John Cotton, 1584-1652 Cotton was an English-born American cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's...

John Cotton, 1584-1652

Cotton was an English-born American cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's Church in England until he was summoned to court for his Puritanism. He fled to Boston, Massachusetts, where he became a civil and religious leader.

John Cotton, 1584-1652• Born in England

• Son of a prominent lawyer

• Educated at Derby Grammar School, Trinity College and Cambridge University

• Served as head lecturer at Cambridge University

• Became a minister in the English town of Boston, Lincolnshire, where he became increasingly critical of the Church of England

• Preached a Puritanism, advocating independent congregational governance

• Drew the hostile attention of ecclesiastical authorities

• Chose to immigrate to Massachusetts Bay Colony after William Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1634, and there was a crack down on Puritanism

• Ministered to the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at First Church

• Became regarded as the father of congregationalism in America

• Supported the enforcement of religious principles by civil officials

• Initially came to Anne Hutchinson’s defense, but later in the trail turned strongly against her.

• He disagreed with Roger Williams’ ideas of separating church and state, and played a role in his banishment

• Died as one of the widely honored men in Massachusetts

John Cotton, The Divine Right to Occupy the Land (1630)

1. “The placing of a people in this or that country is from the appointment of the Lord.” In other words, God assigns land to a certain people.

2. God makes room for people in three ways:

• He casts out enemies of a people before them by lawful war. (Heathens)

• He gives a foreign people favor or rights to a land through purchase

• He makes available places in a country that are vacant, even if the land it not totally vacant

3. “…[N]o nation is to drive out another without special commission from Heaven, such as the Israelites had, unless the natives do unjustly wrong them, and will not recompense the wrongs done in a peaceful manner.”

4. “We (the Puritans) must discern how God appoints us this place.”

5. How do a people know if they should emigrate?

· Sake of knowledge

· Gain sake

· Establish a colony

· Talents are better employed elsewhere

· To escape bad authorities and avoid evils

· When some grievous sins overspread a country

· When escaping over-burdensome debts and miseries

· When persecuted

Questions:

Was North America vacant?

Does God really appoint a people land?

John Winthrop1588-1649

English colonial administrator who was the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, serving seven terms between 1629 and

1649.

John Winthrop

A Model of Christian Charity

Main Points:

God has made different classes of men, and, indeed, of all things. All men are not created equal. The reason hereof:

1. In conformity to the rest of the world, and demonstrating his wisdom, God created a great variety and differences in his creatures for the preservation of the whole.

2. The differences give humans the opportunity to manifest the work of the Spirit within them.

• The poor should be loyal and honest in their service to their betters and to authorities.

• The rich and powerful should honestly and loyally dispense with justice and mercy to the poor.

3. God made variety and differences so that all men would have a need of one another. This mutual need knits mankind “more nearly together in the Bonds of Brotherly affection.” Thus, by serving his fellow mankind, man serves “the glory of his creator and the common good of the creature, man.”

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity

We have made a covenant with God to form a new colony in a new land and live as God would want us.

If We Are Good: If we fulfill our covenant (i.e. do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God) the “Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies…” We will be considered to be a city upon a hill, and the eyes of all peoples will be upon us.

If We are Bad: “…if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling, with our God, shall fall to embrace the present world and prosecute our carnal intention, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us; be revenged of such a [sinful] people and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.”

Questions:

1. Did the Puritans live up to their ideals?

2. Why was it necessary for them to leave England?

3. Does community negate individualism?

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity

Questions:

1. In this world, does God always punish the wicked and bless the virtuous?

2. Are all men created equal or created different? What does God expect us to do in regard to treating people equally? When should men be considered equal? When should they be considered unequal?

3. What were Winthrop’s views of equality?

4. Winthrop’s views of community?

5. What was the Puritan covenant?

6. Were the eyes of the world really on the Puritans? Were they really a city upon a hill?

John Winthrop

Little Speech on Liberty

Main Points:

The question addressed: how does the authority of the magistrates stand in relation to the liberty of the people?

1. When you see weakness in the leaders (magistrates) you have chosen, you should reflect upon your own weaknesses since you chose them.

2. The magistrates try to govern and judge as best as can according to God’s laws, as well as our own.

3. If the magistrate’s error is clearly out of wickedness, he must be held accountable for his transgressions. However, if it is not clear that his error was due to evil intentions, then the people, who have a covenant with their leaders, need to bear the consequences of the error.

