REFLECTIONS ON A FREE ENQUIRER:
AN ANALYSIS OF THE IDEAS OF FRANCES WRIGHT
Mabry Miller O'Donnell
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
August 1977
Approved by Doctoral Committee Si
© 1977
Mabry Miller O'Donnell
All Rights Reserved Ill
ABSTRACT
This study carried out an idea-centered analysis of
the rhetorical activities of Frances Wright, the first fe
male public speaker in the United States. A methodology was
used wherein Wright’s speeches and pertinent writings during
the period 1818-1830 were examined, the ideas in them iso
lated and analyzed, their sources identified, and their
impact noted.
The basic approaches and historical strategies
applied were modeled after those advocated by Ernest J.
Wrage, Louis Gottschalk, and Bernard Bailyn. By following
this procedure, it was discovered that most of what Frances
Wright believed about America came from Carlo Botta’s His
tory of The War of The Independence of The United States of
America and David Ramsay's History of the United States.
Wright was imbibing a double dose of Ramsay, since Botta had
used Ramsay's earlier History of the American Revolution
(1789). Her preconceived notions about America were ex
tremely significant, since they shaped her assumptions not
only about what the country was like, but also what changes were possible there.
The specific background of Frances Wright's intel
lectual framework as reflected in her early writings was discussed as well as her beliefs about such matters as IV
slavery and anti-clericalism. Wright’s opposition to slav
ery was not itself singular, but her recognition of the
consequences of emancipation was unique, as was the communi
tarian experiment whereby she tried to establish a model for
eliminating slavery. Her epistemology was essentially Epi
curean in character, giving her a sensationalist approach to
knowledge which precluded religious belief and formed the
basis for her anti-clericalism. Although somewhat influenced
in her thinking by Jeremy Bentham, the corpus of her ideas
remained essentially her own.
Since the topic of this dissertation was a person,
particular attention was given to appropriate biographical
details. This was especially important in Wright's case,
since her actions reflected the intentions of her thoughts.
Of concern, too, was the reaction against Frances
Wright when she mounted the lecture platform in her quest
for establishing free enquiry and better education for all persons. The evolution of her actions and her ideas in re
sponse to criticism against her are also themes which were developed. Frances Wright's lack of success in creating a posi tive public image or a popular following may be attributed to her own doing. She advocated radical causes, opposed that bastion of the status quo, the church, and spoke out of conviction and conscience, never from convenience or compromise. V
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The completion of this dissertation would have never
been accomplished without the assistance of several individ
uals. To them I owe a large debt.
First I would like to acknowledge the unfailing
support of my advisor, Dr. John T. Rickey. Without his
patient guidance and inspiration, my tenure in graduate
school would have been far more painful.
Each member of my committee has assisted me in some
unique way and I cannot adequately thank them. It is because of Dr. Raymond Yeager’s interest that I entered
Bowling Green State University, and he has continued to be supportive in every way. Dr. Donald Enholm has challenged me with the intricacies of rhetorical criticism and broadened my understanding of rhetorical theory. The rigors of organi zational communication were introduced to me by Dr. James R.
Wilcox. The fifth member of my committee, Dr. Robert W.
Twyman of the department of history, has been extremely helpful in broadening my understanding of historical literature.
The research materials necessary for this work would have been far more difficult to obtain, had it not been for the untiring efforts of the Interlibrary Loan office at the
Bowling Green State University Library. My thanks are ex tended also to the library's Administrative Services VI department and especially to Gloria Gregor and Mary Lou
Willmarth, for their senses of humor and expert copying assistance.
For keeping me in touch with the realities of the world while I was immersed in the unreal environment of graduate study, I thank my three extracurricular activities:
John, Anne, and Susan.
The overall travail of graduate school has been lightened considerably and the challenge of the entire project made possible by my chief supporter and sympathetic listener, my husband, Jim; to him I offer my unending thanks. VT1
To Jim with ail my love viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER Page
I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Previous Research ...... 3
Purpose, Methodology, andL imits ...... 6
Sources and Materials ...... 9
Questions To Be Asked...... 11
Organization of the Study...... 12
II. "STRANGE IS THE COURSE I RUN"...... 14
III. THE PROMISED LAND...... 26
IV. THE SINGLE EVIL...... 53
V. "A KINDLING OF WRATH"...... 75
VI. THE JOURNEY OF A FREE ENQUIRER...... 98
VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS...... 129
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 152 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
One of the most active public speakers in the United
States during the period from 1828 to 1831 was a Scotswoman
named Frances Wright.1 Called by one source the first
female public speaker in the United States, Wright visited
North America in 1818-1820, wrote a book about her travels which drew the praise of liberals like Jeremy Bentham and
the Marquis de Lafayette, and then returned to the United
States in 1825.2 No longer merely a curious traveler, she plunged headlong into the currents of American reform. In the course of her brief public life, she espoused such varied causes as the equalitarianism of the Declaration of
Independence, anti-clericalism, antislavery (to the extent of establishing a community dedicated to gradual emancipa tion) , freedom of thought, women’s rights, public education, the working man’s movement, and the end of the banking
1-For the purposes of this dissertation, the subject will be referred to by her maiden name, Frances Wright, for this is how the public knew her. All quotations in this dissertation will retain the original orthography, syntax, and punctuation. 2Doris G. Yoakum, "Women's Introduction to the American Platform," A History and Criticism of American Public Address, ed. William Norwood Brigance, 1st ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1943), I, 157.
1 2
system. Within three short years she lectured publicly from
New Orleans to Boston, outraged the clergy and newspaper
editors almost everywhere, purchased an old church in the
Bowery which she changed into a Hall of Science, and drew upon herself the title, "priestess of Beelzebub." Despite her meteoric career, Wright's name is not well-known today, nor does she capture much of a place in historical accounts, save for an occasional reference in an obscure footnote or as illustrative material when a lecturer wishes to document the extremists of American reform.3
Given her notoriety and the fact that she was the first female public speaker in the United States, why is there no better understanding or appreciation of her life and work? Why hasn't more research been done on her? Un fortunately, one reason may be simply that she was a woman.
Yet another reason why Frances Wright has been ignored results from researchers being influenced by contemporary biases against her which may have carried over into later decades. To be accounted for also is her relatively short time on the scene and what may be termed her relative lack of success. Add to these reasons the fact that her written
3The major details of Frances Wright's life may be found in A. J. G. Perkins and Theresa Wolfson, Frances Wright, Free Enquirer. The Study of a Temperament (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), and William Randall Waterman, Frances Wright (1924; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967). 3
and spoken works were highly philosophical rather than
scandalous, and one may see several reasons why she has
remained relatively elusive and somewhat obscure through all
these years.
Previous Research
In the twentieth century, three biographies of
Frances Wright have been published. The first was by
William R. Waterman, an essay originally prepared as a
dissertation in history at Columbia University. Waterman’s
approach in the book later published by Columbia University
Press was a standard narrative one in which he recounted
the documented events of Wright’s life. He did not venture
into speculation about motivation, nor did he direct any
significant attention to Wright’s rhetorical activity.
Waterman was content to relate the story of Frances Wright's actions without engaging in speculation on controversial matters or analysis of the intellectual forces reflected in her writings.
The second biography of Frances Wright published in this century was by A. J. G. Perkins and Theresa Wolfson.
These two popular writers attempted to explore not only the actions of Wright but also her psychological motivations.
Where Waterman had avoided the controversial, Perkins and
Wolfson did not hesitate to offer their interpretations of why Wright had functioned or responded as she did. Their 4
biography is the more interesting of the two published
before 1940, but it is certainly the more frustrating since
the authors often quoted extensively from letters and other
documents without identifying their provenance.4 What is
more agonizing about this book is that the authors used a
collection of papers known as the Wright manuscripts which
they had borrowed from the Reverend Mr. William Guthrie,
Frances Wright’s grandson.5 Apparently these papers, which had also been used by Waterman, were not returned to the
family and now unfortunately appear to be lost.
