OUT OF THE MANY, ONE: READING THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC, 1776-1865 BY KERIN E. HOLT B.A., UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, 2000 M.A., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2003 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURES AND CULTURES AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2008 © Copyright 2008 by Kerin E. Holt iv Vitae Kerin Holt was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Utah in 2000 and her M.A. from Brown University in 2003. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 2008, specializing in the field of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century American literature. While at Brown University, she taught a variety of courses in expository writing and American literature, in addition to working with the Writing Center and the Women’s Writer’s Project. She has also taught English courses at Providence College and the University of Rhode Island. In 2007, she received Brown University’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching. She will join the English department at Utah State University in the fall of 2008. v Acknowledgements This dissertation could never have been completed without the help and support of many people. First, I would like to thank my director, Philip Gould, whose critical insights and suggestions have shaped this project. I would also like to thank him for challenging his students to pursue their own ideas and trust their critical inclinations. The respect and dedication he brings to his teaching and advising are qualities I hope to emulate. In addition, I am also grateful to the other members of my committee, Jim Egan, Deak Nabers, and Nancy Armstrong for their invaluable criticism and encouragement, particularly in the early stages of the dissertation. Much as Andrew Jackson had his own “Kitchen Cabinet” to supplement his official set of advisors, I have been lucky enough to have a strong group of close friends and colleagues who have offered incomparable advice and support. I am particularly indebted to John Funchion, John Melson, and Siân Silyn Roberts whose comments and conversations about all things early American have continually opened new doors over the past six years—their friendship makes this work worthwhile. I also owe special thanks to Jacque Wernimont, Melanie Spencer, and Allan Hazlett for the countless walks, talks, and wise words that always seemed to come at just the right time, as well as to Wendy Lee and Debra Scoggins for helping me stay on task. I would also like to thank Larry Stanley for his advice on writing and teaching, as well as those who participated in the Mellon Graduate Seminars and Barbara Hernstein Smith’s dissertation workshop, especially Sarah Wald, Matthew Delmont, Brian Sweeney, Corey McEleney, Laurel Rayburn, Daniel Block, and Heather Fielding. In addition, I am also grateful the support, advice, and all-around good cheer I’ve received from the graduate students in the English department, particularly those in my first-year cohort—Manu Chander, Stephen Koelz, Lisa Brocklebank, Lelia Menendez, and Linda Liu—as well as the many fantastic friends who make up the wonderful community of graduate students I have come to rely on: Rebecca Summerhays, Tad Davies, Jonna Iacono, David Babcock, Bethany Shepherd, Stephen Satterfield, Chris and Katie Holmes, Avak Hasratian, Asha Nadkarni, Zak Sitter, Chris Lee, Gena Zuroski, Julie Davis, Jake Leland and my very dear chum, Ray Sultan. Many thanks also go to Lorraine Mazza, Ellen Viola, Suzie Nacar, Jane Donnelley, and Marilyn Netter whose hard work always kept me on track. My thanks extend well beyond the English Department. I could never have made it through graduate school without the friendship of Joey Marquart and Jeni Jones ho share a love of giant combs, crazy pants, old bakeries, and Halloween—as well as a keen sense of the sense of nonsense. Without them, I would quickly lose my way. To my friends at the GCB (Ed Goll, Mark Sonday, Sin Guanci, Don Ward, Stephen Grunschel, Patrick Oaks, Jean Gullickson, Kevin Wu, Terry Linehan, Susan Yund, and Saeromi Kim), I also owe a round of thanks for their friendship and good spirits over the years. To David Ben-Merre, I open up an entirely new can of thanks—for your jokes, your tireless editing, and your constant support even on the darkest days of writing. You bring a wonderful order to my disorder, and I could not have done this without you. vi Finally, I would like to thank my family, to whom I owe the most. Many thanks to my grandparents, Maria and Salomon Espinoza and Bob and Luvenia Holt who have always set an excellent example for their grandchildren to follow. To my brother Robby and my sisters Tricia and Becky –I admire all three of you more than I can possibly say. Thanks for your love, your craciness, and for always being there—no matter what part of the world you might be calling from. Most of