Memorandaand Documents

THE ACTIVE VIRTUE OF THE COLUMBIAN ORATOR

GRANVILLE GANTER

Na well-knownpassage describinghis earlyeducation, identifiesa book he readwhile still a slavein Baltimore. The text,The ColumbianOrator (1797), by Caleb Bingham,enabled Douglass,he said, "to uttermy thoughts and to meet the arguments broughtforward to sustainslavery."' The appeal of Bingham'sOrator is not immediatelyobvious to the modern reader. Containing speechesfrom Greek, Roman, British, French, and Americanpolitical history,dramatic excerpts and adaptations,and severalmillennially in- flectedsermons and religiousselections, the Oratorseems a rather unremarkablevehicle of piety,patriotism, and Enlightenedrepubli- canism.Even its stronganti-slavery sentiments can be foundin other Englishand Americanschoolbooks composed prior to 1820.2 Butwith 200,000 copies sold by 1832, Bingham'sColumbian Orator was a standard,and widelyimitated, text in Americansecondary school edu- cationfrom the late 1790s to 1820.3Because a numberof othertexts werepatterned on theColumbian Orator, it has been treatedas a typ- ical educationalanthology for its era, but by encouraginggenerations

The authoris gratefulto the GraduateCenter of the City University of New Yorkfor a dissertationyear fellowship that provided funds for the research on whichthis essay is based. 'FrederickDouglass, Narrativeof the Life of FrederickDouglass, in The Classic Slave Narratives,ed. HenryLouis Gates (New York:Mentor, 1987), p. 279. 2See Ruth Elson, Guardiansof Tradition(Lincoln: Universityof NebraskaPress, 1964),pp. 65-90. 3GeorgeLittlefield, Early Schoolsand School-booksof New England(Boston: Club of Odd Volumes,1904), p. 156. Sales figuresfor Bingham's texts are probablylow. Ac- cordingto WilliamFowle's 1858 "Memoirof Caleb Bingham,"the anthologist cared lit- tle forbusiness and sold permissionto publishrather than take royalty fees (American Journalof Education 10 [September1858]: 325-49). Bingham'smain competition was LindleyMurray's English Reader series, which may have sold one or twomillion in the UnitedStates (see Rollo Lyman,English Grammar in AmericanSchools before 1850 [Washington,D.C.: Departmentof the Interior,Bureau of Education,1921], p. 80). An earliertext by Bingham,The AmericanPreceptor, sold 640,000copies by 1832 (Little- field,Early Schoolsand School-books,p. 156). 463

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 464 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY of Americanstudents, including not onlyDouglass but RalphWaldo Emersonand HarrietBeecher Stowe, to speakand writein a tradition ofnonconformist activism, it had a poweruniquely its own.4 The secondaryschool anthology of the earlynational period was as mucha conductmanual as itwas a literaryprimer. The firstAmerican reader,Noah Webster's1785 An AmericanSelection, drew not only fromEnglish literaryanthologies like Robert Dodsley's Preceptor (1748) but fromEnglish conduct manuals such as The YoungGentle- man and Lady's Monitor.5As vehiclesfor general socialization, school readersemphasized elocution as a meansof disciplineand control,a classic union of physical deportmentand linguisticexpression. Whethercalled a "selection,""preceptor," "assistant," "mentor," or "orator,"the textsuniversally declared their intent to trainstudents in the waysof virtue. The particulartype of virtue the anthologiesillus- trated,however, as well as the linguisticand socialdisciplines they ex- acted,differed considerably from text to text. As historiansof the late eighteenthcentury have recentlyshown, a definitionof virtuewas at the centerof a strugglebetween classical republicanpolitical thought and liberaleconomic theory." The classi-

4Emersondemonstrates his familiaritywith the Oratorby quotingfrom one of its originalpoems in a letterto a friend;see The Lettersof ,ed. Ralph Rusk, 6 vols. (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1939), 1:17. reportsthat the Oratorwas a schoolbookof her Litchfieldyouth in PoganucPeople (Hartford, Conn.: Stowe-DayFoundation, 1987), p. 151. "Webster'sAn AmericanSelection of Lessons in Readingand Speaking,first pub- lishedas part3 of his GrammaticalInstitute, had manyeighteenth-century variants but fourbasic versionsprinted between 1785 and 1795. Unlessotherwise noted, I referto theversion Webster issued to competewith Bingham: the 1795 Hartfordedition. "CGordonWood's discussionof virtuein The Creationof the AmericanRepublic (Chapel Hill: Universityof NorthCarolina Press, 1969) promptedfurther, extensive analysis.See J. G. A. Pocock,Virtue, Commerce and History(New York:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1985); Isaac Kramnick,"Republican Revisionism Revisted," American HistoricalReview 87 (June1982): 629-64, and "The Great NationalDiscussion: The Discourse of Politicsin 1787," Williamand Mary Quarterly45 (January1988), pp. 3-32; Lance Banning,"Some Second Thoughtson Virtueand the Course of Revolu- tionaryThinking," in ConceptualChange and the Constitution,ed. Terence Hall and J. G. A. Pocock (Lawrence: UniversityPress of Kansas, 1988), pp. 194-212; Jack Greene,Imperatives, Behaviors and Identities(Charlottesville: University Press of Vir- ginia,1992); JoyceAppleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order(New York:New York UniversityPress, 1984); RobertShalhope, "Republicanism and EarlyAmerican Histori- ography,"William and MaryQuarterly 39 (1982): 334-56; RowlandBertoff, "Indepen- dence and Attachment,Virtue and Interest:From RepublicanCitizen to Free Enter- priser, 1787-1837," in UprootedAmericans, ed. Richard Bushman (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1979), pp. 97-124; RuthBloch, "The GenderedMeanings of Virtuein RevolutionaryAmerica," Signs 13 (1987): 37-58; and Wood's laterThe Radi- calismof theAmerican Revolution (New York:Vintage, 1993). My accountof the syn- thesisof the republicanand manneredvirtues draws heavily from Pocock and Bloch.