Consequently, the third biography under discussion was written without the use of the Wright manuscripts.
Margaret Lane's brief study of Frances Wright was published in England in 1972. It is a popular treatment drawing
^In a Master's thesis which Phyllis Palmer says was written by Frances Wright's great-granddaughter, Sylva Camilla Guthrie, Perkins and Wolfson's book is discussed. "An indication of Frances Wright's niche in fame may be gathered from the fact that a year before Frances Willard was honored on the postage stamps of her country as 'a famous American educator' Miss Wright was made the subject of a biography which glossed over her positive accomplish ments and stressed the unconventionality and eccentricity of her personal life." Sylva Camilla Guthrie, "Frances Wright at Nashoba," Thesis Columbia University 1946, p. 2; Phyllis M. Palmer, "Frances Wright D'Arusmont: Case Study of a Reformer," Diss. Ohio State 1973, p. 93.
$The Rev. Dr. William Norman Guthrie, rector of the Church of St. Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie in New York City for twenty-six years, died on December 10, 1944. Notice was given in the Sunday New York Times, 10 December 1944, p. 53. 5
largely on previously published sources to recount Wright's
life for a general reading audience in England.®
Within the past fifteen years, two doctoral disser
tations have been written on Frances Wright. The first was
submitted in 1964 at Rutgers University as the thesis for a doctorate in education by Marie Patricia Parnell. Given the purpose for which it was written, it is understandable that the focus was on Frances Wright's educational theories.
While the author of necessity was forced to examine Wright's works for references to educational theory and practice, there was little in the way of analysis applied to Wright's ideas and the sources of them.?
Four years ago a doctoral student in history at Ohio
State University sought to gain some insight into Frances
Wright by treating her as the subject of an exercise in psychohistory. With this approach, new problems emerged.
The author not only had to construct a theory of childhood applicable to the period of Wright's early life, but she had to discover or extrapolate materials sufficient to describe how Wright's childhood conformed (or did not) to the author's psychohistorical model. Since there is really
^Margaret Lane, Frances Wright and the 'Great Experiment' (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1972) .
?Marie Patricia Parnell, "The Educational Theory of Frances Wright D'Arusmont," Diss. Rutgers 1964. 6
little documentary evidence about Frances Wright's childhood, a great deal of time had to be spent not only reviewing the applicable literature of psychohistory, but also in recon
structing Wright's early years, or at least a model thereof.
This dissertation writer, as the other, gave attention to
Wright's works only as they supported the dissertation's approach.®
Purpose, Methodology, and Limits
What is proposed here differs from these earlier works because the purpose is a critical analysis of the ideas in Frances Wright's rhetorical activity. This is carried out in order to identify the forces which drove her on her quest, to provide a setting for her rhetorical activities, and to suggest how her ideas, in a general sense at least, fell (or did not fall) into the milieu of American reform. It is the position in this dissertation that such an examination of so dynamic a figure during the period of
Jacksonian reforms is long overdue. By rhetorical activity in this context is meant those speeches, addresses, articles, and other published materials which reveal the ideas and positions postulated by Frances Wright during her brief career as a reformer in the United States.
The methodology here proposed may be described as an
^Palmer. 7
idea centered approach. By examining Frances Wright's
published speeches, writings, and intellectual framework,
her ideas may be analyzed and her rhetorical activity inter
preted in order that there may be a better understanding of
this complex personality.
Specifically, the approach used is modeled after
Ernest Wrage in his "Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History."0 Wrage admittedly borrowed heavily from the historian Merle Curti, who viewed "'American life,
. . . through ideas historically viable, . . . [with ideas]
. . . studied as a body of intricate tissues, of differen tiated thought.'"^-0 Following Curti, Wrage simply adopted a basic historical methodology which he outlined in three steps:
collecting and classifying data within limited areas amenable to description and analysis; generalizing from the data; and providing a basis from which fur ther exploration might be conducted.H
This differs only slightly from what might be called the standard approach to historical method as put forward by
Louis Gottschalk in his Understanding History (1954).
Thus how to write history of any particular place, period, and set of events, institutions, or persons
^Ernest J. Wrage, "Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History," in Robert L. Scott and Bernard L. Brock, Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 103-11.
lOibid., p. 105. IlIbid. 8
reduces itself to four bare essentials: 1. the collection of the surviving objects and of the printed, written and oral materials that may be relevant; 2. the exclusion of those materials (or parts thereof) that are unauthentic; 3. the extraction from the authentic material of testimony that is credible; 4. the organization of that reliable testimony into a meaningful narrative or exposition.-*-3
An excellent example of an historian using the kind of methodological approach helpful in the present context is
Bernard Bailyn in his Pamphlets of the American Revolution,
1750-1776. Convinced that much of the most important and characteristic writing of the American Revolution appeared in pamphlet form, Bailyn set out to identify and analyze seventy-two of the four hundred pamphlets which are extant.
His approach in analyzing the pamphlets was to isolate the ideas in them, trace the sources of those ideas, explore the historical vitality of the ideas, and explicate the demon strable refractions, modifications, and substitutions of them within the corpus of pre-Revolutionary thought.-’
In the case of Frances Wright, therefore, these
-*-3Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954), p. 28 28. J-3Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776, ed. Bernard Bailyn, 1 vol. to date (1750-1865) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965), introduction, passim. The introduction to this volume was published separately as The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, 1967. 9 approaches are adapted to the ideas of one writer. Limiting
the scope to her rhetorical activity dealing with America
and American reform, an attempt is made to identify her
ideas, their sources, and their demonstrable modifications
within the corpus of her thought. While Bailyn chose to
deal with the ideas of the pamphlets within a topical
arrangement, this study approaches Wright's American works
in sequence and suggests that her world view did not change
basically from the publication of her first book until her
withdrawal from the reform scene in 1830. What changed was
the intensity with which she wrote and spoke, her open
activity In favor of reform, the public's increasing disap
proval of her, and her recognition of the imperfections in
American society.
Sources and Materials
The analysis of Frances Wright's rhetorical activity
entails an identification of the available sources. During
her lifetime, Frances Wright published a number of books, a
play, lectures, memoirs, and newspaper articles. It is
beyond the scope of this dissertation to analyze all her works. Attention is limited to those materials dealing
primarily with America and things American. Reference is
made to other publications when they illustrate some idea
contained in the works under consideration. The materials
given primary attention in this study are: 10
1. Views of Society and Manners in America.
2. A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States, Without Danger or Loss to the Citizens of the South.
3. Explanatory Notes, Respecting the Nature and
Objects of the Institution of Nashoba, and of the Principles upon Which It Is Founded.
4. "Fourth of July Address," 1828.
5. Lectures, 1828-1830.
6. Newspaper Writings, 1825-1831.
7. Biographical "Memoir," 1844.
8. Published and unpublished letters of Frances
Wright and others.
While the major discussion is directed toward the ideas contained in the rhetorical activities concerning
America, her other works have been consulted. Of particular note are the letters of Frances and Camilla Wright to two
American friends, Harriet and Julia Garnett.This corres pondence has been published only within the last two years and therefore has never before been used by scholars. These are extremely important in revealing motives, behind certain of Frances Wright's actions which have never had a clear explanation until this time.
■^Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, "The Nashoba Plan for Removing the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829," Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 (1975), 221-51 and 429-61. 11
Questions To Be Asked
In carrying out this study a number of questions are
asked of Frances Wright's rhetorical activities and the sit
uations out of which they arose. For each speech or other
rhetorical activity some attention is given to the circum
stances which called it forth. The "Fourth of July Address"
at New Harmony in 1828 was motivated by one situation, while
the remarks delivered in Cincinnati a few weeks later were
something else. Internally, ideas and assumptions of each
artifact are identified insofar as possible. Why were cer
tain notions brought to bear at one time and not at others?