4. There are two kinds of liberty:

a. Natural liberty: This is a liberty man shares in common with beasts. Man, as he stands in relation to man, has the liberty to do good or evil. The exercise of [natural] liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than brute beasts…. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances [authorities] of God are bend against, to restrain and subdue it.

b. Civil or federal liberty: This liberty is in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions, amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority…, it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

Analogy: women’s subjection to her husband’s authority makes her free.

Conclusion: The best way to preserve our civil liberties is to uphold and honor the power of authority. If we quietly and cheerfully subject ourselves to civil liberty, such as Christ allows us, it will be for our own good. If the magistrates fail honestly at any time, you should advise them. Since they are doing their best to follow God’s laws, the magistrates will hearken good advice. In this way, upholding and honoring the power of authority will preserve your liberties.

Remember to study the Remember to study the questions at the beginning questions at the beginning of each document.of each document.

• Born Anne Marbury in 1591

• Father was Reverend Francis Marbury

• Married a London merchant William Hutchinson and had 15 children

• Grew attached to the teaching and preaching of John Cotton, a Puritan minister.

• Left England to practice Puritanism freely in the New World

Accusations• Heresy – antinomianism > the belief that

Christians are freed from the moral law by the virtue of God’s grace.

• Breaking the 5th commandment – Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother…

• Traducing the churches and ministers• Maintaining meetings that are not tolerable or

comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex…..

The Implications of the Trial

• No Freedom to Disagree

• Individual Liberties

• Women’s Right to Religious Thought

Questions

• Why was the court shocked by her statement that she had received revelations from God?

• Was the fear of her teachings justified?

• What are some examples of this type of intolerance in today’s society?

Common Sense

Thomas Paine1776

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

• 1737- Born in England• 1749- Fails out of school, began apprenticing

for his father as a corseter• 1768- becomes excise (tax) officer in England

(discharged twice in two years) • 1772- The Case of the Officers of Excise

(arguing for a pay raise for the tax officers)

Thomas Paine

• 1774- Meets Benjamin Franklin in London. Franklin helps Paine move to Philadelphia

• 1775- Starts writing for Pennsylvania Magazine

• 1776- Common Sense published• 1776/1778- Continues to publish works

in order to inspire and support revolution

Thomas Paine

• 1788- Returns to England• 1791- Writes The Age of Reason, part 1 in

support of the French Revolution• 1805- Moves permanently to New York• 1809- Dies in June• 1819- Remains taken to England by William

Cobbett, and misplaced

Common Sense (1776)

1. Now is the time for Independence. All of the conditions are right for separation

from England. What happens now can and will affect everyone until the end of time.

“Tis not the concern of a day, a year , a age… Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor.”

Common Sense

2. America does not need English rule to survive.

“that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat; or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty”

Common Sense

3. England has protected us for its own interest, not attachment.

“she did not protect us from our enemies on our

account, but from her own enemies on her own account”

Common Sense

4. England is not the “parent country” to America… Europe is.

America is populated from people from Europe, not just England.

If England is the “parent country” then their actions are even more shameful

“even brutes do not devour their young”

Common Sense

5. We are country of commerce, connections with one country could hurt trade.

Europe is not a peaceful place, Our connection with Britain could hurt trade with other countries we have no problem with.

Common Sense

6. England is to far away and to small to govern America.

“the distance at which the Almighty hath place England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority of the one, over the other, was never the design of Haven.”

Common Sense

“In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger then its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature”

Common Sense

7. What’s done is done.

“harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence?”

Historical Context: Burke’s Views on Major Issues

• Movement towards political democratization, concepts of popular government

• Increasing role of Parliament – “isthmus between arbitrary power and anarchy” (Burke)

• But who should be in Parliament? • Concept of representation: virtual vs. liberal

(Wilkes, British radicals of the 1760s and 1770s) vs. functionalist

• Burke: natural aristocracy (people = “swinish multitude”), but all interests in society should be represented

Historical Context: Burke’s Views on Major Issues

• Tensions between Great Britain and its colonies

• Supported representation for the Irish and the American colonies

• Idea of the British empire• colonies to decide certain matters and have

de facto civil liberties• A right to tax could be a right not to tax• English colonies as part of British empire

could levy their own taxes

Edmund Burke, Conciliation with America Main Points

1. Use of force is not the best option– Not the British way– Last resort. The use of force leads to uncertain consequences.

