Part 3 (1/2)
II. The dark age of American literature had ended in 1760. Before that date there were few able books except about theology; and there were not many during the next sixty years except about politics. The works of Franklin, Jefferson, and other statesmen were more useful than brilliant. Sydney Smith was not far wrong in 1820, when he complained in the _Edinburgh Review_ that the Americans ”have done absolutely nothing for the sciences, for art, for literature.” He went on to ask, ”In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?” His question was answered that same year by the publication in London of Irving's _Rip Van Winkle_ and _Legend of Sleepy Hoi-low_. Bryant's first volume of poems appeared next year, as did Cooper's popular novel, _The Spy_; and the _North American Review_ had begun half a dozen years before.
But even in 1823, Channing could not claim that there really was any national literature, or much devotion of intellectual labour to great subjects. ”Shall America,” he asked, ”be only an echo of what is thought and written in the aristocracies beyond the ocean?”
This was published during the very year in which President Monroe declared that the people of the United States would look upon attempts of European monarchs ”to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and liberty.” Channing was much interested in the study of German philosophy; but he rested his ”chief hopes of an improved literature,” on ”an improved religion.”
He maintained that no man could unfold his highest powers until he had risen above ”the prevalent theology, which has come down to us from the Dark Ages,” and which was then ”arrayed against intellect, leagued with oppression, fettering inquiry, and incapable of being blended with the sacred dictates of reason and conscience.”
Unitarianism claimed for every individual, what Protestantism had at most asked for the congregation,--the right to think for one's self.
This right was won earlier in Europe than in America, for here the clergy kept much of their original authority and popularity. Their influence over politics collapsed with Federalism. On all other subjects they were still listened to as ”stewards of the mysteries of G.o.d,” who had been taught all things by the Holy Spirit, and were under a divine call to preach the truth necessary for salvation. The clergyman was supposed to have acquired by his ordination a peculiar knowledge of all the rights and duties of human life. No one else, however wise and philanthropic, could speak with such authority about what books might be read and what amus.e.m.e.nts should be shunned. Scientific habits of thought, free inquiry about religion, and scholarly study of the Bible were put under the same ban with dancing, card-playing, reading novels, and travelling on Sunday. The pulpit blocked the path of intellectual progress. Its influence on literature was wholly changed by the Unitarian controversy, which was at its height in 1820. Still more beneficial controversies followed.
The trinitarian clergymen tried to retain their imperilled supremacy by getting up revivals. One of these, in the summer of 1828, was carried so far at Cincinnati that many a woman lost her reason or her life. These excesses confirmed the anti-clerical suspicions of Frances Wright, who had come over from England to study the negro character, and had failed, after much labour and expense, to find the slaves she bought for the purpose capable of working out their freedom. She had made up her mind that slavery is only one of many evils caused by ignorance of the duties of man to man, that these duties needed to be studied scientifically, and that scientific study, especially among women, was dangerously impeded by the pulpit.
That autumn she delivered the first course of public lectures ever given by a woman in America. Anne Hutchinson and other women had preached; but she was the first lecturer. The men and women of Cincinnati crowded to hear the tall, majestic woman, who stood in the court-house, plainly dressed in white. Her style was ladylike throughout; but she complained of the many millions wasted on mere teachers of opinions, whose occupation was to set people by the ears, and whose influence was stifling the breath of science. ”Listen,” she said, ”to the denunciations of fanaticism against pleasures the most innocent, recreations the most necessary to bodily health.” ”See it make of the people's day of leisure a day of penance.” Her main theme was the necessity of establis.h.i.+ng schools to teach children trades, and also halls of science with museums and public libraries.
This course was repeated in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities. Her audiences were always large, but she charged no admission fee. What were called ”f.a.n.n.y Wright societies” were formed in many places. A Baptist church in New York City was turned into a Hall of Science, which remained open for three years, beginning with the last Sunday of April, 1829. It contained a hall for scientific lectures and theological discussions, a free dispensary, a gymnasium, and a bookstore. Here was published _The Free Enquirer_, the only paper in America which permitted the infallibility of Christianity to be called in question. The princ.i.p.al editor, Robert Dale Owen, son of the famous Socialist, claimed to have twenty thousand adherents in that city, and a controlling influence in Buffalo. Celebrations of Paine's birthday were now frequent. It was fortunate for the clergy that controversies about religion soon lost their interest in the fierce struggle about politics.
