1840

__________ 

“I believe…that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.” 

William Henry Harrison, October 10, 1840

__________

January 25: Captain Charles Wilkes and his expedition (six ships) sight land in eight places, suggesting that an Antarctic continent exists. 

    Finley suggests, in passing, that his claims were not believed, and he was dubbed “the biggest liar in the navy.” (113/86) 

    According to Wikipedia, Wilkes, a harsh task master in regard to his crew, and obsessive in his explorations, may have been Melville’s model for Captain Ahab in Moby Dick.

 

* 

BY THIS TIME, gas is used in lighting the homes of a lucky few, but the service is available in only four cities: Baltimore, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. (113/167)

 

*

Longfellow.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW publishes the following poem:

 

The Village Blacksmith 

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man. 

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low. 

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice. 

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling, – rejoicing, – sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose. 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I wonder if modern students might find this interesting. Is there any worker they can think of, where they live, who has a central role in community life? Could they write a poem about some modern-day businessperson or employee? 

Satire might result. 

As far as the “smithy,” what kind of man is he? Is he a role model?

 

* 

IN 1830 there were thirty miles of rails in the country, by 1840 there were three thousand. “It is no wonder that men were induced to build air castles.” (56/337)

Canals were still doing a booming business.

 

* 

“The people’s party.” 

HORACE GREELEY admits, during the 1840 campaign: “We have nothing here in politics but large and numerous swarms of office-hunting locusts, sweeping on to Washington daily.” (56/349) 

The election was one of great excitement. The people, as never before, entered with unbounded enthusiasm into the contest. There was little calm discussion of principles. In the race for popular favor the Democrats were left far in the background by the Whigs, who claimed to be the people’s party and made every appeal to popular sympathy. Monster meetings, long processions, campaign songs, took the place of argument. “Every breeze says change,” said [Daniel] Webster. “The time for discussion has passed,” exclaimed [Henry] Clay. “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” was the watchword of the jubilant party, which had never yet tasted success, but expected now to be triumphant. The most was made of the fact that Harrison was a simple Westerner. Throughout the campaign live coons and barrels of cider were always in evidence; log cabins were reared as emblems in town and city, or were drawn on carts in long processions to mass meetings, which the newspapers said contained “acres of men.” Enthusiasm for Harrison, strongly aided by the hard times, for which the Democrats had to bear the blame, easily carried the day for the Whigs. They were wild with elation and overcome with joy. Nineteen States out of twenty-six cast their electoral votes for Harrison and Tyler.

 

* 

ABOLITIONISTS spoke of the Constitution as “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”

    This rests on Isaiah 28:18: “And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.” McLaughlin (56/347) 

    “Harrison was an honest, straightforward, simple man, of moderate ability.” (56/348) 

    McMaster adds his take. When Democrats mocked Harrison as better suited to sit at home in a log cabin drinking cider than be elected to go to the White House, the Whigs turned the tables. 

    In the West, men came to these [campaign] meetings in huge canoes and wagons of all sorts, and camped on the ground. At one meeting the ground covered by the people was measured, and allowing four to the square yard it was estimated about 80,000 attended. Dayton, in Ohio, claimed 100,000 at her meeting. At Bunker Hill there were 60,000. In the processions, huge balls were rolled along to the cry, “Keep the ball a-rolling.” … More than a hundred campaign songs were written and sung to popular airs. Every Whig wore a log-cabin medal, or breast pin, or badge, or carried a log-cabin cane. (97/298)

 

    In A Popular History of Indiana, we have this song from a Whig rally: 

The times are bad and want curing;

They are getting passt all enduring;

Let us turn out Martin Van Buren,

And put in old Tippecanoe.

The best thing we can do,

Is to put in old Tippecanoe.

 

It’s a business we all can take part in,

So let us give notice to Martin

That he must get ready for sartin [certain],

For we’ll put in old Tippecanoe.

The best thing we can do,

Is to put in old Tippecanoe.

 

We’ve had all of their humbugs aplenty;

For now all our pockets are empty;

We’ve a dollar now where we had plenty,

So we’ll put in old Tippecanoe.

The best thing we can do,

Is to put in old Tippecanoe. (91/160)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Ask students, “Why would Harrison supporters include a log cabin in their parades?” 

How to modern candidates try to position themselves in the eyes of voters?

* 

“The destiny of man is to be happy on this earth.” 

    In France, Charles Fournier has called for massive reforms in how people live. As Wikipedia explains, he argues that existing economic, political, and social systems “inhibit humanity from the pursuit of its God-given individual passions, thereby preventing it from achieving universal harmony.” 

    Fournier dreams of a complete reorganization of society, a new way for humans to supply their greatest needs. New communities shall be formed, in which all members work together, for the good of all – an early form of communal living, or communism – without Karl Marx. 

