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Dædalus coming up in Dædalus:

The Alternative Robert Fri, Stephen Ansolabehere, Steven Koonin, Michael Graetz, Energy Future Pamela Matson & Rosina Bierbaum, Mohamed El Ashry, James Dædalus Sweeney, Ernest Moniz, Daniel Schrag, Michael Greenstone, Jon Krosnick, Naomi Oreskes, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Thomas Dietz, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Paul Stern & Elke Weber, Roger Kasperson & Bonnie Ram, Joseph Winter 2012 Aldy & Robert Stavins, Michael Dworkin, Holly Doremus & Michael Hanemann, Ann Carlson, Robert Keohane & David Victor, Kassia

Yanosek, and others Winter 2012: On the On the Denis Donoghue Introduction 5 Science in the 21st Jerrold Meinwald, May Berenbaum, Jim Bell, Shri Kulkarni, Paul American William H. Chafe Is There an American Narrative Century McEuen, Daniel Nocera, Terence Tao, M. Christina White, Bonnie Narrative & What Is It? 11 Bassler, Neil Shubin, Joseph DeRisi, Gregory Petsko, G. David Tilman, Laurence H. Tribe America’s Constitutional Narrative 18 Chris Somerville, David Page, Nima Arkani-Hamed, and others Peter Brooks Narratives of the Constitutional Covenant 43 Jay Parini The American Mythos 52 Lee Epstein, Jamie Druckman, Robert Erikson, Linda Greenhouse,

Public Opinion American Narrative Diana Mutz, Kevin Quinn & Jim Greiner, Gary Segura, Jim Stimson, Rolena Adorno On Western Waters: Anglo-American Kathy Cramer Walsh, and others Non½ctional Narrative in the Nineteenth Century 61 David A. Hollinger The Accommodation of Protestant plus The Common Good, Immigration & the Future of America &c. Christianity with the Enlightenment 76 Linda K. Kerber Why Diamonds Really are a Girl’s Best Friend 89 David Levering Lewis Exceptionalism’s Exceptions: The Changing American Narrative 101 E. L. Doctorow Narrative C 118 Gish Jen Spooked 126 Michael Wood The Other Case 130 William Ferris Southern Literature: A Blending of Oral, Visual & Musical Voices 139 Charlotte Greenspan Death Comes to the Broadway Musical 154

poetry Lavinia Greenlaw On the Mountain & Otolith 160

U.S. $13; www.amacad.org Cherishing Knowledge · Shaping the Future

Inside front cover: Clockwise from top left: Three cowboys ride the range, c. 1930–1940, © Bettmann/ Corbis; a miner pans for gold in Northern California, c. 1890, © Bettmann/Corbis; women march for suffrage in New York City, c. 1915, © Bettmann/Corbis; a family watches television in the 1950s, © H. Arm- strong Roberts/Corbis; two women work on an airplane in a factory during World War II, © Getty Images; immigrants arrive at Ellis Island, c. 1905, © Adoc-photos. Denis Donoghue, Guest Editor Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications D Micah J. Buis, Associate Editor Erica Dorpalen, Editorial Assistant

Board of advisers

Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy

Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser

Committee on Publications Jerome Kagan, Chair, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Gerald Early, Linda Greenhouse, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Leslie Cohen Berlowitz

Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman. Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The labyrinth designed by Daedalus for King Minos of Crete, on a silver tetradrachma from Cnossos, Crete, c. 350–300 b.c. (35 mm, Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris). “Such was the work, so intricate the place, / That scarce the workman all its turns cou’d trace; / And Daedalus was puzzled how to ½nd / The secret ways of what himself design’d.”–Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 8

Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbol- izes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was char- tered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its nearly ½ve thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Winter 2012 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 141, Number 1 member individuals–$43; institutions–$119. Canadians add 5% gst. Print and electronic for © 2012 by the American Academy nonmember individuals–$48; institutions– of Arts & Sciences $132. Canadians add 5% gst. Outside the Unit- Why Diamonds Really are a Girl’s Best Friend: ed States and Canada add $23 for postage and Another American Narrative handling. Prices subject to change without © 2012 by Linda K. Kerber notice. Narrative C © 2012 by E. L. Doctorow Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- Spooked year basis. All other subscriptions begin with © 2012 by Gish Jen the next available issue. On the Mountain and Otolith Single issues: $13 for individuals; $33 for insti- © 2012 by Lavinia Greenlaw tutions. Outside the United States and Canada Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, add $6 per issue for postage and handling. 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. Prices subject to change without notice. Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. Claims for missing issues will be honored free Email: [email protected]. of charge if made within three months of the Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299 publication date of the issue. Claims may be submitted to [email protected]. Members of isbn 978-0-262-75146-9 the American Academy please direct all ques- Dædalus publishes by invitation only and as- tions and claims to [email protected]. sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be scripts. The views expressed are those of the addressed to Marketing Department, mit Press author of each article, and not necessarily of the Journals, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge ma American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 02142. Phone: 617 253 2866. Fax: 617 253 1709. Dædalus (issn 0011-5266; e-issn 1548-6192) Email: [email protected]. is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, Permission to photocopy articles for internal fall) by The mit Press, Cambridge ma 02142, for or personal use is granted by the copyright the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. An owner for users registered with the Copyright electronic full-text version of Dædalus is available Clearance Center (ccc) Transactional Report- from The mit Press. Subscription and address ing Service, provided that the per-copy fee changes should be addressed to mit Press Jour- of $12 per article is paid directly to the ccc, nals Customer Service, 55 Hayward Street, Cam- 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. bridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2889; u.s./ The fee code for users of the Transactional Canada 800 207 8354. Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: Reporting Service is 0011-5266/12. Submit all [email protected]. other permission inquiries to the Subsidiary Printed in the United States of America by Rights Manager, mit Press Journals, by com- Cadmus Professional Communications, Science pleting the online permissions request form Press Division, 300 West Chestnut Street, at www.mitpressjournals.org/page/copyright Ephrata pa 17522. _permissions. Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner Inc., 18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne tn 37086, and Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda ca. Source Interlink Distribution, 27500 Riverview Each size of Cycles has been separately designed Center Blvd., Bonita Springs fl 34134. in the tradition of metal types. Postmaster: Send address changes to Dædalus, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge ma 02142. Peri- odicals postage paid at Boston ma and at additional mailing of½ces. Introduction

Denis Donoghue

Some countries have a master narrative, some not. Those that do are expected to live up to its demands, or incur the shame of neglecting them. Countries too recent or too disheveled to have such a narrative generally settle for a political economy and hope to see it thrive. But even great empires decline and fall. There are countries that have a grand narrative but not the economy to sustain it: like Greece, they have fallen into the decadent phase of their story. Each member country of the European Union–twenty-seven at last count–has agreed to put aside its grand narrative, if it has one –or at least to keep quiet about it–in return for the boon of sharing a political, social, and economic entity–Europe–and, in particular, for the satisfaction of enjoying a vast commercial market and the rules, legal and civic, increasingly prescribed by Brussels. A few countries, Turkey for instance, are DENIS DONOGHUE deemed too irregular for membership–at least for , a Fellow of the time being. The common understanding of the the American Academy since 1983, eu is University Professor and Henry is that the imperatives of trade, banking, regula- James Professor of English and tion of borrowing and debt, and other such prac- American Letters at New York Uni- tices must come ½rst: narratives may be recalled on versity. He has written or edited high, innocent anniversaries. more than thirty books, including The United States could not help having a master The Practice of Reading (1998), for narrative, in view of the dramatic quality of its re- which he received the Robert Penn mote origin and its enhancement by large, diverse Warren/Cleanth Brooks Prize in literary criticism. His recent publi- immigrations. Historian Gordon Wood has noted cations include On Eloquence (2008) that “the founding of the nation lay not with the and Irish Essays (2011). He is a Fel- Declaration of Independence in 1776 but with the low of the British Academy. early explorations or, more often, with the earliest

5 Introduction settlements and events of the seventeenth more diverse, almost ungovernable, and century–with Jamestown in 1607, John rampant with unemployment and debt. Winthrop and the Puritans in 1630, and But a secular version of the ambition is Lord Baltimore’s statute of religious tol- still operative in the several American eration in 1649.”1 Wood adds to these, as wars presented to the world as crusades: he must, the story of the simple Pilgrims Mexico (1846–1848), Korea (1950–1953), of Plymouth Colony, as told by their Vietnam (1955–1973, when American leader William Bradford: involvement ended), Grenada (1983), Iraq (2003), Afghanistan (2001, and not This was the story of a small band of Eng- yet over). Many Americans still regard lish refugees, numbering only a hundred or themselves as the Chosen People, the so, driven from their homes for their reli- United States “Our Israel,” as Increase gious views, journeying ½rst to Holland Mather said in the foreword to Elijah’s and then to the New World, binding them- Mantle (1722). Melville cherished the sen- selves together with their “Mayflower timent so much that, in 1850, he added it Compact” in 1620, in an apparently demo- to Chapter 36 of White-Jacket: cratic fashion, suffering terrible losses their ½rst year in Plymouth, and all along Escaped from the house of bondage, Israel wanting nothing more than to be left alone of old did not follow after the ways of the to practice their “Separatist” religion.2 Egyptians. To her was given an express dis- pensation; to her were given new things But even if we call these adventures a under the sun. And we Americans are the foundational story, a myth, or a master peculiar, chosen people–the Israel of our narrative, we lack a universally agreed time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the upon form for reciting it. Rather, there world. Seventy years ago we escaped from are several claimants. thrall; and, besides our ½rst birth-right– The most remarkable of these is excep- embracing one continent of earth–God tionalism, the assumption that America has given to us, for a future inheritance, the not only differs from other countries in broad domains of the political pagans, that this or that respect, but differs from them shall yet come and lie down under the in principle and in practice. Being excep- shade of our ark, without bloody hands tional also entails being exceptionally being lifted.4 good, worthy, virtuous. The term Mani- fest Destiny did not appear until 1845, but Emerson, not surprisingly, presented this the sentiment or conviction in its favor sentiment in its most sublime form. Lit- long preceded the phrase. John Adams, in erary critic Richard Poirier has remarked, a revised version of the second part of in a commentary on one of Emerson’s A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law most opaque phrases in “Experience”– (1765), wrote: “I always consider the set- “this new yet unapproachable America I tlement of America with reverence and have found in the West”–that “the word wonder, as the opening of a grand scene[,] ‘America’ in Emerson can refer to two a design in Providence for the illumina- quite different entities”: tion of the ignorant and the emancipa- One is the United States of America, a tion of the slavish part of mankind all nation that exists on a continent “discov- over the earth.”3 “All over the earth” is an ered” by Columbus. Alternatively, or at the immense ambition, hard to take serious- same time, America exists as a recurrent ly now that the United States seems to be dream or myth that has inhabited the hu- a country much like any other but larger,

6 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences man imagination for many centuries and many American historians, if not the gen- Denis endures there still, free of any of the con- eral public, have shed whatever faith they Donoghue taminations coming from its actual occu- might once have had in the traditional idea pation by the United States. In Emerson, of American exceptionalism.7 the word “America” frequently refers not But the claim can be retained in another to a place but to an idea, a myth that be- form, that of covenant. longs to the world and that can be visited in the imagination, in what we share of “the istorian J.G.A. Pocock has observed old paternal mind,” as he called it in the H that “a conventional model of American Journals in 1845. Centuries before the Unit- historiography would present it as obedi- ed States was formed, America was already ent to two imperatives”: formed in literature. “A good scholar,” he wrote in 1847, “will ½nd Aristophanes & The ½rst is the necessity of a foundational Ha½z & Rabelais full of American history.”5 myth, felt for obvious reasons by a nation About America as an actual country, founded in experiment and sustained by Emerson could be, as Poirier notes, immigration. . . . In the United States, whose “energetically dismissive,” as in a selec- history is so largely a history of the muta- tion from his journal dated June 1847: tions of Protestantism into civil religion, the myth of foundation further takes the Alas for America as I must so often say . . . form of a myth of covenant. The nation is Eager, solicitous, hungry, rabid, busy-body held to have made at its beginnings a com- America attempting many things, vain, mitment, in the face of God or history or ambitious to feel thy own existence, & con- the opinion of mankind, to the maintenance vince others of thy talent, by attempting & of certain principles; and it is the histori- hastily accomplishing much; yes, catch thy an’s business to ascertain how the commit- breath & correct thyself and failing here, ment was made, what the principles were, prosper out there; speed & fever are never and whether the covenant has been upheld greatness; but reliance & serenity & wait- or allowed to lapse. ing & perseverance, heed of the work & Pocock’s easy slide in “God or history or negligence of the effect. the opinion of mankind” shows that he America is formless, has no terrible & no regards these values as having about equal beautiful condensation.6 force: that is, not much. The covenant, But the myth, being timeless, has endured. such as it was, offers an apparent choice Exceptionalism is a peremptory ideolo- of two styles: “One is liturgical, the recital gy, but is vulnerable to bad news. Gordon of how the covenant was kept; the other, Wood has remarked that “since the late and by far the commoner, is jeremiad, the 1960s American historians have become recital of how it was not kept and of what less and less interested in celebrating the sufferings have fallen on the nation by uniqueness of the United States”: reason of its sins and shortcomings.”8 Pocock continues: The war in Vietnam if nothing else convinced many Americans that the moral The recital of historical change, of how character of the United States was not dif- altering conditions of existence may have ferent from that of other nations and that rendered the terms of the covenant obso- the nation had no special transcendent role lete or their performance impracticable, to bring liberty and democracy to the will in all probability be carried out accord- world. During the past several decades ing to the stylized rhetoric and cadences of

141 (1) Winter 2012 7 Introduction the jeremiad mode. It should be further ing dissatisfaction with liberalism which noted that there are few obstacles to asking characterizes the American liberal mind.” whether the covenant was worth making The language of republicanism, he main- in the ½rst place or whether it was not rad- tains, “had survived to furnish liberalism ically flawed. It is perfectly permissible to with one of its modes of self-criticism criticize the covenant, as long as you do not and self-doubt.” He now thinks he erred suggest that it was not made, or that it is or in not realizing “the extent to which my ever has been possible for America to es- propositions were destructive of the cape from it. Notoriously, American politi- American covenantal paradigm”: cal culture is a guilt culture, whose sins and If American thought was involved in a failures are necessary to the af½rmation of quarrel with history from a time before its uniqueness as a nation chosen, whether Independence, for reasons which Ameri- by God or itself, to a peculiar destiny in the cans shared with British and European ful½llment of certain promises. To suggest thinkers, then the Declaration, the Consti- that there was guilt in the promises them- tution, and the Federalist Papers–the sacred selves is permissible; to suggest that there texts of the founding–could not be a were no promises and no covenant would covenant with history but must merely be to strike at the heart.9 continue it, and the quarrel with its own Guilt: one thinks of Hawthorne, Poe, and history in which America has so manifest- Faulkner. Sins: slavery, the extermination ly been engaged could not be a simple pur- or assimilation of the redskin. In Guy suit of the terms of the covenant. The Davenport’s words: exceptionalist thesis would crumble, and in the act of offering to contribute to the The Puritans who thought they were explanation of American history, I would bringing salvation to the Indian (the gift be guilty of denying the uniqueness of was more like gunpowder, rum, measles, American guilt and exposing America to and paranoia) were bringing instead the the terrors of a history it shared with other god Progress in whose super½cial goodness cultures.11 and single-minded jealousy of its preroga- tives was concealed the plan of genocide Pocock, for reasons largely biographical, which in fact developed as the white man’s is pleased to ½nd that the American con- only real attitude toward the Indian for ditions that apparently support the excep- three hundred years. There are pioneer tionalist thesis are often found conduc- Bibles in the library of the University of ing to a different ideology in Europe; he Texas bound in Indian skin.10 makes fun of Americans who prefer “the splendid misery of uniqueness.”12 If the The second conventional foundation history of the United States is largely a of American historiography, according to history of the mutations of Protestantism Pocock, is “the premise of inescapable into civil religion, those mutations can liberalism”: its decisive formulation is hardly be cited as evidence for the excep- political scientist Louis B. Hartz’s The tionalist thesis: many countries have had Liberal Tradition in America (1955) and his such mutations. edited book, The Founding of New Societies (1964). Hartz’s America “was liberal without the struggle to establish liberal- How the Civil War is featured in the ism.” Pocock claims that he himself has American narrative is still a question. It is uncovered “pre-Revolutionary condi- implausible to think that it was merely a tions helping to bring about that underly- small story within the large one of excep-

8 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences tionalism or Manifest Destiny. Scholars lation and forced labor to a more progres- Denis from Charles A. Beard to Eric Foner and sive capitalism based on technological Donoghue James M. McPherson call it “the second innovation and wage labor, although it American revolution,” an ingenious term would take almost a century for the South since it allows us to correlate this second to overcome its legacy of social and eco- with the ½rst, or indeed merge the two. In nomic backwardness. It encouraged new Abraham Lincoln and the Second American patterns of thought and culture but did not Revolution (1990), McPherson says that obliterate older ones.14 “the events of the 1860s in the United This is a fair comment, but it blurs the States equally deserve the label revolu- difference between a Union Army ½ght- tion,” in company with the English Revo- ing Confederates and insurgent Ameri- lution of the 1640s and the French Revolu- cans of the Revolution ½ghting British tion of the 1790s.13 The historian George soldiers. A narrative has to be masterful Fredrickson comments: indeed to encompass civil war and the What is likely to emerge is the conclusion several smaller stories recited in this that the Civil War was not so much a sec- issue of Dædalus. William Chafe, whose ond (and more decisive) American revo- essay opens the volume, doubts that we lution as the completion of the ½rst. It still have such a narrative. strengthened–but did not create–Ameri- Several other contributors to this issue can nationalism. It moved African-Ameri- write of their chosen topics in varying cans a step further toward equal citizen- tones of sadness. It is dif½cult to be buoy- ship, extending a process that began with ant these days, when so much news is dis- gradual emancipation in the northern states mal and when it is so hard even to imag- during the post-Revolutionary era. It assist- ine the prophetic exultation of America ed the forces promoting capitalist develop- in its beginning. But sadness and disap- ment by shifting the balance of power from pointment are parts of the local narra- a primitive capitalism of ruthless accumu- tive, too.

endnotes

1 Gordon S. Wood, “The Relevance and Irrelevance of American Colonial History,” in Imag- ined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past, ed. Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 145. 2 Ibid., 145–146. 3 John Adams, Revolutionary Writings 1755–1775, ed. Gordon S. Wood (New York: Library of America, 2011), 691. 4 Herman Melville, White-Jacket, quoted in Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 156–157. 5 Richard Poirier, “An Approach to Unapproachable America,” Raritan 26 (4) (Spring 2007): 7. 6 Joel Porte, ed., Emerson in His Journals (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1982), 372. 7 Wood, “The Relevance and Irrelevance of American Colonial History,” 157. 8 J.G.A. Pocock, “Between Gog and Magog: The Republican Thesis and the Ideologia Ameri- cana,” Journal of the History of Ideas 48 (2) (April–June 1987): 337–338.

141 (1) Winter 2012 9 Introduction 9 Ibid., 338. 10Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981), 355. 11 Pocock, “Between Gog and Magog,” 342. 12 Ibid., 346. 13 James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 21–22. 14 George M. Fredrickson, “Nineteenth-Century American History,” in Imagined Histories, ed. Molho and Wood, 179.

10 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Narrative: Is There One & What Is It?

William H. Chafe

Abstract: Nearly four centuries of American history have witnessed the evolving conflict between two competing sets of values: a belief that acting on behalf of the common good should guide social and political behavior, and a belief that unfettered individual freedom should dominate political and social life. Tracing this conflict from Puritanism through the American Revolution, the Civil War, the rise of industrialism, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, and the conservative revival of the Nixon/Reagan era, the essay reveals this clash of values as pivotal to understanding the narrative of American history, with contemporary political battles crystallizing just how basic this conflict has been.

Who are we? Where have we been? Where are we going? Can we even agree on who “we” includes? At no time in our history have these questions been more relevant. The American political system seems dysfunctional, if not permanently fractured. A generational gap in technological expertise and famil- iarity with the social network divides the country to an even greater extent than the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Soon, more “Americans” will speak Spanish as their ½rst language than English. For some, access to health care is a universal right, for others, a privilege that must be earned. Rarely– and certainly not since the Civil War–have we WILLIAM H. CHAFE, a Fellow of been so divided on which direction we should be the American Academy since 2001, heading as a country. How can there be an American is the Alice Mary Baldwin Profes- narrative when it is not clear what it means to talk sor of History at Duke University. about an American people or nation? Two overrid- His publications include Private ing paradigms have long competed in de½ning who Lives/Public Consequences: Personality we are. The ½rst imagines America as a community and Politics in Modern America (2005) that places the good of the whole ½rst; the second and The Rise and Fall of the American Century: The United States from 1890 envisions the country as a gathering of individuals to 2008 (2008). His current project who prize individual freedom and value more than is titled Behind the Veil: African Amer- anything else each person’s ability to determine his ican Life During the Age of Segregation. own fate.

11 Is There an When the Puritans arrived in the Mas- Not surprisingly, the tensions between American sachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, their leader, those who put the good of the community Narrative & What Is It? John Winthrop, told his shipmates aboard ½rst and those who value individual free- the Arabella that their mission was to cre- dom foremost have reverberated through- ate a “city upon a hill,” a blessed society out our history. Thomas Jefferson sought that would embody values so noble that to resolve the conflict in the Declaration the entire world would admire and emu- of Independence by embracing the idea late the new colony. Entitled “A Modell of “equal opportunity” for all. Note that of Christian Charity,” Winthrop’s sermon he championed not equality of results, described what it would take to create but equality of opportunity. Every citizen that beloved community: “We must love might have an “inalienable” right to “life, one another. We must bear one another’s liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but burdens . . . make others’ conditions our what happened to each person’s “equal own. We must rejoice together, mourn opportunity” depended on the perfor- together, labor and suffer together, always mance of that particular individual. Suc- having before our eyes a community cess was not guaranteed. [where we are all] members of the same Throughout American history, the ten- body.” sions between the value of the common Consistent with Winthrop’s vision, good and the right to unbridled individ- Massachusetts was governed in its early ual freedom have resurfaced. The federal decades by a sense of communal well- government sought to build roads and being. While the colony tolerated differ- canals across state lines to serve the gen- ences of status and power, the ruling eral good. The nation fought a Civil War norm was that the common good took because slavery contradicted the belief in precedence. Thus, “just prices” were pre- the right of equal citizenship. In the after- scribed for goods for sale, and punish- math of the war, the Constitution guar- ment was imposed on businesses that anteed all males the right to vote, and its sought excess pro½ts. Parents who mis- Fourteenth Amendment promised each treated their children were shamed; peo- citizen “equal protection” under the law. ple who committed adultery were ex- But by the end of the nineteenth centu- posed and humiliated. ry, rampant economic growth had creat- Soon enough, a surge of individualism ed myriad enterprises that threatened the challenged the reigning norms. Entrepre- common good. In The Jungle, Upton Sin- neurs viewed communal rules as shackles clair highlighted the danger of workers to be broken so that they could pursue falling into vats of boiling liquid at meat- individual aspirations–and pro½ts. The packing plants. The influx of millions of ideal of a “just price” was discarded. immigrants brought new dangers of infec- While religion remained a powerful pres- tious disease. As sweatshops, germ-½lled ence, secularism ruled everyday business tenements, and unsafe factories blighted life, and Christianity was restricted to a American cities, more and more Ameri- once-a-week ritual. Class distinctions pro- cans insisted on legislation that fostered liferated, economic inequality increased, the general welfare. Led by women reform- and the values of laissez-faire individualism ers such as Jane Addams and Florence Kel- displaced the once-enshrined “common ley, social activists succeeded in getting wealth.” Aid to the poor became an act of laws passed that ended child labor, pro- individual charity rather than a commu- tected workers from injury from danger- nal responsibility. ous factory machines, and created stan-

12 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences dards for safe meat and food. The Progres- For the ½rst time since Reconstruction, the William H. sive Era still left most people free to pur- government acted to prohibit discrimina- Chafe sue their own destiny, but under Presi- tion against African Americans, issuing an dent Theodore Roosevelt, the government executive order to allow blacks as well as became the ultimate arbiter of minimal whites to be hired in the war industries. standards for industry, railroads, and con- Similarly, it supported policies of equal sumer safety. pay to women workers while leading a massive effort to recruit more women into The tensions between the two narratives the labor force to meet wartime demands. continued to grow as the nation entered From wage and price controls to the uni- the Great Depression. Nearly a million versal draft, government action on behalf mortgages were foreclosed, the stock mar- of the good of the whole reached a new ket crashed, 25 percent of all American height. workers were chronically unemployed, After the war ended, the tension and banks failed. When Franklin Roose- between the competing value systems velt was elected president, he promised returned, but, signi½cantly, even most to use “bold, persistent experimentation” Republicans accepted as a given the fun- to ½nd answers to people’s suffering. The damental reforms achieved under the legislation of the ½rst hundred days of his New Deal. Anyone who suggested repeal presidency encompassed unprecedented of Social Security, President Dwight federal intervention in the regulation of Eisenhower wrote to his brother Milton industry, agriculture, and the provision of midway through his term in of½ce, was welfare payments to the unemployed. “out of his mind.” Eisenhower even cre- The good of the whole reemerged as a ated a new Cabinet department to over- dominant concern. By 1935, however, the see health and welfare. American Liberty League, a political group formed by conservative Democrats to The stage was set for the revolutions of oppose New Deal legislation, was indict- the 1960s: that is, the civil rights move- ing fdr as a socialist and demanding a ment, the women’s movement, the stu- return to laissez-faire individualism. But dent movement, and the War on Poverty. the New Deal rolled on. In 1935, Congress Blacks had no intention of accepting the enacted Social Security, the single great- status quo of prewar Jim Crow segrega- est collective investment America had tion when they returned from serving in ever made, for all people over sixty-½ve, World War II. Building on the community and the Wagner Labor Relations Act gave institutions they had created during the unions the right to organize. Roosevelt ran era of Jim Crow, they mobilized to con- his 1936 reelection campaign on a platform front racism. When a black woman was emphasizing that “one third of [our] na- raped by six white policemen in Mont- tion is ill-housed, ill-clothed and ill-fed.” gomery, Alabama, in the late 1940s, the This focus on the good of the whole Women’s Political Council, organized by culminated during World War II, a time local black women, and the Brotherhood when everyone was reminded of being of Sleeping Car Porters, an all-black union, part of a larger battle to preserve the values took on the police and forced a trial. That that “equal opportunity” represented: the same network of black activists sought dignity of every citizen, as well as the right improvements in the treatment of blacks to freedom of religion, freedom from at downtown department stores and on want, and freedom of political expression. public transport. Thus, when one of their

141 (1) Winter 2012 13 Is There an members, Rosa Parks, was arrested in 1955 er and ordered a cup of coffee. “We don’t American for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus serve colored people here,” they were told. Narrative & What Is It? to a white person, both groups took ac- “But you served us over there,” they re- tion. By initiating a phone tree and print- sponded, showing their receipts. Opening ing four thousand leaflets, they organized their school books, they sat for three hours a mass rally overnight. Held at a local Bap- until the store closed. The next day, they tist church to consider a bus boycott, the returned to the lunch counter with twenty- rally featured an address by Martin Luther three of their classmates. The day after King, Jr., who later became the embodi- there were sixty-six, the next day one hun- ment of the movement (though it should dred. On the ½fth day, one thousand black be noted that the movement created King students and adults crowded the streets of and not vice versa). After that night, downtown Greensboro. Montgomery’s black community refused The direct-action civil rights movement to ride the city buses for 381 consecutive had begun. Within two months, sit-ins days, until the buses were desegregated. occurred in ½fty-four cities in nine states. A few years later, four ½rst-year students By April 1960, the Student Nonviolent Co- at the all-black North Carolina Agricul- ordinating Committee (sncc) had been tural and Technical College in Greens- founded. Soon, The New York Times was boro, North Carolina, carried the move- devoting a special section each day to civil ment a step further. Although they had rights demonstrations in the South. On come of age after the Supreme Court August 28, 1963, a quarter-million people outlawed school segregation, little had came together for the March on Wash- changed. Now that their generation was ington. There, Martin Luther King, Jr., reaching maturity, they asked what they gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, a con- could do. The young men had gone to an temporary version of what John Win- all-black high school where their teachers throp had said 238 years earlier that cele- had asked them to address voter registra- brated the same idea of a “beloved com- tion envelopes to community residents munity” where “neither Jew nor Gentile, and encouraged them to think of them- black man or white man” could be sepa- selves as ½rst-class citizens. They had par- rated from each other. ticipated in an naacp youth group in At long last, the government responded. which weekly discussions had centered The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended Jim on events such as the Montgomery Bus Crow. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 re- Boycott. They attended a Baptist church stored the franchise to black Americans. where the pastor preached the social gos- The War on Poverty gave hope to millions pel and asked for “justice now.” Embit- who had been left out of the American tered by how little the status of black dream. Medicare offered health care to Americans had improved, they sought all senior citizens, and Medicaid offered it new ways of carrying forward what they to those who could not otherwise afford to had learned. go to the doctor. Federal Aid to Education Their solution was simple: highlight the created new and better schools. The Mod- absurdity of segregation by going to a el Cities Program offered a way for blight- downtown department store and acting ed neighborhoods to be revitalized. like regular customers. At the Woolworth’s The narrative of progress toward the in Greensboro, they bought notebooks at common good reached a new crescendo. one counter, purchased toothpaste at With the civil rights movement as an another, then sat down at the lunch count- inspiration, women started their own

14 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences movement for social equality. Access to platform of “law and order” and respect William H. previously closed careers opened up for authority. Adopting a “Southern strat- Chafe under pressure. By 1990, half of all med- egy,” he appealed for white Southern votes ical, law, and business students were by opposing forced desegregation of women. Young girls grew up with the schools. Lambasting students who pro- same aspirations as young boys. Latinos, tested the war, he pleaded for a return to gay Americans, and other minorities soon respect for traditional institutions. Nixon joined the march demanding greater claimed to speak on behalf of “the silent equality. It seemed as though a perma- majority” who remained proud to be nent turning point had occurred. American citizens, who celebrated the flag rather than mocked it, and who af½rmed But the counternarrative eventually re- the rights of individuals to do as they discovered its voice. Millions of white wished. Americans who might have supported Richard Nixon’s election in Fall 1968 the right of blacks to vote or eat at a lunch launched the resurgence of a conservative counter were appalled by af½rmative consensus in American politics. Though action and demands for Black Power. on issues such as the environment Nixon When the war in Vietnam caused well-off pursued many policies consistent with students to take to the streets in protest the “good of the whole” framework, on against their country’s military actions, most issues he moved in the opposite thousands of ordinary workers were direction. He opposed busing as a tool to angered by the rebellion of the young create greater school desegregation, start- against authority. Traditional families ed to dismantle War on Poverty programs, were outraged when feminists questioned based his 1972 reelection campaign on monogamy and dared to challenge male attacking the “collectivism” of the Dem- authority. ocratic party, and insisted on defending By 1968, the nation was divided once the values of “traditional” Americans more, and the events of that election year against attacks by the young, minorities, crystallized the issues. Incumbent Lyn- and women. don Johnson withdrew from the presi- As social issues provided a rallying dential race at the end of March. Martin point for those set against further social Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in April, change, the conservative narrative gained with riots spreading like wild½re across new proponents. Those opposed to gay the country in response. Student protes- rights mobilized to curtail further efforts tors took over Columbia University in to make sexuality a civil rights issue. May, making a mockery of the idea of Evangelical Christians joined groups civil discourse and respect for authority. such as Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in or Pat Robertson’s “Praise the Lord” clubs June, just as he seemed ready to move to lobby against advances for minority decisively toward the Democratic presi- rights. Direct mail campaigns and the use dential nomination. And when the Dem- of cable television helped the Right gal- ocratic party met for its convention in vanize new audiences of potential sup- Chicago, thousands of protestors were porters. pummeled by police as they demonstrat- Presidential politics also continued on ed against conventional politics. a conservative path. Even though Richard At the same time, Richard Nixon was Nixon was compelled to resign in shame nominated by the Republican party on a over his illegal activities in the Watergate

141 (1) Winter 2012 15 Is There an scandal, each of his successors–even From 1968 to 2008, the American polit- American Democrats–advanced the conservative ical and ideological trajectory hewed to a Narrative & What Is It? agenda he initiated. Gerald Ford vetoed conservative narrative that celebrates more legislation in two years than most individualism over collective action and presidents veto in eight. Jimmy Carter, criticizes government activity on behalf though a liberal on gender equality and of the common good. black civil rights, proved conservative on most economic issues. Ronald Reagan per- In recent years, the tension between the soni½ed the conservative revival. He not two narratives has escalated to an alarm- only celebrated patriotism, but also re- ing degree. Barack Obama’s 2008 election vived the viewpoint that the best America appeared to revitalize a focus on the com- was one without government interven- mon good. More people voted, embrac- tion in the economy, and one that vener- ing the idea of change, and elected a black ated the ideal of individualism. American who seemed to embody those Even Democrat Bill Clinton, excoriated values. The fact that Obama became the by the Right as a demonic embodiment ½rst president in one hundred years to of counterculture values, was in practice successfully pass national health care more a Dwight Eisenhower Republican reform–albeit without the provision of than a Lyndon Johnson Democrat. Dedi- a public alternative to private insurance cated to cultivating the political main- companies–appeared to validate that stream, he achieved legislative victories presumption. primarily on traditionally Republican But with the midterm elections of 2010, issues: de½cit reduction; the North Amer- the rejection of Democratic politics– ican Free Trade Agreement; an increased especially state intervention on behalf of police presence on the streets; welfare the common good–resulted in the most reform that took people off the public dole dramatic electoral turnaround since 1946, after two years; and the use of V-chips to when President Harry Truman’s Demo- allow parents to control their children’s crats lost eighty-one seats in the House of television viewing habits. Only his failed Representatives. “Tea Party” Republicans health care proposal acted in tune with not only stood for conservative positions the ideology of fdr and lbj. on most social issues, but most dramati- George W. Bush simply extended the cally, they insisted that all taxes should be conservative tradition. With massive tax cut, that federal expenditures for Medi- cuts, he created lower rates for the wealthy care, Social Security, and other social pro- than had been seen in more than a half- grams must be slashed, and that it is pre- century. His consistent support of dereg- ferable for the government to default on ulation freed up countless companies and its ½nancial responsibilities than to raise investment capital ½rms to pursue pro½ts the national debt ceiling. without restriction. He made nationalism A backward glance through U.S. history a cherished part of his political legacy, would reveal no clearer example of the including the pursuit of a doctrine that tension between the two competing emphasized unilateral initiatives de½ned American narratives, existing side by side, as in the best interests of the United seemingly irreconcilable. The moment is States, and downplayed multilateral co- historic, particularly at a time when cli- operation that would subject America to mate change, stalled immigration reform, constraint by the wishes of its partners and a depressed global economy cry out and allies. for action. Thus, the conflict between the

16 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences good of the whole and the ascendancy of electorate makes in 2012 are of historic William H. individualist freedom has reached new importance in determining which direc- Chafe heights. The choice that voters make in tion the country will take. the 2012 presidential election will de½ne our country’s political future. Which narrative will we pursue? Are health care and quality education universal rights or privileges reserved for only those with the means to pay? Do we wish to bear “one another’s burdens . . . make others’ conditions our own . . . mourn together [and] labor and suffer together?” Or do we wish to make each individual responsible for his or her own fate? These questions are not new. But now, more than ever, they challenge us to ½nd an answer: Who are we? In which direction do we wish to go?

Despite the trend over the past three- and-a-half centuries toward legislation that creates a safety net to protect the larger community, millions of Americans appear committed to dismantling government, slashing federal spending, and walking away from previous commitments to the good of the whole. A number of candidates running for the Repub- lican presidential nomination in 2012 wish to curtail federal responsibility for Social Security for senior citizens. Every Republican candidate seeks to repeal Obama’s national health insurance program. Cutting taxes has become a holy mantra. While it is true that in the coming decades demographic change will dramatically increase the number of Lati- no voters, who historically have favored legislation on behalf of the common good, it is not inconceivable that a reversal of social welfare legislation will happen ½rst. The tension between these two narratives is as old as the country itself. More often than not, it has been a healthy tension, with one set of values checking and balancing the other. But the polarization of today is unparalleled. The decisions the

141 (1) Winter 2012 17 America’s Constitutional Narrative

Laurence H. Tribe

Abstract: America has always been a wonderfully diverse place, a country where billions of stories span- ning centuries and continents converge under the rubric of a Constitution that unites them in an ongoing narrative of national self-creation. Rather than rehearse familiar debates over what our Constitution means, this essay explores what the Constitution does. It treats the Constitution as a verb–a creative and contested practice that yields a trans-generational conversation about the meaning of our past, the imperatives of our present, and the values and aspirations that should point us toward our future. And it meditates on how this practice, drawing deeply on the capacious wellsprings of text and history, simultaneously reinforces the political order and provides a language for challenging its legitimacy, thereby constituting us as “We, the People,” joined in a single project framed centuries ago that nevertheless remains inevitably our own.

What is the Constitution? This question has puzzled many of its students and conscripted whole forests in the service of books spelling out grand theories of constitutional meaning. In their quest to resolve this enigma, scholars have powerfully illuminated both the Constitution’s inescap- LAURENCE H. TRIBE, a Fellow of able writtenness and its unwritten extensions, its the American Academy since 1980, bold enumeration of rights and its construction of is the Carl M. Loeb University Pro- structural protections lest those rights become fessor and Professor of Constitu- mere “parchment barriers,” and the centuries-long tional Law at Harvard Law School. dance of text, original meaning, history and tradi- The recipient of ten honorary de- tion, judicial doctrine, social movements, and aspi- grees, he was appointed by the rational values. They have documented its grandest Obama administration in 2010 to serve as the ½rst Senior Counselor achievements and its most appalling failures– for Access to Justice, and he cur- aspects of its story that are also, in a deep sense, our rently serves as a Member of the achievements and failures as a nation. For the Con- President’s Commission on White stitution is more than just a historical artifact House Fellowships. His many pub- guarded by the National Archives, or a source of lications include The Invisible Consti- legal authority invoked by the courts to adjudicate tution (2008), American Constitutional cases. True to its name, it constitutes us as a people Law (3rd ed., 2000), and On Reading the Constitution (with Michael Dorf, –e pluribus unum–and draws all of our cross-gener- 1991). He was elected a Member of ational debates into a project set in motion by, and the American Philosophical Socie- unfolding through, its written and unwritten di- ty in 2010. mensions.

18 Whatever else the Constitution may be all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to Laurence H. –and I do not purport to offer a complete cancel half a line, nor all your tears wipe Tribe or ½nal answer to that question–its un- out a word of it.” folding interpretation and implementa- It is not by participating in revisionist tion through the crucible of competing mutilation of the Constitution’s text, but stories about constitutional values thus by engaging in the unending debate over represent elements of a practice essential incorporating the document into our self- to the creation and perpetual re-creation understanding at each moment in time, of “We, the People.” Efforts to pin it down overlaid with still-potent and anachronis- or freeze its development in the historical tic echoes of a history that is not even past, past miss this crucial lesson: debates over that we truly engage in the task of collec- constitutional meaning necessarily involve tive interpretation and reinterpretation. episodes in an unsettled enterprise, rather This is the truest sense in which we experi- than the search for a long-lost key that un- ence our Constitution as a verb. We navi- locks the secret of some ultimate consti- gate the Constitution, its hazards, its shal- tutional truth. Put simply, the Constitution lows, its depths; we explore it still; we is a verb, not a noun. And sometimes, as we learn from our own adventures and mis- teach our children in elementary school, adventures. Otto Neurath, an Austrian distinguishing between a verb and a noun writer of the Vienna Circle, evocatively can make all the difference in the world. offered the analogous image of “sailors who must reconstruct their ship on the On the second day of the 112th Con- open sea,” unable ever “to start afresh from gress, January 6, 2011, congressional lead- the bottom” but fated to use “the old ers decided to read what they advertised beams and driftwood” to reshape the ship as the Constitution of the United States. while using whatever remains for support But they had the chutzpah to expunge pro- as old beams are taken away. visions of that celebrated document that So too the perpetual project of fashion- they believed modern developments had ing and refashioning ourselves into “We, rendered obsolete, or even downright em- the People,” guided by our Constitution. barrassing–such as the infamous Three- Justice Robert Jackson once wrote of the Fifths Clause and the Fourteenth Amend- “½xed star[s] in our constitutional con- ment’s reference to the right of a state’s stellation.”3 His metaphor seems singular- “male inhabitants” to vote.1 Treating the ly apt–though for a reason he might not Constitution as a creed to be recited in have envisioned. The stars themselves properly updated, politically correct, and may be ½xed, but the task of navigating by perhaps theologically approved form– them is one that inevitably calls for hu- rather than as the inescapably flawed and man insight. Thus, the points of light that invariably contested narrative of our na- punctuate the night sky, like the discrete tional struggle over the fundamental com- provisions of the Constitution’s text, form mitments that de½ne us as a people–those patterns that speak to poets and philoso- political leaders ignored the capacity of phers perhaps more than they do to physi- superseded provisions to serve as anti- cists and astronomers. The task of con- dotes to “collective amnesia about [our] necting the dots with stories–narratives, national missteps.”2 They forgot the if you will–of our past and future ulti- power of the deathless lines of Omar mately rests on acts of imagination.4 Khayyam’s Rubaiyat: “The moving ½nger As we have come to understand, the writes, and having writ, moves on. Nor single tapestry of star-glittered sky that

141 (1) Winter 2012 19 America’s we see above us represents not one simul- West, stories about America as a nation Constitu- taneous reality but a number of different of immigrants who came to these shores tional Narrative realities, each from its own locus in time, in search of liberty and equal opportuni- yet all reaching us at the same moment. ty, and stories about America as a distinc- The Constitution, like the night sky, is tive country that has always existed free composed of elements drawn from, and from those forms of feudalism and social reflecting the concerns of, strikingly dif- hierarchy characteristic of the Old World ferent eras in our history. Like the sky we or has self-consciously thrown them see at night, our Constitution retains, as off.”6 Such narratives of aspiration and though still vital and unchanged, any progress, as well as counternarratives of number of features that–like supernovae conquest and self-deception, exploitation that have collapsed into invisible black and decay, “are as central to constitution- holes long before their light reaches our al interpretation as the opinions of any eyes–might have long since been erased jurist,”7 and indeed often play central or transformed. Readers of the Constitu- roles in the most influential of those judi- tion must project patterns onto its provi- cial opinions–opinions that not only set sions and make arguments in the name of forth conflicting legal arguments about invisible structures–structures that ob- the meaning of America’s founding doc- servers across the ideological spectrum uments, but also promulgate competing can only describe as the “tacit postulates” narratives through and against which of the constitutional plan.5 Americans debate the meaning of their past and the shape of their future. This essay is a meditation on how those We need not believe that many people postulates express themselves through actually read, much less pore over, the competing historical narratives that draw texts of those opinions, or even the texts on the terms of our Constitution to pro- they purport to interpret and elaborate, pel us as a people across time and space. in order to recognize the deep and dy- That meditation is possible because the namic interplay between those overlaying United States of America is itself less a texts, the stories they tell, and the themes place than a story–or, more precisely, a in terms of which we conduct our most cluster of hundreds of millions of stories, persistent national conversations.8 some stretching back to before the 1700s, To be sure, the recent immigrant from others unfolding at this moment, still Latin America, the third-generation Amer- others not yet begun–and because our ican Italian, and the American Indian are Constitution provides a capacious home not likely to agree on a single tale as they that is readily transformed as new stories spin out their versions of the nation’s nar- join the practice of divining, contesting, rative. What nonetheless de½nes it as one and constructing its meaning. American narrative out of many–e pluri- While they are told in the name of a bus unum–is neither ancestry nor territo- singular “We, the People,” the competing ry but a single trans-generational project narratives that those stories weave to- framed by our Constitution. The U.S. Con- gether into so many unique patterns are stitution is the one document, the one really sites of ½erce contest over constitu- structure, on which all competing accounts tional meaning. As two of our most in- converge and of which each account con- sightful constitutional theorists have put tains a vivid picture. Even for those who it, “There are stock stories about Ameri- regard our nation’s Constitution as only cans as courageous pioneers who won the partly embodied in the actual text of the

20 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences written document,9 it is that text that con- meaning” of all but the most mechanical Laurence H. stitutes the canonical touchstone for all of the Constitution’s provisions is under- Tribe the narratives that de½ne us as one People. stood at a suf½ciently high level of abstrac- All those who hold public of½ce as our tion and generality, in terms of overarch- representatives must take an oath to pre- ing principles rather than ½xed and deter- serve and protect that one “supreme law,” minate rules, so that the task of putting or at least obey its mandates. And even flesh on the Constitution’s bones of “lib- those of us who need take no such oath erty” and “equality” remains inescapably are likely to identify the Constitution as our own. our fundamental law. It is fundamental in Indeed, even the responsibility for sep- the sense that it trumps all other sources arating the “mechanical” provisions from of legal power and obligation and estab- the “abstract” ones is inevitably ours. lishes the foundation on which those Consider the constitutional prohibitions other sources must build. It is ours in the against federal and state “bills of attain- sense that, although we played no role in der.” One might read these provisions as its original enactment, and though we may straightforward mechanical prohibitions hold no of½ce bearing an of½cial respon- of a particular kind of law (one whereby sibility for resolving disputes over consti- the legislature condemns a named person tutional construction, “We, the People” to a criminal penalty). Or one might read have an open, standing invitation to be- them as broad principles condemning come involved in debating and settling its practices that resemble “trial by legisla- interpretation. Hence, we all have a per- ture.”14 As I have written elsewhere, one sonal stake in what it means.10 cannot choose between these readings This is true both for those of us who be- simply by “meditating about the language lieve that the Constitution always means used” or by conducting “an exercise, how- just what it originally meant to those who ever grand, in historical reconstruction.”15 wrote and rati½ed it–or to the entire Instead, one must engage in the active pro- country at the time it was enacted11–and cess of constructing constitutional mean- for those of us who, like me, believe that ing, not just in the “passive process of dis- at least its elastic phrases have an evolv- covering” it.16 ing meaning, one that may change with Moreover, even if we are among those changed circumstances and understand- who remain convinced that the Constitu- ings even though the words of the text tion’s central role is to pin matters down itself, and the basic principles they enact, do so as to resist the winds of disastrous or not change over time.12 It is sometimes decadent change, rather than to facilitate suggested that the “originalists” among us, and channel orderly transformation in those who seek to interpret and apply the pursuit of broad aspirations,17 it remains Constitution either in accord with the sub- we who are choosing to be bound by that jective intentions of its authors or, more rigid framework. No external force, noth- plausibly, in accord with its original pub- ing beyond the Constitution’s words and lic meaning, must defend the legitimacy principles as we come to understand them, of being governed by the dead hand of the ties us down.18 And the Constitution itself, past and thus by a framework that gives excepting the mysterious Ninth Amend- us little or no ownership of our own con- ment19 and the Preamble’s announcement stitutional destiny.13 The “dead hand” that the charter’s purpose is to establish a problem is indeed a serious one. But it “more perfect Union,” is decisively silent need not be paralyzing if the “original on the matter of its own construction.20

141 (1) Winter 2012 21 America’s Although we are unlikely to agree on ongoing debate over how best to approximate Constitu- the meaning of all its moving parts, it our national ideals, then one will natural- tional Narrative remains our Constitution that organizes ly gravitate toward what some have de- our most important national conversa- scribed as a more “aspirational” sense of tions and furnishes the primary language what the Constitution’s design mostly and framework in terms of which we de- seeks to accomplish and of how many of bate our rights and our nation’s history. its rights-declaring and power-conferring provisions were from the outset struc- To say that the Constitution belongs in- tured to operate.24 For something like exorably to all of us is not to deny that four decades, I have been teaching about some visions of the Constitution capture the Constitution in largely those terms, the robust spirit inherent in America’s depicting it as the scaffolding or frame ongoing narrative better than others. If, for that national dialogue. In its ½rst for example, one imagines our Constitu- printing in 1978, my treatise, American tion to be merely a thing of levers and Constitutional Law, bore the subtitle “A pulleys–a clockwork universe mechani- Structure for Liberty” and was bound in a cally propelling us forward in time as if dust jacket depicting the Statue of Liber- we cannot trust our own initiative and ty not yet fully liberated from the elabo- forthright spirit to guide our progress and rate scaffolding that surrounded her as save us from moral decline lest, like the she was delivered from France. too readily tempted Ulysses, we succumb From 1989 to 1991, I had a particularly to moral rot–one is likely to resist the remarkable student and collaborator– notion that a dynamic interplay among now our nation’s President–who helped culture, politics, and law properly de½nes me more precisely articulate the notion of the evolving application and implementa- the Constitution as an ongoing “conversation of open-ended constitutional terms.21 tion” among generations of Americans.25 This gloomy outlook, however, arbitrari- And that is how I continue to describe it.26 ly presupposes that America’s governing I credited President Obama with that evoc- narrative is one of decline rather than one ative image well before a new generation of growth and potential improvement. It of scholars breathed vital new life into this manifests a cynical (and, I believe, mis- way of reading our Constitution. He fore- guided) distrust of “We, the People.” It saw how, through an ongoing sequence of overlooks important features of both the narratives, the Constitution can furnish original Constitution’s framing and the nothing less than the principal language deliberately transformative amendments in which we–not just judges, but all of us– adopted immediately following the Civil talk with (and, unfortunately, too often War, amendments whose evident purpose past or at) one another about which cours- was to change, not to nail down, the sta- es of action are faithful and which un- tus quo.22 And it ½ts uncomfortably with faithful to our nation’s founding ideals.27 the Constitution’s Preamble, which, far The critics of this “living Constitution” from fatalistically contemplating a future approach–and there are many–need to of inevitable moral regression, looks for- be taken seriously, but they must not be ward with fervent hope to the formation permitted to demand of the approach of “a more perfect Union.”23 something it does not even purport to pro- But if instead–as I have urged ever since vide: namely, an algorithm for providing the late 1970s–one understands much of determinate answers to contested issues the Constitution as the framework for an of constitutional meaning. There are cir-

22 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences cumstances when such answers are called of cultural context, however strongly Laurence H. for and when recourse to the Constitution that hardwired rule might conflict with a Tribe as living conversation or narrative will not deep constitutional norm of equal repre- suf½ce. Such a determinate answer may be sentation as reflected in the principle of needed, for instance, when we ask wheth- “one person, one vote.”33 er the Constitution’s provision forbid- There are, of course, many circumstanc- ding default on the nation’s lawfully in- es in which the Constitution cannot be curred public debt means that debt may reduced to correct and incorrect answers be incurred by the President beyond the independent of context and unhinged limit set by Congress if no compromise from point of view. It is precisely when leading Congress to raise that statutory the idea of the Constitution as a language limit is reached in time to avoid the disas- or an ongoing narrative is offered up by ters that a default would bring.28 And its proponents as a potentially conversa- there are circumstances when, despite the tion-stopping argument for this or that sirens of a postmodern relativism that “liberal,” or sometimes “conservative,” from time to time still rears its unwelcome result in the face of genuine indetermina- head, such answers are available. cy that such proponents become most One can, of course, insist otherwise.29 vulnerable to critique; they lose sight of But I cannot take seriously the occasional the fact that the value of the “living Con- suggestions that even the Constitution’s stitution” approach is precisely that it most rigidly mathematical provisions, eschews this insistence on dogmatic and such as its requirement that the President de½nitive readings of all the document’s must be at least thirty-½ve years of age, provisions. Thus, for instance, some have necessarily have “a radical indetermina- sought to demonstrate that the right to cy of meaning . . . within a liberal commu- end one’s pregnancy by having an abor- nity.” Take, for instance, the notion that a tion is among the “privileges or immuni- sixteen-year-old guru might be permit- ties” of United States citizens in the ted to run for and win the presidency twenty-½rst century even though, they because the guru’s “supporters sincerely argue, the right may not yet have been claim that their religion includes among entitled to that status when the Supreme its tenets a belief in reincarnation” that Court proclaimed it to be protected must be respected lest, in counting elec- through the Liberty Clause of the Four- toral votes, we violate the First Amend- teenth Amendment in 1973.34 Well, even ment’s bar on federal establishment of “a as a proponent of the right, I must confess particular religious view about the de½- to remaining unconvinced, in part be- nition of age” and traduce the support- cause such demonstrations, proceeding as ers’ “rights under the free exercise clause, they invariably do in terms of the equal as well as their right grounded in demo- citizenship of women, manage to leave cratic theory to choose who will govern out of the equation the life of the unborn. them.”30 Clever, but surely in jest. With Q.-not-E.D. all respect, the fact that the Constitution is a conversation and a living narrative As a way of understanding what consti- does not mean that it is only a game.31 tutional discourse embodies and how it Like it or not, for instance, there are two proceeds, the idea of the Constitution as United States Senators per state, however narrative is powerful and illuminating; as large or small the state may be.32 That is a way of persuading the unconvinced that not a matter of competing narratives or one’s reading of the Constitution’s more