Did she have her audience in mind when she wrote the
speeches or essays? Certainly she need not have worried too
much about what she said to the group at New Harmony, but
advocating freedom of sexual choice to the public in 1827 or
anti-clericalism in 1828 could not have been designed to
establish popularity. On the other hand, the language which
she chose to convey her ideas was not inflammatory in
nature, although it became increasingly urgent in tone. Did
her actions indicate a total insensitivity to public opinion
(her "audiences") or an unequivocal dedication to the truth
as she saw it? Or were they the product of an intellectual
and emotional, fervor so intense that she could do no other?
Perhaps she was like Martin Luther King, Jr., who when
reprimanded by fellow clergymen for going to Birmingham, 12
replied that he had to go wherever there was injustice for
he could do no other.
Yet another series of questions may be raised con
cerning the extremely varied nature of the reform topics
which she espoused. Was she a dilettante, flitting like a
butterfly, without a fixed interest in any subject? Why did
she leave her experimental community in Tennessee to perish without leadership while she took up temporary residence at
New Harmony, Indiana, before beginning her brief career as a public lecturer? Was this activity indicative of shallow pseudo-intellectualism or was there a thread of continuity and consistency born of her background in Bentham's liberal utilitarianism? Through an analysis of her ideas a few parts of the puzzle that is Frances Wright can be solved.
Organization of the Study
This dissertation is organized into seven chapters, beginning with an introductory chapter to explain the justi fication and purpose of the study, to cite previous research, to define the methodology and limits as well as frame some questions to be asked, and outline the organization of the entire work. In the second chapter consideration is given to an overview of Frances Wright's life, not a biography as such, but rather a selection of materials necessary to pro vide points of reference, helpful to understand better the subsequent discussion. The third chapter contains an 13
analysis of her first major American work, Views of Society
and Manners in America. This work is important as a reflec
tion of the ideas which she brought with her to the United
States. The question of slavery is discussed in chapter four, with major attention given to Wright's antislavery philosophy, rhetorical activity and actions, and a general statement regarding prevailing antislavery thought. In chapter five comes a consideration of her first public address (the "Fourth of July Address," 1828) and the lec tures which she gave in the Ohio valley during the second half of 1828. The discussion in chapter six focuses on the eighteen month period of writing and speaking while New York
City was her base. The concluding chapter incorporates some observations made about the reasons for her early retirement from public life, but by far the greater amount of attention is given to an explication of an analysis of Frances Wright's rhetorical activity and its success or failure in terms of its milieu. CHAPTER II
"STRANGE IS THE COURSE I RUN"
It is not the purpose of this chapter to offer a detailed biography of Frances Wright, but rather to empha
size sufficient material for significant points of reference
Wright, after all, did not grow to maturity under ordinary circumstances, nor was her adult life passed under what one would consider the normal conditions for a woman of her time place, and socioeconomic class.
In dealing with the life of Wright, one must be aware that a great deal of what is considered commonplace knowledge about her must be evaluated with great care.
First of all, there is no corpus of Wright papers to which one may go and trace the events of her days on the basis of correspondence and other documentary material. The extant material, therefore, is scattered and highly subjective, tending toward Frances Wright's point of view, or that of her critics. Wright's own autobiographical pieces of course are indispensable, but they too, must be used with care, for she, like many other writers of autobiography, took the liberty of ordering the facts in a manner best to suit her telling of the story.
Born in Dundee, Scotland in 1795, Frances Wright was
14 15
the second child and first daughter of a well-to-do merchant
family headed by James Wright. She had an older brother,
Richard, and a younger sister, Camilla, to whom she was
devoted throughout her life. Her family was active intel
lectually as well as socially, for shortly before Frances
Wright was born her father ran afoul of the English espio
nage laws by distributing copies of Thomas Paine's Rights of
Man.1 The English authorities were extremely sensitive
about the ideas and excesses of the French Revolution being
imported into their country, so they were reluctant to allow
the circulation of such pro-revolutionary tracts as Paine's.
Whether her father's experiences with the establishment had any impact on Frances Wright's later attitudes or actions is a question best left to the psycho-historians, but it is certain that the incident was important enough for Wright to mention it in her biographical memoir.
Frances Wright's parents died in 1798, leaving three orphan children. The young male heir went to live with one set of relatives and the two girls went to live with another,
^■Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 1, 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844 (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp. 1-8. In 1794 the English Habeas Corpus Act was suspended and in the following year the Trea sonable Practices and Seditious Meetings Act was passed, making it a punishable offense to utter disrespect for the king. Since Paine's work favoring the French Revolution was patently anti-royal, it was frowned upon by the royal estab lishment in England. John B. Owen, The Eighteenth Century: 1714-1815 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), p. 261. 16
Judging from Frances Wright's mature life and her observa
tions about her childhood, she seems to have been an extreme
ly serious, studious, and difficult child who tormented her
guardians and her tutors with profound philosophical ques
tions and an unyielding determination to have her own way.
One of the kinspeople who left an impression on her was
James Mylne, professor of Moral Philosophy at the University
of Glasgow. As an adolescent, Wright visited his home and
had access not only to his library, but also to that of the
university.2 It was in the course of this reading during
her middle teens that she discovered an account of the
American Revolution which had been written by an Italian named Carlo Botta.2
Fearful lest Botta's account be a fiction, Wright
did not rest until she had sought proof of the existence of
the United States. In both her "Biography" and in the pref ace to her Life, Letters, and Lectures, she reported how her
search for information on America took her to the university library where to her great delight the librarian led her to an entire room filled with information about the United States.4
2D'Arusmont, Biography, No. 1, p. 7. 2Ibid., p. 11; Carlo Botta, History of The War of The Independence of The United States of America, trans. from Italian by George Alexander Otis, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: J. Maxwell, 1821). ^D'Arusmont, Biography, No. 1., p. 13; D'Arusmont, Life, Letters, and Lectures, Preface, p. v. 17
Whatever else she read, the strongest influence
shaping her opinions about America was Carlo Botta. A
physician and an historian with several books to his credit,
Botta was involved in Italian and French politics during the years of the French Revolution, the Bonapartist period, and
the first Restoration. Botta drew upon several published accounts (listed in his book) of the revolution in the
United States to write his own three volume description, which was published in 1807.® Heavily influenced by the nationalistic tone of such sources as David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution (1789), Carlo Botta framed a glowing account of the early history of the United States.®
Fascinated by a land where liberty reportedly reigned supreme, Frances Wright's ambition (to the great dismay of her guardians) was to visit the United States.
The determined Frances Wright and her sister sailed for New
York in 1818, intent on finding the promised land in the
United States. During the course of this visit, Frances
Wright wrote a number of long epistles to a trusted friend in Great Britain, Mrs. Rabina Craig Millar, who had previ ously spent some time in the United States. After her return to England, Wright edited these letters for
®Botta, passim.
®David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolu- tion, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, n.p., 1789). 18
publication under the title, Views of Society and Manners in
America.7
The glowing prose which she dedicated to her depic
tion of the United States attracted both praise from the pro-American reviewers and criticisms by those opposed to
such ideas. While the evaluations of the critics were no doubt of importance to the author, the attention which it drew from such champions of reform as Jeremy Bentham in
England and the Marquis de Lafayette in France were more significant in terms of her development.
For a period of time after the publication of her book, Wright was in London enjoying the wide circle of intellectuals drawn there by the great man Bentham. Then with Bentham's blessings (since he was a friend of Lafay ette) she journeyed to France in search of an interview with
Lafayette (who had written her complimentary letters about her book). Indeed, she carried with her not only Bentham's blessings but also some of his correspondence which she was entrusted to deliver to a Spanish refugee living in Paris.
