Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
the economic man, concerned only with buying in the cheapest market
and selling in the dearest. It would reduce the political state to the
rôle of policeman, to keep the peace. With humanitarian and social
interests, the state must not intermeddle--such functions lie outside
its legitimate sphere. An expression of the aspirations of trading and
speculating classes, it professed to believe that economic law--by
which term it glorified the spontaneous play of the acquisitive
instinct--was competent to regulate men in society, and that if freedom
of trade were achieved, all lesser and secondary freedoms would follow.
In the light of such over-seas bequests to the American venture, the
choice of materials for the present volume is predetermined. The
line of liberalism in colonial America runs through Roger Williams,
Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. The first transported to
the new world the plentiful liberalisms of a great movement and a
great century; the second gathered up the sum of native liberalisms
that had emerged spontaneously from a decentralized society; and the
third enriched these native liberalisms with borrowings from the late
seventeenth-century natural-rights school and from French romantic
theory, engrafting them upon the vigorous American stock. Over against
these protagonists of liberalism must be set the complementary figures
of John Cotton, Jonathan Edwards, and Alexander Hamilton, men whose
grandiose dreams envisaged different ends for America and who followed
different paths. The Carolinian Seeker and the Jacobean theocrat,
the colonial democrat and the colonial Calvinist, the Physiocratic
republican and the capitalistic financier, embody in concrete form the
diverse tendencies of primitive America; and around these major figures
lesser ones will group themselves, parties to the great struggle of
those early years, the eventual outcome of which was the rejection of
the principles of monarchy and aristocracy, and the venturing upon an
experiment in republicanism continental in scope.
That our colonial literature seems to many readers meager and
uninteresting, that it is commonly squeezed into the skimpiest of
chapters in our handbooks of American literature, is due, I think, to
an exaggerated regard for esthetic values. Our literary historians
have labored under too heavy a handicap of the genteel tradition--to
borrow Professor Santayana’s happy phrase--to enter sympathetically
into a world of masculine intellects and material struggles. They have
sought daintier fare than polemics, and in consequence mediocre verse
has obscured political speculation, and poetasters have shouldered
aside vigorous creative thinkers. The colonial period is meager
and lean only to those whose “disedged appetites” find no savor in
old-fashioned beef and puddings. The seventeenth century in America
as well as in England was a _saeculum theologicum_, and the eighteenth
century was a _saeculum politicum_. No other path leads so directly
and intimately into the heart of those old days as the thorny path
of their theological and political controversies; and if one will
resolutely pick his way amongst the thorns, he will have his reward
in coming close to the men who debated earnestly over the plans and
specifications of the Utopia that was to be erected in the free spaces
of America, and who however wanting they may have been in the lesser
arts, were no mean architects and craftsmen for the business at hand.
The foundations of a later America were laid in vigorous polemics, and
the rough stone was plentifully mortared with idealism. To enter once
more into the spirit of those fine old idealisms, and to learn that the
promise of the future has lain always in the keeping of liberal minds
that were never discouraged from their dreams, is scarcely a profitless
undertaking, nor without meaning to those who like Merlin pursue the
light of their hopes where it flickers above the treacherous marshlands.
Contents [Volume One]
Introduction: The theme stated; part played by European
intellectual movements; influence in colonial America of old-world
liberalisms--English Independency, French romantic theory; incoming
of a diverse philosophy--English _laissez faire_; significance of
theology and politics in colonial America iii
Book I: Liberalism and Puritanism
New England a product of old-world custom and institutions,
modified by new-world environment. Emergence of two classes:
yeomanry, gentry; and two ideals: Puritan and Yankee 3
Part I
The Puritan Heritage--1620-1660
I. English Backgrounds
I. Carolinian liberalism an attempt to create a new social system
to replace the feudal, resulting in the doctrine of natural
rights, democracy, and equalitarianism. The result of changing
economics. Puritanism primarily middle-class. Types of church
polity--monarchical, aristocratic, democratic. Separatism the left
wing of Puritanism 5
II. Diverse theologies of Luther and Calvin. Reactionary nature of
Calvinism: established in absolutism--universality of moral law,
determinism, reprobation--denial of natural rights 11
II. The Transplanting of Ideas
I. The settlement of New England came in the middle period of the
Puritan movement. Pilgrim and Puritan 16
II. The Puritan Presbyterian: Social station--aristocratic, yet
with middle-class ambitions. Hostility to ideal of Separatism.
