Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
stimulus during the critical Virginia period. Rousseau he read with
profound interest, together with Godwin’s _Political Justice_ and Mary
Wollstonecraft’s _Rights of Woman_. The Physiocratic economics that
sanctioned the agrarian bias of Jeffersonian democracy seems to have
made no appeal to a mind primarily ethical in outlook, yet he went so
far as to dabble in communistic theory, and for a time contemplated
joining a communistic community. From France, moreover, he derived
the idea of the excellence of human nature and the perfectibility
of man, ideas which became the mainspring of his later thinking,
creatively determining both his theology and his social philosophy, and
transforming his whole intellectual world.
In July, 1800, eight months before it took formal possession of the
White House, “French infidel philosophy” made its appearance in New
England in the person of a slight, health-broken youth, who returned
to his quiet theological studies, quite unmindful of the gunpowder he
had brought back in his intellectual luggage. It was long before a
spark was to strike home, but the powder was there and would do its
work eventually. In passing through Channing’s mind, the contributions
of French romanticism merged with the native heritage of New England
idealism, and supplemented by contributions from English Arian thought,
slowly assumed definite form that came to issue in three dominating
ideas, namely: God is love, man is potentially noble, religion is an
excellent life. Enveloping these master ideas, in which they were
carried as in a medium, was a pervasive ethical spirit that colored
all his thinking and eventually took form in that striking phrase into
which all of Channing is compressed, “the adoration of goodness--this
is religion.” This constituted his reply to the Edwardean theology that
debased man to the sole end of exalting a monstrous God--the doctrine
of “sweetness and light” was set over against the dogmas of reprobation
and election.
With his profound sense of justice, Channing could not follow “the
adoration of goodness” into an aloof and mystical pietism. The
temptation was strong, for his finely aristocratic and hesitant nature
prompted him to stand apart from all turmoil and partisan struggle.
He disliked controversy and distrusted all dogmatists. The world of
economics and politics was exceedingly distasteful to him; he would
gladly stop his ears against the clamor of organized groups and
strident parties. The Abolitionists, with whose purpose he deeply
sympathized, seemed to him intolerant and their tactics vulgar. There
is a measure of justice in Garrison’s comment after Channing’s death:
“His nerves were delicately strung. The sound of a ram’s horn was
painfully distressing to him. He was firmly persuaded that nothing but
a silver trumpet was needed to cause the walls of Jericho to fall; and
he did his best upon his own.”[445] And yet, however unwillingly, he
was drawn inevitably into an agitation that touched both his religion
and his humanity; and between 1835 and 1837 he issued three notable
contributions to the controversy: _Slavery_, a reply to the Southern
apologists; _The Abolitionists_, an open letter to James Birney, whose
Abolition press had been wrecked by an Ohio mob; and a noble appeal
to Henry Clay against the annexation of Texas. In the latter year he
spoke in Faneuil Hall at a turbulent meeting called to protest against
the murder of Lovejoy, the meeting at which Wendell Phillips made his
dramatic first appearance on the Abolition platform.
The point of view from which Channing approached the problem of
slavery is clearly set forth in his _Introductory Remarks_, written in
1841 for a collected edition of his works, and which constitutes his
_apologia pro vita sua_.[446] In this extraordinarily lucid and just
statement he reduces the master passions of his life to two--respect
for human nature, and reverence for human liberty--passions which were
inseparable in all his thinking. Of the first he says, “The following
writings will be found to be distinguished by nothing more than by
the high estimate which they express of human nature. A respect for
the human soul breathes through them.” This attitude he elaborates at
length:
An enlightened, disinterested human being, morally strong, and
exerting a wide influence by the power of virtue, is the clearest
reflection of the divine splendour on earth.... The glory of the
Maker lies in his work.... Those men glorify God most, who look
with keen eye and loving heart on his works, who catch in all some
glimpses of beauty and power, who have a spiritual sense for good
in its dimmest manifestations, and who can so interpret the world,
that it becomes a bright witness to the Divinity.
I have also felt and continually insisted, that a new reverence for
man was essential to the cause of social reform.... There can be no
spirit of brotherhood, no true peace, any farther than men come to
understand their affinity with and relation to God and the infinite
purpose for which he gave them life. As yet these ideas are treated
as a kind of spiritual romance.... The reception of this plainest
truth of Christianity would revolutionize society, and create
relations among men not dreamed of at the present day.... Men would
know the import of the word Brother, as yet nothing but a word to
multitudes. None of us can conceive the change of manners, the
new courtesy and sweetness, the mutual kindness, deference and
sympathy, the life and efforts for social melioration, which are
to spring up, in proportion as man shall penetrate beneath the body
to the spirit, and shall learn what the lowest human being is.
