CHAPTERI

"THEYOUGHT TO BE THEOBJECTS OF OURBENEVOLENT REGARDS": THEANTE CEDENTSOF ORGANIZED ANIMALPROTECTION INTHE UNITED ST A TES

Is it not sufficientfor man to absorb the useful labors and livesof the inferior creation, without superaddiogexcessive anguish. wantand misery? Whenhis own cup of suffering is fulland overflowing. desperateresort to revolutionsometimes rids him of his crueltormentors and taskmasters. But of the inferior animals, generations aftergene rations sufferand expire without any chanceof reliefor redress, unless it begranted by the generosityand justice of man.

- Julius Ames,The Spirit of Humanity( 1835)

When the anti-crueltymovement in the United States coalesced during the 1860s, it tookroot in a society in which the animal protectionimpulse already had some currency. Beforethe Civil War, some Americans gave their attention to the mistreatment of animals as a social problem, exploring its religious, moral, and legal dimensions.

Although no sustained effortsto prevent cruelty to animals ensued, these Americans explored some of the same issues that would lead a later generation to found animal protectionsocieties.

A handfulof American thinkers, forinst ance, joined their European contemporaries in settling upon animals' capacity for suffering as the decisive reason for according them better treatment. Nineteenth century Evangelicalism's embrace of Old

Testament admonitions on the moral duty to treat animals well reinforced such concern.

During the sameperiod, the kindness-to animals-ethic gained recognition as a critical constituent of childhood socialization. In addition, persistent dissatisfactionwith the

14 IS

public mistreatment of animals leda number of states to pass statutes that prohibited acts of cruelty.

Finally, concernfor animals was tied to several social movements of the antebellum period. Vegetarians advanced the issue by choosing not to kill, nor cause animals to be killed, for their sustenance. More importantly, abolition, the most significant reform of the nineteenth century, laid the groundworkfor the stigmatization and suppression of many commonly accepted cruelties, including the mistreatment of animals.

When it did emerge, organized animal protection was able to draw upon important precedents in the realms of religion, moral philosophy, law, pedagogy, and social reform. Antebellumexp erience and discussion concerningissues of crueltyand kindness shaped the context in which the humane movement arose. Afterthe anti-cruelty societies formed in the 1860s, they gave formalexpres sion to values and ideas that had been circulating in North America forsome years already.

Colonial Era Folkways and the Development of an American Moral Ecology Although concerns about the mistreatment of animals rarely surfaced in North

America before 1800, the New England and the mid-Atlantic regions were the most consistent sources of anti-crueltysentime nt, most likely owing to their respective Puritan and Quaker cultures. In these regions, as in partsof England, the opposition of both

Puritans and Quakers to cruel diversions was influential. Authorities often tried to 16

discourage blood enthusiasms such as bull baiting, cockfighting, gander pulling, throwing 1 at cocks, and horse racing, but they could not entirely suppress them.

Virginia, in contrast, was "a greatchain of slaughter," according to David Hackett

Fischer, and the colony's complex culture of sportwas so hierarchical that every man

"could be ranked according to the size of the animals that he was allowed to kill."

(Cockfightingwas the major exception, extending to all ranks and offering an atmosphere in which the boundaries and conventions of class and race could be transcended.) The same blood pursuits that scandalized Puritan and Quaker authorities elsewhere in

America thrived in early Virginia. 2

The Massachusetts Bay Colony produced America's first enactment on cruelty to animals. When the Puritan lawyer minister Nathaniel Ward (1578-1652) prepared "The

Body of Liberties,"the code oflaws adopted in 1641, he included two clauses dealing with animal welfare. One of Ward's proposedprinciples became Liberty 92: "It is ordered by this courtand authorities thereof; That no man shall exercise any tyranny or cruelty toward any bruitcreatures which are usually kept forthe use of man." Another provision, Liberty 93, ensured the convenience of drovers who traveled long distances

1 Onthe affinity between English Puritansand Quakers concerning blood pursuits, see Keith Thomas,Man and the NaturalWorld: A Historyof the ModemSensibility (New York: PantheonBooks, 1983), 159. OnAmerican Puritanand Quakerattitudes , seeDavid HackenFischer, Albion's Seed: Four BritishFolkways in America(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 148, 552-55.

2 Fischer,Albion's Seed, 360-64; and Rhys Isaac,The Transformation of Virginia(Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1982). 10 1-3. Oncockfighting, cockshailing, horseracing, hunting, andother bloodamusements, see Nancy L. Struna, Peopleof Prowess: Spon,Leisure, and Labor in Early Anglo-America(Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press, 1996). For a rare expression of disapproval of cockfightingin the South, see "To the Printer," VirginiaGa7.ette. 2 Jan. 1752. 17

with their stock, authorizingthe grazingof cattle forrest and refreshment"in any open

place that is not corn, meadow, or enclosed forsome particularuse. "3

In the narrowfocus of such measures on animals commonly kept forhuman use,

Keith Thomas notes, "the coincidence of charity and self-interest was obvious." While

Liberty 92 targeted a frequently practiced revenge, malicious wounding of other people's

animate property, it also reflected growing recognition of animals' economic value.

Domestic animals were a rare and precious commodity during the firstyears of Puritan

settlement. However, they quickly assumed importance in the New England economy

because it was relatively easy fora colonist to converthis investment of labor, feed, and

care into cash profit. This made mechanisms for resolution of conflictover the status and

ownershipof animals essential. In many communities, the legal issues created by

trespassing animals and by the killing of those animals became a persistent threat to order

and comity. The inadequate labor supply, which leftfe w men available for herding and

supervisionof animals, and the lack of fencing in many settlements, exacerbated such

difficulties. Puritan effortsto ensure proper stewardship and treatment were markers of

societal self-interest in the protection of animals in their status as property.4 Like their

3 MaxFarrand, ed. , The Laws and Libertiesof Massachusetts(Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1929), 16, 18. Ward's codificationwas influentialelsewhere. lo May 1650 the General Courtof Connecticutadopted a Codeof Laws that incorporated the Massachusettsanti-cruelty prinicip les, and a 1702 revision gave the Courtgreater discretion in detenoining punishment See Conn. Col. Rec. I, 523, quotedin "An Ancient Law," ConnecticutHumane Society, Ann. R 1901.37-38.

4 Thomas, Manand the Natural World, 188-89. On the fungibleand lucrative potential of animal ownership, seeWilliam Cronon, Changes in the Land:lndians, Colonists, andthe Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang. 1983). 130-40; and Judith Adkins, "Bodies and Boundaries: Animals in the Early AmericanExperience," (Ph.D. diss.,Yale University, 1998), 152-57. Legal scholarAlan Watson suggests thatthe concept of community interest in propertyprotection dates back to Justinian's enunciation that "it is to the advantageof the statethat no one usehis propertybad ly." SeeAlan Watson, Slave Law in the Americas(Athens: Universityof GeorgiaPress, 1989), 31. 18

English counterparts, New England Puritans also proscribedcertain blood enthusiasms;

Liberty92 included an implicit prohibition of bull baiting. The rationale forsuppres sing such pursuits centered not only on their degradationof human character but also on their associationwith such evils as gambling, intemperance, riotousness, and petty crime.

Even so, critics frequently expressed sympathetic concernfor animals' suffering, too. In

1687, Increase Mather condemned cockfightingalong with other vices that seemed to reflect a decline in the morals of Puritan New England. Yet its effects on human character were not his only concern. The suffering and death of animals were also at issue, as Mather foundthe practice both a "greatinhu manity, and a scandalous Violation of the Sixth Commandment."5

Such evidence notwithstanding, it would be wrong to maketoo much of Puritan expressions of sympathy. That initiatives to prohibit crueltyto livestock and the most obnoxious and degrading blood pursuits offeredsome positive protection to animals is surely true. However, they formonly a small partof the colonial legacy in the realm of human-animal relations. Wild animals, forexample, were among the greatest victims of

New England settlement and Puritan industry. Hunting, for the most part, was not considered a sportbut a productiveactivity that brought foodto the table and rid the landscape of nuisance animals. Many communities placed bounties on "pest" species and

"noxious" predators like wolves. By the 1650s, wild animals were in retreat from

s Thomas,Man and the Natural World. 158; and Increase Mather, A TestimonyAgainst Several Prophaneand Superstitious Customs Now Practiced by Some in New England,ed. William Peden (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1953). 39. Onthe broad context of Puritan opposition, see John Blaisdell, ''An Ordained Compassion: TheNew England Puritans andTheir Laws AgainstCruelty to Animals,"Argos (1991): 11-17; and J. Leslie Hotson, "BearGardens andBear Baiting Duringthe Commonwealth," Publications of the Modem Language Association of America 11 (1925): 276-88. 19

southernNew England and their populations were rapidly declining, as a wholesale conversion of animals into resources occurred.6

Examining still another dimension of early New England life, John Murrinhas pointed out that the Puritans' insistence on executing animals sexually assaulted by humans should temper assessments of their compassion. Merciful feelings did not trump the Puritans' stem commitment to criminalize .. unnatural acts," their fear of the monstrous offspringthat could result fromsuch unions, or their determination to execute human and non-human offendersaccording to the law of Leviticus. 7

Ultimately, eighteenth-century Quakerism proved to be a more important source of expanding sympathy with non-human animals in North America than Puritanism.

Quaker expressions of concern evinced deeply spiritual rather than pragmatic motivations, and oftenrested upon the capacity of animals to suffer. Thomas Clarkson noted that English Quakers were known not only for"t reating the different animals under

their care with tenderness,but in abstaining from all diversions in which their fe elings could be hurt." Quakerism's founder, George Fox (1624-1691), had reproved both hunting and hawking, and from its earliest years the Society of Friends opposed blood

6 On hunting,see BruceC. Daniels, Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England(New York: St Manin'sGriffin, 1995), 166-72. On destruction of "noxious" animals,see Adkins, "Bodiesand Boundaries," 27-28, 62-66, 99-126. On the shift to a European worldview thattreated animals as resources, see Cronon, Changes in the Land, 132-33; Peter N. Carroll, Puritanism and the Wilderness: The Intellectual Significanceof the New EnglandFrontier 1629-1700 (New York: Colwnbia University Press,1969), 136-37; andCarolyn Merchant.Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press,1989), 65-66.

7 John M Murrin,"'Things Fearful to Name': Bestiality in Colonial America," Pennsylvania History65 (1998 Supplement): 33-34. Otherdiscussions include RobertF. Oaks,"'Things Too Fearful to Name': Sodomyand Buggery in SeventeenthCentury New England,"Journal of Social History12 (1978): 268-81; andJohn Canup, "Bestialityand the Wildernessof Human Nature in SeventeenthCentury New England," Proceedings of the AmericanAntiquarian Society98 (Worcester,MA: 1988): 113-34. 20

pursuits, then common and immensely popular. William Penn included prohibitions

against cockfights, bull baits, and other "rudeand riotous sports"in the legal code

adopted by the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1682.8

Penn's discipline did not take firm hold, however, and Pennsylvania authorities

deemedit necessaryto reassertthese and other measures on several occasions between

the late 1690s and 1714. Over time, the influxof non-Quakers into the colony made it

difficultfor Friends to impose their view of proper conduct upon others. Even within the

Society of Friends, moreover, it was necessary to reiterate admonitions against cockfights

and similar activities. 9

Importantly, Quakers' compassion foranimals extended beyond those used in

such pursuits. As Clarkson remarked in 1806, "I t has frequentlybeen observed... that

all animals belonging to them are treated with a tender consideration and not permitted to

be abused; and that they fe el in like manner for those which may be oppressed by

others."10 Clarkson attributed Quakers' sensitivity not only to their acknowledgment of

God's benevolent regard forall creation, but also to their recognition of animals' capacity

8 Thomas Clarkson, A Portraitureof Quakerism,Taken from a View of the Educalionand Discipline, SocialManners, Civil and PolilicalEco nomy, Religious Principles,and Characterof the Society of Friends (Samuel Stansbury, 1806). I: 141; and J. T. Jable. "Pennsylvania's Early Blue Laws: A Quaker Experiment in the Suppression of Spon and Amusements, 1682-1740," Journalof Spon History 1 (1974 ): 108-09, 113-17.

9 Clarkson,Quakerism 1: 142.

1° Clarkson.Quakerism 3: 152. 21

to feelpain. The Quaker, Clarkson wrote, "cananticipate and know their feelings by his

own. . . . His own power of feeling strongly commands sympathy to all that can feel." 11

In America, a fe w influentialQuakers incorporated the values of compassion

toward the non-human world into their lives. John Woolman (1720-1772) bore witness

against the cruel treatment of animals in both his writings and personal conduct.

Woolman lamented the overworkingof draftanimals, driven to exertthe mselves even

when "their eyes and the motions of their bodies manifest that they are oppressed."12 He

was deeply distressed at the sufferingof fowl on board the ship that took him to England.

He avoided stagecoaches and the use of couriers, having judged the horses and their

riders badly abused by the imperatives of expedited arrival and delivery. As a vegetarian,

Woolman combined his boycott of the products of slavery--cotton, sugar, and indigo dye­

-with a personal stand against the exploitation of animals. "I was early convinced in my

mind," he wrote,

thattrue religionconsisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverenceGod the Creator, and learnsto exercisetrue justice and goodness not only toward all men, but alsoto ward the brute creatures;that ...as by his breaththe flame of life was kindled in all animal and sensitive creatures.to saywe love God as unseen, and at the same timeexercise cruelty toward the 13 leastcreature moving by His Life, or by life derivedfrom Him. was a contradictionin itself.

11 Clarkson. Quakerism I: 152-53. English Quakers were active in the anti-cruelty movement when it beganin the 1820s. SeeJames C. Turner, Reckoningwith the Beast: Animals,Pain, and Humanity in the Victorian Mind (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1980), 155, n22; and Hilda Kean, AnimalRights: Po liticaland SocialChange in Britain Since 1800(London: ReaktionBooks, 1998), 56-57.

12 John Woolman, "A Wordof Remembrance andCaution to the Rich," in The Journal of John Woolman. With an Introductionby John GreenleafWhittier (Boston: Houghton-Osgood, 1879). 290. This 1793 essay on morally scrupulousliving sometimesappears as "A Plea for the Poor. "

13 A Journalof the Life, Gospel, Labours, and ChristianExperiences of ThatFaithful Minister of Jesus Christ,John Woolman,Late of Mount Holly (Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Chapman. 1837), 8-9, 17 1, 175-76; and TheJournal and Major Essays of John Woolman, ed. Phillips 8. Moulton, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971 ), 28. 22

"Humaneness, in Woolman's case," nineteenth-century animal rights advocate Henry

Salt remarked, "was in fact identical with religion."14

Pennsylvania Quaker pedagogue AnthonyBenezet ( 1713-1784) felt the same

way. Benezet told one correspondent that he had come to feel himself in "a kind of a league of Amityand Peace with the animal Creation," and he included lessons on

kindness to animals in two readers forchildren. "The sympathies ofBenezet's nature,"

one biographer wrote, "extended to everything that was susceptible of feeling." So great wasBenezet' s sympathy "with everything that was capable of feeling pain, that he

resolved, toward the close of his life, to eat no animal food." Once at his brother's house,

"when his family were dining upon poultry, he was asked by his brother's wife, to sit

15 down and eat with them. 'What,' said he, 'would you have me eat my neighbors?"'

