Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
restrictions on trade were done away with and individual enterprise
were free to buy and sell in the open market. Springing from the
same root of individualism that brought forth French romanticism, it
flowered in an economics that denied the aspirations of the French
school. Assuming as its determining principle the common instinct of
acquisitiveness, it set up the economic man as the criterion of conduct
and proposed to reorder society to the single end of trade. Thus
sanctioned and given free rein, the principle of acquisitiveness set
forth on its triumphant march through western civilization. Accepted by
the English middle class as the ultimate social philosophy sufficient
to all needs, it presented to willing eyes the ideal of exploitation as
the goal of social progress.
But transported to America, the new philosophy soon discovered
unforeseen obstacles in its path. The acquisitive instinct was here
enormously strengthened by the vast unpreëmpted resources lying
all about, but unfortunately those resources were too great or too
speculative to be exploited by individual effort. Capital was wanting,
and unless collective funds were available, exploitation must be
slow and inadequate. There was need of the state to further the
opening up of western lands and to throw its guardianship about an
infant industrialism. Roads and canals could not wait on individual
enterprise; tariffs and subsidies could flow only from the government.
Hence arose a modification of _laissez faire_, from which resulted
the theory that a democratic state stands _in loco parentis_ to
the economic interests of its citizens, and should guarantee the
progressive well-being of strategic groups on whose prosperity
depended the common well-being. It was this modification of the
English philosophy that the Whig party came to embody in its platform,
and which by pooling the interests of western speculators, eastern
financiers and New England industrialists, sponsored the “American
Plan,” a curiously ingenious scheme to milk the cow and divide the milk
among those who superintended the milking.
Meanwhile in the imperialistic South was arising a distinctive
philosophy, native to the special conditions imposed by slavery, that
was to set it apart from both eastern and western economics and draw it
inevitably into a narrowing isolation. Frankly defensive in purpose,
rejecting alike French equalitarianism and English individualism, it
sought to justify the institution of slavery by an appeal to realism
and square it to the theory of democracy by analogy with northern
industrialism. The conception of a Greek democracy, which was the
last citadel of the southern mind, was a skillful compromise between
the antagonistic principles of aristocracy and democracy, the most
romantic ideal brought forth by our golden age of romance. Assuming
the middle-class principle of exploitation as the creative source of
every civilization, it proposed to erect a free state on the basis of
a slave proletariat after the model of ancient Athens. A democracy,
it argued, is possible only among equals. In every society hitherto
the inevitable inequality between economic classes has nullified every
democratic program. Master and man, exploiter and exploited, are
necessarily opposed in vital economic interests; and this potential
clash, this fundamental antagonism of classes, has been intensified
by the rise of industrialism. Exploitation has been brutalized by the
impersonal wage-system, and the proletariat has been reduced to sodden
and embittered beasts. If now as honest realists we recognize frankly
that equality cannot exist between inferior and superior races, if
we accept the inevitable proletarian status of the negro, if finally
we concede the truism that the lifelong relations between master and
slave are more humane than the temporary relations between wage-giver
and wage-earner, we shall concern ourselves less with a romantic
equalitarianism and more with a rational conception of a democracy of
equals that may conceivably erect a civilization worthy of the name.
It was an ingenious theory, but unfortunately it left out of account
the ambitions of the middle class, and it was this class that in the
end destroyed it. Whether they will it or not, imperialisms have a
way of clashing with rival imperialisms. Reality persists though
romance may deny it, and in their several programs the three diverse
sections of America were driving blindly to a collision. In that bitter
collision the dream of the South was destroyed. With the overthrow of
the aristocratic principle in its final refuge the ground was cleared
of the last vestiges of the eighteenth century. Thenceforth America was
to become wholly middle class, and such romance as it might bring forth
was to be of another sort.
The literature of this extraordinarily vigorous period we are now
to deal with, not in the narrow field of _belles lettres_ alone but
in the outlying fields of social and political philosophies. The
difficulties in the way are many. To endeavor to penetrate critically
to the intellectual core of a period, to weigh this romance in
realistic scales, to take off the outer wrappings and lay bare the
inner truth, is no May-day undertaking. The critic finds himself at
every turn confronted by reputations distorted by contemporary praise
or censure. In the formal biographies written in that golden age of
myth-making, criticism too often gave way to eulogy. Our fathers wrote
like gentlemen, but unfortunately too often they believed that in
preparing a biography a gentleman was under obligation to speak well of
the dead. No blemishes were to be recognized, no disagreeable truths
to find a place in their immaculate pages. In consequence scarcely a
single commentary of the times is to be trusted, and the critic is
reduced to patching together his account out of scanty odds and ends,
or else settling down to do a series of full-length portraits, in which
work, quite evidently, he will not get far. The inadequacies of the
present study I am painfully conscious of: its omissions, its doubtful
interpretations, its hasty generalizations, its downright guesses;
but in the present lack of exact knowledge of the history of American
letters, I do not see how such inadequacies can be avoided.