141 (1) Winter 2012 23 America’s nebulous provisions is “the” right one, the In this conception, the Constitution pro- Constitu- idea is akin to using the rules of syntax to vides the primary thread of continuity that tional Narrative prove a normative proposition. For any- integrates us as a people engaged in this one whose hope for philosophical expla- trans-historical project and offers a frame- nation is that it should enable rather than work within which we converse about our end conversation, it is not a defect that the commitments to the principles by which notion of constitutional narrative rarely, if we feel bound–principles which them- ever, yields a conversation-stopper.35 selves evolve with our changing selves.37 Nor does the inability of this perspective In such a dialogue, there is no escaping to provide decisive answers to normative the need to reckon with potentially trans- questions mean that it is silent on the need formative choices concerning our basic for “We, the People” to confront funda- constitutional commitments. Common mentally value-based choices. In this re- law constitutionalism looks away from gard, it contrasts most strikingly with this imperative, prioritizing instead a slow purely “common law” approaches to the juricentric unfolding of doctrine in which Constitution, which focus nearly all their the application of agreed-upon values attention on the case-by-case elaboration evolves, but only one step at a time.38 of constitutional law and preach the le- This limitation of common law ap- gitimizing virtues of this incremental proaches is starkly visible in a recent dynamic. The common law model is, of Supreme Court decision striking down a course, borrowed from the centuries-old California law restricting the sale or and distinctly Anglo-American method of rental of violent interactive video games piling layer upon layer of judicial prece- to minors.39 The majority’s opinion per- dent using a mix of fact-speci½c analogi- fectly sounded the notes that dominate cal reasoning and rule-like formulations the last half-century of American First of judicial doctrines and legal standards. Amendment precedent, reciting the core This approach, however, has a tendency to commitments of our free speech canon in lose sight of the constitutional text while uncompromising terms. As a matter of immersing itself in a vast sea of precedent. constitutional common law, the case was It thus speaks eloquently to the way in unquestionably rightly decided, for the which the superstructure of constitutional state had sought to restrict expression in doctrine properly unfolds in the inter- terms of the message being expressed stices of basic choices of interpretive di- without ½tting that restriction into any of rection, but has little to say about the fun- the doctrinal pigeonholes, including “½ght- damental constitutional principles that ing words” and “obscenity,” de½ning the this doctrine exists to implement. This narrowly excepted categories plainly iden- shortcoming, in turn, points to a deeper ti½ed as exclusive by decades of settled flaw in the common law model: its in- precedent. ability to grapple with deep choices about But at no point did the majority mean- which values ought to guide the evolving ingfully grapple with a simple, important course of our national project. question: Are the excepted categories es- Meaningful liberty demands commit- tablished in decades past suf½cient to pro- ting ourselves to an intergenerational tect the values implicated today in this case, community of ends de½ned and circum- where the video games being marketed to scribed in a way that can connect our lives minors included some that graphically de- to a shared past while we grope toward an picted savage bludgeoning, dismember- ever more inclusive vision of the good.36 ing, and sexual assaults on human beings,

24 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences often in stunningly realistic and sadistical- women without regulatory obstacles, by Laurence H. ly precise detail, and typically in a manner being more tolerant of state and local reg- Tribe that engaged the player of the game in a ulation of interactive video violence, or degree of active interplay with the sounds (as I am tentatively inclined to think) by and images that made the result a vividly doing both, here was an ideal occasion for experienced version of virtual reality? Nor returning to basics and treating the trans- could the majority have meaningfully en- generational Constitution itself–not sim- gaged with this question so long as it re- ply the tower of doctrine constructed to mained wedded to the common law ap- implement it over the years40–as the proach. It would have required a dramat- compass with which We the People navi- ic intellectual leap to move from a rigid gate our course through history. One need body of case law, de½ned by well-settled not agree with Justice Breyer’s conclusion compartments of “protected” and “un- to admire his willingness to confront the protected” speech, to a First Amendment hard issues posed by Brown v. Entertainment vision sensitive to the unique issues raised Merchants Association rather than to hide by the marketing of violent video games between walls of citations that obscure the to children. As an old Yiddish saying has basic choices implicated by the case.41 it, you can’t leap a chasm in two jumps–let The need for such choices is rendered alone by the series of small steps charac- apparent by even a brief tour through teristic of common law constitutionalism. America’s historical traditions of free Justice Stephen Breyer vigorously dis- speech, which reveal sustained contest agreed with the majority, delivering a dis- over the First Amendment’s protections sent that wrestled carefully with the chal- and the values that give it life. This fact is lenges posed by technological advance- best appreciated, appropriately enough, ments that blur the boundaries between through a comparison of the best avail- speech and action and by the insights of able historical accounts with the consti- modern social science that cast light on tutional narratives regularly invoked to the psychological impact on children of justify opinions like Brown v. EMA. participating in interactive violence, even Distinguished historians tell us that if “only” in virtual form. Further, noting when the First Amendment was rati½ed that judicial precedent sharply distinguish- in 1791, it was understood by many legal es between violent and sexual speech, giv- thinkers to embody a view of free speech ing the government little or no power to rights and the principles they protect target the former but great latitude to sup- grounded in the writings of Sir William press the latter, Justice Breyer posed a Blackstone.42 The Revolution itself had powerful and disturbing question: “What triggered widespread suppression of Loy- kind of First Amendment would permit alist speech, and the Framers, notwith- the government to protect children by re- standing their immersion in a social real- stricting sales of that extremely violent ity of biting commentary and robust de- video game only when the woman–bound, bate, drew on received legal traditions to gagged, tortured, and killed–is also top- craft expressive freedoms.43 On that view, less?” Indeed, a good case can be made for freedom from prior restraint in the form of the view that this divide is explicable only government licensing of the press consti- as a matter of historical happenstance tuted the main safeguard against tyranny. and does not withstand critical scrutiny. However, as the Alien & Sedition Act cri- Whether we should respond by permit- sis soon revealed, Americans were deeply ting minors to obtain images of topless divided over the nature of expressive lib-

141 (1) Winter 2012 25 America’s erties. Those divisions were caught up in be deemed clear and present, unless the Constitu- questions of federalism and national pow- incidence of the evil apprehended is so tional Narrative er, as well as in beliefs about the bound- imminent that it may befall before there is aries of free speech rights, that persisted opportunity for full discussion.50 through the nineteenth century.44 For ex- Here we see Justice Louis D. Brandeis, ample, a string of Southern laws declar- writing at the peak of his powers in the ing abolitionist speech a capital offense 1927 case of Whitney v. California. In the prompted dramatic sectional strife in the soaring rhetoric and legend-driven histo- 1830s,45 and the Gilded Age witnessed a ry that Brandeis composed for Whitney, proliferation of laws designed to provide modern Americans ½rst encounter a vi- an arsenal for the mainstream assault on sion of free speech that they can readily “abuse” of speech rights by anarchists, so- claim as their own: a laissez-faire ideal cialists, immigrants, free-lovers, and labor that pictures a largely unregulated mar- agitators.46 Libertarian counternarratives ketplace of ideas as integral to the flour- abounded, and lived experience provided ishing of our democracy, and that looks a richer scope of expressive freedom than with deep distrust on any professed ben- judicial opinions suggested, but the law e½ts of interventions that limit expression remained a potent vehicle for agents of in the pursuit of other facets, whether suppression.47 As one scholar reports, “If egalitarian or paternalistic, of the Ameri- the number of avenues being used and the can constitutional vision.51 It is around amount of traf½c on them are the gauge, this story, and its attendant values, that America never experienced greater gov- the Supreme Court and the vast majority ernment restrictions on the press than of Americans currently organize debates during the ½rst quarter of the twentieth over the legitimacy, meaning, and purpose century.”48 A string of speech-restrictive of laws that touch on rights of speech and cases during World War I thus rested press–a narrative that mixes mythologi- ½rmly on conventional legal wisdom.49 It cal description with normative guidance. was only after the 1930s–and mainly Of course, not even the recent hegemo- after World War II–that mainstream ny of this narrative in opinions like Brown thinkers and the Supreme Court as their v. EMA means that it stands unchallenged. most authoritative voice made a signi½- Although courts have struck down laws cant choice to craft the deeply libertarian prohibiting the most virulent forms of doctrine undergirding Justice Antonin hate speech,52 misogynist pornography,53 Scalia’s opinion in Brown. or the commercial possession, produc- Yet this is not the narrative one encoun- tion, and sale of videos depicting animal ters in contemporary discussions of the cruelty54–and have done so in opinions First Amendment. If anything, it sounds that command my assent, though with positively alien to the modern ear. The fol- considerable regret and a belief that these lowing story certainly rings more familiar: restrictions furthered legitimate ends per- Those who won our independence by revo- missibly achievable through other means lution were not cowards. They did not fear –the laws at issue were all animated by political change. They did not exalt order persistent and legitimate First Amend- at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self- ment counternarratives sensitive to the reliant men, with con½dence in the power harm that speech can inflict on minori- of free and fearless reasoning applied ties and other vulnerable groups. Justice through the processes of popular govern- Samuel Alito recently channeled a modern ment, no danger flowing from speech can incarnation of these narratives in his stir-

26 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences ring dissent in Snyder v. Phelps,55 a decision ted open reporting about the civil rights Laurence H. upholding the rights of gay-bashing (and campaign in the South. But the same strug- Tribe supposedly religiously motivated) protest- gle has also produced unfortunate and ers to parade with hate-½lled homophobic avoidable defeats for the cause of liberty. placards within painful view of the mourn- Indeed, in a series of less-than-admirable ers at funerals of fallen American soldiers. cases, the Court has aggressively invoked Forcefully articulating the heart of his po- exaggerated narratives of self-preserva- sition, Justice Alito argued that “[i]n order tion in times of collective peril to uphold to have a society in which public issues the blatant censorship of dissident and can be openly and vigorously debated, it information-enhancing speech. These sad is not necessary to allow the brutalization defeats for liberty occurred most famously of innocent victims like petitioner.”56 His when the government sought to repress moving–if ultimately unconvincing– the U.S. Communist Party in 195159 and, opinion reveals the modern vibrancy of most recently, when it prohibited civil narratives that appeal to the Constitution rights lawyers from providing terrorist and its underlying values as a forceful groups with legal advice about nonvio- touchstone for the proper boundaries of lent activities.60 laws regulating speech, rather than solely A second counternarrative, to which I to a common law form of doctrine and its am cautiously but decidedly sympathet- laissez-faire presumptions. ic, looks to our core democratic commit- Two other lines of doctrine currently ments and the threats posed by private constitute particularly heated battle- power in order to support egalitarian grounds between laissez-faire and counter- principles in campaign ½nance jurispru- stories that invoke different values in our dence.61 We see this egalitarian streak in constitutional scheme to advance a more the four justices who dissented from the interventionist approach. As a result, Court’s opinion in Citizens United v. FEC,62 these domains helpfully exemplify the which vastly enlarged corporate ½nancial value-laden choices that lie at the core of power to influence American political any deep engagement with the First campaigns in the ostensible service of Amendment as it has been practiced in “free” speech. We see it also in the four the recent past. They also suggest the justices who dissented from the Court’s dif½culties associated with adopting a recent invalidation of modest and clearly purely gradualist posture toward consti- speech-enhancing legislative efforts to off- tutional change. set the power of money in politics with The ½rst involves speech that we fear public funding of campaigns63–a case and hate. These cases typically arise when that prompted a masterful dissent by Jus- the Court pits liberty against security. Its tice Elena Kagan.64 In both cases, the dis- struggle to strike the right balance between senting justices were able to draw on these basic elements of our constitution- long-standing narratives of a more inter- al order has produced such landmark and ventionist stripe that build on the same laudable opinions as those in the Pentagon constitutional impulses as more familiar Papers Case,57 which shielded The New York narratives rejecting commitments to a Times and The Washington Post from orders laissez-faire ideology in the context of to suppress publication of crucial infor- economic regulation.65 mation about the Vietnam War, and New As this whirlwind tour suggests, counter- York Times Co. v. Sullivan,58 which power- narratives that support a relatively inter- fully protected our free press and permit- ventionist approach to speech regulation

141 (1) Winter 2012 27 America’s stubbornly persist in modern First Amend- Whitney, Justice Breyer thus extended an Constitu- ment jurisprudence, sometimes speaking invitation to advocates of the laissez-faire tional Narrative through Supreme Court majorities but narrative to (re)engage in conversation often speaking through judicial dissents about how best to think about the free- or legislative enactments supporting re- dom of speech in today’s context. Justice strictions on speech. The availability of Scalia’s majority opinion declined that in- these competing narratives in many im- vitation. Instead, its brief analysis merely portant cases renders unsatisfactory a invoked answers to such questions arrived purely common law account that looks at in contexts long past. only to the steady accretion of precedent, These cases each represent moments at pointing us instead toward a Constitu- which the Court–or a concurring or dis- tion whose practice invariably includes senting Justice–offered a story of who we hard choices among values in tension, are and what we value, sometimes joining each resonant with constitutional mean- this vision to a retelling of our imagined ing and each accordingly due a measure past, but always linking it to the same con- of respect in First Amendment discourse. stitutional text and speaking in the name Justice Breyer drew in spirit upon this set of the same trans-generational commu- of counter-traditions when he remarked: nity. The many versions of these narratives are thus all part of our nation’s col- This case is ultimately less about censorship lective narrative, which in turn consists of than it is about education. Our Constitution an ongoing conversation about the evolv- cannot succeed in securing the liberties it ing and competing principles that bind us seeks to protect unless we can raise future in order to make us more free. generations committed cooperatively to making our system of government work. lthough the Supreme Court is an Education, however, is about choices. A important interpreter of the Constitution Sometimes, children need to learn by mak- –and one of the only institutions with the ing choices for themselves. Other times, capacity to transform its vision of the past choices are made for children–by their into our governing law–the Justices do parents, by their teachers, and by the peo- not stand alone in that enterprise, which ple acting democratically through their has been entrusted from the start to every governments.66 branch and level of government and to In this powerful conclusion to his dis- “We, the People.”67 The common law senting opinion, Justice Breyer reminds method’s decidedly juricentric focus, us that First Amendment constitutional beyond its inability to cope with moments narratives steeped in the virtues of laissez- of fundamental choice and points of dis- faire–however powerful they may have continuity, thus provides too narrow a lens been in shaping our doctrine through on our Constitution, whose capacity to common law development–do not enjoy structure a trans-generational dialogue sole authority over contemporary First about the course of our shared destiny Amendment discourse. Our Constitution, extends far beyond the courtroom door. like our society, is aspirational in its broad Other of½cial actors responsible for shap- compass and its embrace of more than ing constitutional meaning include the just a single value as the guiding light of President, Congress, and the states. The robust democracy. By appealing to the interpretations adopted by these actors same principle of preserving our democ- are particularly important in the many racy that Justice Brandeis invoked in contexts–signi½cantly including mili-

28 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences tary intervention, impeachment, and ½s- Heller regime of gun control in the United Laurence H. cal policy (as in the debt ceiling debate of States. Tribe mid-2011)–in which judicial review is un- Consider, too, Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 available or judicial involvement unlikely. decision holding that private consensual The task of interpreting and reinterpret- sexuality between same-sex partners can- ing the Constitution is not, moreover, not be outlawed.71 The conditions mak- restricted to government of½cials. That ing both Heller and Lawrence possible in- practice, like the Constitution itself, be- cluded social mobilization, evolving pub- longs to us all. This point has been made lic opinion, and shifting political align- forcefully and persuasively by scholars of ments.72 Both decisions were handed what has come to be known as “popular down by (different) bare majorities of the constitutionalism”–which, in the words Supreme Court, although one freely in- of one of its leading exponents, explores voked the capacious notion of “liberty” how “social movement conflict can moti- substantively protected from unwarrant- vate as well as discipline new claims about ed intrusion by the Fourteenth Amend- the Constitution’s meaning, and how re- ment’s Due Process Clause, while the other sponsive interpretation by public of½cials purported to discipline itself by combing can transmute constitutional politics into through late-eighteenth-century manu- new forms of constitutional law.”68 scripts73–an exercise that triggered a no The Supreme Court’s opinion in District less scholarly rejoinder from Justice John of Columbia v. Heller,69 the decision that Paul Stevens, who read the history, and struck down a local ban on the possession thus the provision’s original meaning, of handguns while announcing for the quite differently.74 And both decisions ½rst time that the Second Amendment pointed toward a future of ongoing con- protects an individual right to bear arms test about the scope, implications, and (as opposed to solely a militia right, which social acceptance of the formal rights would have permitted far more stringent they created.75 gun control laws), exempli½es this dynamic. Although Justice Scalia spoke for Some prominent students of the Con- the Court with all the eighteenth-century stitution have interpreted the Court’s re- authority he could muster, deploying a sponse to these episodes of “popular con- full originalist analysis to support his stitutionalism” in a different light: name- conclusion and waging historiographical ly, that the document’s “soft” language, battle with the dissent over the meaning while ½guring prominently in many of of preambles and commas in the 1780s and our debates about such issues as the 1790s (fascinating stuff, no doubt), the meaning of equality and the outer reach- power he wielded to strike down Wash- es of federal and state power, is ultimate- ington, D.C.’s handgun ordinance was ly meaningless to legal outcomes truly grounded emphatically in the late twenti- grounded in popular support.76 These eth century’s constitutional politics of gun missionaries of constitutional irrelevance, rights, personal freedom, and law-and- often influenced by recent trends in po- order society.70 A full perspective on the litical science, adopt a rhetoric of hard- opinion must therefore look beyond the nosed realism and deride as outmoded a courtroom to the wider national conver- belief in the importance of the language sation in which the Court is just one of that de½nes the reach of federal power or many participants and will remain only that guarantees individual rights. Although one of many actors in crafting the post- few of these skeptics doubt that our Con-

141 (1) Winter 2012 29 America’s stitution’s hardwired provisions–for ex- lieve remain unproven and that I think are Constitu- ample, those that separate the federal gov- belied by, for example, the recent opinions tional Narrative ernment into three distinct branches, or- striking down popular congressional ef- ganize the national legislature into two forts to curb corporate spending on elec- houses, and divide power between the nations for public of½ce80 and state efforts tion and the states–matter greatly to our to restrict the sale to minors of gruesome- lives and to the life of our country, some ly violent video games.81 see even these structures as little more Even legal outcomes supported by pas- than a threadbare armature supporting sionate social movements do not call for the true architecture of American govern- a crude reduction of the Constitution to ment: political parties.77 politics, coupled with an insistence that There are even those who argue that the Constitution’s rights-protective lan- constitutional amendments as seemingly guage matters little. To frame the point fundamental as the Thirteenth (abolish- with a counterfactual: If there were no ing slavery) or the Fourteenth (forbid- Second Amendment that gun rights social ding deprivations of life, liberty, or prop- movements could begin to cohere around erty without due process of law, guaran- through the late twentieth century in or- teeing equal protection of the laws, and der to seek legitimacy in the language of ensuring the privileges or immunities of our fundamental charter, the course of the American citizenship) have made little or gun rights movement would almost cer- no actual difference.78 The essence of their tainly have been dramatically different. argument is that the practices such amend- The close connection of that movement ments are credited with preventing are to the rhetoric of originalism–an associ- just those that would have become un- ation important to many leading gun rights acceptable to the American public anyway. advocates and part of the basis for their Furthermore, their argument continues, close identi½cation with conservative con- to the degree various measures have had stitutional thought82–would have been broad public approval, the Constitution’s severed, thus changing the constitutional condemnation has not mattered much in and political stakes of an argument for gun practical terms. Others emphasize that rights by shifting it entirely into the do- constitutional interpretations are often main of unenumerated rights elaborated given legal force only through judicial in the name of the Fourteenth Amend- proclamations, and proceed to frame the ment’s comparatively vague protection of Supreme Court in turn as a fundamental- “liberty.” Given that the rhetoric of orig- ly majoritarian institution unwilling to inalism as the sole legitimate interpretive land far a½eld from national public opin- methodology played an important role in ion on matters of great moment.79 raising the popular salience of certain con- To some degree, given the way constitu- servative ideas, including gun rights, the tional understandings shape public atti- absence of this relatively speci½c rights- tudes, as well as the other way around, this protecting textual provision would likely is the familiar question of what came ½rst, have proven signi½cant to the form, nature, the chicken or the egg. But at rock bot- and success of efforts to persuade politi- tom, the suggestion that the Constitution cians, the public, and ultimately ½ve Jus- and judicial decisions construing it make tices to discover in the Constitution an in- relatively little difference amounts to a set dividual right to bear arms.83 The impor- of empirical claims about a series of coun- tance of such persuasion is clear for an terfactual hypotheses–claims that I be- opinion like Heller (as well as a follow-up

30 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences opinion that applied it to the states84), become fully accessible, especially to those Laurence H. which produced countermajoritarian re- with limited resources, given the growth Tribe sults with respect to a vast swath of local of political, social, and sometimes violent and state gun control laws. Ordinary poli- resistance to the 1973 decision in Roe v. tics, though a necessary condition for the Wade.87 Conversely, the rights of the un- vindication of federal gun rights, was born, for those who believe such rights hardly a suf½cient one. Text made all the are part of what our founding documents difference. promised to protect when they spoke of The power of the Constitution’s lan- “life,” remain largely without constitu- guage–both its pure text and the consti- tional protection.88And many indigent tutional vocabularies loosely grounded in defendants still do not receive a fully that text–extends further than facilitat- effective defense, despite the 1963 deci- ing the organization and success of polit- sion in Gideon v. Wainwright,89 given the ical causes. It shapes our national destiny, notoriously inadequate funding of public our national conversation, and even our defenders’ of½ces. self-understanding. One need not fully But those who would argue that the con- embrace some of the gauzier claims stitutional rulings of the 1950s through the about “expressive effects” and “rights 1970s, for example, and the constitution- consciousness” to recognize that the al texts and principles those rulings elab- Constitution speaks to us at a deeper level orated, therefore made no difference–or than the mechanistic functioning of grand little difference worth speaking of–are Madisonian structures. This is true even surely relying on an unduly recent histor- for the many of our fellow citizens who ical baseline as the standard against which do not think consciously about the Con- to measure change or are instead suffer- stitution’s provisions, but instead treat its ing from an all-too-common form of his- guarantees as part of the air they breathe torical amnesia. They thus fail to recog- and the ground beneath their feet. Words nize that the Constitution commits “We, and their persuasive pull are powerful the People” to traverse an evolving path things, creating a magnetic internal dimen- along which we recognize novel rights sion of the Constitution’s power–one in text whose extraordinary potential sounding in the realms of narrative and escaped even the most daring imagina- national self-consciousness, of historical tion of its drafters. experience, and of what some have called In any case, those who claim that a con- “constitutional faith.” stitutional provision, or a judicial decision Unless we are thoroughly enthralled by construing it, mattered little in the end a chilling cynicism, we must recognize surely take too narrow a view of textual that we as a nation have begun, however influence. The Fourteenth Amendment’s slowly, to redeem many of the promises command that states not deprive any per- that Abraham Lincoln85 identi½ed as son of the “equal protection of the laws” grounded in our Declaration of Indepen- nor deprive any person of “liberty . . . with- dence and later framed by the Constitu- out due process of law” was interpreted tion. To be sure, our public schools have in a 1967 decision, aptly named Loving v. yet to become racially integrated, given Virginia, to mean that states could no the demographic changes that took place longer prohibit interracial marriage.90 between 1954 and today, and the judicial Even if social pressures continued to make retreat from plans designed to ensure ra- life dif½cult for interracial couples in many cial integration.86 Abortions have yet to parts of the country, as they surely did and

141 (1) Winter 2012 31 America’s perhaps still do, can we say that the legit- macy and same-sex relationships con- Constitu- imating effect of that 1967 pronounce- tributed to a major cultural movement tional Narrative ment on the dignity and self-worth of affecting the fabric of human relations in such couples was unimportant?91 And, America. The Court’s shift foreshadowed even in the years before that case was and encouraged the end of the ban on decided, can we say that the effect of the openly homosexual individuals serving in Constitution’s as yet unredeemed prom- the military, as well as the ongoing dis- ises of due process and equal protection– cussion over whether our shared commit- promises that could be and were held up ment to equality requires legal recogni- as sources of critique aimed at the exist- tion of same-sex marriages.92 So robust a ing order of things–made no real differ- national debate would hardly have been ence to those who could at least cling to conceivable at a time when governments the aspirations those promises expressed? were free to brand gay men and lesbians The fact that a constitutional provision with the stigmatizing and debilitating or judicial order does not immediately label: “criminal.”93 transform social reality in its own image Thus, the promise the Constitution does not bespeak irrelevance. Rather, it holds for all Americans who interact with suggests a complex dialogue that shapes the text is an opportunity to bolster the evolving social and political experience causes in which they believe most deeply, in ways more subtle and far-reaching than commit the nation to achieving distant some of the more popular dismissals of hopes of progress, and receive vindication the Constitution’s rights-protecting pro- in knowing that the American narrative visions seem willing to recognize. has not left them behind or ignored their By the time Lawrence was decided in story. 2003, actual prosecution of private sexual activity between same-sex partners had My reflections in this essay on the become exceedingly rare. It would never- structure and role of constitutional nar- theless be a serious mistake to suppose rative should not be confused with an ef- that the decision’s primary impact was fort to construct a grand theory of consti- simply to eliminate the few such prosecu- tutional meaning, an effort that has come tions that remained. As the Supreme Court to seem (to me, at least) beside the point. clearly recognized, the decision’s princi- In my view, the search for a uni½ed under- pal effect was to end one of the justi½ca- standing of our Constitution and its place tions most often offered for denying gay in our unfolding history requires not so men and lesbians equal treatment in a much a uni½ed theory of what the Con- wide range of civil contexts, from immi- stitution itself, both as a text and as an gration to housing to employment to adop- invisible edi½ce of principles and prac- tion. The decision contributed to wiping tices surrounding that text, says as a co- away the stigma and the insult to dignity herent understanding of what the Con- that the Court’s contrary ruling in 1986, stitution does. Even if competing under- in Bowers v. Hardwick, had legitimated and, standings of what the Constitution says indeed, endorsed. By rejecting and criti- and means yield too little common ground cizing a dominant narrative about sexu- on which to build a coherent edi½ce of ality and the law, and by crafting a power- theory and doctrine,94 the same is not ful counternarrative that spoke in stirring true of what the Constitution does: it en- terms of dignity and destiny, the Court’s ables government of½cials in every branch altered understanding of same-sex inti- and at every level and, even more impor-

32 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences tant, ordinary citizens throughout the stitutionalism take the view that the Con- Laurence H. country to ground both their defense of stitution does not matter. To the contrary, Tribe the existing legal and political order and many of them think it matters all too their critique of that order in narratives much–that the rights it confers and the cast in terms of a text and a structure that structures it puts in place are potent ob- connects us all, like it or not, with a cer- stacles to necessity and expediency, and tain set of origins, and that links our fu- that it is riddled with dangerous inef½- ture and that of our children to a shared ciencies that might unwisely handicap a fate.95 As I wrote in American Constitutional robust executive.103 In this domain, it Law, “The Constitution provides the basic turns out that the Constitution’s impor- language through which [our] institutions tance–indeed, its extraordinary incon- direct and challenge one another and the venience–can hardly be overstated.104 society at large and through which the Inconvenient, perhaps; crippling, not people in turn contest the actions of demonstrated. Moreover, I am skeptical those institutions.”96 that we could successfully cabin the black This vision is dif½cult to reconcile with holes these theorists would create and un- recent scholarship insisting that there are leash in our constitutional order, and I moments at which the Constitution fails have elsewhere expressed at length my us, times at which it does not let us move belief in our Constitution’s capacity to quickly enough or ef½ciently enough in persist through times of crisis without response to national peril. On such occa- being dangerously distorted in the pro- sions, we are told, the Constitution can cess. After all, “[i]t is within this frame- and must be set aside in the name of an work that we have articulated and argued “unbound executive,” an “emergency con- for a succession of tentative resolutions stitution,” a “constitution of necessity,” or of competing values, ideals, and interests some other dramatic term invoking the . . . [and] that we have found the terms to familiar metaphor that our Constitution recognize and sometimes repudiate our is not a suicide pact.97 This position has mistakes.”105 echoed across crises in American history, There is no shortage of resources with- from Lincoln’s suspension of habeas cor- in our constitutional vocabulary to facili- pus during the Civil War98 to fdr’s repu- tate a rich and productive dialogue about diation of gold clauses99 and the famous the balance between terror and security, debate between Justices Robert Jackson freedom and ef½ciency. To the contrary, and Felix Frankfurter in Korematsu v. Unit- narratives of military, economic, and so- ed States (the Japanese American intern- cial imperative have long held pride of ment case)100 over a principle of necessi- place alongside counternarratives of civil ty that “lies about like a loaded weapon liberty, restraint, and privacy. Thus, Jus- ready for the hand of any authority that tice Jackson could argue in Korematsu that can bring forward a plausible claim of an the Supreme Court should step aside in urgent need.”101 Post-9/11 legal thought the face of military emergency rather has once again gravitated (albeit halting- than warp the Constitution to legitimize ly) in this direction, as scholars on both the internment of Japanese Americans, the political Left and Right urge us to “grit and could then speak in stunningly elo- our teeth and do what must be done in quent terms of the Constitution’s separa- times of grave peril.”102 tion of powers while ½nding that Presi- Perhaps unsurprisingly, few of those dent Truman had acted illegally by seiz- who write in this vein of emergency con- ing control of steel mills to stave off a

141 (1) Winter 2012 33 America’s military and economic crisis.106 Nor is it prepared to risk that existential transfor- Constitu- any major shock that the same Justice mation? tional Narrative Jackson could leap to the defense of Jeho- In my view, therefore, there are no inter- vah’s Witnesses who refused to salute the missions at which we may securely de- flag in the midst of World War II, time- cide that the Constitution is temporarily lessly evoking the First Amendment as a incapable of accommodating our nation- “½xed star in our constitutional constel- al project. Forevermore, its footing would lation,” while Justice Frankfurter’s “Fall of be precarious, its centrality unstable, the France” dissent ominously invoked the practice of which it is an integral part vul- growing threat posed by Nazi Germany nerable. In that sense, the Constitution is and the imperative of national unity.107 either an aspirational project worthy of It is hard for me to imagine what Amer- our commitment entirely and always, or ica would look like in any of the brave new not at all.108 worlds born of a so-called emergency constitution. The Constitution is more than Some scholars have spoken of a similar just a set of sometimes inconvenient rules notion in terms of constitutional faith, limiting the President’s ability to detain whose absence led men like William citizens. Nor can it simply be replaced by Lloyd Garrison to damn the nation as a a temporary upgrade or substitute when covenant with hell and whose presence ½re bells sound in the darkest night. Its leads others to gamble with a trans- text and invisible structure are part of the historical enterprise whose success is nation’s beating heart–the solar plexus necessarily uncertain.109 The heralds of at which the vast diversity of American necessity and exception partake of the narratives inevitably converge, and the Garrisonian impulse. I respectfully dissent. conversation through which we remain In so doing, I associate myself with the tied to past and future generations. “We, wondrously diverse groups of men and the People” cannot simply bracket our women throughout our nation’s history Constitution, even if we improvidently who have linked their narratives to that depart from particular commands, for of the Constitution, joining the national that very notion presupposes a “we” that conversation that constitutes us as a peo- exists outside the Constitution’s frame. ple and stretches backward and forward Were we to lose faith altogether in the in time. They understood, as do I, that the Constitution’s possibilities, to set it aside Constitution truly is a verb–an ongoing as a will-o’-the-wisp guide to modernity or act of creation and re-creation that we place it on pause while we transact short- perform in courts, in the halls of Congress term imperatives, “we” could never again and in the White House, on the streets, in exist in quite the same way. This lacuna scholarly works, and in a dazzling array in our national project would become a of other venues. These elements of prac- chasm of discontinuity from which the tice are all essential to our charter’s re- “we” that might emerge would be a new markable capacity to constitute us as “we” altogether, and across which the nar- “We, the People.” In this way, the story of ratives that bind us together–e pluribus the Constitution truly becomes America’s unum–might fray, come undone, and then constitutional narrative. reconstitute into something altogether different. That something might not necessarily be worse, but who among us is

34 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes Laurence H. Tribe Acknowledgments: I am grateful for the superb research assistance of Joshua Matz, Harvard Law School (J.D. anticipated 2012), as well as that of Vivek Suri, Harvard Law School (J.D. anticipated 2013), and for Elizabeth Westling’s and Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s remarkably insightful comments on earlier drafts. 1 See Dahlia Lithwick, “Constitutional Whitewash,” Slate.com, January 6, 2011, http://www .slate.com/id/2280249/. 2 Laurence H. Tribe, The Invisible Constitution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 64. 3 West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). 4 Tribe, The Invisible Constitution, 72. 5 Ibid., 73. 6 Jack M. Balkin and Sanford Levinson, “The Canons of Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review 111 (1998): 963, 987. 7 Ibid. 8 On that interplay, see Lewis H. LaRue, Constitutional Law as Fiction: Narrative in the Rhetoric of Authority (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995). 9 Tribe, The Invisible Constitution; Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Unwritten Constitution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, forthcoming 2012). 10 For a powerful argument about the distinct roles of the Constitution as fundamental law, higher law, and our law–and about how an approach to constitutional interpretation that the argument’s author describes as “framework originalism” enhances the Constitution’s ability to serve those three roles–see Jack M. Balkin, Constitutional Redemption: Political Faith in an Unjust World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011); and Jack M. Balkin, Living Originalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011). 11 For a canonical statement of this position, see Antonin Scalia, “Originalism: The Lesser Evil,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 57 (1989): 849. 12 To take one example, although the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on “unreasonable searches and seizures” remains ½xed as a matter of constitutional text, the doctrines through which courts have applied that prohibition have changed dramatically across time. Thus, even though the notion of a “search” had been historically tied to physical trespass, the Supreme Court recognized the implications of rapidly changing technology when it held in Katz v. United States that the government had breached the Fourth Amendment’s protections by electronically eavesdropping on a public pay phone. See 389 U.S. 347 (1967). It thus overturned prior holdings limiting “searches” to physical intrusions and instead explained that a “search” occurs whenever there exists a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This test, which still constitutes the threshold for determining whether a “search” has occurred, permits doctrine to evolve with changing social circumstances. So, too, in Kyllo v. United States, the Court held that the use of a thermal imaging device to detect the amount of heat emerging from a home constituted a “search” even if the law enforcement of½cer using the device never entered the property being searched. See 533 U.S. 27 (2001). 13 David A. Strauss, The Living Constitution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 24–25; Adam M. Samaha, “Dead Hand Arguments and Constitutional Interpretation,” Columbia Law Review 108 (2008): 606, 613–627; Michael Klarman, “Anti-Fidelity,” Southern California Law Review 70 (1997): 381. 14 United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965). See Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 2nd ed. (Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1988), 656–658. The ½rst edition of this treatise was published in 1978, the third edition in 2000. Subsequent citations will note the relevant edition. See John Hart Ely, Note, “Bounds of Legislative Speci½cation: A Suggested Approach to the Bill of Attainder Clause,” Yale Law Journal 72 (1962): 330.

141 (1) Winter 2012 35 America’s 15 Laurence H. Tribe, “Comment,” in A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, ed. Constitu- Antonin Scalia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 68–71. tional 16 Narrative Ibid. 17 For an excellent discussion, see Michael C. Dorf, “The Aspirational Constitution,” George Washington Law Review 77 (2009): 1631. 18 Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., 24. 19 But not entirely mysterious: see Tribe, The Invisible Constitution, 145–148. 20 See ibid., 149–154. See also U.S. Const., amend. XI (“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any For- eign State”). I should concede that at least one scholar disagrees. See Michael Stokes Paul- sen, “Does the Constitution Contain Rules for its Own Interpretation?” Northwestern Universi- ty Law Review 103 (2009): 857. 21 I made a similar point in the ½rst edition of my treatise. See Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 1st ed., xv. 22 Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1998); Dorf, “The Aspirational Constitution,” 1647–1649. 23 This point was vigorously disputed in a debate between Justice Scalia and me in the mid-1990s. See Scalia, ed., A Matter of Interpretation, 37–47, 65–94, 133–143. 24 Justice Stephen Breyer has championed a form of such “living constitutionalism” from his seat on the Supreme Court, arguing that the Constitution operates as a living instrument designed to secure American democracy through a judicial process that applies unchanging constitutional values to evolving circumstances. See Stephen Breyer, Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge’s View (New York: Knopf, 2010). 25 In 1991, Michael Dorf and I published a book in which we credited Barack Obama and his classmate Robert Fisher with the metaphor of “constitutional interpretation as conversation”; see Laurence H. Tribe and Michael Dorf, On Reading the Constitution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 31 n.1. Obama continued to develop the image in his book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Crown, 2006), 92. 26 Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., 23–24. I argue that the “Constitution provides the basic language through which [our] institutions direct and challenge one another and the society at large and through which the people in turn contest the actions of those institutions.” 27 Michael Dorf and I explored this notion in our book On Reading the Constitution, entitling the second chapter of that book “Structuring Constitutional Conversations.” This represented a re½nement of my prior work. In the years since, others have elaborated on the conversation metaphor in powerfully illuminating works of their own. See Balkin, Constitutional Redemption; Lawrence Lessig, “Fidelity in Translation,” Texas Law Review 71 (1993): 1165; Akhil Reed Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography (New York: Random House, 2005); Jed Rubenfeld, Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005); Jed Rubenfeld, Freedom and Time: A Theory of Con- stitutional Self-Government (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001). 28 For my negative answer to that question–an answer some certainly dispute–see Laurence H. Tribe, “A Ceiling We Can’t Wish Away,” The New York Times, July 7, 2011, http://www .nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08tribe.html; Laurence H. Tribe, “The Constitutionality of the Debt Ceiling and the President’s Duty to Prioritize Expenditures,” Balkanization blog, July 16, 2011, http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/07/constitutionality-of-debt-ceiling-and.html. 29 For example, in the midst of the recent debate over the constitutional legitimacy of unilateral executive action to borrow money in de½ance of a statutory debt limit–legitimacy that its proponents attribute (I believe mistakenly) to the Public Debt Clause of the Fourteenth

36 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Amendment–legal scholar Mark Tushnet went so far as to insist that “THERE IS NO ‘FACT Laurence H. OF THE MATTER’ on whether a constitutional argument is good or bad, as there is about the Tribe shape of the world. Constitutional arguments are good if there’s enough political wind behind them to make them plausible/credible/winning among relevant audiences, bad if they don’t pass the plausibility threshold among those audiences”; Mark Tushnet, “Opinions on the Shape of the World Differ,” Balkanization blog, July 1, 2011, http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/ 07/opinions-on-shape-of-world-differ.html. 30 Mark Tushnet, Red, White, and Blue: A Critical Analysis of Constitutional Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), 61–62. 31 Justice Kagan recently reminded us of this fact in her elegant dissenting opinion in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, 131 S. Ct. 2806, 2829 (2011) (Kagan, J., dissenting). Responding to the Chief Justice’s observation that “campaigning for of½ce is not a game” (ibid., 2826 [Roberts, C.J.]), she states, “truly, democracy is not a game”; ibid., 2846 (Kagan, J., dissenting), emphasis added. 32 U.S. Const., art. I, sec. 3. Indeed, our inability to construe away or work around this provision and others like it, and its alleged consequence of sabotaging American democracy, has led legal scholar Sanford Levinson to call for a new convention at which the Constitution could be entirely rewritten. See Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Consti- tution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 33 Tribe, The Invisible Constitution, 120–121. 34 See, for example, Jack M. Balkin, “Abortion and Original Meaning,” Constitutional Commen- tary 24 (2007): 291. 35 See Robert Nozick, Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), 3; Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, Mass.: Har- vard University Press, 1981), 5, 13–15, 19–21, 23–24. See also Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1968), 8. 36 See Laurence H. Tribe, “Ways Not to Think About Plastic Trees: New Foundations for Envi- ronmental Law,” Yale Law Journal 83 (1974): 1315, 1326–1327; Laurence H. Tribe, “Technol- ogy Assessment and the Fourth Discontinuity: The Limits of Instrumental Rationality,” Southern California Law Review 46 (1973): 617; Laurence H. Tribe, “Policy Science: Analysis or Ideology?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 2 (1972): 66. 37 This conception of the Constitution has been elegantly developed in new and fascinating directions by several recent commentators. See generally, sources discussed in notes 25–27. 38 See, for example, Strauss, The Living Constitution. 39 Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 131 S. Ct. 2729 (2011). 40 Tribe, The Invisible Constitution, 172–180 (discussing geodesic construction of the Constitu- tion); Richard H. Fallon, Implementing the Constitution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001). 41 Indeed, Justice Breyer has recently published a theory of constitutional and statutory interpretation that boldly tasks the Court with an ongoing mandate to “make our democracy work” by grappling pragmatically with the challenges posed by an ever-changing world; see Breyer, Making Our Democracy Work. 42 See generally, Leonard Levy, Emergence of a Free Press (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 43 Constitutional historian Leonard Levy notes that the “conduct of the American revolution- ists usually conformed with the maxim inter arma silent leges [in times of war the laws are silent]. . . . [S]peech and press, therefore, were not free during the Revolution”; ibid., 173. His- torian Forrest McDonald describes the Framers as “divorced from substantive reality” and notes that “no public ½gure in America during the 1780s expressed a view of freedom of the

141 (1) Winter 2012 37 America’s press that differed in any substantial way from the views of Blackstone and Holt”; Forrest Constitu- McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence: Univer- tional sity Press of Kansas, 1985), 49–50. Narrative 44 Keith Jenkins, “The Sedition Act of 1798 and the Incorporation of Seditious Libel into First Amendment Jurisprudence,” The American Journal of Legal History 45 (2001): 154; Levy, Emer- gence of a Free Press, 307–338; James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956); John C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951). 45 See generally, Michael Kent Curtis, Free Speech, “The People’s Darling Privilege”: Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000); Clement Eaton, “Censorship of the Southern Mails,” American Historical Review 48 (1943): 266. See also William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Bat- tle in the United States Congress (New York: Random House, 1995). 46 See Helen Horowitz, Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth- Century America (New York: Random House, 2002); David Rabban, Free Speech in its Forgot- ten Years (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Margaret A. Blanchard, Revolu- tionary Sparks: Freedom of Expression in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Paul Murphy, World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (New York: Norton, 1979). 47 Mark Graber, Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1991). 48 Harold Nelson, ed., Freedom of the Press from Hamilton to the Warren Court (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1967), xxxi. 49 See, for example, Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919); and Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211 (1919). 50 Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring). 51 See also Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (“[T]he ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. . . . [T]he best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market. . . . That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution”); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964) (recogniz- ing “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open”). 52 National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). See also Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment (New York: Basic Books, 2007). 53 American Booksellers v. Hudnut, 771 F. 2nd 323 (7th Cir., 1985). 54 United States v. Stevens, 130 S. Ct. 1577 (2010). 55 Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S. Ct. 1207 (2010). 56 Snyder, 131 S. Ct. 1229 (Alito, J., dissenting). 57 New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971). 58 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). 59 Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951). 60 Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S. Ct. 2705 (2010). 61 See generally, Kathleen Sullivan, “Two Concepts of Freedom of Speech,” Harvard Law Review 124 (2010): 143. 62 Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010). In Citizens United, the Court reversed several precedents–and more than a century of legislative enactments reflecting a concern with the influence of corporate power in elections–to strike down provisions of the Bipartisan Cam-

38 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences paign Reform Act that prohibited unions and corporations from spending funds from their Laurence H. general treasuries, as opposed to more heavily regulated political action committees, on elec- Tribe tioneering communications. The effect of this decision was to allow unions and corporations to spend substantially more on elections, which prompted widespread and high-pro½le concern about the resulting potential for capture and corruption and for the erosion of meaningfully democratic self-government. 63 Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, 131 S. Ct. 2806, 2829 (2011). In Bennett, the Court held that Arizona’s matching-funds scheme, which provides additional funds to a publicly fund- ed candidate when expenditures by a privately ½nanced candidate and independent groups exceed the funding initially allotted to the publicly ½nanced candidate, substantially burdens political speech and is not suf½ciently justi½ed by a compelling interest to survive First Amendment scrutiny. 64 See Bennett, 131 S. Ct. 2830 (Kagan, J., dissenting) (“The First Amendment’s core purpose is to foster a healthy, vibrant political system full of robust discussion and debate. Nothing in Arizona’s anti-corruption statute, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act, violates this constitutional protection. To the contrary, the Act promotes the values underlying both the First Amendment and our entire Constitution by enhancing the ‘opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people.’ I therefore respectfully dissent” [internal quotation omitted]). 65 Legal scholar Cass Sunstein accordingly argues that many of the Court’s decisions protecting spending on speech, especially by corporations but not exclusively so, make the same mistake as did the infamous decision in Lochner v. New York–which struck down a New York law regulating workplace and employment conditions in bakeries, and which has since become a canonical example of the Court wielding its power of judicial review to impose libertarian economic assumptions–in treating the “free market” as though it were the product of nature rather than of law. See Cass R. Sunstein, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (New York: Free Press, 1995). Although he sometimes takes these arguments further than I would, I am sympathetic to the general point and sketched a similar argument in my 1985 book Constitutional Choices. See Laurence H. Tribe, Constitutional Choices (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 192–220. 66 Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2771 (Breyer, J., dissenting). 67 See Larry Kramer, The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 68 Reva B. Siegel, “Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller,” Harvard Law Review 122 (2008): 191, 201. In a sympathetic but trenchant critique, legal scholar Martha Minow has called attention to the tendency of popular constitutionalism to overemphasize social movements and to marginalize the other enormously signi½cant constitutional interpreters within of½cialdom, including state governments and the executive and legislative branches of the federal government; Martha L. Minow, “Constituting our Constitution, Constituting Ourselves: Comments on Reva Siegel’s Constitutional Culture, Social Move- ment, Conflict and Constitutional Change,” California Law Review 94 (2006). 69 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). 70 Reva Siegel made this point in her compelling article “Dead or Alive,” published almost immediately after Heller was decided. 71 539 U.S. 558 (2003). 72 Indeed, the heightened salience of gun rights issues and emergence of debates over the nature of the Second Amendment right ultimately led me to deeper research that in turn prompted a change of view from the second to the third edition of my treatise on American constitutional law. See Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., 893–903. Here, I argue that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms, as opposed to a collective right–as I argue in the second edition–albeit a right subject to considerable regulation. This switch, and the resultant defense of an individual right to bear arms in the 2000

141 (1) Winter 2012 39 America’s edition of my treatise, was discussed by Judge Laurence H. Silberman in his opinion for the Constitu- District of Columbia Circuit in the decision af½rmed by the Supreme Court in Heller. See tional Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F. 3rd 370, 380 n.7 (D.C.C., 2007). Narrative 73 On the methodology in Lawrence, see Robert Post, “Foreword: Fashioning the Legal Consti- tution: Culture, Courts and Law,” Harvard Law Review 117 (2004): 1–11, 77–112; Laurence H. Tribe, “Lawrence v. Texas: The ‘Fundamental Right’ That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” Har- vard Law Review 117 (2004): 1893–1945; Pamela Karlan, “Foreword: Loving Lawrence,” Michi- gan Law Review 102 (2004): 1447. Justice Scalia’s controversial originalist methodology in Heller has drawn several defenders. See, for example, Randy Barnett, “News Flash: The Con- stitution Means What it Says,” The Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2008; Lawrence Solum, “Dis- trict of Columbia v. Heller and Originalism,” Northwestern University Law Review 103 (2009): 923. However, it has also drawn numerous critics, including some prominent conservative jurists. See, for example, J. Harvie Wilkinson III, “Of Guns, Abortion, and the Unraveling Rule of Law,” Virginia Law Review 95 (2009): 253; Nelson Lund, Lucas Powe, Jr., and Adam Win- kler, “Civil Rights: The Heller Case–Minutes From A Convention of the Federalist Society,” New York University Journal of Law & Liberty 4 (2009): 293, 294–305; Richard Posner, “In De- fense of Looseness: The Supreme Court and Gun Control,” The New Republic, August 27, 2008. 74 Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2822 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Justice Breyer authored an independent dissenting opinion criticizing the majority for misapplying its own standard to the gun law at issue. See Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2847 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (“I shall show that the District’s law is consistent with the Second Amendment even if that Amendment is interpreted as protecting a wholly separate interest in individual self-defense. That is so because the District’s regulation, which focuses upon the presence of handguns in high-crime urban areas, represents a permissible legislative response to a serious, indeed life-threatening, problem”). 75 Cass Sunstein, “Second Amendment Minimalism, Heller as Griswold,” Harvard Law Review 122 (2008): 246. 76 Mark Tushnet, Why the Constitution Matters (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010); Daryl J. Levinson, “Parchment and Politics: The Positive Puzzle of Constitutional Commitment,” Harvard Law Review 124 (2011): 657; David Strauss, “The Irrelevance of Con- stitutional Amendments,” Harvard Law Review 114 (2001): 1457. 77 See generally, Tushnet, Why the Constitution Matters. 78 Strauss, The Living Constitution, 115–139. 79 Barry Friedman, The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010). 80 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010). 81 Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, 131 S. Ct. 2729 (2011). For an excellent rebuttal to recent scholarship emphasizing the limited degree to which Supreme Court jurisprudence is likely to depart, on the whole, from majoritarian sentiment, see Richard H. Pildes, “Is the Supreme Court a ‘Majoritarian’ Institution?” Supreme Court Review 2010 (forthcoming). 82 See, for example, Jamal Greene, “Selling Originalism,” Georgetown Law Journal 97 (2009): 657, 682–690. 83 Ibid. 84 McDonald v. Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010). 85 Abraham Lincoln, “Fragmentary Writing, c. 1858,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), cited in Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., 73–74, and in Balkin, Constitutional Redemption, 19. 86 Gerald Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? (Chicago: Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1993); Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

40 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences 87 410 U.S. 113 (1973). For a fascinating revisionist discussion of struggles over abortion rights and Laurence H. access to abortion in the period surrounding Roe, see Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, “Be- Tribe fore (and After) Roe v. Wade, New Questions About Backlash,” Yale Law Journal (forthcoming). 88 To be sure, the Supreme Court permits considerably more restrictive government regulation of abortion today than it did in the years immediately following Roe v. Wade. At least at a doctrinal level, however, this shift has been one toward greater state power, not one toward greater federal protection for fetal life. States remain entirely free, if they choose to do so, to treat even late-term abortions as nothing more than medical procedures fully within the discretion of women and their doctors and do not yet appear to be under any obligation to protect frozen embryos or fetuses awaiting possible implantation. In this sense, the pro-life position, like any number of others, can count itself among the constitutional visions that aspire toward full realization in the American constitutional narrative but have yet to achieve their goal. 89 372 U.S. 335 (1963). 90 388 U.S. 1 (1967). 91 Before Loving, the parents of the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, would have been legally barred from marrying in many states. We have come a long way since those dismal days of lawful racial discrimination. Among the many issues of the 2008 presidential election, including the ludicrous questioning of the place of Obama’s birth, the fact that his parents were of different races played no discernible role. 92 See Laurence H. Tribe, “The Constitutional Inevitability of Same-Sex Marriage,” scotusblog, August 26, 2011,http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/08/the-constitutional-inevitability-of-same -sex-marriage/. This implication of Lawrence was prophesied most clearly by Justice Scalia, who recognized in his dissenting opinion, “This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples”; 539 U.S. 601 (Scalia, J., dissenting). 93 For example, the end of the military’s homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on Sep- tember 20, 2011, which followed aggressive action in each branch of government to end the policy, could hardly have occurred without the pro-gay rights developments in law, society, and politics turbocharged by Lawrence. 94 On my own abandonment of the search for a uni½ed theory of what the Constitution says, see Laurence H. Tribe, “The Treatise Power,” The Green Bag 8 (3) (Spring 2005): 292. On the Constitution as not just a text but also an invisible edi½ce of principles and practices, see Tribe, The Invisible Constitution. 95 Scholar of constitutional law Louis Michael Seidman makes a similar point when he argues that the purpose of the Constitution is not so much to settle dif½cult political disputes as to unsettle them by “provid[ing] citizens with a forum and a vocabulary that they can use [to argue that] the political settlement they oppose is unjust”; Louis Michael Seidman, Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), 8. Seidman’s analysis arguably pays insuf½cient attention to the many potential disputes that never erupt to the point of political salience because the Constitution all but invisibly takes them off the table of serious discourse, but his basic point is nonetheless an important one. 96 Tribe, American Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., 26. 97 See, for example, Eric Posner and Adrian Vermuele, The Executive Unbound: After the Madiso- nian Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Richard A. Posner, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Oren Gross, “Chaos and Rules: Should Responses to Violent Crises Always Be Constitu- tional?” Yale Law Journal 112 (2003): 1011; Mark Tushnet, “Defending Korematsu?: Reflec- tions on Civil Liberties in Wartime,” Wisconsin Law Review 2003 (2003): 273; Michael Stokes Paulsen, “The Constitution of Necessity,” Notre Dame Law Review 79 (2004): 1257; Bruce Ack- erman, “The Emergency Constitution,” Yale Law Journal 113 (2004): 1029. 98 Some proponents of the position that a constitutional provision may be ignored during emergencies have latched on to a rhetorical question in Lincoln’s message to Congress re- 141 (1) Winter 2012 41 America’s porting his suspension of habeas corpus: “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and Constitu- the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”; Abraham Lincoln, “Message tional to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4, Narrative ed. Basler, 430–431. See, for example, Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule, “Obama Should Raise the Debt Ceiling on His Own,” The New York Times, July 22, 2011, http://www.nytimes .com/2011/07/22/opinion/22posner.html?_r=1&hp. They forget what Lincoln went on to say: “it was not believed that this question was presented,” as it was “not believed that any law was violated”; Lincoln, “Message to Congress in Special Session.” According to Lincoln, the Suspension Clause–whose text is silent about who has the power to suspend habeas corpus–authorized him to do so, especially because Congress was not in session at the time. “[A]s the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended, that in every case, the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion”; ibid. Therefore, contrary to Posner and Ver- meule’s suggestion, not even Lincoln’s wartime suspension of habeas corpus is a precedent for the proposition that the president may defy the law “in situations of extreme crisis.” See Posner and Vermeule, The Executive Unbound, 69. See generally, Daniel Farber, Lincoln’s Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 157–163. 99 See Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330 (1935); Jeff Shesol, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010), 87–106. 100 323 U.S. 214 (1944). However, we must not forget that Korematsu upheld only (although tragically) the exclusion of Japanese Americans from certain areas of the country. In a different and often overlooked case decided the same day as Korematsu–Ex Parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944)–the Court actually found the internment of Japanese Americans illegal, though without reaching the ultimate constitutional question. See Patrick O. Gudridge, “Remember Endo,” Harvard Law Review 116 (2003): 1933. 101 323 U.S. 246 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting). This concern led Justice Jackson to take the extraordinary position that the Court should step aside and let the wartime president do what he must–but should at all costs avoid blessing this action in the Constitution’s name. 102 Laurence H. Tribe and Patrick Gudridge, “The Anti-Emergency Constitution,” Yale Law Journal 113 (2004): 1801. 103 See, for example, John Yoo, Crisis and Command: The History of Executive Power From George Washington to George W. Bush (New York: Kaplan, 2010); Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presi- dency: Law and Judgment inside the Bush Administration (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007). 104 One important exception being Posner and Vermeule’s The Executive Unbound, which argues that political, social, and cultural forces–not the Constitution itself–have historically constituted the main restraint on executive power. 105 Tribe and Gudridge, “The Anti-Emergency Constitution,” 1868. 106 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 634 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). 107 West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). 108 This is not to deny that the Constitution’s hardwired design–including those of its features, such as the equal representation of the states in the Senate, that create what Sanford Levin- son has aptly called a “democratic de½cit” that cannot be corrected by evolving interpretation–is so profoundly problematic as to test the constitutional faith of even its strongest proponents. See Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution. But for those of us who hesitate to permit the perfect to become the enemy of the good and who worry about what returning to the constitutional drawing board might yield, the answer, thus far at least, is to live with imperfection rather than to begin anew. 109 See generally, Sanford Levinson, Constitutional Faith (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988); Balkin, Constitutional Redemption, 46–49.

