Education Reforms in Early 19th Century American History

Jul 15, 2010 Michael Streich

One Room School Houses Served All Ages - Photo by Author

Reforms in education in the 1830s and 1840s resulted in free and compulsory public education in order to develop a generation of civic minded citizens.

By the mid-1830s, American education underwent a significant transformation that resulted in free public education for all of the nation’s children. These changes are linked to the period of Jacksonian democracy as well as the spirit of reform that affected society in general. Education helped to democratize and standardize a system that sought to promote good morals as well as Protestant virtues. At the same time, however, such goals alienated the growing number of Catholic immigrants who saw the Protestant religious influence in the public schools as a threat to their belief systems and faith tradition.

Early Educational Reform in the United States

Prior to the efforts of Horace Mann in Massachusetts, education of youth had been haphazard. Apprenticeships represented educational efforts in earlier decades. Poor children were instructed in “pauper” schools. By the early 19th century, however, the nation’s population was growing, large numbers of immigrants were fleeing conditions in Europe, and industrialization was employing ever greater numbers of laborers.

Horace Mann successfully pushed for free public schools for all children in Massachusetts, a policy adopted by other states such as New York, and carried to Congress in an effort at universalizing free formative education by Mann when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1848. According to historian Page Smith, by 1850 there were 80, 985 public schools in the nation, 91, 966 teachers, and 119 colleges.

Mann also improved teacher training in an effort to standardize what was being taught. This included a living wage as well as the professionalization of teaching as a career. Students were taught the proverbial “three R’s,” reading, writing, and arithmetic. They were also required to master history, grammar, and geography. An important goal was to pair rote learning with Protestant ideology, including the notion that Americans were God’s chosen people.

Democratizing Education in Early American History

Mann stated that, “Education…is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” According to Mann, “Education is our only political safety.” In the free public classrooms, children from a variety of backgrounds sat side-by-side learning the same things. Education afforded equal opportunities to every child. It should be noted, however, that the wealthy class continued to send their sons to elite private schools or venerable old public schools like Boston Latin, the oldest such school, founded in 1635. In addition, the nation experienced an expansion of vocational schools.

European Immigrants and Parochial Schools

Irish and German immigrants entered the United States through Boston and New York. In many cases, Irish immigrants traveled first to Canada and then made their way to Boston. Most of these immigrants were Roman Catholic. In New England, anti-Catholic bias began with the first settlements of the Calvinist-minded English – Puritans and separatists, who despised Catholicism. These biases were still evident in the early 19th century.

Because a Protestant-dominated education system promoted Protestant beliefs in the public schools, Catholic students were subjected to a curriculum that disparaged Catholicism. According the Page Smith, “McGuffey Readers were a remarkable amalgam of pious essays and literary pieces…heavily interspersed with scriptural texts.” These texts came from the King James Version of the Bible.

Catholics felt the need to establish their own schools, not only to counter the anti-Catholic bias in public schools, but to educate their children in the fundamentals of their own faith tradition. Pope Pius IX, in the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, stated that, “Catholics cannot approve a system of education for youth apart from the Catholic faith, and disjointed from the authority of the church.” In 1853, the First Plenary Council in Baltimore dictated that all bishops establish parish schools. This action was taken during the height of Nativist attitudes and the popularity of the Know-Nothing Party.

Goals and Outcomes of American Education in the 19th Century

Educational goals tend to change as social and economic conditions change. In the 19th Century, a common educational goal was to produce intelligent citizens able to function in a democratic society. Throughout the century, the expansion of immigration demonstrated the need to educate children that would be functional in English, understand and participate in the democratic process, and develop a morality consistent with virtuous behavior.

References:

• Jonathan Messerli, Horace Mann: a Biography (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1972)
• Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume 4 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)
• Timothy Walch, Parish School: A History of American Parochial Education from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Herder and Herder, 1996)

© 2010 Michael Streich

 The Philippine War: White Man's Burden

January 7, 2012 Michael Streich. Copyright

The Philippine War broke out before the United States Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris, ending the Spanish-American War. Conflict in the Philippines represented American endeavors to join the club of imperialist nations. Efforts to turn the archipelago into an American colony were motivated, in part, by the notion of exceptionalism, a view still held today and used to justify foreign policy initiatives. The Philippine War carried Manifest Destiny into the twentieth century and continues to characterize a lesson still unlearned in American foreign policy.

