Fresh from their victory in the War of Independence, the young American nation struggled to get off on the right foot. In doing so, the early leaders of the United States, such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, looked to create an identity for the young nation, a set of ideals and principles that could explain just what America stood for. Thus, the United States attempted to find its voice.
One hundred years of colonial development had begun this process with the development of such important concepts as representative democracy, separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. The War of Independence and the writing of The Constitution of the United States became central to the concept of the young nation. However, several questions remained to be answered, both relating to the Constitution as well as to our future.
· What about those not protected by the Constitution, such as women and slaves?
· Would we be a country of elites, or would democracy truly find its way to the masses?
· What type of country would we have – an agricultural paradise as espoused by Thomas Jefferson or an industrial giant, endorsed by Alexander Hamilton?
· Just how would we balance the power of the federal government with the freedom of the individual states?
· Would we truly stay a nation of laws, or become a nation of leaders?
· What would our place in the world be? Would we look to involve ourselves in the affairs of Europe or stay isolated to ourselves?
The American West and our expansion/conquering of it would provide our greatest identity next to the concept of democracy. Manifest Destiny, or the God –given drive from sea to sea, would be the perfect extension of the Puritan “City on the Hill.” Thus we were developing a nation that would be an example for the rest of the world. However, this westward expansion brought a few more questions.
· What about the Native Americans that occupied these lands before the white settlers arrived?
· What about the other nations who laid claim to these lands, such as England, France, Russia, Spain and eventually Mexico?
· How would we develop this precious resource, one unique in the world, without ruining it?
Thus, the United States embarked on this great “experiment.” Many of these question would be answered and resolved, others defied resolution. The brewing firestorm of the Civil War, the “firebell in the night” as Thomas Jefferson warned years earlier, would be the result of many of these unresolved conflicts. Seen by many as the greatest test of this young nation and its voice, it will also become a major part of what America is and what it stands for.
Let me be the first to ….
The actions of the early government will have profound effects on it’s future, setting precedents for all after them to follow. Since they are the first to do so, their decisions will take on increased importance. As the young country go through this trial period, it will begin to develop a definite “voice,” an answer to that question, “What is America?”
Federal power or State power?
In order to start the country on a secure financial footing, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed a Financial Program to Congress. He proposed that the federal government
· assume and honor all the debts incurred by the nation and the states during the war.
· He also proposed a National Bank, a private bank that would have an exclusive relationship with the federal government and it’s money.
· Finally, he proposed tariffs that would act to protect young industries such as textiles from European competition and revenue taxes to support the federal government.
Thomas Jefferson felt these programs gave the federal government excessive power over the individual states. This difference of opinion will continue and eventually lead to Civil War.
So that’s the party you are talking about!
Conflict between Jefferson and Hamilton led directly to the formation of the party system.
· The followers of Alexander Hamilton (Federalists) believed in the strengthening of the power of the federal government through the national bank and protective tariffs.
· Followers of Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republicans) wanted to save as much power as possible for the states and against a national bank and protective tariffs.
Sit down an let me pour you a drink…
One specific tax, a tax on whiskey production, angered farmers from western Pennsylvania. When a rebellion became imminent, Washington and Hamilton personally went to Pennsylvania to quell the uprising. The precedent was set that the laws of the country had to be followed, even if they seemed unfair.
If it does nothing for us…
Jefferson’s worries about the power of the Federalist Party stripping power from the people seemed to be happening with the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in
1798. These laws came very close to violating the 1st Amendment, making it harder to become a citizen, easier to be deported and easier to be imprisoned for speaking out against the government.
§ Jefferson (Kentucky Resolutions) and Madison (Virginia Resolutions) responded with the principle of states declaring federal laws unconstitutional if they went against the people they were to serve. Public reaction against these laws led to the downfall of the Federalist Party.
It is none of my business, is it?
An important precedent established in the early republic was that of neutrality – staying out of the wars of others. Immediately after the revolution, the United States was pressured to join either the French or the British in disputes ongoing between each other.
§ In 1793, the French ambassador to the U.S., Edmond Genet, defied Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality (1793) and outfitted private ships in American harbors to raid British ships.
