THE NATIONAL AWAKENING
There is a measure of truth in speaking of the War of 1812 as a second
war of independence. In throwing off the shackles of British commercial
ascendency, American society experienced much the same sense of elation
and liberation as the peoples of Europe who contemporaneously rose in
their might against Napoleon and asserted their right to independent
national existence. The war was followed in the United States by an
expansion of the vital forces of the nation in all directions. The
earliest manifestations of this new national consciousness, however,
were characteristically boisterous. An English traveler, who visited the
United States soon after the war, found every man, woman, and child
talking about the Guerriere, the Java, the Macedonia, the Frolic, Lake
Erie, Lake Champlain, and the "vast inferiority of British sailors and
soldiers to the true-blooded Yankees." The events of the war were
commemorated in songs which this Briton declared--and no doubt
truthfully--to be "frothy, senseless bombast." But whatever limitations
of culture were disclosed by this outburst of national conceit, no one
could doubt for an instant that an exuberant vitality was coursing
through the veins of the nation.
It was a fair question, however, whether this national feeling would
find expression in any permanent literary form. A literature of its own
America did not possess: every one with literary tastes was forced to
this humiliating admission. Writing from Berlin in 1801, John Quincy
Adams hailed the first number of Dennie's _Port Folio_ with delight.
"The object," he declared, "is noble. It is to take off that foul stain
of literary barbarism which has so long exposed our country to the
reproach of strangers and to the derision of our enemies." But the
periodical had a very limited circle of readers, and its literary merits
were slight. The _Anthology and Boston Review_, founded in 1805, had a
wider influence upon letters in America; but it is memorable chiefly as
the forerunner of the _North American Review_, modeled upon the English
quarterlies, which was first published by William Tudor, in the year
1815, at Boston.
The publication of American books at this time was a hazardous
enterprise. "The successful booksellers of the country," wrote one who
recalled his own experiences in the book trade, "were for the most part
the mere reproducers and sellers of English books." Yet American
publishers often showed commendable enterprise. In 1817, Byron's
_Manfred_ was received, printed, and published at Philadelphia in a
single day. Walter Scott, Moore, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Porter, and Lord
Byron were the favorite British novelists and poets whose writings were
reprinted in America. Among the American publications advertised by
booksellers, were sermons, geographies, and schoolbooks; but rarely any
productions which belonged to the category termed by contemporaries
_belles-lettres_.
The slender literary product of the United States from 1815 to 1830 is
contained in magazines rather than in books. Prose and verse which could
never have found a publisher separately appeared in periodicals of every
description. Most of these were ephemeral publications. The more serious
reviews, like the _American Biblical Repository_, the _American Law
Journal_, and the religious reviews, had a longer life; but the lighter
magazines, like the _Ladies' Literary Cabinet_, the _Young Ladies'
Parental Mentor_, and the _Casket: or Flowers of Literature, Wit, and
Sentiment_, rose and fell on the fickle tide of public taste. Even the
West had its magazines. Lexington, Kentucky, which disputed with
Cincinnati the proud title, "Athens of the West," published the _Western
Review_, one number of which contained a review of _Don Juan_ within six
weeks after the poem was published in England.
In the September number of the _North American Review_, in 1817,
appeared an original poem of such merit as to mark an era in the history
of American verse. There was in William Cullen Bryant's _Thanatopsis_,
it is true, no such youthful exuberance of feeling as the first
stirrings of poetic genius in a new world might be expected to exhibit.
The sense of refined form seemed almost un-American; yet there are lines
in the poem which suggest the primeval background of American life and
its influence upon the American mind. In 1819 appeared Washington
Irving's _Sketch-Book_--the first American book which was widely read
in England; and in 1821, Cooper published _The Spy_, which was the first
to win favor on the Continent. Both Cooper and Irving were more or less
conscious imitators of English prose writers, the one of Scott and the
other of Addison; and they lacked consequently that originality which
critics have always demanded as the hall-mark of a genuinely native art.