all, thank you to my parents, Bob and Cece Holt, whose love, guidance, and sense of fun have seen me through this whole process— from my very first days of word scavenging. Over these many, many years of school, I’ve always learned the most by watching you. You’ve taught me what it means to think critically, to be creative, and to always be up for a new adventure. I can always look forward because I always know the two of you are always behind me. vii Table of Contents Introduction “Out of the Many, One:” Reading the Federal Republic, 1776-1865 1-38 Chapter I “All Parts of the Union I Considered My Home” The Federal Imagination of The Algerine Captive 39-79 Chapter II Federalism and Literature in the Age of Expansion: Part I Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie (1827) 80-125 Chapter III Federalism and Literature in the Age of Expansion, Part II Timothy Flint’s Francis Berrian, or The Mexican Patriot (1826) 125-157 Chapter IV Imagining a Federal Republic of Letters: Regional Representation in the Antebellum West 158-208 Epilogue From Federalism to Nationalism 209-216 Works Cited 216-224 1 Introduction “Out of the Many, One” Reading the Federal Republic, 1776-1865 “It is required of a nation which combines wide differences of characteristics that each shall have its own representation. A Republic of Letters may be a confederacy of individualities, as well as a Republic in politics may be a confederacy of states”— William Coggeshall (1859) This dissertation explores the relationship between early American literature and the political philosophy of federalism between the founding of the republic and the Civil War. Scholars have long been interested in the relationship between literature and nationalism during this period. In general, most of them have argued that literary texts played a unifying role in the early republic, helping citizens to transcend their political, social, and geographic differences and come together as a nation by establishing a sense of shared values, interests, and experiences. Benedict Anderson’s argument that the circulation of printed texts made it possible for a diverse and widely separated set of readers to see themselves as part of an American “imagined community” represents one of the most well-known versions of this view. Other critics offer slightly different readings, arguing that early American literary texts helped unite the nation by creating a shared language of republican eloquence and civility, promoting bonds of sentiment and sympathy, or facilitating the creation of a republican public sphere.1 1 This represents a broad summary of some of the dominant arguments concerning early American literary culture which would include the work by Cathy Davidson, Jane Tompkins, Michelle Burnham, Russ Castronovo, Michael Warner, Christopher Looby, and Sandra Gustafson, among many others. For a general overview of the these “unifying” arguments and their place of readings regarding the relationship of literature and nationalism in the history of early American literary studies, see Winfried Fluck, “From Aesthetics to Political Criticism: Theories of the Early American Novel” in Early America Re-explored, ed. Klaus H. Schmidt and Fritz Fleischmann (New York: P. Lang, 2000): 245-6. 2 In contrast to the prevailing argument that early American literature helped define the nation by drawing different groups of people together, I argue that such literature defined the nation by drawing people apart—encouraging readers to imagine the United States as a composite space defined by its many social, cultural, and political differences. In making this argument, I turn to the political philosophy of federalism. As a federal republic, the United States became a unified nation through the equal representation of its constituent parts. As a result, instead of being defined by its homogeneity, the United States was defined by its variety—a model of unity exemplified by the motto e pluribus unum, out of the many, one. Under this federal model, the early United States was a complex space of political and social orders, which all involved representations of individual state interests; at the same time, such interests were organized in the service of collective national goals. As David Waldstreicher describes it, federalism asked citizens to think of the United States as “both regionalist and nationalist simultaneously” (248). James Madison addresses this duality at length in the “Federalist 39”—a condition he traces directly to the language of the Constitution. If we try the Constitution by its last relation to the authority by which amendments are to be made, we find it neither wholly NATIONAL nor wholly FEDERAL. Were it wholly national, the supreme and ultimate authority would reside in the MAJORITY of the people of the Union; and this authority would be competent at all times, like that of a majority of every national society, to alter or abolish its established government.