Month: August 2021

The Revolutions of 1776 and 1861 Contrasted

It is hard to express how radically dif­ferent the thinking of many Southerners was during the Civil War from anything we would recognize in the United States today. We may point, however, to this 1863 article by George Fitzhugh, which was published in the Southern Literary Messenger, the nearest thing the Confederacy had to a canonical journal of Southern opinion. Fitzhugh com­pletely repudiates the Declaration of Independence and all the prin­ciples embodied in it, and lays down a doctrine of absolute tyranny. Down with bills of rights; down with religious toleration; down with the consent of the governed; down with human equality; it would have been better had those ideas never been formed. The same issue, by the way, included an article—long enough for a sub­stantial book—proving that the good free people of the South were racially different from Yankees. In the era after the Civil War, Southerners developed the com­forting myth that they had rebelled for the sake of things all Americans agree on—freedom, self-determination, and so on. It may have been so for some, but the secession was led by men who had much more radical opinions.

The Revolution of 1776 was, when subjected to the searching analysis of learned and compre­hensive philosophy, the com­monest thing in nature. The birth of a child, or the weaning of a calf, excites no wonder, and stirs up no fanatical ardor, because of their frequent occurrence; yet the birth of a nation, or the separation of a colony from its parent stem, are events quite as much in the order of nature as the birth of a child, the weaning of a calf, or the dropping of the ripened apple from its parent stem. The Revolution of 1776 had nothing dramatic, nothing novel, nothing grand about it. Every child and every chicken, that, getting old enough and strong enough to take care of itself, quits its parents and sets up for itself, is quite as singular and admirable a spectacle, as that of the thirteen adult States of America solemnly resolving to cut loose from the state of pupilage and dependence on their parent, England, and ever there­after to assert and enjoy the rights of inde­pen­dent manhood. It was an exceedingly vulgar, common-place affair; it had nothing poetic or dramatic about it. A birth, a christening, a circum­cision, or the induing of the “toga virilis”—in fact, anything that marked an epoch in life, was quite as admirable as this weaning of the American calf from its trans-Atlantic dam.

Colonies are sure to set up for themselves when strong enough to do so, and had been thus setting up for themselves since the world began, and excited no wonder by the procedure. So well aware were the Greeks of this fact, that they anticipated and obviated this weaning process, which whether it occur with Colonies, calves or chickens, occasions heart-burning, family quarrels, scratching and pecking and fighting—that they sent out their Colonies as full-fledged and independent nations. Declarations of Inde­pendence were unknown then. Nothing so pompous, so mal apropos and so silly is to be found in history, until our Revolution of ’76. A hundred guns are fired when a Prince is born in France, yet all the artillery in the world, fired simultaneously, could not make the birth or the weaning of a baby or a nation a grand or imposing event. Either occurrence is decidedly vulgar and common-place, and Columbian Orators, or fourth of July orations, and lengthy Columbiads, in endeavoring to celebrate and dramatise them, only serve to render them more ridiculous.

All the bombastic absurdities in our Declara­tion of Inde­pen­dence about the inalienable rights of man, had about as much to do with the occasion, as would a sermon or an oration on the teething of a child or the kittening of a cat.

Glendower.      …At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak’d like a coward.
Hotspur.      Why so it would have done
At the same season, if your mother’s cat had
But kitten’d.

[King Henry IV, act 3d, scene 1st.

It would have been well for us, if the seemingly pompous inanities of the Declaration of Independence, of the Virginia Bill of Rights and the Act of Religious Toleration had remained dead letters. But they had a strength, a vitality and a meaning in them, utterly uncom­pre­hended by their charla­tanic, half-learned, pedantic authors, which rendered them most potent engines of destruction. Our institu­tions, State and Federal, imported from England, where they had grown up naturally and imperceptibly, and adapted to our peculiar circumstances by like natural growth and accretion, might, and would, have lasted for very many ages, had not silly, thought­less, half-informed, specu­lative charlatans, like Jefferson, succeeded in basing them on such inflammable and explosive materials as those to be found in the instruments which we have mentioned. The doctrines which they contain are borrowed, almost literally, from Locke’s Essays on Government—Locke distin­guished himself in pure meta­physics—deceived and led astray the philosophic world, for two centuries, by a system of materialism and consequent infidelity, which he himself did not comprehend, or at least, the necessary deductions from which he did not foresee. A professing Christian himself, he is the father of all modern infidelity—infidelity in religion, in morals, in everything. Rousseau borrowed from him, and sowed his infidel and anarchical principles broadcast throughout Christendom. Locke’s meta­physics ignored all innate ideas, all instincts, all intuition and involuntary faiths, beliefs and opinions. Man, according to his doctrine, is a mere reasoning machine, and derives all his knowledge and all his judgments and opinions from impressions made upon his mind, through the medium of his senses, by external objects. It is not our business now to refute this theory nor to follow it out theoretically or historically, into its materialistic, infidel and anarchical conse­quences. We have only to do with him as a political pedagogue: as a presumptuous charlatan, who, as ignorant of the science and practice of government as any shoemaker or horse jockey, attempted to introduce his false and infidel metaphysics into the field of politics.