42 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Narratives of the Constitutional Covenant

Peter Brooks

Abstract: The constitutional narrative plays perhaps a surprisingly important role in American society. It claims to unfold present judgment from past precedent, according to the doctrine of stare decisis, given an eloquent exposition by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, where the Constitution is referred to as a “covenant” among generations. Analysis of this and other covenantal narratives spun by the Court suggests that despite the emphasis on precedent they may work according to the retrospective logic of narrative itself, in which elements become functional in terms of what follows them. Plots work from end to beginning, reinterpreting the past in terms of the present. The Supreme Court opinion, when subjected to an analysis sensitive to its narrative rhetoric, suggests something akin to the structure of prophecy and ful½llment in its composition of the covenantal narrative.

Any society needs myths of origins to confer meaning–possibly sacrality–on itself. Such myths can be dangerous–they probably have been more noxious than bene½cial over history–and need to be seen for what they are: constructed ½ctions, not revealed truths. They are narratives with etiological signi½cance, “explaining” how we got to be the way we are. Among the many such narratives that Americans regularly call on, one of the most curious is the constitutional narrative–curious because it is not obvious why a society should need such explic- PETER BROOKS , a Fellow of the itly, often technically legal narratives to make sense American Academy since 1991, is of itself. Yet since the U.S. Constitution in many the Andrew W. Mellon Founda- tion Scholar at Princeton Univer- ways takes the place of the texts held to be sacred in sity, where he teaches in the other societies, the need to ½nd continuing mean- Department of Comparative Lit- ing in the narratives spun from it may not be so sur- erature and the Center for Human prising. Still, our reverence for and obedience to Values. He was formerly the Ster- these narratives, even when they seem counterin- ling Professor of Comparative Lit- tuitive and socially unproductive, claims attention. erature at Yale University. His A notable recent phenomenon in constitutional publications include Enigmas of Identity (2011), Henry James Goes to jurisprudence has been the apparent upsurge of Paris (2007), Realist Vision (2005), “originalism,” even among its opponents. A couple and Troubling Confessions: Speaking of decades ago, for instance, Justice William Bren- Guilt in Law and Literature (2000). nan, dissenting in Michael H. v. Gerald D., declared

43 Narratives of Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opin- The common law tradition that the of the ion: “The document that the plurality con- United States shares with Britain derives Constitu- tional strues today is unfamiliar to me. It is not current legal decisions from precedent, Covenant the living charter that I have taken to be ½tting the present case to analogous cases our Constitution; it is instead a stagnant, that have come before. In constitutional archaic, hidebound document steeped in adjudication, the precedents derive from the prejudices and superstitions of a time and lead back to the written document long past.”1 That “living charter” seems to that is considered the supreme law of the be evoked less frequently at present, and land. But that does not usually entail the “prejudices and superstitions of a time “originalist” readings: the chain of prece- long past” appear to command greater dents deserves respect in itself, and ought allegiance on the Supreme Court. In Dis- not to be disregarded in a putative claim trict of Columbia v. Heller, for instance– to original understandings. The respect the 2008 case that held that the Second for precedent is enshrined in the doctrine Amendment guarantees an individual of stare decisis: the rule that one does not right to bear arms–both Scalia’s majori- change the decisions made in the past, ty opinion and the lead dissent, by Justice but builds upon them. One of the best John Paul Stevens, stake their claims on expositions of what this means and how how that amendment should be under- it works comes from Justices Sandra Day stood in its original historical context.2 O’Connor, David Souter, and Anthony That is, both Stevens and Scalia appear to Kennedy, authors of the “joint opinion” sign on to what Scalia has long argued in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Penn- should be the underlying principle of sylvania v. Casey, the 1992 case that re- constitutional interpretation: ½delity to af½rmed (with some modi½cations) the the “original understanding” of the doc- right to abortion ½rst secured in Roe v. ument, as evinced by the rati½cation Wade (1973).4 The opinion is an effort to debates, discussions in The Federalist, and explain why it is that even if the Court similar writings, though Stevens argues would not rule as it did in Roe if the case that Scalia misuses those historical con- were coming to it afresh, it is important texts. Heller led a number of commenta- to reaf½rm its ruling close to a generation tors to declare that we all have become later. Beyond that, it is an effort to ex- originalists.3 Whether or not this is true plain the source of the Court’s authority –the originalist argument can often be to write the constitutional narrative. more polemical than truly historical, and The very concept of the rule of law, its truth claims stand in tension with the write O’Connor, Souter, and Kennedy, normal respect accorded to the compiled requires continuity over time, so that cit- wisdom of precedent–it does point to the izens may rely on the law. Thus, though extent to which debates about where our one might rule differently were the issue laws, our ideologies, and our social com- at hand coming to adjudication for the mitments come from matter in contem- ½rst time, the fact that it was once ruled porary America. Strange that this should upon in a certain way, and that people be so in a country that has always seen have come to rely on that ruling, alters itself as resolutely turned to the future. the second adjudication, giving a heavy But perhaps that future orientation para- burden of proof to those who would doxically provides the very foundation for reverse course. As the joint opinion puts attention to the past, and to the narrative it, to both those who approve, and those of how we got from past to present. who disapprove but struggle to respect a

44 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences constitutional ruling, “the Court implic- quoted above may be “suf½ciently plausi- Peter itly undertakes to remain steadfast” ble,” a phrase that alerts us to the rhetoric Brooks (Casey, 868). “Steadfastness” is indeed not deployed by the Court. What is “suf½- only pragmatic–assuring a uniform law ciently plausible” is that which persuades that can be relied on–but also moral: its readership, its audiences, which assures “Like the character of an individual, the narrative conviction in its narratees. legitimacy of the Court must be earned “Suf½ciently plausible” is tautological– over time.” Note the words “over time”: but in a way that any public argument earned legitimacy depends on a history, a must be: it judges the effectiveness of narrative of consistency, written by sev- persuasion by its capacity to persuade in eral hands but in the same spirit and pur- fact. The logic of the joint opinion is nec- pose. The moral Court, like the moral essarily circular: it claims that rulings by individual, must be true to itself. the Court will be accepted if and when There are times when the Court can they appear to ½t seamlessly with the mas- and must overrule itself: the joint opinion ter narrative, which in turn means that points to the overturning of the laissez- their acceptance creates the seamless faire economics of Lochner v. New York narrative, the perception that the law is (1905) by West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish “steadfast.” What “suf½ces” for the “suf½- (1937) and–the most famous reversal– ciently plausible” is . . . what suf½ces. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) overruled by Raising the moral stakes, in conclusion Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The to its discussion of stare decisis the joint Court describes these two striking rejec- opinion states: tions of stare decisis as “applications of Our Constitution is a covenant running constitutional principle to facts as they from the ½rst generation of Americans to had not been seen by the Court before.” us, and then to future generations. It is a Such reversals must be rare if the Court is coherent succession. Each generation must to maintain its moral authority to speak learn anew that the Constitution’s written in ways that will be accepted and com- terms embody ideas and aspirations that plied with. As the joint opinion explains: must survive more ages than one. We ac- The Court must take care to speak and act cept our responsibility not to retreat from in ways that allow people to accept its deci- interpreting the full meaning of the cove- sions on the terms the Court claims for nant in light of all of our precedents. We them, as grounded truly in principle, not as invoke it once again to de½ne the freedom compromises with social and political pres- guaranteed by the Constitution’s own prom- sures having, as such, no bearing on the ise, the promise of liberty. (Casey, 900) principled choices that the Court is obliged By casting the Constitution as a “cove- to make. Thus, the Court’s legitimacy de- nant,” and arguing that it offers a “coher- pends on making legally principled deci- ent succession” from generation to gener- sions under circumstances in which their ation, the Court images itself as the author principled character is suf½ciently plausi- of covenantal narratives, stories that claim ble to be accepted by the Nation. (Casey, the sacrality of generational solidarity, and 865–866) of the present (and future) as realization Sequence and consecution in the consti- of that which lay latent within the past. tutional narrative must not be random; The “promise of liberty” will unfold as the new must be logically entailed by pre- foretold by the covenant, as realization of cedent. The most apt words in the lines a prophecy, as completion of that promise.

141 (1) Winter 2012 45 Narratives The Court’s logic in defense of its cov- which would be better served–given a of the enantal narrative is to a large degree the more plausible plot line–by the opposite Constitu- tional logic of narrative itself. It offers an exam- ruling. The form taken by all constitu- Covenant ple of what the French narrative theorist tional interpretation indeed follows this Gérard Genette calls “the determination model: that the proposed interpretation of means by ends . . . of causes by effects.” realizes the true meaning of the constitu- Genette writes: tional narrative better than the alternatives. It provides the better ending, de- This is that paradoxical logic of ½ction ½ned in terms of the ending that makes which requires us to de½ne every element, better sense of the plot leading up to it. If every unit of the narrative by its functional the present is constrained by the past, as in character, that is to say among other things legal theorist Ronald Dworkin’s famous by its correlation with another unit, and to analogy of the “chain novel,” with differ- account for the ½rst (in the order of narra- ent authors furthering its plot, more strik- tive temporality) by the second, and so on ingly the past is hostage to the present, –from which it follows that the last [unit] which rede½nes its meaning.7 is the one that governs all the others, and It falls within this same logic that con- that is itself governed by nothing.5 stitutional narratives often claim they are The way events are enchained is deter- based on a return to the beginning–to mined by the reasoning of a discoverer the text and context of the Constitution standing at the end of the process, then itself–in order to track forward the de- laid out as a plot leading from beginning velopment of text and idea. This is espe- to discovery. Earlier events or actions cially true when the Court is aware that it make sense only as their meaning be- is propounding what will appear to be a comes clear through subsequent events, radically new interpretation, one that in what Genette calls a “paradoxical log- will not be accepted without resistance. ic.” Or, as Roland Barthes suggests, nar- Thus, for instance, Chief Justice Earl rative is built on a generalization of the Warren in the landmark case Miranda v. philosophical error of post hoc, ergo propter Arizona (1966)–which extended the Fifth hoc: narrative plotting makes it seem that Amendment protection against self- if B follows A it is because B is logically incrimination to police interrogation of entailed by A, whereas in fact A becomes criminal suspects–claims: causal only in terms of B.6 This narrative The cases before us raise questions which logic may to some degree cover over a ten- go to the roots of our concepts of American sion between what is called for in order to criminal jurisprudence. . . . We start here create the seamless plot and the other . . . with the premise that our holding is not paths–other claims to justice–that were an innovation in our jurisprudence, but is not taken. an application of principles long recognized The eloquent defense of stare decisis in . . . an explication of basic rights that are Planned Parenthood v. Casey suggests that enshrined in our Constitution. . . . These pre- the narrative of constitutional interpre- cious rights were ½xed in our Constitution tation depends on the retrospective inter- only after centuries of persecution and pretation of the prior narrative in light of struggle.8 the new episode the Court is adding to it. This must be the case because dissenters The ruling in Miranda, Warren claims, is can and do argue that the new decision simply the emergence into the light of day precisely misinterprets prior history, of what was all along entailed by the Fifth

46 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Amendment privilege against self-incrim- (however provisionally) by the current Peter ination. Miranda makes good on a long ruling, determines the meaning of the Brooks history; it realizes that narrative’s latent story’s earlier episodes: the present re- meaning. It is as if constitutional law had writes the past.9 They discover here– always contained within itself the seed though without explicit awareness–the that now matures into Miranda doctrine. logic of narrative itself. As a number of Inevitably, the dissenters in Miranda commentators on narrative, myself in- claim that Warren has the story wrong. To cluded, have argued, narrative is retro- Warren’s assertion that the majority’s rul- spective. It begins from the end, which ing is “not an innovation,” Justice Byron confers meaning on beginning and mid- White ripostes that “the Court has not dis- dle, which indeed allows us to under- covered or found the law. . . . [W]hat it has stand what can be identi½ed as beginning done is to make new law” (Miranda, 531). and middle. When we read a narrative, Another dissent by Justice John Marshall we read toward the end, not in knowl- Harlan refers to “the Court’s new consti- edge of what it will bring, but in anticipa- tutional code of rules for confessions” tion that it will bring retrospective illu- (Miranda, 504). Harlan sets out to mark mination to the plot leading to it. Thus the point at which the Court “jumped the Sartre’s ½ctional spokesman Roquentin, rails” (Miranda, 508)–the point at which in La Nausée, argues that when you tell a it deviated, with dire results, from the cor- story–as opposed to living it–you only rect narrative line. He, too, reaches back appear to begin at the beginning, because to origins, to claim that the majority’s in reality “the end is there, transforming reliance on the Fifth Amendment is “a everything.”10 That is, the knowledge that trompe l’oeil,” a deceptive reality effect that an end lies ahead confers intention and it has taken for reality itself. Harlan brands meaning on the actions recounted. This the majority’s ruling as a wholly implau- is what he means by “adventure,” which sible narrative: “One is entitled to feel in its Latin root, ad-venire, refers us to what astonished that the Constitution can be is to come. Roquentin says further, “[W]e read to produce this result” (Miranda, 518). feel that the hero has lived all the details And in his peroration, Harlan declares, cit- of this night as annunciations, as prom- ing the words of a bygone Justice, Robert ises, or even that he lived only those that Jackson: “This Court is forever adding were promises, blind and deaf to all that new stories to the temples of constitu- did not herald adventure. We forget that tional law, and the temples have a way of the future wasn’t yet there.” It is in the collapsing when one story too many is peculiar nature of narrative as a sense- added” (Miranda, 526). There seems to be making system that clues are revealing, an interesting, if unintended, pun here, that prior events are prior, and that caus- on storeys as features of houses and sto- es are causal only retrospectively, in a read- ries as narrative. In both senses of the ing back from the end. word, Harlan implies that the new narrative episode written in Miranda brings the Historian Carlo Ginzburg has speculat- collapse of the entire narrative. It makes ed that narrative originated in a society of it the wrong story. hunters, in the tracing of signs pointing For all their discourse on origins, then, to the passage of quarry. Learning to put both majority and dissent in Miranda those clues together in a narrative chain implicitly rely on the notion that the out- that would lead to the quarry offers a form come of the story, the ending written of reasoning that is not properly speaking

141 (1) Winter 2012 47 Narratives either deductive or inductive, but pre- the Supreme Court is an episode in the of the cisely narrative: the creation of meaning- unfolding narrative of that covenant. Constitu- tional ful sequences. Ginzburg compares this The argument from origins that you get Covenant “huntsman’s paradigm” to ancient Meso- in a Court case such as Miranda is doubt- potamian law, which worked through dis- less sincere, and necessary, in its desire to cussions of concrete examples rather than make origins entail a certain outcome, to the collection of statutes–similar in this argue: this is not an innovation in our respect to Anglo-American “case law”– jurisprudence, but the present application and to Mesopotamian divination, based of long-standing principle and prece- on the minute investigation of seemingly dent, part of that “coherent succession.” trivial details: “animals’ innards, drops of Nonetheless, we can recognize in it the oil on the water, stars, involuntary move- structure of the retrospective prophecy, ments of the body.”11 The same paradigm in its arguing that the stipulated outcome is found in the divinatory and jurispru- is the only way to realize the history of dential texts, with this difference: that the constitutional interpretation, to deliver on former are directed to the future, the latter its immanent meaning. Narrative always to the past. Generalizing further, Ginz- has Genette’s “double logic,” telling its burg suggests that all narrative modes of story from the beginning but structuring knowing (such as archaeology, paleontol- it in terms of the end that makes sense of ogy, geology) make what he calls “retro- that beginning. It is like the structure of spective prophecies”12: prophecies that trauma in many of Freud’s case histories, work backward from outcome to that where a later event will retrospectively which announces and calls for the out- sexualize and thus confer traumatic force come. on an earlier event. The notion of retrospective prophecy perfectly characterizes the constitutional Judicial opinions are full of a rhetoric of narratives written by the Supreme Court, constraint: the judge cannot rule other- and perhaps indeed most legal narrative. wise than he is doing because he is con- It is a prophetic narrative cast in the back- strained by precedent. Whatever his per- ward mode, implicitly arguing that the sonal preferences in the case, the out- ruling in the case at hand is the ful½ll- come is imposed on him by the history ment of what was called for at the begin- leading up to it. Furthermore, it often ning–somewhat in the manner that seems that the more the Court’s ruling medieval Christian theologians argued might be interpreted as an innovation– that the Gospels offered a ful½llment of a break with the past–the more the rhet- the prophetic narratives of the Hebrew oric of the opinion asserts the seamless Bible, as ½gure and ful½llment. For Augus- continuity of its ruling with the past, its tine, for instance, Moses is a ½gura Christi, simple and necessary entailment.14 The Noah’s Ark a prae½guratio ecclesiae.13 Past rhetoric of stare decisis may in this manner history is seen as realized, as ful½lled, in be something of a “cover-up,” a claim that the present. It is as if the past were preg- the weight of the past narrative dictates nant with the present, waiting to be this outcome–whereas the dissent, as in delivered of the wisdom that the Court Miranda, will claim that the Court has reveals in its ruling. Recall Casey’s use of “jumped the rails,” lost the proper design the word covenant to describe the Con- and intention of the narrative, given the stitution, precisely in its historical rela- wrong plot, betrayed the “covenant.” To tion to the citizenry. Each new ruling by say this is not to argue that the narrative

48 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences traced from origin to endpoint is useless refusing entry by African American stu- Peter or false. The conclusion to the narrative dents to Little Rock Central High School, Brooks will be acceptable to its audiences only if and mobilizing the Arkansas National the construction of the narrative has been Guard to bar the doors. This was fol- “suf½ciently plausible,” to use Casey’s lowed by President Eisenhower’s send- words again. As Dr. Watson says to Sher- ing units of the 101st Airborne Division lock Holmes at the end of one of their to Little Rock to force the students’ entry. cases, “You reasoned it out beautifully. . . . This crisis in resistance to the Court’s It is so long a chain, and yet every link order–unprecedented in U.S. history, rings true.”15 The chain composed of true before or since–spurred the Court to links is perspicuous as a chain only at the assemble in special session, in September end. The detective story is in this an exem- 1958, and to issue its ruling in Cooper v. plary form of narrative because it shows Aaron, af½rming the Eighth Circuit Court so well how this chain is constructed. of Appeals’ reversal of the Arkansas Dis- trict Court’s grant of a stay of integration “It is so ordered,” the Supreme Court opin- in Little Rock.16 Cooper v. Aaron has the ion typically ends. The Court has managed distinction of offering not simply the to make its orders, its outcomes, stick with unanimous opinion of the Court, but also remarkable consistency. Presidents, leg- the names of all nine justices spelled out islators, police, citizens accept the order at the outset of the opinion. Here, the however much they may disagree with it, Court reaches back to the very genesis of however fervent their protests may be. its power of judicial review in Marbury v. Even such a paltry and embarrassing deci- Madison: sion as Bush v. Gore in 2000–devoid of In 1803, Chief Justice Marshall, speaking legal reasoning, patently jury-rigged for for a unanimous Court, referring to the the occasion–managed to make itself Constitution as “the fundamental and obeyed. There are a very few moments in paramount law of the nation,” declared in American history when the Court’s nar- the notable case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 rative has seemed so implausible and so Cranch 137, 177, that “It is emphatically the unacceptable to parts of the country that province and duty of the judicial depart- the issue has created civil unrest. The ment to say what the law is.” This decision most notable was probably Dred Scott v. declared the basic principle that the feder- Sanford (1856), which provided a decision al judiciary is supreme in the exposition of so contentious and unsatisfactory–and the law of the Constitution, and that prin- a narrative of American citizenship so ciple has ever since been respected by this starkly exclusionary–that its issues could Court and the Country as a permanent and be decided only by the Civil War. Closer indispensable feature of our constitutional to our own time, the Court’s decisions in system. It follows that the interpretation of Brown v. Board of Education I and II (1954 the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by and 1955) provoked various degrees of this Court in the Brown case is the supreme resistance, most notably and violently law of the land. (Cooper, 18) the refusal of the executive branch of the state of Arkansas, in the person of Gover- Like Antaeus touching ground to regain nor Orval Faubus, to execute the Court’s strength, the Court here touches its very orders. In fact, Faubus used the power beginnings as a branch of American gov- that ought to have been brought to the ernmental power. Note the words “it fol- execution of the law to its infraction, lows that”: not only the Constitution,

141 (1) Winter 2012 49 Narratives but the interpretive narratives spun from law.” They are set aside in the temple to of the it are the supreme law. contemplate and to expound the law– Constitu- tional Appended to the unanimous opinion in which here sounds very much like the Covenant Cooper v. Aaron is a concurring opinion by Law. Frankfurter has sensed that a sub- Justice Felix Frankfurter–a narcissistic versive threat of disobedience to the con- move on his part that somewhat dis- stitutional narrative declared by the Court ½gures the impressive unity of the Court’s needs to be met with a rhetoric that at the self-presentation in the case, but a docu- last foregrounds the very status of the ment that is full of interest. It is a tense, Court itself, the solemn context of its eloquent, strained piece of judicial rheto- speech acts. ric in reaction to the “profoundly subversive” use of state executive power to“It is so ordered”: the outcome so pro- thwart rather than carry out the law, and posed writes the past history of interpre- a reaf½rmation of “this Court’s adamant tation in a rhetoric that touches back to decisions in the Brown case”–decisions, origins and foregrounds its own con- the adjective implies, set in stone. Frank- straints in reaching this end. The Court furter reaches back even further than offers an arche-teleological discourse Marbury v. Madison, to quote John Adams that stresses origin and constraint in on the need for a “government of Laws, order to achieve ends. Such a narrative of not of Men.” Frankfurter then goes on to the covenant is no doubt simply neces- cite from his own concurring opinion in sary–covenantal discourse, one might say, United States v. United Mine Workers17: is like that. The structure of prophecy and ful½llment is doubtless a requisite of The conception of a government by laws any claim to a master narrative that gov- dominated the thoughts of those who erns societies. If the discourse of Ameri- founded this Nation and designed its Con- can constitutional interpretation turns stitution, although they knew as well as the out to be remarkably biblical, that should belittlers of the conception that laws have not come as a surprise, since it is dif½cult to be made, interpreted and enforced by to imagine a society without some sort of men. To that end, they set apart a body of providential discourse underlying it. If men, who were to be the depositories of the Constitution is our myth of origins, law, who by their disciplined training and we must expect it to generate mythic nar- character and by withdrawal from the rative consequences. It should perhaps be usual temptations of private interest may subjected to a more acute awareness of its reasonably be expected to be “as free, im- narrative logic. Here is where reading–of partial, and independent as the lot of the attentive sort practiced by literary humanity will admit.” So strongly were the scholars at their best–might sharpen the framers of the Constitution bent on secur- legal caste’s interpretive enterprise. ing a reign of law that they endowed the judicial of½ce with extraordinary safe- guards and prestige. (Cooper, 23–24) So here it is that the priestly caste of the Supreme Court justices emerges from the shadows to stand in full view, its certi- ½cation to interpret the law of the land reaf½rmed. These interpreters are not like any others. They are “depositories of

50 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes Peter Brooks 1 Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989), 141. 2 District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). 3 For example, New York Times legal correspondent Adam Liptak writes, “The two sides in the Heller case claimed to rely on the original meaning of the Second Amendment, based on analysis of its text in light of historical materials”; Adam Liptak, “Justices’ Ruling on Guns Elicits Rebuke, From the Right,” The New York Times, October 21, 2008. Slate legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick comments that Heller “revealed the absolute dominance of conservative interpretive theories at the high court . . . leading more than one commentator to enthuse that regardless of the outcome, after Heller, ‘we are all originalists now’”; Dahlia Lithwick, “The Dark Matter of Our Cherished Document,” Slate, November 17, 2008. 4 Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. (1992), 833. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text. 5 Gérard Genette, “Vraisemblance et motivation,” in Figures II (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1969), 94. Translated by David Gorman as “Vraisemblance and Motivation,” Narrative 9 (3) (2001). 6 Roland Barthes, “Introduction à l’analyse structurale des récits,” Communications 8 (1966): 10. Translated by Richard Howard in Susan Sontag, ed., A Barthes Reader (New York: Hill & Wang, 1982). 7 See the most recent exposition of this model of interpretation in Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 228–238. 8 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 439, 442 (1966). Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text. 9 Literary theorist and legal scholar Stanley Fish makes a similar point in his critique of Ronald Dworkin; see Stanley Fish, “Working on the Chain Gang: Interpretation in Law and Liter- ature,” in Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies, ed. Stanley Fish (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989), 94. 10 Jean Paul Sartre, La Nausée (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), 59–60; my translations. For an analogous argument about how legal precedent is important in terms of its future viability, see Jan Deutsch, “Procedure and Adjudication,” Yale Law Journal 83 (1974): 1553–1584. Deutsch argues, for instance: “as we create precedent, by the choice among theoretically possible grounds of decision, we must attempt to anticipate future relevance.” I am grateful to my friend Michael Seidman, Professor at Georgetown Law Center, for bringing Deutsch’s essay to my attention. 11 Carlo Ginzburg, “Spie. Radici di un paradigma indizario,” in Miti Emblemi Spie (Torino, Italy: Einaudi, 1986), 158–159. Translated by John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi as “Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm,” in Myths, Emblems, Clues (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1990), 96–125. I have modi½ed the Tedeschi translation in places in order to give a more literal ren- dition, and I have noted page references to both the Italian original and the translation. 12 Ginzburg, “Spie,” 183; Tedeschi, “Clues,” 117. 13 See Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” in Scenes From the Drama of European Literature (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), 38. 14 Joseph Halpern takes a similar position with regard to Miranda: “In contrast to the dissents, the majority opinion employs a comfortable rhetoric that denies and masks change”; Joseph Halpern, “Judicious Discretion: Miranda and Legal Change,” Yale Journal of Criticism 2 (1) (1987): 58. Halpern’s perceptive essay con½rms my views of the rhetoric of Miranda. 15 Conan Doyle, “The Red-Headed League,” in The Adventure of the Speckled Band and Other Sto- ries of Sherlock Holmes (New York: Signet, 1965), 83. 16 Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958). Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text. 17 330 U.S. 258 (1947), 307–309.

141 (1) Winter 2012 51 The American Mythos

Jay Parini

Abstract: This essay examines the notion of an American narrative, looking at a variety of myths that have been prominent and that have, in various ways, shaped the concept of a nation devoted to Enlighten- ment and Anglo-Saxon ideals. These include liberty, equality, and justice, which can be traced to thinkers such as Montesquieu, as well as ideals laid out in the Magna Carta. These lofty ideals took the place of more traditional narratives and tribal alliances, and they helped establish a nation that had been formed by so many different immigrant strands. That these stories–going back to the Puritans landing on Ply- mouth Rock, for example–have been influential seems beyond question. Yet it remains dif½cult to assess their broader value in determining the course of a nation. How might these founding myths prove useful in refashioning the American stories in ways that, in the future, could be productive?

Every nation requires a story–or many stories, which taken together form a national narrative –about its origins, a self-de½ning mythos that says something about the character of the people and how they operate in the larger world and among each other. The strength of these stories lies in their shaping power, the ways they illumine aspects of a character or embody ideals that, in turn, affect individual or collective behavior. The stories themselves may have genuine factual content or, like the myth of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree and then refusing to lie about it, be wholly fabricated. Rome famously drew on the legend of Romulus JAY PARINI is the D. E. Axinn and Remus, its twin founders, who were children Professor of English and Creative of gods but suckled by a she-wolf who found them Writing at Middlebury College. in the wilderness. This tale, in its Ovidian com- He is a poet, novelist, and literary plexity and mythic resonance, involved aspects of critic; his recent works include supernatural intervention and, therefore, divine The Passages of H. M.: A Novel of destiny; it spoke to Roman ambitions, with their Herman Melville (2010), Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed brutal self-con½dence, their aura of centrality and America (2008), Why Poetry Matters mission. The feral vitality of that suckling by a she- (2008), and The Art of Subtraction: wolf suf½ced to drive this people forward, even to New and Selected Poems (2005). explain the transformation from republic to em-

52 pire. Needless to say, such foundational thus elevating to legendary status a mi- Jay Parini narratives function best when they are nor incident in the Pilgrims’ story–a taken as fact, and with modern nations, mythical moment with some use during such as the United States, there is often a time of profound national crisis. an emphasis on the literal truth of stories, In fact, Bradford barely mentioned the however legendary in character. occasion when the Pilgrims sat down with Americans, having no ethnic uniformi- the local Indians for a meal that included ty, depend on myths, which lend an aura turkey and sweet corn, if not pumpkin pie. of destiny to our collective aspirations. (A slightly fuller account of this tradi- We have numerous stories (true or– tional harvest supper is found in Mourt’s more typically–half true) that help cre- Relation [1622], written primarily by Ed- ate a sense of national identity; taken toward Winslow, who notes the presence of gether, they form a narrative that posits Massasoit, a local chieftain of the Wam- the United States as “the land of the free panoag who came with others of his tribe and the home of the brave,” as our na- to break bread with their neighbors.) Yet tional anthem suggests, a nation with the the resonance of any story with mythic best intentions in the world. Rugged indi- potential goes beyond its literal details. vidualism is part of our “can do” nation- The image of English Pilgrims enjoying a al character, and we have various narra- meal with representatives from a poten- tives that play into this idea, although tially hostile tribe was a good one, with they vary in their potency. As Wendell its atmosphere of cooperation and recon- Berry writes: “The career of rugged indi- ciliation, and Lincoln chose exactly the vidualism in America has run mostly to right time to recall this incident and im- absurdity, tragic or comic. But it also has bue it with mythic status. done us a certain amount of good.”1 The success of these English settlers had One of the most potent stories in our long been useful to British America, which treasure-house of tales that collectively needed stories to bolster its sense of pri- constitute our national narrative involves ority. The earliest European settlers in the the transatlantic Mayflower journey of the New World were in fact not British. The Pilgrims, those plucky English Separat- Vikings had landed in Newfoundland in ists who in 1640 fled oppression in the the eleventh century, though they made Old World to create a sustainable commu- no lasting impression. It was the Spanish nity, shaping a form of independence and who settled in this hemisphere en masse self-government at Plymouth Rock. This beginning in the early ½fteenth century tale, however inspiring, acquired its myth- –an irony not lost on modern Hispanic ic power only in the mid-nineteenth cen- immigrants, who can claim a certain pri- tury, when the journal of William Brad- ority if they choose: We were here ½rst! The ford was rediscovered after having been French were also vigorous in North Amer- lost for centuries. An American antiquar- ica, establishing colonies in Louisiana, ian called John Wingate Thorton found the Newfoundland, and elsewhere. The Dutch, manuscript in the library of a bishop in Danish, and Portuguese soon followed, London, and he patiently copied it out by raising their flags in the New World at an hand and brought it back across the early date. So it took some doing for the Atlantic, where it was published in time British to create an atmosphere of dom- for the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln ad- inance, which they certainly did. (The mired Bradford’s journal and, in 1861, de- Mayflower may have been a tiny ship, but clared Thanksgiving a national holiday, it looms large in the national memory, its

141 (1) Winter 2012 53 The descendants capable of ½lling several air- original framers, who were Enlightenment American craft carriers.) intellectuals with a working knowledge Mythos The idea of America, however–the so- of ancient and modern political theory, called American dream, which lies at the as anyone who has read The Federalist center of our national narrative–begins Papers must know. in earnest with the Declaration of Inde- The notion of freedom was an essential pendence, the successful war of separa- part of the American founding mythos tion from Britain, and the establishment from the outset of the republic, if not of the U.S. Constitution, which distilled before. But it was never an easy concept, America’s sense of its ideal self in legal or one that could not be subjected to var- terms that have assumed an almost reli- ious critiques and spun this way or that. gious aura. As G. K. Chesterton put it so In its original form, it referred to the re- memorably in What I Saw in America (1922): jection of “tyranny,” as represented by King George III and British levies. “Taxa- America is the only nation in the world tion without representation” became a that is founded on a creed. That creed is set mantra that inspired a revolution. And of forth with dogmatic and even theological course taxation remains a touchy subject, lucidity in the Declaration of Independence: as Americans continue to argue passion- perhaps the only piece of practical politics ately about who taxes them, at what rates, that is also theoretical politics and also great and how these funds are allocated. Liber- literature. It enunciates that all men are ty, in this context, refers to the freedom to equal in their claim to justice, that govern- control your own purse. ments exist to give them that justice, and As they would, many different parties that their authority is for that reason just.2 began to weigh in as the nation’s intellec- For all its durability and uniqueness, tual leaders shaped and de½ned the early the U.S. Constitution was hardly original. republic, re½ning concepts and establish- One cannot imagine its existence with- ing ½rmer boundaries. A Bill of Rights and out such intellectual forebears as Locke various amendments were added to the and Hume, or Adam Smith, each of whom U.S. Constitution itself to establish limits developed ideas that were widely influ- or particularize lofty notions, often mak- ential among the Founding Fathers, espe- ing explicit what was perhaps implicit, cially with regard to government organi- although the vagueness of language in zation and the responsibility of the res many of these statements, as in the right publica to its constituents. Montesquieu to bear arms, with its ambiguous punctu- was also a key influence, as he formulated ation, has led to endless arguments about the idea of checks and balances, with a the “real intentions” of the Founding theory of mixed government that allows Fathers, which can never be known. (The for contending forces to maintain a civi- Founding Fathers quarreled among them- lized and equitable balance among the selves about what was meant by this or various branches. The Magna Carta (1612) that assertion, and many wise heads, in- and common law also loom importantly cluding Patrick Henry and George Mason, in the thinking of those who attended the objected to the ½nal document on various Constitutional Convention in Philadel- grounds and urged states to deny rati½- phia in 1787. Exactly how American “free- cation.) dom” might be constructed (in the con- The meaning of freedom–or liberty, an text of political equality with “justice for interchangeable term–has been subject all”) was very much on the minds of the to debate for centuries by partisan inter-

54 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences ests, evolving in complicated and, often, instituted among Men, deriving their just Jay Parini contradictory ways. John Dewey, in Prob- powers from the consent of the governed.” lems of Men (1935), argued: “There is no Most Americans can recite these lines such thing as liberty in general; liberty, so from memory, and this can be said about to speak, at large. If one wants to know very few written lines! That Jefferson what the condition of liberty is at a given “held” these “truths” as self-evident is the time, one has to examine what persons key to thinking through the idea of equal- can do and what they cannot do.”3 The ity in this context. As a logical move, what concept of “negative” liberty, as devel- does it mean to hold something as self- oped by Isaiah Berlin and elaborated by evident? No self-respecting logician will numerous philosophers, such as George feel comfortable with a statement not C. MacCallum and Charles Taylor, refers liable to proof, but that is what Jefferson to freedom from certain impositions. Gov- puts forward, and with aplomb. He sim- ernment regulation, for example, might ply “holds” the idea of equality before the be regarded as something that hampers English monarch, who doubtless did not liberty, with taxation regarded as an im- “hold” this idea. Indeed, the concept of position. Government control of land use the Divine Rights of Kings (which in the is anathema to many who value “nega- West can be traced back to the Sumerian tive” liberty. By contrast, “positive” lib- dynasty of Gilgamesh) allowed for no erty refers (in Berlin’s discourse) to ad- such notion. The idea that the people– herence to moral laws, which have their the unwashed masses–had any right to origin in communal values or divine laws self-governance was, indeed, a radical En- (or both), depending on your political or lightenment notion that found its ½rst religious orientation. It has become in- large-scale embodiment in the American creasingly dif½cult to reconcile these Revolution. ideas of liberty, especially within the con- In other writings, Jefferson contradict- text of polarized American politics of the ed himself on the notion of equality, ar- twenty-½rst century. guing that a natural aristocracy of virtues The story of American freedom, as a and talents occurs among men. But within component of a national narrative, can the Declaration of Independence he cre- hardly be discussed in a serious way with- ated his argument in a rhetorical context out thinking as well about slavery–such (rhetoric being the art of persuasion), a massive elephant in the room of any where he drew heavily on Locke, who argument about our shaping myths. A spoke of “life, liberty, and property” as the fair number of our Founding Fathers were things most worth having. (Perhaps Jef- slaveholders, which put them in an awk- ferson equated the bliss of property with ward position when it came to opining “the pursuit of happiness,” thus account- about freedom and equality as governing ing for the slight shift in wording.) None- concepts. Yet Jefferson’s classic formula- theless, as a slave-owner, Jefferson faced tion in the Declaration of Independence criticism, including from Thomas Day, an of 1776 has a mythic ring: “We hold these early abolitionist who responded imme- truths to be self-evident, that all men are diately to the Declaration with this re- created equal, that they are endowed by joinder: “If there be an object truly ridicu- their Creator with certain unalienable lous in nature, it is an American patriot, Rights, that among these are Life, Liber- signing resolutions of independency with ty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to the one hand, and with the other bran- secure these rights, Governments are dishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.”4

141 (1) Winter 2012 55 The In a similar vein, Samuel Johnson won- Another example of progress toward American dered how it was that “the loudest yelps equality relates to the rights of women. Mythos for liberty” happened to come from slave- The movement, per se, began in 1848, with owners in the New World. (Slavery was the Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca not abolished in Britain until 1772; it was Falls, in New York. The National American abolished throughout most of the empire Woman Suffrage Movement led eventu- in 1833.) ally to the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Perhaps we might regard hypocrisy as wherein women were given the right to part of human nature and celebrate in vote. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Jefferson his felicity of phrasing and, Civil Rights Act of 1964 continued to im- elsewhere, his acknowledgment that slav- prove the situation for women under the ery was not only wrong but an abomina- law. Lyndon Johnson signed Executive tion. In his Notes on the State of Virginia Order 11375 in 1967 to expand af½rmative (1781), for instance, he referred to the action to include gender equality. In 1972, ownership of slaves as “the most un- we saw the enactment of Title IX, which remitting despotism” and worried that if made it illegal to discriminate against any- God were just, his nation would ½nd itself one on the basis of gender in institutions in deep trouble. Although far from per- that receive federal funding. There have fect himself, he understood that equality been countless steps backward as well as was an important ideal–if only as an forward; but the general drift toward ideal, meaning a goal, a lofty notion that gender equality–like racial equality– one never quite achieves. seems inexorable. At least one hopes this The very fact that Americans hold equal- is the case. ity before them as a goal seems important This movement suggests that the Amer- to our governing narrative about freedom ican mythos, embodied in a story that has and equality–the Romulus and Remus become the essential structure of a na- of our national mythos. Indeed, those in tional narrative, rests ½rmly on the idea America who support forms of inequality that “all men are created equal.” The leg- may ½nd themselves under signi½cant end itself seeks validation in the form of pressure to modify their views. Hence, realization on the ground, and this drive we have seen a gradual yet unmistakable for actualization has helped shape the movement toward the ideal of equality, laws of the country over two-and-a-half even on the racial front. I, for example, re- centuries. The story of American freedom call only too well my childhood travels is, to a degree, what Wallace Stevens would in the American South with my parents, call a “supreme ½ction,” being something where a sign that read “Whites Only” that occurs ½rst in the imagination and could be found at the entrance to most then is produced in daily life. Indeed, as good hotels. The same held for restaurants Stevens put it well: “The imagination loses and public restrooms as well as public vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is water fountains. (In its most egregiously real.”5 overt forms, that is, under legal sanction, segregation is gone. For this, we can thank One aspect of the American mythos the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which put in that never seems to fade is the almost place legal strictures against discrimina- biblical idea that the United States is a tion based on race, at least in some areas “city upon a hill,” as John Winthrop (of of American life, such as employment prac- the Massachusetts Bay Colony) observed tices and public accommodations.) in 1630; that is, the Puritans regarded

56 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences their little enclaves in Massachusetts as ried either: the tales would quickly fol- Jay Parini exemplary, being a theocratic society in low, justifying our annexation of large which God’s favor was sought and, in tracts of Mexico and reaching as far as many cases, sustained. Freedom in this the Philippines and Hawaii. case represented a kind of positive free- Few Americans found anything wrong dom: active pursuit of God’s will in the with this drive to annex large pieces of world, adherence to eternal laws, and, real estate, although Henry David Tho- most vividly, a vision of self-determina- reau nobly refused to pay his taxes in tion that calls out to those elsewhere in opposition to the Mexican War. For the the world who are not “free,” whether most part, the silent majority kept its by enslavement to sin or some dreadful mouth shut, as the best way to keep an monarch. This vision persisted as the re- economy in an expansive mode was to public was born, “conceived in liberty,” keep an eye on the natural resources that as Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg. lay at hand, however brutal the acqui- A degree of smugness attended this idea, sition and extraction of these might be. as if nobody else in the world quite It was, after all, the quest for gold that understood democracy as conceived by drove Columbus across terrifying seas, our Founding Fathers. But as American perhaps over the edge of the world. Now power grew exponentially, and our tenta- there were marvelous resources: miner- cles began to reach around the world als and land for agricultural use, fur, tim- (partly to sustain our economy and part- ber, and so forth. Nevertheless, the rely to evangelize on behalf of American public remained largely within North democracy), the notion of American ex- American territory, excepting our colo- ceptionalism took hold as something like nial ventures in the Paci½c. a justi½cation for imperialism itself. World War II rudely shattered Ameri- American imperialism had its roots in can insularity, and it was followed by a the early nineteenth century, when the protracted Cold War in which we found fledgling republic more than doubled its ourselves in competition with our ideo- size with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. logical opposite in the form of the Soviet President Jefferson immediately sent out Union, our recent ally in the war against scouts–the Corps of Discovery, led by the Axis powers. To mobilize vast re- Lewis and Clark–on a mission to explore sources, a great deal of public persuasion this territory with an eye to eventual col- was involved; thus “Godless Commu- onization. In a very real way we acquired, nism” became our permanent enemy, an and then displaced, the native population “evil empire” that required the creation of more than eight hundred thousand of what President Eisenhower memo- square miles in the course of several de- rably called a “military-industrial com- cades. No justi½cation was required for plex.” John T. Flynn, a right-wing jour- occupying this land, as the republic now nalist who opposed U.S. entry into World “owned” it. Westward expansion had be- War II, explained the creation of enemies come part of our national narrative, as for propagandistic purposes in this way: embodied in the idea of Manifest Destiny; “The enemy aggressor is always pursuing we became, as Robert Frost said in “The a course of larceny, murder, rapine and Gift Outright” (recited at the inaugura- barbarism.”6 Certainly the Soviet state had tion of John F. Kennedy), “a land vaguely all the hallmarks of barbarism, as it had realizing westward . . . unstoried, artless.” been founded on the genocidal mania of Well, not so vaguely. And not so unsto- Stalin; therefore we had a solid enemy,

141 (1) Winter 2012 57 The a useful Other to position ourselves ican values, or do we have ulterior mo- American against. As literary critic Donald Pease tives? The larger question, perhaps, and Mythos observes, a need arose during the Cold one that must be asked, is whether our War to “represent the U.S. as uniquely national narrative, with its assertion of positioned to oppose the imperialist American values, has any continuing ambitions of the Soviet Union” and other power in the world. Communist states.7 After the fall of Communism, we need- It is worth recalling that American val- ed to ½nd new enemies to justify our ex- ues, as revealed in our governing mythos, ceptional status and keep the military- with its tropes of liberty and equality, industrial complex alive. Islamic funda- even “justice for all,” are Enlightenment mentalists obligingly stepped in to ½ll the values, and they continue to have a good gap. Thus came the New World Order of deal of cultural power. Perhaps we can President George H.W. Bush, a cause taken move toward an era when these values up with a vengeance by his son, George will not be confused with imperialism or W. Bush, who in response to the tragedy supported by hard power–the use of of 9/11 implicitly invoked the idea of brute military or economic force. While American exceptionalism as a justi½ca- anti-American sentiment rose markedly tion for the unilateral exercise of Ameri- during the Bush era, achieving fresh can power in the Middle East. Bush de- heights with the ill-considered invasions clared it was the policy of the United of Iraq and Afghanistan, many distraught States to seek to support the growth of or oppressed people around the world democratic movements and institutions continue to ½nd something of use in the in every nation and culture. He referred American ideal as embodied in the “city to American-style democratic movements, upon a hill.” which it might be dif½cult to establish In this context, I often think of Mary except by force in far-flung places. Yet he Antin’s The Promised Land (1912), a para- was cheered on by the press, as when digmatic immigrant memoir. Antin (1881– Robert Kagan and William Kristol de- 1949) was a young Jewish woman from clared in a 2002 article for The Weekly the Pale of Settlement, located in Russian Standard: “September 11 really did change territory at the time. Like so many before e v e r y t h i n g . . . . Ge o r g e W. B u s h i s n o w a and after her, she and her family found man with a mission. As it happens, it is themselves under the boot of the law. As America’s historic mission.”8 Jews, they were oppressed by anti-Semit- Needless to say, the Left and Right– ic feeling that led to pogroms and lesser such as they exist within the con½nes of forms of oppression, such as forced con- America’s narrow political spectrum– scription into the Russian army and lim- argue relentlessly about American excep- ited economic opportunities. Certainly tionalism and our imperial motives. And they had little in the way of liberty or the argument keeps taking fresh turns. equality, and justice was hardly imagina- Did we invade Iraq for the oil? (If so, it ble under these circumstances. During was a foolish move, and has yielded few Passover one year, the traditional pledge barrels from the neglected and dangerous of “Next year in Jerusalem!” shifted to oil ½elds of Iraq.) Does our wish to sup- “Next year–in America!” “My father port independence in the Middle East, as was inspired by a vision,” writes Antin.9 in our response to the rebellions in Egypt, That vision was the one seen by Jeffer- Libya, and elsewhere, accord with Amer- son when he wrote the Declaration of

58 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Independence, and it derives from the There is no point in simply reviving the Jay Parini Enlightenment concept of equality before old mythos–a retooled version of the the law. For immigrants, this concept in- “city upon a hill,” the American dream of spired the dream of assimilation, with liberty, equality, and justice for all–with- America regarded as a melting pot. (The out a clear picture of the dif½culties that phrase came into wide use after Israel immigrant groups face or a coolheaded Zangwill’s popular play by the same understanding that American power is phrase in 1908, although the metaphor of not what it was and will never regain its races mixing or “smelting” in America former luster. The United States has en- goes all the way back to Crèvecoeur’s tered into a period of economic and polit- Letters from an American Farmer of 1782.) ical decline from its apogee at the end of The metaphor itself implied that the World War II, and nothing will stop that United States was a place that received decline–not even the widening of mar- and transmogri½ed all comers into dem- kets for our goods in China and India. ocrats with a stake in the government, (Apart from clever software, what are these with access to the legal system, and with goods?) Nevertheless, this trend might economic opportunity on an unprecedent- well be regarded a positive thing, as it is ed scale. For many, this idea was hardly never easy to play the dominant role in an illusion. the world while consuming more than our My own grandparents arrived from weight in the available resources. (A fa- Italy–part of the great wave of immigra- miliar statistic: we constitute only 5 per- tion in the ½rst decade of the twentieth cent of the world’s population yet con- century. They were poor, uneducated, sume 24 percent of the world’s energy.) hardworking people willing to undergo The new American dream should include the process of transformation that Antin a large component of mindfulness, a drive describes so movingly in The Promised to modify our blithe overconsumption of Land. Over time, through access to public resources. The American ideal, with its schools, their children and grandchildren twin goals of liberty and equality, should moved steadily upward, with widening expand to include the conservation of access to educational and ½nancial re- resources. sources. This story is hardly unusual, and American ingenuity, always part of the to this day, immigrants arrive from all can-do mentality that was celebrated by over the world with hopes of improving Benjamin Franklin in his influential Auto- the material circumstances of their fami- biography (1793), has served us well over lies. What they want, in addition to human time; yet it needs to be harnessed again, respect, is jobs and education, a chance to not in the pursuit of individual wealth improve their lives in measurable ways but in the quest for greater spiritual and by working hard. moral awareness, an awareness that takes Yet–as any number of recent studies into account our true place in the world suggest–the hopes for improving the as simply one nation among many. If any- standard of living within marginalized or thing, this is the legacy of Plymouth Rock. immigrant groups are too often dashed, The Pilgrims created a community especially within Hispanic families (the where land was held in common (with no largest immigrant group), where upward provision for inheritance, in fact) and mobility has not been as fluid as among each member of the group was asked to other ethnic groups.10 Yet the dream per- contribute according to his or her talents sists. And in dreams begin possibilities. and to consume according to his or her

141 (1) Winter 2012 59 The needs. They learned a good deal from Britain. Communal values are, ultimate- American local tribes about sustainable agriculture, ly, American values, and they derive from Mythos and they made a huge effort to get along Enlightenment values, with cries of liber- in a peaceful fashion with these poten- ty, equality, and justice for all. How this tially hostile neighbors; indeed, the idealistic part of our national narrative peace that William Bradford forged with matters at present strikes me as more the Wampanoag tribe lasted for a half- obvious than opaque: we need to make century–in itself a splendid achieve- sure everyone gets a fair shake, not just ment. As a story about our origins, this those with access (through wealth and one has many useful aspects, as Abraham connections) to the best schools and best Lincoln realized when he seized on it to jobs. A country is famously judged by create a mythos–a story with a good deal how it treats the poorest of its poor, the of energy that could be captured to influ- most disadvantaged.11 If any truth resides ence behavior on the ground. in that statement, we are on the road to Any number of strands in our national destruction and need, rather urgently, to narrative might be harnessed, brought reacquaint ourselves with our national into play again. One could do worse than mythos, with its urgent cry for liberty, its revisit the Declaration of Independence belief in human equality, and its passion to see what the Founding Fathers had on for justice. their minds when they severed ties with

endnotes 1 Wendell Berry, The Way of Ignorance (Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint, 2005), 9. 2 G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America (Teddington, U.K.: Echo Library, 2009), 8. 3 John Dewey, Problems of Men (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), 111. 4 Quoted in David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 76–77. 5 Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and the Imagination (New York: Knopf, 1951), 6. 6 John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1944), 240. 7 Donald Pease, “Rethinking ‘American Studies after U.S. Exceptionalism,’” American Literary History 21 (1) (2009): 19. 8 Quoted in Gary J. Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (New York: Routledge, 2004), 147. 9 Mary Antin, The Promised Land (New York: Penguin, 1997), 114. 10 See, for example, the work of Linda Thom in The Social Contract; Joel Kotkin, “The End of Upward Mobility?” Newsweek, January 17, 2009; and Philip Kasninitz, “Becoming American, Becoming Minority, Getting Ahead: The Role of Racial and Ethnic Status in the Upward Mobility of the Children of Immigrants,” The ANNALS of the Academy of Political and Social Science 620 (1) (2008). These articles are easily accessible online. 11 Versions of that statement are attributed to various people, including Gandhi and Churchill.

60 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences On Western Waters: Anglo-American Non½ctional Narrative in the Nineteenth Century

Rolena Adorno

Abstract: Anglo-American westward expansion provided a major impulse to the development of the young United States’ narrative tradition. Early U.S. writers also looked to the South, that is, to the Span- ish New World and, in some cases, to Spain itself. Washington Irving’s “A History of the Life and Voy- ages of Christopher Columbus” (1828), the ½rst full-length biography of the admiral in English, inaugurated the trend, and Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi” (1883) transformed it by focusing on the life and lives of the Mississippi River Valley and using an approach informed by Miguel de Cer- vantes’s “Don Quijote de la Mancha.” From Irving’s “discovery of America” to Twain’s tribute to the disappearing era of steamboat travel and commerce on the Mississippi, the tales about “western waters,” told via their authors’ varied engagements with Spanish history and literature, constitute a seldom acknowledged dimension in Anglo-America’s non½ctional narrative literary history.