It is perhaps an indication of her determined personality that upon her arrival in Paris she proceeded immediately to
La Grange without writing first to ask if Lafayette was there. To her great dismay, she discovered he had gone to
^Frances Wright, Views of Society and Manners in America (1821; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963). Hereafter cited as Views. 19
Paris the same day (they must have passed on the road), so
she turned about and hastened back to Paris. Her letter to
Bentham describing her excitement when she finally met the general is indicative of her fervor when she was launched on one of her quests.2
Frances Wright spent the next several months in
France, where she became a great favorite of the aging but idealistic (if not unrealistic) French hero of the American
Revolution. As of the present writing no researcher has discovered the exact nature of the relationship between the general and the young lady. Some have written of it entire ly in father-daughter terms, while others have regarded it as a winter-spring romance.2 One thing appears certain, however; they shared a common love for the United States.
Both were overjoyed, then, at Lafayette’s opportunity to
2"Our meeting was scarcely without tears, (at least on my side,) and whether it was that this venerable friend of human liberty saw in me what recalled to him some of the most pleasing recollections of his youth, (I mean those con nected with America,) or whether it was only that he was touched by the sensibility which appeared at that moment in me, he evidently shared my emotion." Frances Wright to Jeremy Bentham, 12 September 1821 in John Bowring, ed., The Works of Jeremy Bentham (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), X, 526. ^Frances Wright, Views, Introduction by Paul R. Baker, ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. xv; Frances and Camilla Wright to Julia Garnett, 21 December 1824 in Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, "The Nashoba Plan for Removing the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829," Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 (1975), 232. 20
return for a triumphal anniversary tour of the United States
in 1824. Thereby both Wright and Lafayette might see the
promised land again, and Lafayette might receive money and
land as gifts from the grateful country.-*-®
At this point it might be suggested that Wright's
accounts of certain events in her life were sometimes re
ported in a way that best suited her. In 1844, for example,
she prepared a brief autobiography which was published in an
English newspaper. In that piece she implied that she
stayed in France while the general was on his triumphal
American tour. This bit of autobiographical rhetorical
activity was not a matter of memory failure, but of strategy
at the time she was writing. She was trying to make a come
back in the late 1830's and early 1840's. She was in Scot
land on family business; and she therefore may have hoped to
lay aside any incidents of the past which had caused her grief or drawn public criticism.-*-3-
Whatever the intent of her autobiographical editing,
Frances Wright did return to the United States in the wake of the general in 1824. Part of the time she accompanied him, part of it she did not, but at all times she used his name and influence as a means to secure interviews with many
^Frances and Camilla Wright to Julia Garnett, 21 December 1824 in Payne-Gaposchkin, p. 231.
33D'Arusmont, Biography, No. 1, p. 16. 21
of the great people of the day, such as Thomas Jefferson and
Andrew Jackson. With these individuals her major point of
discussion focussed on her idea for establishing experimen
tal communities dedicated toward freeing the American slaves.12 Frances Wright had been critical of slavery in
Views, but during her intellectual gestation period between
1821 and 1824 she had concluded that steps had to be taken
to eliminate the evil. Then during the months she spent in
the United States in 1824-25, she became increasingly con
cerned with the "horrible ulcer which now covers a large part of this magnificent country."!! After seeing slavery
at work and visiting several experimental communities such
as Harmony, Indiana, she began to frame an important idea.
My belief is that two or three plantations worked on the plan of united labor (where the confidence of the parents should be won by kindness to the belief that their labor was for their personal redemption the re lief of their race & the practical education of their children) would suffice to undersell & render wholly profitless all the slave labor of the state in which they should be located.^
In the fall of 1825 she announced to the public A Plan for
the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States,
^Frances Wright to Julia Garnett, 8 June 1825 in Payne-Gaposchkin, pp. 238-47; Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jeffer son; An Intimate History (New York; Bantam, 1975), p. 623. ^Frances Wright to Julia Garnett, 8 June 1825 in Payne-Gaposchkin, p. 240.
l^Ibid., p. 242. 22
Without Danger or Loss to the Citizens of the South.
Under her announced Plan, Frances Wright set out to
build her model community for freeing the slaves on a plan
tation (which she called Nashoba) near Memphis, Tennessee.
There she intended to bring purchased slaves, allow them
credit for their labor toward cancelling their purchase
price, educate them for responsible citizenship as freedmen,
and then colonize them in a suitable place such as Mexican Texas or Haiti.3® Unfortunately for Frances Wright, Nashoba
was doomed by poor location, disease, mismanagement, and
lack of effective leadership, in particular the long
absences of the founder to recover from recurrent bouts with
malaria.
While Nashoba was deteriorating, Wright launched yet
another career for herself, public speaker. Until that time
she had communicated with the public in writing, but in the
summer of 1828 she took to the platform. Her first public
speech was delivered before a generally friendly audience at
New Harmony, Indiana, on July 4, 1828. She was in New
Harmony partly for her health and partly out of her friend ship with Robert Owen and his son Robert Dale Owen, as well
^Frances Wright, A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States, Without Danger or Loss to the Citizens of the South (Baltimore: Printed by Benjamin Lundy, 1825); also published in The New Harmony Gazette, 1 October 1825, pp. 4-5. Hereafter cited as A Plan. 23
as her interest in the success of the New Harmony community.
During her stay she decided to join Owen as one of the
editors of the New-Harmony Gazette.^ In an effort to im
prove circulation Wright accepted a friend's suggestion to visit Cincinnati and give a series of public lectures .-*-7
Consequently it was in Cincinnati that she gave her first
series of public lectures aimed at liberating the minds of men and women. After speaking in Cincinnati, Louisville,
St. Louis, and Vincennes, she journeyed eastward to Wheeling,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, and finally, New York, reaching there on New Year's day, 1829.^8
In New York, Wright and Robert Dale Owen edited the newspaper which they renamed The Free Enquirer. In addition to her daily writing activities, Frances Wright traveled widely and spoke frequently, usually attracting sizeable crowds, whether they were friendly or hostile. She also worked closely with those printing the paper, especially a
French educator named William Phiquepal D'Arusmont.
D'Arusmont had been brought to New Harmony to manage a school
•^Camilla Wright Whitbey to Harriet Garnett, 20 November 1828 in Payne-Gaposchkin, p. 453; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, ed. C. Hammond, 24 July 1828, p. 2.
l^Camilla Wright Whitbey to Harriet Garnett, 20 November 1828 in Payne-Gaposchkin, p. 454.
18prances Wright's travels are followed in The Free Enquirer. 24
of industry, but his idiosyncracies in that responsibility
soon prompted Robert Dale Owen to transfer him to the task
of printing the newspaper and other publications.!0 Frances
Wright also managed to purchase an old church in New York
City's Bowery section which she changed into a Hall of
Science.20
Nashoba in the meantime was languishing, public out
cry against what was termed immoral practices there was
increasing, and no progress was really being made in setting
an example for others to follow in freeing their slaves.
Unable to spend all the time there necessary to insure its
success, Frances Wright decided to take the slaves to Haiti
and free them, allow the white residents to go their own
way, and retain the land in her own name. She was accom
panied on this difficult trip by D'Arusmont, who had spent
some time in Haiti and had some friends there.2!
Upon her return to New York, Frances Wright found
Camilla so ill that the sisters and D'Arusmont sailed for
l°Robert Dale Owen, "An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats," The Atlantic Monthly, 34 (July 1874), 341; D'Arusmont, Biography, No. 1, p. 40. 20Marie Patricia Parnell, "The Educational Theory of Frances Wright D'Arusmont," Diss. Rutgers 1964, p. 38.
