161
Week Seven: Reason and
Revolution Part II
162
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
Author Bio
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
(1745?–1797?)
As a child of eleven, Equiano was captured by slavers. His sister was taken at the
same time, but they were soon separated, and he was to be haunted the rest of his
life by his inability to save her and by his fears about her fate. Born in what is
today Nigeria, he probably spoke the Ibo language and was able to learn several
other African dialects as he traveled westward, passing through the households of
several masters over a six-month period. Finally he arrived on the shore of a large
river, probably the Niger, which took him to a seaport where he was sold to white
slave traders bound for the West Indies.
The young slave served several English and American masters who gave him
Western names, including Gustavus Vassa, the name he used most often and included in the title of his book: Equiano’s Travels: The Interesting Narrative of the
Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African. Even more important, his
various masters acknowledged his intelligence by training him to read and write
and by teaching him the navigation and business skills he needed to prosper. After
ten years of servitude he earned the money needed to buy his freedom by investing
in cargoes traded by his last master, a Philadelphia Quaker named Robert King.
Equiano’s cosmopolitan experience both as a slave and as a free man took
him to Canada, where he served Captain Pascal, a soldier with General Wolfe during the French and Indian War, to the Arctic, where he was icebound on a ship, to
Italy, where he saw an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and to the United States,
where he observed events leading up to the American Revolution. After the war,
he helped focus the energies of a diverse antislavery movement into an organized
force, connected with its British counterpart.
Although he was active in advocating justice for slaves and former slaves in
both countries, Equiano’s cherished dream was to return to Africa and regain title
to his ancestral lands, where he promised to entertain his abolitionist friends with
“luxuriant pineapples and the well flavoured virgin palm wine.” His hopes of returning were dashed, however, when the expedition he was appointed to supervise
fell victim to corruption and political intrigue.
In 1788 Equiano settled down in the home of a London friend to write his
autobiography. It appeared in print in England the following year and in the United
States two years later. From his earliest days of literacy, Equiano had made a habit
of noting details of his experience in his journals. As a convert to Christianity and a
spokesperson for the antislavery movement, he mingled regularly with educated
English speakers. It is not surprising, therefore, that at the age of forty-four he was
able to write the first great African-American slave narrative in a clear and pleasing
style. With his autobiography—an international best-seller widely distributed by
the abolition movement—and his speaking tours, he campaigned for an end to the
slave trade and encouraged the repatriation of freed slaves.
Citing Old Testament approbation of racial intermarriage, Equiano advocated
it as one possible solution to racial problems, arguing in a letter to a friend that
marriages between whites and blacks would strengthen the British nation and urging the practice as “a national honour, national strength, and productive of na-
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
Author Bio
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Olaudah Equiano: Author Bio
tional virtue.” Disappointed with his plans for repatriation, he stayed in England,
married an English woman, Susan Cullen, in 1792, and fathered two daughters
who were orphaned by his wife’s death in 1795 and his own two years later. His
daughter Anna Maria soon followed her parents in death, and the epitaph on her
tombstone, describing her as “a child of colour” and expressing the hope that she
has gone to a place where “some of every clime shall joy in God,” suggests that
Equiano’s faith in intermarriage was in some measure warranted by public opinion in late-eighteenth-century England.
Although Equiano did not live to see the abolition of slavery either in Britain
or in the United States, his own contributions—both as a writer and as a speaker—
clearly added to the social and political pressures that finally led to emancipation
in both countries in the century following his death.
Equiano’s narrative has been edited by Paul Edwards, Equiano’s Travels, 1967, and Robert J. Allison, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, 1995. A two-volume facsimile edition
of the Narrative, edited by Paul Edwards, appeared in 1969, and a modernized version, edited by Vincent Caretta, in 1995. Studies are Angelo Costanzo, Surprizing Narrative: Olaudah Equiano and the
Beginnings of Black Autobiography, 1987, and James Walvin, An African’s Life: The Life and Times of
Olaudah Equiano, 1999.
163
164
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
OLAUDAH EQUIANO
From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano1
Chapter 2
[Horrors of a Slave Ship]
* * * The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast, was the
sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo.
These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I
was carried on board. I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were
sound by some of the crew, and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world
of bad spirits and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke (which was
very different from any I had ever heard), united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have
exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country. When
I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their
countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate;
and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck
and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some black people about me, who I
believed were some of those who had brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in vain. I asked them
if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and
long hair. They told me I was not, and one of the crew brought me a small portion
of spirituous liquor in a wine glass, but being afraid of him I would not take it out
of his hand. One of the blacks therefore took it from him and gave it to me, and I
took a little down my palate, which, instead of reviving me, as they thought it
would, threw me into the greatest consternation at the strange feeling it produced,
having never tasted any such liquor before. Soon after this, the blacks who brought
me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair.
I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country or
even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as
friendly; and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was
soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that, with the loathsomeness of the
stench and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat,
nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death,
to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables,
1. The text is that of the first American edition, New York, 1791, with minor emendations.
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me
across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely.
I had never experienced anything of this kind before, and, although not being used
to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet, nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I
could not; and besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not
chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water; and I have seen
some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so,
and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself.
In a little time after, amongst the poor chained men I found some of my own
nation, which in a small degree gave ease to my mind. I inquired of these what was
to be done with us. They gave me to understand we were to be carried to these
white people’s country to work for them. I then was a little revived, and thought if
it were no worse than working my situation was not so desperate; but still I feared
I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty, and this not only shown towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites
themselves. One white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on
deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast that he died in
consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a
brute. This made me fear these people the more, and I expected nothing less than
to be treated in the same manner. I could not help expressing my fears and apprehensions to some of my countrymen; I asked them if these people had no country,
but lived in this hollow place (the ship). They told me they did not, but came from
a distant one. “Then,” said I, “how comes it in all our country we never heard of
them?” They told me because they lived so very far off. I then asked where were
their women? had they any like themselves? I was told they had. “And why,” said
I, “do we not see them?” They answered, because they were left behind. I asked
how the vessel could go? They told me they could not tell, but that there was cloth
put upon the masts by the help of the ropes I saw, and then the vessel went on; and
the white men had some spell or magic they put in the water when they liked, in
order to stop the vessel. I was exceedingly amazed at this account, and really
thought they were spirits. I therefore wished much to be from amongst them, for I
expected they would sacrifice me; but my wishes were vain—for we were so quartered that it was impossible for any of us to make our escape.
While we stayed on the coast I was mostly on deck, and one day, to my great
astonishment, I saw one of these vessels coming in with the sails up. As soon as
the whites saw it they gave a great shout, at which we were amazed; and the more
so, as the vessel appeared larger by approaching nearer. At last, she came to an
anchor in my sight, and when the anchor was let go I and my countrymen who
saw it were lost in astonishment to observe the vessel stop—and were now convinced it was done by magic. Soon after this the other ship got her boats out, and
they came on board of us, and the people of both ships seemed very glad to see
each other. Several of the strangers also shook hands with us black people, and
made motions with their hands, signifying, I suppose, we were to go to their country, but we did not understand them.