Anglo-American expansion into the West and far West of North America provided a major impulse to the development of the young United States’ ROLENA ADORNO, a Fellow of the narrative tradition. Travel accounts ½gured promi- American Academy since 2003, is nently, and most, from Washington Irving’s A Tour the Reuben Post Halleck Professor on the Prairies (1835), to Francis Parkman’s The Ore- of Spanish and Chair of the Depart- gon Trail (1847–1849), to Mark Twain’s Roughing It ment of Spanish and Portuguese at (1872), looked westward. In fact, U.S. non½ctional Yale University. Her recent publi- literature was born on the lands and waters of west- cations include The Polemics of Pos- session in Spanish American Narrative ern exploration. This phenomenon inspired the in- (2007), which was awarded the ternationally renowned Argentine writer and bib- Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize by liophile Jorge Luis Borges to remark in 1967, while the Modern Language Association, holding the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of De Guancane a Macondo: estudios de Poetry at Harvard, that in the United States, even literatura hispanoamericana (2008), the American West seemed to have been invented and Colonial Latin American Litera- in New England.1 ture: A Very Short Introduction (2011). In 2009, President Obama appoint- America’s early writers looked not only to the ed her to a ½ve-year membership West but also to the South, that is, to the Spanish on the National Council on the New World and, in notable cases, to Spain. Wash- Humanities. ington Irving’s A History of the Life and Voyages of

61 Anglo- Christopher Columbus (1828), the ½rst full- Parkman (1823–1893). Parkman did not American length biography of the admiral in English, participate in the contemporary vogue for Non½ctional Narrative inaugurated the trend, and Mark Twain’s studying things Spanish; however, like in the Life on the Mississippi (1883) transformed it Irving and Hispanist historian William Nineteenth Century with a critical but tolerant reflection on Hickling Prescott (1796–1859), he made the life and lives of the Mississippi River enthusiastic references to knight errantry Valley and an approach informed by Mi- and “ocean chivalry.” Twain admired Park- guel de Cervantes’s Don Quijote de la Man- man for his astute ½rsthand accounts of cha. While Washington Irving (1783–1859) the Oglala Sioux in The Oregon Trail,6 and focused on the earliest Spanish explora- he was a faithful reader of Parkman’s La tion and settlement of American lands, Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1869, Mark Twain (1835–1910) strove to give the 1879), which was of signal importance in United States its own experience, honed in chronicling “western waters.”7 Twain no the heyday of steamboat travel and river- doubt chose Parkman because the Bos- boat commerce on the Mississippi. tonian evoked the unfathomable, dynam- For Irving, Columbus provided the op- ic Mississippi River with great respect, portunity to pursue serious history-writ- while British travelers to America often ing on a subject of national interest.2 expressed contempt for it. One of them Irving’s benefactor, diplomat and editor called this most formidable of waterways of the North American Review Alexander H. the “great common sewer of the Western Everett, lauded Irving’s patriotic fervor America.” and his “pretension to be viewed as the Accounts of Spanish exploration and valorous knight, who was called, in the conquest, compiled during the sixteenth order of destiny . . . to achieve the great and to nineteenth centuries and translated hitherto unaccomplished adventure of es- into other European languages, were im- tablishing a purely American literary rep- mensely popular in the late eighteenth and utation of the ½rst order.”3 Twain’s close early nineteenth centuries. Irving fondly friend and editor of The Atlantic Monthly, recalled reading them in his youth, citing William Dean Howells, was of the opin- late in life one of his early favorites, a ion that Twain considered Life on the Mis- multivolume compendium prologued by sissippi his greatest work. Howells re- Samuel Johnson and entitled The World marked that as a reader Twain had always Displayed; or A Curious Collection of Voyages been drawn to books that “had the root of and Travels, Selected from the Writers of All the human matter in it” and “gave him Nations, in Which the Conjectures and Inter- life at ½rst-hand”: namely, history, auto- polations of Several Vain Editors and Transla- biography, and ½rsthand accounts of trav- tors are Expunged. Inspired by this tradition el or captivity.4 Although it is hardly re- and by Spanish naval historian and direc- membered and seldom read today, Irving’s tor of Spain’s Royal Academy of History romantic Columbus enjoyed immense Martín Fernández de Navarrete’s path- popularity throughout most of the nine- breaking publication of the corpus of teenth century and beyond.5 Twain, mean- Columbus documents (1825–1837), Irving while, was giving the lie to the idea that inaugurated the American trend of writ- any account of exploration or travel by for- ing on Spanish New World exploration eigners could be considered “innocent.” and settlement with his Columbus.8 Pres- The bridge (to use a river metaphor) that cott became the most notable of the nine- connects Washington Irving and Mark teenth-century Hispanists writing narra- Twain is the romantic historian Francis tive history, and his works from the 1830s

62 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences through the 1850s built America’s basic United States ample room for maneuver Rolena Spanish bookshelf: The Reign of Ferdinand as it pursued its own “manifest” national Adorno and Isabella (1837), The Conquest of Mexico destiny.14 In that context, the ½gure of a (1843), The Conquest of Peru (1847), and solitary genius and entrepreneur carry- The Reign of Philip II (1855, 1858) would ing European civilization over new fron- guide Americans’ thinking about Spain tiers to uncharted lands resonated well and its New World conquests for more with the aspirations of a young America. than a century.9 Other U.S. historians, Irving’s Columbus dramatized, in short, principally Parkman, John Lothrop Mot- the model of the North American “self- ley, and George Bancroft, created monu- made man” who could do good for others mental histories of the French, the Dutch, by doing well for himself.15 and the English in the Americas.10 As Irving portrayed him, Columbus “singularly combined the practical and the Colonial times in British North Ameri- poetical”: like a nautical knight-errant, ca witnessed a widening interest in Span- his discoveries “enlightened the ignorance ish history and culture through the study of the age, guided conjecture to certainty, of the Spanish language, the collection of and dispelled the very darkness with Spanish materials for libraries, and the which he had been obliged to struggle.” presentation of Spanish themes in the lit- This new Columbus possessed an “ardent erary and historical arts. After U.S. inde- and enthusiastic imagination which threw pendence, Thomas Jefferson promoted the a magni½cence over his whole course of study of the Spanish language, anticipat- thought.” Quixotic but not mad, his imaging the development of trade with Latin ination “instead of exhausting itself in America and encouraging linguistic mas- idle flights, lent aid to his judgment, and tery because “the ancient part of Ameri- enabled him to form conclusions at which can history is written chiefly in Spanish.”11 common minds could never have arrived, America’s early writers took up the chal- nay, which they could not perceive when lenge. The period from the 1820s to the pointed out.”16 Irving endowed the larg- 1860s was particularly productive for the er Columbus story with a satisfying tele- growth of Anglo-American Hispanism; in ology: the immediate triumph of Colum- addition to Irving’s and Prescott’s histo- bus, his subsequent defeat, and, post- ries, the scholarship of George Ticknor, humously, his (almost) imperishable re- the poetry of William Cullen Bryant, and nown.17 Irving highlighted Columbus’s the ½ction of Herman Melville stand out.12 illusions about having arrived at the Miguel de Cervantes’s El ingenioso hidalgo threshold of Asia and locating the terres- Don Quijote de la Mancha (1605, 1615) had trial paradise, and he endowed his hero been read since the eighteenth century, with a blithe unawareness of the poten- and references to the novel and its protag- tial historical and human consequences onists can be found among Anglo-Ameri- of his epoch-making actions. can writers from Irving onward.13 Irving, as Prescott and others would do Often hailed as America’s “½rst man of after him, thus turned the Spanish adven- letters,” Washington Irving wrote in the ture in the New World into a remarkable era of Jacksonian democracy, westward Anglo-American story. Irving created a expansion, European immigration, and nineteenth-century Columbus on the Indian removal. The demise of the Span- verge of discovery and opportunity. He ish empire and the recent independence smoothly grafted the accounts by Hernan- of Latin American republics provided the do Colón (Columbus’s son) and Spanish

141 (1) Winter 2012 63 Anglo- missionary activist and historian Barto- Mark Twain lauds. Replacing the long- American lomé de las Casas–his principal sources gone European explorers, Bixby is the Non½ctional Narrative on Columbus–onto a North American modern-day exemplar of nautical prowess in the conceptualization of New World Colum- in Twain’s America. Whereas grandiose Nineteenth Century bian history based on personal entrepre- imaginings inspired the navigational neurship, private enterprise, and the “spir- achievements of Irving’s Columbus and it of commerce.” Irving referred to Colum- Parkman’s La Salle, Twain attributes Bix- bus’s goal–“the design of seeking a west- by’s mastery of skills to clearheaded ob- ern route to India”–as his “grand project servation and experience. A harbinger of of discovery.” Irving made frequent ref- neither great empires nor nineteenth- erence to the admiral’s “enterprise,” thus century adventurous enterprises, Bixby is underscoring, in typical nineteenth-cen- instead a great teacher, whose prideful tury language, the progressive economic modesty is underpinned by his sober goals he attributed to Columbus.18 realization that each day on the treacher- Parkman’s depiction of French explor- ous Mississippi brings new challenges. er Réné-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Rather than any personage, the Missis- Salle, was cut from the same cloth: sippi River itself emerges as the book’s central ½gure: larger than life, it is at [W]ith feet ½rm planted on the hard earth, once terrible, inscrutable, and sublime. [La Salle] breathes the self-relying energies As pilot/author Clemens/Twain meta- of modern practical enterprise. Neverthe- morphoses it: less, La Salle’s enemies called him a vision- ary. . . . La Salle at La Chine dreamed of a The face of the water, in time, became a western passage to China, and nursed vague wonderful book. . . . The passenger who schemes of western discovery. Then, when could not read it was charmed with a pecu- his earlier journeying revealed to him the liar sort of dimple on its surface (on the valley of the Ohio and the fertile plains of rare occasions when he did not overlook it Illinois, his imagination took wing over the altogether); but to the pilot that was an boundless prairies and forests drained by italicized passage . . . for it meant that a wreck the great river of the West. His ambition had or a rock was buried there that could tear found its ½eld. . . . It was for him to call into the life out of the strongest vessel that ever light the latent riches of the great West.19 floated.20 Twain takes a different tack. While pro- Reading the river correctly was the ap- fessing in Life on the Mississippi the progres- prentice (“cub”) pilot’s greatest high- sive economic values that link him to Ir- stakes challenge. ving and Parkman, he achieves a narrative The country Twain portrays in Life is transformation that turns the foregoing no longer that of Washington Irving. travel-and-exploration models inside out. Twain’s/Clemens’s homeland is a broken one, not yet recovered from the incurable As in the works of Irving and Parkman, wounds wrought by the Civil War, all too in Twain’s Life on the Mississippi compe- painfully in evidence two decades after the tence and mastery are navigational. Co- war’s conclusion, especially in the Lower lumbus and La Salle have been replaced Mississippi River Valley. Citing the par- by Mr. Horace Bixby, the master pilot ticulars of all he ½nds noteworthy on the under whom the young Sam Clemens river during his ½ve-week sojourn in 1882, apprenticed and whose extraordinary nav- Twain becomes the historian and chroni- igational art as a Mississippi River pilot cler of change. The temporal depth he

64 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences achieves owes to the fact that nearly the tering through this noted visitor’s breast Rolena ½rst quarter of the book was published se- by the aspect and traditions of the ‘great Adorno rially in 1875 in The Atlantic Monthly. Titled common sewer,’” Marryat’s account has “Old Times on the Mississippi,” the serial- “a value, though marred in the matter of ized narration re-created Clemens’s river- statistics by inaccuracies; for the cat½sh boat days of 1857 to 1861. There and in his is a plenty good enough ½sh for anybody, Autobiography, Twain confesses that his and there are no panthers that are ‘imper- earliest impulse for going down the Mis- vious to man’” (Life, 200–201). sissippi had been to get to South America With certain delight, Twain cites a pas- and the Amazon River Basin, where he sage from Mrs. (Frances Milton) Trol- planned to make a fortune collecting and lope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans selling coca. With regard to this ill-con- (1832) in which the author, the mother of sidered youthful folly, Twain remarks: “I English novelist Anthony Trollope, re- never was great in matters of detail” (Life, counts her view of the entrance to the 68; see Figure 1).21 When soon afterward Mississippi, with “the mighty river pour- he became a cub pilot, the young Clemens ing forth its muddy mass of waters, and learned from the Mississippi and Mr. Bix- mingling with the deep blue of the Mexi- by the importance of “matters of detail.” can Gulf.” Having “never beheld a scene Twain’s citations of Parkman’s La Salle so utterly desolate,” she assures her read- and recent nineteenth-century European ers that if Dante had seen it, he might tourists’ accounts of their visits to Amer- have envisioned another Bolgia: that is, ica underscore Twain’s deep love of the one of the stone trenches where sinners Mississippi River Valley, to which he as- are punished in the eighth circle of hell. signs the Abraham Lincoln-inspired epi- To trump Mrs. Trollope’s Dantesque vi- graph, “Body of the Nation.”22 How Twain sion, Twain calls on Parkman’s La Salle, handles Parkman’s historical works and whom he describes as a tourist, but the foreign visitors’ travel narratives reveals “old original ½rst and gallantest” of all of the steps he takes to move beyond those them, and a “pioneer, head of the proces- earlier accounts. Twain exchanges Park- sion,” whose “name will last as long as man’s early modern European explorers the river itself shall last” (Life, 199, 201). for a long series of nineteenth-century, (Twain has a way of making double-edged mostly English, tourists who visited the his most trenchant assessments.) A far cry Mississippi, Charles Dickens included.23 from Parkman’s paean to La Salle, Twain’s Twain treats in detail the three-volume homage, quoted directly from Parkman,24 A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Insti- is paid not to the explorer but to the river, tutions (1839) by the English naval of½cer as it merges magni½cently, not hellishly, and novelist Frederick Marryat, whose into the waters of the Gulf: “great sewer” remark enlivens Life’s ½rst And now they neared their journey’s end. . . . chapter. Twain cites at length Marryat’s As [La Salle] drifted down the turbid cur- catalog of the monsters dwelling in and rent, between the low and marshy shores, around the Mississippi: within its waters, the brackish water changed to brine, and the “the coarsest and most uneatable of ½sh, breeze grew fresh with the salt breath of the such as the cat-½sh”; on its banks, “the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf fetid alligator”; and in the cane-brakes at opened on his sight, tossing its restless bil- the river’s edge, the panther, “almost im- lows, limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born pervious to man.” Twain concedes that of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life. “as a panorama of the emotions sent wel- (Life, 202)

141 (1) Winter 2012 65 Anglo- Figure 1 American The Baton Rouge Non½ctional Narrative in the Nineteenth Century

In 1882, while gathering materials for Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain traveled from New Orleans to St. Louis on the Baton Rouge, captained by Horace Bixby. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (Boston: James R. Osgood & Company, 1883), frontispiece; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

It is for such solemn, lyrical renderings scene in which the local Indians “enter- that Twain is Parkman’s fond reader, and tained the strangers who, on their part, for the narration of the journeys of Mar- responded with a solemnity which their quette and Joliet as well as La Salle, Twain hosts would have liked less if they had under- follows Parkman.25 stood it better.” He quietly skewers the Twain also admires Parkman for his oc- priest’s and the commandant’s attempts casional ironies. Of a pro-English and Prot- to establish French order: “La Salle, in estant outlook, Parkman targets French the King’s name, took formal possession absolutism (calling Louis XIV the “Sultan of the country. The friar, not, he flatters of Versailles,” for example) and mocks himself, without success, labored to expound Roman Catholic and Jesuit authority.26 by signs the mysteries of the Faith; while Twain trades Parkman’s gentle jibes for La Salle, by methods equally satisfactory, drew his own much sharper ones. When La Salle from the chief an acknowledgment of takes formal possession of the vast lands fealty to Louis XIV.”27 at the confluence of the Mississippi and Twain gleefully offers his own more Arkansas Rivers, Parkman imagines the pointed version of the scene:

66 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Then, to the admiration of the savages, La feather” and when “religion was in a pe- Rolena Salle set up a cross with the arms of France culiarly blooming condition: the Council Adorno on it, and took possession of the whole of Trent was being called; the Spanish country for the king–the cool fashion of Inquisition was roasting, and racking, and the time–while the priest piously consecrat- burning, with a free hand,” while “else- ed the robbery with a hymn. The priest ex- where on the continent the nations were plained the mysteries of the faith “by signs,” being persuaded to holy living by the for the saving of the savages; thus compen- sword and ½re” (Life, 41–42). Twain ex- sating them with possible possessions in Heaven pands the Black Legend of Spanish histo- for the certain ones on earth which they had just ry, that is, the disparagement of Spain’s been robbed of. And also, by signs, La Salle Inquisition and overseas conquests by drew from these simple children of the for- other European powers, by painting those est acknowledgments of fealty to Louis the other nations in the same dark colors. Putrid, over the water. Nobody smiled at these Twain thus makes De Soto’s unherald- colossal ironies. (Life, 48, emphasis added)28 ed discovery of the Mississippi the focal point from which to consider the events Fond of evoking the ceremony of taking that made the early modern West what it formal possession of foreign territories, was, the legacy of which lived on in the with its requisite raising of the Christian 1880s in the American West and South. In cross, Twain calls it La Salle’s “con½scat- doing so, Twain reveals the seriousness ing cross”–“the ½rst con½scation-cross of his concern for history and change. [that] was raised on the banks of the great “Mere ½gures,” he contends, “convey to river” (Life, 45, 48–49). our minds no just idea, no distinct realization, of the stretch of time which they But what of the Spanish, whose echoes represent.” To offer perspective on the of formal possession-taking are so clearly time elapsed between De Soto’s discovery audible in Twain’s wickedly humorous of the Mississippi in 1542 and the arrival rendering of the French ceremony? In of Marquette and Joliet in 1673, Twain La Salle, Parkman dispenses with the ½rst compares it to the life span of Shake- European sighting of the Mississippi by speare (1564–1616): that is, while De the Spanish expedition of Hernando de 29 Soto’s sighting occurred nearly a quarter- Soto (1539–1543) in a single paragraph. century before the Bard’s birth, French Twain makes only a brief reference to De explorers did not arrive until well beyond Soto, but he turns it into an opportunity ½fty years after his death. “In our day,” to sum up the high (and low) points of Twain adds, reflecting on his own times, early modern European political and “we don’t allow a hundred and thirty years cultural history. He catalogs sixteenth- to elapse between glimpses of a marvel” century events, from the oppressive ac- (Life, 41, 43). The marvel, of course, is the tions of absolutist monarchs (Charles V’s Mississippi. “manufacturing history after his own pe- In recalling Parkman’s account of the culiar fashion,” for example) to the ap- recognition of the Mississippi by De Soto, pearance–in some cases, anticipation– Marquette and Joliet, and La Salle at the of great artistic and literary masterpieces mouth of the Arkansas River, Twain goes by Michelangelo, Rabelais, Shakespeare, a step further and identi½es these early and Cervantes. Twain characterizes the explorers with the site of the nineteenth- era as one in which “lax court morals and century town of Napoleon, Arkansas.30 the absurd chivalry business were in full Napoleon registers the layers of time that

141 (1) Winter 2012 67 Anglo- Twain seeks to make real for the reader. Munich, Bavaria, the previous November American He also makes the Mississippi his own, (Life, 233–243). But Twain (and his read- Non½ctional Narrative weaving together narrative events ger- ers) then discover that Napoleon, Arkan- in the mane to his personal history. He de- sas, heavy with history–both epoch- Nineteenth Century scribes “one of the Mississippi’s oddest making and personal–has been wiped peculiarities–that of shortening its length off the face of the earth: from time to time”: that is, the river The Arkansas River burst through it, tore it creates “cut-offs,” where the water cuts all to rags, and emptied it into the Missis- through the alluvial banks of the “deep sippi! . . . Yes, it was an astonishing thing to horseshoe curves” of the winding river see the Mississippi rolling between unpeo- and straightens its course. Since his pilot- pled shores and straight over the spot where ing years, Twain remarks, the river pro- I used to see a good big self-complacent town duced several new cut-offs. One such twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat dramatic and disorienting event occurred of a great and important county; town with at Napoleon, Arkansas (Life, 145–146). a big United States marine hospital . . . town If there is a modest, latent teleology in where we were handed the ½rst printed news Life on the Mississippi, it is to be found in of the Pennsylvania’s mournful disaster a the events that unfold at Napoleon, end- quarter of a century ago; a town no more– ing with the town’s apocalyptic disappear- swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the ance into the waters of the Mississippi. ½shes; nothing left but a fragment of a shan- Twain forewarns the reader about this ty and a crumbling brick chimney! (Life, 247) possibility in Chapter 2, when, referring to De Soto, Marquette and Joliet, and La Stating plainly that the town has “gone Salle, he remarks: to feed the ½shes,” Twain registers loss without sentimentality. Further, as Twain Three out of the four memorable events writes in the successive chapter, three connected with the discovery and explo- months after this revelation he learned ration of the mighty river occurred, by acci- from the New York newspapers that the dent, in one and the same place. . . . France steamer Gold Dust, which had recently car- stole that vast country on that spot, the ried him and his party past the site of the future Napoleon; and by and by Napoleon former Napoleon to Vicksburg, Missis- himself was to give the country back again! sippi (also later diverted from the river- –make restitution, not to the owners, but to bank by a cut-off ), had blown up: “Forty- their white American heirs. (Life, 48) seven persons were scalded and seven- Beyond alluding to the 1803 Louisiana teen are missing” (Life, 274). The accident Purchase, Twain con½des that Napoleon signi½es, in Twain’s account, the virtual is the site where, in 1858, he learned of the end of the steamboat era, which, in its own recent explosion of the steamboat Penn- right, is chronicled in Twain’s references sylvania that shortly afterward would take to the U.S. Civil War, the development of the life of his younger brother, Henry railroad commerce, and the related fac- Clemens (Life, 48, 161–165).31 tors that at the time spelled doom to com- In the narrative time of Twain’s 1882 mercial and passenger riverboat travel. trip, Napoleon also becomes the anticipated site of a buried fortune that he will Where does Twain’s well-known cri- endeavor to retrieve and forward to the tique of the “sham civilization” of the rightful party, in ful½llment of the death South ½t into the “Spanish” picture? He wish of an acquaintance made, he says, in characterizes the South as the place where

68 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences “the genuine wholesome civilization of er I ever knew,” and he does so by equat- Rolena the nineteenth century is curiously con- ing the South with the support of slavery, Adorno fused and commingled with the Walter which Twain abhorred. In fact, Twain’s Scott Middle-Age sham civilization” (Life, “sham civilization” target is not the South 327). Attributing to the North American as such, but rather the pernicious effects South a predilection for Scott’s imagined of a certain kind of literature, historical age of chivalry, Twain looks back in time as well as ½ctional. He attacks the roman- to the Spanish South. He makes note of tic novels that at the time, he argues, were De Soto’s impractical underestimation of reinforcing the South’s illusions: “But for the value and usefulness of the Mississippi. the Sir Walter disease, the character of “One would expect,” Twain remarks, that the Southerner–or Southron, according after De Soto’s death and burial in the to Sir Walter’s starchier way of phrasing Mississippi, his priests and soldiers would it–would be wholly modern, in place of have conjured up extravagant reports modern and medieval mixed, and the South about it, “multiplying the river’s dimensions by would be fully a generation further ad- ten–the Spanish custom of the day–and thus vanced than it is” (Life, 327–328, emphasis move other adventurers to go at once and added; see Figure 2). explore it” (Life, 42–43, emphasis added). Twain’s Life on the Mississippi comple- But it did not happen. ments and transforms, terminating– “Further south,” Twain continues, the in theory if not in practice–the era of Spanish pursued their chimerical searches Anglo-American non½ctional narrative for other Mexicos and Cuzcos and never- inaugurated by Washington Irving. Irving found El Dorados, all the while “robbing, had found in historical novelist Sir Wal- slaughtering, enslaving, and converting” ter Scott the con½rmation of his ideals in the native inhabitants. All this occurred, writing; like Scott, Irving loved “that Twain points out, when the “absurd chiv- extraordinary society of the middle ages alry business” was in full swing (Life, 42– . . . fashioned into a chivalric world that 43). Here, Twain echoes Prescott’s char- never had an actual being.”34 Irving was acterization of the sixteenth century: not alone; Prescott and Parkman were “The period which we are reviewing was among those writers who admired Scott still the age of chivalry. . . . The Spaniard, and his penchant for the grandiloquent with his nice point of honor, high romance, portraiture of historical ½gures.35 While and proud, vainglorious vaunt, was the eternally professing ideals of Anglo- true representative of that age.”32 For his American “progress,” these authors par- part, Twain expands the arena of the Pres- adoxically thrilled to the sound of her- cottian “age of chivalry” to include the alding trumpets and “inflated speech” early modern monarchs Francis I and (Twain’s expression) in their prose. Henry VIII as well as Charles V. This was the American literary heritage Twain does not categorically condemn that Twain rejected. In the 1880s, Irving’s the North American South. After all, Clem- Columbus was being anthologized and sold ens was by birth, inclination, and acknowl- across the nation, and Prescott’s conquest edgment a Southerner, or a Southwestern- histories of Mexico and Peru were enjoy- er, whose father had owned slaves and ing the warmth of new readers’ ardor. who himself had “served” for two weeks Twain’s complaint was more than region- in 1861 in the Hannibal Home Guard of al; the flaws of narrative prose produced Confederate leanings.33 Howells calls in, by, and for the United States were not him “the most desouthernized Southern- con½ned to the South:

141 (1) Winter 2012 69 Anglo- Figure 2 American Chivalry Non½ctional Narrative in the Nineteenth Century

A common motif used by nineteenth-century North American writers on Spain, chivalry is here depicted and decried in the ½rst edition of Life on the Mississippi. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883), 468; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

If one take[s] up a Northern or Southern used to describe Irving’s literary “preten- literary periodical of forty or ½fty years sion to be viewed as the valorous knight” ago, he will ½nd it ½lled with wordy, windy, in establishing an American literary rep- flowery “eloquence,” romanticism, senti- utation with his Columbus.) As Twain mentality–all imitated from Sir Walter, sweeps Northern writers of a half-century and suf½ciently badly done, too–innocent earlier into his critique, he has in mind travesties of his style and methods in fact. Irving and Prescott and to some extent, (Life, 328) Parkman, too. Even if, as Twain contends, “the North has thrown out that old inflat- (A good example is provided by the over- ed style,” these authors were still being wrought language that Alexander Everett read and admired.

70 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences So great was Scott’s literary influence, Don Quijote, and, in A Connecticut Yankee in Rolena Twain argues, that Sir Walter did “mea- King Arthur’s Court (1889), his rollicking Adorno sureless harm; more real and lasting satire of chivalry and chivalric romance harm, perhaps, than any other individual that was “clearly borrowed from Cer- that ever wrote” (Life, 327–328). Twain vantes.”36 Regrettably, readers have not excoriates the “sham chivalry” at work in always recognized, as Twain did, Cervan- Scott’s Ivanhoe by contrasting it with the tes’s deeply serious intentions and sig- salutary effects of Cervantes’s Don Quijote: ni½cance. Often mistakenly identi½ed as a Span- A curious exempli½cation of the power of a ish picaresque novel, Don Quijote’s epi- single book for good or harm is shown in sodic adventures lead–as Twain under- the effects wrought by Don Quixote and stood–beyond the lighthearted spoo½ng those wrought by Ivanhoe. The ½rst swept of a gentleman reader’s obsessions and the world’s admiration for the medieval society’s foibles to explore the inherently chivalry-silliness out of existence; and the dialogic nature of human experience. other restored it. As far as our South is con- Indeed, the larger-than-life ½gures of cerned, the good work done by Cervantes Don Quijote and Sancho Panza have is pretty nearly a dead letter, so effectually walked off the pages of Cervantes’s novel has Scott’s pernicious work undermined it. and perennially continue their wander- (Life, 329) ings along the highways and byways of In acknowledging the power of Cervan- Western culture. No Spanish pícaro in the tes’s Don Quijote to sweep “the medieval literature of the time was endowed with chivalry-silliness out of existence,” Twain the vitality and depth that Cervantes offers one of the ultimate nineteenth- achieved through the creation of Don century Anglo-American expressions of Quijote and Sancho and the remarkable homage to Spanish literature. More conversations that have given them life broadly, he recognizes the power of Cer- and longevity.37 vantes’s thesis about the influence of For Twain, Cervantes was Western books on readers. Following Prescott, Europe’s (and Spain’s) unique literary Twain invokes the era of sixteenth-cen- cultural achievement, and by mentioning tury overseas conquests as the “age of Cervantes in his Walter Scott critique in chivalry.” But he makes the deliberate lit- Chapter 46 of Life on the Mississippi, Twain erary- and cultural-historical point that takes the reader back to Chapter 1. There, the world would have to wait for Cer- Cervantes’s masterpiece Don Quijote ap- vantes’s Don Quijote to terminate the “ab- pears in the series of long-ago landmarks surd chivalry business”: “Don Quixote was that “considerably mellows and modi½es not yet written” (Life, 41–42). the shiny newness of our country, and gives her a most respectable outside- Literary critics have remarked on the aspect of rustiness and antiquity” (Life, parallels that Twain drew with Cervantes, 42). The patina of antiquity and the shab- taking into account, for example, similar- biness of rust usher out complacency and ities between the plots of Don Quijote and self-satisfaction as quickly as they were The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and welcomed in. Unlike Irving, Prescott, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Parkman, Twain recoils from the habit of the Cervantine echoes in Tom and Huck’s national self-congratulation. dialogues on books and reading, Twain’s Cervantes had done the same before occasional imitation of an episode from him. Twain admired not only the Span-

141 (1) Winter 2012 71 Anglo- iard’s brilliantly wrought duo of literary American book, and in it, his much-her- American protagonists but also their creator, whose alded contribution to the development of Non½ctional Narrative clarity of vision about human failings did Anglo-American narrative is substan- in the not prevent him from taking a critical but tial.39 Nevertheless, the Irvings, Prescotts, Nineteenth Century deeply expansive approach to Spanish and Parkmans are his essential predeces- society and history. Twain, like Cer- sors, even contemporaries and spring- vantes, took the long view of his times boards, thanks to their appropriation of and the world, seeing the greed, brutality, Spanish historical and literary themes. and intolerance of his age in light of all Still, the penetrating appreciation and others. Twain discovered in Cervantes a assimilation of Cervantes’s remarkable kindred spirit, a guide for the expression sensibilities belong to Twain alone. of a sensibility that Twain, in his own As U.S. authors retold the early modern time and under different circumstances, stories of European, especially Spanish, shared: a clear-eyed criticism of human exploration and conquest in the New weaknesses that, if not pardonable, could World, they summoned and rejected the be understood. values (chivalric chimeras) they attrib- Twain expressed his vision through the uted to the Old World, besting them with kind of humor that, lacking sentimental- America’s progressive liberal solutions: ity, produces irony. Howells understood Irving’s Christopher Columbus became this well, observing that Twain’s humor the North American self-made man, and “trusts and hopes and laughs; beyond Prescott’s Pedro de la Gasca–the royally that it doubts and fears, but it does not appointed peacemaker in a conquistador- cry.”38 Howells identi½ed this brand of torn Peru–was likened to George Wash- humor as Western, that is, as pertaining ington. Parkman imagined La Salle as a to the Western United States, but I attrib- model of entrepreneurial initiative who ute it to Twain’s serious reading of Cer- would “call into light the latent riches of vantes and his understanding of Cer- the great West.” vantes’s quest–and Don Quijote’s role– Enter Mark Twain. He tells, for the in literary and cultural history. He makes most part, the nation’s own story. If the his respect for Cervantes explicit when, American West had been, in Borges’s calling out Walter Scott for the “exem- view, an invention of New England, the pli½cation of the power of a single book Mississippi River Valley, in Twain’s hands, for good or harm,” he lauds, as its oppo- was not. The river’s role in the destruc- site, the “good work done by Cervantes.” tion of the town of Napoleon, the river boat called Gold Dust, and the life of Full of humor and irony–the palliative Clemens’s young brother Henry, cut humor that staves off despair and the short before his twentieth birthday, was reflection-provoking irony that cushions painfully real. Samuel Clemens was quin- all falls–Life on the Mississippi displays a tessentially American, but Mark Twain– way of life and its aftermath that are sin- because of his irony–was never an gularly Anglo-American. Tied by time to American essentialist. He gave a transfor- U.S. history and bound by geography to mative twist to the U.S. narrative tradi- North American soil (including the Mis- tion of exploration and travel writing. Its sissippi’s mud that, if solidi½ed annually, most notable nineteenth-century “Span- Twain tells us, “would make a mass a mile ish accents” are Irving’s inaugural Colum- square and two hundred and forty-one bus and Twain’s clear-eyed appreciation feet high” [Life, 40]), Twain’s Life is an of Cervantes’s outlook and genius, inte-

72 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences grated into a critical but tolerant reflec- Mississippi, the tales about “western wa- Rolena tion on the life and lives of the Mississippi ters,” told via their authors’ varied engage- Adorno River Valley–the “Body of the Nation.” ments with Spanish literature and history, From Irving’s “discovery of America” to constitute a major dimension in Anglo- Twain’s tribute to the disappearing era of America’s non½ctional narrative literary steamboat travel and commerce on the history.

endnotes 1 Jorge Luis Borges, “An Autobiographical Essay,” in The Aleph and Other Stories, 1933–1969, ed. and trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970), 255. 2 Washington Irving, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Together with the Voyages of his Companions, 3 vols. (1828, 1831; London: John Murray, 1849), vol. 1, vii. 3 Alexander H. Everett, “Irving’s Life of Columbus,” North American Review 28 (January 1829): 110. 4 William Dean Howells, My Mark Twain (1910; repr., Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1997), 15, 20. 5 Irving’s Columbus appeared in 116 editions and reprints in the eight decades following its 1828 publication. See John Harmon McElroy’s introduction to The Life and Voyages of Christo- pher Columbus, in The Complete Works of Washington Irving, vol. 11, ed. John Harmon McElroy (Boston: Twayne, 1981), xvii–xviii. 6Gary Scharnhorst, ed., Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews (Tuscaloosa: University of Ala- bama Press, 2006), 519; Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail (1847–1849; Boston: Little, Brown, 1880), vii, 198, 202, 220. 7“Western waters” is Theodore Roosevelt’s phrase; see Theodore Roosevelt, “The Men of the Western Waters, 1798–1802,” in The Winning of the West, 4 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889). Roosevelt dedicated the work to Parkman, “to whom Americans who feel a pride in the pioneer history of their country are so greatly indebted.” 8 I offer a fuller examination of Irving’s Columbus in “Washington Irving’s Romantic His- panism and Its Columbian Legacies,” in Spain in America: The Origins of Hispanism in the Unit- ed States, ed. Richard L. Kagan (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 49–105. 9 See Richard L. Kagan, “Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the De- cline of Spain,” in Imagined Histories: American Historians Interpret the Past, ed. Anthony Molho and Gordon S. Wood (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 324–348. 10 See David Levin, History as Romantic Art: Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, and Parkman (1959; repr., New York: ams Press, 1967). 11 Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Volume 11: 1 January to 6 August 1787 (Prince- ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1955), 558; “Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Fix the Site of the University of Virginia, 4 August 1818,” in Early History of the University of Virginia, ed. Nathanial Francis Cabell (Richmond, Va.: J.W. Randolph, 1856), 440. 12 Stanley T. Williams, The Spanish Background of American Literature, 2 vols. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1955), vol. 1, 28–32, 44–47, 224–227; vol. 2, 273–275. 13 Stanley T. Williams, The Life of Washington Irving, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1935), vol. 1, 114, 178, 298; Williams, The Spanish Background of American Literature, vol. 1, 35–36, 45. Two of the most frequently reprinted English translations of Don Quijote in Twain’s time were those of Charles Jarvis (1742) and Tobias Smollett (1755); Sydney J. Krause, Mark Twain as Critic (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 118 n.7. 14 See Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (1963; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), chaps. 1–4. The 1995 edition includes a new foreword by John Mack Faragher.

141 (1) Winter 2012 73 Anglo- 15 Irving’s Columbus anticipates the expression “self-made man,” made famous in Henry Clay’s American U.S. Senate speech in February 1832. For the concept, see John G. Cawelti, Apostles of the Self- Non½ctional Made Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 43–46. Narrative in the 16 Irving, Columbus, vol. 2, 484–485, 491–492. Nineteenth 17 Century Since the 1970s the ½gure of Columbus has undergone the most dramatic reworking of any major historical ½gure portrayed in U.S. textbooks; see Sam Dillon, “Schools Growing Harsh- er in Scrutiny of Columbus,” The New York Times, October 12, 1992. 18 See Peter Antelyes, Tales of Adventurous Enterprise: Washington Irving and the Poetics of West- ward Expansion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990). 19 Francis Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1869, 1879; Boston: Little, Brown, 1922), 83–84; La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West is Part 3 of Parkman’s multivolume France and England in North America (1865–1892). 20 Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, ed. James M. Cox (1883; New York: Viking Penguin, 1984), 94. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text. 21 Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain, vol. 1, ed. Harriet Elinor Smith et al. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010), vol. 1, 461. Clemens met the pilot Horace Bixby on his ½rst trip down the Mississippi in 1857, and Bixby captained the Baton Rouge on Twain’s ½nal sojourn on the river in 1882. 22 Twain quotes from the Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (February 1863) Editor’s Table, which was based on Lincoln’s Annual Message to Congress in December 1862 and “its theme of national unity for which the Mississippi Valley had begun to serve as a central symbol”; Horst H. Kruse, Mark Twain and “Life on the Mississippi” (Amherst: University of Massachu- setts Press, 1981), 123. 23 Twain cites Dickens’s American Notes (1842) twice, once to dispute Dickens’s earlier damn- ing portrait of Cairo, Illinois, by remarking that, thanks to Cairo’s current heavy railroad and river trade, “her situation at the junction of the two great rivers [Arkansas and Missis- sippi] is so advantageous that she cannot well help prospering” (Life, 190). Regarding Dick- ens’s scof½ng dismissal of the common appreciation of Mississippi steamboats as “magni½cent,” or as “floating palaces,” Twain points out that such judgments are always based on the individual’s particular experiences and points of reference, and he asserts that, for those reasons, “The people were as right as was Mr. Dickens” (Life, 275). 24 See Parkman, La Salle, 306. 25 In Chapter 2 of Life, “The River and its Explorers,” Twain paraphrases and quotes passages from Chapter 5, “1672–1675, The Discovery of the Mississippi,” and Chapter 20, “1681–1682, Success of La Salle,” of Parkman’s La Salle. 26 Parkman, La Salle, 308; Samuel Eliot Morrison’s introduction to The Parkman Reader, ed. Samuel Eliot Morrison (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955), 20. 27 Parkman, La Salle, 299–300; emphasis added. 28 On savagery: In Following the Equator, Twain signals the white man’s mistaken notion “that he is less savage than the other savages” and emphasizes that “[i]n many countries we have taken the savage’s land from him, and made him our slave, and lashed him every day, and broken his pride, and made death his only friend, and overworked him till he dropped in his tracks”; Mark Twain, Following the Equator & Anti-imperialist Essays (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1996), 212–213. See also Shelley Fisher Fishkin, “Mark Twain and Race,” and Jim Zwick, “Mark Twain and Imperialism,” both in A Historical Guide to Mark Twain, ed. Shelley Fisher Fishkin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 29 Parkman, La Salle, vol. 3, 3. 30 See Michael D. Hammond, “Arkansas Atlantis: The Lost Town of Napoleon,” The Arizona State Quarterly 65 (3) (2006): 201–223.

74 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences 31 See also Twain, Autobiography, 274–276, in which he recalls that Henry’s tragic death was Rolena caused by a physician’s administration of a fatal dose of morphine and had been anticipat- Adorno ed by a dream Clemens had. 32 William Hickling Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843; New York: Random House, 1998), 715–716. 33 See Twain, Autobiography, 205, 527–528, 651. 34 Williams, The Life of Washington Irving, vol. 1, 160–161. 35 See Levin, History as Romantic Art, 11–12, 236 n.50–51. 36 See Olin Harris Moore, “Mark Twain and Don Quixote,” PMLA 37 (2) (1922): 324–346; and Krause, Mark Twain as Critic, 118 n.7. 37 At the age of twenty-½ve, Clemens considered Oliver Goldsmith and Cervantes’s Don Qui- jote his “beau ideals of ½ne writing”; Krause, Mark Twain as Critic, 118. See Mark Twain’s Let- ters, Volume 1, 1853–1866, ed. Edgar Marquess Branch et al. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni- versity of California Press, 1988), 117. 38 Howells, My Mark Twain, 170. 39 The noted Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin writes: “Americans may have constructed a new society in the eighteenth century, but they articulate what they had done in voices that were largely interchangeable with those of Englishmen until well into the nineteenth century. Mark Twain became the voice of the new land, the leading translator of what and who the ‘American’ was”; Fishkin, foreword to Following the Equator by Twain, xii. Twain’s singular achievement in Life on the Mississippi was to de½ne what “America” itself was, wrest- ing one of its major “marvels,” as Twain called the Mississippi, from its European detrac- tors, surveying American society, and assessing the role that literary culture played in it.

141 (1) Winter 2012 75 The Accommodation of Protestant Christianity with the Enlightenment: An Old Drama Still Being Enacted

David A. Hollinger

Abstract: Throughout its history, the United States has been a major site for the accommodation of Protestant Christianity with the Enlightenment. This accommodation has been driven by two closely related but distinct processes: the demysti½cation of religion’s cognitive claims by scienti½c advances, exempli½ed by the Higher Criticism in Biblical scholarship and the Darwinian revolution in natural history; and the demographic diversi½cation of society, placing Protestants in the increasingly intimate company of Americans who did not share a Protestant past and thus inspiring doubts about the validity of inherited ideas and practices for the entire human species. The accommodation of Protestant Christian- ity with the Enlightenment will continue to hold a place among American narratives as long as “diversity” and “science” remain respected values, and as long as the population includes a substantial number of Protestants. If you think that time has passed, look around you.

In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr., invoked the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock and Jefferson writing the Declara- tion of Independence. In that 1963 meditation on DAVID A. HOLLINGER, a Fellow American national destiny, fashioned as a weapon of the American Academy since in the black struggle for civil rights, King repeatedly 1997, is the Preston Hotchkis Pro- mobilized the sanctions of both Protestant Chris- fessor of American History at the tianity and the Enlightenment.1 Like the great ma- University of California, Berkeley. jority of Americans of his and every generation, He is the immediate past President of the Organization of American King believed that these two massive inventories of Historians. His publications in- ideals and practices work together well enough. But clude The Humanities and the Dy- not everyone who has shared this basic conviction namics of Inclusion Since World War II understands the relation between the two in quite (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Solidar- the same terms. And there are others who have de- ity: Studies in Ethnoracial, Religious, picted the relation as one of deep tension, even hos- and Professional Af½liation in the Unit- tility. Protestant Christianity, the Enlightenment, ed States (2006), and “After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Ecumenical Prot- and a host of claims and counterclaims about how estantism and the Modern Ameri- the two interact with one another are deeply con- can Encounter with Diversity,” stitutive of American history. We often speak about Journal of American History (2011). “the religious” and “the secular,” or about “the

76 heart” and “the head,” but American life accommodation. The bulk of the men and David A. as actually lived beneath these abstrac- women in control of American institu- Hollinger tions has been much more particular and tions–educational, political, and social– demands scrutiny in its historical density. have sought to retain the cultural capital The United States, whatever else it may of the Reformation while diversifying have been in its entire history as a subject their investments in a variety of opportu- of narration, has been a major site for the nities and challenges, many of which engagement of Protestant Christianity came to them under the sign of the En- with the Enlightenment. This engagement lightenment. The legacy of the Enlight- was–and continues to be–a world-his- enment in much of Europe, by contrast, torical event, or at least one of the de½ning played out in the rejection of, or indif- experiences of the North Atlantic West ference to, the Christianity to which the and its global cultural extensions from the Enlightenment was largely a dialectical eighteenth century to the present. Still, response, even while state churches re- the United States has been a uniquely mained ½xtures of the established order. conspicuous arena for this engagement In the United States, too, there were peo- in part because of the sheer demographic ple who rejected Protestant Christianity. preponderance of Protestants, especially But here the legacy of the Enlightenment dissenting Protestants from Great Britain, most often appeared in the liberalization during the formative years of the society of doctrine and Biblical interpretation and long thereafter. Relatively recent and in the denominational system’s func- social transformations can easily blind tioning as an expanse of voluntary associ- contemporaries to how overwhelmingly ations providing vital solidarities mid- Northern European Protestant in origin way between the nation, on the one hand, the educated and empowered classes of and the family and local community, on the United States have traditionally been. the other. The upward mobility of Catholic and Jewish populations since World War II The sharper church-state separation in and the massive immigration following the United States liberated religiously de- the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965–producing ½ned af½liations to serve as intermediate millions of non-Protestant Americans solidarities, a role such af½liations could from Asia, Latin America, and the former less easily perform in settings where reli- Soviet lands–have given the leadership gious authority was associated with state of American society a novel look. To be power. Hence in addition to orthodox, sure, there have long been large numbers evangelical Protestants who have been of non-Protestants in the population at more suspicious of the critical spirit of large, but before 1960, if you held a major the Enlightenment, American life has leadership position and had real opportu- included a formidable population of “lib- nities to influence the direction of society, eral” or “ecumenical” Protestants build- you most likely grew up in a white Prot- ing and maintaining religiously de½ned estant milieu. The example of King is a communities even as they absorbed and reminder, moreover, that the substantial participated in many aspects of modern population of African Americans has long civilization that more conservative Prot- been, and remains, largely Protestant. estants held at a distance. As late as the In the United States, the engagement of mid-1960s, membership in the classic Protestant Christianity with the Enlight- “mainstream liberal” denominations– enment most often took the form of Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian,

141 (1) Winter 2012 77 The and so on–reached an all-time high. secularists in disguise, as well as the feel- Accommo- Because educated, middle-class Ameri- ing among ecumenical parties that their dation of Protestant cans maintained Protestant af½liations evangelical co-religionists are sinking the Christianity well into the twentieth century, the true Christian faith with an albatross of with the Enlighten- Enlightenment was extensively engaged anachronistic dogmas and alliances forged ment within, rather than merely beyond, the with reactionary political forces. These churches. Had the educated middle class quarrels, shaped in part by the campaign moved farther from Protestantism, the for a “reasonable Christianity” waged by cultural capital of the Reformation would Unitarians early in the nineteenth century, not have been preserved and renewed to continue to the present day, sharply distin- the degree that made it an object of strug- guishing the United States from the his- gle for so long. torically Protestant countries of Europe. The intensity of the Enlightenment- The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Protestant relationship in America result- and the Scandinavian nations have long ed also from the discomforts created by been among the most de-Christianized in the very church-state separation that the world. The United States really is dif- encouraged the flourishing of religious ferent. Accordingly, the copious literature af½liations. The United States is the only on “secularization” often treats the Unit- major nation in the world that still oper- ed States as a special case.4 ates under an eighteenth-century consti- Never was the United States a more tution, one that, anomalously in the gov- special case than it is today. Indeed, con- ernance cultures of even that century, temporary American conditions invite makes no mention of God. The U.S. fed- renewed attention to the historic accom- eral government is a peculiarly Enlight- modation of Protestant Christianity with enment-grounded entity, and for that the Enlightenment. An increasingly prom- reason has inspired many attempts to inent feature of public life is the af½rma- inject Christianity into it, or to insist that tion of religion in general and of Protes- God has been there, unacknowledged, all tant Christianity in particular. Republican along.2 candidates for of½ce especially have been The role of liberal religion in American loquacious in expressing their faith and history is too often missed by observers ½rm in declaring its relevance to secular who consider the consequences of the governance. Michelle Bachman, Mike Enlightenment only outside religion and Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Richard Perry, recognize religion only when found in its Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum are most obscurantist forms.3 The fundamen- among the most visible examples.5 Lead- talists who rejected evolution and the ers of the Democratic Party, too, includ- historical study of the Bible and have lob- ing President Barack Obama, have pro- bied for God to be written into the Con- claimed their faith and have contributed stitution receive extensive attention in to an atmosphere in which the constitu- our textbooks, but the banner of Protes- tional principle of church-state separation tant Christianity has also been flown by is widely held to have been interpreted defenders of Darwin and the Higher Crit- too strictly. icism and by critics of the idea of a “Chris- The Enlightenment-derived arguments tian America.” Quarrels within American of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, Protestantism revolve around the feeling which maintain that debates over public among more orthodox, evangelical par- policy should be con½ned to the sphere of ties that mainstream liberals are actually “public reason,” are routinely criticized

78 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences as naive and doctrinaire. We are awash dynamic of “science and religion” dis- David A. with con½dent denunciations of “the sec- course, the speci½c content of religious Hollinger ularization thesis” (usually construed as belief is reformulated to take account of the claim that the world becomes less re- what geologists, biologists, physicists, ligious as it becomes industrialized) and astronomers, historians, and other natu- with earnest pleas to listen empathically ralistically grounded communities per- to the testimonies–heavily Protestant in suade religious leaders is true about the orientation–of religious yearning and world. Normally, the religious doctrines experience now prevalent in popular cul- rejected in this process are said to have ture. The writings of “the New Atheists” been inessential to begin with. They are revive the rationalist-naturalist critiques cast aside as mere projections of histori- of religion that had largely gone into cally particular aspects of past cultures, remission during the decades when reli- which can be replaced by formulations gion was widely understood to have been that reflect the true essentials of the faith privatized and hence less in need of refu- and vindicate yet again the compatibility tation by skeptics. Af½rmations of a secu- of faith with knowledge. Sometimes, how- lar orientation less strident than those of ever, cognitive demysti½cation pushes the New Atheists provoke extensive atten- people toward nonbelief. tion, moreover, because debates about the The second process, demographic diver- nation and its future are so much more si½cation, involves intimate contact with religion-saturated that at any time since people of different backgrounds who dis- the 1950s. In a country that has now elect- play contrasting opinions and assump- ed a president from a member of a noto- tions and thereby stimulate doubt that riously stigmatized ethnoracial group, the ways of one’s own tribe are indeed atheism remains more anathema than authorized by divine authority and viable, blackness: almost half of all voters are if not imperative, for other tribes, too. still comfortable telling pollsters that The dynamic here is also classical: cosmo- they would never support an atheist for politanism–a great Enlightenment ideal president. Observers disagree whether –challenging provincial faiths. Wider ex- American piety has religious depth or is a periences, either through foreign travel or, largely symbolic structure controlled by more often, through contact with immi- worldly interests; either way, religious grants, change the context for deciding formations are indisputably part of the what is good and true. Living in proximi- life of the United States today.6 ty to people who do not take Protestant Christianity for granted could be unset- In this contemporary setting, it is all the tling. Here again, the standard response is more important to understand how the to liberalize, to treat inherited doctrines as accommodation of Protestant Christian- suf½ciently flexible to enable one to abide ity with the Enlightenment has taken place by them while coexisting “pluralistically,” and how the dynamics of this accommo- or even cooperating, with people who do dation continue to affect the public cul- not accept those doctrines. Sometimes, ture of the United States. Two processes however, awareness of the range of human have driven the accommodation, growing possibilities results in abandoning the increasingly interconnected over time. faith of the natal community altogether. One is cognitive demysti½cation, or the crit- Philosopher Charles Peirce understood ical assessment of truth claims in light how easily the two processes can be of scienti½c knowledge. In this classic linked. In “The Fixation of Belief,” Peirce

141 (1) Winter 2012 79 The argued that all efforts to stabilize belief other faiths, con½dence in the unique- Accommo- will ultimately fail unless you adopt be- ness and supreme value of Christianity dation of 8 Protestant liefs that can withstand exposure to the required a bit more energy to maintain. Christianity world at large. When you encounter other When Jewish intellectuals in the middle with the Enlighten- people who hold very different opinions decades of the twentieth century ad- ment than your own, and who can present vanced secular perspectives in a variety of striking evidence to support those opin- academic disciplines and other arenas ions, it is harder to be sure that you are of culture, a common Protestant culture right. Your own experience and that of was more dif½cult to sustain. Cognitive those around you may yield a particular demysti½cation can proceed within a set of certainties, but if another group of tribe, but commerce with neighboring people moves into the neighborhood and tribes can diminish the predictable resis- obliges you to confront their foreign tance to it. experience and the truth claims apparently vindicated by that experience, your Cognitive demysti½cation operated old certainties become less so. Can you most aggressively in the nineteenth cen- keep the rest of the world away from your tury, especially in relation to the Darwin- own tribe? Perhaps, but it is not easy. ian revolution in natural history. Virtually Peirce made this argument in 1877, while all Americans who gave any thought to defending the superiority of science in the the relation of science to religion prior to speci½c context of the Darwinian contro- the Darwinian controversy believed that versy. He understood science to entail the reason and revelation, rightly understood, taking of all relevant evidence into ac- reinforced one another. Bacon and Luther, count, wherever it came from, and truth it had often been said in the years just to be what all the world’s inquirers could before Darwin, were twins in the advance- agree on if all their testimonies could be ment of modern life. In the context of this assimilated. He perceived modernity as deeply entrenched understanding of the an experience of difference in which hid- symbiotic nature of the Protestant Refor- ing out with one’s own kind was not like- mation and the Scienti½c Revolution, the ly to work. In this way, he integrated the religious implications of natural selec- Enlightenment’s cosmopolitanism with tion were debated in the United States its critical spirit.7 with more intensity, and for a longer pe- Hence demographic diversi½cation and riod of time, than in the other countries cognitive demysti½cation can have their of the North Atlantic West. Although own force, but also reinforce one another; some discussants concluded, then or and they can even overlap. When West- much later, that Darwinian science was erners brought modern medicine into lo- fatal to Christianity, the overwhelming cales where it was new, indigenous belief majority of American commentators were systems were put under stress by the “reconcilers.” The copious discourse of Westerners and their novel and often the late nineteenth century sought main- highly effective means of interpreting and ly to establish that science and religion treating disease. When the 1893 Chicago were not in conflict after all, no matter World Parliament of Religions made what the freethinking philosophers of Americans aware of the sophistication of Europe asserted. Even Andrew Dickson many non-Christian religions and of the White, author of the monumental 1896 ways in which myths assumed to be pecu- work, A History of the Warfare of Science liarly Christian had ready analogues in with Theology in Christendom, insisted that

80 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences the only warfare attendant upon the had sent them abroad. Returning home David A. advance of science was caused by the mis- with positive readings of foreign peoples Hollinger taken efforts of theologians to go beyond and with jarring suggestions for changes their proper sphere. Christianity itself, in American churches and the surround- allowed the stolid Episcopalian president ing society, missionaries and their chil- of Cornell University, was just as sound as dren, exempli½ed by the writer Pearl Buck, ever. The persistence of strong creationist often were potent liberalizers. But the constituencies right down to the present chief agent of change, which I focus on shows that the greatest single instance of here, was immigration compounded by cognitive demysti½cation remains con- upward class mobility. tested in the United States. At the other The prodigious increase of Catholic and extreme, the fact that biologists are the Jewish immigration starting in the 1880s most atheistic of all American groups positioned Protestant Christianity even today reminds us that the Darwinian rev- more ½rmly on the defensive. Certainly, olution has helped lead many people out- Protestants well before the Civil War had side the faith. But the larger truth is that felt suf½ciently threatened by Catholic accommodation with evolution rather migration from Ireland, and to some ex- than rejection of it or of Christianity has tent from Germany, to discriminate sys- been the rule for Americans who are born tematically against Catholics and thereby into Protestant communities.9 keep “popish” corruptions from disrupt- Many other examples of the process of ing their religious con½dence and their accommodation in the face of cognitive control of American institutions. Public demysti½cation could be cited, including schools in many parts of the country the adjustments compelled by the histor- became more secular in order to neutral- ical study of the Bible. But because this ize the charge that these schools were de process and its prominent examples are facto Protestant institutions (which to a well known, I will simply flag it with this large extent they had been, as Catholics supremely important instance and move correctly discerned).11 But well into the on to the less-extensively discussed sec- twentieth century, two circumstances ren- ond process, demographic diversi½cation, dered the numerous Catholics more of a which emerged most strikingly in the political problem for Anglo-Protestant twentieth century. hegemonists than a religious one for be- lievers: the extensive system of Catholic Demographic diversi½cation began schools kept the bulk of the Catholic pop- with some highly pertinent agents of ulation something of a thing apart in local change functioning at a geographical dis- communities, and the relatively weak tance. The sympathetic study of foreign class position of most Catholics until cultures by anthropologists promoted the after World War II diminished the fre- “cultural relativism” associated above all quency with which their ideas circulated with Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. in the national media and academia. A This movement explicitly and relentless- few Protestants converted to Catholicism, ly questioned the certainties of the home but the vast majority of Protestants of all culture by juxtaposing them with often persuasions felt so superior to Catholics romanticized images of distant commu- that the latter’s opinions and practices nities of humans.10 Another factor was rarely called their own into question. the gradual effect American Protestant Demographic diversi½cation was held at missionaries had on the communities that a certain distance.

