conceived to be the historical significance of the several documents. With aesthetic judgments I have not been greatly concerned. I have not wished to evaluate reputations or weigh literary merits, but rather to understand what our fathers thought, and why they wrote as they did. This will serve to explain the considerable number of pages devoted to southern letters, as well as to certain well-nigh forgotten figures. For the purpose I had in view such a method was inevitable. Lost causes have a way of shrinking in importance in the memory of later generations, and the historian must go back to the days before their overthrow, and view them in the light of their hopes. Time is not always a just winnower; it is partial to success and its verdict too often inclines to the side of the biggest cannon or the noisiest claque. The exhuming of buried reputations and the revivifying of dead causes is the familiar business of the historian, in whose eyes forgotten men may assume as great significance as others with whom posterity has dealt more generously. Communing with ghosts is not unprofitable to one who listens to their tales. To our fathers John Taylor and Beverley Tucker and Fisher Ames were living figures; they spoke for their generation, and they may have something still to say to a later generation. For dealing at length with such men as Hugh Legaré and Gilmore Simms and John P. Kennedy and Herman Melville, no apologies need be offered. They have too long been slighted. Walt Whitman I have chosen to regard as the forerunner of a later school, and have reserved the consideration of his work for another study. Certain other men I have omitted regretfully out of regard to space—diverse figures such as Orestes Brownson, Albert Brisbane, and John Esten Cooke, together with a group of poets and essayists, who though they have long been reckoned ghosts are nevertheless well worth knowing. Even echoes imply substance somewhere.
V. L. P.
Seattle, February 22, 1926.
Introduction
The present volume is the second in a proposed study of the main tendencies of American thought as expressed in our literature. In the preceding volume I have considered the incoming into America of certain old-world ideals and institutions, and the subjection of those ideals and institutions to the pressure of a new environment, from which resulted the overthrow of the principles of monarchy and aristocracy, and the setting up of the principle of republicanism. In the present study I purpose considering certain new growths that sprang up in the land thus cleared—what particular forms they assumed and why they assumed such forms. The delimitations of the period to be treated of are fixed by two wars that disturbed the normal unfolding of national experience: the War of 1812 that hastened the development of nineteenth-century ideals, and the Civil War that uprooted certain of the crasser growths of those vigorous years. The half century that lay between these dramatic episodes was a period of extravagant youth, given over to a cult of romanticism that wrought as many marvels as Aaron’s rod. In the South, in New England, and on the western frontier, it laid hold of men’s minds, consuming the stubble of eighteenth-century harvests, sweeping away the drab realisms of a cautious past, and offering in their stead more alluring ideals. Revolutions, greater and lesser, trod on each other’s heels; the common adventure led into unexplored paths; and the final outcome for which it was all preparing was the emergence of a new middle class that in the succeeding half century was to subdue America to middle-class ends.
Such drastic overturnings of the customary and familiar, such swift ruptures with the past, quite evidently do not come from trivial causes. Men do not put off the old before the new is ready; and if in those credulous years they turned romantic and refused to heed the counsels of experience, it was because the soil had been new-plowed for the growing of such crops as their fathers had not known. The grapes from which the wine of romance is vinted, it must not be forgotten, are rooted in the common earth. The loveliest romantic dreams spring from a parentage that is humbly prosaic. There is no more fruitful source of romantic hope than a fluid economics that overflows all narrow preëmptions and sweeps away the restrictions that hamper free endeavor. With fresh economic realms to conquer, the dullest plodder discovers a stimulus in anticipation that sets him upon creating a Utopia. The breaking up of the static, the bold adventuring upon new worlds, is the fertile soil in which romance springs most luxuriantly. It needs no uncommon eyes, surely, to discover in the swift changes that came to America in the wake of the second English war, the seed-bed of those ebullient romanticisms which in politics and economics, in theology and literature, turned away so contemptuously from the homespun past. Of a sudden America was becoming a new world with potentialities before undreamed of; and this new America was no longer content with the narrow ways of a more cautious generation. The older America of colonial days had been static, rationalistic, inclined to pessimism, fearful of innovation, tenacious of the customary. It conceived of human nature as evil, and accounting men incurably wicked, it opened no doors to Utopian dreams of a golden future. The round of daily life was confined within a narrow domestic economy, with few and rare changes in social status. Growth in population came mainly from natural increase. Exploitation was laborious, and such wealth as was laid by was gained in shop and field, in fisheries and shipping. With its expectations cramped by a drab agrarianism, it was content to remain primitively self-sufficient, not given to seeking riches by speculative short-cuts, clinging to the habitual, distrustful of change.