Aristotle had taught, and his teachings had been respected and heeded for two thousand years, that society or government, was natural to man; that he was born under government, born a member of society, and did not originate government and society; that men, like bees, and ants, and herds and flocks, were impelled into society by their natures, their wants, their instincts and intuitions; that, in fact, society and government, in their origin and grand outlines, were the works of God, and not of man. He taught further, that in all societies some were formed by nature to command and others to obey; that inequality, not equality, was the necessary condition of men, bees, ants and all other social and gregarious animals: for society can only exist as a series of subordinations. Hence, he (Aristotle) begins his treatise on government with a dissertation on the family, and on slaves as a natural and appropriate part of the family. Human inequality and the natural, God-made organ of society and of government are the distinguishing features of his political doctrines.

Human equality, and the origination and entire construction of society and government by man, are the distinguishing, and only distinguishing features of the would-be political philosophy of Locke. He teaches the doctrine of the social contract or compact, and distinctly explains it to mean, that men are not by nature social animals, but originally lived each adult separate, to himself, inde­pendent and self-governing. That society is an institution which in process of time grew out of positive agreement or compact, and that only those who entered into this agreement were bound by it. This is all absurd enough; but he is not content with this glaring fatuity. He adds, that not only originally did men become members of society by positive agreement, but that even now no one becomes a subject of government or a member of society except by express agreement.

His metaphysic drove him to these monstrous conclusions, for to admit that society was instinc­tive and not the result of reasoning from experience, was to admit the doctrine of innate ideas—the doctrine of Aristotle and the Peripatetics, which his philosophy was intended to refute.…

Locke’s doctrine of human equality, which was incorporated into the declaration of Independence, and put into active force in the Chicago Platform, is thus expressed in the beginning of his 8th chapter on Civil Government: “Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of his estate, and subjected to the political force of another without his own consent.” The only way by which any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe and peaceable living, one among another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not “of it.”

This passage in Locke is almost literally copied into the first two sentences of the Declaration of Independence. First, “all men are created equal.” That is Locke’s doctrine. Secondly, “governments are instituted among men.” That is, man is not like other gregarious animals, born into society, born a member and subject of government; but society and government are human institutions and discoveries, not pre-ordained by God, like flocks, and hives and herds. This is an infidel doctrine of Locke’s and of the Declaration of Independence. Thirdly, “that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Now, men and horses, and all creatures subject to government, submit to be governed, but do not consent to be governed. A consent government is no government, for it implies that all shall think alike, “con-sentio.” But to constitute government at all, the rulers must think for those who are ruled. Those who consent are not governed, for to be governed implies that one is required and compelled to do, by a superior power, that which, left to himself, he would not do. He alone is governed, whose will is subjected and controlled by the will of another. He submits, but does not consent.

These doctrines of Locke put into distinct and imposing form, in the Declaration of Independence, and exported from America to France, acted like a torpedo shot into a magazine. They blew up first the French monarchy, and soon thereafter all the monarchies of Western Europe, but established in their stead, not the absurdity of a “consent government,” but the great military despotism of Bonaparte.…

We now come to the Southern Revolution of 1S61, which we maintain was reactionary and conservative—a rolling back of the excesses of the Reformation—of Reformation run mad—a solemn protest against the doctrines of natural liberty, human equality and the social contract, as taught by Locke and the American sages of 1776, and an equally solemn protest against the doctrines of Adam Smith, Franklin, Say, Tom Paine, and the rest of the infidel political economists who maintain that the world is too much governed, “Pas trop gouverner,” and should not be governed at all, but “Let alone,” “Laissez nous faire.” This reaction commenced in 1840, as we have said, under the lead of Calhoun, Tyler, and R. M. T. Hunter—Kendall, and Blair, and Benton, and their base, radical and destructive clique, were then ousted from their places as leaders of the Southern Democracy, and the States Rights Whig party took their places and controlled the action of the South. In truth, the Democratic party of the South became Whig and conservative, but retained its name and its offices. The reason of this new departure was, that it was perceived that the doctrines of Jefferson and of the other illustrious Fathers of the Republic were being successfully employed to justify abolition and to upset the whole social system of the South—besides, excluding her from equal or any participation in the public lands, most of which she had acquired against the protests of the North, that was now greedily and rapaciously seeking to monopolize them.…