At last, when the ship we were in had got in all her cargo, they made ready
with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not
165
166
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
see how they managed the vessel. But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been
permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air, but now that the whole ship’s cargo
were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place
and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so
crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This
produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration
from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves,
of which many died—thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call
it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling
of the chains, [which] now became insupportable, and [by] the filth of the necessary tubs,2 into which the children often fell and were almost suffocated. The
shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying rendered the whole a scene of
horror almost inconceivable. Happily, perhaps, for myself, I was soon reduced so
low here that it was thought necessary to keep me almost always on deck; and
from my extreme youth I was not put in fetters. In this situation I expected every
hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily
brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put
an end to my miseries. Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much
more happy than myself. I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often
wished I could change my condition for theirs. Every circumstance I met with
served only to render my state more painful and heightened my apprehensions
and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.
One day they had taken a number of fishes, and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were
on deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the
remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well
as we could, but in vain; and some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger,
took an opportunity when they thought no one saw them of trying to get a little
privately; but they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings.
One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied
countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring
death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped
into the sea; immediately, another quite dejected fellow, who on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe
many more would very soon have done the same if they had not been prevented
by the ship’s crew, who were instantly alarmed. Those of us that were the most active were in a moment put down under the deck, and there was such a noise and
confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her, and
get the boat out to go after the slaves. However, two of the wretches were
drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully for thus
attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo
more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this
accursed trade. Many a time we were near suffocation from the want of fresh air,
2. Latrines.
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
which we were often without for whole days together. This, and the stench of the
necessary tubs, carried off many.
During our passage, I first saw flying fishes, which surprised me very much;
they used frequently to fly across the ship, and many of them fell on the deck. I
also now first saw the use of the quadrant; I had often with astonishment seen the
mariners make observations with it, and I could not think what it meant. They at
last took notice of my surprise, and one of them, willing to increase it as well as to
gratify my curiosity, made me one day look through it. The clouds appeared to me
to be land, which disappeared as they passed along. This heightened my wonder,
and I was now more persuaded than ever that I was in another world, and that
everything about me was magic.
At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on
board gave a great shout and made many signs of joy to us. We did not know what
to think of this, but as the vessel drew nearer we plainly saw the harbor, and other
ships of different kinds and sizes, and we soon anchored amongst them, off
Bridgetown. Many merchants and planters now came on board, though it was in
the evening. They put us in separate parcels and examined us attentively. They
also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We
thought by this we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us, and
when soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread
and trembling among us and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night from
these apprehensions, insomuch that at last the white people got some old slaves
from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and
were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This
report eased us much. And sure enough, soon after we were landed, there came to
us Africans of all languages.
We were conducted immediately to the merchant’s yard, where we were all pent
up together, like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. As every object was new to me, everything I saw filled me with surprise. What struck me first
was that the houses were built with bricks and stories, and in every other respect
different from those I had seen in Africa, but I was still more astonished on seeing
people on horseback. I did not know what this could mean, and, indeed, I thought
these people were full of nothing but magical arts. While I was in this astonishment,
one of my fellow prisoners spoke to a countryman of his about the horses, who said
they were the same kind they had in their country. I understood them, though they
were from a distant part of Africa, and I thought it odd I had not seen any horses
there, but afterwards, when I came to converse with different Africans, I found they
had many horses amongst them, and much larger than those I then saw.
We were not many days in the merchant’s custody before we were sold after
their usual manner, which is this: On a signal given (as the beat of a drum), the
buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined and make choice
of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is attended and
the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers serve not a little to increase
the apprehension of terrified Africans, who may well be supposed to consider them
as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted. In this
manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never
to see each other again.
167
168
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over, in the men’s apartment,
there were several brothers, who, in the sale, were sold in different lots, and it was
very moving on this occasion, to see and hear their cries at parting. O, ye nominal
Christians! might not an African ask you—Learned you this from your God, who
says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not
enough that we are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and
lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are
the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from
their kindred, still to be parted from each other and thus prevented from cheering
the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their
sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely, this is a new refinement in cruelty, which,
while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress and adds fresh
horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.
Chapter 3
[Travels from Virginia to England]
I now totally lost the small remains of comfort I had enjoyed in conversing with
my countrymen; the women, too, who used to wash and take care of me were all
gone different ways, and I never saw one of them afterwards.
I stayed in this island for a few days, I believe it could not be above a fortnight,
when I, and some few more slaves that were not saleable amongst the rest, from
very much fretting, were shipped off in a sloop for North America. On the passage
we were better treated than when we were coming from Africa, and we had plenty
of rice and fat pork. We were landed up a river a good way from the sea, about
Virginia county, where we saw few or none of our native Africans, and not one
soul who could talk to me. I was a few weeks weeding grass and gathering stones
in a plantation, and at last all my companions were distributed different ways, and
only myself was left. I was now exceedingly miserable, and thought myself worse
off than any of the rest of my companions, for they could talk to each other, but I
had no person to speak to that I could understand. In this state, I was constantly
grieving and pining, and wishing for death rather than anything else.
While I was in this plantation, the gentleman to whom I suppose the estate
belonged, being unwell, I was one day sent for to his dwelling-house to fan him;
when I came into the room where he was I was very much affrighted at some
things I saw, and the more so as I had seen a black woman slave as I came through
the house, who was cooking the dinner, and the poor creature was cruelly loaded
with various kinds of iron machines; she had one particularly on her head, which
locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak, and could not eat nor
drink. I was much astonished and shocked at this contrivance, which I afterwards
learned was called the iron muzzle. Soon after I had a fan put in my hand to fan
the gentleman while he slept, and so I did indeed with great fear. While he was
fast asleep I indulged myself a great deal in looking about the room, which to me
appeared very fine and curious. The first object that engaged my attention was a
watch which hung on the chimney and was going. I was quite surprised at the
noise it made and was afraid it would tell the gentleman anything I might do amiss;
and when I immediately after observed a picture hanging in the room, which ap-
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
peared constantly to look at me, I was still more affrighted, having never seen
such things as these before. At one time I thought it was something relative to
magic, and not seeing it move, I thought it might be some way the whites had to
keep their great men when they died, and offer them libations as we used to do
our friendly spirits. In this state of anxiety I remained till my master awoke, when
I was dismissed out of the room, to my no small satisfaction and relief, for I
thought that these people were all made up of wonders.
In this place I was called Jacob, but on board the African snow,3 I was called
Michael.
I had been some time in this miserable, forlorn, and much dejected state, without having anyone to talk to, which made my life a burden, when the kind and unknown hand of the Creator (who in every deed leads the blind in a way they know
not) now began to appear, to my comfort, for one day the captain of a merchant
ship called the Industrious Bee came on some business to my master’s house. This
gentleman, whose name was Michael Henry Pascal, was a lieutenant in the Royal
Navy, but now commanded this trading ship, which was somewhere in the confines
of the county many miles off. While he was at my master’s house, it happened that he
saw me and liked me so well that he made a purchase of me. I think I have often heard
him say he gave thirty or forty pounds sterling for me, but I do not remember which.
However, he meant me for a present to some of his friends in England, and I was
sent accordingly from the house of my then master (one Mr. Campbell) to the place
where the ship lay; I was conducted on horseback by an elderly black man (a mode
of travelling which appeared very odd to me). When I arrived I was carried on board
a fine large ship, loaded with tobacco, &c., and just ready to sail for England.