During the thirty-odd years between the Peace of Paris and the end of the War of 1812 that older America was dying. The America that succeeded was a shifting, restless world, youthfully optimistic, eager to better itself, bent on finding easier roads to wealth than the plodding path of natural increase. It conceived of human nature as acquisitive, and accounting acquisitiveness a cardinal virtue, it set out to inquire what opportunities awaited it in the unexploited resources of the continent. The cautious ways of earlier generations were become as much out of date as last year’s almanac. New commonwealths were rising in the wilderness; immigration from war-torn Europe was pouring in; wild lands were daily coming on the market. Money was to be made by the enterprising, and the multitude of the enterprising was augmenting with the expansion of the settlements. The ideal of a static society having been put away, progress was assumed to be the first law of nature, and innovation was accepted as the sign and seal of progress. It was our first great period of exploitation, and from it emerged, as naturally as the cock from the mother egg, the spirit of romance, gross and tawdry in vulgar minds, dainty and refined in the more cultivated. But always romance. The days of realism were past, and it was quietly laid away with the wig and smallclothes of an outgrown generation.
Unfortunately economic romance is more imperious in its demands than literary romance. Its dreams follow objective desires, and in America of those days of new beginnings the desires of diverse economic groups conducted straight to antagonistic imperialisms. The major interests of the three great sections of the country differentiated more and more sharply. The East was discovering its Utopia in an industrial capitalistic order. With the flocking of immigrants to the factories began the extraordinary expansion of the cities and the movement of centralization that was eventually to transform America from a rural to an urban society, supplanting the farmer by the business man and disintegrating the traditional psychology. The new manufacturing and the new finance were subjecting an agrarian people to the dislocations and readjustments implied in the industrial revolution, the outcome of which no man could foresee. The reaction of this new industrialism upon the South was immediate. With the improvements in textile manufacturing came greater demands upon the new southern staple, and an agriculture that had long been static with its traditional crops of indigo, rice, and tobacco, began to look forward confidently to a Utopia founded on cotton, and conceived an imperialistic dream of expanding fields of white bolls and black slaves, reaching into Mexico and embracing the West Indies. The new South left off apologizing for slavery and hoping for its ultimate extinction. Slavery had become enormously profitable and it proposed to exploit the negro as frankly as New England was exploiting the Irish immigrant, but more humanely if possible, in something of the patriarchal spirit.
Meanwhile in the Inland Empire was arising an economics that looked with little favor on the imperialisms of eastern capitalism or southern slavery; an economics equalitarian in temper, decentralizing in impulse; nourished on the idealism of the Declaration of Independence, but interpreting it to mean the natural right of every free citizen to satisfy his acquisitive instinct by exploiting the national resources in the measure of his shrewdness. Democratic in professions, it was middle-class in spirit and purpose. Discovering the inflowing tide of immigration to be favorable to speculation, it sought its Utopia in county-seat towns where land holdings mounted in value with every new wave. No narrow horizons bounded a realm that stretched to the Pacific and into the remote Northwest, and no stodgy ways of money-getting could satisfy men whose imaginations ranged through such spaces. This country was theirs to do with as they chose, and if eastern capitalism or southern slavery interfered with their inalienable rights, their Sharp’s rifles were at hand for defense. In the vast territory drained by the Mississippi—the “Valley of Democracy,” a recent writer has chosen to call it—was conceived what may be accounted the most romantic dream that ever visited the native mind of America. It impressed de Tocqueville, who discovered the poetry of America in this romance of a moving frontier, in the vision that led the pioneer on his conquering way westward, hewing at an interminable wilderness that was matched only by his ambitions.
Such swift expansions, such mounting romanticisms of temper, must inevitably provide themselves with correspondent philosophies to phrase the new aspirations. The nineteenth century was not content to think in the narrower terms of the eighteenth, but must refashion its thought to suit the romantic style. The modes which it came to accept were for the most part of European origin, adapted to new-world needs. From France and England, and later from Germany, came variant schools of romantic theory that at bottom were a common glorification of the ideal of individualism; and this very diversity of interpretation made possible in America an appeal to different classes and diverse interests, the sum total of which was a many-sided contribution to social theory, but a contribution which carried within it the seeds of later conflict.
The first stage in the romanticization of American thought resulted from the naturalization of French revolutionary theory. Its devious progress through the country can be traced fairly accurately. Landing first in Virginia in the early seventeen-seventies, it met with a hospitable reception from the generous planter society and spread widely there the fashion of Physiocratic agrarianism. Traveling thence westward into the Inland Empire it domesticated itself in frontier log cabins under the guise of an assertive individualism, to issue later as the coonskin democracy of the Jacksonian revolution. Eventually reaching New England, the last haven and refuge of eighteenth-century realism, it disarmed Yankee antagonism by assuming the dress of Unitarianism and preached the doctrine of human perfectibility with such conviction as to arouse the conscience of New England to an extraordinary enthusiasm for reforming man and society. And coming finally to New York it inoculated the mind of the emerging proletariat with its doctrine of the rights of man, with Fourieristic and other Utopias, and turmoiled contemporary politics with equalitarian Locofoco programs. No other philosophy assumed so many and such attractive disguises, or wrought such changes in American ideals, as this French romanticism with its generous humanitarian impulses. The ground was ready for the seed it was to sow, and if in the judgment of a hostile philosophy the crop turned out to be tares, increasing thousands believed it to be excellent wheat, to the growing of which America was to be dedicated henceforth.