 

American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny

 

During the November 22, 2011 debates involving Republican candidates for the presidency, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney encouraged people, “to take advantage of the extraordinary examples of the West and freedom represent for their people.” Romney was referring to U.S. policy in the Middle East, pointing to American exceptionalism, a term he has used in the past to refer to the U.S. as, among other things, the bearer and guarantor of democracy.

 

The Filipino people in 1899 could corroborate this view of Anglo-Saxonism. Emilio Aguinaldo is often portrayed as an insurgent leader of a Philippine guerilla movement rejecting American goodwill and brutally killing U.S. soldiers after the Spanish-American War ended; President McKinley, goaded by the same imperialists that had steered the nation into war with Spain, became convinced that God had given the Asian nation to the U.S.

 

Historian James Ford Rhodes, writing in 1922, states that “President McKinley was a conscientious Methodist, and he fully believed that in the Philippines the white man’s burden was laid upon the U.S.” Rhodes, citing two McKinley-administration sources, notes that the Filipinos “attacked the American soldiers at Manila.” Recent scholarship, however, demonstrates that an American sentry fired first, killing a Filipino soldier who had been drinking. That shot led to a war resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. In some cases, entire villages were massacred, including the killing of local priests.

 

Conducting the Philippine War

 

Over one hundred years before the Abu Ghraib disclosures (Spring 2004) and the national debate over water-boarding as a method of torture, American soldiers used the “water cure” on the Filipino people. One of the atrocities that galvanized the nation into supporting a war against Spain was the Spanish concentration camp system in Cuba. After the war ended, the U.S. used the same strategy in the Philippines to pacify the Filipinos and end the insurgency.

 

Writing in 1935, historian Albert Weinberg notes that, “…American expansionists conceived force in its various degrees as the means of fulfilling the destined duty of extending civilization to the unappreciative race of color.” Weinberg, as do other historians, concedes that expansionism under McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt was merely an extension of a century characterized by continental conquest over European land claims, Mexican sovereignty regarding the western territories, and Native American claims. According to Weinberg, “…the principle of consent of the governed had been violated in letter so often that imperialism should have seemed as traditional as philosophical democracy.”

 

Imperialism in the Name of Freedom

 

Aguinaldo was given verbal assurances by American diplomats as well as Admiral Dewey that the United States wanted nothing more than to assist the Filipino people in their struggle for independence. While Dewey’s flotilla destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila, Aguinaldo’s soldiers defeated Spanish forces on land.

 

The United States, however, viewed the Filipinos as a people unfit for self-government. Additionally, there was anxiety that other European nations, notably Germany, might attempt to annex the island nation. In a letter to McKinley, Secretary of State John Hay warned of Germany’s “intriguing” with Spain to gain control of the Philippines.

 

Support for the war resulted from propaganda and misinformation. The Filipinos were depicted as barbaric and uncivilized. Colonizing endeavors were assisted by the same Philippine elites that had collaborated with Spanish rule. According to Renato and Letizia Constantino, many of these elites, “…went over to the American side, demoralizing the people in their anti-colonial resistance and giving the American imperialists the necessary propaganda tools…”

 

The Philippine War represented one of the first steps toward an American foreign policy that, though well meaning, was misguided and littered with what today is called collateral damage. Rather than mentoring a new nation in the ideals of freedom and justice, American action in the Philippines created animosity and long-held suspicions. Exceptionalism as a definition for superiority and the arrogance of power will never win the hearts and minds of freedom-seeking people. This was the lesson not learned by the Roosevelt administration when it declared mission accomplished in the Philippines and began the process of colonial rule.

 

References:

 

James Bradley, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War (Back Bay Books, 2009)

Frank Bruni, “Torture and Exceptionalism,” The New York Times, November 14, 2011

Renato and Letizia Constantino, The Philippines: The Continuing Past (Quezon City: The Foundation For Nationalist Studies, 1999)

G.J.A. O’Toole, The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898 (W.W. Norton & Company, 1984)

James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations 1897-1909 (The Macmillan Company, 1922)

Albert K Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1935)

 

Second Great Awakening and American Religion

Understanding the evolution of a uniquely American religious experience begins with the fiery and emotional early 19th century that gave rise to modern denominations.