Outside pressure will combine with inside necessity (slavery) to make us conservative, and to perpetuate our Confederacy and our State institutions. We must cling together, in order to be always prepared to resist, not only to resist the rapacity and fanaticism of the North, but to make head, if necessary, against the abolition machinations of the rest of Christendom. Conservatives by blood, feeling, choice and necessity, we may well hope and expect that our Confederacy will be of long and glorious duration.

——The Literary Messenger, November & December 1863.

A Great Jealousy of Corporations

A summary of the activity of the Illinois legislature in 1833 mentions that bills for incorporating companies always face stiff oppo­sition. The economic theories on which that oppo­sition is based are so foreign to our modern thinking that it would be diffi­cult to find any legislator of either party who would sub­scribe to them today. If you hear someone spouting that America has always been the land of free-market capi­talism, you may now smugly assert that you know better.

Several companies have been incor­porated at this session, for manu­fac­turing purposes. These bills were much opposed, and long discussed. There has always been in this state, a great jealousy of corpora­tions. It has been well con­tended, that by the aggre­gation of a large capital in the hands of a few indi­viduals, they acquire advan­tages over the individual trader, which enables them to oppress him, and control the market. This doctrine may be carried too far; for some purposes, corpora­tions are necessary and bene­ficial, and they should be confined to such cases. There is also, in this country, a great repug­nance against allowing such companies to accumu­late large possessions in real estate; or giving them any powers under which they might carry on any of the operations properly belonging to a bank, especially lending money, or issuing paper for general circula­tion, as in lieu of money. The charters granted at this session have been strictly guarded in these, and other respects. They are limited as to the amount of real estate which they may hold, and prohibited from issuing paper for general circula­tion; they may trade only to the amount of the capital stock actually paid in, and for any debts con­tracted above that amount, the individual stock­holders are personally liable.“Notes on Illinois,” in the Western Monthly Magazine, May, 1833.

Ambrose Reads in Silence

In classical times reading was done aloud, even in private. But St. Augustine remembered that his mentor St. Ambrose had a habit of reading in silence, without even whispering the words. It was so unusual that it called for an explanation.

And when he read, his eyes ran over the pages, and his heart sought under­standing, but his voice and tongue were silent. Often when I have been there (for no one was refused entrance, nor was it the custom to give him notice of any one’s coming) I have seen him reading in this manner in silence, and never other­wise: and I have sat down, and after a long silence (for who could find in his heart to be trouble­some to one so intent?) I have gone away; conjec­turing that for that short time which he had for the repairing of his mind, free from the noise of other men’s business, he was loth to be taken off from what he was about. And per­haps for this reason did not read aloud, lest his auditor being attentive to the reading, might desire his expo­sition where the author seemed obscure, or his entering into a discus­sion of diffi­cult ques­tions; and by this means his time might be abridged, and he hindered from reading so much as he had a mind. Though perhaps his chief cause for reading in silence might be to save his voice, which was easily weakened. But whatever his reason was the inten­tion of that man was cer­tainly good.

——St. Augustine, Confessions, Book VI, Chapter III, translated by Richard Challoner.

A Trip on the National Road in 1832

An English traveler named Thomas Hamilton came to America in about 1832 and, like every other English traveler of the era, proceeded to write a book about his experiences. Much of what he saw was delight­ful. The National Road, however, was not. This was our first national highway, and its route, with many of the original mile­stones, can still be followed on U. S. Route 40 and Maryland Route 144; but these roads are in much better shape now than the National Road was when our English traveler traversed it in several days of lurching discomfort. Note that our traveler, whose description will still be familiar to anyone who travels this road almost two centuries later, seems to have mixed up Washington (Pennsylvania) and Uniontown; Uniontown was doubtless his last stop before Brownsville.