III. The fame won by Jackson as a conqueror of British invaders in 1815, blinded Americans to a fact which had been made manifest by both Napoleon and Wellington, as it is said to have been still more recently by Grant. The habit of commanding an army has a tendency to create scorn of public opinion, and also of those restrictions on arbitrary authority which are necessary for popular government, as well as for individual liberty. Jackson had the additional defect of holding slaves; and it is probable that if he had never done so, nor even had soldiers under his orders, he would have been sadly indifferent to the rights of his fellow-citizens and to the principles of free government. He was elected in 1828, and proved enough of a Democrat to renounce the policy, which had recently become popular, of making local improvements at the national expense; but he was the first President who dismissed experienced officials, in order to appoint his own partisans without inquiry as to their capacity to serve the nation. He was especially arbitrary about a problem not yet fully solved, namely, what the Government should do with the banks. The public money was then deposited in a National Bank whose const.i.tutionality was admitted by the Supreme Court. Its stock was at a premium and its notes at par in 1829; and it had five hundred officials in various States. Jackson thought it had opposed his election; and he suggested that the public money should be removed to the custody of a branch of the Treasury, to be established for that purpose. The plan has since been adopted; but his friends were too much interested in rival banks, and his opponents thought only of preventing his re-election in 1832. They could not, however, prevent his obtaining a great majority as ”the poor man's champion.”
The Bank had spent vast sums in publis.h.i.+ng campaign doc.u.ments, and even in bribery; and Jackson suspected that it would try to buy a new charter.
He decided, with no sanction from Congress, and against the advice of his own Cabinet, that the public money already in the Bank should be drawn out as fast as it could be spent, and that no more should be deposited there. He removed the Secretary of the Treasury for refusing to carry out this plan; and obliged his successor to set about it before he was confirmed by the Senate. To all remonstrances he replied, ”I take the responsibility”; and he met the vote of the Senators, that he was a.s.suming an authority not conferred by the Const.i.tution, by boasting that he was ”the direct representative of the American people.” Webster replied that this would reduce the government to an elective monarchy; and the opponents to what they called Jackson's Toryism agreed to call themselves Whigs. Their leader was Henry Clay; and they believed, like the Federalists, in centralisation, internal improvements, and protective tariffs.
Jackson was sustained by the Democrats; but their quarrel with the Whigs prevented Congress from providing any safe place for the public money.
It was loaned to some of the State banks; and all these inst.i.tutions were encouraged to increase their liabilities enormously. Speculation was active and prices high. That of wheat in particular rose so much after the bad harvest of 1836 that there was a bread riot in New York City. Scarcely had Jackson closed his eight years of service, in 1837, when the failure of a business firm in New Orleans brought on so many others that all the banks suspended payment. Prices of merchandise fell so suddenly as to make the dealers bankrupt; many thousand men were thrown out of employment; and so much public money was lost that there was a deficit in the Treasury, where there had been a surplus.
IV. These bad results of Jackson's administration strengthened the Whigs. They had not ventured to make protectionism the main issue in 1832; and Clay had acknowledged that all the leading newspapers and magazines were against it in 1824. Its adoption that year was by close votes, and in spite of Webster's insisting that American manufactures were growing rapidly without any unnatural restrictions on commerce. The duties were raised in 1828 to nearly five times their average height in 1789; and there was so much discontent at the South, that some slight reductions had to be made in the summer of 1832; but the protectionist purpose was still predominant. If the opponents of all taxation except for revenue had done nothing more than appeal to the people that autumn, they would have had Congress with them; Jackson was already on their side; and the question might have been decided on its merits after full discussion. The threat of South Carolina to secede caused the reduction, which was actually made in 1833, to appear too much like a concession made merely to avoid civil war; and this second attempt to preserve the Union by a compromise was a premium upon disloyalty. This bargain, like that of 1820, was arranged by Henry Clay; and one condition was that the rates should fall gradually to a maximum of twenty per cent. Before that process was completed, the Treasury was exhausted by bad management; and additional revenue had to be obtained by raising the tariff in 1842.