2^The Free Enquirer, 13 February 1830, p. 125 and 20 March 1830, p. 168; Camilla Wright Whitbey to Madame Pertz, 1 November 1829 in Payne-Gaposchkin, p. 459. h 25
France in hope of recovering Camilla's health.33 Indeed, it
was not just Camilla’s health that needed attention, for
recently published letters suggest that Frances Wright her
self was pregnant at the time of her departure.33 In
Europe, trauma followed trauma. Frances Wright bore a child
in November, 1830, her sister Camilla died in February, 1831,
she married D'Arusmont on October 2, 1831, a second child
was born on April 25, 1832, and that child died on June 14,
1832.
With her passage to France in 1830, the public career
of Frances Wright came to an end for all practical purposes.
Her life would extend for another twenty years, but those
two decades would bring little happiness. An acrimonious divorce from her husband, estrangement from her surviving daughter (Sylva), and the constant demands of her Tennessee property as well as the remnants of her European estates would constitute burdens gladly relinquished to death in
1852.24
^The Free Enquirer, 3 July 1830, p. 288.
33"Harriet Garnett's letters document Fanny Wright's marriage (2 October 1831), her first child, already 'a twelvemonth old' (25 November 1831), and the birth of her second child (25 April 1832) . A letter from Lafayette to Harriet announces 'the death of her child' (14 June 1832), and a letter from Mrs. Garnett (29 June 1832) shows that it was the younger child who died." Payne-Gaposchkin, n. 102, p. 460. This differs from traditional accounts. ^Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 15 December 1852, p. 2. CHAPTER III
THE PROMISED LAND
When Frances Wright sailed for the United States in
1818 on the packet boat Amity, she carried with her not only the physical paraphanalia with which travelers are inclined to burden themselves, but also a large store of intellectual baggage as well.-'- She, like many others journeying to a new place for the first time, had certain emotional and intel lectual expectations. From her autobiographical writings it is known, for example, that she had read Carlo Botta's account of the American Revolution. Like many Europeans writing during the period between 1785 and 1820, Botta looked to the newly born American nation as an example for all liberty-loving peoples. When Wright read Botta,
she awoke, as it were, to a new existence. Life was full of promise; the world a theatre of interesting observation and useful exertion. There existed a country consecrated to freedom, and in which man might awake to the full knowledge and full exercise of his powers.2
-'-The Amity was one of four packet boats owned by the Black Star Line and scheduled for regular Atlantic service. See Robert Greenhalgh Albion, The Rise of New York Port [1815-1860] (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939), p. 40.
Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 1, 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844 (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), p. 11. It is interesting to note that
26 27
Carlo Botta’s volumes appear to have been the single most powerful influence on Frances Wright's life from her late teens through her mid-twenties. Reading Botta inspired her to lay plans for a journey to see for herself the promised land of America. Her view of America was largely shaped by Botta and framed in her mind before she ever left
England.2 When she came to write her book about America,
Botta’s ideas were closely intertwined with those of David
Ramsay's as expressed in his History of the United States which was published just before she arrived in America.
Ramsay was the premier historian of the United States be tween 1789 and 1820. Indeed, what should not be overlooked in tracing Frances Wright's ideas is that what she was imbibing from Botta was in many instances material which he had gotten from David Ramsay's earlier History of the Ameri can Revolution (1789). As Professor Lawrence Friedman has pointed out in his Inventors of the Promised Land, David
Ramsay as an historian was a staunch advocate of the "rising even the personification of American democracy, Thomas Jefferson, was reported to have "preferred Botta’s Italian History of the American Revolution to any that had yet ap peared, . . ." Lieut. Francis Hall, Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816 and 1817 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818), p. 383.
!D'Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lectures, Preface, p. V. ^David Ramsay, History of the United States, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1817). 28
glory of America" as he described the birth of the nation and its early history.
From this mixture of Botta and Ramsay, Frances
Wright swallowed heavy doses of certain themes. First of all, she accepted the general notion about the ideal nature of American society and its people. The government, too, was important in this scheme, for as Botta (drawing on Ram say) explained, the people of America placed great trust in the Continental Congress during the war and in the succeed ing legislatures thereafter. Ramsay and Botta’s language was strikingly similar in describing the Congress; Botta wrote that "the colonists looked upon it as a convention of men, who, in some mode, or other, were to deliver their country from the perils that menaced it"; and Ramsay referred to the delegates as the "august body, to which all the colonies looked up for wisdom and direction."0 Wright's language was more verbose, but the basic idea was the same.
To the unbending spirit and perfect rectitude of the Congress was mainly owing the salvation of the Amer ican people, not merely from foreign conquest but from intestine broils. To their little senate room
^Lawrence Friedman, Inventors of the Promised Land (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), pp. 18-20.
®Carlo Botta, History of The War of The Independence of The United States of America, trans, from Italian by George Alexander Otis (Philadelphia: J. Maxwell, 1821), I, 199; David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: n.p., 1789), I, 134; Ramsay, History of the United States, I, 383. 29
amid all the changes of war, did the eyes of the people ever turn in hope and confidence.7
Filled with such notions, it is no wonder that
Frances Wright viewed the United States through decidedly
favorable lenses. From the outset of her book, Views of
Society and Manners in America, she had a solidly optimistic
view of America and things American. One early evidence of
this was her comment about the American ship's crew: that
every member could read and write.8 Whether she actually
had surveyed the crew on this subject, she did not reveal,
but what is revealing is that she found such a matter suf
ficiently significant to note it. Certainly such a high
literacy rate supported her belief in mankind and in the
virtues of a free society, and it was a marked contrast to
the high illiteracy among large numbers of working class
people in Great Britain. In addition to being impressed by
the reading and writing skills of the American crewmen of
the ship on which she sailed, Wright went so far as to note
that they spoke with a good voice and accent.2 It would
appear that she wished to convince her readers of the homo
geneity of American speaking in contrast to the potpourri which the traveler encountered in the British Isles where
^Frances Wright, Views, ed. Paul R. Baker (1821; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 50.
8lbid., p. 7. 2Ibid., p. 9. 30 might be heard the Irish, Scotch, and Welsh tongues, as well as the several brogues reflecting differences in English districts.
The moment Frances Wright stepped off the boat, she was determined to find a prosperous democratic society.
Like Columbus describing his discoveries in Renaissance terms of paradise, Wright saw America through eyes shaded by her own intellectual pre-conditioning and emotional expecta tions.!0 There were, she asserted, no beggars at the docks when her ship reached New York, a far cry indeed from any port in the British Isles or Europe. Does this mean that
New York, and, by extension, the United States were so pros perous and jobs so plentiful that there were no idle begging poor? Another visitor to the United States at about the same time reported that it was only in the port towns that one saw beggars.!! Wright's idealism may have allowed her not to see the poor alms-seekers who may have been there.
The young Scotswoman was likewise convinced that in the egalitarian society of America, there were no great proprietors, no men of fortune and power whose houses
i°For a discussion of Columbus' preconceptions, see Howard Mumford Jones, 0 Strange New World—American Culture: The Formative Years (New York: Viking, 1968), pp. 14-17.
!!Hall, p. 60. Because Hall's views generally co incided with hers, Wright was complimentary toward his book. 31 dominated the scene in a commercial city like New York.3-2
Again Wright may have been seeing what she wanted to see.
To Frances Wright it seemed that American society was a
dream fulfilled under the "name of liberty." From her
experiences in Europe she concluded that while on the one
hand Paris might be described as under the control of aris
tocrats, New York, on the other hand was filled with demo
crats.3-3
Frances Wright was not long in America, however,
before some of the matters with which she would later con
cern herself as a reformer came to her attention. Education
had been given passing attention in her depiction of the
Amity's crew, but by the third of her letters (which was written in November.,. 1818) she had begun to give specific
focus to the "Manners of the Working Classes." She express
ed great satisfaction at the attitude which she saw among
the workers; for to her they did not look poor or uneducated,
at least compared to the working peoples of Europe with whom she had contact.3^ Accustomed to a rather crude deference on the part of European laborers, Wright judged their counterparts in America as civil and honest. There also seemed to be a genuine regard on the part of the simpler people for the government and their country, about which
12Wright, Views, p. 8. Hall concurs in this, p. 12.