Benezet and Woolman were not the only American Quakers who encouraged a moral ecology encompassing the ethical treatment of animals. Quakerism had its own tradition of radical ethical vegetarianism, dating back to the admonitions of the English

Pythagorean Thomas Tryon (1643-1703), who chided Quakers in The Countryman's

Companion (1684) forthe violence of their diet. In Wisdom's Dictates (1683), Tryon underscored the brutalityof man's treatment of animals and recommended abstention

14 Heruy S. Salt, "John Woolman."Humane Review 4 (Apr. 1903-Jan. 1904),360-63.

15 Benezetto John Smith. 9th Day, 12th Month. 1757, Robens Vaux Papers, Box I, Historical Societyof Pennsylvania,quoted in DonaldBrooks Kelley, "' A Tender Regard to the Whole Creation': Anthony Benezetand the Emergence of an Eighteenth-CenturyQuaker Ecology," PennsylvaniaMlgazine of Historyand Biography 106(Jan. 1982): 76; Anthony Benezet, A First Bookfor Children (Philadelphia: Joseph Crukshank. 1778), 18; idem, ThePennsylvania Spelling-Book (Providence: Bennett and Wheeler, 1782), 27; Wilson Armistead, Anthony Benezet: From the OriginalMemoir (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1859), 132; and Benjamin Rush, Essays: Literary, Moral, and Philosophi� 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 313. 23

fromfoods that "cannot be procured without violence and oppression." Benjamin

Franklinadhered to a vegetarian diet forsome years under Tryon's influence. 16

Like Woolman, Benjamin Lay (1677-1759), an English Quaker who settledin

Philadelphia in the 1730s, abstained fromthe products of both animal slaughter and slave

labor. Lay once challenged slaveholding Quakers by splashing them with red pokeberry

juice at a meetinghouse in Burlington, New Jersey. He also dabbled in humane

beekeeping, determined to avoid the practice of destroying the bees in order to take their

honey. 17 Long Islander Elias Hicks (1748-1830), a pivotal figurein the 1827-1828

schism in the Society of Friends, displayed a similar regard. "Possessing a tender,

humane spirit, quickly touched by either human or animal suffering," one biographer

commented, "he was all his life a powerful advocate of kindness to animals." 18

The Quaker teachers John Comly (1773-1850) and Joshua Evans (1731-1797)

also avoided meat and exemplifiedthe gospel of kindness to animals. Comly remembered that at the age of fouror fivehe had thrown a stone at a chicken. As the animal died, he wrote, "Horror and sorrowseized my infant soul. My heart then learned to fe el tenderness toward every living thing that could fe el pain." Comly acknowledged

16 The Countryman's Companion (London: Andrew Sowle, 1684), 141-73; Wisdom's Dictates: or, Aphorisms and Rules, Physical, Moral, and Divine (London: ThomasSalusbwy. 1691 ). 6. Tryonwas probablythe firstEnglish language author to employ the tenn "rights " in a discussion of animals' treatment OnTryon's useof the tennin The Way to Health.Long Life, and Hap_piness (London: Andrew Sowle, 1683), see Charles R. Magel, Keyguideto InformationSources in Animal Rights(Jefferson.. NC: McFarland andCo., 1989), 72-73. On Franklin's vegetarianism,see The Autobiogm,hy of Benjamin Franklin(New York: Ainnont Books, 1965), 40-4l; and Richard L. Bushman, "On the Uses of Psychology: Conflictand Conciliation in Benjamin Franklin," History andTheory 5 ( 1966): 225-40.

17 Roberts Vaux, Memoirs of the Livesof Benjamin Layand Ralph Sandiford (Philadelphia: Solomon W. Conrad, 1815), 16. 18 Dictionary of AmericanBiography, s. v. "Hicks, Elias." 24

the influence ofBenezet and Woolman. and included selections concerning "Tenderness

to Animals" in his readers forchildren. In one he lamented the mistreatment of the dray

horse: "What a pity that a beast sobrave, should to the cruelbe a slave." Another

featured excerpts on crueltyto animals fromWilliam Cowper's poem "The Task." 19

For his part,Evans explained that spiritual reflectionhad led him to

vegetarianism. "I considered that life was sweet in all living creatures, and taking it away

became a very tender point with me," he recalled. "I believe my dear M&Ster has been

pleased to trymy faithand obedience by teaching me that I ought no longer to partake of

anything that had life." Evans also avoided the use of carriages when he judged the

horses to be sufferingin their labors.20

The origins and character of Quaker concernfor animals have inspired a scholarly

debate, centering on whether theocentrism or a doctrine of universal benevolence can

best explain it.21 However, whether foundedin an ethic of universal love, or derived

19 Joumalof the Life and Religious Laborsof John Comlv (Philadelphia:T. EllwoodChapman. 1853), 5, 8; John Comly, Comly's Primer, or the First Book forChildren (Philadelphia: Kimberand Sharpless, 184 1), 35; and idem, Comly's Reader andBook of Knowledge(Philadelph ia: Thomas L. Bonsal, 1845), 158-59.

20 JoshuaEvans, Journalof the Life, Travels, Religious Exercises,and Labours in the Work of the Ministry(Bybeny: 1837), 27-28. Donald Brooks Kelley presents pertinentreferences to Evans's fee lings on the subject of animalsuff ering in "Joshua Evans 173 1-1798: A Study in Eighteenth-CenturyQuake r Singularity,"Quaker History 75 (fall 1986): 71.

21 Donald Brooks Kelley argues that Benezet andother AmericanQuakers helped to engender an ecological consciousness rooted in universalbenevolence and love toward animalsand non-human nature. Thatsens ibilitynot only divergedfrom the dominantvalues of the late eighteenthcent ury; it also helpedto shape subsequentenvironm ental concem In response, Keny Walters assertsthat Quakerconcern over the moral treatmentof animalswas theocentric in its origins: to display and practicecomp assionand respect forall life wasto give honor to God. whose presencewas reflected in all partsof the organic order. As an alternative, Walters looksto William Bartramfo r anethic of humaneness grounded uponempirically derived comparisonsof humanand non-human animal behavior. Bartram, Walters claims, fo und grounds forkindly treatment in the cogni:zance of animal rationality. SeeDonald Brooks Kelley, , .. A Tender Regard to the Whole Creation': Anthony Bene7.et and the Emergence of an Eighteenth-CenturyQuaker Ecology," Pe1111$Vlvania Magazine of Historyand Biography. 106 (Jan. 1982): 69-88; idem, 'TheEvolution of QuakerTheology and the Unfolding of a DistinctiveQuaker Ecological Perspective in Eighteenth- 25

froma holistic reverence forGod -givencreation, Quaker sensitivity to animals was not

simply the product of sectarian doctrine. In laying emphasis on the facultyof suffering,

these Friends were partof a developing internationalconsensus in which the capacity for

pain definedan animal's moral interests.

Moral Philosophy, the Quickening of Conscience, and the Emergence of the Humane Although he was not the firstto do so, the English philosopher and jurist Jeremy

Bentham most famouslyarticulated the new standard. In a footnote to his Principles of

Morals and Legislation (1780), Bentham challenged the conventional basis fordenying recognition to animals' interests--their lack of rationality. The proper criterion for

considering animals' status, Bentham argued, was not rationality but sentience. "The

question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk?" he wrote, "But can they suffer?"

Bentham rejected not just rationality but all other criteria based upon difference. As the

abolition movement gathered momentum within the British Empire, he drew an explicit

analogy between the treatment of animals and chattel slavery. "The day maycome when

the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which could never have been withholden fromthem but by the hand of tyranny," Bentham wrote. "The French have already discovered that the blackness of skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number oflegs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os

CenturyAmerica." Pennsyl vania History 52 (Oct. 1985): 242-S3; idem. "Friends and Naturein America: Towardan Eighteenth-Century Quaker Ecology," Pennsylvania History 53 (Oct. 1986): 257-73; and Kerry S. Walters, "The'Peaceable Disposition' of Animals: William Bartram on the MoralSensibility of Brute Creation." PennsylvaniaHistory 56 (July 1989): 157-76. 26

sacrum, are reasonsequally insufficientfor abandoning a sensitive being to the same

fate."22

The experience of pain and pleasure was at the heartof Bentham's utilitarian

philosophy, but others beforehim had assertedits relevance. Most importantly,the

Cambridge Platonistsand Latitudinarian divines of the Restoration era had focusedon

suffering in developing their idealized personality type, "the man of fe eling." The notion

of a "humane" person--a historically specificphen omenon--emerged from their challenge

to Thomas Hobbes's view that base instincts and selfishgreed were the primary

motivators of human behavior. These English divines argued instead that Christianity as

a moral system was foundedon innate human virtue, and that charitable action toward

others was the hallmark of proper faith. Their understanding of humane sensitivity was

closely tied to the awareness that all beings, human and animal, were capable of

sensation. Tender regard and fe eling for the sufferingof others, and responsiveness to

that suffering, were qualities to be nurtured and developed, not suppressed. 23

22 Jeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Moralsand Legislation(New York: PrometheusBooks, 1988), 311. Britishcleric HumphreyPrimatt ( 1776) anticipated Bentham in rejecting rationality and emphasizinganimals' capacity to sufferas the basis forobligation toward them See Humphrey Primatt,The Duty of Mercyand the Sin of Cruelty(fontwell: Centaur Press, 1992), 23. 35-36. Andreas-HolgerMaehle discusses Bentham,Primatt, and Gennan philosopherWilhelm Dietler. in "Cruelty and Kindness to the 'Brute Creation': Stability and Change in the Ethicsof the Man-Animal Relationship, 1600-1850," in AubreyManning andJames Serpell eds., Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1994), 93-94. American periodicals occasionally reprintedBentham 's comments. See"The BruteWorld, a Mystery," Living Age 63 (12 Nov. 1859), 393.

23 Ronald S. Crane,"S uggestions toward a Genealogyof the 'Man of Feeling, "' English Litenuy History l (Dec. 1934): 22 1-25; G. J. Barker-Benfield,The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-CenturyBritain (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1992), 66-69;Janet Todd,Sensibil ity: An Introduction(London: Methuen, 1986);and Thomas, Man andthe NaturalWorld, 175-78. Beforethese developments, the word "humane" had referred to the characteristics of or "the distinct elements of men, in thegeneral senseof the humanspecies. " Its currency as a synonym for"kind, gentle, courteous, sympathetic" datesfro m the early 1500s, but this usagewas uncommon until the late eighteenth century. SeeRaymond Williams,Keywords (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1976), 148. 27

Propoundedby a seriesof influential thinkers from the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, to FrancisHutcheso n, to David Hume, to Adam Smith, the belief in human benevolence gathered intensity, until by the end of the eighteenth centuryit was a widely held conviction. The debate that began with the Cambridge scholars also inspired a secular deliberation on humans as social and moral beings. Some thinkers saw the human capacity for sympathy with others as deriving fromhuman nature itself, as distinct from any God-given morality. This new concept of benevolence rested on the notion that social affection,the desire to be with and to care forothers, was natural to humankind.

Fellow feeling was identical with the essence of true human nature, and, as some pointed out, it couldtranscend the boundaries of species. 24

By the late eighteenth century, too, the word "humane" had begun to show its versatility. It was descriptive not only of a personality type but also of a broad set of reformconcerns, including anti-slavery, debt relief, moral uplift, care forthe sick, treatment of the insane, and animal welfare. As early as 1810, an author employed the term to describe his approach to farriery and stable care. 25

24 "Original Communications on Humanity,"Weekly Maga zine 3 (Mar. 30. 1799). 353-55; Hwnanitas, "An Essayon Good Nature," TheNew-Y ork Magazine and General Repository of Useful Knowledge1 (July 1814), 129-133; A. R. Humphreys, "'The Friend of Mankind' (1700- 1760)-An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century Sensibility," Review of EnglishStudies 24 (1948): 204-5; NormanS. Fiering, "Irresistible Compassion: An Aspectof Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism," Journalof the Historyof ldeas 37 (Apr.-June 1976): 202; and R. F. Bri�nden, Vutu e in Distress: Studies in the Novel of Sentimentfrom Richard to Sade (New York: Barnesand Noble, 1974), 27-37.

25 The tenn"hu manitarian" firstemerged in debatesover religion, and referredto thedoctrine that recognizedChrist as humanrather than divine. By the late eighteenthcentury, this usehad given way to a new connotationthat drew on Enlightenment notions about humanself -cultivationand perfection. At that point, the word becameassociated with a commitment to conscious and deliberateimprovem ent of the generalwelfare, and"humanitarian" became a synonym fo r "philanthropist " For its usein relation to animals, seeYorick Wilson, TheGentleman's Veterinary Monitor and Stable Guide (Philadelphia: Johnson and Warner, 1810). With the fo undation of animal protectionsocieties in the post-Civil War era, the word "humane" quickly cameinto regular use in public discussionof cruelty to animals. It first surfaced in an organizational title in 1877, with the renamingof the Dlinois Societyfo r the Prevention of Cruelty to 28

Eventually, increased reliance on the term "humane" to describe charitable

impulse and action inspired its use in an array of organizational titles. America's original

"humane societies" were part of the proliferation of associative organizations devoted to

the improvement of civic life in the early Republic. This first humane movement played

a vital role by attending to relief functionsthat the normal institutions of government

could not fulfillunder the pressures of rapid urbanization, immigration, and early

industrialization. These humane societies had nothing to do with animal welfare,

however. 26

Other late eighteenth-century social, cultural, and intellectual trends helped to

advance the idea of a humanity that reached beyond humanity itself. Enlightenment

rationalism and natural rights ideology, for instance, inspired a number of thinkers to

assert man's moral responsibility toward animals. The occasional expressions of concern

by Thomas Paine and other theorists of revolutionary social reform reflected their view

Animalsas the Illinois Humane Society. In later years, the tennwo uld frequently appearin the tides of societies with the dual functionsof child and animalprotection.