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cal republicanview held virtueto be a disinterestedcivic duty prac- ticedby a "Romanpatriot, self defined in his civicsphere of action."7 Whilenot dismissing that interpretation, the commercialmiddle class began to associatewith it codes ofconduct such as thosedescribed in JosephAddison's Spectator. This expandedconcept, what mightbe called manneredvirtue, accumulated a varietyof stricturesconcern- ing work,social relations,and sexuality.Although the historiography variesaccording to socialgroup and context(e.g., in thenovel virtue is oftendefined as chastity),toward the end of the eighteenthcentury, evencivic virtue took on "mannered"connotations. Most earlyAmerican school anthologiescontained illustrations of bothcivic and manneredvirtue, but themajority tended to accentthe manneredvirtues. Webster, siding with the Federalistsin the after- mathof Shays's Rebellion, claimed in his 1787 editionof An American Selectionthat since republicanvirtue was virtuallymoribund in the new nation,the onlyway to controlself-interest and forestallsocial declinewas through"manners, which are the basis of government."8 Even as he celebratedthe radicaloratory of the Americanpatriots, Webstermaintained that virtue was foundin obedience,industry, and restraint.Many schoolbook writers of the nineteenth century followed Webster'slead.9 Bingham'sColumbian Orator, on the contrary,promoted an un- derstandingof virtuethat was informedby a traditionof Christian radicalism.Steeped in the New LightCongregationalism of his men- tor,Eleazar Wheelock,Bingham maintained that virtue was the per- sonal act of willthrough which people manifestedtheir communitar-

7Pocock,Virtue, Commerce and History,p. 69. 8Webster,American Selection, p. 214. By manners,Webster meant the austere Con- necticutmanners of his childhoodnot the Frenchifiedaffectations of "mannered"con- duct mostAmericans considered a signof corruption.See the satireof Chesterfield's French mannerismsin Webster's"Chesterfield and Cicero" dialogue. Paradoxically, however,in manyeditions of his Selection,Webster endorsed Chesterfield's maxims re- gardingbehavior. 9See, e.g., Milcah Moore's Miscellanies(Philadelphia: Joseph James, 1787); Donald Fraser'sYoung Gentleman and Lady'sAssistant (New York:Tho's Greenleaf,1791) and ColumbianMonitor (New York: Loudon and Brower,1794); JosephDana's A New AmericanSelection (Boston: Samuel Hall, 1792); Caleb Alexander'sIntroduction to and I. Speaking Writing(Boston: Thomas and E. T. Andrews,1794) ancdThe Young Gentlemanand Lady's Instructor(Boston: E. Larkinand L. Blake, 1797); and John Wood's Mentor(New York:John Buel, 1795). AlexanderThomas's Orator's Assistant (Worcester:I. Thomas and E. T. Andrews,1797) was an exceptionbut accordingto Charles Evans's AmericanBibliography (New York:P. Smith,1941-59), it was not reprinted.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 466 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY ian impulses.'0Although also pursuinga republicancivic ideal, this in- carnationof virtuedid so withoutthe elitismso oftenevident in Jef- fersonianrhetoric." Bingham's goal was to trainall students,proper- tied or not, to expressthemselves in serviceto theircommunity. While the messageBingham sought to conveyshared certain demo- cratic and egalitariancharacteristics with many other nineteenth- centuryAmerican schoolbooks, which taught the rhetoric of dissent to advance a subtlearray of bourgeoisvalues, the Orator'sstoical and communitarianNew LightCalvinism was boldlycritical of the self- interestedaspect of economicindividualism.'2 To act withvirtue, ac- cordingto New Lightdoctrine, was a rigorous,heroic social responsi- bility,not an opportunityto do as one likeswithin a broadcontext of individual,liberal rights.'"For Bingham,free and virtuousexpres- sion-one of the central"RIGHTS OF MAN" so ostentatiouslypro- claimedin The ColumbianOrator-was a spiritualduty, not a posses- sion. Centralto Bingham'sphilosophy of activevirtue is the conviction thatspeech is an action.In theintroduction to theColumbian Orator, he drawsattention to the classicalbelief that a speaker'saction, or pronunciation,is his chiefmeans of "successin the artof persuasion" (p. 7).14 The classicalconnotations of the term,however, were notori- ouslysubtle and also involvedthe gesturesand tones of a speaker's performance.'5Bingham invokes this complex tradition with a quota- tionfrom Cicero: "It is certainthat truth (by which[Cicero] means nature)in everythingexcels imitation; but if that were sufficientof it- selfin action,we shouldhave no occasionfor art" (p. 10). The ambi- guityof the wordaction in thispassage-referring simultaneously to principle,practice, gesture,and pronunciation--explicitlyties stylistic