It is easy to forget, however, that the Americans were not a primitive
people. They were folk with a literary inheritance, of which albeit they
often showed little knowledge. It was not for them to invent new forms,
but to press new wine into old bottles. Of Irving, moreover, it should
be said that he drew freely upon a vein of delicious humor, as in his
_Knickerbocker History of New York_, which may be truly characterized as
American.
The annals of American art in these years are even more bare. Benjamin
West, to be sure, was born in Pennsylvania, but he achieved eminence in
England. That he could succeed Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the
Royal Academy was a tribute to his fame, but equally convincing proof
that he had ceased to be identified with the land of his nativity.
Gilbert Stuart owed much to West, but his return to America in 1792
saved him from complete subservience to English models. As a portrait
painter he developed power and individuality. Posterity may well be
grateful that the portraits of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were
painted with fidelity to nature as Stuart saw it, rather than in the
grandiose manner of West. Two other names, Malbone and Allston, deserve
brief mention. The one achieved some distinction as a painter of
miniatures; the other is remembered both as artist and man of letters in
the literary circle which was forming about Boston. The name of Jonathan
Trumbull completes the list of American artists. What David was to the
great actors in the revolutionary drama in France, Trumbull was to the
notable characters of the American Revolution. In his conception of his
themes he was perhaps the most genuinely American painter of his time.
In the pages of his autobiography, Trumbull recounts an interview with
his father which may take the place of any further comment on the dearth
of artistic feeling in the United States. The young man was arguing
passionately for his vocation. The father, a typical Yankee, listened
with commendable patience, and complimented the lad when he had
finished. "'But,' added he, 'you must give me leave to say, that you
appear to have overlooked, or forgotten, one very important point in
your case.' 'Pray, sir,' I rejoined, 'what was that?' 'You appear to
forget, sir, that _Connecticut is not Athens_'; and with this pithy
remark, he bowed and withdrew, and nevermore opened his lips upon the
subject. How often have those few impressive words recurred to my
memory."
The names of Bryant, Cooper, and Irving are linked with the city of New
York which enjoyed for a brief time that primacy in the world of
American letters which it was fast acquiring in commerce. The center of
literary and scholarly activity in the next generation was Boston,
where the New England renaissance began. In this revival of letters
Harvard College had a notable part. In 1806, John Quincy Adams was
appointed Professor of Rhetoric and gave a course of lectures which
moulded the taste of that school of orators to which Edward Everett
belonged--a school of oratory which found its models in Demosthenes and
Cicero. Everett became Professor of Greek in 1815; and George Ticknor,
Professor of Belles-Lettres in 1816. Prescott graduated in 1814, Palfrey
in 1815, and George Bancroft in 1817,--all three to add to American
historiography works of enduring excellence. In 1817, young Ralph Waldo
Emerson entered college.
It was Boston, however, rather than Harvard College, which
created the atmosphere that these young scholars--all from Boston
families--breathed: for the Athenaeum, the American School of Arts and
Sciences, and the Massachusetts Historical Society had begun to exercise
an increasing influence on the younger generation. Harvard College, like
all colleges of the day, was hardly more than a species of higher
academy whither boys went at a tender age to continue their study of the
classics and mathematics, and incidentally to cultivate rhetoric and
_belles-lettres_.
The liberation of the American mind from time-honored traditions and
conventions appeared markedly in the ecclesiastical revolts and
religious revivals of the age. Unitarianism took its rise quite as much
in protest against the teaching of Calvinism, that man was brought into
the world hopelessly depraved, as against the orthodox conception of
Christ's nature. The definite separation of Unitarianism from
Congregationalism dates from 1815 when William E. Channing published his
memorable letter to the Reverend Samuel C. Thacher. The writings of
Buckminster, Channing, and other theological liberals have a distinct
place in the annals of American intellectual life. Universalism also
took its rise at this time and spread with remarkable rapidity under the
lead of Hosea Ballou. In western Pennsylvania and Virginia, the
Campbells, father and son, led a departure from the established
Presbyterian order. The Society of Friends was also rent by the
teachings of Elias Hicks.