By

Michael Streich

on Aug 6, 2009

In the early to mid-19th century, religious life in the United States followed the same patterns as emerging democratic traditions. Religion became intensely personal and emotional, inviting individual participation within an often turbulent sea of changes. The Second Great Awakening was as much a byproduct of the fervent transformations in economic and cultural life as the rise of Utopian experimental movements and social reforms. Each transformation sought to acclimate personal needs within a rapidly changing society. For religion, this was most often identified with apocalyptic notions that rejected the social status quo.

Free Will and Revivalism

Although religious revivalism began in the late 18th century within the frontier areas of middle America, by the early 19th century spiritually hungry people were joining religious communes like the Shakers and being called to a “born again” life by evangelists like Charles Finney. Mainstream evangelical groups like the Baptists saw fragmentation as sub-sects formed out of existing church groups like the Free Will Baptists, Universal Baptists, and Free Communion Baptists.

Whether Baptist, Methodist, or any variation thereof, the central message was one of individual conversion. Conversion was the first step in Christian morality. Groups like the Shakers sought to live out what they called “authentic Christianity.” Revivalist temperament feed on spontaneous prayer, biblical exposition, and the call to repentance. Evangelical Christianity preached against the sins of alcoholism, a significant social problem.

Apocalyptic Imagery

The Second Great Awakening gave rise to a vibrant Adventist movement. In 1843-44 William Miller led his followers up mountain tops to await the coming of Christ. His group, the Millerites, ultimately formed the core of the 7th Day Adventist Church as well as the Church of God Adventist. Other Millerites joined the emerging Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, sometimes referred to as Mormons.

Apocalyptic images included Old Testament “fire and brimstone” and featured a God who was not averse to punishing for sin. Unlike late 20th or early 21st century Christians that tend to emphasize the New Testament and all but ignore the Old, 19th century Christians saw the Bible as a totality. When President Lincoln quoted Scripture in his Second Inaugural Address, he used both parts of the Bible and tied the passages together. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin ends with a “jeremiad” that predicts the wrath of God upon the American nation for the evils of slavery.

The 1831 Nat Turner slave revolt in Southern Virginia was led by a highly intelligent slave who knew the Bible and was convinced that God had sent him “signs” designed to liberate the slaves. His understanding of Old Testament scripture was no less meaningful than the many sects and movements throughout the nation that harbored millennial expectations. This was even true of John Brown, whose knowledge of the Bible inspired him to act as God’s avenging angel.

Second Great Awakening and the Civil War

Ronald White’s book on Lincoln’s Second Inaugural claims that Civil War soldiers were the most literate soldiers in the history of the American military, particularly in terms of their Bible literacy. As White concludes, these were men that had come out of the Second Great Awakening. Is it possible that part of the intense motivations that led to many bloody battlefields were rooted in personal lessons taken from the revivalist, apocalyptic messages of popular American religion?

Lincoln himself said it well: “both read the same Bible and pray to the same God.” Yet both sides interpreted differently. Unlike Europe, there was no “state church” in America. The barriers between church and state allowed the revivalism of the Second Great Awakening, which produced a teeming and often turbulent set of religious variables.

Sources:

• Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992)
• Basil Miller, Charles Finney (Dimension Books, 1941)
• Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Vol. 4 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)
• Ronald C. White, Jr., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002)

Copyright Michael Streich

 

Mormons in the American Religious Experience

April 22, 2012 M.Streich  Suite101

The founding and expansion of the Latter-Day Saints represents certain core values in the American frontier experience.

The Old Testament Book of Daniel provided justification for the construction of Zion, a New Jerusalem on American shores: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” (2.44) Similarly, the Book of Mormon declares, “…I will fortify this land against all other nations. And he that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God.” Joseph Smith’s beliefs came out of the American Second Great Awakening and, as such, bear all of the hallmarks of an American frontier religion.