The rival philosophy, which came to view with increasing dislike the doctrines of French romanticism, was of English middle class origin and sprang from the long struggle of that class to loose the hands of the landed gentry from control of the state. Phrased persuasively by Adam Smith, it embodied the principle of liberalism as that principle was understood by men of affairs. It conceived of a social Utopia that must result if economic forces were given free play; if governmental restrictions on trade were done away with and individual enterprise were free to buy and sell in the open market. Springing from the same root of individualism that brought forth French romanticism, it flowered in an economics that denied the aspirations of the French school. Assuming as its determining principle the common instinct of acquisitiveness, it set up the economic man as the criterion of conduct and proposed to reorder society to the single end of trade. Thus sanctioned and given free rein, the principle of acquisitiveness set forth on its triumphant march through western civilization. Accepted by the English middle class as the ultimate social philosophy sufficient to all needs, it presented to willing eyes the ideal of exploitation as the goal of social progress.
But transported to America, the new philosophy soon discovered unforeseen obstacles in its path. The acquisitive instinct was here enormously strengthened by the vast unpreëmpted resources lying all about, but unfortunately those resources were too great or too speculative to be exploited by individual effort. Capital was wanting, and unless collective funds were available, exploitation must be slow and inadequate. There was need of the state to further the opening up of western lands and to throw its guardianship about an infant industrialism. Roads and canals could not wait on individual enterprise; tariffs and subsidies could flow only from the government. Hence arose a modification of laissez faire, from which resulted the theory that a democratic state stands in loco parentis to the economic interests of its citizens, and should guarantee the progressive well-being of strategic groups on whose prosperity depended the common well-being. It was this modification of the English philosophy that the Whig party came to embody in its platform, and which by pooling the interests of western speculators, eastern financiers and New England industrialists, sponsored the “American Plan,” a curiously ingenious scheme to milk the cow and divide the milk among those who superintended the milking.
Meanwhile in the imperialistic South was arising a distinctive philosophy, native to the special conditions imposed by slavery, that was to set it apart from both eastern and western economics and draw it inevitably into a narrowing isolation. Frankly defensive in purpose, rejecting alike French equalitarianism and English individualism, it sought to justify the institution of slavery by an appeal to realism and square it to the theory of democracy by analogy with northern industrialism. The conception of a Greek democracy, which was the last citadel of the southern mind, was a skillful compromise between the antagonistic principles of aristocracy and democracy, the most romantic ideal brought forth by our golden age of romance. Assuming the middle-class principle of exploitation as the creative source of every civilization, it proposed to erect a free state on the basis of a slave proletariat after the model of ancient Athens. A democracy, it argued, is possible only among equals. In every society hitherto the inevitable inequality between economic classes has nullified every democratic program. Master and man, exploiter and exploited, are necessarily opposed in vital economic interests; and this potential clash, this fundamental antagonism of classes, has been intensified by the rise of industrialism. Exploitation has been brutalized by the impersonal wage-system, and the proletariat has been reduced to sodden and embittered beasts. If now as honest realists we recognize frankly that equality cannot exist between inferior and superior races, if we accept the inevitable proletarian status of the negro, if finally we concede the truism that the lifelong relations between master and slave are more humane than the temporary relations between wage-giver and wage-earner, we shall concern ourselves less with a romantic equalitarianism and more with a rational conception of a democracy of equals that may conceivably erect a civilization worthy of the name.
It was an ingenious theory, but unfortunately it left out of account the ambitions of the middle class, and it was this class that in the end destroyed it. Whether they will it or not, imperialisms have a way of clashing with rival imperialisms. Reality persists though romance may deny it, and in their several programs the three diverse sections of America were driving blindly to a collision. In that bitter collision the dream of the South was destroyed. With the overthrow of the aristocratic principle in its final refuge the ground was cleared of the last vestiges of the eighteenth century. Thenceforth America was to become wholly middle class, and such romance as it might bring forth was to be of another sort.
The literature of this extraordinarily vigorous period we are now to deal with, not in the narrow field of belles lettres alone but in the outlying fields of social and political philosophies. The difficulties in the way are many. To endeavor to penetrate critically to the intellectual core of a period, to weigh this romance in realistic scales, to take off the outer wrappings and lay bare the inner truth, is no May-day undertaking. The critic finds himself at every turn confronted by reputations distorted by contemporary praise or censure. In the formal biographies written in that golden age of myth-making, criticism too often gave way to eulogy. Our fathers wrote like gentlemen, but unfortunately too often they believed that in preparing a biography a gentleman was under obligation to speak well of the dead. No blemishes were to be recognized, no disagreeable truths to find a place in their immaculate pages. In consequence scarcely a single commentary of the times is to be trusted, and the critic is reduced to patching together his account out of scanty odds and ends, or else settling down to do a series of full-length portraits, in which work, quite evidently, he will not get far. The inadequacies of the present study I am painfully conscious of: its omissions, its doubtful interpretations, its hasty generalizations, its downright guesses; but in the present lack of exact knowledge of the history of American letters, I do not see how such inadequacies can be avoided.