• “ My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left….”

– More destruction than good, alienation• “A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very

endeavours to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted and consumed in the contest….”

– A temporary measure: subdue, but not govern• “the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment;

but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed , which is perpetually to be conquered.”

2. American colonies are different from Britain and as such requires their own government

– Liberty– Geographically remote– Only its own government can cope with problems

3. Britain should respect rights of its colony

Edmund Burke, Conciliation with America Main Points

Edmund Burke, A Founder of Conservatism

• Founder of Conservatism: “Burke maintained that society was a contract, but ‘the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, to be taken up for a temporary interest and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.’ The state was a partnership but one ‘not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born.’ No one generation therefore has the right to destroy this partnership; instead, each generation has the duty to preserve and transmit it to the next. Burke advised against the violent overthrow of a government by revolution, but he did not reject the possibility of change. Sudden change was unacceptable, but that did not eliminate gradual or evolutionary improvements.” (Spielvogel, p. 612)

•In 1748 Smith began delivering public lectures in Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames.•In 1751 Smith was appointed chair of logic at the University of Glasgow, transferring in 1752 to

the Chair of Moral Philosophy, once occupied by his famous teacher, Francis Hutcheson.•He left academia in 1764 to tutor the young duke of Buccleuch. For over two years they lived

and traveled throughout France and into Switzerland, an experience that brought Smith into contact with contemporaries Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François Quesnay, and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot. With the life pension he had earned in the service of the duke, Smith retired to his birthplace of Kirkcaldy to write The Wealth of Nations. It was published in 1776.

•In 1778 he was appointed to a comfortable post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother in Edinburgh. He died there on July 17, 1790, after a painful illness.

Adam SmithAmerica and the Wealth of Nations

(1776)BACKGROUND:

•Adam Smith was baptized in the small village of Kirkcaldy, Scotland on June 5, 1723. His father died before six months before his baptism, and Smith’s mother raised him until he entered the University of Glasgow.

•When he was four he was kidnapped by a band of Gypsies, but he uncle quickly rescued him.

•At the age of fourteen, Smith studied at the University of Glasgow.

•In 1740 he entered Balliol College, Oxford.

America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)

By: Adam Smith

Main Points

1. There should be a union between Britain and all of its colonies, because close economic ties and commerce are in all parties’ best interest.

“By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, enabling them to relieve one another’s wants, to increase one another’s enjoyments, and to encourage one another’s industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial.”

2. The balance of power will equal out because of trade.

“Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries may grow stronger, or those of Europe may grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at that equality…”

“But nothing seems more likely to establish this equality of force than that mutual communication of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements which an extensive commerce from all countries to all countries naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along with it.”

America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)By: Adam Smith

Main Points

3. The Mercantile System was elevated because of Britain putting so much emphasis on trading only with their colonies.

“…one of the principle effects of those discoveries has been to raise the mercantile system to a degree of splendor and glory which it could never otherwise have attained to. It is the object of that system to enrich a great nation rather by trade and manufactures than by the improvement and cultivation of land, rather by industry of towns than by that of the country.”

4. The way to really prosper is to allow free trade with colonies and other countries.

“After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of every country in Europe to engross to itself the whole advantage of the trade of its own colonies, no country has yet been able to engross to itself any thing but the expense of supporting in time of peace and of defending in time of war the oppressive authority which it assumes over them.”

Adam Smith• To what is Smith reacting?• The “invisible hand” of the laws of supply and

demand• Monopolies?• “Even the regulations by which each nation

endeavours to secure to itself the exclusive trade of its own colonies, are frequently more hurtful to the countries in favour of which they are established than to those against which they are established.”

Partial Resume• Delegate from Virginia to 2nd Continental Congress• Drafted the Declaration of Independence• 2nd governor of Virginia• Authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom• Ambassador to France• 1st U.S. Secretary of State• 2nd Vice President of the U.S.• 3rd President of the U.S.• Founded the University of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826

The Declaration of Independence

Partial Resume• Delegate from Virginia to 2nd Continental Congress• Drafted the Declaration of Independence• 2nd governor of Virginia• Authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom• Ambassador to France• 1st U.S. Secretary of State• 2nd Vice President of the U.S.• 3rd President of the U.S.• Founded the University of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826

MAIN POINTS

• All men are created equal

• Governments are put into place by the people and it is their right to abolish it and institute another, if it becomes destructive

• The King has been a Tyrant

• Independence from the British Crown is declared

Main Points of the Declaration of Independence• All men are created equal.