§ In 1797, President Adams sent a team to France to seek peace. Three intermediaries who demanded a bribe for peace met them. (XYZ Affair).
In both cases, an outraged American public called for war, but the President refused and sought a compromise. Though we looked weak to the Europeans, we stayed out of war.
Can’t I Play too?
Where war was eventually used, it was consistent in the concept of protecting the American right to trade freely on the seas.
§ In 1801, Thomas Jefferson sent the navy to control the raiding of pirates off the northern coast of Africa, the Barbary Coast. The message was clear - we were going to protect the rights of American ships to trade on the open seas.
"We have met the enemy and they are ours"
§ In 1812, James Madison finally asked for a declaration of war against the British. The reasons included the impressment of American sailors and ship seizures, British complicity in arming Indians on the frontier, and simple territorial expansionism. The War of 1812, was basically fought to guarantee our right to trade freely on the seas, lakes, rivers and on the frontier.
§ In 1823, James Monroe declared that any more colonization in the Americas would be seen as an affront to American security and paramount to war (Monroe Doctrine) Thus, the concept of keeping open the doors of trade was solidified and would become the cornerstone of American foreign policy.
Homework Assignment #8
1. Discuss the Hamilton’s Financial Program.
2. Discuss the beginnings of the party system.
3. Discuss the principal behind both sides of the Whiskey Rebellion.
4. Discuss the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
5. Discuss how the United States stayed out of war at all costs.
a.
b.
6. Discuss how American foreign policy developed the concept of open doors.
a.
b.
c.
Wouldn’t a factory look great on that hill?
Economically, America began to take steps towards the Industrial Revolution.
§
Eli Whitney
introduced the concept of interchangeable parts in the North, which would
eventually lead to mass production and the assembly line in the early 1900’s.
In the South, his cotton gin made cotton much more lucrative and the Deep
South totally invested in “King Cotton,” a cash crop.
§ Samuel Slater developed the first textile mill in Rhode Island (1790).
The potholes are killing me!
The American System (1815) was a series of laws which helped to stimulate and unite the American economy. It included
§ a 2nd National Bank
§ a protective tariff (1816)
§ and federally funded transportation improvements.
The National Road was built (1811-1835) connecting Maryland and Illinois. The Erie Canal (1817-25) connected the Hudson River with Lake Erie, or effectively the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River when canals were built from Chicago to the Illinois River.
They let anyone be President!
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president. His campaign included mass rallies, speeches and other methods appealing to the masses. This ushered in a new era in American politics, where mass democracy was practiced. Jackson was the first president from west of the Appalachian Mountains and the first “common man.” The country had changed with the westward movement, the availability of cheap land in the west and the suffrage that came with it. This can be seen as the birth of the Democratic Party, the party of the people.
In class journal - This painting, The County Election, by George Caleb Bingham, is an early example of Genre painting. Genre paining tells a story. What story is this painting telling us about the development of democracy?
Homework Assignment #9
Discuss how two inventors effected the change to the factory system.
a.
b.
Discuss the transportation developments in the American System.
a.
b.
c.
3. Discuss the coming of Jacksonian democracy.
4. What had the Democratic Party evolved into under Andrew Jackson?
The Romantic Period, 1820-1860
Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion (Manifest Destiny) and the discovery of a distinctive American voice. The solidification of a national identity and the surging idealism and passion of Romanticism and Manifest Destiny nurtured the masterpieces of "the American Renaissance." Romantic ideas centered around art as inspiration, the search for the spiritual in nature, and metaphors of organic growth, as the Romantics reacted to the Rationalists.
In class journal: How does this painting of Niagara Falls by Frederick Church make you feel about nature?
Washington Irving
Irving transformed the Catskill Mountains along the Hudson River north of New York City into a fabulous, magical region. Irving gave America something it badly needed in the brash, materialistic early years: an imaginative way of relating to the new land. No writer was as successful as Irving at humanizing the land, endowing it with a name and a face and a set of legends. The story of "Rip Van Winkle," who slept for 20 years, waking to find the colonies had become independent, eventually became folklore. It was adapted for the stage, went into the oral tradition, and was gradually accepted as authentic American legend by generations of Americans.