Contents [Volume Two]
Introduction: Delimitations of period; romance and economic change; differentiating imperialisms of East, South, West; romantic philosophies: Physiocratic agrarianism, French equalitarianism, English laissez faire; a counter-philosophy—slavery and a Greek democracy iii
Book I: The Mind of the South
The mind of the South old-fashioned. Two germinal sources: Virginia, from which derived Kentucky and Tennessee; South Carolina, from which derived the Black Belt 3
Part I
The Virginia Renaissance
I. The Old Dominion The mother of the agrarian West. Transition from middle-class to plantation ideals. Increasingly libertarian 5
II. The Heritage of Jeffersonianism I. Jeffersonianism an expression of native conditions. Interpreted in terms of Physiocratic agrarianism, natural rights. Terminable nature of compact the source of states-rights doctrine. Struggle between capitalistic and agrarian economics. Virginia the leader of the latter movement 10
II. John Taylor—Agrarian Economist: Leader of the young Republicans. His works. Theory founded in Physiocratic doctrine. Aristocratic origins of the political state. Examination of the principles of John Adams, Hamilton—social classes derive from exploitation. Danger of a paper aristocracy. His philosophy summarized 14
III. John Marshall Last of the Virginia Federalists: His strategic position. Middle-class sympathies; intellectual qualities. A politician on the bench. Two fixed ideas: sovereignty of the federal state; sanctity of private property. His decisions Federalistic. Two main groups: sovereignty of the judiciary; irrevocable nature of contract. The Yazoo Fraud case. An arch conservative 20
IV. The Older Plantation Mind I. Plantation backgrounds: The literary renaissance followed English romantic movement. Kennedy’s Swallow Barn and the rise of the plantation tradition 28
II. William Wirt: The man—embodiment of eighteenth-century culture. The British Spy—characteristics. Life of Patrick Henry—solution of the problem. Later shift in political sympathies 30
III. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker—A Virginia Fire-eater. His parochialism; his pessimism. The Partisan Leader—a dramatization of Calhoun’s philosophy; the note of romantic extravagance. Hatred of democracy—appeal to South Carolina 35
V. Adventures in Romance I. William Alexander Caruthers and the transition to romance. The Kentuckian in New York, a contribution to intersectional good will. An appreciation of northern qualities; a criticism of slavery. The Cavaliers of Virginia, the new spirit of romance. His slight reputation 41
II. John Pendleton Kennedy—A southern Whig: The man—Jeffersonian backgrounds; influence of Edward Gray. Turned protectionist, accepted the doctrine of progress. A romantic; an amateur. Swallow Barn—an idyl of plantation life—slavery. Horse-Shoe Robinson; Rob of the Bowl—cavalier romance. Quodlibet—a Whig satire of Jacksonianism. His later career 46
III. Edgar Allan Poe: Relations to southern environment—his prejudices against New England. Aloofness from Virginia ideals. A problem for abnormal psychology and belletristic criticism. An artist and a critic 57
Part II
The Renaissance of Slavery
I. Southern Imperialism Shift in attitude towards slavery—consequences to Jeffersonian democracy. The Black Belt—reasons why cotton became king. Reaction of the South to imperialism. Jefferson Davis—his character 61
II. Winds of Political Doctrine I. Three streams of thought: Virginia humanitarianism, western individualism, Carolina imperialism. Increasing dominance of the third. Rise of a defensive strategy; appeal to the Constitution 67
II. John C. Calhoun—Realist. His influence—destroyed Jeffersonianism for the new South. A southern Puritan. His early career—a nationalist. The year 1828 a turning-point—recognition of the danger of democracy to slavery. Two lines of defense: states rights, constitutional checks. Amplification of the second by extension of the principle of the veto. Failure of existing checks to protect minorities. Fallacy in the conception of democratic majorities—an obscuring of the economic basis of politics. Doctrine of the concurrent majority. Conception of democracy—an attack on theory of natural rights. His objective a Greek democracy. Likeness to John Adams 69
III. Alexander H. Stephens—Constitutionalist: The man—passion for freedom under law. His localism expressed in states rights. A confirmed liberal—fear of extra-legal powers. His Constitutional View of the War between the States. Theory of the terminable nature of compact—doctrine of good will. A political thinker, rather than economic. Position on slavery 82
IV. Francis Lieber—A New-Modeled Federalism: A German liberal influenced by English constitutional practice and the common law. His doctrine of historical evolution. Liberty founded in institutional self-government. A laissez-faire conception of the political state 93
III. The Dream of a Greek Democracy I. Difficulty of the southern position. A reply to northern industrialism—civilization and labor exploitation. Contrast between wage-slavery and black slavery—certain advantages of the latter. Southern replies to Uncle Tom’s Cabin 99