Founding of the Mormons

They are called Mormons and had a humble beginning in Palmyra, New York. Like other distinctly American groups focusing on millennial promises, the Mormons were looked upon with suspicion and fear. Like Shaker communities, Mormons did not turn away free blacks. As with Shakers, Mormons offered a unique communal experience that equalized all members.

The early life of Joseph Smith hardly points to his later years as a founder and leader of an enduring religion. According to historian Page Smith, he was, “a rather feckless youth, given to tall tales and digging for buried treasure.” As a teenager, however, Smith underwent a “conversion experience” that included visions and, ultimately, the ability to translate hitherto unknown events from golden plates.

Joseph Smith translated the golden plates provided to him by the angel Moroni in 1827. This was the beginning of the Book of Mormon. By 1837 the American nation sank into severe depression – a “panic” that seemed to mock individualism and capitalism. The established historical churches – both Protestant and Catholic, were part of the old world system rejected by Smith and by other prophets establishing Utopian communities in the wake of social and economic uncertainty. Historian Page Smith notes that, “…those whom life dealt a bad hand, the church of the Latter-Day Saints offered fresh hope.”

Connecting Jesus to America

For Smith’s Mormons, a new belief for a latter age brought Jesus to the New World on the terms of that New World. God’s son preached to the Native Americans and, in so doing, interjected God more directly into the American experience than any old world religion could have done. Mormon communities were theocratic and highly organized.

Under Joseph Smith’s leadership, the church rapidly grew. Opposition from neighbors, however, established a pattern of continual westward migration to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Mormon beliefs were perceived as a threat by the established faith traditions, such as the practice of plural marriage. In Missouri, a slave state, part of the anti-Mormon feelings derived from the Latter-Day Saints’ view regarding free blacks.

The Church Moves West

Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by an angry mob in 1844. Their westward migration continued under the leadership of Brigham Young. The Mormons settled in Utah where they were able to establish their “kingdom” without outside interference. By the late 1850’s, however, under the presidency of James Buchanan, U.S. troops arrived in Utah, determined to force compliance with U.S. laws; the successful completion of the earlier Mexican War in 1847 brought the territory under U.S. control.

Joseph Smith was a charismatic leader and a visionary. A product of the Second Great Awakening, he forged a church organization that had broad appeal. The poet John Greenleaf Whittier commented that, “They contrast strongly the miraculous power of the gospel in the Apostolic times with the present state of our nominal Christianity.” Smith, in early 1844, declared himself a presidential candidate, but his intention never led to serious consideration. Mormon theology conflicts with historical Christianity, but its founding and experience is uniquely American.

References:

• Brian J.L. Berry, America’s Utopian Experiments: Communal Havens From Long-Wave Crises (Dartmouth College: University Press of New England, 1992)
• Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992)
• Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

 The American Religious Revival of 1857

In August 1857 the United States slipped into another economic downturn, fueled by excessive speculation and inflation. The emerging Republican Party blamed the “Panic of 1857” on a newly enacted tariff, passed by Democrats, the caused several Northeastern manufacturers to close their doors. By September, the stock market was falling, banks were closing, and Americans were facing hard times. One important result of the 1857 Panic, however, was a major religious revival that began in the large cities of the Northeast. This national revival produced several significant consequences on the eve of the nation’s bloodiest war.

 

The Revival of 1858 as an Extension of the Second Great Awakening

 

The Second Great Awakening brought intense revivalism and social reform to American society in the first three decades of the 19^th Century. Although the spirit of that revivalism continued on, it slowly weakened as Americans became more prosperous and were forced to deal with new issues such as Manifest Destiny. The mass migration of Americans to California during the 1849 gold rush is an example of the quest for wealth and the departure from the revivalist mentality.

 

The Revival of 1858 was a direct consequence of the dire economic conditions in America. It was a totally spontaneous movement that began in New York City through the formation of businessmen’s prayer meetings. There were no leaders of the movement, unlike earlier revivals associated with great ministers like Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney. It was facilitated, in part, by the YMCA which had been founded in 1844 and by the telegraph.

 

Revivalism Prepares American to Fight the Civil War

 

The movement spread from New York to Boston, Philadelphia, and other eastern cities, partially due to the telegraph which enabled swifter communication. A growing newspaper community began to report on the revival. The movement soon spread to the South, affecting both blacks and whites.