26 The public use of the word "humane" began in late eighteenth-centwyEurope with the formation of life-saving societies thatrescued the victims of drowning and shipwreck. This use carried over into American life, as humane societies formed in Philadelphiain 1780, Boston in 1786, and Baltimore in 1790to save people fromdr owning and to treatthose rendered unconscious by sunstroke, lightning, accidental hanging, suffocatinggases, traumaticshock, and other causes. In somecases. like that of New York, The Humane Society evolved to fulfilla number of charitable functions. Raymond A. Mohl. "The Humane Societyand UrbanRefonn," Poverty in New York: 1783-1825 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 121-3 1; ThomasEddy et al, Report of a Committeeof the Humane Society, Appointed to Inquire into the Numberof Tavern Licenses(New York: Collins and Perkins, 1810); New York Post. 12 Feb. 1812; and "Humane Society Reward,"True Sun. 12 Oct. 1844, 2. During the first fe w decadesof the nineteenth century,the term "humane" also appeared in the nameof anti-slaveryand moral reform societies. In addition, it sometimes surfaced in the tides of other kinds of life-saving agencies. Theseincluded one of Philadelphia's volunteerfire companies, and an associationfor therescue of those who fe ll through the ice of rivers or lakes while skating in winter. Anti-slaveryorgani7.ati ons employing the term includedthe Virginia Society forPro moting the Abolitionof Slavery, and the Relief of Free Negroes, or Others, Unlawfully Held in Bondage,and OtherHumane Purposes( 1795), andthe Union Humane Society (1816). On fire rescueand skatingclub usage, seeOne HundredYears of the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Skating Club. 1949). 29

that a trulytransformed society would comprehend and respect the interests of a variety of oppressed classes, including animals. 27

This strain of thought was particularlystrong in England. John Oswald, the professional soldier who died fighting in the French Revolution, wrote in this tradition, as did the radical printer George Nicholson, the antiquarian Joseph Ritson, and the London bookseller Richard Phillips, jailed in 1793 forselling Paine's The Rights of Man. All fourwere ethical vegetarians. 28

Similar beliefs inspired an attempt at vegetarian living in the United States. In

1797, formerBritish army officer Joseph Dorril moved fromMassachusetts to Guilford,

Vermont, with a groupof followers. The origins of their doctrine are obscure, but the

Dorrilites adopted a vegetarian diet based on the sanctity of all life. They refusedto slaughter animals forfood, and would not wear garmentsderived fromleather or skins.

One of them, a blacksmith, even discarded his leather bellows and fashionedone from

27 In TheAge of Reason, Paine wrote, 1be moralduty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of Godmanifested in the creation toward all his creatures. . . . Everythingof persecutionand revenge between man and man, and everything of crueltyto animals is a violation of moral duty. . . . Theonly ideawe canhave of servingGod is thatof contributing to the happiness of the living creation God hasmade. " ThomasPaine, The Age of Reason. in The Writingsof Thomas Paine.ed. Moncure Daniel Conway (New York: Burt Franklin, 1969), 4: 583. While he was editor, Paine (anonymously) published a poem concerning mercy to animals in the Pennsylvania Magazine. It was a depressing pieceabout his rescueof a kitten tossed toward a pack of dogs by a wretched reprobate. The incident occurred outside a slaughterhouse, whose victimsaJso drew the author's pity. "Crueltyto Animals Exposed, Occasionedby a Real Circumstance," Pennsylvania Magazine (May 1775), 231-32.

28 John Oswald,The Cryof Nature, or, An Am,ealto Mercy and to Justice on Behalfof the Persecuted Animals(Lo ndon: J. Johnson, 1791); GeorgeNi cholson,comp., On the Primeval Diet of Man: Arguments in Favor of Vegetable Food. and on Man'sConduct to Animals(Poughnill nearLudlow: G. Nicholson, 1801); JosephRitson, An Essay on Abstinencefrom AnimalFood as a MoralDuty (London: RichardPhillips, 1802); and Richard Phillips, Golden Rulesof Social PhilOSOJ>hY (London: Richard Phillips, 1826). All arediscussed in J. Howard Williams,The Ethics of Diet (London: F. Pitman,1883). 30

cloth. The settlement did not last forlong, however; as disciples lost faithin Dorril, they dispersed, ending America's earliest experiment in vegetarian communalism.29

By the late eighteenth century, the question of crueltyto animals had found its way to NorthAmerica through transatlantic intellectual exchange. English M. P. Soame

Jenyns's essay, "Crueltyto Infe rior Animals," a chapter in his Disquisitions on Several

Subjects, was the earliest substantial work to address the topic; a Philadelphia publisher issued an edition of the book in 1790, and a number of periodicals republished the essay on crueltyas a separate piece. Sparing no class fromhis critique, Jenyns argued on theological grounds that animals had an equal right to enjoy life, and that humans were bound to practice justice and mercy towardthem. He condemned such public spectacles as animal fightingand bull baiting, and underscored the problem of children's thoughtless cruelty. Jenyns conceded that the capacity to take pleasure in giving pain was "in some manner inherent in the nature of man," and that while "civilization may in some degree abate this native fe rocity, it can never quite extirpate it." Nevertheless, he deplored the factthat "the most polished are not ashamed to be pleased with scenes of little less barbarity, and, to the disgrace of human nature, to dignify them with the name of sports." 30

In subsequent years, other British works invoking the argument forimproved treatment of animals began to circulate. In 1802, a Boston publisher released an edition

29 Edward Tyler, "Saints andSe nsation Seekers," Rural Vennonter I (Summer 1963). 10-11.

30 Soame Jenyns, Disquisitions on Several Subjects (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1790), 15-16. Jenyns ( l 704- 1787), as a Memberof Parliament who had spoken out againsttaxation of the colonies, was well known in Nonh America. ThomasJefferson owneda copy of the firstedit ion of Disquisitions, publishedin London in 1782 by J. Dodsley. For the essay's appearance in periodicalliterat ure, see The Lady'sMagazine and Repositoryof EntertainingKnowledge (Jan. 1793), 61-64,and (May 1793). 303-5; andMonthly Rq,ository of Useful Infonnation l (Sept 1793), 241-46. 31

of John Toogood' s The Book of Nature that included an excerpt fromPrimatt' s

Dissertation. Emphasizing religious duty, Toogood's tract admonished readers that it

was "impossible to supposethat we can have a right to rob our fe llow creatures (forsuch

they are) of that little allotment of happiness forwhich they are capable of enjoying," for

''surely, ifit was not beneath God to create them, it cannot be beneath man to consider

them."31

Humane ideals surfaced in the work ofone of America's founding fa thers as well.

In an 1808 lecture promoting veterinary education and the study of animal disease,

Benjamin Rush (1745- 1813) affirmedhuman obligation to treat animals kindly and

lessen their miseries. Rush cited the work of two Englishmen: David Hartley (1705-

1757), a pioneer of utilitarian philosophy who devoted a bookch apter to "The Intellectual

Faculties of Brutes," and John Hildrop (d. 1756), author of an important tract arguing that

animals had immortal souls. Rush groundedhis case on the Genesis-derived concept of

stewardship (as Hartley had), Hildrop's argument foranimal immortality, and the

attending corollary that the serviceof animals warranted them due consideration. 32

Presbyterian minister Herman Daggett(1 766-1832) of Long Island produced the

earliest indigenous work on the subject. In 1791, Daggett delivered an oration entitled

31 John Toogood. TheBook of Nature: A Discourseon Some of Those Instances of thePower, Wisdom, and Goodness of God Which are Within the Reach of Common Observation: to Which is Added, The Dutyo[Mercy andSin ofCruelty to Brutes, Taken Chieflyfrom Dr. Primatt's Dissertation (Boston: Samuel Hall, 1802). 13-14.

32 Benjamin Rush, "An Introductionto a Courseof Lectures Upon the Duty andAdvantages of Studying the Diseases of Domestic Animals," in Memoirs ofthe Philadelphia Societyfo r Promoting Agriculture 1 (Philadelphia: Jane Aitken. 1808), 1-li; David Hanley, Observationson the Frame,Duties, and Expectationsof Man(London: J. Johnson, 1791), 1: 409-15; andJohn Hildrop, Free Thoughts on the BruteCreation (London: R. Minors, 1742). Rush owned both works aswell as ThomasTryon 's The Way to Health, which made the case fo r animals' rightsand vegetarianism. 32

The Rights of Animals at Providence College (now Brown University), where he was a

degreecan didate in divinity. Like Rush's lecture, Daggett's work reflectedthe influence

of British and European authors. His pamphlet was far less exegetical than that of British

religionists like Hildrop and Primatt, but he used Proverbs 12: 10, "A Righteous man

regardeth the life of his beast"--a common point of departurefor sermons on the subject-­

as an epigraph. Daggett's extensive citation of William Cowper suggests the important

influence of the poet and evangelical, one of the strongest animal advocates in English

letters, upontransatlantic human itarian discourse. 33

Daggett's adoption of the term"rig hts" was consistent with a crucialshift in

discussions of the question. During the second half of the eighteenth century, ongoing

English and Continental debate about the most compelling arguments against crueltyto

animals resulted in a tum toward the language of rights. A number of thinkers moved

away from the traditional anthropocentric position--that there was an indirect obligation

to avoid mistreatment of animals because of its potential to extinguish compassion forthe

sufferingof humans--to an affirmative assignment of rights to animals. This shift arose

in part fromgrowing philosophical dissatisfaction with theories of indirect obligation.

However, practical experience and disappointment with attempts to impose legal

33 Hennan Daggett, The Rightsof Animals: An Oration Deliveredat Providence College. September7, 1791 (Sagg Harbour: David Frothingham, 1792). Daggett wasa Massachusetts native who in his ministtyrefused to condone the Half-Way Covenant. a stancethat causedhim to loseor abandon halfa doi.en positions. For a time, he was a neighbor of Lyman Beecher. He endedhis working life as head of several schools in Connecticut Daggettcited lengthy sectionsfr om Cowper's"The Task," includingBook III: 326-33, and Book VI: 560-88. RohenSouthey, ed.,The Works of William CoMJCr9 (New York: AMSFacs imile Edition, 1971), 141. 250-52. OnCowpe r's humanitarianismand its expressionin his poetry, seeDix Harwood, Love forAnimals and How It Developed in England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), 320-32; and A. Lytton Sells, AnimalPoetry in Frenchand English Literatureand the Greek Tradition (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1955), 169-75. 33

punishment forcruelty were also influential. In general, prosecutions were only viable in those instances where crueltreatment of an animal could be linked to malice toward that animal's owner. In cases where an individual mistreated an animal that he owned, it was virtually impossible to trumpthe right of property. In 1796, frustration with this pattern ledEnglish gentleman farmer John Lawrence to argue explicitly for a� animalium, a legal and formal recognitionof "the Rights of Beasts," as a necessary remedy. When

Lawrence, Daggett, and others used the term "rights," they used it in a very qualified sense, to mean that all beings had some claim to happiness as well as to the avoidance of pain. In reality, the practical demands that derived from this position did not differ greatlyfrom those resting on theories of indirect obligation. Nor did they challenge the presumption of humans' God-givendominion over animals. Once codifiedwithin the law, however, this strategywould yield results, making it possible to punish crueltyto animals even when it did not occur in public, and thus could not have caused offenseto other parties.34

Daggett's sermon also reflectedthe emerging view--previously articulated by

Bentham, Primatt, and others--that the capacity to suffer pain, and not rationality, ought to be the criterion for assessing the claims of animals. Daggett attacked the notion that animals' sensitivity to pain was less developed than that of humans, identifiedthe inconsistency marking attitudes toward tameand wild creatures, and denied any justification for abuse or neglect. Echoing Bentham, he wrote, "Let their circumstances or characters, dispositions or abilities, color or shape, be what they may; if they are

34 Daggett, Rights of Animals, S, 7; Machle, "Cruelty and Kindness," 91-98; John Lawrence,see A PhilosophicalTreatise on Horses, and on the Moral Duties of Mantowards the Brute Creation (London: T. N. Longman, 1796, 1798), I: 123; andDictionary of National Biography, s. v. "Lawrence, John." 34

sensible beings, and capable of happiness, they ought to be the objects of our benevolent regards. "35

During the firstfe w decades of the nineteenth century, other American religionists began to think, speak, publish, and read about the issue as well. In early adulthood,

William Ellery Channing ( 1780-1842), founderof Unitarianism, recalled a childhood trauma in which he came upon a group of dismembered birds. "The incident has given a tum to my whole life and character," Channing wrote to a friend, adding, "Thanks that I can say I have never killed a bird. I would not crushthe meanest insect which crawls upon the ground. They have the same right to life that I have, they received it from the same Father, and I will not mar the works of God by wanton cruelty."36

Another minister, RobertHunter, published a sermon against cruelty to animals, at Troy, New York, in the mid-I 830s. Like many beforehim, Hunter emphasized the duty of care for animals as part of broader obligations toward God the creator of all. He also challenged the propertyclaim that the cruel person might raise as a defense. Our

God-given dominion over animals was not an absolute one, Hunter insisted. It was,

35 Daggett,Rights of Animals, 3.

36 "Richmond'sSennon on the Sin of Crueltyto the Brute Creation." ChristianObserver l (Aug. 1802), 504-7; "On Crueltyto Brutes," General Assembly's Missionary M�gazirte 2 (Apr. 1806). 179-8 1; "On the Dutyof Christiansto the Infe rior Animals,"Christian Observer (June 1807),367-70 ; Misericordia, "On Crueltyto Animals," Churchman'sMagazi ne 2 (Nov. 1822), 333-34; Thomas Chalmers, "Cruelty to Animals," Methodist M=tgazine 9 (July 1826), 259-66; "True DelicacyToward Animals." Western Messenger 6 (Nov. 1838), 19-24; .. Young Channing," The North Star, 7 Sept 1849; and William Henry Channing,The Life of William ElleryChanning (B oston: American UniWian Association. 1880). 18. JS

rather, "a dominion which can be rightfullyexercised only within certainlimits, and

which, if we push it beyond these, becomes offensivein His sight. "37

Finally, Hunter advanced the notion of a generalaffirmative duty to act against

cruelty. "We may think we are exempted fromthe charge of guilt as to the matter before

us, because we may not remember any acts of barbarity toward the brutecreation, which

we have committed with our own hands," Hunter observed. "But have we never

witnessed, without disapproval, the most savage deportmentof others . . . have we never

given the sanctionof our presence to sceneswhich can scarcely be brought into keeping

with the requirements of the Gospel?"38

American periodical editors also began to speak out against crueltyand abuse,

variously emphasizing animals' divine creation and extraordinary diversity, their capacity

to endure pain, cruelty's demoralization of its perpetrators, and the many benefitsthat

humans derived fromthe use of animals. 39 During the 1830s and 1840s, the issue drew

occasional comment in workingmen's journals, too. In 1834, Parley's carried a series of

items that deplored crueltyto draftan imals, and The Man reminded its readers that "kind

and fa miliar treatment" was superior to "harshness and bad usage." The editors of the

National Trades' Union condemned the cruelty of tight reins and high-pressure bits.