141 (1) Winter 2012 81 The Yet only temporarily. The situation tant culture who were already stretching Accommo- changed rapidly in the early 1960s with its boundaries in secular directions (in dation of Protestant the election of John F. Kennedy as presi- the context of many episodes of cognitive Christianity dent and the dramatic liberalization of demysti½cation) and were eager to explore with the XXIII Enlighten- Catholic doctrine by Pope John ’s the diversity Jews embodied. ment Vatican II Council. These developments Unlike the Catholic population, more- turned Catholics into more serious inter- over, many Jews were resoundingly secu- locutors. Catholics became suf½ciently lar in their orientation and carried not an intimate neighbors to compel the sympa- alien religion but rather the most radical- thetic attention that helped “provincial- ly Enlightenment-generated strains of ize” American Protestantism, pushing European thought, including Marxist Protestant leaders to renounce the pro- and Freudian understandings of religion prietary relationship to the American na- itself. Secular Jews were also leaders in tion that had so long been a foundation the exploration of modernist movements for their own authority. To be sure, the in the arts that contested the more ratio- most theologically and politically conser- nalist elements in the legacy of the En- vative elements within Protestantism lightenment while offering precious lit- continued to espouse the idea that the tle support to the Protestant orthodoxy United States was a Protestant nation. But against which the Enlightenment was so in the view of the mainstream leadership, largely de½ned. As non-Christians, the as voiced by The Christian Century, Ken- Jewish intellectuals were more foreign nedy’s inauguration marked “the end of than the Catholics, yet, paradoxically, Protestantism as a national religion” and their high degree of secularism created a the fuller acceptance of the secularity of a common foundation with liberalizing nation grounded in the Enlightenment.12 Protestants, many of whom continued to In the meantime, the much smaller see Catholics as superstitious dupes of a population of immigrant Jews and their medieval establishment in Rome. Espe- descendants presented a sharper chal- cially in literature, the arts, and social crit- lenge to Protestant epistemic and social icism, Jewish intellectuals joined ecu- con½dence. Enthusiastically immersed in menical Protestants and ex-Protestants public schools and seeking full participa- in national leadership during the middle tion in American institutions of virtually decades of the twentieth century. Two all sorts, the highly literate and upwardly antiprovincial revolts, one against the mobile Jewish population of the post- constraints of traditional Jewish life and 1880 migration was concentrated in the another against the constraints of tradi- nation’s cultural capital, New York City. tional American Protestant life, reinforced Jews were harder to dismiss as bearers of each other and accelerated the cosmopol- ideas and practices at odds with the Prot- itan aspirations of both.13 estant heritage. Their witness was so com- The role of Jewish Americans in the pelling that it eventually forced the devel- process of demographic diversi½cation opment of the concept of “the Judeo- increased when the barriers against their Christian tradition.” But long before that inclusion in academia collapsed after phrase caught on in the 1950s, Jewish World War II. The teaching and public intellectuals had begun to converse with discussion of philosophy, literature, his- John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., tory, sociology, and political science had Randolph Bourne, Hutchins Hapgood, remained an Anglo-Protestant reserve and other products of American Protes- long after resistance to Jews had dimin-

82 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences ished in medicine, law, engineering, and tentous phases of the entire multicentury David A. natural science. The leading secular aca- accommodation of Protestant Christian- Hollinger demic humanists and social scientists of ity with the Enlightenment, broadly con- the prewar generation, exempli½ed by strued, was the crisis experienced by the lapsed Congregationalist John Dewey, old “Protestant Establishment” during had been of Protestant origin. The post- and after the 1960s. The theologically and war change was rapid and extensive. By politically liberal leaders of the National the end of the 1960s, the Carnegie Foun- Council of Churches and its most impor- dation reported that self-identifying Jews, tant denominational af½liates (the United while constituting only about 3 percent Methodists, the United Church of Christ, of the national population, accounted for the Northern Presbyterians, the North- 36 percent of sociologists, 22 percent of ern Baptists, the Episcopalians, the Disci- historians, and 20 percent of philosophers ples of Christ, and several Lutheran bod- at the seventeen most prestigious uni- ies) were caught in the ferocious cross ½re versities. Later in the twentieth century, of national controversies over all the clas- the increase of female and black faculty sic issues of the period, especially civil brought a different sort of demographic rights, Vietnam, empire, feminism, abor- diversi½cation, one that discredited sex- tion, and sexual orientation. As ecumeni- ist and racist traditions rather than reli- cal Protestant leaders tried to mobilize gious biases. But there was also another their constituencies on the leftward side difference: the addition of women and of these issues, they were simultaneous- African Americans to the humanities and ly attacked by evangelicals for selling out social sciences was often justi½ed by the religion to social activism and abandoned need for the special perspectives they by many of their own youth for moving could bring to scholarship and teaching. too slowly. Membership in the histori- This was decidedly not the case with cally mainstream denominations declined Jews. No one declared that there was a rapidly in the late 1960s and 1970s while need for “a Jewish perspective.” It was evangelicals, who maintained a strong instead the epistemic universalism of the public following, moved aggressively into Enlightenment that de½ned intellectually national political leadership during the the coming of Jews into American acade- 1970s and 1980s. mia. Hence that episode stands as a pecu- This religious crisis revolved around a liarly vivid case of the overlap between particular outlook the ecumenical leader- demographic diversi½cation and cogni- ship brought to the conflicts of that era. A tive demysti½cation: the Jewish academ- cosmopolitan and rationalist perspective, ics, like their counterparts in literature it was inspired by the demographic diver- and the arts, were living examples of how si½cation that liberal Protestants observed life’s deepest challenges could be ad- in their social environment and by the dressed beyond the frame provided by cognitive demysti½cation of their cosmos Protestant Christianity.14 that modern science had achieved. Self- consciously “modern,” this viewpoint in- All these developments presented a cluded an increasingly generous opinion striking challenge to Americans with of foreign peoples and their inherited institutionalized responsibility for the religions, a revulsion toward the persis- preservation and critical revision of Prot- tence of anti-black racism in their own estantism during the second half of the country, a recognition that the American twentieth century. One of the most por- nation was as much the possession of

141 (1) Winter 2012 83 The non-Protestants as of Protestants, a posi- ary function of preaching the gospel. Accommo- tive response to secular psychology and When the ecumenical leadership ½nally dation of Protestant sociology, and a growing receptivity to backed away from the traditional assump- Christianity theologies that rejected or downplayed the tion that the heterosexual, nuclear, patri- with the Enlighten- role of supernatural power. The accom- archal family is God’s will, evangelical ment modations the ecumenical Protestant leaders seized the idea, called it “family leadership made with secular liberalism values,” and ran with it to great success. generated countermeasures from funda- Evangelicals remained largely aloof from mentalist, Pentecostal, and holiness Prot- the civil rights movement–often declar- estants. These conservatives, deeply re- ing racism to be an individual sin rather senting the authority exercised by the than a civic evil to be diminished by state mainstream liberals partly as a result of power–while ecumenical leaders widened the latter’s generally strong class position, the gap between themselves and their established a formidable array of counter- rank-and-½le church members by strongly institutions. The National Association of supporting the activities of Martin Luther Evangelicals was founded in 1942, Fuller King, Jr., and numerous kindred initia- Theological Seminary in 1947, and Chris- tives, including the Freedom Summer tianity Today in 1956. In the 1960s, evangel- operation launched in 1964 to register icals were able to offer the public a credi- blacks to vote. The departure of civil rights ble, highly visible alternative to the style issues from the agenda of American poli- of Protestantism promoted by the Na- tics eliminated a barrier to the Religious tional Council of Churches, the Union Right’s national credibility, facilitating Theological Seminary, and The Christian their triumphs in the 1980s: evangelicals Century. By 1965, when the liberal theolo- gained more power during the Reagan gian Harvey Cox concluded his best-sell- years by merely acquiescing to civil rights ing The Secular City with the injunction to measures that many of them had opposed, stop talking about God and focus simply treating them now as a fait accompli. Ecu- on “liberating the captives,” evangelicals menists engaged in extensive, probing had provided religious cover for Protes- discussions of the antisupernaturalist tants dubious about the captive-liberating, writings of the most radical of their theo- diversity-welcoming, supernaturalism- logians. The buzz in the seminaries, Time questioning projects of the ecumenists.15 reported in 1965, was that “it is no longer In a fateful dialectic, enterprising, possible to think about or believe in a media-savvy evangelical leaders espoused transcendent God who acts in human a series of perspectives that remained history. . . . Christianity will have to sur- popular with the white public during the vive, if at all, without him.” Evangelicals turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s, just stood fast for traditional understandings as the ecumenical leadership more ½rm- of the Bible and made it clear that God ly renounced these views. The idea of a really was in charge of things. These cer- “Christian America” is a prominent exam- tainties played well in the average church ple, though there were many more such pew.16 cases. While the ecumenical leadership, The accommodating ecumenical Prot- deciding that its missionary project was estants, having absorbed much of moder- culturally imperialist, diminished its size nity, found their social base diminishing and turned from preaching to social ser- while Protestantism was increasingly vices, evangelicals took up and pursued associated with people who had resisted with a vengeance the traditional mission- these accommodations. Ecumenists’ ap-

84 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences proval of contraception and a role for sex not as aware as the president was of the David A. other than reproduction had a marked risks they were taking, nor were they as Hollinger effect on birth rate differentials between blunt in the moments when the truth the two Protestant parties: during the dawned on them. But they, like Johnson, baby boom, Presbyterian women had an believed that the time had come to re- average of 1.6 children while evangelical direct the institutions and populations women had an average of 2.4, a birth rate they were trying to lead, and they behaved considerably higher than even for Cath- accordingly. They encouraged secular olic women during that era. Ecumenical alliances that blurred the boundaries of leaders encouraged their youth to explore their faith community and risked the grad- the wider world of which evangelical lead- ual loss of their children to post-Protes- ers counseled their own youth to be sus- tant persuasions. Just as Democrats lost picious. They also accepted perspectives most of the South to the Republican Party, on women and the family that reduced so, too, did ecumenists yield more and their capacity to reproduce themselves at more of the cultural capital of the Refor- precisely the same time they took posi- mation to the evangelicals. tions on empire, race, sex, abortion, and But Protestantism is not America. Nei- divinity that diminished their ability to ther is the South. The Democrats did well recruit new members from the Seventh enough in the national arena by paying Day Adventist and Church of the Naza- the price of turning the states of the Old rene, ranks which in earlier generations Confederacy over to white Republicans. provided many converts to the more The ecumenists, even while they lost the respectable Methodist and Episcopalian leadership of Protestantism, advanced faiths. Evangelicals, by contrast, had more many of the goals of secular liberalism children and kept them. that they had embraced. The United States today, even with the prominence of polit- What happened to ecumenical Protes- ically conservative evangelical Protes- tantism during the 1960s crisis and its tants, looks much more like the country aftermath can be instructively compared ecumenical leaders of the 1960s hoped it to what happened simultaneously to the would become than the one their evangel- Democratic Party in national politics. ical rivals sought to create. Sociologist “We have lost the South for a genera- N. J. Demerath III has put this point hyper- tion,” President Lyndon Johnson is wide- bolically: the ecumenical Protestants ly quoted as having said in 1964 when the scored a “cultural victory” while experi- Democratic Party aligned itself with the encing “organizational defeat.” They cam- cause of civil rights for African Ameri- paigned for “individualism, freedom, plu- cans. The manner in which ecumenists ralism, tolerance, democracy, and intellec- risked their hold on American Protes- tual inquiry,” Demerath observes–exact- tantism is similar to the way the Demo- ly the Enlightenment values that gained cratic leadership imperiled its hold on the rather than lost ground in American pub- South, and with similar consequences. At lic culture in the second half of the twen- issue in the control of American Protes- tieth century.17 These values were not pe- tantism was not only race–the crucial culiar to ecumenical Protestants, but their issue for the Democrats–but also impe- emphatic espousal demonstrated an ac- rialism, feminism, abortion, and sexuality, commodation with secular liberalism, in addition to critical perspectives on especially as instantiated in speci½c caus- supernaturalism. Ecumenical leaders were es such as civil rights, feminism, and the

141 (1) Winter 2012 85 The critical reassessment of inherited religious lectuals never contemplated. The world Accommo- doctrine. that American Protestants and their prog- dation of Protestant eny eventually made their own, in coop- Christianity o treat the ecumenical Protestant saga eration with Americans who had no Prot- with the T Enlighten- of the last half-century as a culmination estant past whatsoever, is a vast expanse ment of the accommodation of Protestant encompassing dispersed elements of cul- Christianity with the Enlightenment, as I ture from throughout the globe. The En- do here, invites several quali½cations. It lightenment was destined to be a great will not do to suppose that the evangeli- provider of stepping-stones for European- cal Protestants, who in my telling of the derived American Protestants because the story are primarily resisters to moderni- Enlightenment was largely a product of ty, experienced neither transformations European Christian self-scrutiny in the within their own ranks nor internal di- ½rst place. versi½cation. An excellent guide to dis- Finally, we are left with the mystery of agreements within American evangelical where a given historical formation such Protestantism is historian Mark Noll’s as “ecumenical Protestantism”–or even well-titled The Scandal of the Evangelical “the Enlightenment” itself–is best con- Mind, which characterizes the funda- sidered an agent and where it is best con- mentalist movement of the twentieth sidered a vehicle. The heavily Christian century as “an intellectual disaster.” But I foundations of modern science and of the believe it is fair to say that many of the Enlightenment are now widely acknowl- loudest voices in the evangelical con- edged. And the Christianity of Paul the versation today, exempli½ed by Nancy Apostle was itself as much a collection of Pearcey’s Total Truth: Liberating Christianity historical results as of causes. It is easy from Its Cultural Captivity, make Noll look to say that Protestants who most fully like no less impassioned a defender of the accommodate secular liberalism have Enlightenment than Harvey Cox. It is all turned their institutions into vehicles for a matter of degree and emphasis.18 agencies outside Christianity, but the tra- Neither will it do to imagine that every jectories that flowed into ecumenical novelty prompted by cognitive demysti- Protestantism and helped make it what it ½cation and demographic diversi½cation became were not, in themselves, autoch- amounts to a triumph of the Enlighten- thonous: those forces were complex re- ment narrowly construed as a set of natu- sults of earlier conditions, like strong ralistic and rationalist dispositions. The winds that had picked up many diverse Enlightenment as a presence in modern materials from the various territories history certainly was just that; indeed, through which they had blown. much of its legacy can be traced to the The accommodation of Protestant power of those dispositions to explain Christianity with the Enlightenment will human experience and diminish suspi- ½nd a place among American narratives cion of the alternatives to Protestant so long as there are Americans whose for- orthodoxy confronted in the process of mation was signi½cantly Protestant and demographic diversi½cation. But the En- who owe a large part of their understand- lightenment provided more than an out- ing of human reason to the seventeenth- look to accommodate increasing diversity. and eighteenth-century savants who in- It functioned as an almost in½nite series spired Benjamin Franklin and Thomas of stepping-stones to many ideas and Jefferson. If you think that time is pass- practices that eighteenth-century intel- ing, look around you.

86 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes David A. Hollinger 1 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” The Christian Century, June 12, 1963, 769–775. 2 There were strong movements to this effect in the middle of the nineteenth century, and they continued episodically in the twentieth. In 1947 and again in 1954, the National Association of Evangelicals attempted to amend the Constitution to include the following passage, introduced into the U.S. Senate (where it died in committee) by Vermont Republican Senator Ralph Flanders: “This nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Savior and Ruler of nations, through whom we are bestowed the blessings of Almighty God”; see “The Congress: Hunting Time,” Time, May 24, 1954, 23. 3 The heavily religious character of the Enlightenment as it flourished even in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century America is emphasized in what remains after more than three decades the standard account of its topic: Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). The range and vitality of liberal theological endeavors throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been documented and analyzed in the massive work of Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology, 3 vols. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). 4 Prominent examples from recent years include Steve Bruce, God is Dead: Secularization in the West (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2002); Pippa Norris and Ronald Englehart, eds., Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); David Scott and Charles Hirschkind, eds., Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006); and Callum G. Brown and Michael Snape, eds., Secularisation in the Christian World: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod (Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2010). 5 For an unusually probing exploration of this feature of American politics, see Ryan Lizza, “Leap of Faith,” The New Yorker, August 15 and 22, 2011, 54–63. 6 Three excellent collections of original academic essays exploring these current engagements are Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan Van Antwerpen, eds., Rethinking Sec- ularism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); George Levine, ed., The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011); and Ira Katznelson and Gareth Stedman Jones, eds., Religion and the Political Imagination (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). See also the most searching and comprehensive recent contribution to the sociology of religion in the United States: Robert Putnam and David Camp- bell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010). 7 Charles Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief,” Popular Science Monthly 12 (November 1877): 1–15. 8 An influential study of this pivotal episode in demographic diversi½cation at a geographic distance is Grant Wacker, “A Plural World: The Protestant Awakening to World Religions,” in Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900–1960, ed. William Hutchison (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 253–277. 9 Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (New York: D. Appleton, 1896). Among the many excellent studies of the religious aspects of the Darwinian controversy, two have been especially influential: James R. Moore, The Post-Dar- winian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979); and Jon H. Roberts, Darwinism and the Divine in America: Protestant Intellectuals and Organic Evolution, 1859– 1900 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). The standard work on the persistence of creationist ideas is Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists: From Scienti½c Creationism to Intelli- gent Design (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006). For the religious views of biologists, see Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, “Atheists: A Psychological Pro½le,” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. Michael Martin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 312. Biologists challenging a literal reading of the Bible remain in dif½culty even today in some

141 (1) Winter 2012 87 The Protestant colleges; see, for example, http://m.insidehighered.com/layout/set/popup/news/ Accommo- 2011/08/15/a_professor_s_departure_raises_questions_about_freedom_of_scholarship_at dation of _calvin_college. Protestant Christianity 10 A recent, exhaustive treatment of this movement is found in John S. Gilkeson, Anthropologists with the and the Rediscovery of America, 1886–1965 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Enlighten- ment 11 Fresh light on the Protestant-Catholic relationship in the middle decades of the nineteenth century is cast by Jon Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of 19th Century America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 12 Martin Marty, “Protestantism Enters Third Phase,” The Christian Century, January 18, 1961, 72. 13 I have discussed the coming together of these two antiprovincial revolts in “Ethnic Diversi- ty, Cosmopolitanism, and the Emergence of the American Liberal Intelligentsia,” American Quarterly 27 (1975): 133–151. A recent and highly original contribution to the study of these developments is Daniel Greene, The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism: The Menorah Associ- ation and American Diversity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011). 14 For an extended treatment with attendant documentation of the developments summarized in this paragraph, see David A. Hollinger, Science, Jews, and Secular Culture: Studies in Mid- Twentieth Century American Intellectual History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), esp. chap. 2, “Jewish Intellectuals and the De-Christianization of American Public Culture in the Twentieth Century.” 15 Harvey Cox, The Secular City: Secularization and Urbanization in Theological Perspective (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 268. 16 “Theology: The God is Dead Movement,” Time, October 22, 1965. For a fuller account with attendant documentation of the developments mentioned in this paragraph and those following, see David A. Hollinger, “After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Ecumenical Protestants and the Modern American Encounter with Diversity,” Journal of American History 98 (June 2011): 21–48. 17 N. J. Demerath III, “Cultural Victory and Organizational Defeat in the Paradoxical Decline of Liberal Protestantism,” Journal for the Scienti½c Study of Religion 34 (1995): 458–469, esp. 458–460. 18 Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1994); Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004).

88 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Why Diamonds Really are a Girl’s Best Friend: Another American Narrative

Linda K. Kerber

Abstract: The old law of domestic relations and the system known as coverture have shaped marriage practices in the United States and have limited women’s membership in the constitutional community. This system of law predates the Revolution, but it lingers in U.S. legal tradition even today. After describ- ing coverture and the old law of domestic relations, this essay considers how the received narrative of women’s place in U.S. history often obscures the story of women’s and men’s efforts to overthrow this oppressive regime, and also the story of the continuing efforts of men and some women to stabilize and protect it. The essay also questions the paradoxes built into American law: for example, how do we reconcile the strictures of coverture with the founders’ care in de½ning rights-holders as “persons” rather than “men”? Citing a number of court cases from the early days of the republic to the present, the essay describes the 1960s and 1970s shift in legal interpretation of women’s rights and obligations. However, recent developments–in abortion laws, for example–invite inquiry as to how full the change is that we have accomplished. The history of coverture and the way it affects legal, political, and cultural practice today is another American narrative that needs to be better understood.

In the usual telling, women enter the narrative of U.S. history when they are executed: for witchcraft in Salem, for complicity in Lincoln’s assassination, LINDA K. KERBER, a Fellow of the for treason in 1953. They appear when they have been American Academy since 1997, is helpful to famous men: Pocahontas, Sacagawea, the May Brodbeck Professor in presidents’ wives. The general outlines of the his- Liberal Arts & Sciences at the Uni- tory of women’s experience in the United States are versity of Iowa, where she is also a easily caricatured and super½cially summarized. Lecturer in the College of Law. She Many folks know that Abigail Adams told John is a member of the American Phil- osophical Society, and has served Adams to “remember the ladies.” Then there’s a gap as President of the American His- of some seventy years. Not until after the Seneca torical Association, the Organiza- Falls Convention of 1848 and the drafting of the tion of American Historians, and Declaration of Sentiments, claiming for women the the American Studies Association. right to vote, do we encounter other familiar names Her publications include No Con- like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. stitutional Right to be Ladies: Wom- Abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, en and the Obligations of Citizenship (1998), Toward an Intellectual Histo- as well as the enslaved women who claimed free- ry of Women (1997), and Women of dom during the Civil War and struggled to make the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in it meaningful during Reconstruction, also ½gure Revolutionary America (1980). prominently in the mid-nineteenth-century narra-

89 Why tive. Perhaps some may know that this even as they have believed that they were Diamonds story includes the struggles that took place choosing freely. There is another, unfa- Really are a Girl’s Best over including the word male in the Four- miliar American narrative that needs to Friend teenth Amendment (1868) and not includ- be better understood. It lurks in the inter- ing the word sex in the Fifteenth Amend- stices of our daily lives. ment (1870). Some may have heard of the sex discrimination cases brought to the Laws that purport to protect women’s U.S. Supreme Court by Myra Bradwell and interests, but that in reality limit their Virginia Minor in the early 1870s. autonomy and membership in the consti- Another gap opens up between 1875 and tutional community, have permeated the the early twentieth century, interrupted U.S. legal tradition. These laws had their only by awareness of Jane Addams and origin in the British legal regime that Florence Kelley, and Hull House, the great antedated the American Revolution and Chicago institution that they built. There continued long after it. Throughout U.S. are festivities in 1920, when the Nineteenth history, from the era of the founding to Amendment secured women’s right to the present, men and women have chipped vote (although in vast areas of the country away at elements of this tradition– neither African American men nor wom- sometimes vigorously and productively, en would be reasonably secure in their suf- other times ineffectively and with frus- frage until passage of the Voting Rights tration. The women’s movement of our Act of 1965). Then another ½fty years lurch own time is the latest con½guration of by, inhabited in popular consciousness by this attack. Many men have had a deep two women. One is Rosie the Riveter, who, interest in maintaining a regime from most people do not realize, bitterly com- which they bene½t; some women have plained when she was forced out of in- been lucky enough not to have endured dustrial work after World War II.1 The the regime’s harshest constraints, and so other is Eleanor Roosevelt, the great fem- treasured it as the world that they had inist who rarely called herself a feminist always known. because the word had been so polluted in Recent campaigns in support of same- her time. It is unclear what most people sex marriage have drawn public attention know about her, except that she was not to certain practices and understandings conventionally pretty and had a warm that are now considered archaic. Against heart.2 We then leap to the 1970s and the the claim that the de½nition of marriage era of women’s liberation and second- is ½xed and unchanging, supporters of wave feminism, seemingly the result of change have argued that marriage is and Gloria Steinem’s investigative reporting always has been an evolving institution, (while dressed as a Playboy bunny) and and that marriage retains its relevance of Betty Friedan’s book. Now boys take to modern society not by stasis but by home economics and girls play soccer, and change. Interracial marriage was once we can get on to other pressing matters. marked as miscegenation. In many states, Yet there is as much meaning and sig- for many years, marriages between whites ni½cance in the parts of this chronology and people of other races and ethnicities that we skip over as in the parts we think were illegal, unrecognized for purposes of we know. The inherited narrative largely child custody, property rights, or inheri- ignores the deep structures of law that tance.3 The U.S. Supreme Court did not have de½ned, bounded, and often dictat- rule such practices a denial of equal pro- ed the choices made by men and women, tection of the laws, and therefore uncon-

90 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences stitutional, until 1967, in the aptly named unlimited power into the hands of the Linda K. case Loving v. Virginia. (Mildred Loving Husbands. Remember all Men would be Kerber died only a few years ago, in 2008.) tyrants if they could. . . .[P]ut it out of the But a larger, more complex, and even power of the vicious and the Lawless to more pervasive system of law has shaped use us with cruelty and indignity with marriage practices in the United States impunity.” That power provided a hus- since long before the Revolution and con- band with “absolute title” to the person- tinues deep into our own time. Abigail al property a wife brought to marriage as Adams had this system in mind when she well as ownership of whatever she earned issued her famous caution to her hus- during it; he gained extensive authority band. He replied, “As to your extraordi- over the real estate she brought to the nary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. . . . marriage or inherited (perhaps from her Depend upon it, We know better than father) once married. To let a married to repeal our Masculine systems.” John woman vote would have been to give two Adams knew that the law of domestic votes to her husband, who could easily relations (what we now call family law) coerce her into voting for his preferred was masculine, but these codes are not choice. Wherever one looked, the hus- well known nowadays, even by otherwise band’s right to the body, property, and well-informed historians and lawyers. loyalty of his wife was embedded in the They were not written into the U.S. Con- law; it even trumped her loyalty to the stitution of 1787; unlike the fugitive slave state: if an American wife sided with her clause or the three-½fths compromise, they loyalist husband, she was not thought of were not publicly debated. (White men as a traitor. This system was known as –plantation owners, merchants, theolo- coverture, whereby wives were understood gians, Northerners, Southerners–were to be “covered” under the civil identity of differently situated in relation to slavery, their husbands in much the same way as so they had real reason to debate it. But children were subject to their parents.4 all free men, rich or poor, whatever their By giving fathers responsibility for chil- race, bene½ted from the structures of dren born within marriage (that’s why family law; they had no need to debate fathers in the early republic had custody it.) As a result, we ½nd the details of the of children in case of divorce, which was old law of domestic relations embedded rare), but leaving to mothers the respon- in old state statutes, outdated treatises, sibility for children born outside marriage, and judges’ reasoning in humdrum cases the old law of domestic relations excused from state and local courts. all fathers from serious responsibility for The old law of domestic relations began children born out of wedlock–a principle with the principle that at marriage the hus- that was largely unquestioned in Amer- band controlled the physical body of his ican law until the twentieth century.5 It wife. No provision for the punishment of also ensured that children born to a free marital rape existed in U.S. law until fem- father and an enslaved mother followed inists put it there, beginning in the 1970s. the condition of the mother into slavery, Even then, it took decades before marital not only binding enslaved men and wom- rape was classi½ed as a crime in all ½fty en to labor but also making them perma- states and the District of Columbia. (In nently vulnerable to the sexual appetites some states where rape is a felony, mari- of their masters. Thomas Jefferson’s slave tal rape is not.) Abigail Adams had per- Sally Hemings inherited her slave status fect pitch on this point: “Do not put such from her mother. By contrast, her father’s

141 (1) Winter 2012 91 Why other daughter, Martha Wayles, became written by Tapping Reeve, founder of the Diamonds Jefferson’s wife. The children Jefferson nation’s ½rst law school. Published in New Really are a Girl’s Best fathered with his own sister-in-law grew England in 1816, and in wide circulation Friend to adulthood in slavery.6 until the eve of the Civil War, the treatise In return for submitting their bodies bears a revealing title: The Law of Baron and property to their husbands, women and Femme, of Parent and Child, Guardian were assured that, if widowed, they could and Ward, Master and Servant. Everyone expect an inheritance. If a man died with- knew that these relationships were not out a will, the probate courts would en- identical, but they also knew that they sure that his widow received her “thirds”; were, as historian Christopher Tomlins has he could leave her more, but not less. The put it, “relations of authorized power.”7 widow’s dower right was grudging: it Note that Reeve’s title begins not with allowed her to make use of one-third of the “Husband and Wife” but with the old real estate that her husband held at the “law French” for “Lord and Woman.” time of his death. It was generally recog- Thus paradoxes were built into Ameri- nized that this could well be less than the can law from the outset. Lawmakers in the property she had brought to the marriage. founding period were deeply radical, cre- She usually could not sell it (or if wood- atively devising practices in which free land, could not cut down the trees to sell people would be bound only by authority to support herself ) and was required to that they themselves had freely chosen. pass it down, unscathed, to her husband’s When they described holders of rights, heirs. A widow was also usually entitled they used the term persons more often than to claim outright one-third of the person- they did men, or even citizens, establishing al property her husband had owned, after the great expansive tradition of American debts were paid, and to claim outright law and practice. That tradition has re- her personal “paraphernalia”–her cloth- peatedly been challenged in times of na- ing and cooking pots–suitable to her station, tional stress and fear, but it has proved as judged by probate of½cers. to be one of the most resilient aspects of And ½nally we get to diamonds. The American political life. jewelry a woman had been given was the The founders did not spend much ener- last asset that the probate of½cers could gy explicitly excluding women from polit- touch, the last asset vulnerable to being ical space. Citizens could be constructed seized as payment for her late husband’s however state legislatures wished to de½ne debts. The diamonds about which Carol them. When the state of New Jersey wrote Channing sings are a metonym for the its suffrage statutes in terms of property- jewelry of the old law; in the nineteenth holding persons, and when the outcome and early twentieth centuries, valuable was that women voted, no one said that jewels came to carry an additional value New Jersey was not permitted to do so. when given as an engagement present. (When the women used their votes effec- The jilted ½ancée no longer needed to tively enough to shift the outcome of an face the humiliation of soothing her ach- election, the men of the losing party being heart with money awarded to her in came angry and persuaded the legislature a breach of promise lawsuit: she got to to change the statute. But no one said that keep the diamonds. they had not had the power to write it in the ½rst place.)8 Instead of basing repre- The treatise on which many lawyers re- sentation in the lower house of Congress lied in the years before the Civil War was on free adult men or on “taxable polls”

92 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences (that is, male household heads) or elec- dent legal agent. That meant, as Tapping Linda K. tors, as many states did, the U.S. Consti- Reeve put it in his treatise, that “the wife, Kerber tution established a ratio of one repre- by the marrige is entirely deprived of the sentative for every thirty thousand free use and disposal of her property, and can people. Equal ratios of representation for acquire none by her industry.” A married the free population were a step toward woman could not make a contract be- the rule of one person, one vote–though cause she had no property of her own by it took nearly two centuries to fully real- which to guarantee her word. Even after ize this ideal. states grudgingly authorized married The generous new theory of represen- women to own property as individuals, tation, however, had a dark side. “You must nothing followed easily by implication. remember . . . that you are one of my con- New York’s ½rst Married Women’s Prop- stituents,” Senator Samuel Latham Mitch- erty Act, in 1848, authorized a married ell wrote to his wife in 1804. “I am in some woman to hold property that had been degree responsible to you for my public given to her, but separate statutes–and conduct. [Women] are numbered in the separate legislative battles–were required census of inhabitants to make up the to give married women the power to con- amount of population, and the Represen- tract (1849); to hold savings deposits tatives are apportioned among the people (1850); to vote as stockholders in elec- according to their numbers, reckoning tions (1851); to sue and be sued (1851); the females as well as the males. Though, to keep their earnings from work outside therefore, women do not vote, they are the home (1860). For many decades after nevertheless represented in the national the Married Women’s Property Acts gave government to their full amount.” Senator nineteenth-century women control over Mitchell did not acknowledge the irony their earnings outside the home they often of this form of representation in a nation had no claim to work performed at home, that had justi½ed a revolution partly over whether that be laboring on the family the issue of representation in British Par- farm or taking in boarders.9 liament. Virtual representation for women Coverture gave husbands property rights made sense to Mitchell and many others in their wives’ “services,” and state legis- because it was nested in a familiar under- latures were reluctant to erase these rights. standing of society, one that authorized These services included the right to “con- husbands to exercise expansive arbitrary sortium”–understood as not only house- power over their wives’ bodies and prop- keeping but also love, affection, compan- erty. Many of the legal in½rmities of cov- ionship, and sexual relations. If a married erture extended to single women, who, woman was injured by the negligence of though lacking a husband, were still another person, her husband could sue for viewed as un½t for civic responsibility. If damages, which included a monetary esti- a single woman were raped, for example, mate of his loss of consortium; if he was in- she had the best chance in a lawsuit if it jured, she had no claim for the loss of his were brought by her father, who could sue companionship and sexual relations. This for damages for the loss of his daughter’s imbalance between the sexes in marriage labor and services. was rarely tested, but when it was, as in the event of major accidents, the impact was Because a married woman lacked a civic severe. Not until the early 1950s were mar- identity distinct from her husband’s, she ried women successful in making such a was barred from acting as an indepen- claim–in Washington, D.C., in 1950; in

141 (1) Winter 2012 93 Why Iowa in 1951–yet it took until the 1990s Even after women claimed the right to Diamonds for all states to recognize the claim. vote, most states required new statutes Really are a Girl’s Best A married woman could demand no role specifying that the term elector encom- Friend in deciding where her family would live; passed women. After suffrage, special leg- as a law from the Oklahoma Territory put islation was needed in many states to it in 1893: “The husband is the head of authorize women to hold of½ce; in the the family. He may choose any reason- state of Iowa, for example, even though able place or mode of living and the wife women began to vote in 1920, no woman must conform thereto.” That law was not served in the legislature until 1929. Bitter repealed until 1988, and only then after six struggles between men (who had the years of vigorous debate, initiated when votes and the authority to make change) two state legislators married and Twyla and women (who needed, despite their Mason faced the of½cial transfer of her absence of voting leverage, to persuade place of residence and therefore the loss men to make changes that were unlikely of her seat. Few of the many women who to bene½t them, at least in the short run) hesitated to claim advanced professional have permeated politics and culture training before the 1970s knew explicitly throughout U.S. history, but only episod- of these laws, but it was common wisdom ically have they made their way into the that an overly educated wife, who might narrative we have inherited. not want to move her professional practice when her husband’s job was moved, Our textbooks often use the phrase meant marital trouble. Far better for “the era of the common man” to describe women to be trained in ½elds that easily Andrew Jackson’s presidency. In 1828, the allowed for relocation: a nurse could al- year of his election, a Massachusetts wife ways ½nd a hospital, a librarian a library. complained that even though her husband A married woman could not have a na- was living in adultery, his creditors under- tionality independent of her husband’s. stood themselves to be entitled to the That is, a foreign woman who married an money that she earned. She did not think American man was “deemed a citizen” at that she should have to pay his debts, but marriage, but an American woman who she lost her case.11 A wife whose husband married a foreign man lost her U.S. cit- was in jail did not think that he should be izenship–marriage to a foreign man entitled to her money, but she, too, lost.12 deemed “as voluntary and distinctive A few years before, the New York Supreme as expatriation,” according to the U.S. Court of Judicature comfortably observed Supreme Court during World War I.10 that “no man of wisdom and reflection Once the United States entered the war, can doubt the propriety of the rule, which hundreds of U.S. women who had mar- gives to the husband the control and cus- ried German men were forced to register tody of the wife.” The court never thought as enemy aliens. (Decisions of the U.S. to ask any woman of wisdom and reflec- Supreme Court are among the easiest his- tion about her feelings on “the propriety torical data to ½nd, yet this 1915 deci- of the rule.” sion–and its serious impact on both For more than a century after the pas- lived experience and democratic theory– sage of the ½rst Married Women’s Prop- remains unfamiliar to all but specialists.) erty Acts, most people continued to think Although men long served on juries as the rules of coverture had taught them; whether or not they were entitled to vote, some perhaps even took pride (as lawyers women were generally barred from juries. and philosophers are trained to do) in the

94 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences complexity of adjusting old rules to new edged. Slowly, painfully, and with many Linda K. situations. A generation ago, the histo- reversals, the common sense of one era be- Kerber rian and philosopher of science Thomas came the harsh injustice of another. And Kuhn taught us how rare paradigm shifts women, most of whose names are unfa- are, and how long it can take for the evi- miliar to us today, were the driving force dence that undergirds one paradigm to behind this change, putting their reputa- be recognized as inadequate. “The human tions and their resources on the line, in- mind gets creased into ways of thinking,” sisting that familiar practices simply as one observer has put it.13 weren’t fair. The disempowered are not dummies. In Worcester, Massachusetts, one Mr. They ½nd ways to work within the inter- Bradford abandoned his wife. She applied stices of an oppressive system. When be- to the city for support as a pauper; the nevolent women organized societies to city refused. Since common law regarded sustain the desperately impoverished in husband and wife as a single person, the the years after the Revolution, they shield- wife’s legal residence was determined by ed their work from interfering husbands. where her husband lived. When Mr. The largest of these groups, as historian Bradford left Worcester, Mrs. Bradford Anne Boylan has found, took care to apply lost her claim on that city’s charity. To be for articles of incorporation, which en- entitled to public support, she would need abled them “to sue and be sued, [to] con- to ½nd him and apply to the town where struct and manage institutions such as he now lived. This was standard practice orphanages,” to hold thousands of dollars in the eighteenth century, but Mrs. Brad- in their own name, and to invest their ½- ford made her complaint in 1904. Only nancial resources. They ensured that their after losing in two lower courts and car- treasurers were unmarried women. When rying her appeal to the Supreme Judicial a group of men offered to act as trustees Court of Massachusetts did Mrs. Bradford for the Boston Female Society, the wom- succeed in having the old practice over- en refused to trust them: “[We] could not turned as a “harsh injustice.” The city of have any legal control . . . nor prevent them Worcester was instructed to recognize transferring the property of the Society.”14 Mrs. Bradford’s residency.15 Nor did all women submit reliably to Because husband and wife were one, the rules of coverture. For at least forty it followed that they could not sue each years, fresh generations of women histo- other, a situation known as “interspousal rians have been retrieving their narratives tort immunity.” Thus, a husband could –from diaries and letters, manifestos and not be convicted of larceny for theft of newspapers. We can sneak into the court- his wife’s property; to do so, explained rooms where they displayed their restive- one New York judge (presumably with a ness, sometimes in their own depositions, straight face), would be to sow “the seeds sometimes in the paraphrases of judges of perpetual discord and broil.” ruling against them. From the thousands Interspousal tort immunity also meant of complaints by plaintiffs who must that married women could not claim civil have known they were unlikely to win, damages for assault and battery by their we open up a fresh narrative of men and husbands or for which their husbands women arguing about power and author- were at fault. Consider this example: In ity. We ½nd a contentious world in which 1944, a wife was injured when the auto- the interests of men and women diverged mobile her husband was driving, “due to far more than we have generally acknowl- [his] gross negligence,” ran into a tree.

141 (1) Winter 2012 95 Why She ½led a claim against him (in effect tection justi½es limitations on their con- Diamonds against his insurance company); because trol of their own bodies and their own Really are a Girl’s Best the policy was on his behalf, she was lives; and that women’s obligations as Friend taken to be suing him. In 1948, the Massa- wives and mothers trump both their de- chusetts court found for the insurance sire for autonomy and their obligations company: “That no cause of action arises as citizens. in favor of either husband or wife for a Just as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan tort committed by the other during cov- B. Anthony, and their many colleagues, erture is too well settled to require cita- allies, and political descendants were ½nd- tion of authority. Recovery is denied in ing their voices, defenders of the status quo such a case not merely because of the dis- became ever more shrill. These attacks ability of one spouse to sue the other dur- insisted on women’s need for protection ing coverture, but for the more funda- and emphasized women’s weakness and mental reason that because of the marital vulnerability. The most paradoxical are relationship no cause of action ever came the many judgments, like the one men- into existence.”16 Not until 1976, when tioned above, that refused women’s suits Blanche Lewis sued her husband (via his against violent husbands because to do so insurance company), would a Massachu- would violate “the peace of the house- setts appellate court reconsider the com- hold.” Anti-suffragist campaigns regular- mon law rule of interspousal tort immu- ly claimed that women are too vulnerable nity: “We believe this result is consistent to their husbands’ coercion, and are so with the general principle that if there is emotional and irrational that they need tortious injury there should be recovery.” protection from civic responsibility (and But the court was careful to limit its hold- the civic world needs protection from ing to motor vehicle accidents: “Conduct, them). Not all the attacks came from men; tortious between two strangers, may not here is Dr. Anna Moon Randolph of the be tortious between spouses because of the Virginia Women’s Constitutional League: mutual concessions implied in the mari- “Some women are easily influenced by tal relationship.”17 those they think have superior knowledge, instead of doing their own thinking. . . . It The regime of coverture had long been is an old, old story that women are used justi½ed as protective. “By marriage, the as dupes and tools for destructive work husband and wife are one person in law,” from the days of Sampson’s [sic] Delilah.” the English jurist William Blackstone However, most of the insistence that wrote in a treatise published as the Amer- women are incompetent came from men, ican Revolution began. He continued: including some very distinguished ones, “[T]he very being or legal existence of such as the statesman Elihu Root, recipi- the woman is suspended during the mar- ent of the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize and Sec- riage, or at least is incorporated and con- retary of State under President Theodore solidated into that of the husband: under Roosevelt. Addressing the New York State whose wing, protection, and cover, she per- Constitutional Convention in opposition forms every thing.”18 Well into the twen- to woman suffrage, Root said: “Put wom- tieth century, it remained the convention- an into the arena of [political] conflict al wisdom of legislatures and courts that and she . . . takes into her hands . . . weap- women are too weak to act autonomously; ons with which she is unfamiliar and that they need protection from the perils which she is unable to wield. She becomes of public life; that women’s need for pro- hard, harsh, unlovable, repulsive.”19

96 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Yet the “protections” for women were among them the old “doctrine of neces- Linda K. generally themselves coercive, exposing saries,” which required a husband to pay Kerber women to many grave harms. Women debts incurred by his wife for items es- defendants were judged by juries on sential to her sustenance, but does not which no woman ever had a chance of give wives a reciprocal obligation.21 The serving; when, in 1961, Chief Justice Earl remarkable number of new barriers for Warren asked just what were the “in- women seeking abortions has recently ½rmities” that made it reasonable for the led a New York Times reporter to conclude state of Florida to place barriers between that women’s ability to exercise the right women and responsibility for jury ser- recognized in Roe v. Wade (1973) and vice, the state’s assistant attorney general Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsyl- blurted out, “I just meant they have to vania v. Casey (1992) is “seriously imper- cook the dinners!”20 iled.” According to the legislators who Women rich and poor, white and black, backed these new restrictions, women were barred from pursuing many remu- would come to regret their decisions and nerative crafts and professions. Elizabeth therefore must be protected from making Cady Stanton pointed out that discrimi- them. Mandatory pre-abortion sonogram nation in 1848: “He closes against her all laws, for example, require physicians to the avenues to wealth and distinction describe the fetus in detail; a woman’s which he considers most honorable to only recourse is to shut her eyes. (She can- himself.” In 1873, Justice Joseph Bradley not, of course, shut her ears.) These sorts spoke for the majority in the U.S. Su- of new statutes fail to trust the decision- preme Court decision that denied Myra making capacity of a woman in consulta- Bradwell the right to practice law: “It tion with her physician.22 cannot be af½rmed . . . that it is one of the privileges and immunities of women as The 1960s and 1970s are distinctive for a citizens to engage in any and every pro- shift in the way the law treats women’s fession, occupation or employment in rights and obligations. Pressed by increas- civil life.” Severe quotas for access to ing public impatience with the ascriptive schools of law, engineering, and medicine dependence of adult women and with laws were common until quashed in 1972 by that disempowered women, legislatures Title IX of the Educational Amendments and courts began to acknowledge that laws (but only when enforced by the Depart- embodying gendered stereotypes harm ment of Education, whose record on this not only women, but also men and socie- has been erratic). ty as a whole.23 Indeed, they recognized Long after they had the right to vote, that it is possible (something not imag- women faced skepticism of their ability ined in the coverture regime) for men to to make responsible decisions. Even after be dependent on women, and therefore women could run for the state legislature, that it could be in men’s interest for wom- the state of Oklahoma barred women en to be independent civic actors. from holding statewide of½ce until 1942. Air Force Captain Sharron Frontiero After 1920, the history of most state legis- had to press her argument all the way to latures reveals extended periods of time the U.S. Supreme Court before she was during which no women served; today, it authorized to draw a dependent’s allow- is the rare legislature that is comprised of ance for her husband in 1973. In a landmark at least 20 percent women. Vestiges of decision, Justice William Brennan wrote coverture persist in many state law codes, in support of Frontiero: “Our nation has

141 (1) Winter 2012 97 Why had a long and unfortunate history of sex the job, and exclusion from jobs on the Diamonds discrimination . . . rationalized by an atti- basis that they are too harsh or dangerous: Really are a Girl’s Best tude of ‘romantic paternalism,’ which, in any of these actions can count as a denial Friend practical effect, put women, not on a of equal protection. pedestal but in a cage.” In a now classic It is now unreasonable to claim that series of opinions issued in the 1970s, the women do not possess fully equal legal U.S. Supreme Court established the prin- status, or that they lack the competence ciple that laws based on gender stereo- to make responsible choices. Neverthe- types about the way men and women be- less, while the legacy of coverture has been have are unfair and unconstitutional. Ruth generally repudiated, it has not been erad- Bader Ginsburg dazzlingly argued these icated. Distrust of women’s claims to cases as an attorney for the Women’s autonomy, cultural beliefs about the pri- Rights Project of the aclu. Even when macy of women’s domestic obligations, stereotypes about women’s or men’s be- and opinions about women’s need to be havior might accurately predict what a protected from certain situations all reveal majority of people will do, those individ- the lingering effects of coverture. As re- uals whose behavior does not conform to cently as the year 2000, dozens of state the stereotype ought not to be penalized. attorneys general called for passage of a In 1975, Ginsburg argued Weinberger v. new Violence Against Women Act, argu- Wiesenfeld, leading the Supreme Court to ing that long-established laws against agree unanimously that a Social Security assault and battery have proven ineffec- law providing bene½ts to widows with tive to protect women against assault. And small children, but not to similarly situ- then there is the rede½nition of abortion, ated widowers, was based on the stereo- as discussed above; a belief that women type that imagined only bereft mothers, are incapable of making responsible deci- not bereft fathers. sions about abortion suffuses the new stat- Laws that were once viewed as protec- utes limiting access to it. tive of women are now viewed as dis- An antique story about how the world criminating against them. It often star- works, a story grounded in English legal tles people to learn that the Supreme practice and continued in the great narra- Court did not regard discrimination on tive that Americans have told ourselves the basis of sex as a denial of the equal about how we came to be what we are, protection guarantee of the Fourteenth continues to lurk in American law and Amendment until 1971, and then only very practice. In that story, a husband could narrowly, in a case involving a teenager’s not kill his wife–that would be murder– cornet and a bank account worth $200. but the only other guarantee she had was Other decisions followed in legislatures that he could not thrust her out naked into and in state and federal courts, reshaping the world; she had her paraphernalia: her the rules by which men and women make petticoats and her cooking pots. And the life choices. It is no longer a reasonable last thing he could take from her in order defense against a charge of rape to claim to pay his debts was her jewels, the dia- that the victim dressed or acted provoca- monds that she could keep as her best tively (although criminal charges of rape friend. Those diamonds still gleam, but remain notoriously hard to prosecute few among us know quite why. successfully; the old suspicion of women’s word remains). Discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, sexual harassment on

98 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences endnotes Linda K. Kerber 1 More than thirty-½ve years ago, Sheila Tobias and Lisa Anderson established that Rosie was highly unhappy with her postwar fate; see Sheila Tobias and Lisa Anderson, “What Really Happened to Rosie the Riveter? Demobilization and the Female Labor Force, 1944–47,” Module 9 (mss Modular Publications, 1974), 1–36. See also Connie Field’s classic documentary ½lm, The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1987). 2 For an exploration of aspects of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and work that may be unfamiliar to most readers, see Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, vol. 2, The De½ning Years, 1933– 1938 (New York: Viking, 1999). 3 See Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 4 I have explored the implications of this system in No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), chap. 1. 5 See Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998), esp. the dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53 (2001), esp. the dissent from Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. See also Kristin Collins, “When Fathers’ Rights Are Mothers’ Duties: The Fail- ure of Equal Protection in Miller v. Albright,” Yale Law Journal 109 (2000): 1669; and Kristin Collins and Linda K. Kerber, “Sex and Citizenship at the Court, Again,” Dissent magazine online, July 20, 2011. 6 See Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008). 7 Christopher L. Tomlins, “Subordination, Authority, Law: Subjects in Labor History,” Inter- national Labor and Working-Class History 47 (Spring 1995): 56–90. 8 The most detailed treatment of this topic remains Judith Apter Klinghoffer and Lois Elkis, “‘The Petticoat Electors’: Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1807,” Journal of the Early Republic 12 (1992): 159–193. 9 See Reva Siegel, “Home as Work: The First Women’s Rights Claims Concerning Wives’ Household Labor, 1850–1880,” Yale Law Journal 103 (1994): 1073–1217. 10 Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U.S. 299 (1915). 11 Russell v. Brooks, Mass. (7 Pick.) 65 (1828); cited in Goodridge et al. v. Department of Public Health of Massachusetts, Amici Curiae Brief of Professors of the History of Marriage, Families and the Law, 2003 [hereafter referred to as MA brief], 13. 12 Casey v. Wiggin, 74 Mass. (8 Gray) 231 (1857); cited in MA brief, 13. 13 See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scienti½c Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). 14 Anne M. Boylan, “Women and Politics in the Era before Seneca Falls,” Journal of the Early Republic 10 (Autumn 1990): 364–366. 15 Bradford v. Worcester, 184 Mass. 557 (1904); cited in MA brief, 14. 16 Callow v. Thomas, 322 Mass. 550 (1948). 17 Lewis v. Lewis, 370 Mass. 619, 622 (1976). 18 Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books (1770; Washington, D.C.: 1941), vol. 1, chap. 15, 443. 19 Quoted in Reva Siegel, “She the People: The Nineteenth Amendment, Sex Equality, Feder- alism, and the Family,” Harvard Law Review 115 (2002): 978 n.81. 20 Transcript of oral argument in Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57 (1961). 21 Account Specialists v. Jackman et al., 970 P.2d 202 (1998) [Oklahoma].

141 (1) Winter 2012 99 Why 22 Dorothy Samuels, “The Landscape: Where Abortion Rights are Disappearing,” The New York Diamonds Times, September 25, 2011. Really are a 23 epa Girl’s Best Equal Pay Act (Pub. L. 88-38) ( ), as amended, 29 United States Code, at sec. 206(d); Title Friend VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub. L. 88-352), as amended, 42 United States Code, beginning at sec. 2000(e); Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636 (1975); Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976).

100 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences k Exceptionalism’s Exceptions: The Changing American Narrative

David Levering Lewis

Abstract: Seven years after 9/11, the American way of life was again shaken to its foundation by the Great Recession of 2008. The logic of an unregulated market economy produced its predetermined result. The American middle class, the historic protagonist of the American narrative, became an endangered species. Against a bleak backdrop of indebtedness, unemployment, and rapid decline in traditional jobs and in the affordability of the essentials of health and education stands the stark wealth of the top 1 percent of Americans. With the vital center no longer holding and consensus fraying, 53 percent of the electorate wagered in 2008 that it could deny race by af½rming its non-importance and thereby audaciously re- invigorate the exceptionalist narrative. The choice before us, however, is still much the same as that posited by W.E.B. Du Bois when he described two antithetical versions of the American narrative: one was based on “freedom, intelligence and power for all men; the other was industry for private pro½t directed by an autocracy determined at any price to amass wealth and power.”

