Blog 8: Revolutionary Culture

Part I: A Tory, also called a loyalist, was someone who was loyal to the British government before and during the Revolutionary War. The loyalists (particularly the clergy of the Anglican Church, like Inglis) were threatened and treated with violence and cast into jail on spurious charges, and when they would try to flee, they would be arrested, brought back, and “tried for the Lives.” After the Declaration of Independence, the clergy were face with a dilemma: to omit prayers for the King would go against their Oath, but prayers for the King would have “drawn inevitable Destruction.” To “avoid both evils,” they had to simply close their churches. Inglis believed that the “Abolition of the Church of England” was one of the principal goals of the “Dissenting Leaders.” I’ve never heard that before, but it makes sense. We’re told that 20% of the free population sided with Britain. The only thing about that that surprises me is that there weren’t more who sided with Britain. The Whig cause was audacious, and incredibly risky. It was much more likely that rebellion would make things worse rather than better. I honestly don’t know whether I would have been a Whig or a Tory. On the one hand, I have always believed the United States to be a very special place, and have reverenced the Patriots and Founders and all that. On the other hand, I am not a rebellious person, and I hate confrontations and fights. I believe in working within the law to effect change, and in being loyal to your government. My church has something called the Articles of Faith, which I have grown up memorizing and reciting. One of them is, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” So even though I am very glad that the Revolution happened and that some people were Whigs, I probably would have been a Tory because supporting the government would have seemed like the most conscionable thing to do. That is a bit cowardly, but there you are.

Part II: Mercy Otis Warren feels that “politicks” commands “the attention of the mother and the wife” because the recent occurrences were, in her words, “so alarming.” She also felt the subject was “interwoven with the enjoyments of social and domestic life” and noted that women may “be called to weep over… [their] beloved sons,” slain by the British. Mercy does not apologize for “touching on a subject a little out of the line of female attention” because she and her friend are “happily united” to men who think them “capable of taking part in whatever affects themselves.” I think it’s interesting that the personality of her husband is the reason Mercy would or wouldn’t apologize for involvement in politics. In her letter to Mercy, Hannah Fayerweather Winthrop describes the citizens’ terrified flight from Cambridge following news of the fighting at Lexington—she called it the “Bloody Massacre at Lexington” and recounts the scenes with horror. She regrets that she cannot visit her friend, because “the Length of the journey & the uncertainty of the times forbid it.” It appears that she is afraid to travel because of the fighting of the Revolution. These letters show that women at the time of the Revolution felt free to discuss politics, to read and write, and even express opinions, but only if their husbands were okay with it. Women stayed out of the fighting, and felt the need to justify their involvement in politics at all. It seems that women played an important rhetorical role in politics but were limited by culturally necessary deference to men.

Part III: In his letter to John Sullivan, John Adams defends property ownership as the prerequisite to the right to vote. He believes that men who have no property have very little “Judgment of their own,” but instead are directed by someone who owns property in how to vote, thus leading to corruption because men of property essentially get more than one vote (theirs and all the property-less people they influence). He also says (quite ironically to the modern ear) that any argument one could use for granting men without property the right to vote would naturally extend to woman and children, who are equally dependent on others (and I think he is holding that situation up as ludicrous). John Adams’ ideas are not practical for today for so many reasons. First of all, the number of people who rent rather than owning property is huge—that would be a lot of people without votes. Secondly, many of the issues facing voters today affect those who don’t (and particularly those who can’t) own property differently that those who do. Because of all the social programs that government is involved in (not present in Adams’ time), the poor (who typically do not own property) must have a voice. Thirdly, we obviously do value women’s votes today, so that part of Adam’s argument isn’t applicable. All of this is the ideal situation for votes. The truth of the matter is that those who own property, specifically wealthy property owners, are grossly overrepresented in government, as well as in proportion of voter turnout. So even though those without property can vote, many of them aren’t, so perhaps Adams’ ideas are being perpetuated even though we say we don’t agree with them. In the last two paragraphs, Adams basically expresses a fear of equality. He worries that extending votes to greater numbers of people would “confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Levell.” Basically, he wanted liberty, but not for everyone, and certainly not in equal amounts. He wanted the status quo to be perpetuated, with the same people in power in the Americas, just without the distant connection to England. Even though Adams’ fear is certainly hypocritical, it is understandable. With the ideas of social position so ingrained in us as we grow up, it is natural to fear the upset of “social order”. It amounts to the fear of the unknown. These early patriots seemed to be saying, “We want change, but let’s not get too crazy.” Clearly, equality was a little “too crazy” for them, and with how long it is taking us to achieve small measures of equality today, we just might think it’s “too crazy,” too.