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

• Men are given by God certain unalienable rights.“They are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

• We have the natural right by God to declare our independence from England.“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…

• Governments derive their authority from the consent of the people.

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

• When a government abuses it’s power, the people have the right to overthrow it.

“That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…

• The colonies tried repeatedly to compromise with King George, but has been a tyrant.

“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

Main Points of the Declaration of Independence

Jefferson on SlaveryJefferson on Slavery (1784)(1784)

Facts about Jefferson:• Third President1801-1809

• Born: April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia

• Died: July 4, 1826 in Monticello in Virginia

• Married to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson

• Author: The Declaration of Independence

• He was supported by slave labor his entire life

• He purchased eight or more slaves while president

Jefferson on SlaveryJefferson on Slavery (1784) (1784)

• PREJUDICE ON BEHALF OF WHITES AND RESENTMENT FOR INJURIES SUSTAINED ON BEHALF OF BLACKS WILL FOREVER DIVIDE THE TWO RACES: “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To these objection, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral.”


WHITES ARE PHYSICALLY MORE BEAUTIFUL:

“The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?”

The difference is fixed in natureColor

fixed in natureless hair of face & body

Stature—seem to be made for laborsecrete less by kidneys, more by glandsstrong disagreeable odormore tolerant of heat and less of coldrequire less sleep


• Bravery– Were they really brave or did they have no forethought, which kept them from

seeing danger.


• Love– More ardent after their females– Have more eagerness of desire than love

–“They are more ardent after their female; but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven his given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.”

• Memory– Equal to whites

– “…in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior…”

• Imagination– Dull, tasteless and anomalous

• Arts– No trace of art, painting or

sculpture, only narratives, even though they had been exposed.


• Music– More gifted than whites in regards to tune & time, but no

evidence of composition of melody or harmony.

• Poetry– Regarding Phyllis Whately, her compositions were

below dignity of criticism. – Ignatius Sancho, approached nearer merit, but his

letters do him more honor. – “Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows,

but no poetry.”


Blacks are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.

• “…though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.”


When compared to Roman slaves, who were white.

•Roman slavery was much more appalling, but the slaves were often the rarest artists.

•They excelled in science and were tutors for the master’s children.

Roman Slave medallionJefferson on SlaveryJefferson on Slavery (1784) (1784)

Slavery is harmful the to slave owners and their Slavery is harmful the to slave owners and their posterity: posterity: “The whole commerce between master and slave “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it…”to imitate it…”

““The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.””


A detail from the cover of the booklet produced for the June 22-25 symposium on "Thomas Jefferson and Slavery" shows the U.Va. founder (left) and Isaac Jefferson, a slave who became a blacksmith and later overseer of Monticello in 1797. He was the only slave ever to hold this position there.

Slavery Damages the Moral Fiber of the Country:Slavery Damages the Moral Fiber of the Country:

“With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves of a very small proportion are ever seen to labor.”

“…I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events…”


LETTER FROM AN AMERICAN FARMER

1. EACH PERSON COMES TO THE NEW AMERICA FROM THE MOTHER COUNTRY OF EUROPE, BRINGING KNOWLEDGE OF INDUSTRY AND ARTS AND SCIENCE.

2. A TRANSFORMATION TOOK PLACE FROM THE EUROPEAN RACE AND INTO A GREAT MELTING POT KNOWN AS AMERICA.

3. POOR MEN THAT ARE NOT WELCOME IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY WERE WELCOME IN AMERICA. THEY WOULD START LIFE AGAIN AND BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS THEY WANTED TO BE. NO MONEY WOULD HAVE TO BE GIVEN TO A KING OR LORD. ONLY A SMALL SUM TO BE PAID TO THE CHURCH. THIS NEW MAN WITH HIS NEW IDEAS AND OPINIONS IN THIS NEW COUNTRY.