 

Professor of American Religious history, Ronald C. White, Jr., comments that “Stonewall” Jackson went door-to-door in Virginia soliciting donations for the American Bible Society. He was also a Sunday school teacher. The Revival of 1858 gave impetus to Bible societies and tract missionary work.

 

Professor Warren A. Candler claims that the Revival of 1858 resulted in on-going revivals in both Union and Confederate military camps and that it directly impacted the spirituality of field commanders like Robert E. Lee. Revivalism also thrived on the jeremiad, the Old Testament idea that God’s judgment would be visited on the unrepentant.

 

Thus, although the revival changed people’s lives, as a nation, everyone was caught up in a terrible war that President Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural Address, equated with divine judgment for the sin of slavery. But revivalism also conveyed forgiveness, a theme echoed in the last paragraph of that celebrated address.

 

Revivals, Reform, and Economic Hard Times

 

Historically, peak revivalism in America coincided with times of social and economic upheaval. 1858 was one such example. Economic calamities often result in the afflicted seeking solace. Out of this, revivalism is born. Out of revivalism, social reforms emerged such as during the Second Great Awakening. In this sense, the spirit of revivalism overlaps other areas of life even though they may be secular. Revivalism has also always challenged the rededicated and newly converted to live righteously.

 

In America, this led to Prohibitionist movements as early as the 1830s. Abolition had roots in revivalism as did prison reform, reforms in education, and the various purity campaigns waged to eradicate vice such as prostitution. But the 1858 revival could not stop the Civil War, in part, because – as Lincoln said, “both read the same Bible” and prayed to the same God.

 

Sources:

 

Warren A. Candler, Great Revivals and the Great Republic (Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South, Lamar & Barton, 1924)

James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)

Ronald C. White, Jr., Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002)

published August 13, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

 Thanksgiving Hymns 

Thanksgiving has always been associated with blessings from God and recognition of the bountiful harvest. From earliest days bread was symbolic of that harvest and blessing. In the New Testament numerous passages refer to Jesus “breaking bread” and “giving thanks.” In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus prays, “give us our daily bread.” Over the centuries, such sentiments, though still part of public and private prayers, became expressed in song, especially at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving hymns express both praise and the fruits of God’s blessings.

 

Come, Ye Thankful People Come is the Most Enduring American Thanksgiving Hymn

 

As late as the 1960s, Come, Ye Thankful People Come was included in song books for American children to learn. The 1961 edition of the Childcraft series, sold alongside World Book Encyclopedia, included the Protestant hymn in the section on “Songs of the Seasons and Festivals.”

 

Set to music in 1858 by George Elvey, the words were composed by Henry Alford in 1844. Significantly, 1858 was the year evangelical revivalism swept the American nation after the recession of 1857. Both men lived in England but the hymn took America by storm.

 

The first stanza refers to the gathering in of the harvest, stating, “God our Maker doth provide For our wants to be supplied...” Alford, a scholar of the Bible at Cambridge and of New Testament Greek, knew the significance of God providing for the needs of his people.

 

Thus, in stanza two, he reminds that, “All the world is God’s own field, Fruit unto his praise to yield…” Throughout the Old and New Testaments, Creation itself speaks to God’s power and love and his on-going promise to provide that daily bread, much as he provided the manna in the wilderness.

 

The Last two stanzas spiritualize the Thanksgiving harvest, comparing it to the church, which will be taken home. This was a common theme in an age that had acute millennial beliefs. Stanza three reminds the reader of Jesus’ comments regarding evangelism: “The fields are white unto harvest…” (Luke 10.2) The symbolism of harvest and evangelization is unmistakable.

 

Hymns of General Thanksgiving and Acknowledgment of God’s Blessings

 

Although general thanksgiving is a part of every Sunday worship service, Thanksgiving highlights a specific reason to gather – in America as a remembrance of that first Pilgrim thanksgiving as well as the blessings of harvest. Many Protestant congregations sing the Doxology every Sunday, which begins with the words, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”

 

We Gather Together, a Thanksgiving hymn traced to a Netherlands folk song, is such an example. Now Thank We All Our God, written by Martin Rinkart at the time of the Thirty Years’ War (ended 1648), became part of Felix Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony, often referred to as his Hymn of Praise. Rinkart was a Lutheran minister; Mendelssohn came from a Jewish family but later in life identified with the Lutheran faith and was heavily influenced by J.S. Bach.