'0See Alan Heimert,Religion and theAmerican Mind (Cambridge:Harvard Univer- sityPress, 1966), pp. 108-10,312. "See Appleby,Capitalism and a New Social Order,p. 79n. 12See Sacvan Bercovitch'sRites of Assent (New York:Routledge, 1993) foran impor- tantdiscussion of the ritualof dissent as a characteristicvalue of American culture. '"Heimert,Religion and theAmerican Mind, p. 457. '4Unlessotherwise noted, all citationsfrom Caleb Bingham'sThe ColumbianOrator are fromthe 1821 editionpublished in Troy,New York,by William S. Parker. '5BothJohn Mason's An Essay on Elocution,or Pronunciation(London: R. Hett, 1748) and ThomasSheridan's A Courseof Lectures on Elocution(Troy: Obadiah Penni- man, 1803 [1759]), key sourcesof eighteenth-centurytheories of gestureand verbal performance,express frustration at the ambiguous use ofthe word action in classicallit- erature.For pedagogicalpurposes they tried to restrictits meaningto gestureonly, al- thoughthey both acknowledged that it meantmore than that to theancients.

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deliveryto thepractical consequences of speech. The activepronunci- ationof speech is a metaphorfor the social efficacyof oratory,where speech itselffunctions as an actionby meansof its declarativeforce. For Bingham,as well as forhis revolutionarypeers, spokenwords were deeds."1 In The ColumbianOrator, Bingham repeatedly draws on Cato the Youngeras an exemplarof speakerlyaction. In the firstinstance he referencesthe mythof Cato's oppositionto Caesar's dictatorship,in- fluentialin bothBritain and Americafollowing the publication of Ad- dison'sCato in 1713.Although Addison deliberately fashioned his play so thatit would carry no subversiveallegory, to Americansof the 1760s the playjustified the Revolutionagainst Britain. As FredricLitto has shown,revisions of Addison'splay by PatrickHenry and NathanHale have enteredAmerican political and literarytraditions of defiance.17 Binghamalso contributesto the radicalappropriation of the playby addingan epiloguethat unites the wordsof oratorywith the deeds of revolution:"Rise! thenmy countryman, for fight to prepare;/ Gird on yourswords and rushfearless to war."As soldiersare aware,military commandsare deeds, and Binghamfurther references the illocution- aryforce of language in Napoleon'sdeclaration of freedom to Italyand in Cassius'sspeech to hisarmies after the death of Caesar (pp. 69, 136, 142). In theseselections, speech declares social change. The mostintriguing literary actions in The ColumbianOrator, how- ever,are thosethat don't rely on conquestfor efficacy. The Orator's epigraphbegins: "Cato cultivatedELOQUENCE, as a necessary mean[s] for defendingthe Rightsof the People, and forenforcing good counsel." Binghamgoes on to illustratethis quotationwith Cato's famousreply to Caesar followingthe Cataline conspiracy. Cae- sar is attemptingto exoneratehis corruptpeers, and Cato counters withan alternativemodel of speech and conduct: Atsuch time, in sucha state,some talk to us oflenity and compassion. It is longthat we havelost the right name of things. The Commonwealth is in this deplorablesituation, only because we call bestowingother people's estates,

'6See JayFliegelman's Declaring Independence (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993) fora studyof Jefferson's concern with the performativedimension of the Decla- ration.Warren Guthrie provides a good surveyof the Englishelocutionists who pro- motedthese theoriesof languageand illocutionin his five-partstudy "The Develop- mentof RhetoricalTheory in America,1635-1850," Speech Monographs12 (1946): 14-22; 14 (1947): 38--54;15 (1948): 61-71; 16 (1949): 98-113; 18 (1951): 17-30. 17FredricLitto, "Addison's Cato in the Colonies,"William and MaryQuarterly 23 (July1966): 430-49.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 468 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY liberality,and audaciousnessin perpetratingcrimes, courage.... For these virtues,we haveluxury and avarice; or madnessto squander,joined with no lessto gain;the State is poorand private men are rich.We admirenothing butriches; we giveourselves up tosloth and effeminacy; we make no distinc- tionbetween the good and the bad; whilst ambition engrosses all the rewards of virtue.Do you wonder,then, that dangerous conspiracies should be formed?[P. 49]