Main Point #1: European immigrants are transformed by their transplantation to America. American society has more quality and more opportunities for self advancement. Americans derive more benefit from their labor than their European counterparts. The greater possibility to receive just reward for one’s labor has inspired the American immigrant and has improved his standard of living. They can even aspire to become land owners, and thus free men!

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Main Points:

•“We [Americans] are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself.”

•“[American society] is not composed as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything, and a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other.”

•“Urged by a variety of motives, here [European immigrants] came. Everything has tended to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system; here they are become men: in Europe they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegetative mould, and refreshing showers; they withered, and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now by the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have taken root and flourished!”

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American

Main Points:

•“A pleasant uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our habitations.”

•“[Immigrants to America] receive ample rewards for their labours; these accumulated rewards procure them lands, those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is affixed which men can possibly require.”

•“Ubi panis ibi patria [The land I work is my country], is the motto of the emigrants.”

•“Here [in America] the rewards of [the immigrant’s] industry follows with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement?”

•“From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence. –This is an American.”

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Main Points:

Main Point #2: American immigrants are transformed by settling in America, and ergo America is transformed into a melting pot.

•“[Americans] are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race called Americans have arisen…”

•“Here [in America] individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes.”

Michel St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American

•“Some few towns excepted, we [Americans] are tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory,…united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting in laws, without dreading their power, because they are equitable.”

•“Here [the American immigrant] beholds fair cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where an hundred years ago all was wild, woody, and uncultivated!”

•“Many ages will not see the shores of our great lakes replenished with inland nations, nor the unknown bounds of North America entirely peopled. Who can tell how far it extends? Who can tell the millions of men whom it will feed and contain? For no European foot has as yet travelled half the extent of this mighty continent!”

The American YeomanThe American Yeoman

Main Point #3: Americans are farmers on the edge of a great continent with untold promise.

• The document gave an idealized view on the way of life for an American– Attempts to define “what is an American?”

• The document was important to the poor European, giving him hope that he too could succeed in a new land.

• It praises the idea of a melting pot and the making of a new society: “…individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.” “That strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country….”

Historical Significance

SHOULD THE STATES RATIFY THE PROPOSED SHOULD THE STATES RATIFY THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES? CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES?

In September 1787, the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, with its fate undetermined. It immediately came under attack in numerous articles published by Anti-Federalists and other opponents of the Constitution. In response, the Federalist Alexander Hamilton initiated the Federalist Papers project to explain the new Constitution to the residents of New York and persuade them to ratify it.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander HamiltonJames MadisonJohn Jay

The Federalist Papers were written by Alexander Hamilton (nos. 1, 6—9, 11—13, 15—17, 21—36, 59—61, and 65—85), James Madison (nos. 10, 14, 18—20, 37—58, and 62—63), and John Jay (2—5, and 64). They were published under the pseudonym "Publius," in honor of Roman consul Publius Valerius Publicola.

An Advertisement for The Federalist

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay published eight-five and John Jay published eight-five articles in total for the Federalist articles in total for the Federalist Papers project. They not only Papers project. They not only advocated the ratification of the advocated the ratification of the United States Constitution, but also United States Constitution, but also outlined the philosophy of the outlined the philosophy of the proposed system of government. proposed system of government.

Federalist No. Federalist No. 1010

Many regard Federalist No. 10 to be the most important of the 85 articles. Written by James Madison, it explains how a large country with many competing interests and factions could support republican values better than a small country dominated by a few special interests. Although not given much attention at the time, many twentieth-century Americans would later embrace the Madison’s interpretation of how republican values could function in large country to defend the virtues of pluralistic politics.

James Madison:James Madison:

•was born and raised on a plantation in Virginia

•was the son of a slave owner, and became a slave owner himself

•was one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the U.S.

•grew alarmed after independence at the fragility of the Articles of Confederation and the divisiveness of state governments

•considered to be the “Father of the Constitution” for his role in its drafting and ratification

•wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers

•was a leader in the House of Representatives

•drafted many basic laws and was responsible for the first ten amendments of the Constitution, and thus is also known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights”

•supervised the Louisiana Purchase as President Jefferson’s Secretary of State

•was elected the fourth President of the United States (1809-1817)

•led the United States into war with Great Britain in 1812. The Americans fared badly for most of the war, and most historians consider the war a serious mistake.