The Whigs were then in power; but they were defeated in the presidential election of 1844, when the main issue was protectionism. The tariff was reduced in 1846 by a much larger majority than that of 1842 in the House of Representatives; and the results were so satisfactory that a further reduction to an average of twenty per cent, was made in 1857, with the general approval of members of both parties. The revenue needed for war had to be procured by increase of taxation in 1861; but the country had then had for twenty-eight years an almost uninterrupted succession of low tariffs.
The universal prosperity in America between 1833 and 1842 is mentioned by a French traveller, Chevalier, by a German philanthropist, Dr.
Julius, by Miss Martineau, Lyell, and d.i.c.kens. The novelist was especially struck by the healthy faces and neat dresses of the factory girls at Lowell, where they began to publish a magazine in 1840. Lyell said that the operatives in that city looked like ”a set of ladies and gentlemen playing at factory for their own amus.e.m.e.nt.” Our country had seven times as many miles of railroads in 1842 as in 1833; our factories made more than nine times as many dollars' worth of goods in 1860 as in 1830; and they sold more than three times as many abroad as in 1846.
Twice as much capital was invested in manufacturing in 1860 as in 1850; the average wages of the operatives increased sixteen per cent, during these ten years; America became famous for inventions; her farms doubled in value, as did both her imports and her exports; and the tonnage of her vessels increased greatly. Such are the blessings of liberty in commerce.
Especially gratifying is the growth of respect for the right of free speech. The complaints by d.i.c.kens, Chevalier, and Miss Martineau of the despotism of the majority were corroborated by Tocqueville, who travelled here in 1831 and published in 1835 a very valuable statement of the results and tendencies of democracy. The destruction that year of a Catholic convent near Boston by a mob is especially significant, because the anniversary was celebrated next year as a public holiday. The worst sufferers under persecution at that time were the philanthropists.
V. In order to do justice to all parties in this controversy we should take especial notice of the amount of opposition to slavery about 1825 in what were afterwards called the Border States. Here all manual labour could have been done by whites; and much of it was actually, especially in Kentucky. There slaves never formed a quarter of the population; and in Maryland they sank steadily from one-fourth in 1820 to one-eighth in 1860. Of masters over twenty or more bondmen in 1856, there were only 256 in Kentucky and 735 in Maryland. It was these large holders who monopolised the profits, as they did the public offices. White men with few or no slaves had scarcely any political power; and their chance to make money, live comfortably, and educate their children, was much less than if all labour had become free. Such a change would have made manufacturing prosper in both Kentucky and
Maryland; but all industries languished except that of breeding slaves for the South. The few were rich at the expense of the many. Only time was needed in these and other States to make the majority intelligent enough to vote the guilty aristocrats down.
Two thousand citizens of Baltimore pet.i.tioned against admitting Missouri as a slave State in 1820; and several avowed abolitionists ran for the Legislature shortly before 1830. At this time there were annual anti-slavery conventions in Baltimore, with prominent Whigs among the officers, and nearly two hundred affiliated societies in the Border States. There were fifty in North Carolina, where two thousand slaves had been freed in 1825, and three-fifths of the whites were reported as favourable to emanc.i.p.ation. Henry Clay was openly so in 1827; and the Kentucky Colonisation Society voted in 1830 that the disposition towards voluntary emanc.i.p.ation was strong enough to make legislation unnecessary. The abolition of slavery as ”the greatest curse that G.o.d in his wrath ever inflicted upon a people” was demanded by a dozen members of the Virginia Legislature, as well as by the _Richmond Inquirer_, in 1832; and similar efforts were made shortly before 1850 in Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, Western Virginia, Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, and Missouri.
From 1812 to 1845 the Senate was equally divided between free and slave States; and any transfer, even of Delaware, from one side to the other would have enabled the North to control the upper House as well as the lower. The plain duty of a Northern philanthropist was to co-operate with the Southern emanc.i.p.ationists and accept patiently their opinion that abolition had better take place gradually, as it had done in New York, and, what was much more important, that the owner should have compensation. This had been urged by Wilberforce in 1823, as justice to the planters in the West Indies; the legislatures of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New. Jersey recommended, shortly before 1830, that the nation should buy and free the slaves; and compensation was actually given by Congress to loyal owners of the three thousand slaves in the District of Columbia emanc.i.p.ated in 1862. Who can tell the evils which we should have escaped, if slavery could have continued after 1830 to be abolished gradually by State after State, with pecuniary aid from Congress or the North?