Blog 7: Common Sense, Freedom, and Slavery

Paine: In the introduction to Common Sense in our textbook, Paine is praised for using “simple language” and “biblical references”. While his language may not seem simple to the modern ear, I think that he does show simplicity in boldly laying out a plan rather than just spouting patriotic rhetoric. This kind of “get down to business” attitude can be appreciated by the “simple folk” as well as philosophers because it is concrete, something you can really wrap your mind around, and something that can be debated easily. The only example I found of a biblical reference was in Paine’s reference to the King as “the Pharaoh of England”. Here he is subtly comparing the Americans to the Israelites in the Bible when they were enslaved in Egypt. This is a very effective comparison because God was on the side of the Israelites and supported them in miraculous ways. It was the Israelite’s destiny to come out from under Pharaoh’s dominance, and here I think Paine hopes to convey that same idea of destiny and Divine favor towards the cause of American independence. Paine feels that the “King of America” should be the law. I find this a very astute statement. I think that Paine’s ideas are common sense. His point that no other solution besides independence could bring lasting happiness is, in my opinion, a true one. The Crown and the Colonies had gotten to the point where their goals did not line up any more, and no agreement could be reached without one majorly conceding to the other, which neither party would have been pleased with. I do agree with his ideas, especially his statement that “Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.” I think that is the best form of government, with lots of people giving input, with a few wise and able people consolidating the ideas into the best solution for everyone.

The Declaration of Independence: The introduction of the Declaration of Independence section states, “The famous words of the preamble, included below along with the concluding paragraph, remain far better known than the list of accusations aimed at the King that Jefferson also added”. In the section included in the book, the King is accused of “injuries and usurpations,” and of establishing “an absolute tyranny over these States.” Jefferson goes on to elaborate on these in the parts of the Declaration not included in the textbook. Most interesting to note is what was not included: Jefferson’s denunciation of slavery that was in the original draft, accusing the King of first enslaving Africans and then leading them in insurrections to wreak havoc in the Colonies. This part was left out of the final document due to complaints from many of the (mostly Southern) delegates. The declaration in the preamble that “all men are created equal” did not alter the status of women and slaves, nor was it meant to. I don’t think the men who crafted the Declaration considered women and slaves to be included in “all men,” or even worthy of mention. The introduction to this section says, “The idea… meant that free citizens were politically equal” (emphasis added). This was actually a pretty radical notion at the time, but these men would have considered the equality of the sexes and races as beyond radical into utter madness.

Wheatley: In this section, Phillis Wheatley is writing to Samson Occum in response to his letter to her in which he criticized “Christian ministers who spoke of liberty while owning slaves” (textbook, pg 195). Wheatley writes that “in every human breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance.” She addresses the “strange absurdity” of the conduct of those Americans who promote slavery, crying for Liberty while exercising “oppressive Power over others.” Yet Wheatley shows passive acceptance of slavery in the poems included in The Great Awakening. She says that it was mercy that brought her from Africa to America, because there she learned about God and Christ. She seems to express that African slaves can be the spiritual equals of white men with lines like, “You shall be sons, and kings, and priests to God,” and “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,/May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.” I guess this does defy the bondage of slavery a little, but in these poems she doesn’t actually talk about any liberty other than spiritual. Kidd writes, “Thomas Jefferson, for one, dismissed her poetry with a sneer.” Jefferson called her poetry “below the dignity of criticism.” Kidd says that Jefferson needed Wheatley’s poetry to be so, because “it might jeopardize his assumptions about African Americans’ intellectual inferiority to European Americans.” I agree with that statement. Jefferson seems to be a very confused individual when it comes to slavery. One the one hand, he owned slaves, and believed them intellectually inferior, sneering at Wheatley’s poetry. On the other hand, he felt the need to denounce slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Blog 6: Religious Liberty and American Culture