•reversed many of his positions while president, eventually favored military, the creation of a National Bank, and the imposition of high tariffs to protect America’s fledging industrial economy

James Madison, Federalist #10 (1787-1788)Human nature is selfish and passionate, and when combined with

reason, individuals have “liberty.”

Liberty = pursuit of property => classes and factions (everyone cannot have equal property).

Factious Majority Factious Minority

Classes

REMOVE CAUSES: People could remove the causes of faction, but this would destroy liberty. This solution is worse than the problem.This solution is worse than the problem.

SOLUTION: The Federalists sought to work with human naturework with human nature. They advocated letting factions run their course, arguing that in a large republic they would compete with one another and effectively cancel each other out.

THREE FACTORS THAT WILL CHECK THE TYRANNY OF A FACTION:1. LARGE POLITY: Thousands of factions will result in a diffusion of factions that will

tend to cancel each other out.2. REPRESENTATION: Representative government will act as a filter, protecting the

republic form the passions of the masses.3. SEPARATION OF POWERS: A federal government and a separation of powers will

result in a system checks and balances in power.

James Madison• Born: March 16, 1751 in Port

Conway, King George, Virginia • Died: June 28, 1836 in

Montpelier in Virginia • A student of history and

government, well-read in law, he participated in the framing of the Virginia Constitution in 1776, served in the Continental Congress, and was a leader in the Virginia Assembly.

• The 4th President of the U.S.

Federalists vs. Antifederalists

• Alexander Hamilton• United States should be

a national family• Power should be

centered in a national government

• Constrain liberty for national unity

• Trust the elites

• Thomas Jefferson• Island communities• Power should be

dispersed between States

• Liberty should check the national government

• Trust the average citizen

Federalist Papers• Written by James Madison,

Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay under the pseudonym Publius

• Written to convince the public to ratify the constitution

• Federalist #10 is thought of as the most influential out of all 85 essays.

• There are two methods to cure the problems caused by factions:– Removing its causes– Controlling its effects

• To Remove a faction you must:– Destroy the liberty which is essential to its existence– Or give every citizen the same opinions, interests, and passions

• “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction.

• The options of removing the cause of a faction are impractical and impossible, therefore, “the inference to which we are brought, is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed; and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.”

Main Themes

• A Republic, as outlined in the constitution, will be able to control factions.– “However small the Republic may be, the Representatives must be

raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude.” This will guard against factions

– “Each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large (national) than in the small (state) Republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts, and will more likely centre on the men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.”

– “The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.”

Main Points continued…

Daniel Webster

Against Universal Manhood Suffrage (1820)

•Daniel Webster, born in Salisbury, N.H. on January 18, 1782. •He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1801•He became a prominent lawyer and Federalist party leader•Massachusetts elected him in 1812 to the U.S. House of Representatives because of his

opposition to the War of 1812, which had crippled New England's shipping trade.•He was an outspoken critic of the Madison administration and its wartime policies, denouncing

its efforts at financing the war through paper money and opposing Secretary of War James Monroe's conscription proposal.

•In 1828, the dominant economic interests of Massachusetts having shifted from shipping to manufacturing, Webster backed the high-tariff bill of that year. Angry Southern leaders condemned the tariff, and South Carolina's John C. Calhoun argued that his state had the right to nullify the law. Replying to South Carolina's Robert Hayne in a Senate debate in 1830, Webster triumphantly defended the Union. His words "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" won wide acclaim. (Sydney Nathans, Daniel Webster Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc., 1995)

•Webster ran for the presidency in 1836 as one of three Whig party candidates but carried only Massachusetts. For the remainder of his career he aspired vainly to the presidency.

•In 1841, President William Henry Harrison named Webster secretary of state.•Webster opposed the annexation of Texas in 1845 and the resulting war with Mexico. He also

opposed the expansion of slavery, but feared even more a dissolution of the Union over the dispute. In a powerful speech before the Senate on Mar. 7, 1850, he supported the Compromise of 1850, denouncing Southern threats of secession but urging Northern support for a stronger law for the recovery of fugitive slaves. (Sydney Nathans, Daniel Webster Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc., 1995)

•In 1952, he ran as a Whig for the presidency, but again lost. His critics pointed to his support for the Compromise of 1850, accusing him to pandering to southern voters to aid his presidential campaign. Ralph Waldo Emerson called this politicking “profoundly selfish.”