James Fenimore Cooper
Cooper grasped the essential myth of America: it’s wilderness. Cooper's basic vision was of the ironic and tragic destruction of the wilderness, the new Eden that had attracted the colonists in the first place.
Natty Bumppo (Last of The Mohicans) embodies his vision of the frontiersman as a gentleman. Natty is the first famous frontiersman in American literature and the literary forerunner of countless cowboy and backwoods heroes. He is the idealized, upright individualist who is better than the society he protects. Based in part on the real life of American pioneer Daniel Boone, Natty Bumppo was a peaceful man adopted by an Indian tribe. Both Boone and the fictional Bumppo loved nature and freedom. They constantly kept moving west to escape the oncoming settlers they had guided into the wilderness, and they became legends in their own lifetimes.
Cooper's novels portray the successive waves of the frontier settlement: the original wilderness inhabited by Indians; the arrival of the first whites as scouts, soldiers, traders, and frontiersmen; the coming of the poor, rough settler families; and the final arrival of the middle class, bringing the first professionals -- the judge, the physician, and the banker. Each incoming wave displaced the earlier: Whites displaced the Indians, who retreated westward; the "civilized" middle classes who erected schools, churches, and jails displaced the lower- class individualistic frontier folk, who moved further west, in turn displacing the Indians who had preceded them. Cooper evokes the endless, inevitable wave of settlers, seeing not only the gains but the losses.
Thomas Cole
As the first great American painter, Cole established the landscape with scenes of the Hudson River Valley. Cole brought a sense of nostalgia to the wilderness. Cole also warned of the dangers of democracy falling into mob rule and was particularly afraid of the presidency of Andrew Jackson and the extension of democracy. His series of paintings, The Course of the Empire, showed the cycle of wilderness, to development of society, to anarchy, to destruction of that society and eventual wilderness again. He also painted his interpretation of manifest destiny in the person who represented it, the trailblazer Daniel Boone.
The Course of the Empire- Thomas Cole
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. One of his ancestors had been a judge in an earlier century, during trials in Salem of women accused of being witches. Hawthorne used the idea of a curse on the family of an evil judge in his novel The House of the Seven Gables. Many of Hawthorne's stories are set in Puritan New England, and his greatest novel, The Scarlet Letter (1850), has become the classic portrayal of Puritan America. It tells of the passionate, forbidden love affair linking a sensitive, religious young man, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and the sensuous, beautiful townsperson, Hester Prynne. Set in Boston around 1650 during early Puritan colonization, the novel highlights the Calvinistic obsession with morality, sexual repression, guilt and confession, and spiritual salvation.
Herman Melville
Moby-Dick is the epic story of the whaling ship Pequod and its "ungodly, god-like man," Captain Ahab, whose obsessive quest for the white whale Moby-Dick leads the ship and its men to destruction. This work, a realistic adventure novel, contains a series of meditations on the human condition. Whaling, throughout the book, is a grand metaphor for the pursuit of knowledge.
Although Melville's novel is philosophical, it is also tragic. Despite his heroism, Ahab is doomed and perhaps damned in the end. Nature, however beautiful, remains alien and potentially deadly. In Moby-Dick, Melville challenges Emerson's optimistic idea that humans can understand nature..
Historical references also enrich the novel. The ship Pequod is named for an extinct New England Indian tribe; thus the name suggests that the boat is doomed to destruction. Whaling was in fact a major industry, especially in New England: It supplied oil as an energy source, especially for lamps. Thus the whale does literally "shed light" on the universe. Whaling was also inherently expansionist and linked with the idea of manifest destiny, since it required Americans to sail round the world in search of whales (in fact, the present state of Hawaii came under American domination because it was used as the major refueling base for American whaling ships). The Pequod's crew members represent all races and various religions, suggesting the idea of America as a universal state of mind as well as a melting pot. Finally, Ahab embodies the tragic version of democratic American individualism. He asserts his dignity as an individual and dares to oppose the inexorable external forces of the universe.
Homework Assignment # 10
1. How did Romanticism present itself as a reaction to the Rationalist and the Enlightenment?
2. How did the following authors/painters represent this romantic Age?
a. Washington Irving
b. James Fenimore Cooper
c. Thomas Cole
d. Nathaniel Hawthorne
e. Herman Melville
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN by Nathaniel Hawthorne
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown.