33Wright, Views, p. 15. l^ibid., pp. 16-18. 32
they all seemed to have a working knowledge. Again, this
assumption may be tied to what she had absorbed from her
reading of Botta and Ramsay. To her apparent delight, she
engaged an old man in conversation who claimed to have
fought in the Revolution and to remember the circulation of
Paine’s Common Sense.15 To this idealistic young worshipper of the American experience, it must have been a thrill in deed to share vicariously in the events of the Revolutionary era. There may have been some emotional tie also to the reference to Common Sense, since her own father had become involved in the circulation of Paine’s notorious Rights of
Man.16
By the time of her fourth epistle in February of
1819, Wright addressed a subject about which she would remain concerned throughout her entire reform career, and perhaps to the end of her days. To her dismay she found that young women in America were judged too much on their physical and social charms and too little on their intellec tual abilities. To Frances Wright, who had spent much of her life in study, it seemed that "self-knowledge is best obtained from the mind being forced to measure itself." In
America, it appeared, young women were thrust into society
l^Wright, Views, p. 19.
12d'Arusmont, Biography, No. 1/ P« 6. 33
at such an early age that there was little prospect of their
minds maturing. Marriage came too soon, observed Wright, so
that an attractive young woman was often married, a mother
and "old" by the time of her twenty-fifth birthday.
Wouldn’t the country be even more brilliant, she mused, if the women were allowed to be educated?!?
If the young traveler was disappointed by the lack of attention to women* s education in so noble a republic, she also was disturbed by the intellectual shallowness of young men in America. She had admittedly prepared herself in anticipation of stimulating intellectual discussions with members of the opposite sex, but she found most had little to say and the nearest thing to an intelligent conversation came when one young man asked her general opinion of Lord
Byron's poetry.18 one wonders what sort of answer he received from someone who not only knew Byron's poetry well, but who also had been inspired to write poems in response to such Byronic masterpieces as "Childe Harold."1°
Byron and the English Romantics were another of the
!?Wright, Views, p. 22 ff.
!°Ibid., p. 24.
!°A. J. G. Perkins and Theresa Wolfson, Frances Wright. Free Enquirer. The Study of a Temperament (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), p. 25; Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," in Anthology of Romanticism, 3rd ed., rev., ed. Ernest Bernbaum (New York: Ronald Press, 1948), p. 547. 34
ingredients in the intellectual mixture that had gone into
the shaping of Frances Wright’s mind. Although the refer
ences to these writers are not always patent in Wright’s
works, the underlying assumption about man which she held
was one shared with the Romantics.
The Romantic saw Nature and Man in their true light, their essential character, and their genuine worth. Everything looked wonderfully different, yet authen tically real—landscapes, animals, children, men and women, love and death, vices and virtues, follies and wisdom, education and art and literature. Roman ticism was a revolutionary transvaluation of all con ventional values. . . . Most of the Romantics, after expressing realistically their rebellion against con temporary evils, passed beyond the phase of despon dency, and looked expectantly forward towards social betterment. They held that the evils of the world, including poverty and warfare, existed because the kind of men whose motives were greed and pride, and whose Bible was "the Gospel of Getting On," had been allowed to misguide and to misrule it. They had brutalized man; they had standardized, commercial ized, mechanized, vulgarized, and metropolitan!zed his life. Their worldliness had been the deadliest enemy of romantic idealism (as it still is). What was needed, and what could be begun, was a revolt against such worldliness by an awakening of man's imagination to what life really was meant to be— free, natural, peaceful, beautiful, and humane. Under idealistic leadership in the past men had made some progress, though too slowly, towards civiliza tion and towards the improvement of human character; and they could make more and speedier progress in the future.2®
In Views, the most direct allusion to the Romantics occurred in her comments on General James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia. At that point she quoted lines from
2®Bernbaum, Anthology of Romanticism, Introduction, p. xxviii. 35 the Romantic poet James Thomson in which Thomson referred to
Oglethorpe and others who had worked for release of prison ers from the over-crowded English jails.22- Another of the influences of the Romantics on Wright was reflected in her great fondness for the marvels of nature, e.g., when she crawled dangerously close to the falls of the Mohawk River or her insistence on seeing the magnificent Niagara spec tacle from every angle.22
Among the pleasant discoveries which she made was that foriegners were welcomed in the United States, a matter about which she had been apprehensive before her arrival.
Indeed, so pro-democratic were her predispositions that throughout her letters she criticized other travel accounts by foreign visitors which did not coincide with her own praise of America. Wright was particularly critical of
Henry B. Fearon's Sketches of America.22 Fearon’s book
22-Thomson was one of the early Romantics and perhaps the first to affirm the goodness of nature as opposed to its bestiality. Both man and nature were essentially good and social betterment was possible. Sir Sidney Lee, ed. The Concise Dictionary of National Biography, Part 1, 2nd ed. (1906; rpt. London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 1293-4. 22Niagara was a favorite place for pastorally in clined visitors. Cf. Thomas Moore, "A Letter From Niagara Falls," in Anthology of Romanticism, ed. Ernest Bernbaum, 3rd ed. rev. (New York: Putnam's, 1948), p. 519. 23Henry B. Fearon, Sketches of America. A Narrative Of A Journey Of Five Thousand Miles Through The Eastern And Western States Of America; . . . (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818). 36
evidently had found some popularity in England, or so Wright
interpreted comments from her correspondent in Great Britain,
Mrs. Millar. Frances Wright was quick to reply that
Fearon's "little volume" was among the "traducers" of the
new American nation. Wright's inclinations were as blindly
pro-American as Fearon's were superciliously English, al
though he by no means deserved to be called a traducer.2^
Of course when it is pointed out that Fearon not only
suffered seasickness the first fifteen days of his voyage, but also had to undergo a shipboard Fourth of July celebra
tion which he found offensive, some insight is gained into why his British sensibilities did not recover during his entire trip of five thousand miles.25
The warmth of Frances Wright's ardor for America was reflected at length in her treatment of Philadelphia and its founder, William Penn. It is rather obvious from her dis cussion that she was well read about Penn; she thought
William Penn "united every great and every gentle, virtue."
Wright also was knowledgeable about Penn's famous and prece dent-setting trial at Old Bailey, as well as his first frame
2^Wright, Views, pp. 28 and 223.
25Fearon, pp. 2-3, 19, 26, 49-50, 76, 80, 129, 421. 37 of government for Pennsylvania.2* ® Like another traveler of
similar interests, Lt. Francis Hall, Frances Wright was
impressed by the Pennsylvania penal code. Concerning this
she wrote: "The law of Moses is not the law of Christians,
nor the law of nations, and if we dispense with it in other
cases, we may be allowed to do so in this."2? So rare had
executions become in Pennsylvania that the occasional sub
jects of this punishment had come to be regarded as 9 A martyrs.
Even more impressive to Frances Wright than the
Pennsylvania penal code, however, was the role which the
Society of Friends had taken in opposing slavery and the
slave trade. To Wright, slavery was a "foul blot" on man kind which should be erased.2® Convinced that it was "not
for a young and inexperienced foreigner to suggest remedies
. . ." for this stain on their national character which most
2®Wright, Views, p. 31 and p. 34; Ramsay, History of the United States, I, 190-207. For some information on this trial see Mary Maples Dunn, William Penn: Politics and Con- science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 13-16. 2?Wright, Views, p. 35. Cf. Hall's comment that "to America belongs the glory of having first made the experi ment of the least waste of life with which society can be presented." Hall, Travels, p. 13. 2®Wright, Views, p. 36.