This was the hope of Benjamin Lundy, who pa.s.sed much of his life in the South, though he was born in New Jersey. He had advocated gradual emanc.i.p.ation in nearly every State, visiting even Texas and Missouri, organising anti-slavery societies, and taking subscriptions to his _Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation_, which was founded in Tennessee in 1821, but afterwards was issued weekly at Baltimore. He published the names of nine postmasters among his agents, and copied friendly articles from more than forty newspapers. One of his chief objects was to prevent that great extension of slavery, the annexation of Texas.
VI. The election of the first pro-slavery President, Jackson, in 1828, discouraged the abolitionists; and Lundy was obliged to suspend his paper for lack of subscribers early next year. When he resumed it in September, he took an a.s.sistant editor, who had declared on the previous Fourth of July, in a fas.h.i.+onable Boston church: ”I acknowledge that immediate and complete emanc.i.p.ation is not desirable. No rational man cherishes so wild a vision.” Before Garrison set foot on slave soil, it occurred to him that every slave had a right to instant freedom, and also that no master had any right to compensation. These two ideas he advocated at once, and ever after, as obstinately as George the Third insisted on the right to tax America. Garrison, of course, was a zealous philanthropist; and he was as conscientious as Paul was in persecuting the Christians. But he seems to have been more anxious to free his own conscience than to free the slaves. Immediate emanc.i.p.ation had been advocated in Lundy's paper at much length, and even as early as 1825, but so mildly as to call out little opposition. Insisting on no compensation was much more irritating; and Garrison's writings show that his mind was apt to free itself in bitter words, even against such men as Whittier, Channing, Longfellow, Dougla.s.s, and Sumner. He had been but three months in Baltimore when he published a censure by name of the owner and captain of one of the many vessels which were permitted by law to carry slaves South, as ”highway robbers and murderers,” who ”should be sentenced to solitary confinement for life,” and who deserved ”to occupy the lowest depths of perdition.” He was found guilty of libel, and imprisoned for seven weeks because he could not pay a moderate fine.
The money was given by a generous New Yorker; but Garrison's work in the South was over, and Lundy's was of little value thenceforth. The man who brought the libel suit was an influential citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts; and Boston pulpits were shut against Garrison on his return. He could not pay for a hall; but one was given him without cost by the anti-clerical society, whose leader, Abner Knee-land, was imprisoned thirty days in 1834 for a brief expression of atheism which would not now be considered blasphemous.
Two weeklies, which were unpopular from the first, began to be published at Boston early in 1831. Kneeland's _Investigator_ was pledged ”to contend for the abolition of slavery” and ”advocate the rights of women.” It was friendly to labour reform as well as to scientific education, and opposed capital punishment, imprisonment for debt, and legislation about religion; but its predominant tone has been skeptical to the present day. Garrison was too orthodox in 1831 to favour the emanc.i.p.ation of women; he was in sympathy with other reforms; but his chief theme was the ”pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition.” The next mistake of his _Liberator_ was the prominence given to negro insurrection and other crimes against whites. The Southerners were naturally afraid to have such subjects mentioned, even in condemnation; and guilty consciences made slave-holders think the danger much greater than it was. The first number of the _Liberator_ contained Garrison's verses about the horrors of the revolt which might bring emanc.i.p.ation.
He announced at the same time that he was going to review a recent pamphlet which he described thus: ”A better promoter of insurrection was never sent forth to an oppressed people.” His contributors spoke often of the right of slaves to resist, and asked, ”In G.o.d's name, why should they not cut their masters' throats?” Many women and children were ma.s.sacred by rebel slaves in Virginia that autumn; and Garrison promptly declared that the a.s.sa.s.sins ”deserve no more blame than our fathers did for slaughtering the British,” and that ”When the contest shall have again begun, it must again be a war of extermination.” Similar language was often used in the _Liberator_ afterwards.
Garrison was too firm a non-resistant to go further than this; but the majority of Northerners would have agreed with the Reverend Doctor Wayland, President of Brown University, who declared slavery ”very wicked,” but declined to have the _Liberator_ sent him, and wrote to Mr. Garrison that its tendency was to incite the slaves to rebellion.