37 Robert Hunter, On Crueltyto Animals: A Sennon Preached at WestTroy, on June 13, 1835 (Troy: N. Tuttle, 1835), IS-17.

38 Ibid., 23.

39 "On Crueltyto Animals, " AmericanMuseum, or UniversalMagazine (Feb. 1792 ), S4-S6; "On Cruelty, " Monthly Anthology and BostonReview 1 (June 1804),JSS-58; "On Thoughtless Cruelty, " The LiteraryMl\g azineand Ame rican Register 3 (Jan. 1805), 61�2; "An Essayon the Rights of the Brute Creationto Tenderness from Man," TheMirror of Taste3 (Apr. 1811), 239-44; "Cruelty to Animals," Boston WeeklyMagazi ne I (14 Aug. 1824), 87; "TheF.ditor's Table, " American Monthly Magazine 2 (Dec. 1830), 628-29; and "Cruelty to Brutes," l.ajies' Repository6 (Feb. 1846), 46-48. 36

Finally, an editorial in the Workingman's Advocate expressed mystification that docking

(cutting horses' tails offfor fashion) did not come within the ambit of anti-cruelty

statutes, and counseled readers not to supportthis painful, non-essential procedure by

buying horses thus dismembered. 40

The agriculturalpress was another sourceof exhortations. In the mid-l 840s,

several journalsrepublished condemnations of restrictive horse reins fromEnglish

sources. In 1847, Dr.John C. Warren and John H. Dexter both denounced cruelty to

animals in Massachusetts, one beforean agricultural society, the other in a pamphlet. An

article on "Cruelty to Animals," attributed to the Reverend Pierpont of Boston, whose

commentary had "deeply stirred" the sympathies of Lydia Maria Child, began to circulate

in 1847. All of these works showed evidence of compassion forthe suffering of animals,

not merely pragmatic concern fortheir longevity as beasts of burden or regard forthe

interests of property owners.41

From the late eighteenth century onward, new ways ofthinking about about how

humans ought to treat animals coalesced within the transatlantic community, and,,

increasingly, animals' capacity forpain emerged as the key criterion fortheir moral

40 "Cruelty to Animals: TheCart-Horse, A ManWith a Load of Hay, and The Coal-Man," Parley's 2 (May 1834), 272; "Treabneotof Domestic Animals," The Man. 18 Mar. 1834; "Cruelty to Horses," NationalTrades' Union, 23 Jan. 1836; and Workingman's Advocate editorial, in [Julius Ames!, The Spiritof Humanity andEssence of Morality: Extractedfrom the Productions of the Enlightenedand Benevolent of Various Agesand Climes (Albany: 0. Steeleand D. M'Kercher, 1835), 367-70.

41 "On the Abuse and ProperTreatmen t of Work Horses, " Farmers' Register 3 (Apr. 1836), 726- 27; "On the Abolition of the FixedBridle or Bearing Reio," Farmers' Register 10 (July 30, 1842), 333-34; "Check Reins. or BearingReins, " AmericanAgriculturalist 4 (Oct. 1845), 316-17; "Dr. John C. Warren's Thoughtfulness about Animals."Our Dumb Animals [hereafterODAI 10 (Jan. 1877), 58; "A Brief History of the Work," ODA 5 (June 1872), 209; "Dr. John Collins Warren," ODA 15 (Aug. 1882), 122; and John H. Dexter, A Plea fo r the Horse, in a Few Remarks and Suggestions Upon His Treatment and Management (Boston: 1847). On Pierpont's article. see"Pie rponton Cruelty to Animals," National Era l (17 June 1847), 4; E. L. Gibbs,The Farmer's Western Resenre Almanac(As htabula: Root, Barnes,and Co., 1849), 26-27; andLydia M. Child, "The Relationof Manto Animals,"Independent, 3 Mar. 1870, 3. 37

considerability. An arcane religious discourse about the nature of humanity gave birthto an idealized personality type, the humane individual. Natural rights philosophy led some to express solidarity with oppressed animals, and others to adopt the language of rights in advancing a new conception of animals' legal status. Acting under these influences, a few Americans began to criticize crueltyto animals in sermons, newspapers, periodicals, and other fora. These developments also laid the groundworkfor the earliest legal interventions on animals' behalf

The Legal Protection of Animals With his emphasis on individual pain and suffering as the markers of right and wrong in human conduct, Bentham set the stage forthe passage of animal protection laws transcending the preservation of property and curbing of public nuisance. "Why," he asked," should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?" As Bentham observed,centuries of jurisprudencehad consigned animals to the legal status of property;the title of his footnotewas "I nterests of the inferior animals improperly neglected in legislation by the insensibility of the ancient jurists. "42 Eventually, British politicians tookup the arguments of Bentham, Lawrence, and other theorists of reform.

In 1800, Sir William Pulteney sponsored a bill to suppress bull baiting, which failed in a

42 Bentham.Principles of Moralsand Legislation, 3 11. Bentham fa iledto acknowledge several striking exceptions. One involved themedieval lrials in which animalswere held accountableas defendantssub jectto prosecutionand punishment forin juriesdone to men. Then there was bestiality. Well into the earlymodern period. animal victims wereheld responsiblefor its occurrencealong with their hwnanabusers. Theywere executed not only on thepremise thatthey too hadbeen motivated bybase passion.but becauseof fears thatthey might givebirth to monstrousbeings. Edward Payson Evans, The CriminalProsecution and Capilal Punishment of Animals(New York : E. P. Dutton. 1906); Joyce Salisbwy, TheBeast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (NewYork: Routledge, 1994), 84-101; and Murrin, "'Things Fearful to Name,'" 33-34. 38

close vote of 43-41. In 1809, focusingon the routine crueltiesof the street, Lord Thomas

Erskine proposedlegislation prohibiting mistreatment of domestic animals. Erskine's bill died in the Commons, thwarted by William Windham, who had also led the opposition to

Pulteney's bill.43

The mistreatment of animals remained a subject of public discourse, however, and, in 1822, Richard Martin, Irish M.P. fromGalway, championed the first successful anti-crueltystatute in Great Britain, "An Act to Prevent the Crueland Improper

Treatment of Cattle," which passed amidst considerable opposition and ridicule. The scope of" Martin's Act" encompassed those who "wantonly and cruelly beat, abuse, or ill-treat any horse, mare, gelding, mule, ass, ox, cow, heifer, steer, sheep, or other cattle."

Magistrates could fine offendersup to five pounds and sentence them to as much as three months in prison for mistreatment or abuse. Martin's Act conferredno power of arrest, as all proceedings required a complaint to a magistrate. Policemen were not compelled to interfere with cruelty, and no citizen could lawfullydo so. Significantly, too, not all animals were accorded protection; the Act did not cover the mistreatment of bulls, dogs, cats, and other unmentioned species.44

43 On Pulteney's and Erskine's efforts, secThomas Erskine, The Speech of Lord Erskine in the House of Peerson the Second Readingof the Bill for Preventing Malicious and Wanton Crueltyto Animals, IS May 1809 (London: RichardPhillips. 1809); Moira Ferguson, Animal Advocacy and Englishwomen. 1780-1900:Patrio ts, Nalion, and Empire (Ann Albor: University of Michigan Press, IIJ9H), 28-30; Kean.Animal Rights, 31-33; andChrisline Kenyon-Jones, Kindred Brutes; Animals in Romantic­ Period Wriling(Aldcrshot: Ashgate, 2001). 79-96. American jurists could read Erskine's speech in � CarolinaLaw Repository 2 (Mar. 1816), 364-85.

44 Wellesley Pain, Richard Marlin (London: LeonardParsons, 1925); and Shcvawn Lynam, Humanity Dick: A Biographyof Richard Manin, M. P., 1754-1834 (London: Hamilton. 1975). The Act is 3 George4c. 71. Addilional anli-crueltymeasures passed in 1835 and 1837; legislation to consolidate and supersede theearlier enactments passed in 1849and 1854. For American notices concerning Martin's Act, sec"Cru elty to Animals," Athenaeum 14 (I Jan. 1824), 287; and "Cruelty to AnimaJs," American Fanner 7 (21 Oct.18 25). 246. 39

Prosecution presented other obstacles. Hostile or indifferent magistrates and

aldermen often dismissed crueltycomplaints without due consideration of the fa cts.

Moreover, humanitarians foundtheir intentions frustrated by frivolous defense arguments

and judicial rulingsthat hinged on the term"want only," or tookadvan tage of the absence

of references to specific kinds of mistreatment, like use of a whip. Moreover,the claims of necessity frequentlyovercame those ofhumanity.4s

Prior to the passage of Martin's Act, crueltyto animals had been punishable within the common law tradition, an accretion of doctrine, custom, and usage basedon courtdecisions as opposed to written laws. Under the common law, crueltyto animals was indictable as either an offense against property or a common nuisance. The former action was usually termed "malicious mischief,"and was regarded as a civil offense, because any injury could normally be made right by the payment of money to the animal's owner. Over time, the latter category--thatof common nuisance-emerged to cover cases in which a man was punished not forhis cruelty to animals per se but because his conduct offended the sensibilities of others. In this instance, however, the law placed no restraints upon his cruelty if it occurred in private.

The common law tradition provided the context fora number of criminal prosecutions in the United States, before the passage of specific legislation concerning cruelty. In 1788, a Pennsylvania man was prosecuted under the common law for

"maliciously, willfully, and wickedlykilling a horse." Adjudicating the case on appeal, a judge ruled that this act was a public wrong and as such an indictable offense. In 1812,

45 Lewis Gompenzgives a sense of the difficultieswith enforcementin The Animals'Friend, which he and others publishedduring the 1830s. Theissues I saw at the Libraryof Congresswere undated. 40

this rulingwas reaffirmedin another case.46 In 1808. when a Tennesseeman killed a neighbor's horse who had broken into his cornfields,he was convicted of a common law offense. An 1812 decision in a Pennsylvania courtim posed the same punishment.47 In

1818, a cartmanin Philadelphia was fined $30 plus the costs of prosecution. forbeating his horse. A truckman in Boston received the same sentence in 1824.48 In an 1826

Vermont case, the courtruled that "the wounding and torturing of a living animal ...but with all the wicked and malicious motives and intentions set forthin this indictment, is a misdemeanor to be punished. "49

At least half a dozen cases ensued under the common law in New York State before the passageof its 1829 anti-crueltystatu te. Harm or destructionof animals belonging to others was punished as a formof malicious mischief committed against property. In 1825. the Courtof General Sessions convicted a man fromDelaware County forkilling a cow belonging to someone else after the Supreme Courtof the state certified that the charge was indictable. The courtfound his action not merely "a violation of private right" but one of"moral turpitude, dangerous to society." It was, the court continued. "an outrage upon the principles and fe elings of humanity. The direct tendency

46 Republica v. Teischer, I Dallas R 335, and 2 Penn. H., 249.

7 � State v. Council. I Overton's Tenn. R, 305; andCommonwealth v. Eckert, 2 Pa. 249 (1812).

48 FederalRepub lican, 30 Dec. 1816, cited in WilliamJ. Shultz, TheHu maneMovem ent in the UnitedSlates 19IO-l924 (New York: Columbia University Press,1924), 12; and "Crueltyto Animals," Boston WeeklyMagazine I (14 Aug. 1824), 87.

49 State v. Briggs, I Aik. 226 (Vl 1826). 41

is a breach of the peace. What is more likely to produce it, than wantonly killing out of

mere malice, a useful and domestic animal?"50

Two of the New York cases reflected concernsover commercial deceit involving

the abuse of animals. In 182 1, two men were indicted formisd emeanors forhaving tied

the tongue of a calf to prevent his suckling from a cow, the better to deceive a buyer with

the appearance of a full bag. Not long after, a courtfined Michael Purdy $50 fortying a

calfs nose forthe samepurpose; a witness in the case testified that he had known cows'

bags to burst in situations where calves were not permitted to suckle. 51

Several common law cases in New York involved the prosecution of men who

mistreated their own animals. In 1818, a courtindicted a carterfor beating his horse to

death with a club. While it ruledthe horse's death accidental, the court"wish ed it to be

distinctly understoodin the community, that when a proper case of deliberate cruelty

towards a dumb animal ... which too oftenoccurred in this city, should be brought before the Courtthey would punish the offenderwith more satisfaction than forcruelty towards one of our own species. "52 In another case, in 1822, Robert Stakes was convicted for viciously beating his horses in public. The recorder noted that "the load was heavy and that one of the horses was vicious and sometimes refused to draw the load; yet it does not appear but that by proper management they might have been made to

50 "Crueltyto a Beast." 3 N.Y. City Hall Recorder, 205; and People v. Smith., 5 Cowen, 258, followed and approvedin Loomisv. Edgerton, 19 Wend, 419.

51 Morris' and Clark's Case 2 N.Y. CityHall Recorder. 62; andPurdy 's Case. 6 City Hall Recorder, 106. '"Bagging" became the subject of regulararrests once the organi7.ed phase of animal protectionbegan.

52 Isaac Ross' Case, J N.Y. CityHall Recorder, 191. 42

draw it. Yetif they would not, the defendant had no right to beat them in an inhuman manneras he did."53

Earlycase law also surfaced in the District of Columbia. In 1821, a court

punished public crueltyto a horse even though the driver sought to escape conviction on

the groundsthat he was carryingthe U.S. Mail. In 1834, another courtconvicted a man forbeating a cow to death, holding that whenever an act of this kind took place in or near

a public street it was indictable. In 1838, the same court ruled that it was an offenseto

provoke or encourage a dangerous dog to attack and bite a cow. 54

Between 1820 and 1860, the mistreatment of animals became the focus of more

than a dozen state statutes and local ordinances. Because they specifiedcertain kinds of

conduct as punishable, these enactments relieved courtsof having to resolve cases through common law approaches groundedon public nuisance or the destruction of other

people's property. Legislatures enacted anti-crueltymeasures in Maine (1821), New

York (1829), Massachusetts (1834), Connecticut (1838), Michigan (1838), Wisconsin

(1838), New Hampshire (1843), Missouri (1845), Virginia (1848), Iowa (1851),

Minnesota (l851), Kentucky (1852), Vermont(1 854), Texas (1856), RhodeIsland

(1857), Tennessee (1858), Kansas (1859), Washington (1859), and Pennsylvania

(1860).55

53 Peoplev. Stakes, I WheelerCr. Cases,3.

54 United States v. Logan 2 CranchCCR 259 (D. C. 1821); United States v. HartI Peters CCR 390,affinned in UnitedStates v. KiJby, 7 Wallace US R 487; United States v. Jackson, 4 Cranch CCR 488 (D. C. 1834); andUnited Slates v. McDuell, 5 Cranch CCR391 (D. C. 1838).

ss Animal Welfare Institute [ A WI], Animalsand TheirLegal Rights (Washington, DC: AWI. 1990), 2-7; David Favre and VivienTsang, "The Develop mem of Anti-Cruelty Laws Duringthe 1800s," DetroitCollege of LawReview (1993): 1-35; and FrancisH. Rowley, The Humane Idea (Boston: American HumaneEducation Society, 1912), 39-42. 43

These statutes perpetuatedcommon law concernswith public moralityand

conduct, on the one hand, and with the protection of valuable property on the other. The

placement of anti-crueltystatutes within criminal codes concerningpublic morality and decencyhas customarily been cited as evidence that abhorrence to the sight of crueltyand apprehension about its impact on human character, as distinct fromconcern forani mals, constituted the major motivation for such legislation. Yet the English legal biographer

John (Lord) Campbell ( 1779-1861) judged this a pragmatic approach to the goal of protection. While it was difficultto protect [animals] by humane laws, Campbell noted,

"there can be no doubt that any malicious and wanton cruelty to animals in public outrages the feelings--has a tendency to injure the moral character of those who witness

,, 6 it-and may therefore be treated as a crime. s By treating such acts as offensiveto public morals, it became possible to extend protection to animals without having to confrontthe problem of infringingon the rights of ownership.