2®On this point at least, Wright, Hall, and Fearon agreed. See Wright, Views, p. 37; Hall, p. 354 and Appendix I; Fearon, p. 382. 38
Americans recognized (or so Frances Wright thought), Wright
blamed the inferior condition of the negro "on the European
of a less humane age" who had "degraded the African below
the human standard and laid the benumbing hand of oppression
on his intellect."22 There was, moreover, the possibility
that the black had suffered a psychological trauma from being in slavery, but that, too, could be overcome with time
and education.
It is important to note that Frances Wright laid the blame for slavery at the feet of the Europeans, thus absolving both her favored people of America and the blacks, whom she thought could be rescued from their plight. Since she accepted the notion that all human beings were educable and thus improvable, Frances Wright believed that given the opportunity and the advantage, black people held in slavery could overcome all the burdens under which they had been placed.
The city of brotherly love held particular import within Frances Wright's emotional and intellectual framework, as it was the seat of the Continental Congress and the hallowed room where the Declaration of Independence had been read. Modern historians of the American Revolution might not agree about the central role of congress as Frances
22Wright, Views, pp. 39-43. 39 Wright saw it, but again it must be remembered that she was
drawing directly from Botta and the earlier work of David
Ramsay. This notion had been reinforced by the publication
of Ramsay's History.of the United States almost on the eve
of Wright's arrival in the United States.!! In addition to
her feelings about seeing the room where the "rising glory
of America" had begun, there was Wright's acceptance of the
comparison of the Americans as the Romans of the modern world, i.e., the practical patriots and rulers of the day.
In addition to comparing the members of Congress to the
Romans, she marveled at their accomplishments, especially the care they exercised by ever holding "before them that page of the history of their English ancestors, when having risen against the tyranny of a monarch, the people fell 32 beneath that of a soldiery."
In particular Frances Wright compared the citizens of the United States to the Romans in their emphasis on
!!Ramsay, History of the United States, I, 381-83.
!2wright, Views, p. 54. Wright's reference was to the control of England by Oliver Cromwell and the army after the deposition of the Stuarts. There are a number of paral lels drawn to Roman history and politics in this section of Views. She was, moreover, aware of a work of a modern "Roman" politician, Niccold Machiavelli. On page 63 she quoted from his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy (1541), Book I, chap., ii. "Those republics which, if they do not have perfect order, have made a good beginning and are capable of improvement, may become perfect, should something occur which provides the opportunity." 40 3 3 practical knowledge. Their forte, she judged, was good
sense balanced by dry humor (her example was Benjamin Frank lin).2^ So pervasive was this emphasis on the practical in
the United States, she thought, that men were "brought to
think who never thought before."22 These Americans were
entirely without what Wright called "mauvaise honte," and were generally open to foreigners of every station who re
sided in their midst, despite the condescending views of
some travelers.26
The one group in the United States for whom Frances
Wright showed little sympathy, however, was the American
Indian. While black men in slavery aroused her reform passion, the sight of Indians in similar circumstances did not do likewise. Education, otherwise her panacea for the world's ills, would not enlighten the minds of young Indians, for they were possessed by the "unconquerable wildness of the young savages."2^ The Indian could no more be educated than could a brood of partridges. After visiting an Indian village Wright wrote:
The increase and spread of the white population at
22Wright, Views, p. 64.
2^Ibid., p. 65. 22lbid., p. 77.
36ibid., pp. 65, 70-71. "Mauvaise honte" may be translated as "false shame."
2^Ibid., p. 12. 41
the expense of the red is, as it were, the triumph of peace over violence; it is Minerva's olive bear ing the palm from Neptune's steed.33
There was, Wright suggested, filth and sloth in their cabins and superstition in their minds.3® Accepting the inevita bility of the "rising glory of America" as forwarded by
Ramsay and Botta, Wright believed the hardy American pioneers had tamed the lands which the Indians had never farmed.4® Frances Wright wrote that the government of the
United States had been generous in its upholding of treaties, especially in light of the numerous Indian wars begun at the instigation of European emissaries or traders from Florida or Canada. Wright did not believe, however, that the proper practices had been carried out with regard to civilizing the
Indians. Unfortunately, she wrote, "religion has been too generally employed as the first agent."41 She was, however, impressed by the Indian mission efforts of the Quakers and the Moravians; she gave particular mention to the Moravian
33Ibid., p. 106. Botta's views on Europeans con quering the wilderness are essentially the same as Wright's. Cf. Botta, I, 1-10.
3®Wright, Views, p. 110.
4°lbid., p. 108. Botta, the source for most of her ideas about America, had had very little kind to say about the Indians. In writing about the famous Mohawk leader, Joseph Brandt, Botta had described him as "the most fero cious being ever produced by human nature, . . ." Botta, II, 553. 41wright, Views, p. 112. 42 John Heckewelder whose book on the Moravian missions was published while Wright was in America.
Some of Frances Wright's comments about native
American potential for education had occurred in the context of describing her visit to West Point. In that passage an insight is afforded into how her perception of the American
Revolution (based largely on Botta and Ramsay) colored her entire conceptualization of the United States and its society. So convinced was she that the United States stood by its revolutionary ideals, that she observed that the young men educated at West Point would have such a sense of nation and love of country that all other loyalties would be transcended. She was confident that the new nation of which she was so fond would never attempt to create an "army" in the European sense, since the union of knowledge and liberty in the United States was too strong. America, she wrote, had learned only too well that "knowledge, which is the bug bear of tyranny, is, to liberty, the sustaining staff of life."42
Much of what she wrote about West Point and the
American Revolution was influenced by David Ramsay's History of the United States.42 One of her most obvious borrowings
42Wright, Views, p. 83.
420n West Point, Benedict Arnold, and Major André, see Ramsay, History of the United States, II, 345-56. 43
occurred when she wrote of the evil policy of the British
government in using Indians in the Revolutionary War, a practice denounced by the "generous Chatham."44 Here in the
compliment to Chatham, Wright was following through on
another theme of Ramsay and Botta, that the Americans were
defended by a few brave Englishmen (Chatham included), but
that the conduct of the war was in the hands of the evil
politicians who made up the ministry.
In Frances Wright’s comments on the countryside
through which she passed there were continuing comparisons
of the new world with the old. In August, 1819, she visited
a farm near Geneseo, New York, whose owner she compared to
one of the "patriarchs of old." There was, also, Wright
pointed out, a marked difference between the English and the
American independent farmers; for in the United States the
land owner was free from tithes, taxes, and bribes (or so
Frances Wright thought). The American republic was like the
Roman, wrote Wright, for in the United States agriculture
assumed her "most cheerful aspect and . . . all her ancient
classic dignity, as when Rome summoned her consuls from the plough."45 Here she presented another classical allusion
comparing the Americans to the Romans, particularly in the
44wright, Views, p. 107; Ramsay, History of the United States, I, 399.
45'Wright, Views, p. 99. 44
figure of Cincinnatus leaving his farm to defend the repub lic in time of danger.46
Frances Wright’s pro-American tone became even more
evident in her descriptions of scenes where battles had been
fought during the War of 1812. Since she was not a partici pant or eyewitness to the events, she was depending upon
secondary sources which were quite obviously biased in favor of the United States.4? Especially does she seem to have imbibed a thoroughly American view of standing armies versus militia. "There is in militia a moral force, which, in moments of great exigency, is more than a match for trained skill and hardy experience."4® in her discussions regarding the War of 1812 she continued the "rising glory of America" theme with which she was familiar. It was, she wrote, sin gular
how glorious the change, which has turned the vast haunts of panthers, wolves, and savages, into the abode of industry and the sure asylum of the oppres sed. What a noble edifice has here been raised for hunted Liberty to dwell in securely1 It is impossi ble to tread the soil of America and not bless it,
4 Lucius Quinetius Cincinnatus was a Roman patriot who was called from his farm to be leader of Rome in 458 and 439 B.C. He returned to his farm each time the enemy was defeated. C. L. Barnhart, ed., The American College Dictionary (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 217. 4?Wright, Views, pp. 130 and 135.