Cato's literaryaction in thisspeech is a complexintegration of perfor- manceand ethicalphilosophy. His lean phrasing-oftenin shortinde- pendentclauses-is a principledsubstitute for the degradedrhetoric of Rome,in bothpolitical and linguisticsenses. This double-edgedas- sault is furtherreinforced by referenceto Cato's own stoicaldeeds: "As I never spared any faultin myself,I was not easilyinclined to favorthe criminal excesses of others." Cato's personalintegrity, his di- rectsyntax, and his critiqueof self-interestform a multifacetedillus- trationof preciselythose virtueshis culture has forsaken.Like Socrates',whose Apologyalso appears in the Orator,Cato's active virtue-a mode of principledbelief, direct speech, and exemplary conduct-is simultaneouslyan ethical,literary, and politicalinterven- tion.18 In contrastto the activistmodel Binghamfinds in Cato, the model ofvirtue Noah Websterdiscovers in thesame sourceemphasizes obe- dience.Webster's excerpt in hisAmerican Selection from act 1 ofAd- dison's Cato featuresthe dialoguebetween Juba and Syphaxwhere Romanvirtue is comparedto its Numidian(or African)counterpart. While the "glowingdames of Zama's royalcourt" are handsomebe- side the "pale, unripen'dbeauties of thenorth," and the strengthand theintelligence of the Numidianofficers equals thatof the Romanof- ficers,ultimately their virtues remain shallow. Juba argues: Theseare all virtues of a meanerrank, Perfectionsthat are placed in the bones and nerves; A Romansoul is benton higher views;

'SFrederickDouglass's awareness of the illocutionarypower of Cato's speechis evi- dentin his December 1860 tributesto JohnBrown. After the TremontStreet riot of 3 December,where Douglass had to fighthis way from the stage, he concludedhis "Self- Made Men" speechon 9 Decemberby using Cato's phrases to defendJohn Brown's life and his own freedomto speakabout it. See FrederickHolland, Frederick Douglass, the ColoredOrator (New York:Funk and Wagnalls,1891), p. 282. Elsewhere,on 14 Janu- ary 1862, Douglass adoptedCato's objection"there must be no callingthings by their rightnames" to critiquethe euphemistic language of the Slave Power.See TheFreder- ick Douglass Papers,ed. JohnBlassingame et al., 5 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press,1979-), 3:477.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEMORANDA AND DOCUMENTS 469 To civilizethe rude unpolish'd world; To layit under the restraint oflaws; To makeman mild, and sociable to man.19

Webster'sdecision to representCato as one of "mildand sociable" viewsunderscores that he soughtto fostera patriotismquite different fromBingham's. In thispassage, as in otherson "Modesty,""Discre- tion,"and "Pride"(usually extracted from the Tatlerand the Specta- tor),Webster's Selection privileges the manneredpostures of Augus- tan gentility,well suited to a mid-nineteenth-centuryculture comfortablewith the spectacle of revolt only at a distance. The politicalconsequences of the two anthologists'differing con- ceptsof proper conduct are especiallyevident in theirpresentation of 'sspeeches. Afterthe Revolution,virile resigna- tionwas widelyconsidered to be thatact thatdistinguished republi- can leaders frommonarchical ones."Y As GarryWills has shown, George Washington"perfected the art of gettingpower by givingit away,"and duringhis careerhe self-consciouslyevoked images of the Roman general Cincinnatuswho, afterbeing summonedfrom the plow to defendRome, gratefully returned to the fieldswhen his ser- vices were no longer required.21Washington's example proved to Americansthat the spiritof revolutioncould be contained.Webster, responsiveto the classicalallegory, places Washington'sresignation speech between Thomas Dawes's remarkson America's"agrarian law" and the fableof SaintPierre's patriotic "self-sacrifice" in Calais. Washington'sspeech neatlybridges the two selectionsby firstaffirm- ing thatmen's proper employment is agricultureand thenby recom- mendinghis officers(rather than himself) to the patronageof Con- gress.Webster presents Washington's restraint as a modelof patriotic conductthat students should imitate.22 WhereasWebster offers a staticfigure, Bingham presents a man willingto act in the realworld. Among the firstselections in the Ora- tor,Bingham foregrounds Washington's address to Congressin 1789