A gradualshift in statutorylanguage during this span of fortyyears also reflected steady progressionin societal attitudes. Over time, state laws designed to protect some people's animals (in their status as commercially valuable property) fromthe depredations of others gave way to legislation that recognized animal pain and suffering as constituent elements of cruel treatment justifying intervention, regardless of ownership. In addition, lawmakers introduced improvements based on their evaluation of how well the laws of other states functioned. In 1834, for example, Massachusetts went beyond the New York law and substituted the words "other animal" for "other cattle" in

56 John Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellorsand Keepers of the Great Sealof England, from the F.arliest Times till the Reignof Queen Victoria, 7th ed.(Jersey City: F. D. Linn, 1880), 9: 22-23. 44

its statute, thus extending its protective aegis. Legislators also attached a penalty of

imprisonment or heavy finefor viola tions. 57

8. F. Butler and JohnC. Spencer, the men who incorporated an anti-cruelty measure into their comprehensive revision of the New York State laws, acknowledged

the helpfulprecedent of AnthonyHamm ond's digest of British statutes. They also

expressed their general conviction that the commonlaw was no longer satisfactoryfor

establishing criminal punishments.58 The 1829 New York statute provided: "Every

person who shall maliciously kill, maim, or wound any horse or other cattle, or any sheep belonging to another, or shall maliciously beat or torture any such animal, whether belonging to himself or another, shall, upon conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor." While seldom enforced, the law occasionally influenced public discourse. In 1831, the humane implications of the statute surfaced in a debate over legislation governingthe establishment of racecourses. The measure clearly influenced the drafting of subsequent enactments in other states, most of which exceeded the New

York legislation in the range of animals covered under law.59

On occasion, citizens expressed their frustration over an apparently moribund statute. In 1845, a writer in the Knickerbocker described several instances of cruelty he

7 5 Favre and Tsang, "Anti-Cruelty Laws," 6-12; and Katharine Stanley Nicholson. "Animalsand Legislation." Journal ofZoophily 25 (Jan. 1916), 6.

58 Journal of the Assemblyof the Stateof New York, 51st Session, Second Meeting (Albany: Croswell, 1828) 45-46;and Revisers Notes, S Edm Stat at Large, 815, 818.

59 2 Rev.Stat. (First Ed.) 95, Sec. 26 (28); "Reponof the Committee on Agriculture," New York Assembly, Apr. 18, 183 1, repr. in The Spirit of Humanity(New York: ASPCA, 1867), 135; and Favre and Tsang, "Anti-Cruelty Laws," 12. 1n 1847, a journalreported one arrestfor cruelty to animalspresumably conducted under the statute. See"Cruelty to Animals,"Scientific American 2 ( 11 Sept 1847), 402. 45

had observed in New York City during the previous year. "So much has been said and writtenon the subject, and so many laws against crueltyto beasts remain a dead-letter on the statute-books,that it seems but a sorrytask to utter another word on the subject," the writer lamented, "and indeed, many humane people, who once tookan interest in it, have given it up in despair." The failureof the authorities to exact compliance with the statute, the author suggested, had led to a kind of community-level enforcement, in which citizens personally intervened against the mistreatment of animals. In one incident, a crowd gathered to remonstrate with a man brutally beating a horse because the animal could not move a loaded wagon out of a rut. "Some offered to assist him out with his load, and others threatened him with the law," but he ignored them, threatening to horsewhip the next man who interfered. A sailor who had been one of the most vocal bystanders took up the challenge, and soundly thrashed the recalcitrant driver. In a second case, another sailor intervenedwhen a boy was seen tossing a puppy repeatedly into shallow water near a wharf,trying to make him a "water-dog." The puppy struggled to escape the water and crawl away but was forced in again and again. Finally, the sailor seized the youth and tossed him into the water.60

A year later, in 1846, the Boston Herald published a thread of articles, notices, and letters deploring the mistreatment of draft horses, and especially the piling of unreasonably heavy loads of merchandise onto bulky vehicles. In 1852, a Herald editorial underscored public concernover wanton cruelty.The writer described an

60 "A FewRandom Thoughts on Crueltyto Animals," Knickerbocker 26 (Sept 1845). 269-70. William Lloyd Ganison reprintedthis account in the Liberator 17 (27 Aug. 1847), 140. 46

incident in which a crowd gatheredto protest the beating of a horse by a teamster. While all agreed that the man ought to have been prosecuted, no one did anything about it.61

In Philadelphia, concernover cruelty to animals during the decade beforethe

Civil War culminated in the 1861 submission to the City Council of a petition signed by

214 men and 250 women, asking "that measures may be taken to abate the constant and inhuman treatment of some of the teams on the various City Freight Railroads." A council committee heard testimony about the overloading of horses and mules and the terrible punishment inflictedon them when they failed to move the heavy loads.62

Their knowledge of two previous legislative actions shaped the council members' deliberations. The firstof these was an 1855 anti-abuse statute introduced by State

Senator William A. Crabbe. By the time it passed, this measure--originally designed to encompass the whole state--was restricted to Philadelphia alone. The law held "that any person or persons,who shall, in the City of Philadelphia,want only or cruelly beat, or otherwise abuse, any animal belonging either to himself or to others, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined by any Alderman of said City."63 The second measure, an 1860 statewide anti-cruelty statute, provided "that if any person shall wantonly and

61 See articles in the Boston Transcript. 16. 18, 23, 25 Apr.. and4 May 1846; and "Cruelty to Animals," Boston Herald, 21 July 1852.

62 "A Plea forthe Mule," Public Ledger, repr. in Christian Recorder. 16 Feb. 1861; "Kindness," Letter to the Editor, Phila Press, 28 Feb. 1867; and " Appendix No. 95, Reponof the Joint Special Committeeon Cruelty to Animals," in APJJCndix to Journal of Select Council of the Consolidated Cityof Philadelphia,July 11,18 61 to January 2, 1862 (Philadelphia: 1862), 117-21, 125-26. Theresolution, No. 287, "Relative to the Abuse of Animals," is includedin Ordinancesand Joint Resolutions, of the Select and Common Councils of the Consolidated Cityof Philadelphia, As Passed by Them,and Approved by the Mayor, From Januaiy I,to December31, 18 61 (Phila.: King and Baird, 1862),325-26 .

63 On Crabbe'smeasure, see "One of OurPioneers," Philadelphia Record. 7 June 1912, and Pittsburgh Dispateh, 21 Mar. 1912, Pennsylvania Society forthe Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Archives, Philadelphia, PA [PSPCA-PA), SBK 1911-19 14. 47

cruellybeat, torture, kill,or maim any horseor other domestic animal, whether belonging

to himself or another, every such person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,

and on conviction, be sentenced to pay a finenot exceeding two hundred dollars, or

undergo an imprisonmentnot exceeding one year."64

The 1861 Philadelphia council committee noted that fe w convictions had taken

place under prior laws, owing to greatapathy on the partof police charged with

enforcement. "I n the few instances of partiesbeing brought before aldermen by citizens,

a lawyer would be employed to clearthe partycomplained of." the committee reported,

"and he would mostly succeed in convincing the Alderman that the maltreatment or

heating was not done, either wantonly or croelly, andthat it was nothing more than a

correctionwhich was necessary to subdue the stubbornnessof the animal."65 This led the

Philadelphia panel to recommend passageof an ordinance "which omits the words wantonly and cruelly, and prohibits the use of certainweapons which have been used to beat and torturethe animals. A person being convicted of using any one of the prohibited weapons to strike, beat, or torture an animal, he shall be subjected to the fine, without any inquiry whether it was done wantonly or cruelly."66 Ultimately, however, the fullcouncil did not enact this nuanced revision, finding that the 1855 Act was "well adapted to the case ... and would ... be a sufficient protection, if properly enforced."Its members then

passed a resolution that authorized the Mayor to circulate 5, 000 copies of the 1855 Act,

64 Pa Laws tit. IV. & 46(186 0).

65 .. Appendix No. 95." Appendixto Journalof SelectCouncil of Philadelphia. 120; andRowley, The Humane Idea,41-4 2.

66 "Appendix No. 95," 121. 48

and recommendedthe discharge of any policeman who neglected to execute its provisions when asked to do so by any citizen. 67

From the period of the early Republic onward. the sporadic attention that cruelty to animals received under the common law tradition gave way to rudimentary

prohibitions in a number of states. The era also witnessed a few expressions of community disapproval of everyday cruelty,and frustration at the lack of police enforcement of the statutes in place. Legislators, jurists. concernedcitizens, and defendants grappledwith definitions of cruelty, the rights of ownership, and the relevance of malicious intent. In doing so. they anticipated debates that would intensify in the postbellum era.

Kindness to Animals. YouthfulCharacter. and Class Formation In no arena was the kindness-to-animals-ethic more prevalent prior to the Civil

War than that of childhood socialization. Increased recognition of the value of cultivating concern for animals in children flowed directly fromJohn Locke's ideas about the fundamental nature of humankind--the issue that had sparked dispute between

Thomas Hobbes and the English divines. Locke entered this debate with his argument that individuals were bornta bula rasa--"as a blank slate" --and that all ideas derived from experience, coming either fromthe senses or from reflectivecons ciousness. This raised interest in the beneficial moral effectof childhood instruction fa voring the kindly treatment of animals. Although others had sounded the theme before him. in 1693 Locke offeredthe most prominent early statement of the need to chastise youthful cruelty.

67 Ibid., 126. 49

"This tendency should be watched in them, and, if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contraryusage," he wrote. "For the custom of tormentingand killing other animals will, by degrees, harden their hearts even towardmen; and they who delight in the sufferingand destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. "68

Over time, Locke's insight would gain influence, as growingcomp rehension of the importanceof childhood experience and its impact on youthfulcharacter sustained a robust transatlantic publishing industry devoted to the production of juvenile works infused with the humane didactic.69 The most importantEnglish language title of this kind was SarahTr immer's Fabulous Histories or, asit came to be known in abridged version, Historyof the Robins. First published in 1785, it was reissued almost a dozen times by 1811 and remained in print until the late nineteenth century. Trimmer (1741-

1810) was a leader in the Sunday School movement and a friendofMary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More, both of whom incorporated the kindness-to-animals theme in their

68 John Locke, Some Thoughts on Education eds.John W. and Jean S. Yolton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 180.

69 Samuel F. Pickering, John Lockeand Children'sBooks in Eighteenth-Century England (Knoxville: Universityof Tennessee Press,198 1). Goody Two-Shoes(Lo ndon: Newbery, 1765), an early example of such work. has beenvar iously attributed to Oliver Goldsmith. GilesJones, GriffithJones, and John Newbery. DorothyKilner's The Life andPerambulation of a Mouse( 1783) wasthe firstto featurean animal nanatorwho described a catalogue of suffer ings inflicted by humans. Kilner stayed with the theme in TheRational Brutes, or TalkingAnimals (London: J. Harris,1803). so

own works for children. In Trimmer's story, children take care ofa fa mily of robins who

nest in the fa mily orchard.70

In North America, the firstjuvenile works devoted to kindness to animals began

to appear in the late 1790s and early 1800s. The earliest were reprints or excerpts of

English works; a Philadelphia publisher issued Fabulous Histories in 1794, and an edition

of Dorothy Kilner's The Rational Brutesapp eared in the same city in 1801.71 By fa r the

most widely distributed of the humane didactic texts in the United States was Looking

Glass forthe Mind, or Intellectual Mirror. Its French author, ArnaudBer quin ( 1747-

1791), had written L'Ami des Enfans, a set of moral tales forchildr en issued as part of a

subscription series in the early 1780s. Berquin' s work circulated broadly within the

transatlantic community. Following the influenceof Rousseau, Berquin presented

animals and nature as children might encounter them, avoiding the fanciful in his work.

Looking Glass, an anthology of stories from L'Ami des Enfans, went through at least

twenty editions in the United States between 1794 and 1848, and reprints surfaced as late

as 1898. Many of the stories from Looking Glass, including "The Bird's Egg" and

"Louisa's Tendernessto the Little Birds in Winter," also appeared separately as tracts. In addition, the Berquin tales were frequently appropriated without credit forin clusion in

70 SarahTrimmer. Fabulous Histories,Desi gnedfor the Instructionof Children, RespectingTheir Treabnent of Animals(Lon don: Jacob Johnson. 1785). ConcerningTrimmer. seeSome Account of the Life and Writingsof Mrs. Trimmer (London: F. C. andJ. Rivington. 1814); andW. K. Lowther Clarke, Eighteenth-Century Piety(New York:Macmillan. 1944 ), passim. MoiraFerguson interprets Fabulous Historiesas an expression of profound anxiety over foreignimmigration and classunrest; see Ferguson. Animal Advocacy and Englishwomen. 7-26. On the diffe ring ideological perspectives of Trimmerand other authors of children's works, see Kenyon-Jones. KindredBrutes, S 1-78.

71 SarahTrimmer. Fabulous Histories (Philadelphia: William Gibbons, 1794); and DorothyKilner, The Rational Brutes(Phila delphia: B. and I. Johnson. 1801). 51

other works. In his American Reader, Herman Daggett included three stories-"The

Snow," "The Canary Bird," and "The Sparrow's Nest"-that originatedwith Berquin.72

The genre quickly gained important American enthusiasts, including Lydia Maria

Child, who sometimes included stories imbued with the humane ethic in her Juvenile

Miscellany between 1826 and 1834. In 1828, the Miscellany published "Dogs," a tale in

which the children of a middle-class family, prompted by an encounter the eldest has had

with "the learned dog Apollo," discuss the tyrannical character of those who mistreat

animals and the beneficial influence of the kindness ethic. Together with their mother,

the children explore the reciprocal affection between humans and their non-human

companions, who evince honesty, loyalty, and unconditional love, and a capacity to

console and redeem humans. 73

Humanitarianism in this era's children's literature closely paralleled

contemporary intellectual fa shions. For example, those who wrote forchildr en employed

the term "rights" in discussing the claims of animals and the duties and privileges of

humans. The period's zoological knowledge trickled into this literature, too, increasing

children's understanding of animals' capacity forpain as one importantconseq uence.

Works foryoung people also reflected the limits of the era's thinking. Thus, while

condemning certain formsof cruelty and neglect, Trimmer presented her readers with the justifications that contemporary thinkers were offering about the use of animals for food.

72 ArnaudBerquin. LookingGlass for the Mind or IntellectualMirror (Providence: Caner and Williamson. 1794); idem, L'Ami des Enf ans (London: Elmsley. 1783); TheBird's Egg (Windsor. vr: Farnsworth andChurchill, 1810); Louisa'sTenderness to the Little Birdsin Winter (NewYork: American Tract Society,1828); HermanDaggett, American Reader. 2 nd ed. rev. (Poughkeepsie: Paraclete Potter, 1812), 31-37, 66-72. and 150-53; and "Berquin. " Juvenile Miscellany l (Jan. 1829), 235-43. 73 "Dogs, " Juvenile Miscellany 4 (Mar. 1828), 30-43. 52

Some years later, in a special edition of his Elements of Moral Science, abridged and adapted fo r use in schools, the moral philosopher Francis Wayland included a sectionon

"Our Duties to Brutes." It was the Benthamite calculus distilled forthe youthful mind.