II. William J. Grayson: The Hireling and the Slave as a southern document. A contrast: the wretchedness of the wage-slave in industrial centers; the contentment of the black slave on the plantation. His attack on Abolitionists 103
IV. Adventures in Belles-Lettres I. Old Charleston: The capital of the planters—aristocratic, Puritan, Victorian. Traditional home of Federalism. Culture old-fashioned. A distinguished society 109
II. William Crafts—Charleston Wit: A southern Robert Treat Paine, seeking to domesticate Boston culture in Charleston. His work 112
III. Hugh Swinton Legaré—Intellectual: A southern Puritan. His career. A legal scholar, interpreting politics in terms of the common law. A lexolater, contemptuous of political philosophers. A juridical romantic. Accepted the economics of laissez faire and capitalism. Pessimistic in regard to the South. Hostile to Nullification and Calhoun. The weakness of slavery 114
IV. William Gilmore Simms: A plebeian snubbed by Charleston, yet loyal to the Charleston parochialisms. A realist hampered by the current romanticisms. The most virile figure of the old South. A rich and generous nature—likeness to Fielding. The picaresque note in his work. Reasons for his exploitation of “blood-pudding.” Lieutenant Porgy. His two major themes: his special frontier compared with Cooper’s; his revolutionary tales. His treatment of the Indian. The Yemassee, compared with Cooper. Later life 125
Part III
The Romance of the West
I. New Worlds I. The Inland Empire and Jeffersonianism. Romance and social change. Rise of the middle class, and clash of philosophies. Economic origins of western Whiggery 137
II. Henry Clay: The embodiment of Whiggery. Reason for his shift from Jeffersonianism. His theory of paternalism 141
II. Two Spokesmen of the West I. Andrew Jackson—Agrarian Liberal: The rise of western equalitarianism. Federalist contempt for a Democrat. Jackson our first great popular leader. Characteristics. Early drift towards middle-class position; reaction to agrarianism. Repudiation of Whiggery. Hatred of aristocracy. His attitude toward the Bank a return to the economics of John Taylor. His attitude towards the state a modified Jeffersonianism. His influence on American democracy. Effect on later Whig strategy 145
II. Lincoln—Free-Soil Liberal: Liberalism and the Declaration of Independence. A Jeffersonian who came to the defense of natural rights. Equalitarianism and laissez faire. The problem of free soil—a realist seeking to reconcile them. His “divided house” position an appeal to political realism. Good will versus coercive sovereignty. The prose of his speeches. Lincoln and the myth-makers 152
III. The Frontier in Letters Romance and the Inland Empire. Two main conceptions: Boone and the Dark and Bloody Ground; Crockett and frontier humor 161
I. The Romantic Frontier 162
II. The Realistic Frontier (1) Augustus Longstreet and the Georgia Frontier: The native realism of Georgia life. A frontier plebeian who developed middle-class qualities. A follower of Calhoun, but at bottom a Jeffersonian agrarian. With the rise of Abolitionism abandoned natural-rights philosophy. Georgia Scenes—the note of realism 166
(2) The Davy Crockett Myth: The popular appeal of the Narrative and the rise of the Crockett myth. Origin at Washington. Three stages: frontier waggery; anti-Jackson spleen; the Alamo adventure. A Whig attempt to catch the coonskin vote—a by-product of Jacksonian methods. The beginnings in Sketches and Eccentricities. Effect on Davy. The Tour and the Life of Martin Van Buren. Conjectural authorship. How Davy was made a Whig. The Exploits and Adventures. The Narrative—the real Davy a wastrel 172
Book II: The Mind of the Middle East
A product of two centers: Philadelphia, New York. Lack of intellectual backgrounds 183
I. The Old Capital I. Philadelphia the capital of the older American culture. Its contributions to the Revolutionary debates. Its economic prospects curtailed by topography. Its decline with the removal of the national capital 185
II. Brockden Brown and French liberalisms—influence of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Explanation of their appeal. Alcuin; A Dialogue. Arthur Mervyn, a study in Godwinianism. Wieland and the “blood-pudding” school. Influence on later fiction in America 188
III. Robert Montgomery Bird: His contributions to the romantic drama. Nick of the Woods—a realistic treatment of the Indian. A contribution to the myth of western humor 190
II. The New Capital I. New York an economic rather than a cultural capital. Reasons for its rise. The older Knickerbocker world disintegrating. Stephen Van Rensselaer and John Jacob Astor 193
II. Intellectual backgrounds: Lack of creativeness. Political divisions. Emergence of the boss—Martin Van Buren and Thurlow Weed 195
III. James Kent: The last of the old Federalist school. His political theory—a disciple of Fisher Ames. His Commentaries on American Law 197
IV. Beginnings of the renaissance: Salmagundi; The Croaker Papers. Fitz-Greene Halleck. His views—attitude towards the proletariat. Connecticut; Fanny. The last of the Wits 199
III. Two Knickerbocker Romantics I. Washington Irving: His detachment. A flâneur. His years abroad. Reaction to the Reform Bill. An incipient liberal. Rediscovery of America. The mission to Madrid. Contrast with Cooper. Political principles—drift towards the middle class. A Tour of the Prairies, Astoria, Life of Washington. His early and late work contrasted 203