Out of this reverence for human nature flowed his “reverence for
Liberty, for human rights; a sentiment which has grown with my growth,
which is striking deeper root in my age, which seems to me a chief
element of true love for mankind, and which alone fits a man for
intercourse with his fellow-creatures.”
It is because I have learned the essential equality of men before
the common Father, that I cannot endure to see one man establishing
his arbitrary will over another by fraud, or force, or wealth,
or rank, or superstitious claims. It is because the human being
has moral powers, because he carries a law in his own breast
and was made to govern himself, that I cannot endure to see him
taken out of his own hands and fashioned into a tool by another’s
avarice or pride. It is because I see in him a great nature, the
divine image, and vast capacities, that I demand for him means of
self-development, spheres for free action--that I call society not
to fetter, but to aid his growth.
In such humanitarian idealism did French romantic philosophy come to
flower in the generous mind of this son of New England. He was no
longer narrowly Unitarian; he had become a social revolutionary with
Utopian dreams. The minister’s wealthy parishioners might worship the
common Father complacently under the shadow of slavery, black or white,
but the minister could not; he had caught a glimpse of the Promised
Land and would lead his flock towards it. Unhappily, the vast abyss
of negro slavery lay between, and Channing considered it with growing
concern. In his examination of the problem he was broadly philosophical
rather than narrowly partisan. He rested his case against slavery on an
ethical adaptation of the natural-rights theory.[447] Since man is both
rational and moral, he argued, he cannot be deprived by law or custom
of the essential prerogatives of personality. The inalienable rights
of man are in essence no other than the rights of personality--the
right to exercise his reason, to seek light of his conscience, to enjoy
the fruits of his labor, to enter into domestic relations, in short
to be free to live as a man in a state of civilization. To treat man
as property is the grossest denial and violation of that which by its
nature is inviolable and inalienable. Channing pushed his argument
further and asserted that the institution of slavery was not only
irrational and immoral, but a fundamental denial of democracy. It must
end in perverting the political state to its own evil. The southern
conception of a Greek democracy resting on black slavery he looked upon
as the final prostitution of the democratic ideal. “Those who tell us
that slavery is a necessary condition of a republic, do not justify the
former, but pronounce a sentence of reprobation on the latter.” For
those text-mongerers who professed to justify slavery by Scripture, he
had only scorn. By such methods polygamy might as readily be justified.
Inquiry into the nature and scope of individual rights brought Channing
face to face with the problem of the political state and the duties
of citizenship. Here his break with Boston Federalism was final and
complete. He judged men and institutions by ethical standards; State
Street judged them by economic standards. By his own path he went back
to the eighteenth century, and interpreting the functions and province
of government in the light of Godwin’s _Political Justice_, he arrived
at the conception of a constantly diminishing political state that
should eventually disappear. The dogma of political sovereignty he
denied: “The state is equally restrained with individuals by the Moral
Law” (“Slavery,” in _Works_, Vol. II, p. 37). The expediency of some
restraint upon individual action he accepted, but with the proviso
that it be exercised only to the end of the common well-being. “The
authority of the state to impose laws on its members I cheerfully
allow; but this has limits, which are found to be more and more narrow
in proportion to the progress of moral science” (_ibid._, p. 38). “That
government is most perfect, in which Policy is most entirely subjected
to Justice, or in which the supreme and constant aim is to secure the
rights of every human being” (_ibid._, p. 38). To such a government
loyalty will be given gladly; but in the event that expediency should
prevail over justice, and the state should prostitute its power by
exploiting one class for the benefit of another, then must loyalty be
transferred from the state to the higher law. “Justice is a greater
good than property, not greater in degree, but in kind.” “The good
of the individual is more important than the outward prosperity of
the State” (_ibid._, pp. 40, 44). In such doctrines Channing paid his
respects to the political philosophy of Webster.
The final outcome of his political thinking was a close approximation
to the position of Jefferson. His distrust of power grew more
apprehensive as he reflected on the common abuse of power, and the
cheap and paltry appeals by which the unthinking are swayed. Before
the organized power of the mass, the individual is helpless. In the
_Introductory Remarks_ he went further than he had done in earlier
writings in analysis of the state, and such a passage as this might
have been penned by John Taylor of Caroline County. It is pure
Jeffersonianism.
So fearful is the principle of which I have spoken, that I
have thought it right to recommend restrictions on power and
a simplicity in government beyond what most approve. Power, I
apprehend, should not be suffered to run into great masses. No more
of it should be confided to rulers than is absolutely necessary
to repress crime and preserve public order. A purer age may
warrant larger trusts; but the less of government now the better,
if society be kept in peace. There should exist, if possible, no
office to madden ambition.... One of the tremendous evils of the
world, is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands....
Is any man pure enough to be trusted with it? Ought such a prize