Men were at libertyto use animals forreasons of necessity, but were "bound to use them kindly, and subject them to no unnecessary fatigue, and to no unnecessary pain."74

One explanation forthe pervasivenessof the kindness-to-animals ethic lies in its consonance with the republican gender ideology of the post-Revolutionary United States.

Early American society assumed a set of paternalistic relationships both within and outside of the family, emphasizing the importance ofa virtuous citizenry devoted to republican principles of governance. This made education of the boy especially critical, since as a man he would take his place of leadership over family,chattel, property, and social institutions. Responsibility for educating the child for his leadership role rested with women, who were assumed to be the repositories of gentle virtue, compassionate fe eling, and deep devotion--a buffering presence against the heartless struggleof the business world and the masculine public sphere. Humane education provided one important means forinsulating boys against the tyrannical tendencies that might undermine civic life were they to go unchecked. Animals were nicely suited for

74 Harwood. Love forAnimals, 169-70, 250-58; Thomas, Man and theNatural World, 153-54; and Francis Wayland, Elements of Moral Science (Boston: Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln, 1835). 239-41. 53

instruction that impressed upon the child their helplessness and dependence upon him,

7 andhis considerablepower over them. �

The editor of Pity's Gift, a compilation of stories by Samuel Pratt, voiced an increasingly common conviction about the instructionof children. It was "of as great imponance to teach them lessons of compassion forthe dumb creation, as a fe llow feeling fortheir own species," she noted, "not only because the one is connected to the other, but, because an early neglect of the duties of humanity, in regard to the first,leads but too naturally to an omission of those duties as to the last." Only a fe w years earlier, in his 1791 oration, Herman Daggett profferedthe transatlantic slave tradeas an example of the wickedness that could arise when cruelinstincts went unchecked by youthful training in benevolent feelings. 76

Whatever its implications for the republican experiment, the presence of the kindness-to-animals ethic in antebellum childhood experience had still broader implications forthe process of class formation in Nonh America. From the 1820s onward, sympathy with domestic animals, gradually encoded in education lessons for children, became an importantmeans of inculcating such standards of bourgeois gentility as self-discipline, Christian sentiment, empathy, and moral sensitivity. Moreover, as a

75 On Republican motherhood, see LindaKerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology inRevolutionary America(Chapel Hill: Universityof NorthCarolina Press, 1980); and Ruth H. Bloch, ''AmericanFeminine Ideals in Transition: TheRise of the Moral Mother, l78S-1815," Feminist Studies 4 (1978): 101-26. From the perspective of Lockeantheories of development, Jay Fliegelman has arguedfor the intimate relationshipbetween parentingand the newconstitutional government SeeJay Fliegelman, Prodigals andPil grims: The AmericanRev olution AgainstPatriarchal Authority 1750- 1800. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

76 Pity's Gift: A Collection of InterestingTales , To Excitethe Compas,5ion ofYouth for the Animal Creation. Selectedb y a Lady (Philadelphia: J. Johnson. 1801, 1808), v, and Daggett, Rights of Animals. 7-8. 54

household companion, a domestic animal could serve as a convenient realli fe medium

forthe practice and expression of compassionate sentiments. Mercifulregard forani mals

became one hallmark of a developing middle-class culture rootedin liberal Protestant

evangelical piety. 77

In addition to their sociocultural utility forinstill ing and enacting the principles of

kindness and compassion, the presence of animals in children's literature fulfilledother

didactic functionsin nineteenth-century domestic ideology. Narratives of animal life

offeredidealized conceptions of middle-class familyrelations hips, and served as morality

tales forhuman domestic relations. By their example, the animal heroes of these narratives also served to reinforce cherished norms of conduct and behavior. Over time,

such functionshelped to consolidate the place of animals in the emotional framework of middle-class domestic life. 78

The kindness ethic transcended the boundaries of both space and class, and reached as far as the expanding frontier of the growing American nation, where it animated the life and legend of John Chapman, "Johnny Appleseed." Chapman demonstrated greatsensit ivity to animals, and was apparently a vegetarian. He even eschewed honey unless he could gain assurances that enough had been set aside for the bees to pass the winter safely. Chapman admonished others against unnecessary

77 KatherineC. Grier, "ChildhoodSocialization and Companion Animals:United States. 1820- 1920," Societyand Animals7, 2 (1999): 95-120.

78 Ibid. When the hwnane movement beganits work, it focus ed considerable energies upon children,just as the abolition movement haddone . Bothendorsed the assumptionthat parents had a duty to inculcatemoral values in their children, anddemonstrated a deep fa ith in childrenas future agents of change. SeeKaren Sanchez-E ppler, Touching Libeny(Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1993),42; andJohn Ashworth, "The Relationship betweenCapitalism and Humanitarianism," AmericanHistorical Review 92 (Oct. 1987): 826. 55

destruction of life, and rescuedanimals frommiserable circumstan ces through purchase or barter. Even wild animals and insects came within the scope of his sympathies.79

Nor was Chapman alone in his reputation for exceptional kindness. According to his friends and family, a young Indiana schoolboy gave both a classroom speech and a private sermonagai nst crueltyto animals in the early 1820s. "Abe preached against crueltyto animals, contending that an ant's life was to it, as sweet as ours to us," his stepsister recalled. In an 1860 autobiographical account, the now grown Abraham

Lincoln suggested his ambivalence as a hunter. Describingan incident in which he shot a wild turkey outside the fa mily cabin, Lincoln reported of himself, "He has never since " pulled the trigger on any larger game. 80

By the 1850s, the kindness-to-animals-ethic was a staple of juvenile literature as well as a fixture of many middle-class homes. Most of the major British juvenile works incorporating the theme surfaced in American editions, and American authors gradually began to develop the theme in their own writing. A generation before the advent of

79 "JonathanChapman." ODA 11 (Apr. 1879), 81; Katherine Stanley Nicholson.·'J ohnny Appleseed, 'ThePatron Saint of the HumaneSocie ty'." StanyCross 30 (Feb. 1921 ), 21; HenryA. Pershing. "Johnny Appleseed, Ao American HumanitarianBefore the Days of Henry Bergh," National HumaneReview l 5 (Nov. 1937), 11; Robert Price,J ohnny Appleseed, Man and Myth(Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1954), 116-17, 170-73; and William E. Leuchtenberg, "John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed)," in Susan Ware. ed.,Forgotten Heroes: Inspiring AmericanPonraits fromOur Leading Historians(New York: Free Press, 1998), 14.

80 Lincoln's stepsister MatildaJohnsto n Mooreand his boyhoodfriend Nathaniel Grigsby recalled the classroom declamation. SeeDo uglas L. Wilson and Rodney0. Davis, Hemdon's lnfonnants: Letters. Interviews, and Slatementsabout Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press,1998), 94, 109, 112. Theirtestimony was laken up by a few biographers,and anecdotes of Lincoln's kindnessto animals regularlyappeared in newspaperand periodical stories. SeeJohn G. Nicolayand John Hay,"Lincoln as Pioneer," Centwy33 (Nov. 1886), 23. For Lincoln'scomment, see IdaTarbe ll, TheLif e of Abraham Lincoln(New Yo rk: LincolnMemorial Association. 1900), l: 25; andWilliam H. Herndon andJesse W. Weik, Hemdon's Life of Lincoln, ed.Paul M. Angle(Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1965), 22-23. S6

organized animal protection in America, the humane didactic was an established instrumentof childhood socialization.81

Vegetarianism,Viol ence, and the Antebellum ReformCosmology Humanitarian vegetarianism provided another impetus toward animal protection.

Although historians have neglected the ethical component of antebellum diet reform, focusinginstead on physiological and religious rationales, cruelty to animals killed for foodalso motivated some vegetarians. 82 Moreover, vegetarian reformersforged important connections with advocates of other causes, helping to ensure the dissemination of the kindness-to-animals ethic. While vegetarianism was not common before 1830, it regularly surfaced in discussions of temperance, criminal reform, peace, abolition, and the rights of women. Among abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison,

81 For examples, seeThe Hare, or, Hunting Incompatiblewith Humanity(Philadelphia: B. andJ. Johnson, 1802); TheHistory of a Goldfinch(Philadelphia: B. andT. Kite, 1807); TheHistory of Samuel Bonner (Boston: Wells andLill y, 1820); Storiesof the Happy Peasants(Bosto n: Munroeand Francis, 1829); Ellen,Or The Disinterested Girl (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 183 1); The Little Lamb, or the Reward of Kindness(New Haven: S. Babcock, 1838); CharlotteEli7.3beth [Tonna Browne!, The Historyof Goody Two-Shoes(Cooperst own: H. and E. Phinney, 1839); Instructionand Amusement forthe Young (New Haven: S. Babcock, 1841); The Bird Book (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1844);Charlotte Elizabeth [TonnaBrowne ), Kindness to Animals, or the Sin of CrueltyExposed andRebuked (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1845); D. P. Kidder, ed.,Be Kind: A Narrative, Showing the Resultof GoodTreatment to Animals,Grown People, and Children (New York: Carlton andPhill ips, 18S2); Harry's StoryBook (Phi ladelphia: Willis P. Hazard, 1857); Aunt Louisa's Germsof Kindness (New York: Mcloughlin Bros., 1864-1870); MaryElliot, TheBird's Nest (New York: Mcloughlin Bros., 1864-70); Jacob Abbott, Friskie,the Pony(New York : Sheldon and Co .• 1864); and Anson Randolph, Autobiography of a Canary Bird (New York: E. 0. Jenkins. 1866).

82 Thedominance of physiological arguments has undoubtedlyobscured this point,although one historianhas interpreted the era'sincreased emphasis on scientificarguments in favorof vegetarianismas a consequenceof reformers' determinationthat "the most moral diet had to bethoroughly demonstrated to be the most healthful." SeeJames C. Whonon, Crusadersfo r Fitness:The History of American Health Reformers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 63�8. Thepreoccupati on of cenain Jacksonian eravegetarians like SylvesterGraham and Russell Trail with reforms in sexualconduct and physical activity, andthe admitted eccentricityof some of the views they expressed.have alsohindered proportionateattention to the humanitarianstrain of vegetarianism. 57

Horace Greeley, the Grimke sisters, Theodore Weld, Joshua Levitt, and the Tappan

brothers followed the Graham diet, although not all of them held to it over the fullcourse

of their lives. The Graham boarding house in New York City was a center of radical

abolitionism. Vegetarianism and other body refonnsinvol ved a purificationof private

life that many deemed a necessary concomitant to social regeneration. 83

The formalorigins of vegetarianism as a social movement in America date to

1817, when 42 members of the Bible-Christian Church, a small Swedenborgian sect with

vegetarianism as its cornerstone, left Salford, England to promote their beliefs in what

they thought would be more fertile groundin the United States. They settled in

Philadelphia, where Reverend William Metcalfe, their leader, worked alternatelyas a

schoolmaster, printer, publisher, and editor, while struggling to build up the church. In

addition to preaching, Metcalfe carried his ministryinto the popular press throughout the

1820s, publishing a number of letters and tracts in favorof vegetarian diet and total

abstinence fromalcohol. Sylvester Graham was likely one of his converts.84

83 Thomas H. LeDuc, "Grahamites andGanisonite s," New York History20 (Apr. 1939): 189-9 1; and RobertH. Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling: AmericanReform and the Religious Imagination(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

84 This discussion relieson Historyof the Bible-Christian Church (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1922), 39-40. Stephen Nissenbaum rej ects the claim that Grahamwas one of the Bible-Christians' converts. But Graham almost cenainlyenco unteredthem duringan 1829 visit to Philadelphia.where he lectured on temperance. Soon,after a detailedstudy of diet andphysiology, he was recommending vegetarianism. There is no firmproof to supportthe conversionclaim apart from the factthat the Bible­ Christiansand others commonly made iL However, Nissenbaum produces no evidencewhatsoever to supporthis rejection, savehis conviction that Graham'svegetarianism was more physiological and less religious thanthat of Metcalfe and his followers. SeeStephen Nissenbaum. Sex,DieL and Debility in JacksonianAmerica: SylvesterGraham and Health Reform (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1980), 39. Robert Abzug believes. and I agree. that Nissenbaum underestimates the religious influence behind Graham's vegetarianism;see Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling. 260-61,n2. 58

Religious conviction, above all, had guided the Bible-Christians to their chosen

diet. 85 However, there was a strong humane component and a commitment to non­

violence in the church members' vegetarianism. The Bible-Christian hymnal included an

adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith's poem, "The Hermit": "No flocksthat range the valley

free, To slaughter we condemn, Taught by that power that pities us, We learnto pity

them." In his 1840 sermon, "Bible Testimony on Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals

as Food," Metcalfe preached:

Ourhigh obj ect is to construct.to correctgeneral sentiment. and to detennine the principles of public habits soas to cherish universal humanity; believingthat in proportion as the minds of the moraland intellectual among our fellow-monals aresufficiently awa kened to the imponanceof the dieteticsof the Bible, theywill withdraw themselves from a system of cruel habits, which involves a portion of the animalcrea tion in needless suffering anduntimely death,and which has unquestionably a baneful effect uponthe physical existence andthe intellectual, moral, and f 86 reIi. gious powers o man.

In another passage, Metcalfe explored the broader implications of the Sixth

Commandment:

Who has authority or presumption to limitthis preceptto the killing of men? Is it not recollected by my hearersthat we are peremptorilyenjoyed 'not to add to the law, nor yet diminish aught from it?' Maywe not reasonably believethat its application was benevolently intended to reach the animal creation? . . . Would not the principles of mercy and the sympathies of the humanheart lead our judgments to such a cooclusionr7

Despite the factthat the Bible-Christian Church in America never exceeded l 00 persons,

it was a significantforce in encouragingthe vegetarian lifestyle. In 1847, the Bible­

Christians who remained behind in Manchester, England establishedthe Vegetarian

85 They believed that flesheating violatedthe very first instructions received fromGod in Gen. I :29: "Behold, I have given you every herbyielding seedwhich is uponthe faceof all the earth,and every tree, in which is the fruitof a treeyielding seed-to you it shall be for food ."

86 Oliver Goldsmith, "The He rmit." in Jon Wynne-Tyson. ed., TheExtended Circle: A Dictiona,y of HumaneThought (Fontwe ll, Sussex: CentaurPress, 1985), 102; and William Metcalfe, "Bible Testimonyon Abstinence fromthe Fleshof Animalsas Food," in William Metcalfe, Outof the Clouds, Into the Light (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. 1872), 182-83.