From Washington I returned to Baltimore, where I ex­peri­enced a renewal of that kindness and hospi­tality, to which, on my former visit, I had been so largely indebted. As the best mode of proceeding to the South, I had been recom­mended to cross from Baltimore to Wheeling, on the Ohio, and there to take steam for New Orleans, as soon as the navi­gation of the river should be reported open. For this intelligence, however, it was necessary to wait in Baltimore, and certainly a more agreeable place of confine­ment could not have been selected.

Fortune favoured me. In a few days the news­papers an­nounced that the ice had broken up, and the Ohio was again navigable. Having had the good fortune to en­counter one of my English fellow-passengers by the New York, like­wise bound for New Orleans, we agreed to travel together, and, on the morning of the 6th of March, before daylight, stepped into the rail-way carriage which was to convey us ten miles on our journey.

The vehicle was of a description somewhat novel. It was, in fact, a wooden house or chamber, somewhat like those used by itinerant showmen in England, and was drawn by a horse at the rate of about four miles an hour. Our progress, therefore, was not rapid, and we were nearly three hours in reaching a place called Ellicot Mills, where we found a wretched break­fast awaiting our arrival.

Having done honour to the meal in a measure rather propor­tioned to our appetites than to the quality of the viands, we embarked in what was called the “Accommo­dation Stage,” so designated, probably, from the absence of every accommo­dation which travellers usually expect in such a vehicle. The country through which we passed was partially covered with snow. The appearance both of the dwelling-houses and the inhab­itants gave indication of poverty, which was confirmed by the rough and stony aspect of the soil wherever it was visible. The coach stopped to dinner at a con­siderable village called Fredericks­town, where the appearance of the enter­tainment was so forbidding, that I found it impossible to eat. My appetite, therefore, was somewhat over­weening when we reached Hagerstown, a place of some magnitude, where we halted for the night, having accomplished a distance of eighty miles.

At three o’clock on the following morning we again started on our journey. The roads were much worse than we had found them on the preceding day, the country was buried deeper in snow, and our progress was in conse­quence slower. The appearance of poverty seemed to increase as we advanced. Here and there a ragged negro slave was seen at work near the wretched log hovel of his master; and the number of deserted dwellings which skirted the road, and of fields suffered to relapse into a state of nature, showed that their former occupants had gone forth in search of a more grateful soil. We breakfasted at Clearspring, a trifling village, and then commenced mounting the eastern ridge of the Alleghanies, called Sideling Mountain. To one who has trodden the passes of the Alps and the Appenines, the Alleghany Mountains present nothing very striking. Indeed, the general character of American mountains is by no means picturesque. They are round and corpulent pro­tuberances, and rarely rise into forms of wild and savage grandeur. But some of the scenes presented by the Alleghanies are very fine. Nature, when undisturbed by man, is never without a beauty of her own. But even in these remote mountain recesses, the marks of wanton havoc are too often visible. Numbers of the trees by the road were scorched and mutilated, with no intelligible object but that of destruc­tion. Objects the most sublime or beauti­ful have no sanctity in the eyes of an American. He is not content with the full power of enjoyment, he must exert the privilege to deface. Our day’s journey terminated at Flints­town, a solitary inn, near which is a mineral spring, whereof the passen­gers drank each about a gallon, without experi­encing, as they unanimously declared, effect of any sort. I own I did not regret the inefficiency of the waters.

With the morning of the third day our difficulties commenced. We now approached the loftier ridges of the Alleghanies; the roads became worse, and our progress slower. The scenery was similar in character to that we had already passed. The mountains, from base to summit, were covered with wood, interspersed with great quantities of kalmias, rhodo­dendrons, and other flowering shrubs.

On the day following, our route lay over a ridge called the Savage Mountain. The snow lay deeper every mile of our advance, and at length, on reaching a miserable inn, the landlord informed us, that no carriage, on wheels, had been able to traverse the mountain for six weeks. On inquiring for a sleigh, it then appeared that none was to be had, and the natives all assured us that proceeding, with our present carriage, was impossible. The landlord dilated on the depth of snow, the dangers of the mountain, the darkness of the nights, and strongly urged our taking advantage of his hospitality till the following day. But the passengers were all anxious to push forward, and, as one of them happened to be a proprietor of the coach, the driver very un­willingly determined on making the attempt. We ac­cordingly set forth, but had not gone above a mile, when the coach stuck fast in a snow-drift, which actually buried the horses. In this predica­ment, the whole men and horses of the little village were summoned to our assis­tance, and, after about two hours’ delay, the vehicle was again set free.