I now thought my condition much mended. I had sails to lie on, and plenty of
good victuals to eat, and everybody on board used me very kindly, quite contrary
to what I had seen of any white people before; I therefore began to think that they
were not all of the same disposition. A few days after I was on board we sailed for
England. I was still at a loss to conjecture my destiny. By this time, however, I
could smatter a little imperfect English, and I wanted to know as well as I could
where we were going. Some of the people of the ship used to tell me they were
going to carry me back to my own country, and this made me very happy. I was
quite rejoiced at the idea of going back, and thought if I could get home what
wonders I should have to tell. But I was reserved for another fate, and was soon
undeceived when we came within sight of the English coast.
While I was on board this ship, my captain and master named me Gustavus
Vassa.4 I at that time began to understand him a little, and refused to be called so,
and told him as well as I could that I would be called Jacob; but he said I should
not, and still called me Gustavus, and when I refused to answer to my new name,
which I at first did, it gained me many a cuff; so at length I submitted, and by
which I have been known ever since.
The ship had a very long passage,5 and on that account we had very short allowance of provisions. Towards the last, we had only one pound and a half of
3. A small sailing ship.
4. After Gustavas Vasa (1496–1560), a Swedish king celebrated at the time of Equiano’s capture in an
English play by Henry Brooke.
5. A voyage on this occasion of thirteen weeks, much longer than was usual.
169
170
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
bread per week, and about the same quantity of meat, and one quart of water a
day. We spoke with only one vessel the whole time we were at sea, and but once
we caught a few fishes. In our extremities the captain and people told me in jest
they would kill and eat me, but I thought them in earnest, and was depressed beyond measure, expecting every moment to be my last. While I was in this situation, one evening they caught, with a good deal of trouble, a large shark, and got
it on board. This gladdened my poor heart exceedingly, as I thought it would serve
the people to eat instead of their eating me, but very soon, to my astonishment,
they cut off a small part of the tail and tossed the rest over the side. This renewed
my consternation, and I did not know what to think of these white people, though
I very much feared they would kill and eat me.
There was on board the ship a young lad who had never been at sea before,
about four or five years older than myself: his name was Richard Baker. He was a
native of America, had received an excellent education, and was of a most amiable
temper. Soon after I went on board, he showed me a great deal of partiality and
attention, and in return I grew extremely fond of him. We at length became inseparable, and, for the space of two years, he was of very great use to me, and was
my constant companion and instructor. Although this dear youth had many slaves
of his own, yet he and I have gone through many sufferings together on shipboard;
and we have many nights lain in each other’s bosoms when we were in great distress. Thus such a friendship was cemented between us as we cherished till his
death, which, to my very great sorrow, happened in the year 1759, when he was
up the Archipelago, on board his Majesty’s ship the Preston, an event which I have
never ceased to regret, as I lost at once a kind interpreter, an agreeable companion, and a faithful friend; who, at the age of fifteen, discovered a mind superior to
prejudice; and who was not ashamed to notice, to associate with, and to be the
friend and instructor of one who was ignorant, a stranger, of a different complexion, and a slave! * * *
Chapter 7
[He Purchases His Freedom]
Every day now brought me nearer my freedom, and I was impatient till we proceeded again to sea that I might have an opportunity of getting a sum large enough
to purchase it. I was not long ungratified, for, in the beginning of the year 1766,
my master bought another sloop, named the Nancy, the largest I had ever seen.
She was partly laden, and was to proceed to Philadelphia; our captain had his
choice of three, and I was well pleased he chose this, which was the largest, for,
from his having a large vessel, I had more room, and could carry a larger quantity
of goods with me. Accordingly, when we had delivered our old vessel, the Prudence, and completed the lading of the Nancy, having made near three hundred
percent by four barrels of pork I brought from Charleston, I laid in as large a cargo
as I could, trusting to God’s providence to prosper my undertaking. With these
views I sailed for Philadelphia. On our passage, when we drew near the land I was
for the first time surprised at the sight of some whales, having never seen any such
large sea monsters before, and as we sailed by the land one morning I saw a puppy
whale close by the vessel; it was about the length of a wherry boat, and it followed
us all the day till we got within the Capes. We arrived safe and in good time at
Philadelphia, and I sold my goods there chiefly to the Quakers. They always ap-
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
peared to be a very honest, discreet sort of people, and never attempted to impose
on me; I therefore liked them, and ever after chose to deal with them in preference
to any others * * *.
When we had unladen the vessel, and I had sold my venture, finding myself
master of about forty-seven pounds—I consulted my true friend, the captain, how
I should proceed in offering my master the money for my freedom. He told me to
come on a certain morning, when he and my master would be at breakfast together. Accordingly, on that morning I went and met the captain there, as he had
appointed. When I went in I made my obeisance to my master, and with my money
in my hand and many fears in my heart, I prayed him to be as good as his offer to
me, when he was pleased to promise me my freedom as soon as I could purchase
it. This speech seemed to confound him, he began to recoil, and my heart that instant sunk within me. “What,” said he, “give you your freedom? Why, where did
you get the money? Have you got forty pounds sterling?” “Yes, sir,” I answered.
“How did you get it?” replied he. I told him, very honestly. The captain then said
he knew I got the money honestly, and with much industry, and that I was particularly careful. On which my master replied, I got money much faster than he did,
and said he would not have made me the promise he did if he had thought I should
have got the money so soon. “Come, come,” said my worthy captain, clapping
my master on the back, “Come, Robert (which was his name), I think you must
let him have his freedom; you have laid your money out very well; you have received a very good interest for it all this time, and here is now the principal at last.
I know Gustavus has earned you more than a hundred a year, and he will save
you money, as he will not leave you. Come, Robert, take the money.”
My master then said he would not be worse than his promise; and, taking the
money, told me to go to the Secretary at the Register Office, and get my manumission6 drawn up. These words of my master were like a voice from heaven to me.
In an instant all my trepidation was turned into unutterable bliss; and I most reverently bowed myself with gratitude, unable to express my feelings, but by the
overflowing of my eyes, and a heart replete with thanks to God, while my true
and worthy friend, the captain, congratulated us both with a peculiar degree of
heart-felt pleasure. As soon as the first transports of my joy were over, and that I
had expressed my thanks to these my worthy friends in the best manner I was
able, I rose with a heart full of affection and reverence, and left the room in order
to obey my master’s joyful mandate of going to the Register Office. As I was leaving
the house I called to mind the words of the Psalmist, in the 126th Psalm, and like
him, “I glorified God in my heart, in whom I trusted.” These words had been impressed on my mind from the very day I was forced from Deptford to the present
hour, and I now saw them, as I thought, fulfilled and verified. My imagination
was all rapture as I flew to the Register Office; and, in this respect, like the Apostle
Peter (whose deliverance from prison was so sudden and extraordinary that he
thought he was in a vision),7 I could scarcely believe I was awake. Heavens! who
could do justice to my feelings at this moment! Not conquering heroes themselves,
in the midst of a triumph—Not the tender mother who has just regained her long
6. Formal certificate of freedom.
7. Cf. Acts 12:7–9.
171
172
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Olaudah Equiano
from The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of
Olaudah Equiano
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
lost infant, and presses it to her heart—Not the weary hungry mariner, at the sight
of the desired friendly port—Not the lover, when he once more embraces his
beloved mistress, after she has been ravished from his arms! All within my breast
was tumult, wildness, and delirium! My feet scarcely touched the ground, for they
were winged with joy; and, like Elijah, as he rose to Heaven,8 they “were with
lightning sped as I went on.” Everyone I met I told of my happiness, and blazed
about the virtue of my amiable master and captain.