•He died on October 24, 1852 after falling from his horse and suffering a crushing blow to the head.

BACKGROUND

Daniel WebsterDaniel WebsterAgainst Universal Manhood Suffrage Against Universal Manhood Suffrage (1820)(1820)

•Property should have its weight and influence in political arrangement. “…power naturally and necessarily follows property. He maintains that a government founded on property is legitimately founded; and that a government founded on the disregard of property is founded in injustice, and can only be maintained by military force….” “It seems to me to be plain, that, in the absence of military force, political power naturally and necessarily goes into the hands which hold the property. In my judgment, therefore, a republican form of government rest, not more on political constitutions, than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.”

If the nature of our institutions be to found government on property, and that it should look to those who hold property for its protection, it is entirely just that property should have its due weight and consideration in political arrangements. Life and personal liberty are no doubt to be protected by law; but property is also to be protected by law, and is the fund out of which the means for protecting life and liberty are usually furnished. We have no experience that teaches us that any other rights are safe where property is not safe. Confiscation and plunder are generally, in revolutionary commotions, not far before banishment, imprisonment, and death.”

•Property should be given representation in the Senate because it is just and also because it provides that check which the constitution and the legislature requires.”

Background Father was a distinguished revolutionary soldier Educated at Phillips Exter Academy, Exeter, Harvard University,

Heidelberg, Gottingen, and Berlin. Entered Harvard at age thirteen, then studied abroad Was expected to join the ministry, but was unsuccessful Became a statesmen and historian Leaned towards romanticism and humanist beliefs Gained favor with Polk and became Secretary of the Navy Established the United States Naval Academy Was assigned the position of Minister to Britain and Prussia Was a supporter of Jacksonian Democracy Was prolific writer, including his book History of the United States of

America, from the discovery of the American continent

George BancroftThe Office of the PeopleThe Office of the People (1835) (1835)

George BancroftThe Office of the PeopleThe Office of the People (1835) (1835)

* Common judgment is the highest authority.* Common judgment is the highest authority.If it be true, that the gifts of mind and heart are universally diffused, if the sentiment of truth, justice, love, and beauty exists in every one, then it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the common judgment in taste, politics, and religion is the highest authority on earth, and the nearest possible approach to an infallible decision.

* Truth is one.* Truth is one. Truth is one. It never contradicts itself: One truth cannot contradict another truth. Hence truth is a bond of union. But error not only contradicts truth, but may contradict itself; so that there may be many errors, and each at variance with the rest. Truth is therefore of necessity an element of harmony; error as necessarily an element of discord. Thus there can be no continuing universal judgment but a right one. Men cannot agree in an absurdity; neither can they agree in a falsehood.

* Truth has been passed on by the collective truth of humanity through the ages, * Truth has been passed on by the collective truth of humanity through the ages, and even today, the public is wiser than the wisest critic.and even today, the public is wiser than the wisest critic.► …every sect that has ever flourished has benefited Humanity; for the errors of a sect pass away and are forgotten; its truths are received into the common inheritance.► For who are the best judges in matters of taste? Do you think the cultivated individual? Undoubtedly not; but the collective mind. The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

George Bancroft, The Office of the PeopleThe Office of the People (1835) (1835)

* True genius is inspired by reflecting and satisfying the wisdom of humanity, and not * True genius is inspired by reflecting and satisfying the wisdom of humanity, and not by reflecting or satisfying particular tastes.by reflecting or satisfying particular tastes.

[Genius] yearns for larger influences; it feeds on wide sympathies; and its perfect display can never exist except in an appeal to the general sentiment for the beautiful….

* The moral intelligence of the community should rule.* The moral intelligence of the community should rule.

• A government of equal rights must…rest upon the mind; not wealth, not brute force, the sum of the moral intelligence of the community should rule the State.

• …the common mind [is] the true material for a commonwealth.• The world can advance only through the culture of the moral and intellectual

powers of the people.• The duty of America is to secure the culture and the happiness of the masses by

their reliance on themselves.• …we have made Humanity our lawgiver and our oracle…• The government by the people is in very truth the strongest government in the

world. Discarding the implements of terror, it dares to rule by moral force, and has its citadel in the heart….

• …the measure of the progress of civilization is the progress of the people.• …the opinion which we respect is not the opinion of one or a few, but the sagacity

of the many.