Contents [Volume Two]
Introduction: Delimitations of period; romance and economic
change; differentiating imperialisms of East, South, West; romantic
philosophies: Physiocratic agrarianism, French equalitarianism,
English _laissez faire_; a counter-philosophy--slavery and a
Greek democracy iii
Book I: The Mind of the South
The mind of the South old-fashioned. Two germinal sources: Virginia,
from which derived Kentucky and Tennessee; South Carolina,
from which derived the Black Belt 3
Part I
The Virginia Renaissance
I. The Old Dominion: The mother of the agrarian West.
Transition from middle-class to plantation ideals.
Increasingly libertarian 5
II. The Heritage of Jeffersonianism
I. Jeffersonianism an expression of native conditions.
Interpreted in terms of Physiocratic agrarianism,
natural rights. Terminable nature of compact the
source of states-rights doctrine. Struggle between
capitalistic and agrarian economics. Virginia the
leader of the latter movement 10
II. John Taylor--Agrarian Economist: Leader of the
young Republicans. His works. Theory founded
in Physiocratic doctrine. Aristocratic origins of the
political state. Examination of the principles of John
Adams, Hamilton--social classes derive from exploitation.
Danger of a paper aristocracy. His philosophy
summarized 14
III. John Marshall--Last of the Virginia Federalists:
His strategic position. Middle-class sympathies;
intellectual qualities. A politician on the bench.
Two fixed ideas: sovereignty of the federal state;
sanctity of private property. His decisions Federalistic.
Two main groups: sovereignty of the judiciary;
irrevocable nature of contract. The Yazoo Fraud
case. An arch conservative 20
IV. The Older Plantation Mind
I. Plantation backgrounds: The literary renaissance
followed English romantic movement. Kennedy’s
_Swallow Barn_ and the rise of the plantation tradition 28
II. William Wirt: The man--embodiment of eighteenth-century
culture. _The British Spy_--characteristics.
_Life of Patrick Henry_--solution of the problem.
Later shift in political sympathies 30
III. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker--A Virginia Fire-eater.
His parochialism; his pessimism. _The Partisan
Leader_--a dramatization of Calhoun’s philosophy;
the note of romantic extravagance. Hatred of democracy--appeal
to South Carolina 35
V. Adventures in Romance
I. William Alexander Caruthers and the transition to
romance. _The Kentuckian in New York_, a contribution
to intersectional good will. An appreciation of
northern qualities; a criticism of slavery. _The Cavaliers
of Virginia_, the new spirit of romance. His slight
reputation 41
II. John Pendleton Kennedy--A southern Whig: The
man--Jeffersonian backgrounds; influence of Edward
Gray. Turned protectionist, accepted the doctrine
of progress. A romantic; an amateur. _Swallow
Barn_--an idyl of plantation life--slavery. _Horse-Shoe
Robinson; Rob of the Bowl_--cavalier romance. _Quodlibet_--a
Whig satire of Jacksonianism. His later
career 46
III. Edgar Allan Poe: Relations to southern environment--his
prejudices against New England. Aloofness from
Virginia ideals. A problem for abnormal psychology
and belletristic criticism. An artist and a critic 57
Part II
The Renaissance of Slavery
I. Southern Imperialism: Shift in attitude towards
slavery--consequences to Jeffersonian democracy. The Black
Belt--reasons why cotton became king. Reaction of
the South to imperialism. Jefferson Davis--his
character 61
II. Winds of Political Doctrine
I. Three streams of thought: Virginia humanitarianism,
western individualism, Carolina imperialism. Increasing
dominance of the third. Rise of a defensive
strategy; appeal to the Constitution 67
II. John C. Calhoun--Realist. His influence--destroyed
Jeffersonianism for the new South. A southern Puritan.
His early career--a nationalist. The year 1828
a turning-point--recognition of the danger of democracy
to slavery. Two lines of defense: states rights,
constitutional checks. Amplification of the second by
extension of the principle of the veto. Failure of
existing checks to protect minorities. Fallacy in the
conception of democratic majorities--an obscuring
of the economic basis of politics. Doctrine of the
concurrent majority. Conception of democracy--an
attack on theory of natural rights. His objective a
Greek democracy. Likeness to John Adams 69