Sanctions of the oligarchy, of the theocracy. A Utopian venture 17
III. Certain Mistakes: The Plymouth covenant-principle--stages in
the nullification of the Separatist principle: the fellowship of
the churches; statutes erecting a state church; the climax reached
in the Cambridge Platform. The adoption of a freehold tenure of
land. Webster’s interpretation 22
III. The Chief Stewards of Theocracy
I. Master John Cotton--Priest: Representative of priestly
stewardship. Scholar and intellectual. Doctrine of an ethical
aristocracy and carnal liberty. A scripturist, seeking to check
the drift towards democracy. His _Model of Moses his Judicials_.
Rejection of natural rights, of hereditary aristocracy. _The
Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared._ Debate with Roger
Williams--freedom to follow the law of God 27
II. John Winthrop--Magistrate: Lay representative of theocracy. A
cultivated gentleman. Reasons for removal. Influence of the Bible.
His leadership; conception of magistracy ennobled by Puritanism.
Implied absolutism--political philosophy. Struggle with the
deputies; distrust of democracy. Absolute authority of law--the
Little Speech. Liberty to the good, just, and honest.
Consequences 38
IV. The Contributions of Independency
I. The clash between Presbyterianism and Independency--the right
of individual freedom. Liberal leaders--Hooker, Williams. Two
commonwealths--Connecticut, Rhode Island 51
II. Thomas Hooker--Puritan Liberal: A moderate. Sprung from low
social origins. As a preacher in England; removal to Hartford.
Democratic order of the commonwealth due to Hooker. His _Survey of
the Summe of Church Discipline_ 53
III. Roger Williams--Seeker: Embodiment of radical Independency,
and forerunner of later generations. A provocative figure. Stages
in his intellectual development. A mystic and Christian democrat,
concerned with a new social order. His political theory: the
compact theory and theocratic absolutism; conception of the
state--of government; the compact a constitution, government an
agent, and the end the common well-being. Theory of toleration. A
great political thinker. The constitution of Rhode Island 62
V. Other Dreamers in Israel
I. Nathaniel Ward--Elizabethan Puritan: A Puritan wit and belated
Euphuist. The _Simple Cobler of Aggawam_--a mingling of satire and
politics. A constitutionalist, pleading for a written compact to
delimit prerogative and popular rights. His body of law 76
II. John Eliot--A Theocratic Utopia: _The Christian Commonwealth_.
Ordered to be suppressed. His plan of a Christian state. A rigid
social order 81
Part II
The Twilight of the Oligarchy--1660-1720
The spread of provincialism and the consequences. Formalism in the
church; superstition. The psychology of the Salem outbreak. The
muddling of the oligarchy and the end 85
I. Samuel Sewall--Yankee--First representative of the new order.
The Sewall of tradition; the real Sewall: middle-class, governed
by a prudential morality. Uncreative, conservative, conventional.
The other side--generous, kindly, the first embodiment of village
friendliness 88
II. The Mather Dynasty
I. Difficulties involved in attempting an estimate. Certain Harvard
contributions 98
II. Increase Mather: An arch conservative, bred by a conservative
environment. His sympathy for the Genevan system; attempts
to strengthen discipline; steps in his Presbyterianizing.
Intolerant--his biographer quoted. Unread in political
theory--dictatorial. As agent at the English court. His bitterness.
Not a great Puritan--compared with Samuel Hopkins. His _Illustrious
Providences_--not scientific. The last of the New England
Presbyterians 99
III. Cotton Mather: Victim of a provincial environment. Subject
for a psychologist. His egoism; his quarrels. The _Diary_. His
venture into politics. A natural Tory. His writings: _Wonders of
the Invisible World_; the _Magnalia_. The futility of his dream 106
III. Stirrings of Liberalism
I. John Wise--Village Democrat: Before Dudley; at Quebec.
Character--a liberal. His _Vindication of the New England
Churches_--based on the doctrine of natural rights. Defense
of democratic Congregationalism against the movement to
Presbyterianize. Comment of Cotton Mather. His contribution to the
paper-money controversy. His later influence 118
II. Social Drifts: Economic forces--a chasm opening between old
England and New England. The village and Toryism: Joseph Dudley
and the carters. First newspapers: _News-Letter_; _New-England
Courant_; _New-England Weekly Journal_ 125
Book II: The Colonial Mind
The middle eighteenth century undistinguished, yet it created the
individualism that was the source of a new democratic psychology 131
Part I
The Mind in the Making--1720-1763
I. Colonial Backgrounds
I. New Stock: Economic motive of immigration. The Scotch-Irish
influx; indented servants--the Germans; diary of John Harrower 133
II. The frontier--Lubberland: _Journal_ of Madam Knight--frontier
leveling, poverty. _History of the Dividing Line_, Col. William
Byrd--the backcountry, lubberland, impatient of law 137
III. The frontier--Land of Promise: _Letters_ of Crèvecœur: A
French Physiocrat; his travels in America; first interpretation