We reached the next stage in the hollow of the mountain, without farther accident, and the report as to the state of the roads yet to be travelled, was very unpromising. The majority of the passengers, however, having fortified their courage with copious infusions of brandy, determined not to be delayed by peril of any sort. On we went, therefore; the night was pitchy dark; heavy rain came on, and the wind howled loudly amid the bare and bony arms of the surrounding forest. The road lay along a succes­sion of precipitous descents, down which, by a single blunder of the driver, who was quite drunk, we might at any moment be precipitated. Dangerous as, under these circum­stances, our progress unques­tionably was, the journey was accom­plished in safety; and halting for the night at a petty village, situated between the ridge we had crossed, and another which yet remained to be surmounted, the passengers exchanged congratu­lations on the good fortune which had hitherto attended them.

Before sunrise we were again on the road, and commenced the ascent of Laurel Mountain, which occupied several hours. The view from the summit was fine and extensive, though, perhaps, deficient in variety. We had now sur­mounted the last ridge of the Alleghanies, and calculated on making the rest of our way in compara­tive ease and comfort. This was a mistake. Though we found little snow to the westward of the mountains, the road was most execrable, and the jolting exceeded any thing I had yet experienced. The day’s journev terminated at Washington, a town of con­siderable popula­tion, with a tavern somewhat more comfortable than the wretched and dirty dogholes to which, for some days, we had been condemned.

During our last day’s journey we passed through a richer country, but experi­enced no improvement in the road, which is what is called a national one, or, in other words, constructed at the expense of the general government. If intended by Congress to act as an instrument of punishment on their sovereign constituents, it is, no doubt, very happily adapted for the purpose. In its forma­tion all the ordinary prin­ciples of road-making are reversed; and that grateful travellers may be instructed to whom they are indebted for their frac­tures and contusions, a column has been erected to Mr. Clay, on which his claims to the honours of artifex maximus, are duly emblazoned.

The tedium of the journey, however, was enlivened by the presence of a very pretty and communi­cative young lady, returning from a visit in the neigh­bourhood, to Alexandria, the place of her residence. From her I gathered every information with regard to the state of polite society in these tramontane regions. This fair damsel evidently made conquest of a Virginian doctor, who had been our fellow-traveller for several days, and was peculiarly disgusting from an inordinate addiction to the vernacular vices of dram-drinking and tobacco-chewing. Being generally drunk, he spat right and left in the coach, and especially after dark, discharged volleys of saliva, utterly reckless of conse­quences. One night I was wakened from a sound sleep by the outcries of a Quaker, into whose eye he had squirted a whole mouthful of tobacco juice. The pain caused by this offensive appli­cation to so delicate an organ was very great. Broad­brim forgot for the nonce all the equanimity of his cloth; cursed the doctor for a drunken vagabond; and, on reaching our resting-place for the night, I certainly observed that his eye had suffered con­siderable damage. For myself, being a tolerably old traveller, I no sooner discovered the doctor’s propensity, than I contrived to gain possession of the seat immediately behind him, and thus for­tunately escaped all annoyance, except that arising from the filthiness of his person, and the brutality of his conversation. About mid-day we reached Browns­ville, a manu­facturing town of considerable size, situated on the Monon­gahela, which, by its junction with the Alleghany, near Pittsburg, forms the Ohio. The appearance of Browns­ville is black and disgusting; its streets are dirty, and unpaved; and the houses present none of the externals of opulence. The river is a fine one, about the size of the Thames, at West­minster; and having crossed it, our route lay for some miles through a pretty and undulating country. At night we reached Wheeling, after a day’s journey of only thirty miles, accomplished with more diffi­culty and incon­venience than we had before experienced.

Men and Manners in America, by the author of Cyril Thornton, etc. [Thomas Hamilton], 1833.

Ethiopia, India, Persia—On a Par with Rome

In a long passage to show that different nations have different customs, and what one considers natural is an abomination to another, Jerome talks about cannibalism among barbarians, weird foods people eat, and so on. Then he says, 

The Persians, Medes, Indians, and Ethiopians, peoples on a par with Rome itself, have intercourse with mothers and grandmothers, with daughters and granddaughters. [Against Jovinianus, Book II, 7.]

This is pretty good evidence for my thesis that ancient Romans generally weren’t racists. They could find all sorts of reasons to hate you, but it seems not to have occurred to them that skin color was one of them. Ethiopia was a civilized nation, like Rome or Persia. It had wicked customs, but Jerome would be the first to admit that pagan Romans, and probably even most of the Christian Romans, weren’t any better.