When Ronald Reagan bade farewell from the Oval Of½ce on January 11, 1989, the fortieth Ameri- can president catechized his people with scriptural imagery of a shining City Upon a Hill, “God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds and living in harmony,” that resonated positively with all but the most culturally and politically disaffected.1 For rea- DAVID LEVERING LEWIS, a Fel- sons that have had as much to do with America’s low of the American Academy twentieth-century wealth and power as with the in- since 2002, is the Julius Silver trinsic uniqueness of its national experience, Ameri- University Professor and Profes- sor of History at New York Univer- ca’s leadership presumptions were largely conced- sity. His publications include King: ed by the rest of the world until the catastrophe of A Biography (1970, 1978); The Race 9/11 and rarely questioned by Americans themselves to Fashoda: European Colonialism and before the closing years of the last century. African Resistance in the Scramble for Twenty-two years after the Reagan presidency Africa (1987); W.E.B. Du Bois: The ended only months before the Berlin Wall crumbled, Fight for Equality and the American the disaffected have been joined by a growing num- Century, 1919–1963 (2000), which received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize ber of Americans sobered by how suddenly the pros- for Biography; and God’s Crucible: pect of a Pax Americana has vanished. Dismayed Islam and the Making of Europe, by the steady immiseration of the vaunted middle 570–1215 (2008). class, the billions squandered on two decades of op-

101 The tional military adventures, and the compe- ideological boilerplate, American excep- Changing tition from new economic powerhouses tionalism became the ready cliché of pol- American Narrative in Asia and South America, they find un- iticians, public intellectuals, journalists, mistakable signs that our exceptionalist and media opinion-molders after Reagan’s presumptions, distilled less than two gen- 1980 election. As a composite of ante- erations ago into a conceptual concen- cedents, the term sometimes displays its trate called American exceptionalism, require historical comprehensiveness with self- a twenty-½rst-century reset. The truth conscious didacticism inflected by chau- seems to be that the “redeemer nation” vinism. Yet this most American concept needs redemption and that the 350-year- derives much of its interpretive substance old narrative of special nationhood will from the enduring observations of two sustain itself only if revised to parse hon- French counts, Alexis de Tocqueville and estly its own history and myths, and as- Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur. Equally ½t- similate dissonant domestic and global ting is the problematically acknowledged realities emerging from the shadows cast contribution of an African American by the declining brilliance of its triumphal intellectual, William Edward Burghardt worldview.2 Du Bois, whose citizenship rights the U.S. To be sure, before the term American Supreme Court had reinterpreted and exceptionalism emerged, a myriad of ide- diminished at the end of the nineteenth ational precursors expressed themselves century. in one era of American history to the next. Of the three, de Crèvecoeur’s contri- The predestinarian sermons of the Puri- bution to the making of the American tans embodied the providential dispen- narrative was biographically the most in- sation of the nation and its people. The teresting. Present at the creation of the founders’ documents were impregnat- United States, de Crèvecoeur introduced ed with Enlightenment ideas–Montes- European society to what he limned as a quieu, Smith, and Rousseau American- “new people melted into one” in Letters ized. Works by Emerson and Thoreau, from an American Farmer (1782). He sur- as well as the ½ction and poetry of Haw- vived the French Revolution during a thorne, Melville, and Whitman, channeled visit home and died a naturalized Amer- the democratic ethos. Lincoln enshrined ican (known as Hector St. John) in 1813. the ideal at Gettysburg. Historian Fred- Democracy in America (1835) was less ro- erick Jackson Turner’s 1893 “Frontier mantic in its appreciation of the natives Thesis,” complemented sixteen years later than de Crèvecoeur’s influential memoir, by editor and public intellectual Herbert but Tocqueville certainly thought Jackson- Croly’s The Promise of American Life (1909), ian-era Americans were off to a very spe- were perhaps two of the ideal’s most sig- cial future. According to him, Americans’ ni½cant post-Civil War iterations. Turner’s distinguishing characteristics were indi- marching frontier and Croly’s progressive vidualism, faith in popular sovereignty, capitalism were magnets drawing Emma mistrust of government, and, above all, Lazarus’s “huddled masses” in numbers their certainty of living in a land un- unimagined.3 bounded by the fetters of history. Still, he Surprisingly, the term itself–American detected two viruses in the body politic exceptionalism–is of relatively recent vin- whose potential for harm might be per- tage. From its origins in the mid-1930s as manent: an egalitarian insistence on social high-flown political science theory to its conformity and a majoritarian prejudice appropriation during the Cold War as against people from Africa.4

102 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences As the visiting aristocrat well knew, One theory was based on “freedom, in- David Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, telligence and power for all men; the other Levering Lewis speaking for most of their founding peers, was industry for private pro½t directed by had deplored the African presence in their an autocracy determined at any price to hard-won new republic as an aesthetic amass wealth and power.”6 and cultural blemish. Blemishes were ac- Du Bois’s American Assumption was knowledged at three-½fths per capita for a binary paradigm. It honored John taxation and representation, but the men Winthrop’s providential parable, Jeffer- at Philadelphia intended to preclude in son’s Arcadian nostrums, Tocqueville’s perpetuity the possibility of citizenship exceptionalist insights, and Henry Clay’s for blemishes. Tocqueville fretted, never- “American System” as the building blocks theless, that the tensions inherent in the of the national edi½ce at its best, then pro- institution of slavery would eventually ceeded to expose the widening cracks of tax the American political system beyond class and race in the façade. The best of its capacity to compromise. “From what- times had been the period from 1820 ever point one departs, one almost always to 1860, when, according to Du Bois, the arrives at this ½rst fact,” he noted.5 theory of compensated democracy con- Indeed, he predicted that this “½rst fact” verged more closely than ever before or would be a permanent feature of democra- since with reality of opportunity for ordi- cy in America. Tocqueville died two years nary citizens. It was during the Manifest before Americans’ capacity for viable com- Destiny decades of freedom from gov- promise ½nally exhausted itself. ernment interference, freedom of economic opportunity, and the “ever possi- One hundred years after the publication ble increase of industrial income” that of Democracy in America, Du Bois antici- the American Assumption of wealth as pated the neologism American exceptional- “mainly the result of its owner’s effort ism a score of years before it entered aca- and that any average worker can by thrift demic usage to become a canonical meta- become a capitalist” seemed to be nearly phor of the national experience. Writing true for white men, Du Bois conceded. in Black Reconstruction in America: 1860– Although this realization of democracy 1880 of the failure of racial democracy in for white people was seemingly true in the South after the Civil War, Du Bois one half of the nation, the paradigm of coined the phrase “the American Assump- equality faltered badly in the Cotton tion” to explain what he saw as the fatal Kingdom, the nation’s other half, where downside of government at the command the racialized social order presented the of unrestrained capitalism. In this 1935 American Assumption’s “most sinister howitzer of a book demolishing seventy- contradiction.”7 ½ve years of historical consensus, Du Bois The conflict between the republic’s two insisted that biracial accommodation halves resolved the institutional contra- based on the ballot box and the school- diction of slavery in a democracy, but its house had prospered in the defeated Con- outcome fatally undermined private enter- federacy for a half-decade until unlikely prise as a system uncorrupted by oligop- success gave way to everlasting greed. As oly and left the problem of genuine cit- the uplift idealism of the war succumbed izenship for black people to be resolved to the political economy of triumphant by future generations. For as Du Bois in- plutocracy, “two theories of the future of sisted in “Looking Forward,” his book’s America” clashed, according to Du Bois. trenchant seventh chapter, the incorpo-

141 (1) Winter 2012 103 The ration of ex-slaves was the central ques- simply “questions about the distribution Changing tion confronting the republic. As a good of power.”9 American Narrative progressive historian steeped in Marx, Marxist historians insisted that serious Du Bois pronounced the captains of un- students of the national experience must regulated wealth as winners in the contest distinguish between the persistent myth between the “two theories” of the Amer- of a putatively benign private enterprise ican future. The validity of the American system and the present reality of a rapa- Assumption “ceased with the Civil War,” cious, cartelized market economy. Du Bois Du Bois declared, even though its mys- served up a characteristically withering tique would inform a simulacrum of indictment of unregulated capitalism in a broadly based economic opportunity land forgone of equal opportunity seven until the Great Depression, when, he said, decades after Appomattox: “It went with “it died with a great wail of despair.”8 ruthless indifference towards waste, Du Bois’s American Assumption neol- death, ugliness and disaster, and yet reared ogism and American exceptionalism were the most stupendous machine for ef½- synonymous terms derived, ironically, cient organization of work which the from Joseph Stalin’s then-recent denun- world has ever seen.”10 Thirteen years ciation of the American Communist after Du Bois’s Marxist hyperbole, the Party’s ideological heterodoxy that Amer- consensus historian Richard Hofstadter ican capitalism’s special resiliency jus- expressed a similar judgment even as he ti½ed exceptional adversarial tactics. The began distancing himself from progres- irony was especially incongruous because sive colleagues. With far less spleen, Hof- its Soviet originators de½ned American stadter opined in The American Political Tra- exceptionalism as a colossal historical dition and the Men Who Made It (1948) that, fallacy that imagined itself exempt from despite its “strong bias in favor of egali- the iron laws of economic determinism, tarian democracy,” America “has been a whereas most American academics and democracy in cupidity rather than a de- public intellectuals, with Du Bois, John mocracy of fraternity.”11 Dewey, and Charles Beard being the The neo-orthodox theologian Rein- notable exceptions, avidly embraced a hold Niebuhr also lamented the loss of a phrase they regarded as an inspired en- simpler era when the national destiny capsulation of 160 years of impeccable was understood as “God’s effort to make national history. To Du Bois and like- a new beginning in the history of man- minded American socialists and engaged kind.”12 But where Du Bois saw unregu- progressives determined to lift the ½g leaf lated wealth and race prejudice as excep- of liberty from exploitative wealth and tionalism’s prime corrupters, Niebuhr de- power, the cant of exceptionalism served plored the sin of hubris and a religion of merely to keep the Moloch of laissez-faire materialism that offered “the management on life support even as its vital signs of history”–state-sponsored panaceas– failed in the wake of the Great Crash of as the antidote for human frailty. Reaction 1929. Dewey, Du Bois’s naacp colleague to both thinkers’ philippics has sometimes and fellow progressive, scoffed at disin- been profoundly unwelcome, as with the genuous invocations of liberty “by the adverse response to Niebuhrian elements managers and bene½ciaries of the exist- present in Jimmy Carter’s memorable ing economic system.” Questions about “malaise” meditation or the electorate’s liberty, Dewey declared in his aptly named ultimate alienation from the Du Boisian Individualism Old and New (1930), were precepts of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great

104 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Society. Most Americans lived their lives build Western Europe on the condition David in ways that allowed them the luxury of that it marginalize its communist parties Levering Lewis high disregard for well-informed criti- and join nato. In his ½nal address to the cisms of their society. The mantra ad- nation, Franklin D. Roosevelt had spoken dressed to foreigners was “Love it or leave movingly of the New Deal’s un½nished it!” Intellectual or political nonconformi- egalitarian goals, summoning Americans ty by fellow citizens risked the label “un- to make them their ½rst order of business American.” The distinctive feature of the after the imminent restoration of peace.13 American narrative at all times and in Four years later, their 1948 per capita every iteration was a serene, even sunny, incomes four times larger than those of belief in a teleology of better days. the British, French, Germans, and Italians combined, Americans overwhelmingly, Until the most recent period in the na- and mostly without much reflection, em- tion’s history, that curious serenity and braced prosperity in lieu of progressivism. optimism were proof against crippling The social democrats and their politically doubt, disunity, or despair. Only twice maladroit communist allies found them- has the narrative come close to failure– selves drowning in a rising tide of un- nearly irreparably in 1861, traumatically precedented prosperity that promised to after 1929. The “wail of despair” Du Bois lift every American into the middle class. heard with the onset of the Great Depres- The “wail of despair” was barely a whisper sion was sharp enough to embolden all by the time the ½rst generation of college- those who decided that capitalism had fa- educated, suburbanite consumers creat- tally malfunctioned and was too serious a ed by the G.I. Bill voted any ticket but system to be left to the ministrations of Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party in the capitalists. For the ½rst time in history, a pivotal 1948 presidential election. majority of Americans embraced the novel The post–World War II land of liberty premise–cutting straight across the grain assumed global obligations with an evan- of laissez-faire self-reliance and rugged gelizing con½dence that would have as- individualism–that government should tonished Woodrow Wilson. Publisher of guarantee its citizens a minimum of Time and Life, Henry Luce, had already health, housing, education, and retirement given the world its peacetime marching income. Unions won collective bargain- orders in “The American Century,” a sig- ing rights and unemployment insurance nature 1941 editorial in Life. The Truman for unskilled workers, black and white. Doctrine’s throwing down the military Federal rural electri½cation began the rad- gauntlet to the Soviet Union in March ical transformation of the Deep South. 1947 caught most Americans by surprise. Impressive as many of these accomplish- Many had still not quite assimilated the ments were, the New Deal’s alphabetical- ominousness of Churchill’s “iron curtain” ly innovative programs to jumpstart the speech. The writ of the Monroe Doctrine, economy faltered badly, especially after reinterpreted by George Kennan, Dean the 1936 election. Acheson, and John Foster Dulles, ran to World War II saved the New Deal, en- three continents. A new national security abling it to save American capitalism, state (secretly authorized in April 1950) which in turn equipped America’s “great- sprang from an increasingly potent post- est generation” (together with Russia’s) war military-industrial-½nancial com- to defeat fascism, put the world economy plex, insinuating itself into congression- on the dollar at Bretton Woods, and real independence, civil liberties, public

141 (1) Winter 2012 105 The schools, and higher education. cia-pro- than two hundred years since the rat- Changing grammed artistic and cultural initiatives i½cation of the U.S. Constitution (pace American 14 Narrative spanned much of the planet. Canadians in the early nineteenth century The speed with which the obligation and Mexicans in Texas and California). came to shape world history would have Nearly sixty years have elapsed since the been understood by the Pilgrims as a overthrow of Iran’s democracy, an act of divine commandment. Some thirty years Niebuhrian “innocency” whose ongoing before his turn at the helm of leadership, consequences for the United States have Ronald Reagan recognized that Ameri- been almost as dire as for Iran: Jimmy cans had not been able to escape destiny, Carter’s election defeat and a decade of “nor should we try to do so,” he enjoined. Reaganomics and New Deal dismantle- “The leadership of the free world was ment; compounded by a decade of Alan thrust upon us two centuries ago in that Greenspan’s regulatory insouciance; and little hall at Philadelphia.”15 Isolationists the present nuclearized complexities of faithful to George Washington’s advice the Middle East. The story we have told to remain unentangled by foreign com- ourselves depicts us as history’s 911 emer- mitments went almost entirely unheard. gency rescuers, responding to distress ap- Translated as realpolitik, however, mak- peals, saving lives and liberty, providing ing the world safe for democracy meant technical assistance and matériel, and de- saving it from communism, which en- parting the moment the patient’s demo- tailed as often as not supporting un- cratic life signs are stabilized. The narra- democratic regimes and corrupt incom- tive was splendidly validated after Pearl petency around the world. American Harbor, but sixty years later, the national exceptionalism abroad professed a high- leadership misappropriated the excep- minded innocence of motives that was tionalist narrative written by its “greatest unique in the annals of empire-building. generation” in order to justify actions in Nor was the profession of it explainable the September 11 aftermath, the conse- merely as the rank hypocrisy of power. quences of which have been, mostly, de- It was not surprising that the nation’s monstrably lamentable. By 1980, when the people wished blindly “to preserve inno- revisionist diplomatic historian William cency [sic] by disavowing the responsibil- Appleman Williams’s incisive summing ities of power,” as Niebuhr insisted in The up appeared under the title Empire as a Irony of American History (1952).16 True, Way of Life, a good many erstwhile critics outright military seizures of territory virtually conceded the truth of chronic have generally been fairly brief, with the foreign adventurism.17 exception of Hawaii, Haiti, and the Phil- ippines, until the decade following 9/11. Looking back from the seventies, econ- The citizenry has been inculcated with omists would speak of the “golden era of the gospel of anti-imperialism by its pol- American capitalism,” a quarter-century iticians, diplomatic historians, and col- from 1945 to 1971, the year the United umnists, not to mention generations of States ended international convertibility elementary and high school teachers. A of the dollar into gold and one year after nation conceived in revolt against the the country’s domestic oil production tyranny of an empire does not perpetrate peaked. It was the greatest story of pro- imperialism, we have been taught. ductive and ½nancial transformation yet Indeed, empire has been the love that told until the rise of modern China. The dared not acknowledge itself in the more United States had more than one-half of

106 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences the world’s manufacturing capacity, sup- of social engineering gone awry on their David plied a third of the world’s exports, and far left, and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Levering Lewis produced the greatest amount of oil, steel, subcommittee ready with subpoena on automobiles, and electronics. The gdp their far right, professors and liberals hud- rose from $294 billion in 1950 to $526 bil- dled on the safe middle ground staked out lion by 1960, and all classes of white citi- by Americans for Democratic Action.21 zens more or less evenly bene½ted from Moreover, many wanted to know, what this prodigious growth.18 was so flawed about American capital- A national narrative ½guratively script- ism? Many thoughtful people embraced ed by Midas and, literally, by Madison Niebuhr’s judgment that the problem Avenue and Detroit inspired a qualitative- with capitalism was not the system itself ly mixed run of celebratory appreciations but the people who corrupted it.22 Arthur of exceptionalism by leading academics, Schlesinger, Jr., snapped that pejorative such as historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., denotations of capitalism “belonged to David Potter, and Daniel Boorstin; lit- the vocabulary of demagoguery, not the erary scholars Henry Nash Smith and vocabulary of analysis.”23 Skeptics of the R.W.B. Lewis; and political scientist Louis prodigious excellence of the system were Hartz. A redoubled self-consciousness soon warned to enlighten themselves by about the essence of the national charac- reading Strategy and Structure (1962), Har- ter informed their writings, the best of vard Business School economist Alfred which melded admiration and perspicac- Chandler’s authoritative demonstration ity. In revisiting Turner’s marching fron- that Adam Smith’s invisible hand no lon- tier, Potter enlarged its scope to embrace ger ruled the marketplace. The market, the full sweep of the American economy Chandler posited, was now expertly and and the opportunities it was supposed to rationally guided by capitalism’s new be able to bestow on everybody.19 Appro- managerial class.24 priately, writer Shepherd Mead’s book In contrast, Eisenhower-era novelists How to Succeed in Business without Really Try- served up nuanced critiques of material- ing enjoyed great popularity when it was istic conformity and its sometimes unpublished in 1952. As a Broadway musical appealing existential outcomes. Journal- ten years later, it recon½rmed the sanguine ist William Hollingsworth Whyte’s The upward-mobility ideology of Dale Car- Organization Man (1953) and novelist negie in song and dance.20 Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flan- The “golden era” played predictable fa- nel Suit (1955) toyed in mildly subversive vorites among the intelligentsia. The trac- ways with anomie, risk-aversion, and tion once exercised in the profession by conformity in a bland decade centered the progressive historians of the Beard/ on the television show Father Knows Best Beale/Du Bois/Parrington/Turner per- (1954–1960) and the ge kitchen commer- suasion was sadly diminished in a time of cial. Social scientists of the period kept self-congratulatory consensus. Not only a safe distance from Marx, but the sub- were the progressives’ themes of machi- sisting influences of Veblen and Weber, nations and exploitation by the powerful combined with an acceptable Freud, called interpretive exaggerations, their im- pushed at least a few to unmask some dis- plicit solutions of political activism and tressful socioeconomic realities. Sociolo- government oversight were deemed divi- gists David Riesman and Nathan Glazer’s sive and dangerously wrongheaded. With “other-directed” Americans took their the Soviet Union as an obscene example signi½cant cues from a “Lonely Crowd,”

141 (1) Winter 2012 107 The a mass of pliable people, respectful of cor- ies of race, gender, class, and empire. Race Changing porate authority and devoid of existential would be at the forefront, shattering the American Narrative gyroscopes. The outlier in the group was mold for the second time and permanent- the neo-Marxist-Weberian sociologist ly altering the sociosexual shape of things C. Wright Mills, whose schematic The as never before. Power Elite (1956) should have alarmed its Tocqueville worried that color preju- large mainstream readership.25 Instead, dice might become American democra- many readers admired the elite’s power cy’s greatest failure–even observing that and envied its lifestyles without gauging the prejudice “rejecting Negroes seems the meaning of Mills’s data, which showed to increase in proportion to their emanci- American society hardening into strata of pation.”28 Du Bois certi½ed racism’s in- self-perpetuating, interlocked privilege in- tractability more than a hundred years ago creasingly unaccountable to the citizenry. with a prophecy many Americans can still To be sure, although the average Amer- recite from memory. “The problem of the ican would remain innocent of the con- twentieth century,” he stipulated in The ceptual convenience of the exceptionalist Souls of Black Folk (1903), his great African tagline well into the 1970s, she or he could American manifesto, “is the problem of have offered a ready enumeration of its the color-line–the relation of the darker essential components, without needing to and lighter races of men.”29 Eighty-½ve read Tocqueville, Bryce, Wells, Du Bois, years later, historian Eric Foner con½rmed or even Hofstadter and Schlesinger, both Du Bois’s once-controversial counter- of whose classic interpretations of the na- narrative: that the too-brief interval of tion’s de½ning political and social char- interracial reform after the Civil War was acteristics (The American Political Tradition followed by Redemption, almost two de- and The Vital Center) had appeared within cades of hard-fought political realignment months of each other at the end of the ending in the defeat of the interracially 1940s. For many, it was simply a matter of promising People’s Party, the ½nal elimi- birthright that to be an American was to nation of the African American franchise be exceptional.26 Almost surely, Hofstad- in the South, and the imposition of Jim ter’s unsurpassed exceptionalist aphorism Crow.30 that “it has been our fate as a nation not People of color all but disappeared from to have ideologies, but to be one” would the American narrative in 1896 after the have fully satis½ed the average man or Supreme Court’s seven-to-one decision in woman in the 1950s.27 Yet if America’s ide- Plessy v. Ferguson dismissed, with appall- ology was being American, then Hofstad- ing legal casuistry, the application of the ter’s maxim, like any syllogism, was more Fourteenth Amendment to a Louisiana clever than instructive. law regulating seating accommodations on trains. The enforced separation of the From the beginning, whole categories races imposed no badge of inferiority, of Americans had been excluded from the Chief Justice Henry Billings Brown ruled: vital center or enjoyed no meaningful “But if this be so, it is not by reason of role in the political tradition (namely, the anything found in the act, but solely ethnically cleansed American Indian). It because the colored race chooses to put was the categories missing from the ex- that construction upon it.”31 Ten percent ceptionalism paradigm that ½nally began of the country’s population was rendered to break the bien-pensant mold: the four “separate but equal,” a condition it was unacknowledged or suppressed categor- enjoined not to view as a disability, even

108 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences as it saw itself legally barred from street plemented the Southern agenda of re- David cars, Pullmans, theaters, movie houses, inforced “blackness,” stigmatized and Levering Lewis parks, public schools, municipal librar- ostracized.32 ies, drinking fountains, public toilets, The color dichotomy imposed by Plessy sports stadiums, and hospitals reserved and rationalized with the excision of for white citizens. “Mulatto” from the U.S. Census after 1920 With that decision, people of color relieved the immigrant, once he departed lived in a world that paralleled the larger from Ellis Island, of confusion about the white world. Occasionally, some super- most desirable American phenotypes. star captured the admiration of the ma- People of color, now called a race, served jority, thereby reaf½rming the nation’s as reverse examples of appropriate citi- opportunity creed: Joe Louis, decking the zenship. Most newcomers quickly ½gured Nazi prize½ghter Max Schmelling in out who were the people they should take 1938; Marian Anderson’s soaring con- care not to imitate or respect–a mudsill tralto shaming bigotry from the steps of population below a rising tide of generally the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday optimistic immigrants. To be sure, the new in 1939; Charles Drew, honored by the race was a beehive with an economy sup- American Board of Surgery for organiz- porting ½nancial institutions, large reli- ing the Red Cross Blood Bank in 1943; gious establishments, newspaper and cos- Jackie Robinson joining the Dodgers in metics empires, liberal arts colleges, and 1947; Ralph Bunche receiving the Nobel a fairly diversi½ed professional class: all Peace Prize in 1950. To be fair to the rec- separate, but in a few cases equal. ord, there were African American leaders, Meanwhile, elites North and South such as Booker Washington and Robert succumbed to hysteria over pseudo- R. Moton, and a considerable number of eugenics and supposedly well-sourced black professionals who, as Jim Crow’s predictions of an unassimilable surge of bene½ciaries, defended Plessy. millions immigrating after World War I Plessy’s effects on the nation’s melting- on top of the twenty million who arrived pot leitmotif were immense in their power between 1880 and 1910. As more southern simultaneously to obscure and sustain and eastern Europeans stood poised to the mythos of cultural harmony, ideolog- disembark, old-stock Americans lament- ical conformity, and middle-class content- ed the Protestant republic vanishing in a ment. By judicial sleight of hand, e pluri- “non-white” sea of unmeltable languages, bus unum became e pluribus duo, in histo- religions, and cultures. The “menacing” rian Matthew Jacobson’s sardonic para- influx ½nally ended when Congress en- phrase. Plessy’s elimination of blacks acted the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. solved a problem of even greater complexity and exigency: the assimilation By 1954, the covert dynamic of race, class, of quasi-whites. Hysteria over the insuf- and economics had succeeded so well in ½cient “whiteness” of European immi- assimilating ethnic Europeans as to make grants peaked in the North and Northeast possible, even necessary, the national re- about a decade after the white suprema- consideration of the biracial solution or- cist South invented its “one drop” identi- dained by Plessy v. Ferguson. If American ty rule to solve a well-grounded fear of ideals had meaning, their guardians real- extensive racial admixture. The two chal- ized that the defeat of fascism and the lenges were symmetrically reinforcing: containment of communism in Europe, the “whitening up” of immigrants com- the unfolding horrors of genocide, anti-

141 (1) Winter 2012 109 The colonial unrest in Asia and Africa, fdr’s The Brown decision was unanimous Changing Four Freedoms, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s and unambiguous–at ½rst. In a key foot- American Narrative Universal Declaration of Human Rights note, the decision referenced psycholo- demanded much more than recycled pie- gists Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s poi- ties. This time, the ideology of liberty and gnant ½ndings that black children ex- democracy had to matter. The of½cial pressed a preference for white dolls over count of Nazi Germany’s six million mur- black. After a ½fty-eight-year detour, the dered Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs sent pub- United States was back at the starting lic avowal of genetic differences into the point for racial equality only months closet. The shameful resemblance of the after Ralph Ellison’s runaway best seller, Jim Crow South’s laws and practices to Invisible Man, won the National Book the defeated Third Reich’s Nuremberg Award for ½ction. Black Americans were laws put the United States at a major and elated. Even Du Bois, by then a caustic growing disadvantage with the Soviet Marxist critic of his country’s every ac- Union in winning the hearts and minds tion, wondered how the “miracle” had of the planet’s dark-skinned majority. happened.35 A year later, elation would Brown v. Board of Education, released on give way to apprehension, to be followed May 17, 1954, surprised the public with a by a decade of presidential neutrality and unanimous decision nullifying Plessy. organized Southern resistance to inte- However, a Gallup poll found that while gration. Whether it was ingenuous con- 54 percent of Americans approved, 41 per- ½dence in Myrdal’s American Creed or, cent did not.33 Ten years after the publi- more pragmatically, the price paid for their cation of Swedish economist Gunnar unanimity, the justices departed from es- Myrdal’s two-volume An American Dilem- tablished practice by deferring an en- ma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democ- forcement decree by a full calendar year. racy (1944), the nine justices rei½ed what When they reconvened on May 31, 1955, it had become the ruling paradigm of was not to order an immediate end of pub- Myrdalian liberalism. Recruited by the lic school segregation, but to declare Brown Carnegie Corporation in 1938 to conduct enforced “with all deliberate speed.” a massive social science study of the Brown I restored the full force of the Four- “problem,” the Scandinavian became the teenth Amendment. Brown II accommo- American Negro’s Tocqueville. In Myr- dated the casuistry of Chief Justice Brown dal’s formulation, racism was an imper- in the Plessy case. fection in the social order, a moral insult That the American Creed has failed to to the nation’s founding ideals and thus resolve the American dilemma as medi- a paradox in the “American Creed” that ated ½fty-seven years ago through Brown becomes ever more intolerable. Myrdal’s is in meaningful measure due to the iron- introduction to An American Dilemma de- ic fact that one of Europe’s leading econ- scribed the American Negro as “a prob- omists eschewed economics as central lem in the heart of the American. . . . This to the problem that he and an army of is the central viewpoint of this treatise. social scientists were charged to explain. Though our study includes economics, Guided by the Carnegie-Myrdal ½ndings, social, and political race relations, at bot- the Court’s decision addressed the prob- tom our problem is the moral dilemma of lem in terms of interracial psychology, the American–the conflict between his whereas its origins and substantive ame- moral valuations on various levels of con- lioration were in reality economic. By log- sciousness and generality.”34 ical extension to the full range of Ameri-

110 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences can public life, Brown was a prescription fronted with Frederick Douglass’s Fif- David for enlightened national self-interest teenth Amendment admonitions.38 Still, Levering Lewis based on an anticipated upwelling of prog- a combination of sympathy from the civil ress resulting from intimate and educat- rights establishment and sexist under- ed group contact.36 estimation of the gender issue’s signi½- cance led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act be- Ten years after Brown and nearly a cen- coming law with discrimination prohib- tury after the Civil War, the third major ited on grounds of “race, color, religion, revision of the national narrative came sex, or national origin.”39 In When Every- as African Americans’ rising frustrations thing Changed (2010), one of author Gail over non-enforcement of “all deliberate Collins’s interviewees recalls never once speed” boiled over.37 The 1964 Civil Rights having seen a female professor while a Act was enacted in a climate of ferocious student at the University of California, racial confrontations pressed nightly on Berkeley. “Worse yet,” she says of 1960, national television by Martin Luther King, “I didn’t even notice.”40 Jr.’s nonviolent campaign in Birmingham, In 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coor- Alabama, and black student activism gone dinating Committee (sncc, often re- viral in the Deep South after its lunch- ferred to as Snick) organized the Missis- counter and freedom-rides phases. For sippi Freedom Summer, recruiting stu- better and worse, most Americans took it dent volunteers to register African Amer- for granted that civil rights meant racial icans to vote. The ideas and experiences rights; sexual rights seemed only inci- that a pivotal cohort of college women dental until the black freedom struggle took away from the extraordinary interra- stimulated gender rights activism. In the cial group catharsis they experienced that interim between Brown’s checkered im- summer helped ground American femi- plementation and the temporary consoli- nism’s so-called second wave. The Free- dation of the Great Society, the women’s dom Summer brought together college- movement caught the high winds of so- age black and white women as equals in a cial change generated by the black civil black-run organization for the ½rst time rights movement. in the history of the women’s movement. The familiar story of race and gender Feminism’s future cadres of leading pro- ½nally cohabiting the exceptionalist nar- fessionals, writers, academics, and jour- rative is literally one of black humor. No nalists emerged from this experience so- federal law made it a crime to discrimi- bered and somewhat embittered by what nate on the basis of sex. The U.S. Senate they saw as institutionalized hypocrisy had failed to approve the Equal Rights and gendered hierarchy in a movement Amendment (era) with the required two- supposedly pledged to the broadest pos- thirds majority the year before Brown. sible inculcation of democracy. Writer When Howard Smith, courtly Virginia Anne Moody and the women who came racist and chairman of the House Rules of age in Mississippi admiring civil rights Committee, amused his male colleagues leader Fannie Lou Hamer and reading by inserting the word sex into the mark- Betty Friedan ended their Freedom Sum- up of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights mer committed to an “naacp for wom- Act, the maneuver panicked members of en,” a “fully equal partnership of the the civil rights establishment and orga- sexes” that became the National Organi- nized labor. era advocates (mostly afflu- zation for Women (now) in 1966, two ent white women) were immediately con- years later.41

141 (1) Winter 2012 111 The Lyndon Johnson, with his Texas pop- historic civil rights allies, divided over edu- Changing ulist understanding that an ideal is worth cational quotas and community control American Narrative only what you can pay for it, had commit- of urban public schools, black power, and ted billions in seed-money to make Great Israel. Woodstock was a parallel universe Society projects economically feasible. of free love, pot, and protest music for the Johnson’s actions repeatedly commended boomer generation. Women had gained themselves to an Aeschylus. Six months their civil rights with Title VII; feminists after his remarkable “We Shall Over- were pushing hard for reproductive rights. come” speech to Congress, the president Historian Allen Matusow entitled his his- signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act with tory of a fractious decade of race, reform, King and Rosa Parks looking on, then and reaction The Unraveling of America.43 proceeded to send 144,000 troops to Viet- When Johnson signed the Immigration nam.42 Whether the socioeconomic mo- and Nationality Act and the Voting Rights mentum of the Great Society could have Act, both in 1965, he predicted, as did the repositioned a sizable mass of black peo- legislation’s congressional and pressure- ple and survived the genuinely experi- group sponsors, that the societal impact enced, but also politically instigated, egal- of the ½rst would be relatively small, itarian consternation of many white peo- but that the political consequences of ple is moot. The president who could have the second civil rights legislation would been the nation’s greatest since Lincoln be seismic. Prescient about the Voting destroyed himself in a war against god- Rights Act, Johnson would be stupe½ed less communism that his imperturbable forty-½ve years later to see the demo- defense secretary eventually discovered graphic momentum unleashed after re- to have been based on a false conception. peal of the racialist 1924 Johnson-Reed At the end of the 1960s, the country be- Immigration Act and dramatically re- gan to suffer from narrative indigestion. corded in the 2010 U.S. Census. In a burst Myrdal’s American Creed was dismissed of melting-pot euphoria, lbj and the 89th as a liberal illusion. Martin Luther King, Congress enriched and complicated the Jr. and Robert Kennedy’s American dream original narrative of an American racial went up in flames after Memphis. dyad of white and black. The 2030 U.S. As imperial and domestic events (the Census is almost certain to be complexly 1965 Watts race riots in Los Angeles ap- multiracial and multicultural. Johnson’s palled most Americans, black and white) prediction, that with the 1965 Voting eroded the solid closure in income dis- Rights Act he had signed away inde½nite- parities between middle-class black and ly his party’s historic command of the white families, the national narrative South’s white electorate, proved accurate. sounded themes of zero-sum injustice. African Americans remember the sym- Conservative media broadcast the Great bolism of Ronald Reagan kicking off Society as ½nanced by white working- his 1980 presidential campaign in Phil- class tax dollars. Catholic philosopher adelphia, Mississippi, where mention was Michael Novak’s unmeltable ethnics re- made not of Goodman, Chaney, and Sch- appeared, mobilized against school bus- werner, the slaughtered young civil rights ing, permissive lifestyles, disrespect for workers, but of Jefferson Davis and Robert the flag, law and order breakdown, and E. Lee. When Reagan captured the South an emerging gay liberation movement in 1980 (Jimmy Carter’s Georgia except- launched by the Stonewall riots in June ed) and again in the 1984 landslide, with 1969. Middle-class blacks and liberal Jews, George H.W. Bush following in 1988,

112 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences pollsters and pundits proclaimed a his- increasingly not to be able to work at all. David toric and fundamental realignment in na- What’s the Matter with Kansas?, indeed, Levering Lewis tional politics.44 Still, it took much more asked journalist Thomas Frank of people than the gop’s winning of the South to ready to vote against their own self-inter- win the hearts and minds of much of the ests.46 The Radical Right tapped into those rest of America. The beginnings of neo- ancient underground veins of American conservative, or Radical Right, political nativism, fundamentalism, and anti-intel- success antedated the Reagan Revolution lectualism, into paranoia, violence, and by some three decades, however; it dated gender consternation, to produce an alloy back to the beginnings of the Cold War combining, as seldom before, the politics and the origins of a group of intellectuals of resentment with that of economic roy- cultivated and promoted by the cia, back alism. This squaring of political and cul- to the 1964 Goldwater presidential run. A tural circles amounted to an epic achieve- British observer tracked its history in a ment that was meant to spell the death of book whose title is its argument: The government in the life of the market, the World Turned Right Side Up.45 end of the regulated market economy and Reagan was the smiling face and good- of the social services dependent on tax cheer voice of an ideology that seemed to revenues derived from it. The rightward erupt with dumbfounding suddenness to shift in market deregulation, the ½nancial- mock the narratives of Hofstadter consen- ization of the economy, and debt-½nanced sus and Schlesinger vital centrism. After consumption continued under the Dem- years of false starts around the conserva- ocratic version of Reagan, William Jeffer- tive publications the National Review and son Clinton. The American Spectator, after years spent brooding in a handful of conservative, On the morning of September 11, 2001, second-tier think tanks and foundations American exceptionalism experienced its and the moneyed purlieus of Orange greatest trauma since Pearl Harbor. Nine- County, after devising an emotive politi- teen anonymous young Muslim men in cal language (coded for race and gender) hijacked airplanes inflicted a morti½ca- aimed at working-class whites and their tion upon the world’s colossus, a nation struggling suburban cousins, the new neo- whose military-industrial complex stood conservatism, or Radical Right, emerged ready to ½ght three simultaneous cam- as a powerful, vote-getting synthesis of paigns, even though the implosion of the antitheses and a major shift in the Amer- Soviet Union deprived the U.S. Pentagon ican narrative: populism bonded to plu- of any credible menace that justi½ed the tocracy. Yet it seamlessly wove together arsenal at its disposal. Niebuhr might have two long threads of that narrative in order invoked our besetting imperial “innocen- to swear by a Jeffersonian wariness of gov- cy” in helpful, partial explanation of what ernment and a Jacksonian resentment of Americans almost universally regarded old money and elite culture. as an unjusti½ed act of madness. Few had The Radical Right made it possible for seen or remembered cnn reporter Peter the employees of industries that were be- Arnett’s revealing interview with Osama ing merged, downsized, or outsourced, or bin Laden in the mountains of Jalalabad had completely disappeared, to vote for four years before 9/11. Bin Laden spoke politicians beholden to the very people then of his hatred for the United States who were forcing these employees to work with little display of passion: “It wants to for lower wages and fewer bene½ts, and occupy our countries, steal our resources,

141 (1) Winter 2012 113 The impose on us agents to rule us . . . and essentials of health and education stands Changing wants us to agree to all these. If we refuse the stark wealth of the top 1 percent of American 47 Narrative to do so, it will say, ‘You are terrorists.’” Americans–current owners of 42 percent A decade of imperial overreach has proved of the nation’s ½nancial wealth, up from to have been a counterproductive response 34.6 percent four years ago.48 to a perversion of Islam. All else seeming to fail, the vital center Seven years after 9/11, the American way no longer holding and consensus fraying, of life was again shaken to its foundation 53 percent of the electorate wagered in by the Great Recession of 2008. The logic 2008 that it could deny race by af½rm- of an unregulated market economy pro- ing its non-importance, and thereby au- duced its predetermined result. Wall Street daciously transform the exceptionalist shuddered and well over $7 trillion evap- narrative. The choice before us, however, orated in the housing bubble. Homeown- is still much the same as that posited by ers lost 55 percent of their housing wealth, Du Bois when he described two antithet- for many their major asset and symbol of ical versions of the American narrative: success. The American middle class, the one based on “freedom, intelligence and historic protagonist of the American nar- power for all men; the other was industry rative, became an endangered species. for private pro½t directed by an autocracy Against a bleak backdrop of indebtedness, determined at any price to amass wealth unemployment, and rapid decline in tra- and power.” ditional jobs and the affordability of the

endnotes 1 “Farewell Speech–President Reagan’s Farewell Speech from the Oval Of½ce,” January 11, 1989, Reagan Foundation; available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKVsq2daR8Q. 2 The following are but a few of the recent books conveying an end-of-days prognosis: Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropoli- tan Books/Holt, 2008); Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987); and Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008). 3 Aaron Gutfeld, American Exceptionalism: The Effects of Plenty on the American Experience (Brigh- ton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press, 2002), 26; Deborah L. Madsen, American Exceptionalism (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), 2, 10, 36; Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), chap. 1. 4 Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (1782; Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2005); Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Harvey C. Mans½eld and Delba Winthrop (1835; London: The Folio Soci- ety, 2002); David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography (New York: Holt, 2009). 5 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 326. 6 W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: 1860–1880, with an introduction by David Levering Lewis (1935; New York: Atheneum, 1992), 182. 7 Ibid., 183. 8 Ibid. 9 Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), 435.

114 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences 10 Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 182. David 11 Levering Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (1948; New York: Lewis Vintage, 1989), xxxvii. 12 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York: Scribner, 1952), chap. 1. 13 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Farewell Address to the Nation, quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 484. 14 David Rothkopf, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004). 15 Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, 176. 16 Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, quoted in Bacevich, The Limits of Power, 4. 17 See William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (Cleveland: World Pub- lishing, 1959); and William Appleman Williams, Empire as a Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America’s Present Predicament, Also a Few Thoughts About an Alternative (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). By contrast, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, a Bush-era meditation by historian Niall Ferguson in the spirit of Rudyard Kipling’s advice to his Atlantic cousins, would appear to settle the debate, whether or not one com- mends Ferguson’s applause for empire. See Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (New York: Penguin, 2005). 18 Bacevich, The Limits of Power, 25. 19 Cf. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s combative The Vital Center, David Potter’s nuanced People of Plen- ty, Daniel Boorstin’s effusive trilogy, The Americans, Henry Nash Smith’s discerning Virgin Land, R.W.B. Lewis’s rich The American Adam, and Louis Hartz’s Panglossian The Liberal Tra- dition in America; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949); David Potter, People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955); Daniel Boorstin, The Americans, 3 vols. (New York: Random House, 1958–1973); Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The Ameri- can West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950); R.W.B. Lewis, The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955); Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpre- tation of American Political Thought Since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955). 20 Cf. Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003). 21 That Du Bois narrowly escaped federal prison in 1951 for his published opinions while Colum- bia University’s proli½c Allan Nevins absolved John D. Rockefeller of robber-baron taint in two volumes the previous year could be read only as Cold War paradox. 22 Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, ix. 23 Quoted in Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American His- torical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 300. 24 Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, 1962). 25 David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denny, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953); C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956). 26 Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition; Schlesinger, The Vital Center; Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 19. 27 Hofstadter, quoted in Byron Shafer, ed., Is America Different? A New Look at American Excep- tionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 16. 28 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 330.

141 (1) Winter 2012 115 The 29 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Ltd., 1973), 13. Changing 30 American Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Un½nished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Narrative Row, 1988). Howard University historian and Du Bois acolyte, Rayford W. Logan, called the period after 1890 the “nadir” for black people in his seminal book, originally titled The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877–1901. See Rayford W. Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson (1954; New York: Da Capo Press, 1997). 31 Quoted in Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Vintage, 1977), 80; Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (New York: Knopf, 1979). 32 Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 109; Matthew Guterl, The Color of Race in America: 1900–1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002). 33 Gallup Poll data are taken from “Snapshots In Time: The Public in the Civil Rights Era,” http://www.publicagenda.org/civilrights/civilrights.htm. 34 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, 2 vols. (New York: Harper, 1944), 1, lxxi. See David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963 (New York: Holt, 2000), esp. chap. 12; David W. Southern, Gunnar Myrdal and Black-White Relations: The Use and Abuse of “An American Dilemma,” 1944–1969 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987); Walter A. Jack- son, Gunnar Myrdal and America’s Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938– 1987 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). 35 Quoted in Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois, II, 557. 36 Legal scholar Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., found the expectation sadly wanting ½fty years later; see Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004). 37 Eisenhower had barely concealed his antipathy for Brown, and the Kennedy assassination terminated tentative civil rights responses. On Eisenhower’s hostility to Brown, see Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President: The Renowned One-Volume Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 367–368. 38 Congresswoman Edith Green lectured era advocates that, however badly women have been treated, “there has been ten times as much discrimination against the Negro”; quoted in Gail Collins, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from the 1960s to the Present (New York: Little, Brown, 2009), 78. 39 When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission timidly took seriously Title VII’s sexual nondiscrimination mandate, the arbitral New Republic demanded to know why “a mischievous joke perpetrated on the floor of the House [should] be treated by a responsible administrative body with this kind of seriousness?”; quoted in Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (New York: Penguin, 2000), 73. 40Collins, When Everything Changed, 12. 41 Quoted in Belinda Robnett, How Long? How Long?: African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 131. See also Rosen, The World Split Open. 42 Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1978 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); reviewed by David Levering Lewis, “The Mission,” The New Yorker, January 23 and 30, 2006, 86–91. 43 Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Harper & Row, 1984). 44 Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003).

116 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences 45 Godfrey Hodgson, The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in David America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996); Justin Vaisse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of Levering a Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010). Lewis 46 Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas? (New York: Holt, 2004); Thomas Frank, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule (New York: Holt, 2008). 47 Quoted in Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Knopf, 2006), 247. 48 Rex Nutting, “How the Bubble Destroyed the Middle Class,” Marketwatch, July 8, 2011.

141 (1) Winter 2012 117 Narrative C

E. L. Doctorow

In the seventeenth century, North America was conceived by Europeans as an escape from Europe, a New Found Land for religious separatism and the aggregation of unspoken-for wealth. It was in this era of colonial activity that the seeds of the Ameri- can narrative had to have been planted. England, France, Spain, and Holland all had staked a claim, but after a hundred and ½fty or so years of farming and trading and warring, somehow the English communities along the East Coast prevailed–they prevailed over the French and the Dutch, over the wilderness, over the sometimes hostile native populations, and rather late in the game, they prevailed E. L. DOCTOROW, a Fellow of the over the English monarchy. And so the breath of American Academy since 1991, is Self-Determination was slapped into our country the Lewis and Loretta Glucksman at its birth. Professor of American Literature at New York University. He has been shortlisted for the International However we think of ourselves as a nation–call Man Booker Prize and is a recipient it our narrative, call it our identity myth–it is a sus- of the National Humanities Medal. taining thing insofar as it does not square with His recent publications include some of the grim realities of our history. Children The March (2005), which received pen are repositories of one version of the classic narra- the 2006 /Faulkner Award and tive, as, for example, it was invested in me and my the 2006 National Book Critics Cir- cle Award and was a Pulitzer Prize grade school classmates in the 1930s. During our ½nalist; Homer & Langley (2009); school assemblies, everything we believed about and All the Time in the World: New our country seemed to emanate from the American and Selected Stories (2011). flag up on the stage. We pledged our allegiance to it.

118 We looked at its ½eld of colors, and spoke of the ½ercely held, chaste American nar- E. L. the words of the colors, red white and rative in the mind of the newly arrived Doctorow blue, and that’s what we carried with us immigrant. Survival may be dif½cult, as our feeling, as something as free and as nativist resistance to his presence may be bright and agile as we were afterward in oppressive, but if he is prepared to strug- our games. We all knew the difference gle, to live a menial life, his children will between what was fair and what was go to college. America is the diaspora of unfair, and the colors of the flag and the choice, a country in which the freedom to words for the colors meant what was fair. succeed or fail transfers one’s fate to one’s The assumption we made from those col- character, something not possible in the ors was of a real, unwavering order of jus- brutal, degraded class society of the aban- tice for everyone, whether they were big doned country. or little, rich or poor. The expectation we In this shared idealism of the child’s in- had from those colors was of the bene½- stilled faith and the immigrant’s ground- cent intent of an elected American govern- kissing gratitude, the United States of ment, standing in service to all its citizens America is forever the New Found Land. and working to ensure their well-being. Call this version Narrative A. This was the naive, somewhat leftish version of the American narrative appro- There is a related narrative that, if as priately tuned to the time of the Great idealistic, is not naive. In this version, the Depression. Our teachers, knowing how flag, and the words of the colors red white shaky things were, intoned, as in prayer, and blue, stand for a justi½able American that America was exceptional. We were a hegemony. It says we are a superpower little too young to take in the Constitu- with a military capacity second to none tion and the Bill of Rights, and so the col- and an economy that, whatever its ups ors, and the words of the colors red white and downs, is the envy of the world. The and blue, are what stood in our minds for generative sources of our historically un- the resolved democratic presence of a precedented national wealth are a free nation of people who had come from all market philosophy, technological cre- over the world to be free. They could go ativity, and the limited liability corpora- to whatever church they pleased. They tion. Underlying all is the inarguable could speak out without being punished Social Darwinist distinction that must be for it. They could vote. If they were old, made between the haves and the have- they could have a government pension. nots. There is no help for that. We are, We knew all that. And so we carried the after all, part of the natural world in which image of our flag and the words for the the ½ttest prevail. Nevertheless, everyone colors of our flag outside in the sun and has the right to worship as he pleases, to clean air of our playgrounds. write what he pleases and say what he Something like this lovely narrative may pleases, as long as his speech does not be held in the minds of schoolchildren libel, slander, or incite criminal activity. today. Many foreigners who continue to We enjoy a degree of free imaginative come here from all over the world harbor expression that few cultures in the world a version along the same lines. The dif½- can tolerate. But the colors red white and culty of emigrating–of escaping from blue and the words for the colors mean despotism, from a theocracy, from an this is a country free to do business. There overwhelmingly corrupt class society, or are those who do not appreciate the genius from irremediable poverty–is a measure of commerce unhampered by government

141 (1) Winter 2012 119 Narrative C controls. There are always those who want left the edges of the parchment seared, but to ½x what does not need ½xing. These ele- the document is still intact, having appar- ments include people in government and ently withstood all abuses but one: when labor organizations. It will not do to forget it was invoked to endorse slavery, and a we are a democratic Republic in periodic war had to be fought to redact it. danger of becoming a socialist state. The Constitution is our flag written Call this Narrative B. out in the penmanship of the Founding Fathers. It is the text that, given our roiling That the 1930s child’s (A) and the Social history, we do not perfectly embody. It is Darwinist’s (B) are the Left’s and the what we hold to as our identity despite Right’s versions of the American narrative the harsh realities of our national con- is borne out by the nature of our political duct over 235 years. It is the repository of life, which oscillates between expansive our ideals, shimmering in ambiguity but periods of social inclusion and contract- holding in its articles all the arguments ing periods of social triage. So the ver- we muster in our seemingly endless left- sions are competitive. (We may go further ist/rightist readings. Finally, we live in it, and acknowledge them as the flags car- it is our house of many mansions. If any- ried by our contemporary Democratic and one on the Left or Right were to pull it Republican parties.) But despite their dif- down we would have a narrative only ferences, they are bound together by their nominally American. But that would take belief in American exceptionalism. They some doing, and it would come not from have similarly benign views of our historic the efforts, legal or illegal, of some mar- territorial expansion, either as a kind of ginal political party; it would come from liberation theology or as manifest destiny, the top, which is how houses are usually and they are equally steadfast in their alle- pulled down. giance to the flag and to the Republic for Here, in this regard, I offer a view of the which it stands, as delineated in the articles last ten years or so of our political life. of the Constitution and its amendments. Finally, the crucial differences between George W. Bush was installed as presi- leftist and rightist versions of the Ameri- dent in the year 2000, when the Supreme can narrative come to be argued in their Court countermanded the Florida Su- claims of constitutional authority. The preme Court’s ruling that a statewide re- Constitution is our sacred text. Like all count be conducted, the election in Flori- sacred texts, it is subject to commentary, da having shown a difference of only a to interpretation, and to statutory appli- few hundred votes between Mr. Bush and cation. Its operative verb, shall, speaks to Vice President Al Gore. There were good the endless future (“The Congress shall have reasons, including the fact that Mr. Gore Power To lay and collect Taxes . . .”), and so won the national vote count, that Repub- its articles and amendments, while laying lican courthouse rallies at the time verged down the structure of the nation-state, on thuggery, that the Florida secretary of provide also the means to deal with un- state, a Republican, refused to grant exten- imagined circumstances. Historically, the sions to counties that had asked for more Constitution may have been marred by time to recount, that the votes of three readings of this or that judiciary, and the counties where many African Americans difference between its proscriptions and lived were never counted at all–good rea- the actual conduct of citizens who have sons to feel that, as in some banana repub- claimed to live according to them may have lic, the legitimacy of a sitting president

120 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences was in doubt, and that some damage had an insurgent war against Nicaragua in E. L. been done to the Constitution. violation of the Intelligence Authorization Doctorow From the moment this president chose Act, the Arms Export Control Act, and the to invade Iraq, claiming speciously that it Neutrality Act). But it is that nascent cul- had nuclear weapons of mass destruction, ture of presidential autonomy created in he appeared relentless in his violations of the forty or so years before the election of Article VI of the Constitution (“the Con- 2000 (“If the president does it, it’s not stitution, and all Laws of the United States illegal,” said Richard Nixon) that floated which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and Bush to his level of lawlessness–from his all Treaties made, or which shall be made, predecessors’ indifference to his irrever- under the authority of the United States, shall ence, from their disrespect to his heed- be the supreme law of the Land”). The un lessness, from their blasphemy to his sub- Security Council voted to reject the U.S. version. He had taken an oath to preserve, decision to invade Iraq pending further protect, and defend the Constitution of efforts to gain inspection of the alleged the United States. His actions altogether wmd caches, and though the United would, as a clear moral imperative, call States is a signatory of the un Charter, for criminal prosecution. The fact that a this president went ahead with his inva- successor administration under a Demo- sion. He would subsequently refuse, with cratic president has refused to bring a sophistic reasoning supplied by his law- case against Mr. Bush and his advisers is yers, to honor this country’s observance a pragmatic but tragically wrong politi- of the Geneva Convention regarding the cal decision. President Obama indicated treatment of prisoners of war. He would a desire not to dwell on the past but to violate the Treaty Against Torture and the move the country forward. If he felt, on Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, consideration, that everything else in the which prohibits the infliction of cruel or way of government business might grind unusual punishment, calling the torture to a halt were a legal case to be mounted, he had ordered only “enhanced interroga- it is something the Republican Party has tion.” Other profound constitutional mat- managed to achieve anyway, even in the ters, such as the writ of habeas corpus, the face of Obama’s bipartisan comity. Incal- unreasonable search and seizures amend- culable damage is done to our sacred text ment (IV), had to be reassessed by the when such unconstitutional precedents courts or bypassed by congressional leg- are put in place and left standing. If the islation, all under the pressure of this American narrative derives from our cov- president’s deconstructive policies. enant with the Constitution, to break that Is it naive, given the dangers to the na- covenant is to redact our way to another tion from international terrorism, to de- narrative. Two years into the Obama pres- mand strict observance of the supreme idency, the damage is showing up in the laws of the land? Hasn’t the sacred text streets as an antigovernment Tea Party been treated carelessly before this? Abuses populism, a vindictive party-above-coun- occurred in the presidencies of Richard try politics of the Right in Congress itself, Nixon (who resigned after facing im- and with a sense overall of some malign peachment for obstruction of justice and antinomian spirit abroad on the land. abuse of power) and Ronald Reagan (who was not impeached or forced to resign for Republicans in Texas backed George his administration’s secret sale of arms to Bush’s runs for governor of Texas, and for Iran and diversion of the proceeds to fund president, not because of his sterling char-

141 (1) Winter 2012 121 Narrative C acter or his intelligence but because he had workers, and shareholders. They all are a name and had grown up drenched in the humans of human dimension, but how- values of the oil business. Having come late ever good and ½ne they are as people, they to religion and sobriety, he was, for many, are indentured to the corporate creature a true American, one who would blur the to whom–for one reason or another– division of church and state, champion they have given their loyalty and, in some deregulation, and govern on behalf of the cases, their lives. The corporation’s de- people who had put him in of½ce. mands require their submission if, as He had been for years something of a workers, they are not to lose their jobs, or lout, by all accounts silver spooned as the as shareholders they are not to lose their eldest son of a political family, exempt all investment, or as executives they are not his life from the usual consequences of to lose their year-end bonuses and their bad behavior, proudly anti-intellectual as a reputations in the business magazines. college student, and all his life contrarian Whatever seeming humanity is the cor- as a matter of principle, so that holding the poration’s, it is of an authoritarian char- country’s highest of½ce, with deadly stu- acter. And so I look at what the Court has pidity behind the guile, he made policy given the First Amendment right of free leaving the American middle class reeling, speech: the wealthy relieved of their share of tax- If it is a corporation that sells cigarettes es, the Treasury burdened with enormous proven to cause lung cancer, it will con- debt, the environment trashed, many tinue to sell cigarettes. thousands dead from his elective war, and, If it is an oil company amassing enor- with apparent reasonableness after 9/11, mous pro½ts, it will continue to expect the rights of a free American citizenry se- government subsidies. verely compromised, their phone calls and email data-mined, their business, medical, If it is a credit card corporation, it will and public library records sequestered, ½nd a way to charge increasingly usurious and, in disregard of constitutional safe- interest rates. guards, secret warrantless searches made If it is a health insurance corporation, it of their homes and businesses. will insure a person until she becomes Mr. Bush also left us with a Supreme seriously ill. Court seeded with arch-conservatives of If it is a pharmaceutical corporation, his own and his father’s predilection that it will create a medicine for which it will would go on, in Citizens United v. Federal invent a disease or condition the medicine Election Commission, to af½rm the First can treat. Amendment right of free speech of cor- If it is a coal mining company, it will porations, declaring them equivalent to strip-mine a mountain, destroying the sur- human beings, thus bringing into the rounding ecology and leaving the land American narrative something like the desolate to the people who live there. fervid life of a golem. If it is a multinational corporation, it How valid is the Court’s ruling that cor- will park offshore pro½ts in foreign tax porations are ontologically equivalent to havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes. human beings, perhaps even a new branch If it is a Wall Street bank responsible of human life distinguished only by its for the subprime mortgage scandal, it limited liability? A modern corporation will reward its executives with bonuses is composed of of½cers, trustees, lawyers, consisting of taxpayer bailout money.