Revivals had been a recurring feature of New England religious life
since the latter years of the seventeenth century. That they stimulated
many forms of religious activity appears in the annals of missionary
enterprises at home and abroad. In 1810 the American Board of Foreign
Missions and in 1814 the American Baptist Missionary Union were founded.
In 1812 four young missionaries went out to India; and five years later
other devoted young men began their labors among the Cherokees and
Choctaws of the Southwest. There is something at once heroic and
pathetic in the humanitarian zeal of a people, whom Europeans still
regarded with disdain, to carry to the remote ends of the earth a
Christian civilization which they had themselves hardly attained. But an
incomprehensible idealism has from first to last been interwoven in the
texture of American character.
After the cessation of European wars the United States stood singularly
aloof from the Old World, yet in the affairs of South America they did
not cease to take a lively interest. The successive revolutions by which
the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, Chili, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and
Mexico threw off the yoke of Spain woke a thrill in the people of the
United States, for they thought they saw the events of their own
revolution repeated in the exploits of San Martin and Bolivar. To the
imagination of Henry Clay, this was a sublime spectacle--"eighteen
millions of people struggling to burst their chains and be free." He
would have had the United States recognize these sister republics and
join hands with them in forming an American system independent of
Europe. And when the Administration hesitated, he exclaimed: "We look
too much abroad. Let us break these commercial and political fetters;
let us no longer watch the nod of any European politician; let us become
real and true Americans, and place ourselves at the head of the American
system."
The conception of an American system did not originate in the ardent
mind of Henry Clay. It was as old as the Union itself. Foreign
encroachment had been feared from the very birth of the nation. "You are
afraid of being made the tool of the powers of Europe," said Richard
Oswald to John Adams while peace negotiations were pending at Paris.
"Indeed I am," rejoined Adams. "What powers?" asked Oswald. "All of
them," said Adams; "it is obvious that all the powers of Europe will be
continually manoeuvring with us to work us into their real or
imaginary balances of power.... But I think that it ought to be our rule
not to meddle." Washington's refusal to enter into an alliance with
France and his firm insistence upon neutrality were inspired by this
same fear. Jefferson's negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans were
motivated by the fear that France, once in possession of the mouth of
the Mississippi, would threaten the isolation of the United States and
drive us into the arms of Great Britain. "Jefferson is an American,"
Adet once said, with rare insight, "and by that title, it is impossible
for him to be sincerely our friend. _An American is the born enemy of
European peoples._"
The corollary of the principle of non-intervention was abstention on the
part of the United States from the affairs of Europe. Could the United
States, then, recognize the colonies of Spain as independent republics
without emerging from its traditional isolation? President Monroe would
have been glad to recognize the South American republics even before
they had demonstrated their ability to maintain their independence; but
his cool-headed Secretary of State prevailed upon him to await further
evidence. It was not until 1822, indeed, that the President recommended
to Congress the establishment of missions in the new republics of South
America. Spain protested emphatically against this action; but Adams,
now sure of his ground, justified the action of the Administration by an
appeal to facts. So long as Spain was attempting to reduce the colonies
by arms, the United States had observed "the most impartial neutrality."
But war had ceased, and the United States had "yielded to an obligation
of duty of the highest order, by recognizing, as independent states,
nations which, after deliberately asserting their right to that
character, had maintained and established it against all the resistance
which had been or could be brought to oppose it."