II. James Kirke Paulding: His origins—a son of the people, distrustful of the middle class. Defense of America against the English critics. His idealism. The Backwoodsman; The Puritan and his Daughter. His rejection of English “blood-pudding” romantic. A Jeffersonian: Letters from the South an echo of John Taylor’s agrarianism; opposed Clay’s American Plan; satirized Clay in Koningsmarke. Westward Ho!; The Dutchman’s Fireside. An amateur in letters 212
IV. James Fenimore Cooper—Critic The problem of Cooper. A barometer of his generation. Troubled by the transition from an aristocratic to a capitalistic order—lingered between worlds. His Tory origins—Judge William Cooper. Abandoned Federalism yet ill content with Democracy. Effect of his European travels. Likeness to John Adams—hated all cant. Two phases of his criticism: the older Federalist theories; the fallacies of capitalism. The Monikins—an attack on the stake-in-society theory. The Redskins—an attack on capitalistic exploitation. A romanticized eighteenth century his refuge against the vulgarities of Jacksonianism and capitalism. Home as Found and The Redskins as studies in social criticism. His love of the wilderness and hatred of the frontier. The anti-rent trilogy. Picture of the squatter. His growing realism—Wyandotté. His later political philosophy—an ethical interpretation of sovereignty. Failure of the critics to understand Cooper 222
V. Some Contributions of New England I. William Cullen Bryant—Puritan Liberal: Injustice done him by neglect of his journalistic work. An original mind. Transition from Federalist to Democrat. Influence of the English economists—an English liberal. Never a Jeffersonian, but anti-Whig. Influence of William Leggett and Parke Godwin. Attitude towards the labor movement. Defense of free speech. A critic of the rising capitalism 238
II. Horace Greeley—Yankee Radical: A practical man seeking a way out of the confusions of the times. His early life; defense of protectionism. His working back to Jeffersonianism. Interest in Fourierism. Champion of the farmer and the wage-earner. His “Vote Yourself a Farm” policy. Interest in the proletariat—interpretation of slavery. Coöperation. An idealist 247
III. Herman Melville—Pessimist: The source of his pessimism in life itself—effect of frustrations. His ancestry: the Gansevoort strain; the Melville strain. Contrast between mother and son; effect of his marriage. Stages toward pessimism marked by Typee, Mardi, Moby Dick, Pierre. Transcendentalism and reality. His democracy. A critic of America. Spiritual dissatisfactions—Clarel 258
Book III: The Mind of New England
The New England renaissance the last expression in America of eighteenth-century revolutionary thought. Given a native ethical bias. Twin tendencies of earlier New England. Static conditions of life—the renaissance a movement of liberalism, shaped by the Puritan strain 271
Part I
The Twilight of Federalism
I. The Passing of the Tie-Wig School I. Old Boston: Conservatism of temper—a reaction from the revolutionary enthusiasm of ’76. Emphasized by refusal to entertain French romantic theories. The renaissance delayed a generation. The home of the stake-in-society principle; opposition to democracy 275
II. Fisher Ames and the Tie-Wig School: The spokesman of Boston Federalism. A conservative, given to pessimism. His political philosophy an adaptation of English Whiggery to the Calvinistic conception of stewardship; based on an absolute morality. Prosperity and the Saints—the end of government to protect property; hence it must be strong and coercive. Fear of faction. A repository of aristocratic prejudice 279
III. Robert Treat Paine, Jr.—Wit: The last of the eighteenth-century Wits. His verse. A Tory—attitude towards the French Revolution. His prose. Contempt for Jacobin doctrine 288
II. Winds of Political Doctrine I. Changing economics after 1812—rise of industrialism. A new spirit of nationalism. Danger of agrarianism, particularism. Rise of the Whig party—middle-class capitalistic. Menace of the new southern school of states rights. Need of a new nationalistic theory of the Constitution 296
II. Work begun by Joseph Story: A Massachusetts Republican. Characteristics of New England Republicanism. His shift to Whiggery. His Commentaries on the Constitution: derived from the common law and The Federalist. His view of the compact—interpretation of “We the people” 299
III. Daniel Webster—Realist and Constitutionalist: Contrasted with Emerson—English in temperament. Two periods of intellectual development: an eighteenth-century realist before 1825; a legalist afterwards. A disciple of Harrington. Two early speeches: The Basis of the Senate, The First Settlement of New England—an elaboration of the economic basis of politics. His economic theory—laissez faire. Shift to protectionism due to changing economics of his constituents. His reply to Hayne. His constitutional theory in The Constitution not a Compact—his debt to Story. His position on slavery—The Seventh of March Speech. Effect on his reputation. Comment of liberals. The Dartmouth College case. His failure 304
Part II
The Rise of Liberalism