 

For the Beauty of the Earth is another popular Thanksgiving hymn, written by another Englishman, Follitt S. Pierpoint in the mid-19^th century. Pierpoint was entranced by the nature around him, inspiring him to write the hymn. The beauty of nature has often yielded such hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Silent Night, for example, was written by Father Joseph Mohr after contemplating the beauty of creation and its connection to the birth of Christ in Bethlehem.

 

Thanksgiving Hymns Tell of God’s Actions as Creator

 

For people of all faiths the visible act of creation replayed yearly in the seasons attests to a Creator who blesses those that turn to him. In the hymn How Great Thou Art, the composer begins with the line, “Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy Hand hath made…” Originally a Swedish hymn, the words have changed over the years. The contemporary lyrics were popularized by George Beverley Shea and the Billy Graham Crusades.

 

Making a Joyful Noise at Thanksgiving

 

Psalm 100 exhorts God’s children to, “shout joyfully to the Lord” and to “…come before His presence with singing.” In the New Testament, Paul counsels the Colossians to,” Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you…singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Even on a purely secular level, this message has been reinforced by song in America. In 1954, Bing Crosby, in the Paramount film White Christmas, sings, “When I am worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep…”

 

Thanksgiving hymns point to those blessings which, in many cases, might be just enough to celebrate the feast. In Philippians 4:19, Paul again reminds the Christians at Philippi that, “my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” This then is the essence of Thanksgiving hymns as reminders that God’s people are never forgotten. Their God will supply their immediate needs and, as limited as they might be, still point to God’s creation and the bounty of the harvest.

 

Sources:

 

Neil Douglas – Klotz, translator and commentator, Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus  (Harper & Row, 1990)

Favorite Hymns of Praise, (Tabernacle Publishing Company, 1967)

The Hymnal for Worship & Celebration Word Music, 1986)

Service Book and Hymnal of the Lutheran Church in America (Commission on the Liturgy and The Commission on the Hymnal, 1958)

New American Standard Bible (Moody Press, 1973)

Published November 1, 2010. Copyright retained by M.Streich and estate.

 

American Revolutionary War Ballads

Feb 12, 2011 Michael Streich

Tea Party Activists celebrated Through Ballads - Library of Congress image

War ballads emphasized courage and sacrifice while promoting the idea of a free America following the actions of tea party activists in colonial Boston.

Ballads have always told a story and the Revolutionary War was no different. In 1776 the hanging of Captain Nathan Hale prompted a ballad attesting to Hale’s courage, although the lyrics fail to mention Hale’s famous quote: “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” Three years earlier another ballad identified itself as the “rallying song of the tea party.” According to the first stanza, the writer states, “…tell King George we’ll pay no taxes on his foreign tea…”

Revolutionary War Ballads Call for Action and Reward Courage by Colonial Patriots

Nathan Hale was a spy. According to writer Henry Wiencek, Hale borrowed the famous quote from the play Cato. “In his last moment Hale took comfort from knowing that he had lived according to the highest imaginable ideal.” The ballad reinforces Hale’s convictions: “…To Heaven he went, to Heaven he went.”

The ballad’s author compares Hale to a martyr. Hale is the victim much as all colonists are victims of the “…pale king of terrors…” The final stanza challenges King George III to, “go frighten the slave…,” referring to the king as a tyrant. Hale’s final act was to pray for his mother. Identifying the king with American slavery also figured in the initial Jeffersonian draft of the Declaration.

Song of the Tea Party in 1773 Rallied the Sons of Liberty

The tea party song references the destruction of tea in Boston harbor, although East India company tea was left to rot in other ports like Charleston. “Rally, Mohawks! Bring out your axes…”

The writer refers to the hated tea as “vile Bohea,” a term used for substandard tea. After dealing with the tea, the dissidents were urged to meet at the Green Dragon, a popular tavern in colonial Boston frequented by the Sons of Liberty.

The tea party became a symbol of outrage and concerted action against the king and Parliament. This theme was addressed in the 1774 ballad “Free America.”