122 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences If it is an energy company with coal- surance. A corporation will advertise itself E. L. ½red furnaces that cause acid rain to fall as having a human face, as being in busi- Doctorow over the eastern states, it will refuse to ness to serve the public, and it will display invest in equipment that would end acid its workers, usually of many races, smiling rainfall over the eastern states. and doing their jobs. Yet these same work- If it is an ocean ½shing corporation, it ers will be let go if the corporation is not will use industrial technology to net a meeting its projected pro½ts, or they will kind of ½sh to extinction, and then go on be deemed superfluous when the corpo- to another ½shery and do the same with ration merges with another corporation. another kind of ½sh. It’s nothing personal, and it never is: the corporation either makes the pro½t per If it is an oil company, it will deny the stockholder share that it needs to keep existence of global warming in the inter- attracting investors, or it doesn’t. est of maintaining the demand for oil. But if we accept corporations on their If it is a life insurance company, it will own terms, we cannot at the same time administer the death bene½ts given to grant them human rights. They simply families who have lost sons and daugh- lack the range of feelings or values that ters in the war, paying them 1 percent de½ne what it is to be human. Humans interest on their money while collecting can act against their own interests, they 5 percent interest on it in their own cor- can feel sympathy for others, they can be porate investment accounts. merciful. Corporations cannot act except If it is any corporation, no matter what in their own interest, they do not know its business, it will ½ght attempts to regu- compassion and will not act mercifully late its practices. unless there is some public relations ad- As inarguable as these statements are, vantage to it. Corporations do not live and they should not be read as a moral bill of die, they continue to exist in one form or particulars. Such huge corporations as another apart from the life and death of these operate in accordance with their rea- their members. Corporate executives will son for being. It makes no more sense to support candidates who best serve the condemn them for what they are than to corporate interests, and it will not matter condemn a tiger for running down a fawn that they themselves or their shareholders for dinner. A corporation is formed to pro- may feel differently. There will be an over- duce wealth. While the people who work riding logic to the corporate choice that for it can take pride in their work, per- alone is indication that a powerful busi- haps designing and producing something ness entity whom human beings work in that sends them home at the end of a service to is not itself a human being de- workday feeling that they have accom- serving of First Amendment rights. plished something, the corporation itself Corporations may be great tromping go- is indifferent to the product or the means lems of clay striding the earth, or they may by which its wealth is produced. It will be robotic creatures programmed to smile grow bigger and bigger through mergers and say hi, but they are not us. We hu- –that is the corporate proclivity–and, as mans work for these corporations, we pull it does, the different things by which it the levers and sit at the computers, but we produces wealth will have less and less re- are controlled by the unyielding logic of lation to one another. A food corporation the corporate ethos and we do things as will produce jet engines, and a soap and functionaries that we would not do in our toothpaste corporation will sell auto in- personal lives. The corporation diffuses

141 (1) Winter 2012 123 Narrative C responsibility, supplies rationales. The lia- of a Cold War arsenal of nuclear weapons, bility is limited and the rewards are great. we have fought two wars in Asia, one of which, Vietnam, was never suf½ciently How is anything made different by the justi½ed. We have had simultaneous wars Supreme Court’s ruling that corporations in two Mideast countries, and we are oc- have the First Amendment right of free cupied fending off an international terror- speech and can put up all the money they ist movement. We have found ourselves care to on behalf of their chosen can- the sponsors of torture and imprisonment didates right up to the day of election? without trial of presumed terrorists. We Doesn’t the ruling confer on labor unions learned well after the fact that we our- the same rights? And, after all, corporate selves were subject to secret illegal surveil- lobbies have been a ½xture in Washing- lance by our government, all of these mea- ton ever since politics as an amateur call- sures claimed as wartime expedients and ing gave way to the professionals. A promoted with a propaganda of fear. We politician’s backers are repaid with a sen- are severely alienated by gross economic sitivity to their interests. This is hardly inequalities, the ever-with-us malefactors news. It is the recurrent truth of Wash- of great wealth thriving at the expense of ington, so rhythmically repetitive as to be the middle class. Fourteen million of us its heartbeat. are out of work. Almost two-and-a-half But the corporate sector is already so million are locked down in our prisons. It dominant in its influence as to make of has been quietly accepted that though a this decision a release of errant energy former president and some members of through the corridors of Washington. The his cabinet committed crimes against commentators and politicians who see the Constitution, they are above the law. this as a triumph of First Amendment Elected know-nothings prance about in thinking are, like the Court, supposing cor- Washington ready to tear down any pro- porate animacy to be a kind of human life. gram that looks like it might help people. There is such a failure of analysis in that, Our once glorious system of free public it is so obviously fallacious that, granting education is in disarray. And our Supreme the intellectual capacity and learning of Court, perhaps anticipating an unreliable the justices who voted with the majority, democratic future for the country, has their decision may reflect a point of view turned to the business community for that is simply ideological. That they af- leadership, granting it the power to change ½rm the First Amendment on behalf of big the composition of the Congress. business has its ironies. They overturned All this seems to me a process of na- elements of two major campaign ½nance tional deformation. reform laws with this decision. How can It may be dif½cult to imagine a time anyone honestly believe it will promote when the producers of our refrigerators democracy? Corporations are insular, and washing machines, our cars and their members will put forth the corporate planes, computers, and high-de½nition interests regardless of the manifest needs tvs, the big-box marketers of our food of the country or the planet. In fact, they and baby clothes and outdoor grills, the will do more than that, they will conflate owners of our oil re½neries and the pro- their interests with the public good. ducers of our pesticides and engineered food crops, the proprietors of our steel We have been since the end of World forges, chemical factories, media compa- War II a national military state. Guardians nies, and nuclear energy plants, the oper-

124 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences ators of our banks, and manufacturers of recognition devices, unmanned aerial E. L. our arms, all of them so insistently the vehicles with the capacity to peer through Doctorow suppliers of the good and essential things windows from a great distance, and data in life, could somehow, by the relentless- banks of credit card and cell phone ac- ness of their corporate energies, reconsti- counts and Internet social networks–to tute us as a nation. keep the citizenry under close watch. How would that work? Tocqueville I suppose this is a vision of what could proposed that tyranny might arrive here be called corporate fascism. It seems in stealthily, as a kind of catatonia coming many ways to approximate the Chinese over a sheep-like population. Let us say model of State Capitalism, though the that in our time it could arrive by degrees Chinese prefer to describe what they have with the acquiescence of a propagandized as “a market economy with Chinese char- population: the massive exercise of cor- acteristics.” Perhaps we will have a mar- porate First Amendment rights having ket economy with American characteris- methodically put in place a sitting House tics and a Constitution still seemingly in- and Senate composed of old pols who, violate–as is the written Chinese consti- over the years, have been the most corpo- tution in defense of which Communist rate-compliant, plus freshly groomed, Party secretaries throw into jail anyone suited, and coiffed professional lobbyists, who asks them to live up to it. and Congress comes into session as a shin- But apart from any speculation of ours, ing example of a one-party democracy. nobody at this moment can consider the Antitrust laws, so indifferently applied for state of our nation without foreboding. so long, are revoked. The impersonal exac- The inanity of much of our political dis- tions of a ruling corporate culture begin course is evidence of a national intellect to determine social policy. Federal regu- ill equipped to respond to global emer- latory agencies overseeing business and gencies. By every measure the planet is labor practices are disbanded. Unions are showing severe signs of stress. Yet the abolished. There is a steady progression facts of dire climatic change are promot- of corporate mergers as the game players ed as fantasy, or as a conspiracy of leftist converge to compete or collude. A Dar- scientists. To the extent that the mega- winian principle of natural selection corporations subscribe to this view, their eventuates in megacorporations with the characteristic self-interest is maladaptive. economic heft and working populations Eventually, there may have to be wars for of ½efdoms. Collectively, they cannot be water, for tillable land, for livable climates. distinguished from the government. Yet The mournful facts seem to be clouding up with the degradation of the middle class as if some black spiritual weather is com- –working people unable to buy what they ing. A darkness. So one way or another are producing–the economy begins a the idea of a free citizenry of the red white downward spiral. Street demonstrations and blue, along with what we think of as pop up in several cities. With the popu- our exceptionalist democracy, may no lace ½nally awakening, Selective Service longer be sustainable. If that is so, we will is reinstated. The corporate ceo who has have written a new American narrative, assumed the presidency relies on Home- though, after all, I don’t think anyone can land Security surveillance technology know just how it will read. developed during the war on terrorism– Call it Narrative C. gps handhelds, facial recognition software, behavioral biometrics, body heat

141 (1) Winter 2012 125 Spooked

Gish Jen

Ours is a worried America, a jittery, teetery, bee- tle-browed America. Have we lost our oomph, our stomach, our moxie, our way? And is that our doom we see before us, on a big red cloud with a billion people on it? Well, maybe. Certainly it’s been a while since we looked up and beheld a clear blue sky. Now we see ozone depletion, smog, intruders–we parse what we used to drink in. As we have for a while: John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, in the last of the Rabbit books, envisioned his death as descending out of the azure, “shaped vaguely like an airplane.” And by book’s end, it’s found him–the ex-basketball star, still trying to get some air, though he’s overweight now, nothing antigravity about him, and with something–hmm, might this be a metaphor?–the mat- GISH JEN, a Fellow of the Amer- ter with his heart. That was Updike’s America, circa ican Academy since 2009, is the 1990–an America that could not pass up a candy author of the novels Typical Amer- bar. Now the Japanese measure their waists and ican (1991), Mona in the Promised apply peer pressure to the metabo, while we Ameri- Land (1996), The Love Wife (2004), cans grow ever more immeasurable. Not that every- and World and Town (2010), as well one is a whale, of course–look at the Seals! And as a collection of stories, Who’s Irish? (1999). Her work has also isn’t Michelle Obama getting us to move? appeared in The New Yorker, The Still, we worry. As for the foil to the story that is Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, young America, ½t America, ready-for-all-comers and The New York Times. America, it is Asia. The Vietnamese who tunneled

126 right under our troops. The Japanese who And, well, let them. It’s the doubt in our Gish Jen showed us how real cars were made. (Is minds that matters more. For generations there a German word for relief at some- we’ve taken our superiority for granted, one else’s stagflation?) Now it’s China. after all; it’s a story by which we’ve lived. “The nineteenth century went to England, We have taken it for granted, too, that we the twentieth, to America,” goes a saying. were the envy of the world, which we may “The twenty-½rst belongs to China.” It’s still be: stories abound of our foes apply- something you hear every now and then ing, if they have the chance, to come study in America. In China, you hear it all the in the United States–of their applying, time. But is it true? Or is China the new even, for citizenship. These are stories of Japan–a tiger that spooks us but will which we take note. The irony, we say. It prove a paper tiger in the end? Sure, the just goes to show. Though what does it Chinese have a railway from Chongqing show? Some of these changelings want to Europe now–an iron Silk Road that to become American. Others, though, just runs all the way to Germany. And sure, want a safety net. China crazy place, a man they’ve built the world’s longest over- said to me once. You never know what’s going water bridge; and maybe they can boast to happen there. Up, down. You never know. some pretty fast trains, too. But what True enough. Still, look at Shanghai, about that train crash in Wenzhou? And people say. Look at Shenzhen. Look at Zaha isn’t there a case to be made that more Hadid’s new Guangzhou Opera House. regular trains are what’s needed, not Thirty years ago, you could barely drive a showcase trains with no passengers? car down even the avenues in Guangzhou And what about China’s top-heavy pop- thanks to the crowds and the animals. ulation and its many state-sponsored The people spit. They had no sense of time. enterprises, not to say the 140,000 Everything amazed them. Up north in of½cial graft cases that were ½led last Shandong, I remember impressing my col- year? How many unof½cial cases there leagues at the Coal Mining Institute with were, no one knows. But such is the cor- my intimate acquaintance with refrigera- ruption, such is the pollution, such is tors. They were wowed by my ability to the lackluster innovation, not to say the identify that mysterious item, the egg rack, discontent among the hundred million as for eggs; almost no one had seen a re- plus migrant workers, that for all the frigerator before. To make a phone call, you chortling about to whom the twenty-½rst had to ride your bike to a post of½ce in the century will belong, the reaction of many city; sometimes you got a connection and Chinese to Obama’s State of the Union sometimes you didn’t. And this was in this past January was disbelief. Could the Jinan–home today to the hackers who United States really feel threatened by hacked their way into Google. Thirty years China? Our perception of them is of a hu- ago, “communist capitalism” wasn’t even mongous country, with an enormous pop- an oxymoron yet. ulation and enormous reach: witness their The Chinese story is a challenge to ours. buying of U.S. dollars, their buying of It is odd to think a ½ve-thousand-year- Brazilian farmlands; witness their corner- old civilization an upstart, but the Chi- ing of the rare-earths market and more. nese make us look ancient. Big-time cor- In their minds, though, they are David and rupt in a crony capitalist sort of way–wit- we, Goliath. Never mind what a large-ish ness the banking crisis–and, well, slow. David they seem to us. That’s how they tell This democratic process–is it great, after the story. all, or is it cumbersome? Does it not take

141 (1) Winter 2012 127 Spooked forever? Could we Americans ever have were some seventy or eighty kids in a put up a ring road the way China has class. They had no books; the floor was around Beijing–not once, but going on dirt. Everything turned to mud in the rain. six times now? We’re the “can’t do” na- And the kids came or didn’t, of course, or tion, being beaten at our own game. And came too early; some were dropped off at how universal is democracy’s appeal? Peo- 5 so their parents could go work. The kids ple may be everywhere in chains, but how stayed too late, too. As for who was help- many care? Don’t a lot of them just want ing them out, or trying to, that would be a to live like the people they see on tv? And bunch of Americans, who else. does that mean we’re in decline–our It is an unfortunate feature of narrative ideas, our ideals, our model? Or if not that what gets most mental play is what quite that, yet, perhaps at a pause at the our brains deem relevant to survival. top of a ferris wheel–at the “and” of “rise Which is generally what’s most fear- and fall”? The recent revolutions in the some; we’re a spookable species. But be- Middle East have and have not been fore we spook ourselves silly over China, heartening; we’re no bestseller, that’s for perhaps we should recall the story of sure. What’s more, we’re nation building Wang Labs, with its storybook rise and at home for good reason. Trying to do storybook fall. Both were in part because something about the economy. Trying of Chinese-style management, the Wangs to do something about unemployment. having played their cards close to the chest. Trying to do something about education, They kept things in the family, including the environment, everything. Though can their stock; and with these things, they we? When it isn’t democracy standing in kept challenge at bay, too. Stockholders the way, it’s capitalism, our style. A Hous- may be a pain when it comes to oil ½elds, ton oil exec friend told me how frustrat- but might stockholders have kept Wang ing it was to bid against the Chinese for from betting so big on word processors? oil ½elds. Our shareholders, she said. Our Instead, Wang came to dominate an in- short-term orientation. We need to show dustry eventually wiped out by pcs–per- a pro½t tomorrow. Whereas the Chinese sonal computers being able, of course, to don’t, of course. The Chinese are buying do word processing and a lot more. everything. As for whether that’s a tale about cen- We are still the “can do” country, some- tralization and its hazards–it is. Is it a times. We got Osama bin Laden, after all. story about China? We’ll see. In the mean- And there he was, we now know, in his while, here’s another tale from the annals hideout, trying to change Al Qaeda’s of the pc: Apple v. ibm, also known to image, its name. His brand was in trou- all, once, as David v. Goliath. Locked in ble. Which was our victory, in part, was it combat for decades, both companies not, that he should think his group too struggled; and both were down for the violent to appeal to other Muslims? We count more than once. ibm, though, re- have an African American president. We invented and reinvented, and still survives have a woman president of Harvard. We today; and as for Apple, it, too, reinvented have a military that (at least theoretical- and reinvented and, even without Steve ly) no longer discriminates against gays. Jobs, more than survives today. Neither is China has health care for people who can de½ned by the industry over which it pay. It has people who will stand in the once battled–Apple, in fact, dropped the hospital lines for a fee. I once saw a school “Computer” from “Apple Computer” a for migrant children in Beijing; there few years ago. And neither, I think, could

128 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences have foreseen how drastically things Gish Jen would change. But there it is. Things changed; they adapted. Can that be America’s story? Even with China in the picture? David and Goliath (whichever is which), both on their feet for a good bit to come? I am not such a dreamer as to think the slingshot obsolete. Still, I wish we’d write our narrative this way, and believe we still can. Ameri- ca the Open, America the Nimble, Amer- ica the Out-of-the-Box, this would go. America the Resilient, America the Free. America the Unafraid.

141 (1) Winter 2012 129 The Other Case

Michael Wood

Abstract: This essay explores the suggestion that many American narratives are supplementary, correcting narratives–alternatives to the main story on offer. The guiding thought is that of Henry James’s “possible other case,” and the chief example is Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men,” in which one story after another fails to cope with the ongoing mystery it faces. The novel may imply, then, that narrative itself, rather than any individual report or ½ction, is in crisis or has come to the end of its road. A coda to the essay proposes the option of nonnarrative understandings of the world in those extreme situations where storytelling is no longer the sense-making activity we so often take it to be.

“Only she dont mean that,” Quentin Compson thinks at the start of Absalom, Absalom! when Rosa Cold½eld gives him her reasons for telling him her story: that he may become a writer someday, “as so many Southern gentlemen and gentlewomen too are doing now,” and that he will “perhaps . . . remember kindly then the old woman who . . . talked about people and events you were fortunate enough to escape yourself.” In Quentin’s intuitive understanding, Rosa is not thinking about a literature of the future, nor is she worried about her own life in his memory. “It’s because she wants it told,” he insists to himself.1 There is a subtle critical question here. What is it, and what does it mean to want it told? What is the difference between the desired telling, on the one hand, and literature and memory, on the other? The two are not logically or conceptually opposed: MICHAEL WOOD, a Fellow of the literature and memory both deal in, among other American Academy since 2003, is matters, getting things told. So how can Rosa not the Charles Barnwell Straut Class mean what she says, or not mean just that? of 1923 Professor and Professor of Quentin may believe that she is treating him as a Comparative Literature at Prince- recording angel, a scribe who does not even have to ton University. His publications include The Road to Delphi: The Life write, only listen. It will be told when she has ½nished and Afterlife of Oracles (2003), Liter- telling him whatever she has to say. This explana- ature and the Taste of Knowledge tion must be a piece of the truth, but Rosa seems to (2005), and Yeats and Violence (2010). have more in mind: not just a record but a ½lling

130 out or correcting of the record–a record tions of James’s calling irony what others, Michael that will supplement or supplant other and indeed James himself, have usually Wood accounts. This possibility suggests a called romance. de½nition of narrative as it functions in James makes his argument in two differ- the historical and cultural imagination: ent prefaces to the New York edition, not just a story but a further story, a miss- becoming bolder and bolder as he goes. ing story. His ½rst move is an implied distinction National narratives of this kind would between verisimilitude and ½delity to the differ in what they found missing, not only historical record. It is possible, he sug- in what they told but in what they wanted gests, to produce an effect of truthfulness told. For example, what European narra- without any identi½able documentary tives characteristically ½nd missing (and warrant, and if one does not produce this therefore supply) is a sense of reality, effect, then all one’s artistic efforts are while American narratives ½nd reality wasted. This may seem a fairly unconten- itself to be missing something. This dis- tious notion, but James is answering an extinction is familiar in many ways–famil- tremely contentious claim from “a highly iar enough, I think, to have become some- critical friend,” namely, that the writers what mysterious. and artists in James’s ½ction “not only To remind ourselves of the ½rst mode hadn’t existed in the conditions I imputed we have only to think of any great Euro- to them but. . . for the most part. . . couldn’t pean novel, from Don Quixote to Madame possibly have done so.” They were “abso- Bovary and Anna Karenina, or of W. B. lutely unthinkable in our actual encom- Yeats’s response to his reading of George passing air”; there was no “past or present Eliot: “I, who had not escaped the fasci- producible counterfoil” for them; and nation of what I loathed, doubted while “none of my eminent folk were recog- the book lay open whatsoever my instinct niseable.” James is not disclosing irony as knew of splendour.”2 This is his way of his defense at this point; he reaches for saying that Eliot magisterially reminded “tone” and “amusement,” the playful pos- him of the inescapability of reality’s ver- sibility that such folk at least might exist. dict on human chances. The second mode He acknowledges that such a link to real- is identi½ed with extraordinary grace and ity could more properly be thought of as care by Henry James in his Prefaces to the “only a link, and flimsy enough too, with New York edition of his works. In this the deepest depths of the arti½cial,” and essay, I pursue this task of identifying the suggests that the practical test of such missing, only this time in contemporary imaginings is the further work that can be ½ction, where it rewrites the American done on them, the “test of further devel- romance in a rather different register. opment which so exposes the wrong and so consecrates the right.” Meanwhile, he A large part of the interest of James’s has rather grandly anticipated the conclu- American mode is its reliance on irony. sion of his own later argument: There is clearly some distance between If through our lean prime Western period what James is saying and what we think of no dim and charming ghost of an adven- as Romantic irony, although it may be that turous lyric genius might by a stretch of a more extended and informed consider- fancy flit, if the time was really too hard to ation of the relation would close the gap “take,” in the light form proposed, the ele- quite a bit. For the moment, it will be gant reflexion, then so much the worse for enough to consider some of the implica- the time–it was all one could say!3

141 (1) Winter 2012 131 The Fortunately, it was not all one could say, case must look romantic in the derogatory Other and James knew that such a way of win- sense, a generous but helpless flourishing Case ning the argument was also a way of los- of illusion. Indeed, James’s own de½nition ing it–hence his promise to return to the (in his preface to The American) allows for topic “in another hour.” In this second this reading. If “the romantic stands . . . hour, James confesses that he cannot pro- for the things that . . . we never can directly duce “chapter and verse” for the “super- know; the things that can reach us only subtle fry” of his ½ction but sees, “on through the beautiful circuit and subter- going over these things,” that his “postu- fuge of our thought and our desire,” then lates,” his “animating presences . . . were we cannot directly or swiftly know how all . . . ironic.” And he offers his famous, availing (or unavailing) the imagined case far-reaching, and I want to say American, may be, even if we grant its hypothetical de½nition of irony: moral promise (Art of the Novel, 31–32). There are other dif½culties, as Rosa Cold- When it’s not a campaign, of a sort, on ½eld’s story-in-waiting reminds us. From behalf of the something better (better than Faulkner to Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and the obnoxious, the provoking object) that Toni Morrison, American writers have be- blessedly, as is assumed, might be, it’s not lieved in the possible in a way their Euro- worth speaking of. But this is exactly what pean counterparts have not; but the pos- we mean by operative irony. It implies and sible, producible case has included many projects the possible other case, the case rich different notions of what is honorable, and edifying where the actuality is preten- and the honorable thing has often been to tious and vain. (Art of the Novel, 222) tell the truth in its darkest possible ver- Here, the “possible other case” is the imag- sion, the honor lying in the refusal to be inable other case; imaginable and lack- blinded by the darkness. In this sequence, ing, requiring our imagination because it James looks like a noble optimist, cam- is lacking. For James, irony is a matter of paigning through irony for “the some- honor, and in giving us a sense of what he thing better.” But the very word irony an- calls the “whole passion” of his retort, he nounces, or at least allows for, the dark- strikes the national note: ness James does not name, because he knows quite well that the “possible other What does your contention of non-existent case” will not always be rich and edifying. conscious exposures, in the midst of all the He would not need the term irony if it were. stupidity and vulgarity and hypocrisy, im- The possible other case, by de½nition and ply but that we have been, nationally, so to in the longer term, includes all kinds of speak, graced with no instance of recorded options, from the satirical guess that turns sensibility ½ne enough to react against these out to be the historical truth, as with Philip things?–an admission too distressing. Roth’s Our Gang, to the imagined justi½ca- What one would accordingly fain do is to tion of child-murder in Toni Morrison’s baffle any such calamity, to create the record, Beloved and the nightmare scenario of in default of any other enjoyment of it; to Thomas Pynchon’s never-quite-arriving imagine, in a word, the honourable, the pro- apocalypse in Gravity’s Rainbow. ducible case. (Art of the Novel, 222–223) In the stern (or unimaginative) Euro- But all these narratives are narratives, pean tradition, and certainly in the eyes of stories that are told or could be told, even James’s critical American friend, the hon- if their telling is obstructed or long de- orable, producible, but as yet unrecorded layed. I now want to take the question of

132 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences American narrative to a slightly different chopathic killer,” as one character calls Michael and highly contemporary place: the place him? Yes, but the description just renames Wood where narrative itself may give out, or the bewilderment he causes. Even the become impossible. A privileged instance character who uses the phrase sets no of such a location is Cormac McCarthy’s store by it. “So what?” he says. “There’s novel No Country for Old Men (2005). Of plenty of them around” (No Country, 141). course, the story that breaks down does Is Chigurh “a goddamned homicidal lu- itself reach us through a story, and Mc- natic,” as a man who is on his trail says? Carthy’s work is not short on plot and The novel’s thinking man, Sheriff Ed Tom adventures and deaths. But the worry Bell, says yes to the homicidal element about narrative is very visible, and urgent- but hesitates about the noun: “I dont ly articulated. The question is both liter- think he’s a lunatic though.” “Well, what ary and historical, raising concerns that would you call him?” “I dont know” (No would have seemed strange to earlier nov- Country, 192). Chigurh is twice called a elists. To quote Henry James once again: ghost–“You wouldnt think it would be “it seems probable that if we were never possible to just come and go thataway” bewildered there would never be a story (No Country, 248)–the second time only to tell about us” (Art of the Novel, 63). But to plunge Bell into a deep philosophical then the story is the antidote to our be- quandary. Bell says, “He’s pretty much a wilderment as well as the result of it, and ghost,” which sparks the following con- what if the bewilderment were such that versation: it put paid to the very idea of story? Could Is he pretty much or is he one? America’s present dif½culty–or one of its dif½culties–be that it has somehow met No, he’s out there. I wish he wasnt. But he is. the unnarratable? I guess if he was a ghost you wouldnt have The recounted story of No Country for to worry about him. Old Men involves a shoot out between Bell continues, “I said that was right, but drug-running gangs in the Texas desert: . . . when you’ve said that it’s real and not eight corpses, a truckload of heroin, a just in your head I’m not all that sure what document case full of dollar bills. A it is you have said” (No Country, 299). The hunter who happens on the scene makes reality of the killer is neither a consola- off with the money and is pursued and tion nor an aggravation of the threat. He murdered, as are a number of other people is as spectral and unearthly as any ghost, who get in the way of chief killer Anton as lethal as any worldly agency can be. He Chigurh. We know both very little about is the incarnation of what defeats every Chigurh–he is “dark complected”4 but idea of adequacy–clinical, forensic, and probably not Mexican; he works for one moral–or as Bell puts it in his homemade of the cartels–and at the same time, we but accurate way, “when you encounter know quite a lot, since he constantly phi- certain things in the world, the evidence losophizes, as characters in McCarthy’s for certain things, you realize that you novels often do. The difference here is have come upon somethin that you may that Chigurh’s philosophy makes him very well not be equal to” (No Country, eerily coherent but also impenetrable– 299). This failure to be equal to what we as distinct from Judge Holden in McCar- come upon creates, among other things, thy’s Blood Meridian (1992), for example, a sort of death threat to narrative. One who is endlessly eloquent but insane in a could be equal to defeat or even disaster, clinically familiar way. Is Chigurh a “psy-

141 (1) Winter 2012 133 The for instance, but scarcely to sheer unravel- history” (No Country, 284)–a history that Other ing incomprehension. all the old narratives domesticated in one Case This theme is raised at the start of the way or another, we might say, but that novel, in a context that only later ac- now seems merely strange in a raw, un- quires its relevance to the ½gure of Chig- manageable sense. urh. Bell recalls the execution of a nine- Some of the old narratives are still in teen-year-old man and his meetings with play in the book, but their main effect is the young man before he died: to reveal their helplessness. The unrepen- tant young killer is said to have “no soul” He told me that he had been plannin to kill (No Country, 4). Satan is said to have in- somebody for about as long as he could vented narcotics in order to “just bring remember. Said that if they turned him out the human race to its knees” (No Country, he’d do it again. Said he knew he was goin 218). At other times the old categories per- to hell. Told it to me out of his own mouth. mit a stark, dry humor, as when Bell dis- I dont know what to make of that. I surely tinguishes between an execution, that is, dont. I thought I’d never seen a person like a cold-blooded cleaning up of a mess that and it got me to wonderin if maybe he among criminals, and death from “natural was some new kind. (No Country, 3) causes,” where criminals have killed each The notion of a “new kind” of person–or other out of greed and dissension–causes event or conjuncture–recurs in the book. “natural to [their] line of work” (No Coun- A colleague of Bell’s says, “I just have the try, 76). But these are all stories about the feeling we’re looking at something we time, about where America is “now,” re- really aint never seen before” (No Country, sponses to a whole set of instances of ris- 46). Another colleague says, “Who the hell ing violence and unheard-of mentalities. are these people?” Bell replies: “Here the other day,” Bell says, “they was a woman put her baby in a trash compactor. I dont know. I used to say they were the same Who would think of such a thing? My ones we’ve always had to deal with. . . . Back wife wont read the papers no more. She’s then they was rustlin cattle. Now they’re probably right” (No Country, 40). Chigurh, runnin dope. But I dont know as that’s true one of McCarthy’s most brilliant inven- no more. I’m like you. I aint sure we’ve seen tions, is a phantom of reason, what the these people before. Their kind. (No Coun- world’s accidental horrors would look try, 79) like if they had a mind; he is the crazed The action of the novel takes place in but logical theory of what resists theory. 1980–we are told that a coin minted in Another killer who works for the cartel 1958 is twenty-two years old–but the tries to explain to the hunter who took the mood of these remarks seems to belong money how dangerous Chigurh is. The to a much later era, closer to the century’s hunter is full of desperate and misplaced end and even after. The signi½cance of bravado. “What is he supposed to be, the Bell’s words lies not in their historical ultimate bad-ass?” The killer responds, analysis–many changes of degree feel like “I dont think that’s how I would describe changes of kind–but in their pinpoint- him.” He then says, in quick succession, “I ing of a fear, a new shape of conscious- guess I’d say he doesnt have a sense of hu- ness to go with what may be a new shape mor. . . . You cant make a deal with him. . . . of crime. “I still keep thinking maybe it is He’s a peculiar man. You could even say somethin about the country,” Bell says, a he has principles” (No Country, 153). This reflection of America’s “strange kind of characterization is oblique and hard to fol-

134 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences low, and the doomed hunter certainly does most you ever saw lost on a coin toss?” Michael not understand. But the reader’s repeated The man says he doesn’t know. Chigurh Wood encounters with Chigurh con½rm the spins a quarter, slaps it onto the back of diagnosis in every respect: principles, his forearm, and the man fails to grasp peculiarity, no sense of humor, no deals. what we understand immediately: that Here, for example, is Chigurh talking to a Chigurh is asking this man to bet on his high-up in the cartel after he has killed life. “Well, I need to know what it is we’re the hunter and recovered the money: callin here,” the man says. Then, “I dont know what it is I stand to win.” Chigurh Chigurh smiled. We have a lot to talk about, says, “You stand to win everything. Every- he said. We’ll be dealing with new people thing.” The man calls heads, and Chigurh now. There wont be any more problems. says “Well done” before giving the man What happened to the old people? the coin. Chigurh leaves, and the man ap- They’ve moved on to other things. Not pears, ½nally, to understand something of everyone is suited to this line of work. The what has happened: “He put both hands prospect of outsize pro½ts leads people to on the counter and just stood there with exaggerate their own capabilities. . . . And his head bowed” (No Country, 55–58). it is always one’s stance upon uncertain This highly stylized, haunting episode ground that invites the attentions of one’s is a portrait of something like the killer’s enemies. Or discourages it. day off: the point is not that he may not And you? What about your enemies? have to kill someone but that he gives himself the ½fty-½fty chance of not doing I have no enemies. I dont permit such a it. But in this case, he does not even have thing. (No Country, 253) to give himself the chance: there was no We note (within the ½ction) the accidental killing on the table or in the of½ng until repetition of Bell’s phrase “line of work” Chigurh started the game in which he got and register that Chigurh is picking up the to play God’s agent. The novel’s other set other killer’s diagnosis in another respect. piece is the exact mirror image of this “The people he meets tend to have very scene: the victim does not escape, and the short futures,” the man had said. “Non- toss of the coin is not a gratuitously pro- existent, in fact” (No Country, 150). duced threat but the sudden and surprising introduction of a chance of reprieve– There are two set pieces in the novel only a chance, to be sure, a “possible other where we see Chigurh’s philosophy, his case”–and when the call is wrong, no travesty of reason, at work in some detail. longer a possible case at all. Before he kills Each case involves the toss of a coin, an the hunter, Chigurh asks him for the mon- impersonation of destiny in the form of ey and threatens to go after the hunter’s absolute chance. The logical contradic- wife if he does not hand it over. (“Other- tion itself is part of what this man repre- wise she’s accountable. The same as you. I sents–we might call it the authority of dont know if you care about that” [No the incomprehensible. The ½rst case is a Country, 184]). The hunter offers a stupid kind of game, the closest Chigurh gets to threat in return, and very soon is killed. humor, and the drastic nature of the Chigurh sets off to get the wife because he stakes makes it hard to see the fun. Mild- said he would. You could even say he has ly irritated by the owner of a gas station, principles. Before he kills her, indeed be- Chigurh gets into a teasing conversation fore he tosses the coin, which is his bi- with the man, then asks him, “What’s the zarre manner not so much of allowing her

141 (1) Winter 2012 135 The a break as permitting himself the half- I had no belief in your ability to move a coin Other option of changing his mind (“I have only to your bidding. (No Country, 259) Case one way to live. It doesn’t allow for special This sententious argument helps us see cases. A coin toss perhaps” [No Country, why Bell does not want to call this man a 259]), a strange conversation takes place: lunatic. Only his premises are crazy. Even You got no cause to hurt me, she said. his indifference to human distress seems I know. But I gave my word. unexceptional, since lawyers, politicians, and statesmen have high arguments for Your word? the same numbness. His line of thought Yes. We’re at the mercy of the dead here. In is impeccable in its way: not wrong, just this case your husband. tautologous, and applicable to too many That dont make no sense. cases. It is true that the woman could not I’m afraid it does. make the coin show the face she had called, also true that Chigurh himself had I dont have the money. You know I aint got no say in the result of the toss. But he had it. a say in whether he should toss the coin I know. and whether he should kill the woman, You give your word to my husband to kill whatever the coin said; everything he me? claims would also have remained true if Yes. he had spared her. The turning, choosing, accounting, shape, and line would all nec- He’s dead. My husband is dead. essarily have led to a different necessary Yes. But I’m not. outcome: not because they had to but be- You dont owe nothin to dead people. cause they did. This is the flaw in all fatal- Chigurh cocked his head slightly. No? he isms: a confusion of the irrevocable with said. the inevitable. But if Chigurh justi½es his life by a logic How can you? that can seem to justify anything (or can How can you not? (No Country, 255) seem to justify everything), then we have After the coin toss–it’s important we clearly abandoned narrative for theory or understand that if the woman had called principle, inadequate as both are in this it right she would have been spared, that case. McCarthy has established a fading for Chigurh fate can swerve but not be sequence of evasions: the uncontrollable tampered with, and before he spins the madness of the contemporary world is coin he holds it up “for her to see the jus- concentrated in the ½gure of the enigmat- tice of it” (No Country, 258)–Chigurh says ic but all-too-lucid killer; the killer him- he is sorry, and the woman responds, self has an argument instead of a story; “You make it like it was the coin. But and the argument has no purchase on you’re the one.” And a moment later, “You events. This progression is made desper- wouldnt of let me off noway.” He answers ately clear to us just after Chigurh con- with the following ghastly sermon: cludes his sermon and shoots the girl. “Most people dont believe that there can I had no say in the matter. Every moment in be such a person,” he says, meaning a your life is a turning and every one a choos- person such as himself, unremittingly ing. Somewhere you made a choice. All fol- faithful to the logic he has chosen. “You lowed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. can see what a problem that must be for The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. them. How to prevail over that which you

136 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences refuse to acknowledge the existence of.” a life. We all have stories, and we all need Michael “Of course things could have been another stories. Sartre says as much, and so do Wood way,” he adds. “But what does that mean? many other authorities in many ½elds. They are not some other way. They are this Psychoanalytic success, in one of Freud’s way” (No Country, 260). But “this way” in- major versions, is the piecing together of cludes Chigurh’s getting hit by a runaway broken narratives into a whole; stories, car soon after (in narrative time) and in Walter Benjamin asserts, have counsel the very next paragraph (in book space). for us. This tradition is so forceful that There is a chance for a rescue of narrative responses to any questions about it are here, and in the ½lm version of the novel, likely to be extremely radical and simple. directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, it hovers Either it states an obvious truth, or it rep- tangibly in the cinema air, perhaps because resents an extreme bias. My sense is that we expect comeuppance and closure in it states a partial truth, and that the miss- this medium more than we do in others. ing part, the story that is not a story, is Providence will have dealt with the mon- important. I want also to put in a bid ster even if the law cannot: he will have for the lyric sensibility, the accretion of been killed as he deserves to be. But in the images, of snatches of poem and song, in ½lm, as in the novel, the chance vanishes. our understanding of ourselves. But I Chigurh is badly hurt but stumbles off, shall conclude by evoking the only really never to be heard of again in this story, ex- ½erce and sustained antinarrative argu- cept as a memory; therefore, he is perpet- ment I know. This appears in philosopher ually alive, the killer-philosopher, the in- Galen Strawson’s essay “Against Narra- comprehensible other made worse rather tivity,” published in 2004, a year before than better by clarity of thought and dic- No Country for Old Men. It is an accident, tion, not a “new kind” of person but a per- but a welcome one, that Strawson at one son who destroys the concept of kinds. point resorts to the tone and diction of Henry James. If Heideggerians think nar- Until recently, the “possible other case” rative is essential to any idea of authentic- in American narrative was always anoth- ity, Strawson writes, “so much the worse er story, the story that was lacking. It may for their notion of authenticity.”5 Citing be that this sense of narrative is still the philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur, Charles dominant one, and I hope it is. But McCar- Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre, as well as thy’s disturbing proposition deserves our a number of psychologists, Strawson con- careful attention. If what is lacking is not jures up what he calls a “psychological another, untold story but the very possibil- Narrativity thesis” (“there is widespread ity of story, a great many perspectives on agreement that human beings typically the world will need to change. However, see or live or experience their lives as a even if this were true, our condition would narrative or story of some sort, or at least not be quite as desperate as it might at ½rst as a collection of stories”) and “an ethical seem, and by way of a coda I should like to Narrativity thesis” (“a richly Narrative glance at the possibility that narrative is outlook is essential to a well-lived life, to not our only way of making sense of things, true or full personhood”). The uppercase so that its loss, while dire, would not leave N indicates that Strawson uses the word us entirely bereft of intelligibility. to signify “a . . . property or outlook,” not There is a strong tradition, especially in just all the things it ordinarily means the twentieth century, of assuming that a (“Narrativity,” 428). His quotations cer- narrative is the only way to make sense of tainly show the extraordinary health of

141 (1) Winter 2012 137 The the two theses. Taylor says we occupy “a reminder of the many modes of examina- Other space of questions, which only a coherent tion open to us. He does not say much Case narrative can answer”; Ricoeur wonders about these modes, but insists that “form- how anyone “could. . . give an ethical char- ½nding” can take place without narrative, acter to his or her own life taken as a whole and that “the business of living well, for . . . if not . . . in the form of a narrative?” many, is a completely non-Narrative (“Narrativity,” 436). project” (“Narrativity,” 443, 448). Strawson does not think such assertions We may still have our doubts, and my and inferences are true in the form in own guess, if I were guessing, would be which they so often appear. They are true the opposite of Strawson’s: that narrative for those who feel them to be true, but not self-articulation usually does more good for others. There are what Strawson calls than harm. But we could believe this and Diachronic personalities, who often go in still allow for the virtues of the other, for narrative, and there are Episodics, who Episodic mode. Strawson addresses the usually do not. “The strongly Episodic life concern directly: “Some may still think is one normal, non-pathological form of that the Episodic must be deprived in life for human beings, and indeed one good some way, but truly happy-go-lucky, see- form of life for human beings, one way to what-comes-along lives are among the flourish” (“Narrativity,” 432–433). best there are, vivid, blessed, profound” Toward the end of his essay, Strawson (“Narrativity,” 449). lets loose with a ½ne provocative on- We will not ½nd answers to McCarthy’s slaught: dark questions among the “see what comes along” crowd; we have seen what The aspiration to explicit Narrative self- comes along, and we need to do some- articulation is natural for some–for some, thing about it, to ½nd a form for it, in perhaps, it may even be helpful–but in Strawson’s terms. But what if we accept others is it highly unnatural and ruinous. the enacted defeat of story in No Country My guess is that it almost always does more for Old Men? What if we take it as an invi- harm than good–that the Narrative tenden- tation to look for the “possible other case” cy to look for story or narrative coherence in riddle or paradox or song, or in any in one’s life is, in general, a gross hindrance mode that proposes a nonnarrative rela- to self-understanding. (“Narrativity,” 447) tion to historical and other time? Indeed, This is not a plea for the unexamined life– McCarthy’s later novel The Road (2006) although Strawson is far from convinced might be read in just this way: as an Amer- that “the examined life . . . is always a ican narrative where time and story have good thing” (“Narrativity,” 448)–but a stopped.

endnotes 1 William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936; New York: Modern Library, 1993), 4. 2 W. B. Yeats, Reveries Over Childhood and Youth (1916; New York: General Books, 2010), 104. 3 Henry James, The Art of the Novel: Critical Prefaces (1934; Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 166–169. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text. 4 Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men (2005; London: Picador, 2010), 210. Subsequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text. 5 Galen Strawson, “Against Narrativity,” Ratio (new series) 17 (4) (December 2004): 431. Sub- sequent citations are noted parenthetically within the text.

138 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Southern Literature: A Blending of Oral, Visual & Musical Voices

William Ferris

Abstract: The blending of oral traditions, visual arts, and music has influenced how Southern writers shape their region’s narrative voice. In the South, writing and storytelling intersect. Mark Twain introduced readers to these storytellers in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Twain blends both black and white voices within Huck’s consciousness and awareness–in Huck’s speech and thoughts–and in his dialogues with Jim. A narrative link exists between the South’s visual artists and writers; Southern writers, after all, live in the most closely seen region in America. The spiritual, gospel, and rock and roll are musical genres that Southern writers love–although jazz, blues, and ballads might have the most influence on their work. Southern poets and scholars have produced anthologies, textbooks, and literary journals that focus on the region’s narrative voice and its black and white literary traditions. Southern writers have created stories that touch the heart and populate American literature with voices of the Ameri- can South. Future Southern writers will continue to embrace the region as a place where oral, visual, and musical traditions are interwoven with literature.