I. The Renaissance The movement of liberalism more pronounced in New England because long restrained. Ethical rather than economic; German rather than French. Many-sided but rebellious 317
II. Liberalism and Calvinism I. The stir in the church. French romanticism and Unitarianism. The conservative reaction. The dilemma of Calvinism—efforts to escape the horns of dogma. The growth of rationalism. The philosophy of Unitarianism—a recovery of the principle of primitive Congregationalism. Elements of conservatism 321
II. William Ellery Channing: A spiritual nature, concerned with two cardinal ideas: God’s love, man’s excellence. Slow clarification of his thought. Major tenets derived from Rousseau and the English Arians. Attitude toward slavery. Theory of the political state—approximation to the position of Jefferson. On freedom of speech—the vital principle of Unitarianism 328
III. Liberalism and the Social Conscience I. The Social Mind: The Puritan conscience individual rather than social. Influence of Unitarianism in awakening a sense of social responsibility. Beginnings of reform 339
II. Perfectionism: An extreme expression of ethical radicalism. John Humphrey Noyes, a Yankee Fifth Monarchy man. His doctrines—expression in Conventions 342
III. Brook Farm: An attempt at an economic solution of social maladjustments. Influence of transcendentalism. Attitude of certain transcendentalists. Hostility to Fourierism 346
IV. Abolitionism: The awakening of the New England conscience to the evil of slavery. The Abolitionists a remnant in Israel—their characteristics 350
IV. Certain Militants I. William Lloyd Garrison: A flinty character. His early life. The Liberator. A primitive Hebraist—his antagonisms. His political theory founded on the Declaration of Independence. A Perfectionist. Nullified the Constitution. The strength and weakness of his methods 352
II. John G. Whittier—Puritan-Quaker: The religion of the Inner Light. A primitive Christian—a Come-outer. Significance of Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal. The politician amongst the Abolitionists. Reasons for his break with Garrison. Not a political thinker. His Abolitionist verse. His later verse. An anachronism in industrial New England 361
III. Harriet Beecher Stowe—A Daughter of Puritanism: Her Calvinist heredity. A sympathetic student of New England psychology. Intellectual antecedents. Old-Town Folks; Poganuc People. The Minister’s Wooing a defense of the Calvinist clergy. Her contact with slavery—Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Dred 371
Part III
The Transcendental Mind
I. The Genesis of Transcendentalism An expression of metaphysical Utopianism. Idealism long starved in New England. Derived from Unitarian doctrine of the open mind. German idealism and native impulses. A glorification of conscience and will—romantic. The note of mysticism. The outcome a movement of criticism 379
II. Ralph Waldo Emerson Transcendental Critic: His theory of transcendental criticism. The early Emerson—an ascetic. Influence of first trip abroad—Nature. The gist of Emersonianism. Reasons for the contrast between the real and ideal. Estimate of democracy; theory of the political state—the ethical absolute—a transcendental Jeffersonianism. Theory of economics—bias towards Physiocratic conception. A critic of contemporary America—its materialisms. Attitude towards reform 386
III. Henry Thoreau Transcendental Economist: His life-business to explore the meaning of wealth. His life an experiment in values. A Concord man who “signed off.” A Hellenist interpreting spiritual values. The problem of economics stated. Significance of Walden—suggestions of William Morris. The challenge of slavery: Civil Disobedience. Compared with Godwin’s Political Justice—doctrine of individual syndicalism. Admiration for John Brown. The extremest expression of eighteenth-century individualism 400
IV. Theodore Parker Transcendental Minister: His characteristics: a fighting man, a revolutionary. Sermon on The Transient and Permanent in Christianity—marks the second stage of Unitarianism. His studies in higher criticism; his doctrine. His conception of human perfectibility—evolutionary. A primitive democrat; a political critic. Attack on current materialisms—criticism of Webster. A modern 414
V. Margaret Fuller Rebel: An embodiment of transcendental rebellions. The contradictions in her character as explained by Freudian psychology. Her training—a victim of sex. Contemporary analysis of her character. An intellectual child of eighteenth-century romanticisms—influence of Goethe. Transcendentalism—Brook Farm. Woman in the Nineteenth Century and feminism. Work as a critic. Career in Europe. Influence of Jean Jacques. The price of her rebellions 426
Part IV
Other Aspects of the New England Mind
I. The Reign of the Genteel I. Brahminism and the genteel in letters—a refined ethicism. Dislike of realistic methods. Lowell’s position 435
II. Brahminism and history: The New England school: Ticknor, Jared Sparks—methods of the latter. Bancroft’s History of the United States—an attempt at a democratic interpretation. Prescott, Motley, Parkman—followers of the romantic school. Parkman considered 437
III. Longfellow: Influence of Germany. A poet of the library—his aloofness—his translations. The slavery poems. Characteristics 439