When I got to the office and acquainted the Register with my errand, he congratulated me on the occasion and told me he would draw up my manumission
for half price, which was a guinea. I thanked him for his kindness, and, having received it and paid him, I hastened to my master to get him to sign it, that I might
be fully released. Accordingly he signed the manumission that day, so that, before
night, I, who had been a slave in the morning, trembling at the will of another,
was become my own master, and completely free. I thought this was the happiest
day I had ever experienced, and my joy was still heightened by the blessings and
prayers of many of the sable race, particularly the aged, to whom my heart had
ever been attached with reverence * * *.
1789
8. Cf. II Kings 2:11.
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Phillis Wheatley
Author Bio
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Phillis Wheatley: Author Bio
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
(1753?–1784)
“Phillis was brought from Africa to America, in the Year 1761, between Seven
and Eight Years of Age. Without any Assistance from School Education, and by
only what she was taught in the Family, she, in sixteen Months Time from her Arrival, attained the English Language, to which she was an utter Stranger before, to
such a Degree, as to read any, the most difficult Parts of the Sacred Writings, to
the great Astonishment of all who heard her.”
So writes John Wheatley, her Boston master, in a letter printed in her Poems
on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in London in 1773, when she
was nineteen or twenty. By the time that volume appeared, she had already published at least four broadside poems as well as one poem, “Recollection,” in The
London Magazine. She had also traveled to London and there met the Countess
of Huntingdon, the Lord Mayor of London, and the Earl of Dartmouth. But for
her decision to return to Boston to the bedside of Mrs. Susannah Wheatley, who
was ill, she would probably have been presented at the court of George III.
Frail when she first arrived in America, and perhaps never of a strong constitution thereafter (she had been sent to England in 1773 at least partly because a
doctor had prescribed sea air for her health), she could hardly have been more fortunate in masters. Of Mrs. Wheatley she wrote, “I was treated by her more like
her child than her servant.” Mary Wheatley, the daughter of the family, assumed
much of the responsibility for her education and was so successful that Phillis must
have been among the most learned young women in Boston. Certainly she was an
apt pupil. Especially drawn to the neoclassic verse of Pope, but fond also of Milton and the Bible, she apparently read as much as was available to her in English
and mastered enough Latin to read some of the classics in the original. A remarkable individual by any standard, she was accorded considerable status in the society of Boston and London from the time of the publication of her elegy on the
death of the celebrated preacher George Whitefield, when she was sixteen. After
the appearance of Poems on Various Subjects, she continued to publish in periodicals and married John Peters and had three children by him. In 1776 she was received by General Washington. She was planning a second volume of verse when
she died, aged thirty-one.
The range of subject matter within her poems is small and mostly circumscribed by the geography and mind of New England. Reading them one learns little
about her native country (it may have been Senegal or Gambia), her race, or her
condition as a slave. Almost always she wrote in heroic couplets and often her
sentiments were conventional and her expression stilted. Nevertheless, the best of
her poems convey a good deal of the flavor of her time and place and something
of the spirit of their maker.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, London was followed by at least five other English
and American editions before 1800 and continued to be published in various editions throughout the
nineteenth century. The first American edition is Philadelphia, 1786. Early- twentieth-century editions
include Phillis Wheatley (Phillis Peters): Poems and Letters, edited by Charles F. Heartman, 1915; G.
Herbert Renfro, Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, 1916; and The Poems of Phillis Wheatley, edited
by Charlotte Ruth Wright, 1930. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley, edited by Julian D. Mason, Jr., 1966, is
drawn mostly from the 1773 edition and includes a helpful introduction. The Collected Works of Phillis
Wheatley was edited by John C. Shields, 1988. Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings was edited by William
H. Robinson, 1984.
173
174
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Phillis Wheatley
On Being Brought from
Africa to America
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
On Being Brought from Africa to America
’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”1
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.
1768
1. Dye.
5
1773
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Phillis Wheatley
© The McGraw−Hill
To His Excellency General
Phillis Wheatley, To His Excellency General Washington
Companies, 2007
Washington
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
To His Excellency General Washington1
Celestial choir! enthron’d in realms of light,
Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light
Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!
The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel binds her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber’d charms and recent graces rise.
Muse! bow propitious while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates,
As when Eolus2 heaven’s fair face deforms,
Enwrapp’d in tempest and a night of storms;
Astonish’d ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore;
Or thick as leaves in Autumn’s golden reign,
Such, and so many, moves the warrior’s train.
In bright array they seek the work of war,
Where high unfurl’d the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough thou know’st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honours,—we demand
The grace and glory of thy martial band.
Fam’d for thy valour, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!
One century scarce perform’d its destined round,
When Gallic powers Columbia’s fury found;3
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!
5
10
15
20
25
30
1. In 1775 Wheatley sent this poem to Washington with a letter saying that “Your being appointed by
the Grand Continental Congress to be Generalissimo of the armies of North America, together with the
fame of your virtues, excite sensations not easy to suppress.” Washington replied, praising her “genius”
and inviting her to meet him in Cambridge, where she was received in 1776. The poem was first published in the Virginia Gazette, March 20, 1776, and by Thomas Paine in the Pennsylvania Magazine,
April 1776.
2. Roman ruler of the winds.
3. During the French and Indian War.
175
176
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Phillis Wheatley
To His Excellency General
Washington
Fix’d are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia’s arm prevails.
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! cruel blindness to Columbia’s state!
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.
Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev’ry action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! be thine.
1775
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
35
40
1776, 1834
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
Author Bio
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
The Federalist: Author Bio
THE FEDERALIST
(1787–1788)
When the American colonies won their independence, recognized in 1783 in the
Treaty of Paris, their future relationship to one another was not immediately clear.
The Articles of Confederation, drawn up by the Continental Congress in 1777
and ratified in 1781, had proclaimed a “perpetual union” in which “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence.” Not long afterward, however,
doubts had arisen that this “firm league of friendship,” as the Confederation had
styled itself, possessed sufficient central authority to deal with the common problems facing the newly independent states. Consequently, in 1787 a Federal Convention meeting in Philadelphia drew up a new Constitution allocating broader
powers to the central government. It remained to be seen whether the individual
states could be brought to accept the provisions of this new document. The need
to convince doubtful voters of the essential wisdom of the Constitution gave rise
to The Federalist papers, classic statements of American political theory.
Most of the essays that became The Federalist (1788) were published in newspapers at the rate of three or four a week between October 27, 1787, and April 2,
1788. Published under the pseudonym “Publius,” they were initiated by Alexander
Hamilton (1757–1804), a New York lawyer and statesman who had served as secretary and aide-de-camp to Washington in the Revolution, had been a member of
the Continental Congress and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and
was to become first secretary of the treasury of the United States. Of the eightyfive Federalist papers, Hamilton wrote at least fifty-one. He was assisted in the
project by James Madison (1751–1836), later the fourth president, a Virginian
who also had been a member of the Continental Congress and a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention, and by John Jay (1745–1829), New York lawyer, former president of the Continental Congress, secretary of foreign affairs under the
Articles of Confederation, and later first chief justice of the United States. Madison wrote at least fourteen papers, and Jay five, with the authorship of fifteen unclear between Hamilton and Madison.