Isaac Backus (1773) appealed for religious liberty. His “greatest difficulty” concerned “submitting to a taxing power in ecclesiastical affairs.” In other words, he objected to being taxed to support a religion that is not his own. He was more frustrated that the government extended its power into religion that with the taxes themselves. He and other Baptists and separatists were often punished for religious dissent, leading him to write that “the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.” He is actually quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) which he says, “our rulers and their ministers have published to the world.” Backus is trying to show that the faith established by the government already believed in liberty of conscience, which I would define as the freedom to do what you believe to be right. He is saying that if conscience and reason are desirable things (and in America, then and now, we consider them to be so), then people must be free to act on them, and this means being free to choose your own brand of faith.

John Leland (1791) gives two reasons that governments should not give preference to any religious group:

1. Every man has to answer for himself at Judgment Day. If government will not answer for him then, it should not answer for him in matters of religion now either.
2. The mind is to be kept sacred for God (and not controlled by men) and should be open to conviction. Even the best of men change their minds, and that should be allowed!

Leland refutes the idea that conformity in religion is necessary to the happiness of civil government by comparing it to “mathematicks”, saying that religion and mathematics have equally little to do with the operations of government (and government doesn’t strictly control our math preferences).

I think that today’s arguments are both similar and different from these early separatists’ and Baptists’ appeals. Freedom from government intrusion into religion is still very important to us (probably even more so—we don’t even want religion mentioned let alone dictated) but we have tried to divorce conscience from the picture. The freedom to have no conviction is just as important to us as these early writers’ desire for freedom to have differing convictions. Thus the religion vs. anti-religion argument is more prevalent in Freedom of Religion cases than arguments between different religions. I suppose that atheism or anti-religion in general could be considered just another religion, but the difference that I am posing is that Americans today bristle at the idea that we must believe in something to be successful citizens. Notice that I said “successful” and not “good”, because we also bristle at the idea of being labeled “good” or “bad” or even at the existence of such distinctions. This is a far cry from Backus and Leland.

Blog 4/5: Looking at The Great Awakening

In the textbook section, Colonial Religion and the Great Awakening, it focuses more on the effects of the Great Awakening, such as the splitting into factions of various churches, the criticism of ministers, the large crowds, etc. The primary sources focus more inward on personal conversion. Nowhere in those sources is mentioned purifying the churches or criticizing the ministers. In fact, on page 144, George Whitefield says, “my end in preaching was not to sow divisions, but to propagate the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ.” I’m sure the textbook gives an accurate account of what happened as a result of the Great Awakening, but it doesn’t address what seems to be the purpose of it all, according to the primary sources provided: personal conversion for lots of people, not broad changes in church structure itself. The fact that Nathan Cole and George Whitefield do not express a desire to reform the churches is a place of disconnect between these primary sources and the textbook, which emphasizes challenges to the establishment.

Kidd comments on the question of why the Great Awakening happened. This is a very difficult question to answer because it involved people from Europe and America, and you would have to examine social climates, religious and secular ideas, perhaps even economics, from multiple regions on two different continents. Also, when things happen in such quick succession, it’s difficult to pinpoint which events caused which other events. People are also a lot more likely to record what happened rather than why they think something happened, so I would assume that we have few records that can assist in answering this question. Additionally, these record keepers would be involved in the situation, giving them a highly biased view of why the Great Awakening happened. Their speculations would be less meaningful to us, who are more divorced from the situation.