II. Nathaniel Hawthorne Skeptic: A temperament detached, rationalistic, unhopeful, skeptical about Utopias. Neither transcendental nor Unitarian in philosophy, but curious concerning evil. Intellectually unlocalized—his aloofness from romantic Salem. Like Jonathan Edwards in probing the psychology of sin. Tendency to symbolism and allegory. His intellectual poverty—revealed in American Notes. Brook Farm and The Blithedale Romance—reasons for his interpretation of Hollingsworth and Margaret Fuller. The sterility of his later years 442
III. The Authentic Brahmin I. Oliver Wendell Holmes—Beacon Street Wit: Decline of his reputation. Holmes and Paine as wits. A child of the eighteenth century turned romantic. A rationalist—hatred of Calvinism. Defense of Boston—a Brahmin rebel defending free thought. Attack on equalitarianism—dislike of the plutocracy—indifferent to proletarian problems. His heroes respectable. An amateur—a minor figure 451
II. James Russell Lowell—Cambridge Brahmin: Of the true Brahmin line. His intellectual confusions. Influence of his Tory heritage—the Lowells. His course determined by environment and certain dominant personalities. Three periods of his intellectual life: the Maria White period and his immersion in current radicalisms—reflections in his verse and prose; the professorial period—immersion in scholarship—his shortcomings as a critic—as a political writer; the ambassadorial period—influence of Godkin—resurgence of Brahmin conservatism—fear of democracy—of agrarian and proletarian movements—concern at political corruption—failure to understand its causes—faith in civil service reform. His escape to London—the final Lowell an English liberal 460
Conclusion: Effects of the Civil War on earlier romanticisms—destruction of the slave economy; strengthening of the rival agrarian and capitalistic economies. Certain anachronisms—eighteenth-century liberalism—local home rule—submerged by movement of consolidation. Romantic literary schools became obsolete. The sovereignty of the middle class and the emergence of realistic criticism 473
Bibliography 475
Index 483
Book One • The Mind of the South
To those who follow the main-traveled road of American experience, as we know it today, the mind of the old South seems curiously remote. It is so archaic, so wholly apart from all present-day ambitions, as to appear singular. Yet the continental highways we now travel so familiarly, it must be remembered, were not the highways of an earlier America. It is the North that has changed, and not the South, and the nationality that sits so easily upon us would have seemed ominous to the simpler world that determined the ideals of the Old Dominion. The southern mind has grown old-fashioned, but it is native and of long and honorable descent. It derived its singularity from the eighteenth century in which it took shape; and it retained the clear impress of its origins long after the eighteenth century had become an anachronism in America. It was primarily political, of the French rather than the English school; but it was economic also, out of Quesnay and Du Pont de Nemours rather than Adam Smith, with a frank bias towards the Physiocratic agrarianism that was so congenial to the needs and temper of a plantation society; and this political agrarianism, parochial in its outlook rather than national, suffices to explain the singularity of the southern mind in the eyes of a later industrialized America.
Simple and homogeneous in the early years of the nineteenth century, it nevertheless carried the seeds of disruption within it. Beneath the surface of this common political agrarianism disintegrating forces were at work, that were to produce broad cleavages of thought and lead to sharp differences of outlook and polity. An old South and a new South dwelt side by side, and to the West lay a frontier that took particular form as it came under the determining influence of one or the other. Virginia and South Carolina were the germinal centers of southern culture, from which issued the creative ideas that gave special forms to the brood of frontier states. Kentucky and Tennessee were the intellectual heirs of Virginia; Alabama and Mississippi were the intellectual heirs of South Carolina. Of these two schools of thought that looked in different directions and sought different ends, Jefferson and Calhoun were the intellectual leaders; and the contrasts in their philosophies—the rejection by the latter of equalitarian idealism, and the substitution of economic realism—mark the diverse tendencies which in the end disrupted the South. Jackson and Lincoln were followers of the Jeffersonian school; Jefferson Davis finally went with Calhoun; and Henry Clay, lacking an adequate philosophy, wavered between them. The differences between these men were open and patent, and any analysis of the mind of the South, any attempt to understand the conflict of tendencies that marked the development of southern thought between 1800 and 1860, must give due weight to such differences. The problem, therefore, instead of being single is threefold, and involves an examination of the mind of Virginia, the mind of South Carolina, and the mind of the new West from the Ohio River to the Gulf.