Alexis de Toqueville

Democracy in America (1835)

“The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can only learn from strangers or from experience.”

•Democratic government = sovereignty of the majority

•The very essence of government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in democratic states which is capable of resisting it.

•The moral and intellectual authority of the majority.

•The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the notion, that there is more intelligence and more wisdom in a great number of men collected together than in a single individual, and that the quantity of legislators is more important than their quality. The theory of equality is in fact applied to the intellect of man….”

•The majority can do no wrong.

•The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim (which is still a fundamental principle of the English Constitution) that the King could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers. This notion was highly favorable to habits of obedience, and it enabled the subject to complain of the law without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.

Main Points:

Main Points (continued):•The majority is not immune to misusing absolute power.

•“If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength.”

•The system of checks and balances merely through a separation of powers is a delusion.

•“The form of government which is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me to be a mere chimera. Accurately speaking there is no such thing as a mixed government, (with the meaning usually given to that word), because in all communities some one principle of action may be discovered, which preponderates over the others.”

•The main evil of the present the democratic institutions of the United States arise from their overpowering strength.

•“In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.”

Main Points (continued):

• What Tocqueville would prefer: “If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions; an executive so as to retain a certain degree of uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as to remain independent of the two other powers; a government would be formed which would still be democratic, without incurring any risk tyrannical abuse.”

• Unlike monarchies, the authority of the majority is both moral and physical.

• “The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the actions of the subject without subduing his private will; but the majority possesses a power which is physical and moral at the same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men, and it represses not only all contest, but all controversy. I know no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America.”

• If one goes outside the barriers of acceptable public opinion, as deemed by the majority, there is very little liberty of opinion.

• “In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy.”

• Auto-da-fe: (1) public announcement of the sentences imposed on persons tried by the Inquisition and the public execution of those sentences by the secular authorities. (2) The burning of a heretic at the stake.

• Obloquy: (1) abusively detractive language or utterance; calumny. (2) The condition of disgrace suffered as a result of abuse or vilification; ill repute.

•Democratic Republics enslave the souls of their citizens through oppressive pressures to conform.

• “The excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of physical means of oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as that will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The sovereign can no longer say, “You shall think as I do on pain of death;” but he says, “You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien among your people….”

• “Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and those who are most persuaded of Your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is in an existence incomparably worse than death.”

•The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the Americans can only learn from strangers or from experience.



• Lawyers are an important check against the passions of the majority.

• In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws, we perceive that the authority they have entrusted to members of the legal profession, and the influence which these individuals exercise in the Government, is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy.

• Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other consideration, and the best security of public order is authority.

• Lawyers: the American Aristocracy. “In America there are no nobles or men of letters, and the people is apt to mistrust the wealthy; lawyers consequently form the highest political class, and the most cultivated circle of society. They have therefore nothing to gain by innovation, which adds a conservative interest to their natural taste for public order. If I were asked where I place the American aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not composed of the rich, who are united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar.”

•An expansive frontier makes American democracy viable in practice.

• Their ancestors gave them love of equality and of freedom; but God himself gave them the means of remaining equal and free, by placing them upon a boundless continent, which is open to their exertions.

• Millions of men are marching at once towards the same horizon; their language, their religion, their manners differ, their object is the same. The gifts of fortune are promised in the West, and to the West they bend their course.

• The passions which agitate the Americans most deeply are not their political but their commercial passions; or, to speak more correctly, they introduce the habits they contract in business into their political life. They love order, without which affairs do not prosper; and they set an especial value upon a regular conduct, which is the foundation of a solid business; they prefer the good sense which amasses large fortunes to that enterprising spirit which frequently dissipates them; general ideas alarm their minds, which are accustomed to positive calculations, and they hold practice in more honor than theory.


John L. O’Sullivan, John L. O’Sullivan, Manifest DestinyManifest Destiny

Westward Expansion:Westward Expansion:

““Our Manifest destiny is to overspread the continent Our Manifest destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”our yearly multiplying millions.”

“Texas is now ours.” Texas has no obligation to Mexico and the United States needs welcome the annexation of Texas.

“There is a great deal of Annexation yet to take place, within the life of the present generation, along the whole line of our northern border.”

John Cotton, 1584-1652 Cotton was an English-born American cleric who was vicar of Saint Botolph's...

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