    Farmers shall combine efforts, for example, rather than compete against each other. They will produce as much corn as they can, and provide the bounty to the community, so that no one shall go hungry. Carpenters shall build what must necessarily be built – and no person shall live in a huge mansion, while others live on the streets. Those living without homes, under the old way, can be sent off to help the farmers or put to work helping the carpenters. Even families shall combine domestic activities, working together at tasks such as cooking and laundry. Duplication of effort, a hundred women doing washing separately, shall be eliminated. Much time shall be saved for all women to pursue interests that make their lives better. Wage labor will be entirely eliminated, and members of the community will work for each other. Workers will be free to move from jobs they don’t like to find work that they enjoy. Naturally, they will work harder at tasks they enjoy, and prosperity for all shall be enhanced. A state of “Harmonism” will prevail, with all working in concert. Workers will be able to switch jobs monthly, if they desire, so that no one shall be reduced to living a life of drudgery. Onerous tasks will be shared. 

    As one enthusiast predicted, the “individual may have the command of his whole personal power and enjoy the conditions of expressing it.” 

    In 1840, in a book titled, Social Destiny of Man, Albert Brisbane, an American, set out to spread the new social gospel. 

    In an ideal world, followers of this new way will create communities in the countryside, called Phalanxes. They will not crowd into the cities, where the worst conditions for the poor prevail. Each community will include 1,620 men, women and children, organized for cooperative work. 

    As Wikipedia notes, Fournier had some interesting ideas, unrelated to his basic interest in societal reform. 

    Fourier’s theoretical system, described by one scholar as “vast and eccentric,” was only part of the output of what another called “a most riotous and unpruned imagination.” Fourier believed that in the new world people would live for 144 years, that new species of friendly and pacifistic animals such as “anti-lions” would emerge, and that over time human beings would develop long and useful tails. Fourier also professed a belief in the ability of human souls to migrate between physical and “aromal” worlds. Such thinking was set aside during the last fifteen years of Fourier’s life, when he instead began to concentrate on testing his economic and social ideas. 

 

    Leaving the “anti-lions” aside, as Fournier insisted, and Brisbane believed, a golden age for humankind awaited if proper principles of social organization could only be adopted. 

    Above all, the concept of “labor” had to be changed. Brisbane explained: 

    What does man require to be happy? RICHES, and ENNOBLING AND PLEASING ACTIVITY. How is he to obtain riches, if Labor, which is the source of all WEALTH, be repugnant and degrading, and if its exercise has to be coerced by POVERTY AND WANT, OR BY THE FEAR OF THE WHIP? With the present miserable organization of Labor, it is useless to think of general riches, that is, of an abundance for all: poverty will continue to be the lot of the great majority, so long as the present defective system of Industry is continued.  (133/vi-vii) 

 

Most people sought remedies for the problems of the world in laws and politics. Others argued that Man was fundamentally sinful and looked for hope in religion. Life on earth might be hard, but reward awaited in Heaven. For the average man, Brisbane wrote, “this illusion” is so great “that the evils he labours under, are attributed to every cause but the true one – the defective organisation of society.” (133/2) 

The veil, he said,   

must be torn away. We assert that the evil, misery and injustice, now predominant on the earth, have not their foundation in political or administrative errors, in the defects of this or that institution, in the imperfection of human nature, or in the depravity of the passions; but in the FALSE ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY ALONE. 

 

In Brisbane’s telling, religious leaders often made the problem worse. Their focus was on Heaven, not the problems of this earth. Man was sinful and not much more could be expected – save for sinners to prepare for life after death. “This advice has been but too faithfully followed, and the belief in the fatality of evil has sunk so deeply into the minds of men, that it has eradicated all hope of the possibility of general and collective happiness on this earth,” said Brisbane. (133/3) 

It was time for ordinary men and women to realize that: “The destiny of man is to be happy on this earth.” (133/4) 

For women, especially, Fourierism would free them to lead more fulfilling lives: 

Let not the system be excused by saying that the character of woman is particularly adapted to it. It is not so: her destiny is not to waste her life in a kitchen, or in the petty cares of a household. Nature made her the equal of man, and equally capable of shining with him in industry and in the cultivation of the arts and sciences; not to be his inferior, to cook and sew for him, and live dependently at his board. No class could bring so many well-founded complaints against the social mechanism as women, for they are truly its slaves. (133/6) 

 

Naturally, those in power wished to ensure that current systems continued to operate. Unfortunately, religious leaders failed to focus on the problems that really mattered – playing into the hands of the powerful. 

Religion on the other hand involuntarily lends them her aid: she preaches and truly preaches, that we should be content with little in the present state, and disdain the goods of this world, since nine-tenths of civilizees [those living in a state of Civilization] must be necessarily deprived of them. Its ministers in advancing this doctrine, are ignorant that this state of poverty is limited to the Savage, Patriarchal, Barbarian, and Civilized orders, four subversive societies, which mark the social infancy of the human race. Looking upon these societies as the irevocable [sic] destiny of man, as a condition of evil without remedy, they coincide with philosophers in the opinion that it is necessary to be content with little, neglect all perspectives of immense fortune and of general happiness … In giving this advice, however, it is with the intention of consoling mankind in the present state of suffering, for which they see no remedy … (133/15) 

 

Labor reform will be the key. 