7 8 Metcalfe, Outof the Clouds. 165. 59

Society of Great Britain, with the express object of promotingveg etarianism through a

secularorgan ization. Their American counterparts followed suit in May 1850, launching

the American Vegetarian Society (AVS). In addition to the Bible-Christian leadership,

its principals included William Alcott, Sylvester Graham, 0. S. Fowler, Joel Shew, Lewis

Hough, and R. T. Trail. Throughout the 1850s, the A VS met on a regular basis. A vegetarian banquet offered in 1853 coincident with the Whole World's Temperance

Convention drew over 300 diners, including fe minists Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer, and

SusanB. Anthony.88

For fouryears, between 1850 and 1854, the AVS used its publication, The

American Vegetarian and Health Journal, to advance economic, physiological, environmental, religious, and humane arguments against the consumption of animal flesh. The monthly journal, which William Metcalfe and his son Joseph edited, reviewed positive references to vegetarianism, celebrated the longevity of vegetarians fromall over the world, and reproduced correspondence between the leading figuresof the movement.

Most of the discussions centered on the religious and physiological arguments in favor of abstinence fromanimal flesh. However, contributors frequently cited humane concerns in discussing their vegetarianism, and it was evident in fictional narratives as well. 89

88 "VegetarianFestiv al," NewYork Times [hereafterN. Y. Times!. S Sept. 1853, I; and "Vegetarian Banquet in New York," American Vegetarian and HealthJournal [AVHJJ 3 (Sept. 1853), 185- 86.

89 C. H. de Wolfe, "The Anticipated Resultsof Vegetarianism," A VHJ I (Jan. 1851), 10; "Dumb Animals," AVHJ 2 (Jan. 1852), IS; Charles Lane. "Health, Economy, Humanity," A VHJ 2 (Feb. 1852), 21- 22; "The Slaughterof Animals," AVHJ I (Aug. 1851), 139; "The Brahmin'sAppeal," A VHJ2 (Mar. 1852), 44-45;"Sunday School Teaching," A VHJ 2 (Mar. 1852). 48; "Sir Richard Phillips," AVHJ 2 (July 1852), 122-23; William A. Alcott, "Kindness to Animals," AVHJ 2 (Dec. 1852), 185-86; N. P. Rodgers, "Sympathy fo r Wild Birds. A VHJ3 (Jan. 1853), 20; "Vegetarians," A VHJ3 (Apr. 1853), 79; J. H. Hanafo rd, "Unityof Reforms," A VHJ3 (May 1853), 81; MrsJ. H. Hanaford, "Vegetarian Gleanings," 60

The humanitarian argument was alsomanif est in the work of William Alcott,

typically cast with Graham as one of the apostles of hygienic or physiological

vegetarianism. In Vegetable Diet (1838), Alcott included a section on "The Moral

Argument." He expressed special dismay at the routine slaughter of animals in frontof

children, and looked forwardto the day when instruction promoting kindness to animals

would form the cornerstone of youthful education. "What a mighty change will be

wrought in society," Alcott wrote, "when it shall be fully understoodthat our great duty

as monarchs of men or other animals, is to promote to the utmost extent of our power,

their happiness. "90

Some of the utopian communities of the antebellum era practiced ethical

vegetarianism as well. There was a humane component in the vegetarianism of the

ultraist Quaker communitarians of the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform. More

famously, if briefly,the Alcotts and their fe llow communards at Fruitlandssh unned not

only animal products but also the products of animal labor.91

Sometimes, a single stalwartcould embrace virtually all ofthe nineteenth-century reforms,as did Henry Stephens Clubb (1827-1921), an emigrant Englishman from

AVHJ 3 (Aug. 1853), 148-49; Lewis S. Hough. "SpeakingVege tarianism," AVJH 4 (Apr. 1854), 77-78; "BrutalTen dencies of Slaughtering Animalsfo r Food." A VHJ 4 (July 1854), 144; and"The Slaughter Housesof Buenos Aires," AVHJ 4 (Aug. 1854), 157-61. For fiction emphasizing hwnanitarian vegetarianism, seeAnne Denton, ''Meat Eating," AVHJ 4 (Apr. 1854), 80-81; and Amelia M. Hough. "Fanny's Lamb," A VHJ 4 (May 1854), 89-93.

90 William A. Alcott. Vegetable Diet: As Sanctionedby Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages(Boston: Marsh.Capen, and Lyon, 1838); idem, "WhatAre AnimalsMade For, If Not To Be Eaten?" AVHJ 1 (Mar. 1851), 53; and"Remarks of Dr. Alcott." A VHJ 1 (Oct. 1851), 177.

91 ThomasD. Hamm, God'sGovernment Begun: The Society forUniversal lnqyiryand Refonn, 1842-1846(Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1995), 182; and ClaraEndicott Sears, comp., Bronson Alcott'sFruidands (Boston: Houghton-MifflinCo. , 1915), 49-5 1, 82-83, 88-89. 61

Colchester, Essex. The official historyof the Philadelphia Bible-Christian Church attributes Clubb's youthfulconversion to vegetarianism to the home visits of William

Ward, who "described the horrorsand cruelties of the slaughterhouse and the dangers of eating the flesh of the animals killed there." At sixteen, Clubb went to teach at the Alcott

HouseConcord ium, a school inspired by RobertOwen and Johann Pestalozzi. In 1847, he participatedin the Ramsgate conference that resultedin the formation of the

Vegetarian Society and the creation of the term"vege tarian" to describe a meatless diet.

For a time, Clubb edited the Vegetarian Messenger, the society's journal, and in 1853 he immigrated to the United States. He went to work for Horace Greeley at the New York

Tribune, where he became acquainted with Gerrit Smith, Joshua R. Giddings, and other abolitionists. He prepared Sylvester Graham's Philosophy of Sacred Historyfor posthumous publication, and wrote an account of the Maine liquor law campaign. Clubb knew the Metcalfes and other Bible-Christians, and, in 1854, he contributed a two-part narrative, "Margaret Woodrow," to their journal. The account, probably fictional, concerneda young girl whose deep affectionfor dom estic animals, especially a flockof hens, led her whole fa mily into vegetarianism. 92

During 1855, Clubb wrote a series of reportson slaveholding and the South

Carolina legislature forthe Tribune. In 1856, he went to Kansasas a founderof the

Vegetarian Settlement Company, a short-lived Edenic community committed to temperance, anti-slavery, and a meatless diet. Moving to Grand Haven, Michigan, he

92 Bible-Christian Church, 68-69;Sylvester Graham. The Philosophy of SacredHistory Considered in Relation to HumanAliment and the Wines of Scripture. ed. Henry S. Clubb (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1855); and Henry S. Clubb, "Margaret Woodrow," A VHJ 4 (Jan. 1854), 1-4, and A VHJ 4 (Feb. 1854), 17-23. 62

published the firstRepublican newspaper in Ottawa County. During the Civil War,

Clubb, who refusedto carryarms, servedas an assistant quartermasterin the Union army

and was wounded at Corinth, Mississippi. In 1876, he succeeded Joseph Metcalfe as

pastor of the Bible-Christian Church, helping to reinvigorate the Church's vegetarian

initiatives.93

The ethical vegetarians of the antebellum era did more than just distance themselves fromthe violence and sufferingoccasi oned by the slaughter of animals for food. They also played a partin bringing the subject of crueltyto animals into public discussion. Vegetarians pointed to the public health dangers of meat consumption, and laid a path forlater humane campaigns that emphasized the corruption of flesh from animals treated badly during transportation and slaughter. However, vegetarians were more than just reliable critics of slaughterhouse cruelty and its adverse consequences for human health. Their lifestyle affirmed humane ideology through its most radical extension.

Animals, Abolition.and the Culture of Cruelty The kindness-to-animals ethic was also one of the cultural sequelae of abolitionism. In many ways, the anti-slavery movement set the stage forthe emergence

93 Onthe settlement,see Henry S. Clubb,The VegetarianSettlement Company, Kansas (New York: Fowler and Wells. 1854); "Kall7.as," PonJand PleasureBoat. 4 Mar. 1855; RussellHickman, "Vegetarian and Octagon Settlement Company," KansasHistorical Quarterly 2 (Nov. 1933), 377-85; DonaldW. Stewart, ed., "Memoirs of WalSOn Stewart: 1855-1860," KansasHistorical Quarterly 18 (Nov. 1950): 376-404; andJoseph C. Gambone, ed., "Kamas-A Vegetarian Utopia," K,answ; Historical Quanerly 38, 1 (1972): 65-87. For an account of hardship in this prairie settlement, with unflattering intimationsabout Clubb, seeMiriam Colt. Went to Kansas Beinga ThrillingAccount of an DI-Fated E�tion(Watertown: L. Ingallsand Co., 1862). OnClubb's career with the Bible-Christian Church. see BernardUnti, "VegetarianRoots, " VegetarianTimes (Apr. 1990),52-56; and "TheBible -Christians 76 YearsOld, " Philadelphia Press. 16 Oct 1893, Philadelphia Bulletin Collection,Temple University Urban Archive, Philadelphia. PA. 63

of animal protection, transformingattitudes toward pain, suffering, and cruelbehavior, andsparking widespread imaginative sympathy and a heightened senseof moral obligation. In importantrespects, too, abolition was a necessary precondition of any seriouseffort to organize a movement forthe protectionof animals.

As his footnoteconfirmed, Jeremy Bentham saw a natural connection between the two questions; but he was not the only person to do so. In England, William Wilberforce,

Samuel Romilly, Thomas Fowell Buxton, and other parliamentary advocates of abolition were among the firstsuppo rtersof animal protection. In America, too,the culture of abolition provided a fertilesoil forthe kindness-to-animals-ethic. Between 185 l and

1865, GeorgeAngell, eventual founderof the Massachusetts Society forthe Prevention of Crueltyto Animals(MSPCA), was the junior partnerof attorney Samuel Sewall, whose law officewas a hotbed of abolitionist energy. Abraham Firth, Angeli's longtime collaborator, was an active member of the Leicester Anti-Slavery Society. Samuel J.

Levick, Secretaryof the Pennsylvania Society forthe Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

(PSPCA), taught in Philadelphia's black community and founded the city's Junior Anti­

Slavery Society. Caroline Earle White, the mainspring of Philadelphia anti-crueltywork, was the daughter of Quaker abolitionist and 1840 Liberty Party vice presidential candidate Thomas Earle, whose clients included runaway slaves and kidnapped freedmen. A cousin, once removed, of Lucretia Mott, White attended numerous anti­ slavery meetings in her youth. 94

94 "TheDeath Roll," ODA 17 (May 1885), 203; andEdwin BroMer, Thomas f.arle asa Reformer (Philadelphia: International Printing, 1948). 64

Not surprisingly, the most substantial indictment of crueltyto animals in

antebellum Americawas delivered by an abolitionist. In 1835, an Albany publisher

issued The Spirit of Humanity, a compendium of selections on the mistreatment of

animals, slavery, prison reform, temperance, peace, care forthe insane, and suppression

of boxing matches. Its anonymous compiler, abolitionist Julius Ames (1801-1850),

exempted no class fromresponsib ility forthe suffering of animals. "I f the butchers, drovers, drivers, etc.," Ames wrote, "are not always the dispensers of kindness and

comfortto the sensitive creatures in their charge, the blame must be fullyshared by their

employers and the public, who are the accessories and abettors of their criminality."95

The Spirit of Humanity contained excerpts frommany thinkers who had considered the question of animals' treatment, including Thomas Chalmers, Soame

Jenyns, John Locke, Hannah More, William Paley, and Humphrey Primatt. Ames also

presented passages fromchildren's authors such as Letitia Barbauld, Arnaud Berquin, and Maria Edgeworth, and an analysis of Hogarth'sThe Stages of Cruelty. the era's most powerful representation of cruelty's perilous implications. In addition, The Spirit of

Humanity incorporated relevant material from English anti-crueltypublications and

North American periodicals.

95 [Julius Ames), TheSpirit of Humanityand Essence of Morality: Extractedfrom the Productions of the Enlightened andBenevo lent of Various Agesand Climes (Albany: 0. Steeleand D. M'Kercher, 183S), xii. Amcs'santi-slavery works include � (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837); TheLegion of Libeny!(New York : AmericanAnti-Slavery Society, 1843); and The Anti-Texas l.egiog_(Albaoy: ThePatriot, 1844). Ames's authorship is confirmedby Joseph Sabin et al, A DictioDaJy of Books Relating to America fro m its Discoveryto the Present Time (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1931-1932) 22: 564. The Albanybibl iophile Joel Munsell issuedan edition in l8SS. tiding it The Spiritof Humanityand The Animals' Friend. Henry Bergh's ASPCA publishedanother one in 1867: seeBergh to S. S. Randall, 4 Sept. 1868, AmericanSociety fo r the Prevention of Crueltyto Animals Archives, New York, NY [ ASPCA-NY], LBK l: 24-25, andBergh to Angelo Ames, 9 Jan. 1868, ASPCA­ NY, LBK 3: 2S 1. 65

Recent historical debate concerningthe origins of abolitionismand the emergence and general diffusion of humanitarian sentimentduring the late eighteenthand early nineteenth centuries further illuminates the shiftin attitudesthat helped to fostera host of philanthropic reforms, including animal protection. The rise of market capitalism,

Thomas Haskell argues, generated a new range of cognitiveperceptions and moral conventions that expressed themselves in reformmovements worldwide, the most remarkable of which was anti-slavery. Abolitionism flourishedamid st the conscientious performance of duty and scrupulousattention to the fulfillment of commitments and obligations that accompanied the emergence of a market economy. Market capitalism alsogreatly enlargedthe spatial and temporal realms in which individuals operated, and gave them increased confidence in their power and agency. For some individuals, capitalism's expansion of the domain in which one could pursue one's self-interest also enlarged their range of causal perceptions. This brought an enhanced awareness of remote sufferingand the effects of one's own action or inaction. Heightened understanding of causality and the adjunct consequences of human conduct produced a broader and far-reaching sense of moral responsibility forthe sufferingand exploitation of others. Marketcapital ism's reliance on notions of contract and the importance of honoring one's promises reinforced such feelings of obligation to do right by others.

Ensuing shifts in the conventional boundaries of moral responsibility, as observed by influential minorities, pushed society to address evils that had once fallen well outside of anyone's perceived or actual spheres ofresponsibility.96

96 ThomasHaskell, "Cap italismand theOrigins of theHumanitarian Sensibility, Part I." American HistoricalReview 90 (Apr. 1985): 339-61;"Capitalism and the Originsof the Humanitarian Sensibility, Part U," AmericanHistorical Review 90(June 1985): 547-66; and "Convention and Hegemonic Interest in 66

The nineteenth century also saw a significantrev ision in attitudes towardbodily pain. as the notion of pain as divine punishment gave way to a belief in the desirability of preventing and relieving sufferingthrough intervention. Antebellum evangelical religion popularizeda mode of"reasoningfrom the heart"that valued identification with the sufferingand pain of others. This burgeoning culture of empathy generated an urgent politics of reformaround such issues as slavery, treatment of prisoners, and capital and corporalpuni shment. The body, and bodily pain and death, became a locus of humanitarian sensibility.97

Among other outcomes, the campaign forabol ition sparkedwid espread debates about what constituted cruel behavior, producing a context of imaginative sympathy for the suffering of others that would eventually come to include the pain and abuse inflicted upon animals.98 As partof their indictment of slavery, abolitionists sought to discredit the violence of masters against bondsmen. In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher

Stowe cast bodily punishment as one of the institution's chief horrors. Narratives and compendia providing sensational examples and images of abuse and suffering circulated widely. Tracts, books, and broadsides implored readers to imagine themselves in the the Debate over Anti-Slavery," American Historical Review92 (Oct.19 87): 829-78. Together with responses, these essays appearin Thomas Bender, ed.,The Antislaverv Debate : Capitalismand Abolitionismas a Problem in Historical Interpretation (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress. 1992).