"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "pr'ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed tonight. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard of herself, sometimes. Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year!"
"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!"
"Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons, "and may you find all well, when you come back."
"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee."
So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.
"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke, there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But, no, no! 'twould kill her to think it. Well; she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven."
With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.
"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him, as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!"
His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose, at Goodman Brown's approach, and walked onward, side by side with him.
"You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old South was striking, as I came through Boston; and that is full fifteen minutes agone."
"Faith kept me back awhile," replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected.
It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still, they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner-table, or in King William's court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought, that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light.
"Come, Goodman Brown!" cried his fellow-traveller, "this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary.
"Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter thou wot'st of."
"Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I convince thee not, thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest, yet."
"Too far, too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this path and kept"-
"Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interrupting his pause. "Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's War. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you, for their sake."
"If it be as thou sayest," replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel they never spoke of these matters. Or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness."
"Wickedness or not," said the traveller with the twisted staff, have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen, of divers towns, make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too- but these are state-secrets."
"Can this be so!" cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. "Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble, both Sabbath-day and lecture-day!"
Thus far, the elder traveller had listened with due gravity, but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.
"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted he, again and again; then composing himself, "Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don't kill me with laughing!"
"Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, "there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own!"
"Nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not, for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us, that Faith should come to any harm."
As he spoke, he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin.
"A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness, at night-fall!" said he. "But, with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods, until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with, and whither I was going."
"Be it so," said his fellow-traveller. "Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path."
Accordingly, the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road, until he had come within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words, a prayer, doubtless, as she went. The traveller put forth his staff, and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail.
"The devil!" screamed the pious old lady.
"Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller, confronting her, and leaning on his writhing stick.
"Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship, indeed?" cried the good dame. "Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But, would your worship believe it? my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane"-
"Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said the shape of old Goodman Brown.
"Ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cackling aloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me, there is a nice young man to be taken into communion tonight. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling."
"That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse, but here is my staff, if you will."
So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to Egyptian Magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.
"That old woman taught me my catechism!" said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment.
They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly, that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor, than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple, to serve for a walking-stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up, as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree, and refused to go any farther.
"Friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil, when I thought she was going to Heaven! Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith, and go after her?"
"You will think better of this by-and-by," said his acquaintance, composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself awhile; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along."
Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the road-side, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister, in his morning-walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his, that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it.
On came the hoof-tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's hiding-place; but owing, doubtless, to the depth of the gloom, at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the way-side, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky, athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tip-toe, pulling aside the branches, and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst, without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.
"Of the two, reverend Sir," said the voice like the deacon's, I had rather miss an ordination-dinner than tonight's meeting. They tell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode Island; besides several of the Indian powows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion."
"Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the minister. "Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the ground."
The hoofs clattered again, and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered, nor solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying, so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree, for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburthened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a Heaven above him. Yet, there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.
"With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!" cried Goodman Brown.
While he still gazed upward, into the deep arch of the firmament, and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith, and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once, the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accent of townspeople of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion-table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine, at Salem village, but never, until now, from a cloud of night. There was one voice, of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain. And all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.
"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying- "Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her, all through the wilderness.
The cry of grief, rage, and terror, was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.
"My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given."
And maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate, that he seemed to fly along the forest-path, rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward, with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while, sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Goodman Brown, when the wind laughed at him. "Let us hear which will laugh loudest! Think not to frighten me with your deviltry! Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powow, come devil himself! and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you!"
In truth, all through the haunted forest, there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew, among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter, as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous, than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance, with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meetinghouse. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out; and his cry was lost to his own ear, by its unison with the cry of the desert.
In the interval of silence, he stole forward, until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage, that had overgrown the summit of the rock, was all on fire, blazing high into the night, and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendant twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.
"A grave and dark-clad company!" quoth Goodman Brown.
In truth, they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro, between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen, next day, at the council-board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm, that the lady of the governor was there. At least, there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light, flashing over the obscure field, bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the church-members of Salem village, famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his reverend pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered, also, among their palefaced enemies, were the Indian priests, or powows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.
