Liberty in the Nineteenth Century

by Frederic May Holland

Unitarianism claimed for every individual, what Protestantism had at most asked for the congregation,—the right to think for one's self. This right was won earlier in Europe than in America, for here the clergy kept much of their original authority and popularity. Their influence over politics collapsed with Federalism. On all other subjects they were still listened to as "stewards of the mysteries of God," who had been taught all things by the Holy Spirit, and were under a divine call to preach the truth necessary for salvation. The clergyman was supposed to have acquired by his ordination a peculiar knowledge of all the rights and duties of human life. No one else, however wise and philanthropic, could speak with such authority about what books might be read and what amusements should be shunned. Scientific habits of thought, free inquiry about religion, and scholarly study of the Bible were put under the same ban with dancing, card-playing, reading novels, and travelling on Sunday. The pulpit blocked the path of intellectual progress. Its influence on literature was wholly changed by the Unitarian controversy, which was at its height in 1820. Still more beneficial controversies followed.

The trinitarian clergymen tried to retain their imperilled supremacy by getting up revivals. One of these, in the summer of 1828, was carried so far at Cincinnati that many a woman lost her reason or her life. These excesses confirmed the anti-clerical suspicions of Frances Wright, who had come over from England to study the negro character, and had failed, after much labour and expense, to find the slaves she bought for the purpose capable of working out their freedom. She had made up her mind that slavery is only one of many evils caused by ignorance of the duties of man to man, that these duties needed to be studied scientifically, and that scientific study, especially among women, was dangerously impeded by the pulpit.

That autumn she delivered the first course of public lectures ever given by a woman in America. Anne Hutchinson and other women had preached; but she was the first lecturer. The men and women of Cincinnati crowded to hear the tall, majestic woman, who stood in the court-house, plainly dressed in white. Her style was ladylike throughout; but she complained of the many millions wasted on mere teachers of opinions, whose occupation was to set people by the ears, and whose influence was stifling the breath of science. "Listen," she said, "to the denunciations of fanaticism against pleasures the most innocent, recreations the most necessary to bodily health." "See it make of the people's day of leisure a day of penance." Her main theme was the necessity of establishing schools to teach children trades, and also halls of science with museums and public libraries.

This course was repeated in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities. Her audiences were always large, but she charged no admission fee. What were called "Fanny Wright societies" were formed in many places. A Baptist church in New York City was turned into a Hall of Science, which remained open for three years, beginning with the last Sunday of April, 1829. It contained a hall for scientific lectures and theological discussions, a free dispensary, a gymnasium, and a bookstore. Here was published The Free Enquirer, the only paper in America which permitted the infallibility of Christianity to be called in question. The principal editor, Robert Dale Owen, son of the famous Socialist, claimed to have twenty thousand adherents in that city, and a controlling influence in Buffalo. Celebrations of Paine's birthday were now frequent. It was fortunate for the clergy that controversies about religion soon lost their interest in the fierce struggle about politics.

III. The fame won by Jackson as a conqueror of British invaders in 1815, blinded Americans to a fact which had been made manifest by both Napoleon and Wellington, as it is said to have been still more recently by Grant. The habit of commanding an army has a tendency to create scorn of public opinion, and also of those restrictions on arbitrary authority which are necessary for popular government, as well as for individual liberty. Jackson had the additional defect of holding slaves; and it is probable that if he had never done so, nor even had soldiers under his orders, he would have been sadly indifferent to the rights of his fellow-citizens and to the principles of free government. He was elected in 1828, and proved enough of a Democrat to renounce the policy, which had recently become popular, of making local improvements at the national expense; but he was the first President who dismissed experienced officials, in order to appoint his own partisans without inquiry as to their capacity to serve the nation. He was especially arbitrary about a problem not yet fully solved, namely, what the Government should do with the banks. The public money was then deposited in a National Bank whose constitutionality was admitted by the Supreme Court. Its stock was at a premium and its notes at par in 1829; and it had five hundred officials in various States. Jackson thought it had opposed his election; and he suggested that the public money should be removed to the custody of a branch of the Treasury, to be established for that purpose. The plan has since been adopted; but his friends were too much interested in rival banks, and his opponents thought only of preventing his re-election in 1832. They could not, however, prevent his obtaining a great majority as "the poor man's champion."