97 MartinPernick. A Calculus of Suffering: Pain,Prof essionalism. and Anesthesia in Nineteenth­ Century America(Columbia University Press, 1985); Elaine Scarry, TheBody in Pain (NewYo rk: Oxford UniversityPress, 1985); David B. Morris,The Culture of Pain (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1991 ); andTurner, Reckoningwith the Beast.all comment on the growing revulsion toward painin the nineteenth century. Onthe body asa locus of sympathy, seeThomas W. LaQueur, "Bodies, Details, and the HumanitarianNarrati ve," in Lynn Hunt, ed., TheNew CulturalHistory (Berkele y: Universityof California Press, 1989), 176-204.

98 Eli7.abethB. Clark, "'TheSacred Rights of the Weak': Pain, Sympathy, and the Culture of Individual Rights in Antebellum America," Journal of American History 82 (Sept. 1995): 463-93. 67

position of the oppressed and beleagueredslave. In these abolitionist works, beatings, brandings, starvings, and other harsh discipline marked southernslaveholding as the epitome of cruelty.

By stigmatizingbrutality and physical violence in relationships, anti-slavery authors establishedan atmosphere in which cruelty to animals could be perceived and discussed as a social problem. Some critics of the South, like Frederick Law Olmsted, went further,joining the inhumanity of slavery and the mistreatment of animals in their narratives. 99 Such depictions represented a southernculture of cruelty in which the status of slaves was conflatedwith that of non-humans. In later years, those engaged in the work of animal protection would sometimes invoke rhetoric and symbols common to the campaign against slavery in their effortsto paint those who harmed animals as depraved individuals akin to slaveholders.

Growing uneasiness over physical punishments in the antebellum era led to reformcampaigns in diverse realms of public life. A number of state legislatures prohibited corporal discipline in schools and prisons, and in 1850 the United States

Congress voted to abolish flogging in the Navy. The use of physical power in other hierarchical relations, like that of husbands over wives, also came under scrutiny.

However, while the domestic abuse of women, and to some extent of children, received

99 FrederickLaw Olmsted, A Journey in theSeaboard States in theYears 1853-18S4 (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1904), 51, 360413. Seealso "To My Horse," Free Enquirer, 15 Oct 183 1. 68

more public attention and criticism, the perception of the domestic sphere as strictly private prevented legal intervention.100

In the southern states, legislation often excluded discussions of slavery on the grounds that it was a "private" concern.1 01 Predictably, animal protectiondid not gain much statutoryground in the antebellum South. Only Virginia (1848), Texas (1856), and

Tennessee (1858) had anti-cruelty statutes in place before the war, compared to nine of the northern states. 102 Moreover, anti-cruelty causes could make no headway in the courtsso long as the issue of human freedomstood unr esolved. Judicial rulingsfrom several southerncourts confirm how easily the protection of animals became entangled with the far more volatile issue of the legal status of slaves. Generally, the law did not hold masters liable for battery. However, in those cases where the public abuse of slaves by their owners did place masters at risk of prosecution, it occurred, as one courtnoted,

"not because it was a slave who was beaten, nor because the act was unprovoked or cruel; but because ipso fa cto it disturbed the harmony of society; was offensiveto public

100 SeeRichard Brodhead, "Sparing the Rod:Disc ipline andFiction in Antebellum America, " Representations 21 (Winter 1988): 67-96; Myra C. Glenn, Campaignsagainst Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors,Women, and Children in Antebellum America(Albany: State Universityof New York. 1984); N. Ray Hiner, "Children's Rights, Corporal Punishment, and Child Abuse: Changing American Attitudes, 1870-1920," Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 43, 3 (1979): 233-48;Harold 0. Langley,Social Reform in the UnitedStates Navy, 1798-1862 (Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press, 196 7); and Bernard Wishy, The Child andthe Republic: TheDawn of AmericanChild Nurture(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967). InPeople v. Stakes(1 822) the defendant's attorney relied on analogies to slavery, pedagogy, and parentingto justifythe right of an owner to correcta vicious. balky horse. He contended that"a parenthad a right to correctand chastisehis children; thata schoolmasterhas authorityto correct his scholars, and a master his servant, and thatit would bestrange and ananomaly in the law. if a brutemight not be correctedfo r its vicious habits." Peoplev. Stakes, 1 Wheeler Crim. Cas. (1822), 3.

101 Glenn. Corporal Punishment, 80-81; and Stephanie Coontz. TheSocial Origins of Private Life: A Histoey of AmericanFamilies, l(J()()-1900(New York: Verso Books, 1988), 200. Southernlegislators were the maindef enders of corporal punishment in the Navy, asthe debate over floggingbecame a proxy battleground wheresectional tensions over slavery played out. SeeGlenn, Corporal Punishment, 114- 18.

102A WI, Animalsand Their Legal Rights, 4. 69

decency, and directly tended to a breach of peace. The samewould be the law, if a horse

had been so beaten." 103

In another case, a courtheld that concern fordamage to propertywas the common

issue linking "public cruelty inflictedupon animals" and "wanton barbarity exercised

4 even by masters upon their slaves." 10 However, when it came to the mistreatment of an

animal by an owner, even the invocation of public disturbance as a cause of action had to

meet a high standard. "Cruelty to animals by the owner had to be attended with such

enormity and publicity as to amount to a nuisance," a Texas judge assertedin State v.

Smith (1858), "or somethingin the nature of a nuisance, before it was treated as an

offense; and therefore, it did not fillthe idea of malicious mischief, although the mere act

of crueltymight be the same as far as the animal was concemed."105

The implications for the institution of slavery of third-party intervention against

crueltyto animals were not lost on that Texas courteither. It was "not the policy of the

law in this country," the judge proclaimed, "to establish espionage over the domestic

concerns,by which every intermeddling, malicious neighbor may have an excuse on the

ground of humanity to thrust his own ideas of propriety or morality into the private

affairs of others around him." 106

103 State v. Mann. 13 N.C. (2 Dev.) 263 (1829); and Commonwealthv. Turner. 26 Va (5 Rand.) 680 (1827).

104 State v. Hale, 9 N.C. (2 Hawks.) 582, 585 (1823). Onthis andrelated issues, see Gary L. Francione, Animals, Property, and the Law (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 110-12.

105 State v. Smith. 21 Tex. 748 ( 1858).

106 Ibid. 70

The persistence of chattel slavery, and the growingpreoccupation of antebellum reformerswith its abolition, impeded the emergence of an organized animal protection movement, even as the kindness-to-animals-ethic advanced as an inchoate reform.

Above all, many who might have gravitatedtoward humane work (and some who later did) were fullyabsorbed in abolition. Of course, despite this samechallenge, other causes, like temperance, fe minism, and the elimination of corporal punishment, flourishedduring the period 1830-60. 107 None of these reforms, however, could become so easily conflated with slavery in public discussion and under law. There were special difficultiesin launching a movement that advocatedbetter treatment for non-human animals at a time when an entire class of human beings was mistreated, denied freedom, denigratedas animal-like, and relegated to the status of property before the law. On occasion, abolitionists publicly expressed their ambivalence about concernfor non­ humans as a misplaced priority so long as human slavery existed. 108

Contemporaries certainly believed that the abolition of slavery was a necessary precondition forany serious movement forthe prevention of crueltyto animals. In 1879, a journalistobserved that "the work [ of animal protection] was firstrendered possible by the liberation of the slave, because a reasonable people could not have listened to the claims of dumb animals while human beings, held in more ignoble bondage, were subjectedto greatercruelty and added outrage." A hundred years earlier, Bentham had

107 Strictly speaking, in the decade thatpreceded the conflict. slavery becamesuch an overwhelming preoccupation that it pushedmany other reforms aside. Abolitionists were too preoccupied with their principalobj ect to pursuecorollary interests with much energy. By the late 18S0s, even a substantialref onn concernlike the campaign againstcorporal punishment dimin ishedas political conflict over slavery intensified. SeeGlenn, Coaporal Punishment 145.

108 L ''To My Horse," Free Enquirer, IS Oct 1831; and "Cruelty to Animals," Liberator, 27 June 1835, 103. 71

anticipated this same progression, a logical consequenceof utilitar ianism's emphasis on the moral actor's accountability forthe pain inflictedon any sentient being. "We have begun by attending to the condition of slaves," Bentham wrote, "we shall finish by softening that of all the animals which assist our labors or supply our wants."109

Certainly,the extraordinary growthof animal protection reformafter the war attests to the validity of these judgments. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United

States Constitution was ratified in 1865, and, within fouryears, the first three animal protection organizations in North America began their work, securing effective anti­ cruelty legislation in their state legislatures. There was a fantastic proliferation of anti­ crueltysocieties in the decade followingthe Civil War, as the concept seized the imagination of influential figures in dozens of communities.

Afterthe war, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, and others once active as abolitionists gravitated to animal protection. Stowe participated in anti-cruelty work and discussed the rights of animals in her writing. 11° Child, whose commitment to the kindness-to-animals ethic was evident beforethe war, intensified her effortsonce the conflict ended. In 1865, almost forty years afterthe theme surfaced in her Juvenile

Miscellany. she included an exhortation on kindness in The Freedmen's Book, published forthe education of liberated slaves. The selection reflected Child's belief that cruelty

109 C.C. Buel, "Henry Bergh and His Work." Scribner's 17 (Apr. 1879): 884; and Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, 3 11.

110 Stowe to Henry Bergh, Undated letter, repr. in Zulma Steele, Angel in Top Hat(New York: Harperand Bros., 1942), 289-90;"Rights of Dumb Animals," Hearthand Home 2 (Jan. 1869),24, repr. in ODA 15 (Oct 1882), 137; "Cruel Nursery Lessons," ODA 5 (Feb. 1873), 271; and "Rats,"ODA 6 (Nov. 1873), 57. Some of Stowe's storieson the theme arecollected in ErnestBell, ed.,The Animals on Strike and OtherTales (London: George Bell and Sons, 1911). 72

begets cruelty,and that the freedmen should strive to transcendany callousness resulting fromtheir own experience of abuse. In addition, she counseled, they neededto take care that they impartedhumane values to their children. She even suggesteda goodrole model forsuch conduct, Toussaint L'Ouverture, of whose youth she wrote, "he differed fromother boys in his carefuland gentle treatment of the animals under his care."

During the 1870s, Child supportedthe MSPCA and published a number of pieces in Our

Dumb Animals. She also remembered the organization with a bequest upon her death in

1 1880. 11

Afteranimal protection became a visible social reform, American humanitarians looked back to England in search of their movement's origins, and largely sawtheir own historyas an appropriation of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Crueltyto Animals

(RSPCA) as an organizational form. They failedto appreciate that the emergence of an organized humane movement in the United States involved deeper and more complex cultural exchanges within the transatlantic community, rooted in significantreli gious, moral, legal, educational, and social trends that predated the formalbeginn ings of British animal protection itself.

Nor did humane advocates comprehend the degreeto which developments in the

United States had helped to prepare the way forthe emergence of their movement.

Concernfor animals was an important,if generally overlooked, element in that cluster of humanitarian impulses identifiedwith the period 1830-1860. The organization of humane societies in the 1860s served to formalizeideas and values that were already

111 Lydia MariaChild. The Freedmen's Book(Bosto n: Ticknorand Fields, 1865), 36, 97-100. Child's contributionsto the MSPCAjoumal include "The Milkman's Donkey," ODA 2 (July 1869), 18; "TheLittle BlackDog," ODA S (June 1872), 204-S; and "My Swallow Family," ODA 6 (Aug. 1873), 21. 73

widely dispersedin American culture. Moral sensitivity to the sufferingof animals was

increasing, and the question of human responsibility toward them was the subject of what

amounted to a transatlanticintellectual conversation. The kindness-to-animals ethic was

an established and influentialelement in the domestic education of children. The

prohibition of crueltyto animals had gained a footholdin state legislatures. On occasion

such crueltymight even be punished by a court of law. Some Americans even thought

enough of animals to avoid eating them altogether.

Public discussions of crueltywere on the rise too. In 1857, a satirical composition

in Harper'sNew Monthly Magazine broached popular self-consciousness about the

human exploitation of animals, depicting a group of animals who had joined in rebellion

to "shake offthe galling yoke of the human race." Less fa ncifully, in 1858, Frank

Leslie's carried a series of articlesdealing with New York City's annual roundup of dogs

and the violence employed by dogcatchers and pound masters in destroying them.

During the same period, Harper's Weekly deplored crueltyto animals, printed an illustrated articledep icting the misery of the city horse, and published a "humble 112 petition" frombele aguered animal sufferers to their human masters.

By 1865, the issue of animal crueltyhad entered a new phase. In June, the New

York Times noted that poultry dealers and wholesale butchers engaged in "needless torture. . . in bringing their live stock to the market, or in preparing it forthe stalls."

1 2 1 "Crueltyto Animals," N. Y. Times, 2 Aug. 1853, 6; "Crueltyto Animalsin NewYork." Scientific American 9 (17 Sept 1853), I; ''The Animal Declaration of lndependence," Harper'sNew Monthly Magnini: (Jan. 1857), 145-63;"Where The Dogs GoTo," FrankLeslie's , 14 Aug. 1858, 166-67; "The Horse in Cityand Country,"ffiuper's Weekly, 24 July 1858, 468-69; "A Dogon Fire,"Harper's Weekly, 7 Mar. 1857, 150; and "A Humble Petition." Hmper's Weekly. 15 May 1859, 307. 74

Further,the writer noted, "the manner in which the smaller class of live cattle were

dragged or driven to the shambles, is an outrage uponthe natural feelings of any one not

utterly hardened by familiarity with crueltyin its most barbarous forms." Just a fe w

months later, illustrationsof several common formsof animal abuse, with condemnatory

text, appeared in three separate issues of Frank Leslie's. The Leslie's writer lamentednot

only the toleration of such crueltiesbut the apparent inability to curb them, and

plaintively asked, "Shall we ever have among us a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty

to Animals?" The answer was not long in coming. 113

113 "Crueltyto Animals," N. Y. Times, 24 June 186S, 4; "Everyday Barbarities," FrankLeslie's , 30 Sept. 186S, l, 23; "The Brutalitiesof theTown. " Frank Leslie's,28 Oct. 186S, l, 84; and "NewYork CityEnonnities-Horses andPavements." Frank Leslie's,9 Dec. 186S, l, 179.