"But, where is Faith?" thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled.
Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung, and still the chorus of the desert swelled between, like the deepest tone of a mighty organ. And, with the final peal of that dreadful anthem, there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconverted wilderness, were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man, in homage to the prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke-wreaths, above the impious assembly. At the same moment, the fire on the rock shot redly forth, and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the apparition bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches.
"Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice, that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest.
At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees, and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood, by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well nigh sworn, that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke-wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms, and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she! And there stood the proselytes, beneath the canopy of fire.
"Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!"
They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend-worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage.
"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness, and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet, here are they all, in my worshipping assembly! This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widow's weeds, has given her husband a drink at bed-time, and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youth have made haste to inherit their father's wealth; and how fair damsels- blush not, sweet ones- have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the places-whether in church, bed-chamber, street, field, or forest- where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot. Far more than this! It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power- than my power at its utmost- can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each other."
They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed altar.
"Lo! there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad, with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream! Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of your race!"
"Welcome!" repeated the fiend-worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph.
And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness, in this dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the Shape of Evil dip his hand, and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw!
"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband. "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!"
Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not. Hardly had he spoken, when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind, which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp, while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.
The next morning, young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard, to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?" quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a little girl, who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.
Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?
Be it so, if you will. But, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath-day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear, and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.
By the middle of the 1840's the mood in the country had changed to one of expansion. Many Americans were increasingly drawn to the notion that the United States not only had the duty to extend its form of government, but that God Himself favored that effort. John O'Sullivan, the editor of the New York Morning News, would provide the expansionist with a rallying cry:
"The American claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federative self government entrusted to us."
Buy it all!
As
westward expansion began to reach the Mississippi River, the ability to
completely navigate the river became integral to trade. This could not be done
without the ability to sail by the city of New Orleans at the mouth of the
Mississippi River. The French controlled the city, so in 1803 President
Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to France to purchase New
Orleans. Napoleon, frustrated by his colonial experience, decided to offer the
whole territory from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains for 15 million
dollars (Louisiana
Purchase).
In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent into the territory
to explore and map the land, and to find a passage to the Oregon Territory.
Viva la Texas!
In 1821, Stephen Austin settled Texas, with permission from the Mexican government. By 1834 there were more than 20,000 Americans in Texas and Mexican authorities began to see the situation a bit differently. Mexico barred any further Anglo-American settlement, but more than 1,000 Americans were coming across the border illegally each month. Particularly upsetting to Mexico was the Anglo institution of slavery. (Isn't this an interesting twist on history!) By 1835 the Americans outnumbered the Mexican by 10 to 1! When Santa Anna was elected president of Mexico, he refused any accommodation on the Texans and the Texan Revolution was about to begin.
Remember the Alamo!
Santa Anna marched up to Texas with his full army, surrounded a small mission in San Antonio called the Alamo and charged on March 6, 1836, killing all of the soldiers. On April 21, 1836 Sam Houston (Commander of the Texan forces) caught Santa Anna by surprise at San Jacinto and totally defeated the Mexican army. Sam Houston was elected the first President of the Lone Star Republic. After Texas declared its independence, Sam Houston assumed the U.S. would immediately annex it. However the issue of slavery would prove to be a stumbling block for the next ten years.
54-40 or Fight!
In the Election of 1844 President Polk had campaigned with the slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight” in reference to the northern border of the Oregon Territory and the land dispute with the British. In 1846 a peaceful settlement divided the territory at the 49th Parallel, continuing the Line of 1818 border between Canada and the United States. This helped avoid a war with Britain at the same time as the impending conflict with Mexico.
From the Halls of Montezuma!
In 1845, Congress voted to admit Texas into the Union. Mexico did not recognize Texan independence so when it was admitted to the Union, tensions between the United States and Mexico led to the Mexican War of 1846. The spark that ignited the war was the border dispute over the southern boundary of Texas. President Polk had been elected in 1844 on the platform of manifest destiny, the god-given right of the country to exist from “sea to shining sea.” General Zachary Taylor led the invasion into northern Mexico at Monterrey and Buena Vista. General Winfield Scott led the landing at Vera Cruz and the march up to Mexico City. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo(1846) granted the U. S the Mexican Cession, which included California and the American southwest, for 15 million dollars.