''Webster,American Selection, p. 198. 20Wood,The Radicalism of the American Revolution, pp. 197-210. 21GarryWills, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment(New York: Doubleday,1984), p. 3. 22Webster,American Selection, pp. 62, 64, 63. Webster'ssecond edition(Philadel- phia, 1787) presenteda more activeWashington. Some of the best passages of that readerwere Washington'sletters describing the battlesof Monmouthand Trenton. Websterdropped the entire section after only one editionhad been printed.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 470 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY at the commencementof his presidency-thespeech of a man em- barkingon a new career.Bingham also includesWashington's accep- tance of the Frenchflag from Ambassador Adet at the conclusionof Jay'sTreaty, an act Washingtonfeared would be viewedunfavorably byhis pro-English peers. As itturned out, Washington's acceptance of the flag,if onlyto depositit in the governmentarchives, infuriated Federalistslike Webster.' Binghamuses Washington'scontroversial speech to radicalizeWashington with the activespirit of the French Revolution. As Washington'scommencement address to Congress demon- strates,Bingham's virtuous heroes oftenlook to the future.Ernst Bloch has describedthe characterof Jeffersonianvirtue as a utopian one, an "activityof expectation,of hopefulpresentiment" rooted in "energyand surplus."24One of the selectionsin The ColumbianOra- tor thatbest revealshow politicallysubversive this energy can be is ArthurO'Connor's 1795 speechon behalfof Catholic emancipation in the IrishHouse of Commons.Like Cato, O'Connor'spolemic unites wordand deed, forafter delivering his speech,he renounceshis seat in parliamentand joins the UnitedIrishmen. O'Connor also justifies his actionsin utopianterms. He is awarethat he is unlikelyto see the fruitsof his effortsin his lifetime,but he announcesnonetheless that he intendsto "riskeverything dear to me on earth"for the "Immutable principles"of freespeech and trade (pp. 243-46). Thus the utopian energyof O'Connor'sliterary action overflows its ability to producean immediateeffect, a surplus,or disruptiveexcess, that differs consider- ablyfrom the patriotic containment Webster seeks to achieve. In additionto itsillustrations of activevirtue, The ColumbianOra- tor'spreference for educational dialogues sets it apartfrom other an- thologies.Bingham had developedthis fondness from his college ex- perienceat Dartmouthand especiallyfrom his studyof the French historianCharles Rollin. Because of his family'sfriendship with Eleazar Wheelock,in 1779 Binghamattended Wheelock's recently foundedDartmouth College ratherthan Yale."2 Although no college syllabisurvive prior to 1796,the library's earliest records, dating from

2"See AlexanderDeConde, EntanglingAlliances: Politics and Diplomacyunder Washington(1958; reprinted,Westport, Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1974), pp. 424-37. 24ErnstBloch, The UtopianFunction of Art and Literature(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988),p. 114. 25SeeFowle, "Caleb Bingham,"p. 344.

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1788, show that studentswere often checkingout such texts as ThomasSheridan on reading,Alexander Pope's Iliad, CharlesRollin's The Methodof Teachingand Studyingthe Belle-Lettresand ancient histories,John Ward's Systemof Oratory,Joseph Priestley's Lectures on Oratoryand Criticism,Hugh Blair's Lectureson Rhetoricand Belles Lettres,Lord Kames's (HenryHome) Elementsof Criticism, and WilliamEnfield's The Speaker.2'The titlesindicate that students were primarilystudying history and rhetoric,with Rollin being very popularon bothcounts. Bingham'suse of Rollinin the epigraphto The ColumbianOrator is significantfor two reasons.First, Rollin was an extremelypopular authorin Americaboth beforeand afterthe RevolutionaryWar.27 Like Sallust,Rollin associatedperiods of decline in ancienthistory withthe corruptinginfluences of luxury,and he arguedthat a funda- mentalsource of social decay were the laws of primogenitureand theirconsequent inequitable divisions of property.28In Rollin'shis- toryAmericans therefore found a powerfulcritique of the courtlypa- tronagethey hoped to avoid.Rollin would also haveappealed to Bing- ham because his educationaltheory stressed example rather than precept.In particular,Rollin's dislike of rhetoricaldoctrine helps ex- plainthe relativelack of theory in Bingham'stexts: rhetoricwithout the study of good authors is lifelessand barren, and that ex- amplesin this, as in all otherthings, are infinitely more efficacious than pre- cepts.And indeed, the rhetorician seems only to pointout the path at a dis- tancewhich youth are to follow; whilst the orator takes them by the hand and leadsthem to it.

Firmlymaintaining that students learn by doing, Rollin further argued thatencouraging students to engagein dialogueand conversationwas a more effectiveeducational technique than the lecturesystem be- cause it made education"a diversion"rather than a chore."