The Bank had spent vast sums in publishing campaign documents, and even in bribery; and Jackson suspected that it would try to buy a new charter.

He decided, with no sanction from Congress, and against the advice of his own Cabinet, that the public money already in the Bank should be drawn out as fast as it could be spent, and that no more should be deposited there. He removed the Secretary of the Treasury for refusing to carry out this plan; and obliged his successor to set about it before he was confirmed by the Senate. To all remonstrances he replied, "I take the responsibility"; and he met the vote of the Senators, that he was assuming an authority not conferred by the Constitution, by boasting that he was "the direct representative of the American people." Webster replied that this would reduce the government to an elective monarchy; and the opponents to what they called Jackson's Toryism agreed to call themselves Whigs. Their leader was Henry Clay; and they believed, like the Federalists, in centralisation, internal improvements, and protective tariffs.

Jackson was sustained by the Democrats; but their quarrel with the Whigs prevented Congress from providing any safe place for the public money. It was loaned to some of the State banks; and all these institutions were encouraged to increase their liabilities enormously. Speculation was active and prices high. That of wheat in particular rose so much after the bad harvest of 1836 that there was a bread riot in New York City. Scarcely had Jackson closed his eight years of service, in 1837, when the failure of a business firm in New Orleans brought on so many others that all the banks suspended payment. Prices of merchandise fell so suddenly as to make the dealers bankrupt; many thousand men were thrown out of employment; and so much public money was lost that there was a deficit in the Treasury, where there had been a surplus.

IV. These bad results of Jackson's administration strengthened the Whigs. They had not ventured to make protectionism the main issue in 1832; and Clay had acknowledged that all the leading newspapers and magazines were against it in 1824. Its adoption that year was by close votes, and in spite of Webster's insisting that American manufactures were growing rapidly without any unnatural restrictions on commerce. The duties were raised in 1828 to nearly five times their average height in 1789; and there was so much discontent at the South, that some slight reductions had to be made in the summer of 1832; but the protectionist purpose was still predominant. If the opponents of all taxation except for revenue had done nothing more than appeal to the people that autumn, they would have had Congress with them; Jackson was already on their side; and the question might have been decided on its merits after full discussion. The threat of South Carolina to secede caused the reduction, which was actually made in 1833, to appear too much like a concession made merely to avoid civil war; and this second attempt to preserve the Union by a compromise was a premium upon disloyalty. This bargain, like that of 1820, was arranged by Henry Clay; and one condition was that the rates should fall gradually to a maximum of twenty per cent. Before that process was completed, the Treasury was exhausted by bad management; and additional revenue had to be obtained by raising the tariff in 1842. The Whigs were then in power; but they were defeated in the presidential election of 1844, when the main issue was protectionism. The tariff was reduced in 1846 by a much larger majority than that of 1842 in the House of Representatives; and the results were so satisfactory that a further reduction to an average of twenty per cent, was made in 1857, with the general approval of members of both parties. The revenue needed for war had to be procured by increase of taxation in 1861; but the country had then had for twenty-eight years an almost uninterrupted succession of low tariffs.

The universal prosperity in America between 1833 and 1842 is mentioned by a French traveller, Chevalier, by a German philanthropist, Dr. Julius, by Miss Martineau, Lyell, and Dickens. The novelist was especially struck by the healthy faces and neat dresses of the factory girls at Lowell, where they began to publish a magazine in 1840. Lyell said that the operatives in that city looked like "a set of ladies and gentlemen playing at factory for their own amusement." Our country had seven times as many miles of railroads in 1842 as in 1833; our factories made more than nine times as many dollars' worth of goods in 1860 as in 1830; and they sold more than three times as many abroad as in 1846. Twice as much capital was invested in manufacturing in 1860 as in 1850; the average wages of the operatives increased sixteen per cent, during these ten years; America became famous for inventions; her farms doubled in value, as did both her imports and her exports; and the tonnage of her vessels increased greatly. Such are the blessings of liberty in commerce.