Americans Inherited a Land of Opportunity and Freedom

“Free America,” attributed to Joseph Warren, begins with references to Ancient Greece and Rome. Americans had similar opportunities in the “paradise of pleasure.” America was “torn from a world of tyrants” in order to form a “new dominion.” In many ways, Warren’s observations were an extension of the Puritan “City on a Hill” vision. Warren also differentiates between the Europe of old and a new mission. If Europe emptied “all her force,” the colonists would “oppose, oppose…”

Although some ballads like Yankee Doodle and the Battle of the Kegs mocked the British, others told a story of freedom and courage. These songs became part of the independence story of a unique people. Added to a generation after the war by writers like Henry W. Longfellow and James F.Cooper, they perpetuated a drama still associated with the new birth of freedom.

The American Revolution not only created a new nation, but rejected the old orders of Europe. Rejecting the strict social classes in England may have been related to the sympathies of the English upper classes that tended to view colonials as provincials.

After 1783, this included the established Anglican Church (bishops in the House of Lords favored war, rejecting any conciliatory measures). Churchmen supporting independence included Methodists and other Protestant groups. The established, state church, however, supported Parliamentary policies.

Ballads help to better understand how the colonials saw themselves as well as their cause. Ballads reflected the thoughts of everyday Americans, willing to fight for what Warren called a “free America.”

Sources:

• Walter Blair and others, The Literature of the United States (Scott, Foresman and Company, 1953)
• Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, The Spirit of Seventy-Six (HarperCollins, 1967)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

 American Imperialism was best justified by the message of spreading the Gospel while at the same time promoting capitalism.

In 1898 Albert Beveridge, campaigning in Indiana for the US Senate seat he would hold for twelve years, delivered The March of the Flag speech promoting imperialism as a national and divine mission that began with Thomas Jefferson. Beveridge used religious references and invoked God eleven times for an audience that expected politicians to know the Bible and equated divine Providence with the on-going notions of Manifest Destiny.

 

Church and State in Pre-Modern America

 

One of the consequences of the Second Great Awakening had been a fusion between the sacred and the secular. Henry Ward Beecher successfully promoted the idea that there was no division between church and state. As the century moved toward Civil War, Americans became ever more Bible literate. In For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, historian James McPherson argues that Civil War armies were…the most religious in American history.” The South used the Bible to support slavery while the North interpreted scriptures in the light of Emancipation.

 

By 1865 Abraham Lincoln would refer to this in his Second Inaugural address, stating that, “both read the same Bible.” Lincoln’s Second Inaugural contains both Old and New Testament allusions, brilliantly crafted into his argument, a subject explored by Ronald C. White in his book, Lincoln’s Greatest Speech. The fact remains that enough evidence exists to demonstrate that Americans not only knew the Bible well, but expected their elected leaders to apply religious rationale to national decisions.

 

Speech As Sermon

 

In a decade in which William Jennings Bryan had popularized the Cross of Gold and William McKinley began his Inaugural Address by stating that Americans should, “obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps,” Albert Beveridge likened Americans to “His chosen people.” The issue was whether, “the American people continue their march toward commercial supremacy” by embracing imperialism.

 

Beveridge asks, “Shall we be as the man who had one talent and hid it, or as he who had ten talents and used them until they grew to riches?” He knew that his audience would apply the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25: 14-30; Luke 19: 12-28) to the charge that “the empire of our principles” be “established over the hearts of all mankind.” This was a time church attending Americans sang from memory hymns like H. Ernest Nichol’s, We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations (1896) that includes such lines as, “We’ve a Savior to show to the nations…That all of the world’s great people Might come to the truth of God…”

 

The final paragraph begins, “Wonderfully has God guided us,” and gives examples of divine help from Bunker Hill to Commodore Dewey’s naval victory in the Philippines five months before this speech was delivered. Beveridge even credits God with the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada, attempting to demonstrate a trend: God was on the side of the Anglo-Saxon race and the next phase would be imperialism.