Homework Assignment #11
1. Discuss the Louisiana Purchase.
2. Discuss Lewis and Clark.
3. Discuss Manifest Destiny.
4. Discuss the settling of Texas.
5. What upset the authorities of Mexico?
6. Discuss the Texan War of Independence.
7. Discuss the War With Mexico.
8. Discuss the concept of 54-40 or Fight!
You have how many wives?!!!
In 1820, during the period of great religious revivals that were sweeping through upstate New York, a young boy named Joseph Smith had an angel appear in front of him telling him to restore God's true church. (Mormons - Church of the Latter Day Saints). Smith moved his followers (over 600 within a year) west first to Ohio, then Missouri and finally Nauvoo (IL). Here, the Mormons built a thriving community. However, their success led to more persecution and the murder of both Smith and his brother Hiram. Brigham Young then moved the Mormons, along what would become known as the Mormon Trail, west to Utah in search of a place where they would not be bothered. Salt Lake City was founded in 1847.
Gold!
In 1848, while building a sawmill on the California property of John Sutter, workers found gold. (near Sacramento and San Francisco) This spurred the great California Gold Rush of 1849 as more than 80,000 men swarmed to California in 1849 alone! California grew to statehood quickly (1850) All of the surface gold was quickly exhausted, so very few of the prospectors found any riches at all. The mining industry then moved into it's second phase, where it was the big investors who could afford the expensive equipment to dig deep for gold that had all of the success. The onset of the Industrial Revolution in earnest after the Civil War not only brought larger corporations and created mining towns, but also changed the metals that were being to mined to those needed for the industrial process (silver, copper, iron, etc.) The most famous and productive mine was the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Colorado, the Yukon and the Black Hills (Dakotas) also experienced gold rushes.
Golden spike!
In 1863 construction began on the Transcontinental Railroad. The Central Pacific Railroad was built from Sacramento, California, using predominately Chinese labor and crossing the Sierra Mountains; while the Union Pacific Railroad was built from Omaha, Nebraska, using Irish labor and crossing the Rocky Mountains. In 1869 they met at Promontory Point, Utah, with the driving of the "golden spike."
The
real cowboy
By the 1850's, Americans had pretty much taken over the cattle industry in South Texas, driving their cattle south to ports on the Gulf of Mexico. After the Civil War, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving decided to drive their cattle north through Indian territory to Montana and the Union Pacific Railroad. The Goodnight-Loving Trail and the stories of profit brought on the age of the cattle drives.
He was the real McCoy!
Cattle dealer Joseph McCoy (yes, the real McCoy!) from Springfield, Illinois, approached several western towns with the idea of creating a shipping yard where the cattle drives and the railroad could be brought together. The first town to agree to his plan was Abilene, Kansas. The Chisholm Trial connected the longhorns from San Antonio, Texas to Abilene by way of Oklahoma Indian Territory. 35,000 cattle were shipped out of the Abilene yard to the stockyards in Chicago in that first year, 75,000 the next. Soon ranchers began to hire cowboys to drive their cattle north and an American legend was born.
Barbed wire
Along with the other aspects of the frontier, the cattle frontier was closed by the influx of farmers and their families. There were several factors that led to this influx of farmers.
· The Homestead Act of 1862 provided free land (160 acres) to anyone who would cultivate it for 5 years.
· Railroads opened up the west to settlers
· Inventions such as the steel plow, reaper and windmill made farming if the prairies possible.
· A determined government effort to defeat the Plains Indians and confine them to reservations.
The barbed wire that the homesteaders set up to keep in their animals in closed off the open plains needed for the cattle drives. In addition, horrible summer droughts in 1883 and 1886 were followed by the worst blizzard in American history in 1887. ("Die-up of 1887") The cattle industry then moved to the cattle ranch, rather than the cattle drive.