Under existing conditions, Brisbane argued that much of daily work was unproductive and the system of wage labor was wasteful. “How do our laborers work?” he asked. “They only endeavor to evade or slight their tasks; trifling away their time, if their employer is absent, doubling their work, if overseen without intermission.” If labor was reorganized, and made cooperative, workers would be much more productive, and the needs of the people could be easily provided. 

In fact, there would be far more time for people to enjoy pursuits that interested them, as needs were met, and free time increased. (133/62) 

Entire classes of workers could be eliminated, according to Brisbane. Those workers would then be freed to enjoy pursuits that interested them, and then to help workers in other lines. For example, there would be little need for lawyers in the new system, since all would be working for a common purpose. Soldiers would be unnecessary, and the massive waste of warfare would be saved. In some future world, followers of Fournier, believed war would end. Middlemen in all kinds of fields would disappear. Shoemakers would give out shoes to people who needed shoes, and in return, their needs would be supplied by other members of the Phalanx. Teachers would not work for pay, but for love of teaching. If a farmer and teacher and a former lawyer wanted to switch jobs, for variety, and to pursue new interests, they could. 

 

 As Brisbane saw it, many social ills would be remedied. “Scissionaries,” as he calls certain groups, or “persons in open rebellion against industry, laws, morals and customs” would fade away. 

Such are public women, vagrants, beggars, rogues, brigands, &c., the number of which tends less than ever to decrease, and the repression of which requires the maintenance of an army of constables and police officers, equally unproductive, besides the expense of jails, penitentiaries and gallies. Add to these, persons engaged in lotteries and gambling houses, which are true social pests. 

 

What we might call the “military-industrial complex” today, Brisbane sees disappearing, with double benefit to a Fournier society. Those engaged in war, or in supplying the needs of warfare, he labels as a separate group: 

Agents of POSITIVE DESTRUCTION. Armies actively engaged in war, and other classes, which we will not here specify. The civilized order confers high honors on them, and encourages all kinds of inventions which can extend the ravages of war, such as Congreve rockets, patent bombs, rifles, &c, (Armies in this list of non-producers, occupy two places; here they appear as the active agents of destruction; and at No. 4, as an inert and unproductive mass. (71) 

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Were I teaching today, I don’t know what I’d say about such utopian groups. It is tempting to imagine a world, however, where the U.S. devoted it’s military budget to peaceful purposes every year. The latest annual defense spending bill calls for $901 billion in Fiscal Year 2026. 

 

“It is only surprising that human nature should bear so much.” 

Fournier and Brisbane had a particular disdain for cities, in an era when eight out of every ten workers was involved in farming. By moving people out to the country, and building Phalanx communities, many problems would be alleviated and solved over time. As Brisbane explained: 

It is from the poverty of the mass in our large cities, that the greatest abuses take place. If a capitalist builds damp cellars, garrets without ventilation, small and confined rooms, close court-yards without light and circulation, and with hardly the conveniencies necessary to the wants of its inmates, he is sure to find droves of indigent families, who will stow themselves away in these tenements, making of them hot-beds of disease, and nurseries of demoralization. Moralists wonder that human nature can be as depraved as they find it in our societies, and they seek in the heart the source of all this depravity; it is only surprising that human nature should bear so much, and murmur so little, and that with its load of social evil and misery, so much good will and gaiety still remain. (133/77) 

 

The Fournier system, it was said, would replace the competition of man against man, with cooperation. A habit of harmony, of caring for all, would become the norm. As Brisbane saw it: 

Riches are the leading wish of man, and in this country wealth has become the all absorbing object of desire. In this strife after wealth, in which millions are engaged, why has it not been perceived, that not one-twentieth can succeed? (133/78)

 

Judge a tree by its fruit, a society by its results; let us not be carried away by the endless praises which are lavished on our advanced state of civilization, as the present system is called. It is time some positive ameliorations were demanded at the hands of our politicians and legislators: we have party politics and legislation enough; if any good could come from the incoherent laws and arbitrary constitutions of civilization, it would have been realized long since. Experience, and the condition of mankind, prove that nothing effective is to be hoped from them, and common sense dictates that we should seek elsewhere, in agricultural Association, or in a reform in industry, for social good. But politicians scarcely dare put forth the hypothesis of a social reform and a change in the condition of mankind: the human race have so long been curbed under the yoke of misfortune, that suffering is believed to be the law of their nature. (133/81) 

 

NOTE TO TEACHERS: For purposes of discussion, it is predicted that by 2035, the U.S. will have its first five trillionaires. What benefits and problems might this cause, cure or aggravate? 

I’m retired. I don’t know if you can even address such matters under current conditions in the field of education. 

(Good luck, young educators!)