This essay reflects my perspective as a folklorist who for the past forty years has studied the Ameri- can South and the intersection of the region’s literature with oral traditions, visual arts, and music.1 The blending of these worlds has had a signi½cant impact on Southern writers and how they shape their region’s narrative voice.2 Perhaps more than WILLIAM FERRIS is the Joel any other region in America, the South is a place Williamson Eminent Professor of where writing and storytelling intersect. Nail by History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he nail, as carpenters of the imagination, Southern is also Senior Associate Director writers construct their region’s narrative, and the of the Center for the Study of the tale and its telling are the grist for this literary mill. American South. He is a former Mark Twain introduced his readers to these story- Chairman of the National Endow- tellers in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the novel ment for the Humanities. His pub- that forever de½ned the American narrative–a nar- lications include Give My Poor Heart rative with its heart in the tale. As Twain reminded Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues (2009), Mule Trader: Ray Lum’s Tales his readers, “The art of telling a humorous story– of Horses, Mules, and Men (1998), understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print and Local Color: A Sense of Place in –was created in America, and has remained at Folk Art (1992). Home.”3 When Huck declares he will “light out for

139 Southern the Territory ahead of the rest,” Twain in particular, reveal that Twain clearly Literature: himself makes a similar journey by em- understood that a true American narra- A Blending of Oral, ploying such voices as “the Missouri tive must recognize and embrace both Visual & negro dialect: the extremest form of the black and white voices, and he cements Musical backwoods South-Western dialect; the their place in the American narrative by Voices ordinary ‘Pike-County’ dialect; and four locating these voices on the Mississippi modi½ed varieties of this last.”4 River, the iconic American waterway Most important, Twain blends both that itself becomes a central character black and white voices within Huck’s in Twain’s narrative.11 consciousness and awareness–in Huck’s Yet the issue of race meant that South- speech and thoughts–and in his dia- ern black and white writers could and did logues with Jim. In Was Huck Black?, exist in parallel, as the lives of Eudora Shelley Fisher Fishkin argues that Huck’s Welty and Richard Wright poignantly voice was inspired by a black child, and reveal. Their literary careers were haunt- “this child’s speech sparked in Twain a ingly similar, but never intersected. Both sense of the possibilities of a vernacular lived simultaneously in Jackson, Missis- narrator.” She cites Ralph Ellison’s state- sippi, published books at the same time, ment that the black man was “a co-cre- and received the same national awards, ator of the language that Mark Twain but they never met or exchanged letters. raised to the level of literary eloquence.” Richard Brodhead suggests that their lit- By going to the “territory,” Fishkin argues, erary careers Twain “helped open American literature are so symmetrically opposed as to make to the multicultural polyphony that is its them seem like each other’s photographic birthright and special strength.”5 negative: Wright, so emphatically the author These voices animate both Twain’s work as black man, Welty no less unmistakably and the American narrative by bringing the writer as (white) lady; his the author- an important aspect of Southern culture ship always of rage, hers of complex graces to literature6; for Twain, Southern whites and controlled modulations of tone.12 learned to see “beyond the veil” and discovered the black experience through the Despite its enormity in the South, the black storyteller.7 He recalled a slave dilemma of race has not been the only named Uncle Dan’l, who told stories to impetus for Southern writers who have “the white and black children grouped on developed love-hate relationships with the hearth,”8 and with Huckleberry Finn, their region. Perhaps they might identify Twain captures a world in which black with Stephen Daedalus’s sentiments in and white voices mix and interact. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a In his introduction to a recent paper- Young Man: back edition of Huckleberry Finn, Robert When the soul of a man is born in this O’Meally reflects on his attraction as a country there are nets flung at it to hold it black man to Twain’s work and argues back from flight. You talk to me of nation- that the book is “full of the blues,” and ality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by that Huck is a “blues hero . . . a brilliant those nets.13 improviser in a world of trouble who op- timistically faces a deadly project without Unlike Daedalus, however, in addition a script.”9 O’Meally concludes, “Huck to the net of race, Southern writers also knows how to solo; and like a true blues- fled the nets of politics and sexuality– man, he learns to swing.”10 Huck and Jim, by physically fleeing the region. Just as

140 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences William Faulkner’s Quentin Compson black Southerners are intimately linked, William ½nds himself far from his Mississippi often descended from common ancestors, Ferris home as a student at Harvard University, inheriting and shaping contested memo- expatriate writers like Willie Morris, ries of their region’s history and culture. Richard Wright, Tennessee Williams, Three aspects of this history and culture Alice Walker, and Thomas Wolfe have have strongly influenced the South’s lit- written about the South from afar. South- erature and remain in continuous conver- ern black and homosexual and lesbian sation with it: oral traditions, visual arts, writers have made their homes as exiles and music. in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Paris–free to express their complex feel- Eudora Welty learned as a young child ings of alienation and nostalgia from out- to listen for stories, a passion that fore- side their region. Expatriate Southern shadowed her career as a writer: black writers, in particular, sometimes cling together, and even pine for home. Long before I wrote stories, I listened for While at the American Academy in Rome, stories. Listening for them is something Ralph Ellison wrote Albert Murray that more acute than listening to them. I suppose he was homesick for Southern food: it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening, children know stories I’m home sick. . . and I got no way to get any are there. When their elders sit and begin, corn bread and these Romans think a chit- children are just waiting and hoping for one tling is something to stuff a sausage into. to come out, like a mouse from its hole.17 There is very little whisky I can afford, no Like the hunters in Faulkner’s “The Bear,” sweet potatoes or yellow yams, a biscuit is Southern writers try to capture the wild, unheard of . . . and their greens don’t taste indomitable voice of their region. They like greens.14 listen, and the cage in which they contain Southern writers chronicle a third- the voice may be the novel, short story, world experience within America–ex- poem, or play. tremes of poverty and wealth, illiteracy How to place that voice within a liter- and literary genius–and they ½nd more ary frame is a challenge Southern writ- in common with the rest of the world ers have faced for at least 175 years. Geo- than with the American dream. They graphically, the South was considered to broaden our understandings of the cele- be America’s western frontier in the early brated Southern sense of place, which nineteenth century, the “Old Southwest.” Eudora Welty describes as “one of the Its “exotic” people and their speech were lesser angels that watch over the racing the focus of a group of white writers hand of ½ction.”15 The sense of place so known as the Southwestern Humorists, important to Welty is a movable feast, as whose regional sketches featured color- we learn when Cormac McCarthy shifts ful horse traders, ½ghters, and gamblers. his literary terrain from East Tennessee to Their language, their trickery, and their the Southwest border, Richard Ford from violence–and an emphasis on the oral– Mississippi to Montana and New Jersey, influenced writers who included Twain and Elizabeth Spencer from Mississippi and Faulkner. to Italy.16 Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, one of Despite the legacy of racial inequality the Southwestern Humorists, published in the South, shifting literary ground, and his Georgia Scenes in 1835. Born in Con- a wide variety of nets to flee, white and necticut and educated at Yale University,

141 (1) Winter 2012 141 Southern Longstreet served as president of the foundation of the black narrative voice Literature: University of Mississippi and is buried in and explained that black folklore and its A Blending 18 of Oral, Oxford, Mississippi. Georgia Scenes is best musical traditions are key to his writing: Visual & known because it captured the Southern Negro American folk tradition became pre- Musical vernacular voice and humor that are so Voices cious as a result of an act of literary discov- important in Southern literature. Long- ery. Taken as a whole, its spirituals along street’s sketch “The Horse-Swap” devel- with its blues, jazz and folk tales, it has . . . ops colorful language and trickery, as two much to tell us of the faith, humor and Georgians–Peter and Blossom–try to adaptability to reality necessary to live in a best each other in a horse trade. At the world which has taken on much of the in- end of their trade, Peter tells Blossom that security and blues-like absurdity known to Kit–the horse he just traded for–is both those who brought it into being.23 blind and deaf: Slave memoirs, autobiographies, ex- “old Kit’s both blind and deef, I’ll be dod slave narratives, and oral history inter- drot if he eint.” Peter then reassures Blos- views reveal the horror of slavery, Recon- som that, “If you can only get Kit rid of them struction, and Jim Crow for blacks as well little failings, you’ll ½nd him all sorts of a as the resistance, courage, and dignity of horse.”19 black people in the South. These narra- This exchange foreshadows a classic auc- tives are richly illustrated with folktales tion by Pat Stamper, the Texas trader in and music, and they allow us to trace the Faulkner’s novel The Hamlet: history of African American folklore in the region.24 This work was an impor- “Now, boys,” the Texan said. “Who says tant resource for twentieth-century black that pony aint worth ½fteen dollars? You writers, who found both inspiration and couldn’t buy that much dynamite for just succor in oral folk culture. In addition ½fteen dollars. There aint one of them cant to Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest do a mile in three minutes; turn them into Gaines, and Alice Walker each have used a pasture and they will board themselves; folklore in their work in distinctively dif- work them like hell all day and every time ferent ways. you think about it, lay them over the head As a graduate student in anthropology with a single-tree and after a couple of days at Columbia University, Hurston system- every jackrabbit one of them will be so atically collected and published African tame you will have to put them out of the American oral traditions in Mules and house at night like a cat. . . . Come on, Eck,” Men.25 She later used this lore in her ½c- he said. “Start her off. How about ten dol- tion, and her evolution as a writer trans- lars for that horse, Eck?”20 formed her from ethnographer to author. Faulkner had a personal connection to Alice Walker, in turn, views herself as heir horse culture. As a young child, he owned to the work of Hurston. Strong female a spotted pony, and his father ran a livery characters, such as the blues singer Shug stable in Oxford.21 Just as Faulkner taps Avery in The Color Purple, are inspired by the voice of a white horse trader in his worlds that Walker discovered in Hurs- ½ction, Ralph Ellison turns to black folk- ton’s work. Walker was drawn to Hurs- lore for his inspiration. Ellison argued ton because in her writing she created that African American culture is best characters who reflected “racial health: understood through its rich oral tradi- a sense of black people as complete, com- tions.22 He considered oral tradition the plex, undiminished human beings.”26

142 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences For his Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitt- to Christenberry, his art owes more to William man, Ernest Gaines recalled that he “heard another Walker: Ferris the voices of not only all these ex-slave Southern writing, and southern literature, narratives I had read, but also what I knew has had a greater influence on my work of the voices of my Louisiana people.”27 than the work of other visual artists. I don’t These Works Progress Administration doubt or deny that other visual artists have (wpa) slave narratives particularly in- played a big part in what I do. In more re- spired his description of Miss Jane’s life cent years Walker Percy, along with other as a slave, her emancipation by Northern people and their work, has had a profound troops, and the rejection of her slave name, influence on what I try to express in my Tycie.28 Throughout his writing, Gaines work. I don’t know if it’s possible to do draws heavily on the vernacular voices of visually what they are doing with the writ- his Louisiana people. ten work, but I feel very strongly that it’s worth a challenge. That’s what it’s all about n important narrative link exists be- A for me.30 tween the South’s visual artists and writers; Southern writers, after all, live in the Southern writers, however, have been most closely seen region in our nation. influenced by photography and painting. Generations of photographers, painters, While working for the wpa, Eudora Welty folklorists, and ½lmmakers from the took more than a thousand photographs; South, the nation, and the world have doc- Patti Carr Black suggests that “they give umented the region, capturing its people us a glimpse of some of the visual sources and places through a full range of media. of her art.”31 Welty recalled that she “just The Great Dismal Swamp, the Missis- took the pictures because I wanted to. sippi Delta, and the French Quarter are Just impulse.” She acknowledged that but a few of the many places that attract- nothing could have been written in the way ed visual artists, including naturalist John of a story without such a background, James Audubon in the nineteenth centu- without the knowledge and the experience ry and French ½lmmaker Jean Renoir in that I got from these things. . . . It provided the twentieth. In fact, legions of artists the raw material. And more than that, it have tried to capture the beauty and un- suggested things in a valid way that could tamed spirit of the South, each as though never have been made up without this real- he was the ½rst to discover its worlds. ity. It was the reality that I used as a back- Southern photographer, sculptor, and ground and could draw on in various ways, painter William Christenberry has taught even though indirectly.32 at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., since 1968. Over the years, from his In Jackson, Mississippi, Welty was part home in Hale County, Alabama, Christen- of a circle of artists, writers, and photog- berry brought boxes of red clay on which raphers that included William Hollings- he erected miniature sculptures modeled worth, a watercolor artist whose work on the churches, homes, and country captured scenes similar to those Welty stores of his home county. Christenberry photographed and wrote about in her grew up in the same county where Walker ½ction. In her introduction to On William Evans and James Agee had carried out their Hollingsworth, Jr., Welty expressed her ad- classic study Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, miration for the artist and his work: the very county where Walker Evans pho- With what knowledge, yes, but with what 29 tographed white sharecroppers. Yet, tenderness he painted. It was not a tender-

141 (1) Winter 2012 143 Southern ness that stood in the way and blurred what it up in disgust, even though cameras Literature: his eye told him; rather it must have come always did fascinate him.”35 A Blending of Oral, of ever-increasing awareness. . . . [H]e al- Faulkner had greater success in his ½c- Visual & ways began with the close-at-hand; and tion, where he uses photography to sum- Musical the accuracy of his eye, turned on the home mon memories of the past. Literary critic Voices scene, is as marvelously reliable as that of David Madden suggests that in the novel another Mississippi William in another line Sanctuary, Faulkner describes photographs of work. Again like Faulkner he never stops similar to those included in Co½eld’s there. William Hollingsworth set off on the William Faulkner: The Co½eld Collection. In Old Canton Road, and the painting is where one passage, Horace Benbow looks at mind, spirit, and feeling carried him. There Miss Jenny’s wall and focuses on we’re confronted with a territory we are not A faded tintype in an oval frame. A bearded bound to recognize at all, but to which we face stared haughtily across the neck-cloth give a response better than recognition, our of the 50s, buttoned into a frock coat. . . . own feeling about his vision of the world.33 “What are you doing?” Miss Jenny said. Ernest Gaines shares Welty’s love for “Looking at the Rogues’ Gallery?” photography, and the people and places [. . .] he photographed at his home in Louisi- Next was a conventional photograph dated ana inform his writing. With his camera, ½fteen years ago. The man was about sixty, Gaines captured images that connect him going bald, the mouth shaded by a thick to people and places that have disap- moustache.36 peared. While living in San Francisco, he explained: Gaines, Welty, and Faulkner each used photographs in their ½ction and under- I always take a camera when I go back to scored the af½nity of Southern writers for Louisiana. I take both black and white and the visual in their lives and literature. color photographs. . . . I keep the photographs because most of these places are he spiritual, gospel, and rock and roll gone now. The stores are gone, the houses T are musical genres that Southern writers are gone. This river is all built up and this deeply love–although jazz, the blues, and man is dead. They are just things of past, ballads might have the most influence on and I don’t think that anything like that will their work. Eudora Welty speaks directly ever be there again, ever again. This man to this influence. Her short story “Power- can’t come back, and you’ll never see these house” was inspired by a Fats Waller con- places ever again. Never again, and surely cert she attended in Jackson during the not there.34 1940s. When she returned home after the Welty’s and Gaines’s desire to capture, to concert, she preserve, to remember is shared by writers, photographers, and painters in the tried to turn the impromptu, frantic and South. Faulkner also loved photography abandoned playing together of a jazz pia- and used an old Zeiss camera that he had nist and his musicians into an exchange in purchased in Europe. Jack Co½eld, who words–something with its own rhythmic developed Faulkner’s negatives, recalled beat and crazy references, in the same on- that they “usually turned out to be a rush of performance. It was an attempt, like hodgepodge of double exposures, over- any other from a storywriter, to turn one timed or undertimed. . . . He ½nally gave sort of experience into another in order to convey it.37

144 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Welty brilliantly captures the musical call trated by Mexican artist Miguel Covarru- William and response between Powerhouse and bias, and Abbe Niles, a white Wall Street Ferris Valentine, his bass ½ddler from Vicksburg, lawyer, wrote the introduction.) In this in her short story. As Powerhouse plays historic volume, Handy claimed the blues the piano, as part of his “mother tongue,” and his lyrics shocked music scholars like H. E. He groans, and his ½ngers drag into the keys Krehbiel, who considered blues a music heavily, holding on to the notes, retrieving. “from the lips of harlots and the fre- It is a sad song. quenters of low dives.”40 Handy’s work “You know what happened to me?” says inspired Langston Hughes to publish his Powerhouse. own blues poetry in Weary Blues. Edmund Valentine hums a response, dreaming at Wilson praised Handy’s Blues: An Anthol- the bass. ogy as a model for a long overdue anthol- “I got a telegram my wife is dead,” says ogy of American folklore and literature. Powerhouse with wandering ½ngers. Wilson’s call was answered by Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, and R.W.B. “Uh-huh?” Lewis, who included Handy’s lyrics for His mouth gathers and forms a barbarous “St. Louis Blues” in their 1973 edition of O while his ½ngers walk up straight, un- American Literature, along with lyrics by 38 willingly, three octaves. blues artists Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, 41 “Turning one sort of experience into Ma Rainey, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. another” is a familiar process for the Faulkner was moved by Handy’s blues writer, and blues poetry repeatedly trans- performances when his band played for formed the region’s music into the writ- students in Oxford in 1913. The author’s ten word. W. C. Handy ½rst heard blues biographer, Joseph Blotner, explains: sung in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903 and W. C. Handy would play alone, sitting at the described how piano and ½ngering the rich chords and A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced steady rhythms that would bring him fame plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. in compositions such as “Yellow Dog Blues,” His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out “Aunt Hagar’s Blues,” and “Beale Street of his shoes. His face had on it some of the Blues.” [Faulkner] would watch, standing sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed there, while the musicians played on until 42 a knife on the strings of the guitar in a man- the early hours of the morning. ner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who Later as a student at the University of used steel bars. His song, too, struck me Mississippi, Faulkner even drew several instantly cartoons in which he captured Handy’s Goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog band, and Jack Co½eld recalled that Faulk- The singer repeated the line three times, ner “not only was the best observer and accompanying himself on the guitar with listener I ever knew . . . but he was fully the weirdest music I had ever heard. The capable of sketching everything he saw as tune stayed in my mind.39 well as writing about it. His drawing of W. C. Handy, ‘The Blues Master of Mem- Blues poetry sprang onto the litera- phis,’ typi½es exactly the Roaring Twen- ry scene with the publication of W. C. ties at Ole Miss.”43 Lothar Hönnighausen Handy’s Blues: An Anthology in 1926. suggests that it was through such stylized (Handy’s blues compositions were illus- drawings that Faulkner “became able to

141 (1) Winter 2012 145 Southern express himself artistically for the ½rst I’m sweet sugar in the cane, Literature: time.”44 As a child, Faulkner both wrote Never touched except by rain. A Blending of Oral, and drew in school, and one of his class- If you touched me God save you, Visual & mates remembered how “he would do These summer days are hot and blue. Musical nothing but write and draw–drawings I’m potatoes not yet mashed, Voices 45 for his stories.” I’m a check that ain’t been cashed. Tennessee Williams also appreciated the I’m a window with a blind, blues and used the music to talk about race Can’t see what goes on behind. and politics. He hoped that Elvis Presley If you did, God save your soul! would portray the white blues musician These winter nights are blue and cold!50 Val in his play Orpheus Descending. In his production notes, Williams describes Val African American writers adapted as “a young man, about 30, who has a kind Southern blues verses for a full range of lit- of wild beauty about him. . . . His remark- erary forms. More than any other genre of able garment is a snakeskin jacket, mot- folklore, blues captured the imagination of tled white, black and gray. He carries a gui- writers such as Richard Wright, Langston tar which is covered with inscriptions.”46 Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Elli- After seeing the guitar, Lady asks Val, son, Sterling Brown, and Alice Walker, all “What’s all that writing on it?” “Auto- of whom saw blues verses as a literary re- graphs of musicians I’ve run into here source for their own works. For each, blues and here,” he replies. “See this name? embodied fundamental truths about black Leadbelly?. . . Greatest man ever lived on experience in white America because the the twelve-string guitar! Played it so good music plumbs the depths of despair and he broke the stone heart of a Texas gover- offers both listener and performer the nor with it and won himself a pardon out strength to endure. In Ellison’s Invisible of jail. . . . That name? That name is im- Man, for instance, Trueblood sings blues mortal. The name Bessie Smith is written to cleanse his soul after he commits incest in the stars!–Jim Crow killed her.”47 with his daughter: In Elia Kazan’s production of Cat on a I sings me some blues that night ain’t never Hot Tin Roof, black ½eld hands Brightie been sung before, and while I’m singin’ and Small were played by bluesmen them blues I makes up my mind that I ain’t Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry. As Big nobody but myself and ain’t nothin’ I can Daddy stands on the balcony of his home, do but let whatever is gonner happen, hap- “A song, ‘Pick a Bale of Cotton,’ is heard.” pen.51 To which his daughter Mae replies, “Oh, Big Daddy, the ½eld hands are singing fo’ Sterling Brown learned blues from a you!”48 musician named Big Boy, who “was broad In an interview with Studs Terkel, shouldered with a scar down his cheek. Williams acknowledged his love for blues He was much taller than I am and a hell of and mentioned he had “written a few Blues a ladies man. . . . He could play the hell out 52 lyrics, yes, which have been set to music of a guitar with a bottle on his ½nger.” by Paul Bowles” in Blue Mountain Ballads.49 Inspired by Handy and Langston Hughes, In his blues “Sugar in the Cane,” Williams Brown captured the blues through the wrote the lyrics rhythm, language, and subject of his poem “Ma Rainey”: I’m red pepper in a shaker, Bread that’s waitin’ for the baker. When Ma Rainey Comes to town, Folks from anyplace

146 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Miles aroun’, becomes a part of, an expression of, his William From Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Flocks whole predicament–his place in socie- Ferris in to hear ty.”57 Faced with the predicament of Ma do her stuff; being placed under surveillance by his own Comes flivverin’ in, government, Wright turned to the blues Or ridin’ mules, to express his feelings. Or packed in trains, While the lyrical blues inspired African Picknikin’ fools. American writers, the narrative ballad was [. . .] an important influence on white writers in the South. Robert Penn Warren and That’s what it’s like, Donald Davidson were part of the fugi- Fo’ miles on down, tive poets–also known as the agrarians– To New Orleans delta who published a small literary magazine, An’ Mobile town, The Fugitive, from 1922 to 1925. They also When Ma hits contributed essays to a manifesto pub- Anywheres aroun.53 lished in 1930, I’ll Take My Stand: The South Richard Wright believed that “blues are and the Agrarian Tradition. Warren and as natural for the Black people as eating Davidson both used the ballad as inspira- and sleeping, and they come as a rule out tion for their poetry, and Warren com- of their daily experience.”54 The blues also posed two poems in the ballad form: provided opportunities for cleverness and “The Ballad of Billie Potts” and “Ballad of for astute political commentary. Because a Sweet Dream of Peace.” Davidson taught of Wright’s work with the Communist a class at Vanderbilt University in which Party, in 1941 the fbi placed him on its he sometimes sang ballads that he learned Security Index, the list of individuals con- as a child in Tennessee, and he also attend- sidered most dangerous to the nation’s seed the Grand Ole Opry to hear country curity.55 Wright knew that he was under music ballads performed. In 1952, David- surveillance, and in his “FB Eye Blues,” son published a ballad opera, Singin’ Billy, he used humor to taunt the organization: and his novel The Big Ballad Jamboree was published posthumously in 1996. The That old FB Eye novel is ½lled with ballad verses such as Tied a bell to my bed stall these Mrs. Parsons sings: Said old FB Eye Tied a bell to my bed stall Oh, when he told the grievous news, she fell Each time I love my baby, government in dark despair. knows it all. She cried and wrung her lily-white hands, Woke up this morning she tore her golden hair. FB Eye under my bed She said, “If Johnny’s drounded, thee’s no Said I woke up this morning man I will take. FB Eye under my bed All on the Banks of Claudy I’ll wander for Told me all I dreamed last night, every word his sake.” I said.56 Oh, then he stepped up to her, no longer could he stand. Wright saw a clear parallel between the He took the maid into his arms, saying, language of his writing and the lyrics of “Darlin’, I’m the man. the blues performer, and he felt his role as I’ve sailed back o’er the ocean to end your a writer was the literary equivalent of a grief and pain, blues singer, “who sings the blues and it

141 (1) Winter 2012 147 Southern And on the Banks of Claudy we’ll never story, poetry, and drama, the region’s lit- Literature: part again.”58 erary critics also exerted a strong influ- A Blending ence on both the South and the nation. of Oral, While Davidson focused on the ballad Visual & Southern literary anthologies evolved in his writing, novelist Lee Smith draws Musical from early black and white collections Voices on ½ddle music she heard as a child in to a blending of these voices in a multi- Grundy, Virginia. In fact, the titles for media format that includes both a book three of her novels are inspired by ½ddle and a cd. tunes: The Devil’s Dream, Fair and Tender In the 1930s and 1940s, teams of South- Ladies, and Black Mountain Breakdown. In ern poets and scholars produced impor- her novel Oral History, Smith transforms tant anthologies, textbooks, and literary the traditional ballad “Darling Cory” journals that focused on the region’s nar- into verses that Little Luther Wade sings rative voice and its black and white liter- for his Dory Cantrell: ary traditions. Poet Robert Penn Warren Darlin’ Dory stands by the cabin door and Cleanth Brooks coauthored Under- Standing with her Bible in her hands standing Poetry (1938) and Understanding Fic- Darlin’ Dory stands by the cabin door tion (1943). For more than four decades, A-pinin’ for her city man. these texts introduced the study of lit- You can throw that Bible down on the floor erature–including Southern writers– You can throw it out in the rain to students in classrooms throughout Prayin’ for him all night long won’t do no America. Described as “the most impor- good tant literature textbook of the twentieth For he ain’t a-comin’ back again. century,” Understanding Poetry was adopted by more than 250 colleges and uni- Well he ain’t a-comin’ back to the meetin’- versities around the nation.60 In 1935, house Brooks and Warren founded The Southern And he ain’t a-comin’ back to the school Review at Louisiana State University and City feller gone with a head full of dreams published emerging white Southern Oh, why can’t you see him for a fool? writers like Eudora Welty, Randall Jarrell, Dory let me dry those tears away and Peter Taylor.61 Dory come back in and shut the door In contrast to Brooks and Warren’s A month or two don’t add up to a life work, which focused on white writers, A slip or two don’t make you a whore. Sterling Brown, with literary scholars Dory come back to your own true love Ulysses Lee and Arthur P. Davis, edited A month or two don’t add up to life The Negro Caravan (1941), a landmark an- Dory let me dry them tears away thology of black literature. In the preface, Dory let me make you my wife.59 the editors declare that their volume presents “a more accurate and revealing story Smith’s ballad “Darling Dory” anchors of the Negro writer than has ever been her novel with lyrics that urge Dory to told before.”62 They argue that the an- heed Little Luther Wade’s call and be- thology is unique because it includes a come his wife. Ballads and blues illustrate “section of folk literature, ampler than the strong influence of the South’s music in any similar anthology; the neglected on its literature. antislavery pamphleteering and journal- ism; the little-known fugitive slave nar- While Southern writers de½ned the ratives; [and] the earliest novels (never narrative voice through the novel, short before anthologized).”63

148 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences More recently, poet Michael Harper the cd underscores the influence of oral William and literary scholar Robert Stepto edited tradition on Southern writers and also Ferris Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Afro-American allows the reader to study folk literature Literature, Art, and Scholarship, which ½rst as part of the region’s literary tradition. appeared as two volumes of The Massa- Andrews stresses that the editors includ- chusetts Review in 1977 and later as a book ed the cd to show the dialogue “between in 1979. Both publications are dedicated writing and oral artistry” that has existed to Sterling Brown, and in his foreword to throughout the history of Southern lit- the book, historian John Hope Franklin erature.66 The cd is especially important notes that the work is a sequel to The given the ongoing dialogue that Southern Negro Caravan: writers have with visual, oral, and musical traditions. The present volume may well be regarded This recent anthology of black and as a yardstick by which to measure the evo- white literature, with voices featured in lution of Afro-American literature and cul- both written and recorded formats, offers ture, and as a commentary on what has an exciting new window on the Southern happened in these areas since the appear- narrative. The volume echoes Twain’s ance of The New Negro in 1925. . . . One sees it belief that no narrative can be complete in the dedication to Sterling Brown, dean of unless all its voices are included side by Afro-American letters, whose early works side. While the black and white synergy constitute an important link between the is a driving force in shaping the South- Negro Renaissance and the present.64 ern narrative, it is not the only influence. Callaloo, the nation’s leading African Increasingly, the rich tapestry of Native American literary journal, was founded by American, Asian, and Latin/Hispanic Charles Rowell in 1976 and is published at voices will influence the Southern nar- Southern University in Baton Rouge, rative voice and will broaden our under- Louisiana, where its white counterpart, standing of it. The Southern Review, is also published. Voices of black and white Southern For more than two centuries, Southern writers converge in The Literature of the writers have created stories that touch the American South, a Norton anthology edit- heart. Their stories populate American lit- ed by William Andrews, Minrose Gwin, erature with voices of the American South. Trudier Harris, and Fred Hobson. In his Future Southern writers will continue to preface to the volume, Andrews declares embrace the region as a place where oral, his belief that because the volume is visual, and musical traditions are inextri- “fully cognizant of its constituent diver- cably interwoven with literature. sity of voices, cultures, and expressive traditions,” it will help influence “the reconstruction of American literary history and its literary canons. . . . We see southern literature as constituted by a diverse con- stituency of writers and traditions in dialogue (and sometimes in active dispute) with each other.”65 The anthology includes a cd of sound recordings. The selection of blues, ballads, spirituals, preaching, and storytelling on

141 (1) Winter 2012 149 Southern endnotes Literature: 1 A Blending Parts of this article are drawn from The Southern Voice: Writers, Artists and Composers by of Oral, William Ferris. © 2013 by William Ferris. Forthcoming in 2013 from the University of North Visual & Carolina Press (www.uncpress.unc.edu). Used by permission of the publisher. I am indebt- Musical ed to my wife, Marcie Cohen Ferris, my daughter, Virginia Ferris, and my colleagues Ayse Voices Erginer and Dave Shaw for their invaluable comments and suggestions on this workpiece. 2 My understanding of these worlds has been influenced by Robert Farris Thompson, whose work taught me how music, dance, and art often intersect in African and African American cultures. Thompson suggests that we can “see” syncopated musical rhythms reflected in the patterns of folk quilts and in the collages of Romare Bearden. Katherine Coryton White and Robert Farris Thompson, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act in the Collection of Katherine Coryton White (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Robert Farris Thompson, “African Influence on the Art of the United States,” in Afro-American Folk Art and Crafts, ed. William Ferris (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1983), 27–66. 3 Mark Twain, How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 4. While Twain was not born in the South, he is considered a major influence on the region’s literary tradition. In his preface to The Literature of the American South, William L. Andrews describes Twain as “one of southern literature’s de½ning artists. Some of his greatest books –Life on the Mississippi (1883), Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)–have southern settings, deal with people and institutions readily identi½able with the South, and are told in a style and language that carry a distinctively southern inflection. Hence, for most southerners, Mark Twain belongs to Dixie”; The Literature of the American South, ed. William L. Andrews (general editor), Minrose C. Gwin, Trudier Harris, and Fred Hobson (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), xvi. 4 Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with an introduction by Robert O’Meally (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003), 2. 5 Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 4–5. 6 Ralph Ellison uses Huck’s phrase as the title of his book Going to the Territory, and in a New Yorker interview he argues that Huck is speaking about Ellison’s home in Oklahoma: “There is a blues lyric that goes”–And he sang: I’m going to the nation, Going to the territory. Going to the nation, baby, Going to the territory. “You never heard that? Well, did you ever read ‘Huckleberry Finn’? What does Huck say at the end of the book? He says he’s had enough of civilization, that ‘I got to light out for the territory.’ Well, it is Oklahoma he is talking about. . . . [A]fter Reconstruction had been betrayed, people–black and white–came to the territory.” Jervis Anderson, “Going to the Territory,” The New Yorker, November 22, 1976, 66–67. 7 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Library of America, 1990), 405. 8 Fishkin, Was Huck Black?, 7. 9 O’Meally, “Introduction,” Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, xxx, xxxiii. 10 Ibid., xxviii. 11 Shelley Fishkin suggests that these voices “have shaped our sense of what is distinctively ‘American’ about American literature”; Fishkin, Was Huck Black?, 9. 12 Richard H. Brodhead, “Two Writers’ Beginnings: Eudora Welty in the Neighborhood of Richard Wright,” The Yale Review 84 (2) (1996): 2. 13 James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Dover Publications, 2011), 148.

150 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences 14 Albert Murray and John F. Callahan, eds., Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison William and Albert Murray (New York: Vintage, 2000), 118. Ferris 15 Eudora Welty, “Place in Fiction,” in The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays & Reviews (New York: Vintage, 1990), 116. 16 Cormac McCarthy, Child of God (New York: Vintage, 1993) and All the Pretty Horses (New York: Vintage, 1993); Richard Ford, A Piece of My Heart (New York: Vintage, 1985), Rock Springs (New York: Grove Press, 2009), and The Lay of the Land (New York: Vintage, 2007); Elizabeth Spencer, The Voice at the Back Door (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994) and The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales (Jackson: University Press of Missis- sippi, 1996). 17 Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings (New York: Warner Books, 1984), 16. 18 An excellent overview of these writers is Kenneth S. Lynn, ed., The Comic Tradition in Amer- ica: An Anthology (London: Gollancz, 1958). See also Anne E. Rowe, “Regionalism and Local Color,” in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, vol. 9, Literature, ed. M. Thomas Inge (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 137–140. 19 A. B. Longstreet, “The Horse-Swap,” in Georgia Scenes: Characters, incidents, &c. in the First Half Century of the Republic (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1970), 21. 20 William Faulkner, The Hamlet (New York: Vintage, 1990), 319. 21 Jack Co½eld, William Faulkner: The Co½eld Collection (Oxford, Miss.: Yoknapatawpha Press, 1978), 23, 40–41. 22 Ralph Ellison, “What America Would be Like Without Blacks,” in Going to the Territory (New York: Vintage, 1986), 109. 23 Ralph Ellison, “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke,” in Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage, 1972), 58–59. 24 A complete set of published slave narratives can be found on the University of North Car- olina’s website under North American Slave Narratives, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/ texts.html; the project collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves that were published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some signi½cant ½ctionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920. 25 While doing her ½eld research for Mules and Men, Hurston wrote Franz Boas, her anthropology professor at Columbia University: “May I say that all primitive music originated about the Drum, and that singing was an attenuation of the drum-beat”; Carla Kaplan, ed., Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 138. 26 Alice Walker, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and A Partisan View,” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1984), 85. 27 William Ferris, “Meeting Ernest Gaines,” Humanities magazine, July/August 1998, 103. 28 Oral tradition is especially important in Southern theater. Inspired by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, Frederick Koch founded the Carolina Playmakers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1918. Adapting Southern folktales for the stage, Koch was known as the father of American folk drama. Koch’s successor, Paul Green, wrote The Lost Colony, the oldest outdoor drama in the United States. Green also worked with Zora Neale Hurston on a stage adaptation of her story “John De Conqueror.” Hurston shared Green’s love for folk speech and was enthusiastic about their collaboration. After she visited Green in Chapel Hill in 1940, she wrote him: My mind is hitting on sixteen cylinders on the play now. . . . I can continually feed you with grist for the framework. . . . So I believe that we can hit the ball for a long run. . . . I see no rea-

141 (1) Winter 2012 151 Southern son why the ½rm of Green and Hurston should not take charge of the Negro playwriting Literature: business in America. A Blending of Oral, Kaplan, Zora Neale Hurston, 450–451. Visual & That same year, Green helped Richard Wright adapt his novel Native Son for the stage. Work- Musical ing together in Chapel Hill, Voices sometimes the two men worked feverishly with Green lighting one cigarette after another in the excitement of the moment and Wright buried in his armchair shored up against the wall, concentrating on the words that poured out of his mouth. At other times they con- versed more calmly during the languid summer afternoons. Michel Fabre, The Un½nished Quest of Richard Wright (New York: Morrow, 1973), 208. 29 In his photographs, Evans later said that he had found “old America again, which goes so far back that some of the people still speak with something reminiscent of the Elizabethan Age. And their faces are like that, too. That sharecropper’s wife is a classic portrait of a real, old pioneering, American woman of English stock, and pure, too”; William Ferris, “A Visit with Walker Evans,” in Images of the South: Visits with Eudora Welty and Walker Evans (Memphis, Tenn.: Center for Southern Folklore, 1977), 43. 30 William Ferris, “‘Those Little Color Snapshots’: William Christenberry,” Southern Cultures 17 (2) (Summer 2011): 64–65. 31 Patti Carr Black, “Introduction” to Eudora (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984), 1. 32 William Ferris, “A Visit with Eudora Welty,” in Conversations with Eudora Welty, ed. Peggy Whitman Prenshaw (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984), 156. 33 Eudora Welty, On William Hollingsworth, Jr. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 4–6. See also Eudora Welty: Photographs (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989); Pearl Amelia McHaney, Eudora Welty as Photographer (Jackson: University Press of Missis- sippi, 2009); and Rene Paul Barilleaux, ed., Passionate Observer: Eudora Welty Among Artists of the Thirties (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003). 34 Ferris, “Meeting Ernest Gaines,” 103. 35 J. R. Co½eld, “Many Faces, Many Moods,” in William Faulkner of Oxford, ed. James W. Webb and A. Wigfall Green (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), 110. 36 William Faulkner, Sanctuary (New York: Random House, 1931), 41–44. 37 Eudora Welty, William E. Massey Lecture III, 6, Welty Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, cited in Suzanne Marrs, One Writer’s Imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 25. 38 Eudora Welty, “Powerhouse,” in A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1979), 205. 39 W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues (New York: Collier Books, 1970), 74. 40William Ferris, “Introduction,” to W. C. Handy, Blues: An Anthology (New York: Da Capo, 1990), 1. 41 Ibid., 2. 42 Joseph Blotner, Faulkner: A Biography, vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 1974), 155, 175. 43 Co½eld, William Faulkner, 65. 44 Lothar Hönnighausen, William Faulkner: The Art of Stylization in His Early Graphic and Literary Work (London: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 3. 45 Blotner, Faulkner, 154–155. 46 Kenneth Holditch and Richard Freeman Leavitt, Tennessee Williams and the South (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 31.

152 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences 47 Tennessee Williams, Four Plays (New York: Signet Classics, 1976), 50–51. William Ferris 48 Richard F. Leavitt, ed., The World of Tennessee Williams (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978), 107. Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, vol. 3 (New York: New Directions, 1991), 127. 49 “Studs Terkel Talks with Tennessee Williams,” in Conversations with Tennessee Williams, ed. Albert J. Devlin (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), 93. The blues Williams wrote are published in Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, Blue Mountain Ballads: Voice and Piano (New York: G. Schirmer, 1986). 50 Tennessee Williams, Blue Mountain Ballads (New York: G. Schirmer, 1979), 12–14. 51 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Vintage, 1972), 65–66. 52 William Ferris, unpublished interview with Sterling Brown, Washington, D.C., 1979. 53 Sterling A. Brown, “Ma Rainey,” in Folk-Say, A Regional Miscellany, ed. Benjamin Botkin (Nor- man: University of Oklahoma Press, 1930), 276–277. 54 Richard Wright, “Note Sur les Blues,” La Revue du Jazz, April 1949, 113. 55 Hazel Rowley, Richard Wright: The Life and Times (New York: Henry Holt, 2001), 295. 56 Ellen Wright and Michel Fabre, eds., Richard Wright Reader (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 249–250. 57 Keneth Kinnamon and Michel Fabre, eds., Conversations with Richard Wright (Jackson: Uni- versity Press of Mississippi, 1993), 240. 58 Donald Davidson, The Big Ballad Jamboree (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996), 70. 59 Lee Smith, Oral History (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983), 174–175. Interestingly, singer and songwriter Dolly Parton read Oral History and was inspired to compose her own ballad, “Mountain Angel,” about Smith’s character Dory Cantrell. The ballad appears on Parton’s 2001 album, Little Sparrow. 60Garrick Davis, “The Well-Wrought Textbook: A Look Back at Brooks and Warren’s College Classic, Understanding Poetry,” Humanities magazine, July/August 2011, 23. 61 Warren and Brooks maintained lifelong friendships with Ellison, Welty, and C. Vann Wood- ward; their work signi½cantly shaped our understanding of both Southern and American letters in the twentieth century. Welty recalled an evening with Warren in her Jackson home and how he loved storytelling: [T]here were a lot of us sitting around talking. And he laughed so hard, and he stayed so late. And when he left he said, “I had a perfectly wonderful time–not a serious word was spoken all evening.” (laughs) I thought he had something there. Oh, we had told so many tales! He had Kentucky ones, and I had some from West Virginia and Mississippi. Ferris, “A Visit with Eudora Welty,” 165. 62 Sterling A. Brown, Arthur P. Davis, and Ulysses Lee, eds., The Negro Caravan (New York: The Dryden Press, 1941), v. 63 Ibid., vi. 64 John Hope Franklin, “Foreword” to Michael S. Harper and Robert B. Stepto, eds., Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Afro-American Literature, Art, and Scholarship (Urbana: University of Illi- nois Press, 1979), x–xi. 65 Andrews, The Literature of the American South, xx–xxi. 66 Ibid., xxii.

141 (1) Winter 2012 153 Death Comes to the Broadway Musical

Charlotte Greenspan

Abstract: The Broadway musical is an excellent prism for viewing the narrative of American life–as it is, has been, and perhaps should be. In the ½rst part of the twentieth century, musicals viewed life through rose- colored glasses; musicals were equivalent to musical comedy. Starting in the 1940s, the mood of musicals darkened. One indication of the new, serious tone was that characters in musicals died in the course of the show. This essay examines several questions relating to death in the Broadway musical, such as who dies, when in the course of the drama the death occurs, and how the death is marked musically. It concludes with a look at musicals involving the deaths of historical characters and at AIDS-related musicals, works whose assumptions and ideals are very far from those of the musical comedies of the early twentieth century.

Bertolt Brecht called the Broadway musical “the authentic expression of all that is American,”1 but he did not mean that as a compliment. Compared to the serious, politically engaged theater pieces that Brecht preferred and wrote, the Broadway musicals he saw seemed trivial and super½cial. Many authors would agree that the Broadway musical is an excellent prism for viewing the Amer- ican narrative; moreover, they would not be dismayed by this idea. Indeed, several books, including literary scholar Andrea Most’s Making Ameri- cans: Jews and the Broadway Musical and musicologist CHARLOTTE GREENSPAN is a Raymond Knapp’s The American Musical and the For- musicologist and pianist based in mation of National Identity, have made the case that Ithaca, New York. She has taught the Broadway musical not only reflects American at the University of Wisconsin and Cornell University. Her book Pick mores and values but, by holding up a mirror to the Yourself Up: Dorothy Fields and the nation, actively shapes the American psyche. American Musical received the 2011 During the ½rst third of the twentieth century, ascap Deems Taylor Award for the Broadway musical was equivalent to musical best book on a popular music sub- comedy. It had much in common with the movie ject published in 2010. Her publi- genre now called rom-com, or romantic comedy. cations also include “Irving Berlin Musicals of the 1920s and 1930s had happy end- in Hollywood,” American Music (2004); and “Rhapsody in Blue: A ings–speci½cally, endings that, after tribulations Study of Hollywood Hagiogra- or at least complications, united the young lovers, phy,” in The Gershwin Style (edited presumably to live happily ever after. Characters in by Wayne Schneider, 1999). these musical comedies were often one- or two-

154 dimensional at best, what Stephen Sond- music drama for centuries. The ½rst Charlotte heim describes as one-adjective, one-noun operas for which the music has survived, Greenspan personalities. (In Finishing the Hat, Sond- Jacopo Peri’s Euridice and Giulio Cacci- heim gives as examples “the conniving ni’s opera of the same name, both dealt slave, the lecherous husband, the brag- with Orpheus’s response to the death of gart warrior” who appear in A Funny Thing his bride. Porgy and Bess is the more im- Happened on the Way to the Forum. Though mediate predecessor to Broadway musi- written in 1962, Forum makes ample use cals that feature characters’ deaths. To of traditions from earlier decades.2) Con- this day, debate continues on how to clas- sequently, the people who wrote the books sify Porgy and Bess; opera, folk opera, and for musical comedies, putting one-dimen- musical theater have all been suggested. sional characters through their paces to Its New York premiere took place not in arrive at foregone conclusions, were sel- an opera house, but at the Alvin Theatre, dom the most respected members of the which had housed Cole Porter’s Anything team creating musical comedies. As one Goes the year before; revivals have been theater historian explained, “Books in staged on Broadway and in opera houses themselves had a function but little qual- in the United States and abroad. How the ity. They were either serviceable or un- several deaths in Porgy and Bess are treat- helpful.”3 Thus, the songs had to carry the ed musically deserves consideration, and emotional weight of the drama. Although I return to this topic later in the essay. in some sense generalized (that is, not Popular songs and ballads that dealt speci½cally suited to unique characters), with loss and death were another con- the songs were what lived on after the mu- tributing stream. Most of these songs were sical comedies were no longer on the stage. not staged, and those that were did not During World War II, death came to play a part in a greater dramatic narra- the Broadway musical, particularly in tive. Rather, the drama played out within musicals by Richard Rodgers and Oscar the song, whose language was the popu- Hammerstein. Jud Fry dies in Oklahoma! lar vernacular. Barroom ballads and the (1943); Billy Bigelow dies in Carousel blues are beyond the scope of this essay, (1945); Lieutenant Cable dies in South but two songs deserve mention, if only Paci½c (1949); the King of Siam dies in The because their authors also made major King and I (1951). This was the moment contributions to musical theater. Cole when the narrative shifted. Musical come- Porter wrote “Miss Otis Regrets” in 1934 dies now had to make room for musical in response to a bet with his friend Monty theater and musical plays, works whose Woolley.4 The meaning of the ½rst and aspirations were greater; could take on last lines, “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable any subject that spoken plays could; and to lunch today,” become clear in the could enrich the narrative with music as course of the song, as we learn she must well. Some wags have noted that at this miss lunch because she is about to be point, we began to have musical comedy lynched for shooting her lover. The iron- without the comedy. My interest here is ic tone, a mix of comedy and tragedy, in one speci½c aspect of the American served later theater songwriters well in musical’s turn toward the serious: namely, certain situations. Another song about how death enters the narrative. lynching, this one entirely, and painfully, serious, is Irving Berlin’s “Suppertime.” Deaths, onstage or offstage, and songs Written for the newspaper-themed revue about them had been partners in Western As Thousands Cheer (1933), it was ½rst sung

141 (1) Winter 2012 155 Death by Ethel Waters in a scene titled “Un- of being too operatic; Tony’s death is un- Comes known Negro Lynched by Frenzied Mob.” sung–literally. There is a response with to the Broadway In a perfect embodiment of benumbing spoken dialogue and with instrumental Musical grief, the singer explains that the simple music and movement, but neither Maria, act of putting supper on the table for her- who survives him, nor Tony’s fellow gang self and her children has become an members sing a lament. Bernstein strug- almost insuperable burden because “that gled with this decision, remarking, “I tried man o’ mine ain’t comin’ home no more.” to set it very bitterly, understated, swift. Unlike nineteenth-century opera, in I tried giving all the material to the orches- which characters, whether stabbed, suffo- tra and having her sing an obbligato cated, or poisoned, are allowed to com- throughout. I tried a version that sounded ment on their own deaths–sometimes in just like a Puccini aria. . . . I made a dif- extended scenes–before they die, the ½cult, painful but surgically clean deci- deaths of characters in Broadway musicals sion not to set it at all.”5 The gang ½ght of the 1940s and 1950s either are noted only between the Sharks and the Jets is set to in the dialogue or are marked musically by music, but the deaths of Bernardo and Riff the survivors. Hence, if one’s knowledge are also unsung. Or, more accurately, death of South Paci½c came only from a record- is treated musically in the larger context ing of the musical numbers, one would of its relation to love. Anita scolds Maria not know that Lieutenant Cable dies. for her continuing loyalty to Tony. At the In the great operatic fountainhead of height of her anger, Anita sings, “He’ll death coming to Broadway, Porgy and murder your love; he murdered mine.” Bess, there are several deaths and various But love overcomes both anger and griev- musical responses. In the ½rst act, after ing, as both women proclaim, “When love Robbins is killed by Crown, his wasteful comes so strong, there is no right or death is lamented ½rst by the community wrong. Your love is your life.” At the end at large (“Gone, Gone, Gone”) and then of West Side Story, as Tony is dying, he and by his wife Serena in the deeply moving Maria sing a fragment–only six measures song “My Man’s Gone Now.” The second –of “Somewhere.” act features a choral lament for the people who died in a hurricane (“Clara, Clara, In L’opéra, ou, La défaite des femmes, phi- Don’t You Be Downhearted”). When losopher and novelist Catherine Clément Porgy kills the villainous Crown, the mu- suggests that nineteenth-century opera is sical response is not a lament but Porgy’s particularly hard on women. In contrast, triumphant exclamation to Bess: “You’ve when death ½rst came to the Broadway got a man now. You’ve got Porgy.” musical, it mainly took male characters. Jumping ahead twenty-two years, we In West Side Story, Tony dies but Maria can look to West Side Story, a musical work lives on–a striking deviation from the whose stature is equal to Porgy and Bess, source story. Indeed, in most musicals of for an entirely different treatment of the 1940s and 1950s, the men die and the death. Leonard Bernstein had much women are left behind to mourn. An deeper roots in the classical music tradi- important exception is Kurt Weill’s Street tion than did George Gershwin. Aspiring Scene (1947), in which an unfaithful wife to the status of opera, Porgy and Bess has is murdered by her husband. no spoken dialogue except that from the The men who are killed off do not fall alien white men who visit Cat½sh Row. into one personality type. Jud Fry in Okla- The creators of West Side Story were wary homa! is unsavory, but South Paci½c’s Lieu-

156 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences tenant Cable is a war hero. Carousel’s Billy Another interesting variation is death as Charlotte Bigelow dies after an attempted robbery, backstory. In musicals using this device, a Greenspan while Johnny Nolan in A Tree Grows in death of great signi½cance to one or sev- Brooklyn dies when the tunnel in which he eral of the characters in the drama has is working collapses. Most die violently, in occurred before the action of the drama the prime of their lives, but King Mongkut begins. This situation presents the prob- in The King and I dies of natural causes– lem of how the departed characters can presumably in the fullness of years– participate musically. In The Secret Garden, passing on his kingdom to his son. Lily, the dead wife, appears in flashbacks. Death can be accommodated at differ- Next to Normal, cunningly enough, initial- ent places in the narrative of the Broad- ly hides the fact that the young man we way musical. If there are many deaths in see (Gabe, Diana’s son) is a ½gment of the course of the musical, they may be Diana’s unmoored mind: he died before distributed throughout the work. If there the action of the drama begins. is only one death, near the end of the story is a likely, but by no means the only, place In time, death in the Broadway musical to put it. Death may be the conclusion of assumed a variety of treatments and ex- the action or the springboard for the pressions–deserved or undeserved, sen- action to come, and there are interesting timental or comic, individual or anony- variations on these possibilities. In Okla- mous. Candide, the musical Leonard homa!, though Jud Fry dies near the end Bernstein composed the year before West of the ½nal act, his death is, in a sense, Side Story, introduces, among other things, celebrated, or at least musically marked, anonymous deaths and death treated in the Act I duet “Pore Jud is Daid,” sung with astringent black humor. One aspect by Curly and Jud. In Ragtime, the death of of this new stance–death not as an indi- Sarah at the end of the ½rst act causes the vidual tragedy but as something omni- dramatic reversal of all the action to come. present in society–is inherent in the In Les Misérables, we see the deaths of source material for the musical, Voltaire’s many of the characters we have come to satirical novella of the same name. The know by name–Fantine, Gavroche, Épo- young Candide tries to believe that things nine, Javert–as well as those of an un- are “all for the best, in the best of all known number of anonymous ½gures. possible worlds,” despite the natural and Les Misérables is sung through, and the man-made disasters all around him; by deaths are treated in different ways musi- the end, he acknowledges that the Leib- cally. The deaths of Éponine and Javert nizian optimism he was taught is a pack are dealt with operatically: as she dies, of lies. But in the course of the show, Éponine sings a duet with Marius; Javert death and dying are mocked and trivial- has an extended aria before he throws ized. Some characters are killed, then himself into the Seine. Marius sings a brought back to life. In the soaringly lament for his many fallen comrades beautiful duet they sing upon being re- after the failure of the insurrection, united, Cunegonde asks Candide, “Dear- “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.” The est, how can this be so? You were dead, death of Jean Valjean at the very end of you know. You were shot and bayoneted, the work, and his ascension to heaven, is too.” Candide counters, “Ah, but love will treated with the full-blown musical elab- ½nd a way.” In a shocking juxtaposition, oration that puts it in company with Mar- as anonymous victims of the Inquisition guerite’s death in Charles Gounod’s Faust. are about to be burned at the stake, the

141 (1) Winter 2012 157 Death chorus jauntily sings, “What a day, what to the central characters of the drama, the Comes a day for an auto-da-fé.” Writer Ethan sheer number of people who die helps to the Broadway Mordden has commented that “after numb the audience’s reaction to the Musical Candide, anything was possible because, dreadfulness of death; these shows por- suddenly, nothing was unthinkable.”6 tray the banality of death. But more im- Two later musicals, Sweeney Todd (1979) portant than sheer numbers is the general and Little Shop of Horrors (1982), are tone determined by the musical setting. drenched in death; they provoke a com- The sense that death is all around us con- plex set of emotions of which simple sor- ditions the atmosphere of several musicals row is not the predominant feeling. By the that take place in periods of war. In The end of Little Shop of Horrors, all the princi- Sound of Music (1959), set in Austria before pals in the cast have been devoured by a the Anschluss, and in Cabaret (1966), set carnivorous plant, which appears to be in Berlin in the 1930s, the main characters turning its attention to tasty morsels in escape death, but the audience knows the audience. In Sweeney Todd, Sweeney’s that many others “in real life” did not. understandable desire for vengeance Once the ground had been prepared by against Judge Turpin and the Beadle ½nding several ways to deal musically and morphs into malice toward all. A large structurally with the subject of death, the number of anonymous men are dis- Broadway musical was better able to han- patched (“They went to their Maker dle more complex political and social impeccably shaved,” the chorus remarks) issues. In particular, the aids epidemic and recycled into meat for pies. The com- elicited many theatrical and musical re- plex, emotional tone is set at the end of the sponses, the most important for the pur- ½rst act by the comic duet for Sweeney poses of this discussion being Rent (1996) and Mrs. Lovett, “A Little Priest,” in and Falsettos (1992). Both works explore which they gleefully imagine the different the joys and sorrows of being part of a flavors of pie the various professions of subculture. In Rent’s operatic predeces- the slaughtered men will produce. There sor, Puccini’s La Bohème, Mimi dies of are notable points of contact between tuberculosis; the Mimi of Rent dies of the this duet and “What a Day” from Can- new scourge cutting people down in what dide, particularly the anonymity of the should be the prime of their lives: aids. victims and the black humor with which Whizzer, the character who dies of aids death is treated. Both Candide and Sweeney in Falsettos, is given an embittered and Todd suggest a broad concern with social impassioned song to sing, “You Gotta Die injustice, but the message is, if not im- Sometime.” He is also allowed a deeply pure, certainly not unmixed. moving farewell duet to sing with his The convergence of death and enter- lover, Marvin. At the moment that Whiz- tainment is a central feature of Chicago zer dies, the music we hear is from Mar- (1975). The women in jail for murder per- vin’s son, Jason, chanting his Bar Mitzvah ceive that by giving a story the right spin, portion, producing a complex mixture of the media and the justice system can be youth, death, and religion for the audience manipulated. In their defense the women to contemplate at the end of the show. declare, “He had it coming.” It is the Hun- garian woman, whose simple defense is The inclusion of non½ctional characters the declaration “Not guilty,” who is in a musical’s cast helped reinforce the hanged onstage. In all these works, wheth- idea that the musical was not an escape er death comes to anonymous ½gures or from the world outside the theater but

158 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences rather a means to examine that world more media-frenzy carnival develops above Charlotte closely. Of course, the appearance of a non- him. In Parade, Leo Frank is unjustly con- Greenspan ½ctional character is not a suf½cient condi- victed of murder and is lynched. In The tion for making a musical serious. Despite Scottsboro Boys, the unjust sentencing of the presence of Franklin Delano Roose- nine black men on rape charges is told in velt, as played by George M. Cohan, in the the context of a minstrel show. Assassins satirical musical I’d Rather Be Right (1937), brings together the deaths of Abraham the action focuses on the problems of a Lincoln, James Gar½eld, William McKin- young couple who wants to get married, ley, and John F. Kennedy, but the central not the economic and social problems of characters of the musical are not the vic- the Depression. But the presence of non- tims but the men who caused their deaths, ½ctional people in a musical in which char- along with several men and women who acters die demands that the audience take made failed assassination attempts on notice in a different way. Ragtime sets out other American presidents. None of a clash of different social strata, encom- these musicals started out on Broadway, passing ½ctional characters–an all-Amer- although all of them eventually spent some ican family, an immigrant father and time there. Indeed, they are so far from daughter, and an African American couple their Broadway musical predecessors that –as well as non½ctional: Harry Houdini, some commentators call them anti-musi- Emma Goldman, Henry Ford, Booker T. cals–questioning, indicting, or rede½ning Washington, and Evelyn Nesbit, among the mythology of the American dream. others. All of them participate, willingly or not, in the social upheavals of the time. Someone once said that there are only Four musicals that not only contain two worthy subjects for a drama: love and non½ctional characters but are built on death. The Broadway musical celebrated historical events–Floyd Collins (1996), love from its earliest days. Death, as part Parade (1998), Assassins (2004), and The of the narrative or even as the central sub- Scottsboro Boys (2010)–deserve attention ject, arrived decades later to produce, by here. All seem to be a hard sell. In Floyd the end of the twentieth century, musi- Collins, a young man is trapped in a cave, cals showing a darker but also a richer where he eventually perishes while a and more sophisticated view of life. endnotes 1 Quoted in Larry Stempel, Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010), 484. The quote originally appeared in Bertolt Brecht, Collected Plays, vol. 7, ed. Ralph Manheim and John Willet (London: Methuen, 1976), 420. 2 Stephen Sondheim, Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (New York: Knopf, 2010), 80. 3 Ethan Mordden, Broadway Babies: The People Who Made the American Musical (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 72. 4 According to musical theater historian Robert Kimball, “Monty Woolley suggested the title to Porter, which he accompanied with a wager that Porter could not write a song to ½t the title”; Robert Kimball, ed., The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter (New York: Knopf, 1983), 274. 5 Quoted in Stempel, Showtime, 405. 6 Ethan Mordden, Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1998), 170.

141 (1) Winter 2012 159 Poems by Lavinia Greenlaw

On the Mountain

To travel the world explicit in its fault and fold.

To enter the background as each thought discards itself:

pine-needles to the tree-line, scree beyond.

To move small, sleep low and dream new depths

of emptiness and order. To be troubled by neither.

The loosening air concentrates your blood

and your heart has the simple grip of speedwell or gentian.

You forget what it is to elaborate or qualify.

You breathe white against white sky.

160 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Otolith

A bear waking in Siberia breathes out the last of winter and the wind rolls west: pine bend, reed sway, sea plunge, sea fray, sluice dribble, crab snap, a merchant’s Flemish beaver hat, tooth rattle, jet boom, curlew splash, cathedral tone, dog confusion, jackdaw bluff, the passing bells, the plunge and fray, sea bend and sea sway, the passing birds, the Flemish bluff, a bear’s loose tooth, sea breath, corncrake, godwit, stonechat, –which of them is coming back?– the last of winter, gasp of spring, and earth, and air, and rain.

Lavinia Greenlaw is a poet and novelist based in London. Her poetry collections include “Night Photograph” (1993); “A World Where News Travelled Slowly” (1997); and “Minsk” (2003), which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot, Forward, and Whitbread Poetry Prizes. “On the Mountain” and “Otolith” ½rst appeared in the collection “The Casual Perfect,” published by Faber and Faber in September 2011. © 2012 by Lavinia Greenlaw.

141 (1) Winter 2012 161 Chair of the Board & Trust Louis W. Cabot President Leslie Cohen Berlowitz Treasurer John S. Reed Secretary Jerrold Meinwald Editor Steven Marcus Chair of the Council Gerald Early Vice Chair of the Council Neal Lane Vice Chair, Midwest John Katzenellenbogen Vice Chair, West Jesse H. Choper

Inside back cover: Clockwise from top left: An astronaut from Apollo 15 salutes as he stands next to the American flag on the Moon, August 1971, photograph by James B. Irwin, © Corbis; the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, © Steve Goodwin; a McDonald’s in Times Square, New York City, 2000, © Bernd Obermann/Corbis; an American flag flies at the One World Trade Center site, September 8, 2009, photograph by Rick Gershon, © Getty Images; 1961 poster for West Side Story, © Redferns; ½reworks over the Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom, part of Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, 2009, © Orjan F. Ellingvag/Dagbladet/Corbis.

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus:

poetry Lavinia Greenlaw On the Mountain & Otolith 160

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