26Contentsof Library,January 1775, and LibraryCirculation Records, 1788-1877, BakerLibrary, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. 27Seethe valuable articleby David Lundbergand HenryMay, "The Enlightened Readerin America,"American Quarterly 28 (Summer1976): 430-49. The authorspro- videstatistical overviews of thecontents of a numberof colonial libraries. 28See JayFliegelman, Prodigals and Pilgrims(New York: CambridgeUniversity Press,1982), pp. 42-44. 29CharlesRollin, The Methodof Teachingand Studyingthe Belle-Lettres,4 vols. (1726-28; reissued,London: W. Strachan,1770), 2:2 (emphasismine), 4:282.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 472 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY In movingtoward Rollin's preference for educationaldialogues, Binghamwould have receivedencouragement from college professor JohnSmith. The yearBingham came to Dartmouth,Smith wrote and producedat least one dramafor the entertainmentof the college,"A Dialogue betweenan Englishmanand an Indian."'3In it,the Indian, playedby a "realAboriginal" of Wheelock'sschool, refutes the argu- ments of a bad-temperedEnglishman who believes that Indians should be exterminated.The Indian admitsthat his race is "unpol- ished" but repliesthat if all such peoples were done awaywith, the Englishman'sancestors would have been, too. Throughhis advocacy of "generousbenevolence," the Indianpersuades the Englishmanto questionhis prejudice.Although Smith reveals concern that college dramasmay be morallyquestionable, such productions were encour- aged at Dartmouthover the following years. Manyof theOrator's dialogues were written by David Everett,who attendedDartmouth in the early1790s when the college literary soci- eties staged patrioticdramas such as "The Demolitionof Ancient Mexico,"presented readings of Barlow-esquepoetry on thevirtues of Columbia,and sponsoredforensic debates on social issues.31In con- trastto Yale, where studentsdisputed such technicalquestions as "whichis the mostjust and equitablemode of taxationfor paying the Continentaldebt" or "whetherthe repeal of the legal tenderact be unjust,"the debatesat Dartmouthwere ratherbroadly philosophical: "shouldcommerce be freefrom restraint"; "how to establisha uni- formsystem of education";"should the Indians have exclusiveright to

3oSee Richard Moody,Dramas of the AmericanTheater, 1762-1909 (Cleveland: WorldPublishing Co., 1966) fortranscriptions of Smith'sDartmouth plays, as well as a letterin whichhe discussestheir moral influence. See Harold Rugg,"The Dartmouth Plays,1779-1782," The TheaterAnnual 1 (1942): 55-57, forphotographic facsimiles of the plays and brief backgroundcommentary. Dartmouth College was, of course, foundedas partof Eleazar Wheelock'smultifaceted project to educatenative American menand returnthem to theirtribes as missionaries. 31UnitedFraternity Records, 1786-1800, Baker Library,Dartmouth College. Everettattended Dartmouth when its literary societies were underattack for elitism. In 1793, radical egalitarianstudents destroyed the recordsof the Social Friends and formedan open "Independent"or "Pot Meal" societywhich continued for some years. See Asa Tilton,"The DartmouthLiterary or DebatingSocieties," The GraniteMonthly: A New HampshireMagazine 52 (1920): 157-69. Everettremained a republicanfor life. See also Everett'sDaranzel, or thePersian Patriot (Boston: John Russell, 1800), an ori- entalizedversion of Addison's Cato, as wellas hisEssay on theRights and Dutiesof Na- tionsRelative to Fugitives... (Boston:David Carlyle,1807) on theChesapeake affair. Everettalso launchedseveral republican newspapers, including, in 1809, the Boston Patriot.For biographicalmaterial on Everett,see FrancisBlake, "David Everett,"pam- phlet,General Collection, New YorkPublic Library, pp. 1-13.

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all the lands theypossess as huntinggrounds.""32 Records of Dart- mouth'sUnited Fraternity during Everett's tenure indicate a bias to- ward public-spiritedconclusions: in December 1793, the Fraternity asked, "Do all men by naturehave equal endowments?"Yes, the membershipdecided. In January1794, "Would the occupationof Canada be advantageousto America?"No. In May,"Which is prefer- able, a public or a privateeducation?" The Dartmouthstudents de- cided fora publicone. The spiritof the DartmouthCollege debatesis evidentin the dia- logues Everettwrote for the Orator.His "ForensicDispute on the Question,Are the Anglo-AmericansEndowed with Capacity and Ge- niusEqual to Europeans?"opens and concludesin theaffirmative. The "OppressiveLandlord" is a bitingcritique of economicexploitation: the landlord,Don Philip,claims his liberalright to pursuehis "owninter- est" ratherthan that of the communityat large.In a "towncrowded withforeigners who are exiledfrom their own homes," he is confident of gaining"whatever price is demandedfrom them." In the end, his propertyis destroyedby fire,and onlyhis lawyerremains to console him (p. 89). Everett'sdialogue on "Physiognomy"takes issue with Lavater'stheory that men can be knownby theirlooks. Lavater's precocious disciple is eventuallyrobbed by a handsome flatterer (p. 79). With such criticismsof racialprejudice and economicself- interest,The ColumbianOrator anticipates the concernsof the aboli- tionmovement by envisioninga societythat is genuinelyinclusive only insofaras it meetsits obligation to protectthe lives of its disadvantaged. Whereasmost early American readers portray Native Americans as "brave,strong, cruel, eloquent, and finallyunfit for civilization," The ColumbianOrator is one of the few to uphold Native Americans' tribaldignity and land rights.-'In the "Dialogue betweena WhiteIn- habitantof the UnitedStates and an Indian,"apparently modeled on