 

Weaving the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 19-20) into pro-imperialist speeches tied together the March of the Flag with Christian Missions. It was a natural fusion of Biblical injunction and state policy. Like Kipling’s “…sullen peoples, Half Devil and Half Child,” the non-white world could not govern itself without the civilizing affects of benevolent Americans. “Do we owe no duty to the world?” Beveridge asks. The March of the Flag demonstrates how inseparable religion and politics was in 19^th Century America.

 

Sources

 

Beveridge, Albert J. The Meaning of the Times and Other Speeches (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1908; reprinted 1968)

 

Going Green Began with Teddy Roosevelt

Conservation in the Early Years of the Twentieth Century

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Mar 2, 2010 Michael Streich

Conservation and reclamation were pivotal issues for President Theodore Roosevelt. His actions to protect the American environment inspired a national resolve.

Conservation was a defining element of the eight-year presidential administration of Teddy Roosevelt. As 21st Century Americans seek to conserve and save the environment, it is wise to recall the words and actions of the man who increased the National Forests from 43 million acres to 194 million acres, often in the face of determined criticism from lumber barons and their Congressional defenders. Speaking at the Grand Canyon during his Western Tour, Roosevelt admonished his listeners to, “keep it for your children, you children’s children, and for all who come after you.”

The Legacy of Conservation and the Future Challenge

Roosevelt entered his final year as president hosting what came to be called the Convention of Governors. Acting as chairman in the East Room of the White House, Roosevelt recounted the successes of his administration in matters of conservation and water reclamation but warned that future attitudes would dictate how natural treasures should be safeguarded from unscrupulous “malefactors” of great wealth. According to Roosevelt, “The conservation of our national resources is literally vital for the future of the nation.”

The Role of Gifford Pinchot

Appointed Chief Forester by Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot was obsessed with the preservation of American forests. Like Roosevelt, he deplored the wanton abuse of water, forest reserves, and minerals by the great trusts that manipulated both state and national government in order to secure federal lands for industrial exploitation. Pinchot, a close friend of Teddy Roosevelt and a member of the president’s inner circle, had managed to save million of acres, often seeing the legislation pass through Congress while its members were preoccupied with other matters.

Pinchot had received a classical education but also spent time in Europe, notably France, observing how Europeans managed their forests, practiced by professional foresters for over 300 years. Europe had lost many of its forests during the first years of pre-industrialization. England, for example, imported lumber for ships, first from the American colonies, and then from Russia where it was abundant. It was Pinchot who devised the term “conservation” to identify administration policy in terms of environmentalism.

Americans, however, were blessed with millions of acres of forest. The vast resources of the land encouraged exploitation. Both Pinchot and Roosevelt knew that unless this attitude changed, a great national treasure could be lost. Pinchot transferred the Forestry Bureau to the Department of Agriculture and ran the new service with trained foresters. Roosevelt, using the force of executive orders, created dozens of new forest reserves when anticonservationist senators blocked legislation or added amendments to pending legislation that would cede federal lands to corporate trusts.

Roosevelt’s Dual Meaning of Conservation

While Roosevelt wanted to preserve the nation’s forests, he also believed that the use of natural resources should be permitted judiciously. According to historian R. Hal Williams, “To Roosevelt, conservation meant the wise use of natural resources, not locking them away…” Roosevelt intimated this during a 1907 Arbor Day speech in which he said, “Any nation which in its youth lives only for the day…must expect the penalty of the prodigal...” Roosevelt reminded his listeners that one cannot reap without sowing. The wise use of natural resources had to be tended and was tied, by Roosevelt, to a sense of morality.

TR as a Contemporary “Green” Hero

Although some critics will disagree, pointing out that Roosevelt’s “conservation” was not full preservation – and did not impair his love of hunting (historian Page Smith writes that, according to Roosevelt, a day without shooting some animal was a “wasted day”), Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to enunciate conservation as a national issue of importance. His actions, by contemporary standards, might not fulfill the notion of “going green,” but they were a first major step toward an attitude and a perception focused on ending the abuse of the nation’s natural treasures.

References:

• Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (NY: Random House, 2001)
• James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations 1897-1909 (NY: The Macmillan Company, 1922)
• Theodore Roosevelt, “Conservation as a National Duty”
• Theodore Roosevelt, 7th Annual Message to Congress December 3, 1907
• Page Smith, America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, 7th Ed (NY: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1985)