Homework Assignment #12
1. Discuss the forming of the Mormon Church and Salt Lake City.
2. Discuss the gold rush.
3. What changes took place in the mining industry.
4. Discuss the Transcontinental railroad.
5. Discuss the beginning of the cattle drive.
6. Discuss the beginning of the cattle town.
7. Discuss four factors that led to the influx of farmers into the Plains.
a.
b.
c.
d.
In class journal: Differ between these two paintings and their depiction of Native Americans.
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Trail of Tears
In 1816, Andrew Jackson and the U.S. army crossed into Spanish Florida to defeat the Seminole, driving the remnants of the tribe into the Everglades. Jackson went farther than his orders and occupied East Florida. In 1818, the United States informed Spain that the only way to avoid a war was for Spain to cede Florida to the United States (Adams-Onis Treaty, 1819). Between 1830 and 1840, in what became known as the Trail of Tears, the Confederacy was removed from their native lands in Georgia and Alabama to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. They were forced to move in captivity in 1838, with 4,000 dying on the 1,200 mile journey.
Go West Young Man!
When the fur trade increased demand for buffalo hides, the ensuing slaughter of the herds between 1863 and 1873 signaled the beginning of the end for the Plains tribes. Diseases the settlers brought such as smallpox also decimated them. Gold miners and settlers began to move west and the major trails to the West went through Plains territory (Oregon Trail – Northern Plains; Santa Fe Trail –Southern Plains) so the government instituted a series of treaties to try to calm the violence between the Indians and the settlers.
Unfortunately,
these treaties appointed “Paper Chiefs” to head new boundaries that many
more militant tribal groups would not abide by or did not understand. In
addition, many of the stipulations the U.S. Government made such as schools,
farming tools, etc, were too slow in coming. Therefore, a fort system
was developed so the army could protect travelers on the Oregon and Santa Fe
Trails.
Battles or Massacres?
Violent incidents such as the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, where a group of Colorado militia under Colonel John Chivington massacred some 700 peaceful Cheyenne under Black Kettle and the ambush of 82 U.S. army soldiers under Captain William Fetterman in Wyoming by the Sioux Chief Red Cloud in 1866 (Red Clouds War, 1865-7) led to treaties that the government and most Indians were agreeable to. The Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 resettled the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche on reservations in Oklahoma and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 preserved the Powder River Country and the Black Hills as sacred Sioux territory.
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
Unfortunately, the government could not stop miners from going into the Black Hills when gold was found and Red Cloud could not stop more militant chiefs such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse from rebelling. Renewed conflict led to the complete defeat of General George Custer at Little Big Horn, Montana in 1876. (Custer’s Last Stand) The army subsequently chased down Crazy Horse (killed in 1877) and Sitting Bull surrendered after first fleeing to Canada in 1881. In 1890, Sitting Bull was killed and a group of 200 Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota participating in a dance to bring back their lands called the “Ghost Dance” were massacred. This effectively ended all Indian resistance in the West.
Homework Assignment # 13
1. Discuss the Trail of Tears.
2. Why did the buffalo herds disappear?
3. What occurrences brought settlers into the Plains Indians lands?
4. Why were the original treaties ineffective?
5. Discuss some examples of violence between the natives and the army.
6. Discuss Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee.
7. Discuss Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce.
Movie Guide : The Wilderness and the West
1. Discuss the role of God, nature, and the landscape as an American
identity.
2. Discuss Thomas Cole and the Mountain House.
3. Discuss the conflict between use of or preservation of the land.
4. Discuss John James Audubon and the concept of extinction.
5. Discuss Albert Bierstadt and manifest destiny.
6. Discuss the role of Currier and Ives.
7. Discuss Daniel Boone and the Moses image.
8. Discuss the statement, “my lands are where my dead are buried.”
9. Discuss the attempt to preserve a specimen of the West for history.
10. Differ between the Demonic and the Doomed Indian.
11. Discuss the work of Frederick Church.
12. Discuss railroads and art.
13. Discuss Bierstadt’s beliefs about the West.
14. Discuss Thomas Moran, William Henry Jackson and Yellowstone.
15. What is wrong with Bierstadt’s Last of the Buffalo.
16. Discuss Remington and the “Last Stand.”
17. How did Remington use the West as a metaphor for the early 1900’s.