In the year 1823, the traditional principles of American foreign policy
were put to a severer test. Soon after the Congress of Vienna, that
combination of the great powers was consummated which contemporaries
usually but erroneously styled the Holy Alliance. Austria, Prussia,
Russia, and Great Britain covenanted together to meet at fixed periods
to consult upon their common interests and to consider the measures
"most salutary for the repose and prosperity of nations, and for the
maintenance of the peace of Europe." Three years later, France was
admitted to the councils of these "self-appointed keepers of the world's
peace." Innocent enough in its public professions, this association of
the great powers was converted by Metternich of Austria, who had
acquired a remarkable ascendency over the mind of his own sovereign and
over that of the impressionable czar, into an instrument of reaction and
repression, whenever and wherever the specter of revolution raised its
head. Within a few years revolutionary uprisings occurred in Italy and
Spain. The so-called legitimate sovereigns were driven from their
thrones and constitutional governments were established. In successive
congresses at Troppau and Laybach, the three powers, Austria, Russia,
and Prussia, resolved to suppress these revolutionary movements. An
Austrian army was commissioned to carry out this policy of intervention,
as it was termed; and the King of the Two Sicilies was restored to his
uneasy throne. Neither Great Britain nor France took part in these
congresses. It now remained to chastise the revolutionists of Spain. At
the Congress of Verona in 1822, the representative of Great Britain
openly protested against any intervention in Spain. But again the three
powers, now joined by France, resolved to restore the deposed Fernando
VII. Early in the following year a French army crossed the Pyrenees and
entered Madrid. It was commonly believed that the restoration of the
monarchy was to be followed by a reduction of the revolted colonies and
a restoration of the Spanish colonial empire.
It was at this juncture that Canning, who had become the head of the
British ministry, protested against the policy of intervention and
sought for ways and means to make the protest effective. The one power
whose traditions of liberty and whose interests in this particular
seemed to be identical with those of Great Britain was the United
States. In truth, their interests were far from being identical. Two
years before, in a conversation with the British minister at Washington,
the Secretary of State, in his most uncompromising manner, had
challenged the right of Great Britain to the valley of the Columbia
River or to any part of the Pacific Coast. And so recently as April of
this critical year 1823, Adams had taken alarm at the appearance of a
British naval force off the coast of Cuba and had warned the Government
at Madrid that "the transfer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event
unpropitious to the interests of the United States." At the same time
Adams stated his conviction that within half a century the annexation of
Cuba to the United States would be "indispensable to the continuance of
the Union itself." Coupled with this prophecy was the equally frank
assurance that the United States desired to have Cuba and Porto Rico
"continue attached to Spain"--for the present.
[Map: Russian Claims in North America]
It was in midsummer of this year, too, that Adams protested against the
ukase of the czar which had asserted the claim of Russia to the Pacific
Coast as far south as the fifty-first degree, and to a maritime
jurisdiction one hundred Italian miles from the coast. Adams records in
his diary that he told the Russian minister "that we should contest the
right of Russia to _any_ territorial establishment on this continent,
and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American
continents are no longer subjects for _any_ new European colonial
establishments." The time had come when the United States was bound to
take more than a sentimental interest in the affairs of Spanish America.
The disintegration of the Spanish colonial empire not only invited the
Intervention of European powers in the internal affairs of the new
republics, but also exposed portions of the North American continent to
their aggressions.
On several occasions Canning conferred with Richard Rush, the minister
of the United States resident in London, to ascertain whether his
Government would join Great Britain in a public declaration against any
"forcible enterprise for reducing the colonies to subjugation on behalf
of or in the name of Spain; or which meditates the acquisition of any
part of them to itself, by cession or by conquest." England had no
designs upon the distant colonies of Spain, Canning asseverated; at the
same time it "could not see any part of them transferred to any other
power with indifference." Not trusting implicitly in Canning's altruism,
Rush wisely suggested that Great Britain should first recognize the
South American republics as a preliminary to a joint declaration. To
this Canning would not commit himself; and Rush would not assume
responsibility for a public declaration on any other conditions.