32For moreon collegedisputation, see Ota Thomas,The Theoryand Practiceof Dis- putationat Yale, Harvardand Dartmouth,from 1750-1800 (Ph.D. diss.,University of Iowa, 1941). Stillon the frontier,students at Dartmouthhad notyet begun to absorb Americanculture's emerging preoccupation with the technicaldefinitions of justice al- readyfinding expression at Yale. See RobertFerguson, Law and Lettersin American Culture(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984). 33Elson,Guardians of Tradition,p. 70. ChristianizedIndians fared better in earlyreaders. In the 1799 ColumbianReading Book, a whiteman asks,"Whose In- dian are you?" The Indian replies,"I'm God Almighty'sIndian. Whose Indian are you?" (see CliftonJohnson, Old Time Schools and School-books[London: Macmil- lan, 1917], p. 282). None of the Indians in Bingham'sOrator is Christian,and they are proudof it.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 474 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY Smith'searlier dramatic dialogue, the Indian refutesthe notionthat whiteshad moreright to Indianland because theycultivated it better: WhiteMan: If anyhave a superiorclaim, it mustbe those,who, by their artsand industry, can support the greatest number on the smallest territory. Indian:What would your people say, if poor men should go toa richman, andtell him, the Great Parent has given the earth to allmen in common; ... yourgreat farm supports but few; you may move to onecorner of your land; thatis sufficientfor you; we willtake the rest Shouldyou call this just? [P.270] ....

The Indian cleverlyshows that claims of manifestdestiny can be turnedagainst rich landholders by poor whites, and theconsequences wouldbe unsettlingindeed. He thengoes on to indictthe white man's unethicallaws, concluding, "you call us savages!But thatmust mean somethingbetter than civilized, if you are civilized"(p. 270). The in- versionof the termssavage and civilized,a strategyclearly borrowed fromChief Logan's speech and othereighteenth-century representa- tionsof NativeAmerican oratory, is unusualinsofar as Bingham'spor- trayalsof the Indiansare not tingedwith the customarytone of in- evitabledoom.34 As in Bingham'srepresentations of Asians,blacks, and poorwhites, The ColumbianOrator frequently attacks the notion thatthese groups are anyless human(or resilient)than their wealthy Christianantagonists. Althoughthe Orator'santislavery passages are well known,they have generallybeen evaluatedwithout benefit of the contextfrom whichthey have been drawn;thus, scholars have tended to dismiss them as merelysupportive of bourgeoisindividualism.5 The "Dia- logue betweena Masterand Slave,"which privileges the slave'sclever illocutionarystrategy and logicalargumentation, has been viewedas the slave's escape fromphysical bondage intothe more subtlecon- fines of Enlightenmentideology.'" But even though the passage

S 4ChiefLogan's speech was firstmade famouswhen published in ThomasJefferson's Noteson the Stateof Virginia(1785). Americans'use of thisspeech, and otherslike it, to createthe stereotypeof thedoomed noble savage is discussedby RoyHarvey Pearce in Savagismand Civilization(1953; reissued,Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1988). 35See, e.g., PeterF. Walker'sMoral Choices(Baton Rouge: LouisianaState Univer- sityPress, 1979), pp. 216-17,which has influencedDouglass scholarship since 1980. "'See Thad Ziolkowski,"Antitheses: The Dialecticof Violenceand Literacyin Fred- erickDouglass's Narrative," in CriticalEssays on FrederickDouglass, ed. WilliamAn- drews(Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), pp. 162-63,for a criticismof the ideologyof libera- tion apparentin thisdialogue. For an alternativeview of Douglass,literacy, and the Orator,see Daniel Royer,"The Processof Literacyas Involvementin the Narrativesof