The immediate aim was to convince New York to ratify the Constitution, but
the effect has been much longer lasting than that. All later commentators have remained in debt to the brilliant analysis given by The Federalist to the merits of the
Constitution. And, in a wider sense, the papers remain important for the fine precision of their discussion of the great American dream, since the late eighteenth
century a worldwide one, of immense personal freedoms encouraged and guaranteed by a central government strong enough to ensure their lasting availability.
Important early editions of The Federalist are the first, edited by John and Archibald McLean and
corrected by Hamilton, 1788; the George F. Hopkins edition, with alterations approved by Hamilton,
1802; and the Jacob Gideon edition, with Madison’s corrections, 1818. Modern scholarly editions are
by Jacob E. Cooke, 1961, and Benjamin F. Wright, 1961. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, 2004, is
a recent and full biography. For earlier biography and criticism, see Broadus Mitchell, Alexander Hamilton: Youth to Majority, 1755–1788, 1957, and Alexander Hamilton: The National Adventure,
1788–1804, 1962; Irving Brant, James Madison, 6 vols., 1941–1961; Frank Monaghan, John Jay: Defender of Liberty, 1935; Gary Wills, Explaining America: The Federalist, 1981; H. J. Strong, What the
Anti-Federalists Were For, 1981; and Albert Furtwangler, The Authority of Publius: A Reading of the
Federalist Papers, 1984.
177
178
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 1
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
THE FEDERALIST
The Federalist No. 11
[Alexander Hamilton]
To the People of the State of New York.
After a full experience of the insufficiency of the existing Federal Government,
you are invited to deliberate upon a new Constitution for the United States of
America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences, nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of
the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire, in many respects, the most
interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have
been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example,
the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force. If
there be any truth in the remark, the crisis, at which we are arrived, may with propriety be regarded as the period when that decision is to be made; and a wrong
election of the part we shall act, may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the
general misfortune of mankind.
This idea by adding the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism
will heighten the solicitude, which all considerate and good men must feel for the
event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of
our true interests, uninfluenced by considerations foreign to the public good. But
this is a thing more ardently to be wished, than seriously to be expected. The plan
offered to our deliberations, affects too many particular interests, innovates upon
too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects extraneous to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favourable to
the discovery of truth.
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will
have to encounter, may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain
class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of
the power, emolument and consequence of the offices they hold under the Stateestablishments—and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandise themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire
into several partial confederacies, than from its union under one government.
It is not, however, my design to dwell upon observations of this nature. I am
aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of
any set of men into interested or ambitious views (merely because their situations
might subject them to suspicion): Candour will oblige us to admit, that even such
men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of
1. First published in The Independent Journal, October 27, 1787. The text reproduced here is that of
the Hopkins edition, 1802, the last with corrections approved by Hamilton.
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 1
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
The Federalist, The Federalist No. 1
the opposition which has already shown itself, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable, the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed
and so powerful are the causes, which serve to give a false bias to the judgment,
that we upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on
the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if
duly attended to, would always furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are
engaged in any controversy however well persuaded of being in the right. And a
further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection, that
we are not always sure, that those who advocate the truth are actuated by purer
principles than their antagonists. Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives, not more laudable than these, are apt to operate
as well upon those who support as upon those who oppose the right side of a question. Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more
illjudged than that intolerant spirit, which has, at all times, characterised political
parties. For, in politics as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
And yet, just as these sentiments must appear to candid men, we have already
sufficient indications, that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To
judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude, that
they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase
the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations, and by the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized, as the off-spring of a temper fond of power and
hostile to the principles of liberty. An overscrupulous jealousy of danger to the
rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the
heart, will be represented as mere pretence and artifice; the stale bait for popularity at the expence of public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of
liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On
the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous
ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the
people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a
much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that
of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number
have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants.
In the course of the preceeding observations it has been my aim, fellow citizens, to put you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to
influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare by any
impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth. You
will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general scope of them
that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new Constitution. Yes, my
Countrymen, I own to you, that, after having given it an attentive consideration,
179
180
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 1
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
I am clearly of opinion, it is your interest to adopt it. I am convinced, that this is
the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I effect not reserves, which I do not feel. I will not amuse you with an appearance of deliberation, when I have decided. I frankly acknowledge to you my convictions, and I
will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded. The consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity. I shall not however multiply professions on this head. My motives must remain in the depository of my own breast:
My arguments will be open to all, and may be judged of by all. They shall at least
be offered in a spirit, which will not disgrace the cause of truth.
I propose in a series of papers to discuss the following interesting particulars—The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity—The insufficiency of
the present Confederation to preserve that Union—The necessity of a government
at least equally energetic with the one proposed to the attainment of this object—
The conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican
government—Its analogy to your own state constitution—and lastly, The additional security, which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of
government, to liberty and to property.
In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavour to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance that may seem
to have any claim to attention.
It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility
of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of
the people in every state, and one, which it may be imagined has no adversaries.
But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who
oppose the new constitution, that the Thirteen States are of too great extent for
any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to separate confederacies
of distinct portions of the whole.2 This doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has votaries enough to countenance its open avowal. For
nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the
subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution, or a dismemberment of the Union. It may therefore be essential to examine particularly the advantages of that Union, the certain evils and the probable dangers, to which every
State will be exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly be done.
PUBLIUS.
1787, 1788
2. “The same idea, tracing the arguments to their consequences, is held out in several of the late publications against the New Constitution” [Hamilton’s note].
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 10
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
The Federalist, The Federalist No. 10
THE FEDERALIST
The Federalist No. 10 1
[James Madison]
To the People of the State of New York.
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none
deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control
the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments, never finds himself so
much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail therefore to set a due value on any plan
which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper
cure for it. The instability, injustice and confusion introduced into the public councils, have in truth been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have
every where perished, as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from
which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American Constitutions on the popular models,
both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be
an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the
danger on this side as was wished and expected. Complaints are every where heard
from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and
private faith, and of public and personal liberty; that our governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties; and that
measures are too often decided not according to the rules of justice and the rights
of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and over-bearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation,
the evidence of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some
of the distresses under which we labor, have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other
causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes, and particularly for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm
for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other.
These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with
which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.
By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common
impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the
permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
1. First published in The Daily Advertiser, November 22, 1787. The text reproduced here is that of the
Gideon edition, 1818, with Madison’s corrections.
181
182
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 10
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.
There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one by
destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to
every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.
It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it is worse than
the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential
to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
The second expedient is as impracticable, as the first would be unwise. As
long as the reason of man continues fallible and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his
reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach
themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property
originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of Government. From the protection of
different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different
degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these
on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the
society into different interests and parties.
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see
them every where brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning Government and many other points, as well of speculation as of
practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for preeminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been
interesting to the human passions, have in turn divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to
vex and oppress each other, than to co-operate for their common good. So strong
is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have
been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the
various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are
without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are
creditors and those who are debtors fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a monied interest, with
many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations and divide them
into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation
of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary
operations of Government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause because his interest would
certainly bias his judgment and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal,
nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 10
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
The Federalist, The Federalist No. 10
the same time; yet, what are many of the most important acts of legislation but so
many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons
but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens; and what are the different
classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?
Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors
are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are and must be themselves the judges; and the
most numerous party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? are questions which would be
differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by
neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of
taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the
most exact impartiality; yet, there is perhaps no legislative act in which greater
opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party, to trample on the
rules of justice. Every shilling with which they over-burden the inferior number is
a shilling saved to their own pockets.
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm; Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment
be made at all, without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which
will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another, or the good of the whole.
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.
If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican
principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It
may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to
execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government on the other hand enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the
rights of other citizens. To secure the public good, and private rights, against the
danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form
of popular government, is then the great object to which our enquiries are directed.
Let me add that it is the great desideratum, by which alone this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and
be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.
By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either
the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time, must
be prevented; or the majority, having such co-existent passion or interest, must be
rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to
coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on
as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined
together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.
From this view of the subject, it may be concluded that a pure Democracy, by
which I mean a Society, consisting of a small number of citizens who assemble and
183
184
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 10
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of
faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the
weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such Democracies have
ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been
as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of Government have erroneously supposed
that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would
at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their
opinions, and their passions.
A Republic, by which I mean a Government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we
are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure Democracy,
and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it
must derive from the union.
The two great points of difference between a Democracy and a Republic are
first, the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens
elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of
country over which the latter may be extended.
The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the
public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens
whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial
considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice
pronounced by the representatives of the people will be more consonant to the
public good than if pronounced by the people themselves convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of
local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may by intrigue, by corruption or by other
means, first obtain the suffrages and then betray the interests of the people. The
question resulting is, whether small or extensive Republics are most favorable to
the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in
favor of the latter by two obvious considerations.
In the first place it is to be remarked that 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. Hence the
number of Representatives in the two cases, not being in proportion to that of the
Constituents, and being proportionally greatest in the small Republic, it follows
that if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small Republic, the former will present a greater option and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each Representative will be chosen by a greater number
of citizens in the large than in the small Republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practise with success the vicious arts by which elections are
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 10
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
The Federalist, The Federalist No. 10
too often carried, and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more
likely to center in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on
both sides of which inconveniencies will be found to lie. By enlarging too much
the number of electors, you render the representative too little acquainted with all
their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great
and national objects. The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this
respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local
and particular to the state legislatures.
The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent of
territory which may be brought within the compass of Republican, than of Democratic Government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious
combinations less to be dreaded in the former, than in the latter. The smaller the
society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it;
the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be
found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a
majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and
you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable
that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of
other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all
who feel it to discover their own strength and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that where there is a consciousness
of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust,
in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence it clearly appears that the same advantage which a Republic has over a
Democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small
Republic—is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does this advantage consist in the substitution of Representatives whose enlightened views and
virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and to schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the Representation of the Union will be most
likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security
afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being
able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties, comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine,
consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the
secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the
Union gives it the most palpable advantage.
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; a religious sect, may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it, must secure
the national Councils against any danger from that source; a rage for paper money,
for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other im-
185
186
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
The Federalist
The Federalist No. 10
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
proper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union,
than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more
likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a Republican remedy for the diseases most incident to Republican Government. And
according to the degree of pleasure and pride, we feel in being Republicans, ought
to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit, and supporting the character of Federalists.
PUBLIUS.
1787, 1788
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Philip Freneau
Author Bio
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Philip Freneau: Author Bio
PHILIP FRENEAU
(1752–1832)
Judged in his own time by his political opponents as “a writer of wretched and insolent doggerel, an incendiary journalist,” Philip Freneau was nevertheless a major
poet. His double role as poet and political journalist in the transitional age of the
Revolution is consistent with the contradictions of his poetry. Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit. He was also at once
a satirist and a sentimentalist, a humanitarian but also a bitter polemicist, a poet
of Reason yet the celebrant of “lovely Fancy,” and a deistic optimist most inspired
by themes of death and transience.
Freneau was born on January 2, 1752, in New York, of French Huguenot and
Scottish stock. He was tutored for Princeton (“that hotbed of Whiggery”), where
he established close friendships with a future president, James Madison, and a future novelist, Hugh Henry Brackenridge. In collaboration with the latter he produced his earliest work; slightly later, in “The Power of Fancy” (1770), a genuine
independence appears. After graduation and an unsatisfactory teaching experience, he gained his first popular success in New York in 1775 as a satirist of the
British. In 1776 Freneau made his first voyage to the West Indies, where he wrote
“The House of Night,” foreshadowing the Gothic mood of Poe and Coleridge—F. L.
Pattee calls it “the first distinctly romantic note heard in America”—and “The
Beauties of Santa Cruz,” blending the praise of nature with social protest in his
characteristic later manner. This poetry foretold achievement of a distinguished
order, but he was soon diverted from literature into the tide of revolution. As passenger on an American ship attacked by the British in 1780, he was taken prisoner. “The British Prison Ship” (1781), a good piece of invective, reveals the rigors
and brutality of his captivity. In truth he now could say: “An age employed in edging steel / Can no poetic rapture feel.” In the closing year of the war he became
the prolific propagandist, celebrating American victories and leaders while continuing to hurl his vitriol at the British in many poems. “The poet of the Revolution”
they called him, a compliment not wholly to his advantage, since its persistence
long obscured the fact that his later poems were his best, and these were quite different. The earlier poems were collected (1786) in The Poems of Philip Freneau
Written Chiefly During the Late War.
For a few years, writing with sporadic fluency, Freneau earned his living variously as farmer, journalist, and sea captain. His Miscellaneous Works, essays and
new poems, appeared in 1788. In 1790 he married and almost literally flung himself, as political journalist, into the raging controversies between the Jeffersonian
Democrats, whom he supported, and Hamilton’s Federalists. In New York he
edited The Daily Advertiser. In 1791, probably with Jefferson’s support, he established in Philadelphia the National Gazette and campaigned against the opinions
of the powerful Gazette of the United States, edited by John Fenno and supported
by Hamilton. Simultaneously he served as translating clerk in Jefferson’s Department of State. He was soon a power in journalism and politics. When Jefferson
withdrew from politics temporarily in 1793, Freneau resigned and his paper failed,
in the midst of a Federalist tide which ended only with Jefferson’s election to the
187
188
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Philip Freneau
Author Bio
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
presidency in 1801. Freneau’s social and religious liberalism, in which he resembled Paine, gave the Federalists a deadly weapon against him; indeed his political
enemies so besmirched his reputation that he has only recently been recognized as
a courageous champion of American popular government.
Reduced in fortune and political ambition, he settled in 1794 at his plantation homestead, Mount Pleasant, near Freehold, New Jersey, where for a time he
edited a New Jersey paper. On his own hand press he published new essays and
poems and revisions of earlier pieces. Collections appeared in 1795 and 1799. His
poverty drove him at fifty to resume plowing the sea instead of his “sandy patrimony”; he was captain of coastwise trading vessels from 1803 to 1807. Again he
turned to his farm for subsistence, but in 1818 his home burned down, and he
gathered the remnants of his family and possessions in a little farmhouse nearer
town. In 1815 he collected in two volumes the poems of his later period, including
the interesting work inspired by the War of 1812, in A Collection of Poems * * *
Written Between the Year 1797 and the Present Time. After he was seventy, he
worked on the public roads; “he went,” says Leary, “from house to house as tinker, mending clocks, and doing other small jobs of repairing.” He continued almost until his death to send poems to the newspapers. Poor and nearly forgotten,
he died of exposure in 1832 at the age of eighty, after losing his way in a blizzard,
as he returned, it is said, from a tavern.