On receiving the dispatches from Rush recounting these interesting
conferences, President Monroe took counsel with the two Virginia
oracles, Jefferson and Madison. Both advised him to meet Canning's
overtures and to make common cause with Great Britain--the one nation,
as Jefferson put it, which could prevent America from having an
independent system and which now offered "to lead, aid, and accompany us
in it." Monroe was disposed to follow this advice. He not only drafted a
message to Congress upon these lines, but he went further and urged the
recognition of Greek independence in a way which departed widely from
the traditional aloofness which earlier Presidents had maintained in
matters of European concern. On the other hand, Adams was decidedly of
the opinion that Canning's invitation should be declined. He did not
wish the country to appear "as a cock-boat in the wake of the British
man-of-war." Moreover, Adams was considerably alarmed at the reactionary
principles which the Russian ministry had avowed in a communication
addressed to the minister at Washington. He urged the President to seize
the occasion to make an explicit declaration of American principles.
"The ground I wish to take," said he, "is that of earnest remonstrance
against the interference of European powers by force with South America,
but to disclaim all interference on our part with Europe; to make an
American cause and adhere inflexibly to that."
Yielding to his contentious Secretary of State, President Monroe
redrafted his message to Congress. In its final form, December 2, 1823,
this famous state paper contained the essential principles of what has
come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. It was asserted "as a general
principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are
involved that the American continents, by the free and independent
condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be
considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers."
The message expressly disclaimed any purpose to interfere in European
politics; but respecting the affairs of the Western hemisphere a direct
and immediate interest was frankly avowed. "The political system of the
allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of
America." "We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their
system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and
safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power
we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments
who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose
independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles,
acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of
oppressing them, or controlling in any manner their destiny, by any
European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an
unfriendly disposition toward the United States."
The immediate effects of the message are not easily traced. It is not
clear, even, that the favorable treaty made with Russia in the following
year was the outcome of what Canning somewhat contemptuously styled "the
new Doctrine of the President." Russia, it is true, agreed to waive her
claims below fifty-four degrees forty minutes and to exclusive
jurisdiction in Bering Sea; but the conflicting claims of England in the
Northwest remained, and Canning predicted that England would "have a
squabble with the Yankees yet in and about those regions."
Later generations have read strange meanings into the message of
President Monroe. Even contemporaries were not clear as to its import.
Interpreted in the light of its origin, it was a candid announcement
that the United States did not purpose to meddle in the affairs of
European states or of their existing dependencies, and a protest against
the increase of power of European states in America either by
intervention or by new colonization.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
In the concluding volume of Henry Adams's _History of the United
States_ are excellent chapters on American literature, art, and
religious thought. W. B. Cairns's _On the Development of American
Literature from 1815 to 1833_ (1898) contains much interesting
information about periodicals. Barrett Wendell's _A Literary
History of America_ (1900) is full of pungent comment on early men
of letters. C. C. Caffin, _The Story of American Painting_ (1907),
and H. T. Tuckerman, _Artist-Life, or Sketches of American
Artists_ (1847), record the small achievements of American art.
John Trumbull's _Autobiography, Reminiscences, and Letters, from
1756 to 1841_ (1841), is a book of great interest. E. G. Dexter's
_A History of Education in the United States_ (1904) is an
excellent manual. The Unitarian Movement can be best followed in
J. W. Chadwick's _William Ellery Channing_ (1903). The history of
the various denominations may be found in volumes of the _American
Church History Series_. The genesis of Monroe's message is
described by F. J. Turner, _The Rise of the New West_(in _The
American Nation_, vol. 14, 1906), and F. E. Chadwick, _The
Relations of the United States and Spain_ (1909). Both of these
accounts are based on W. C. Ford, _John Quincy Adams: His
Connection with the Monroe Doctrine_ (in Massachusetts Historical
Society _Proceedings_, 1902). An excellent essay is that by W. F.
Reddaway, _The Monroe Doctrine_ (2d. ed., 1905).