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEMORANDA AND DOCUMENTS 475

evokes an instrumentalview of literacyas the slave articulatelyex- presses his individualrights, it also uncoversthe limitationsof a strictlyrights-based world view: the slavecites the planter's wealth as evidencethat he has profitedat theexpense of his peers (p. 241). The shiftin theargument from the slave's (legitimate) human rights to the master's(illegitimate) economic rights is an importantinstance of how the Orator'scommunitarian emphasis complicates its endorsements of middle-classliberal values. The ColumbianOrator forcefully advo- cates individualism,but it circumscribesindividual rights within a largerframework of collective and spiritualduty. The Orator is a radicaltext, but it is so not because it calls for changesin socialrelations beyond the terms set bythe American Rev- olution;rather, it strivesto conservethe volatileaspects of Revolu- tionaryideology most authorsof American(and British)textbooks werecarefully attempting to subdue.37In largemeasure, this "radical- ism"derives from Bingham's New Lightmillennialism, which affirms thecapability of speech-the preachingof righteous gospel-to usher in the millennium.This versionof millennialistdoctrine, called post- millennialism,held thathuman activity could inauguratethe millen- niumin advanceof Christ'sappearance."38 Although its enthusiasm for "the earth heaving,charnel-houses rattling, tombs bursting, graves opening,[and] the air darkeningwith fragments of bodies" alienated

FrederickDouglass," African-American Review 28 (Spring1995): 363-74. The dia- logue is one of the fewpieces Binghamtook fromanother anthology, originally pub- lishedby JohnAiken and Anna Barbauldin theirEvenings at Home (1792; reprinted, London: George Routledgeand Sons, 1883). See Isaac Kramnick,"Children's Litera- tureand BourgeoisIdeology: Observations on Cultureand IndustrialCapitalism in the laterEighteenth-Century," in Studies in Eighteenth-CenturyCulture 12, ed. HarryC. Peyne (Madison: Universityof WisconsinPress, 1988), pp. 11-44, formore on Bar- bauld and a discussionof Englishchildren's books as vehiclesof capitalistindoctrina- tion. "7Thesecondary school readers written after Bingham's death in 1817,such as John Pierpont'sAmerican First-Class Reader (1823; reissued,Boston: David H. Williams, 1839) or his NationalReader (Boston:Hillard, Gray, Little and Wilkins,1827) marka steadywithdrawal from the Revolutionaryideology Bingham sought to conserve.As Elson remarks,by the publicationof the McGuffeyReader series in the late 1830s,al- mostall activistsentiment had been expurgatedfrom high school readers in favorof an antiquarianrespect for "vaguely defined" early American keywords like liberty,the Declaration,or theConstitution (Guardians of Tradition,p. 295). :3SJamesMoorhead's essay "BetweenProgress and Apocalypse:A Reassessmentof Millennialismin AmericanReligious Thought, 1800-1880," Journal of AmericanHis- tory71 (December 1984): 524-42, is a well-footnotedintroduction to post-millennialist scholarship.

This content downloaded from 149.68.13.33 on Fri, 2 May 2014 11:43:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 476 THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY some late-nineteenth-centuryeducators, at the startof the century, the Orator'smillennial violence was embracedas a positiveomen; in- deed, the textoutstripped its competitionin the firsthalf of the cen- turyprecisely because it includeda greaternumber of religiousselec- tions.39 In basingits promotionof activevirtue on a visionof Americaas bothNew Jerusalemand one-in-the-becoming,the Oratorpresented an unusuallyidealistic, and perhaps anachronistic,lesson foryoung Americans.The ColumbianOrator was, in mostrespects, a textof the 1790s,for it grewout of the collisionof republicanideals of equality and popularparticipation against the exclusionaryand manneredelit- ism of the Federalistparty. The speakersgiven voice in Bingham's Oratorclearly sanctioned, and popularizedfor many years after, the unrulinessand enlightenedrationalism of the smallrepublican soci- etiesthat arose in the mid-1790sin imitationof FrenchJacobin clubs. These voluntary,egalitarian political groups manifested, in JoyceAp- pleby'swords, "a collectivehope" for a betterfuture based, in part,on activepolitical participation.40 Although there is no recordthat Bing- ham everjoined a radicalclub like the MassachusettsConstitutional Societyor the BostonJacobin Club, a bookstorehe ownedin Boston was a centralmeeting place forthe beleaguereddemocratic-republi- cans of that Federalistcity.41 Bingham's publications reflected his commitmentto the efficacyof debateand socialaction, but, more im- portant,they preserved for generations of studentsthe active spirit of Jeffersonianrepublicanism long after it had lostits influence.

"3Bingham,Orator, p. 99. Writingsixty years after Bingham's death, Charles Cum- mings,assessing the history of education in Boston,found the Oratora "dismal"text, its politicsand theologyoutmoded. See "The Press and Literatureof the Last Hundred Years,"in The MemorialHistory of Boston,4 vols. (Boston:Ticknor and Co., 1880), 3:644. 40Appleby,Capitalism and a New Social Order,pp. 79-86. For a studyof the demo- cratic-republicanclubs, see Paul Goodman,The Democratic-Republicansof Massachu- setts(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964). 41Fowle,"Caleb Bingham,"p. 440.

GranvilleGanter, a doctoralcandidate at the GraduateCenter of the City Universityof New York,is at workon a dissertationentitled "To Do What'sRight: Transformations ofActive Virtue in AmericanOra- toryand Literature,1800-1850," from which the above essay has beendrawn.

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