As a poet, Freneau heralded American literary independence; his close observation of nature (before Bryant) distinguished his treatment of indigenous wildlife and
other native American subjects. In contrast with the ornate style of Freneau’s early
couplets, he later developed a natural, simple, and concrete diction, best illustrated
in such nature lyrics as “The Wild Honey Suckle” and “The Indian Burying
Ground.” Freneau did not establish trends, but he represented qualities that were to
be characteristic of the next half century. He has been called the “Father of American Poetry,” and it is ultimately in a historical estimate that Freneau is important. In
the main, as Harry H. Clark remarks, “he is worthy of study as a cross section of an
intensely significant period in our political and literary history rather than as an
intrinsically wise political theorist or a profound creator of poetic beauty.”
The standard edition of the poetry is The Poems of Philip Freneau, 3 vols., edited by F. L. Pattee,
1902–1907. Selections are Poems of Freneau, edited by H. H. Clark, 1929; and Philip M. Marsh, ed., A
Freneau Sampler, 1963. Additional poems are found in The Last Poems of Philip Freneau, edited by
Lewis Leary, 1946. Judith R. Hiltner edited The Newspaper Verse of Philip Freneau, 1986. Philip M.
Marsh edited The Prose of Philip Freneau, 1955. H. H. Clark has published a facsimile of the 1799 edition of Letters on Various Interesting and Important Subjects, 1943. An authoritative critical biography
is That Rascal Freneau: A Study in Literary Failure, by Lewis Leary, 1941. More recent is Jacob Axelrad, Philip Freneau: Champion of Democracy, 1967. Another biography is that of Pattee, in Volume I of
his edition of the Poems, while H. H. Clark’s edition contains a penetrating critical introduction. Additional studies include Philip M. Marsh, Philip Freneau: Poet and Journalist, 1967; Philip M. Marsh, The
Works of Philip Freneau: A Critical Study, 1968; and Richard C. Vitzthum, Land and Sea: The Lyric
Poetry of Philip Freneau, 1978.
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Philip Freneau
© The McGraw−Hill
To the Memory of the
Philip Freneau, To the Memory of the Brave Americans
Companies, 2007
Brave Americans
PHILIP FRENEAU
To the Memory of the Brave Americans1
UNDER GENERAL GREENE, IN SOUTH CAROLINA, WHO FELL
IN THE ACTION OF SEPTEMBER
8, 1781.
At Eutaw Springs the valiant died;
Their limbs with dust are covered o’er—
Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide;
How many heroes are no more!
If in this wreck of ruin, they
Can yet be thought to claim a tear,
O smite your gentle breast, and say
The friends of freedom slumber here!
Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain,
If goodness rules thy generous breast,
Sigh for the wasted rural reign;
Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest!
Stranger, their humble graves adorn;
You too may fall, and ask a tear;
’Tis not the beauty of the morn
That proves the evening shall be clear.—
They saw their injured country’s woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear—but left the shield.
5
10
15
20
Led by thy conquering genius, Greene,
The Britons they compelled to fly;
None distant viewed the fatal plain,
None grieved, in such a cause to die—
But, like the Parthian,2 famed of old,
Who, flying, still their arrows threw,
These routed Britons, full as bold,
Retreated, and retreating slew.
Now rest in peace, our patriot band;
Though far from nature’s limits thrown,
We trust they find a happier land,
A brighter sunshine of their own.
1781
25
30
1781, 1786
1. General Nathanael Greene’s fine generalship in the South in 1781 was crucial. Although he lost several hundred men at Eutaw Springs, he prevented the relief of Cornwallis, who surrendered at Yorktown
October 19. The poem appeared in the Freeman’s Journal, November 21, 1781.
2. The Parthians, famous cavalrymen of ancient Persia, destroyed their enemies by feigning flight, then
suddenly wheeling to discharge their arrows.
189
190
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Philip Freneau
On Mr. Paine’s Rights of
Man
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
PHILIP FRENEAU
On Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man1
Thus briefly sketched the sacred RIGHTS OF MAN,
How inconsistent with the ROYAL PLAN!
Which for itself exclusive honour craves,
Where some are masters born, and millions slaves.
With what contempt must every eye look down
On that base, childish bauble called a crown,
The gilded bait, that lures the crowd, to come,
Bow down their necks, and meet a slavish doom;
The source of half the miseries men endure,
The quack that kills them, while it seems to cure.
Roused by the REASON of his manly page,
Once more shall PAINE a listening world engage:
From Reason’s source, a bold reform he brings,
In raising mankind, he pulls down kings,
Who, source of discord, patrons of all wrong,
On blood and murder have been fed too long:
Hid from the world, and tutored to be base,
The curse, the scourge, the ruin of our race,
Theirs was the task, a dull designing few,
To shackle beings that they scarcely knew,
Who made this globe the residence of slaves,
And built their thrones on systems formed by knaves
—Advance, bright years, to work their final fall,
And haste the period that shall crush them all.
Who, that has read and scanned the historic page
But glows, at every line, with kindling rage,
To see by them the rights of men aspersed,
Freedom restrained, and Nature’s law reversed,
Men, ranked with beasts, by monarchs willed away,
And bound young fools, or madmen to obey:
Now driven to wars, and now oppressed at home,
Compelled in crowds o’er distant seas to roam,
From India’s climes the plundered prize to bring
To glad the strumpet, or to glut the king.
COLUMBIA, hail! immortal be thy reign:
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
1. The Rights of Man, Part I, ran serially in the New York Daily Advertiser, May 6–27, 1791, and Freneau’s poem appeared at the end of the concluding installment. The poem was popular; it reappeared in
three other papers within a month. Freneau had been attracted, during the Revolution, by Paine’s emphasis on “natural rights”; and like Jefferson, he believed that the new work might offset the current
conservative reaction in America.
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Philip Freneau
On Mr. Paine’s Rights of
Man
Without a king, we till the smiling plain;
Without a king, we trace the unbounded sea,
And traffic round the globe, through each degree;
Each foreign clime our honoured flag reveres,
Which asks no monarch, to support the STARS:
Without a king, the laws maintain their sway,
While honour bids each generous heart obey.
Be ours the task the ambitious to restrain,
And this great lesson teach—that kings are vain;
That warring realms to certain ruin haste,
That kings subsist by war, and wars are waste:
So shall our nation, formed on Virtue’s plan,
Remain the guardian of the Rights of Man,
A vast Republic, famed through every clime,
Without a king, to see the end of time.
1791
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Philip Freneau, On Mr. Paine's Rights of Man
40
45
50
1795
191
119
Week Six: Reason and
Revolution Part I
120
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Part Introduction
Reason and Revolution
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Reason and Revolution
After the period of exploration and settlement, an increasing spirit of unity and
independence characterized the second great period of American cultural history,
which began about 1725 and lasted until about 1810. Politically, the sense of a
new American identity encouraged the growth of a loose confederation, disturbed
by British colonial wars on the frontier and by “intolerable” British trade and taxation policies. In succession, it produced the Revolution, the federal and constitutional union of the states, and an international recognition of the hegemony of the
United States on the North American continent. During these years, the frontier
moved beyond the Alleghenies, leaving behind it an established seaboard culture
and, in such cities as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, a growing spirit of
metropolitan sophistication. By the time Jefferson retired as president, the country
stood at the brink of a new national period in literature and political life.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE SPIRIT OF RATIONALISM
The European Enlightenment and its rationalistic spirit infused the minds and the
acts of Americans. Earlier religious mysticisms, local in character, were overlaid
by larger concerns for general toleration, civil rights, and more comprehensive
democracy in government. The conflict of ideas at the beginning of this period is
well represented in a comparison of the contemporaries Jonathan Edwards and
Benjamin Franklin, both among the greatest early Americans. Edwards represented the fullest intellectual development of the Calvinistic Puritan; his hard intellect and authoritarian convictions were tempered by human tenderness and
spiritual sensitivity. Cotton Mather, the last member of a dynasty of Puritan ministers who dominated the New England hierarchy, had already faced fundamental
and final opposition to his dogma by the time Edwards was born. The secular
spirit, a new population of immigrants, and the development of urban enterprise
and commerce would have doomed the Puritan commonwealth even if the Puritans themselves had not outgrown it. Franklin represented a new age entirely,
helped to bring it about, and lived far into it.
The Age of Reason manifested a rationalistic view of humanity in its relations
with nature and God, suggested the extension of principles of equality and social
justice, and encouraged the belief that humans might assume greater control of
nature without offending the majesty of God. If the universe resembled a clock of
unimaginable size, as Isaac Newton suggested, why shouldn’t people study and
learn to use its workings for their benefit? Americans were profoundly influenced
by the empiricism of John Locke (1632–1704), the leading philosopher of freedom in his day, and by the later thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778),
Perkins−Perkins:
Selections from American
Literature
Part Introduction
Reason and Revolution
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
Reason and Revolution
whose emphasis on the social contract as the “natural” basis for government suggested a consistency between the laws of nature and those of society. Another
Frenchman, François Quesnay (1694–1774), strengthened this doctrine by asserting that society was based on the resources of nature and on land itself, thus stimulating the agrarian thought that Thomas Jefferson found so attractive. Rationalism
applied to theology produced Deism, but the degrees of Deism ranged widely, from
the dialectical severity of Tom Paine to the casual acceptance of some of its central
doctrines by many others. For the confirmed Deist, God was the first cause, but
the hand of God was more evident in the mechanism of nature than in scriptural
revelation; the Puritan belief in miraculous intervention and supernatural manifestations was regarded as blasphemy against the divine Creator of the immutable
harmony and perfection of all things. Confining much of their logic to practical
affairs, men like Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson entertained a mild Deism
that greatly affected the institutions of their country, while its assumptions made
their way into the imaginative literature of Philip Freneau and other writers.
FROM NEOCLASSICAL TO ROMANTIC LITERATURE
During the revolutionary end of the eighteenth century, the rational, neoclassical
spirit in American life and literature became tinged with an increasing romanticism.
In England, the neoclassicism of Alexander Pope gave way to the romanticism of
Thomas Gray, Oliver Goldsmith, and William Blake. Before Tom Paine wrote The
Age of Reason, the age of revolution was well advanced; both the American and the
French revolutions advocated rationalistic instruments of government in support of
romantic ideals of freedom and individualism. American writers such as Jefferson
and Freneau responded to these commingled influences. An avowed Deist and a
neoclassicist in his earliest poems, Freneau in his later lyrics became a forerunner of
the romantic Bryant. The romantic movement, which was to dominate American
literature after 1820, was already present in embryo in the revolutionary age.
In this time of huge literary energies and of vast spiritual and social upheaval,
the rapid growth of publishing provided a forum for contestants of all persuasions.
The first newspaper to succeed in the colonies, the Boston News-Letter, had appeared in 1704, but by the time of the Revolution there were nearly fifty. No magazine appeared until 1741, but after that date magazines flourished, and by the time
of Washington’s inauguration in 1789 nearly forty had been published. Periodical
and pamphlet publication gave scores of essayists, propagandists, and political writers a hearing—such leading authors as Paine and Freneau and lesser writers still remembered, such as Francis Hopkinson, whose verse satires plagued the British;
John Dickinson, a lawyer whose Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1767–
1768) skillfully presented the colonial position in the hope of securing British moderation before it was too late; and Mercy Otis Warren, whose political essays supplemented her satirical dramas and lent to her later History of the Rise, Progress,
and Termination of the American Revolution (1805) the authority of an intellectual
participant. William Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia, made his American Magazine (1757–1758) a vehicle for a talented coterie of his protégés and students—the short-lived Nathaniel Evans, Francis Hopkinson, and Thomas Godfrey,
the first American playwright. Verse, both satirical and sentimental, abounded in
the periodicals. Although there were scores of American poets by the time of the
Revolution, only Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, and Philip Freneau have been
121
122
Perkins−Perkins:
LITR220
Selections from American
Literature
Part Introduction
Reason and Revolution
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2007
greatly admired for their literary contributions. Michael Wigglesworth is still read
for The Day of Doom (1662), his explication of Puritan conceptions of the Last
Judgment, which remained popular for at least a century. At the threshold of the
Revolution, Phillis Wheatley distinguished herself as the first African-American
poet of note, and during Washington’s first term the former slave Olaudah Equiano
published in London one of the earliest and best slave narratives.
Theatrical activity, shunned by the Puritans, appeared sporadically from the
beginning of the eighteenth century. By 1749 a stock company had been established in Philadelphia, and its seasonal migrations encouraged the building of theaters and the growth of other companies of players in New York, Boston,
Williamsburg, and Charleston. Native players and visiting actors from England
devoted themselves principally to Elizabethan revivals and classics of the French
theater rather than to new or original works, but it was an age of great talent on
the stage, and—despite continuing religious objections—increasing support for
the theater provided evidence of a steady rise in urban sophistication. Thomas
Godfrey’s Prince of Parthia, the first native tragedy to be performed, reached the
stage in 1767. During the Revolution, drama surfaced as effective political satire
in the plays of Mercy Otis Warren. Afterward, native authorship received a substantial boost in 1787 with the appearance of Royall Tyler’s comedy The Contrast, which established the stereotype of Brother Jonathan as the homespun
American character. Andre (1798), one of portrait painter William Dunlap’s many
plays, lived far into the Knickerbocker period; Dunlap was the first large-scale
producer-playwright of our literature, although he went bankrupt in this theatrical enterprise. Other early native playwrights included the English-born Susannah
Haswell Rowson and the Pennsylvania jurist H. H. Brackenridge, prominent writers of fiction.
Meanwhile, a native fiction arose, largely as an offshoot of the great age of
British fiction that began about 1719 and introduced Defoe, Richardson, Fielding,
Smollett, and Sterne to wide readership in the colonies. Soon after the Revolution,
fiction by American authors appeared, first in domestic novels, including The
Power of Sympathy (1789), by William Hill Brown; Charlotte Temple (1794), the
most popular of early American novels, by Susannah Rowson; and The Coquette
(1797), by Hannah Foster. Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism (1801) mocked
the romantic excesses of such novels in picaresque form. Another picaresque novel,
Modern Chivalry, by H. H. ...
Purchase answer to see full
attachment