48Ibid., p. 130. 49Ibid., p. 153. 45
impossible to consider her growing wealth and strength without rejoicing.50
In her effort to convince her readers that Elysium was
indeed in the United States, she described an Illinois com munity in the following terms:
The prairie in which it stands is described as ex quisitely beautiful: lawns of unchanging verdure, spreading over hills and dales, scattered with is lands of luxuriant trees, dropped by the hand of nature with a taste that art could not rival—all this spread beneath a sky of glowing and unspotted sapphires.51
Given this view, it is no wonder that Wright took umbrage at any writers who were critical of America.52
When Frances Wright's travels took her across the border into Canada, she immediately began to comment upon the marked contrast between what she had seen in the United
5°Wright, Views, p. 135. The theme here sounded was much like a passage in Paine's Common Sense. Cf. Nelson F. Adkins, ed., Common Sense And Other Political Writings (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), p. 34. "0 ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom has been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England has given her warning to de part. 0! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asy lum for mankind."
51wright, Views, p. 136. If one wished to analyze the metaphor of paradise in Wright's natural scene, one might follow the symbols of (1) exquisite beauty, (2) eter nal spring, (3) luxurious vegetation created by (4) nature (or God to others), and a (5) virgin sky of sapphire (heav enly) blue (which is, of course, the Virgin Mary's color, if you wish to carry the symbolism that far). 52Ibid., p. 138. Cf. Fearon, passim. 46 States and what she was seeing across the northern boundary.
The starving paupers of Ireland had been turned adrift to die in what she called the Siberia of Upper Canada. Their countrymen in Lower Canada (who were French) suffered .'Like wise, but the peoples of the two Canadas could agree on nothing save their detestation of their republican neighbors
Under the regime of the priests, moreover, the people of
French Canada remained unchanged, untouched by revolution and progress. Wright had rather fixed ideas about the oppressive nature of the Roman Catholic clergy and how favorably people might progress in the United States as compared to other places (again the "rising glory" theme).
Her illustration was to contrast the static position of the peoples of French Canada with the progress made by the people in French Louisiana. Her source for this was Henry
M. Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana.22
Also evident here was Wright's opposition to the institutionalized church. Part of her disagreement with the church resulted from her theory of knowledge which held that we know only what we can sense and inasmuch as gods cannot be sensed, they cannot be demonstrably proven.2'^ It
^2Wright, Views, pp. 69 and 146.
24Her book on Epicureanism is filled with such com ments about the gods. Cf. Frances Wright, A Few Days In Athens; Being The Translation Of A Greek Manuscript Dis- covered in Herculaneum (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1850), pp. 159-66. 47 may be noted at this point that the basis for her rational
ist view seemed to lie in her acceptance of Epicurean ideas.
The sensationalist approach advocated by Epicurus denied the notion of the divine. Wright combined this thought with what seems to have been a lifelong suspicion of the church
in shaping the anti-clericalism which she espoused during her career on the public platform (this will be discussed in
Chapter VI). To be sure, she would later hear strictures against the church and its clergy from the lips of both
Bentham and Lafayette, but the corpus of her ideas had been shaped long before she met those gentlemen.
Almost immediately upon recrossing that invisible boundary between the United States and Canada, Wright began to wax eloquent again, writing of the immensity and beauty of the "primeval woods."®® Her determination to defend
American virtue extended far beyond that of simply climate, character, and citizenry. Disturbed by the practice of those who had been so bold as to summon American literature before the bar and then condemn it along with American wit and science, Wright sought to defend American intellect.®® To her it was not surprising that in a country so young, which
33Wright, Views, pp. 158-59. Here again may be seen the influence of the English Romantics on her thought. ®®Ramsay had done this in his History of the United States, I, 234-48. 48 had just passed through the travail of war and the trictl of establishing a new government, no literary class had yet emerged. Indeed, hardly had the nation been securely on her feet when she was drawn into another war with Great Britain.
Whatever the past, Wright was certain that in the future, this "Herculean infant" that was the United States would develop fully in all areas.
Moreover, Wright asserted, there were authors of merit writing about the United States as early as 1624 when
John Smith published his General History of Virginia and the
Somers Isles. There was also that ardent penman and cham pion of the oppressed, Roger Williams, as well as the noble
James Oglethorpe whose clarity had led him to the new world.
In her praise of Oglethorpe she credited him at least indirectly with the idea of bettering conditions in the
English prisons and with fathering the notion of Georgia as a colony for humanity. She quoted lines 359-361 of James
Thomson's Winter, which referred to the Gaols Committee of
Parliament on which Oglethorpe had served.28 Then, in a footnote she went so far as to repeat the story that the aged Oglethorpe had been offered the command in America in
1775, but had refused it when the ministers refused to
2^Wright, Views, p. 164.
22Ibid., p. 167. She had read about Oglethorpe in Ramsay, History of the United States, I, 164. 49 promise justice for the colonists.59 Because of the efforts
by such men as Williams, Oglethorpe, and the sons of America,
Frances Wright concluded, democracy had been established so
perfectly that the Americans had to fight in order to pre
vent its being destroyed.50 This idea about the American
Revolution as a struggle in defense of liberty and democracy,
rather than a fight for those freedoms, is clearly a percep
tion which she had gathered from Ramsay and Botta.
The new nation would get along smoothly, Wright
believed, because the Americans possessed a spirit of
liberty and a perfect acquaintance with the science of
government. Parties were unnecessary in the United Stcttes
and the only reason for opposition to Washington's govern
ment was the reaction to Alexander Hamilton's financial
system. The Federalists were the high government party of
patriots and statesmen whose only errors were those of
judgement and education, not from an intent to do evil for
the nation. When Jefferson, "the friend and disciple of
Franklin" was elected, there was a change in men and measures.
The most rigid economy was carried into every
59wright, Views, p. 167. The earliest account of this study appears to be in Ramsay, History of the American Revolution, I, 287. It is also in Ramsay, History of the United States, I, 166. There is no mention of it in Botta.
50wright, Views, pp. 168-69. 50
department of government, some useless offices were done away, the slender army farther reduced, obnox ious acts, passed by the former Congress, repealed, and the American Constitution administered in all its simplicity and purity.61
Here Frances Wright drew away from Botta in her conclusions,
for the Italian writer had favored the Federalist ideas which he had gained from reading John Marshall's Life ojf
Washington, while Wright's own personal philosophy more closely coincided with that of Jefferson.
Since Wright's knowledge about American politics
(and all politics, for that matter) was acquired by reading rather than based on experience, she unhesitatingly accepted the notion that in a democracy all men were kings, and that the government of the United States "acts with the people, is part of the people, is in short the people themselves."®2
There was, she reported, no mob, which was a blessing for that most fortunate state, since class struggle was most often the cause of political unrest. Her quoted authority for these conclusions about the state was Niccolò
Machiavelli (whom Wright called a philosophical historian):
Those serious, though natural enmities, which occur between the popular classes and the nobility, arising from the desire of the latter to command, and the disinclination of the former to obey, are the causes
®3-Wright, Views, p. 175.
®2Ibid., pp. 186, 188, 193, 211. 51
of most of the troubles which will take place in the cities.63
If one reads Frances Wright’s Views of Society and
Manners in America as the climax of her first American sojourn, it appears that in her retrospective view she lost none of her passion for the American republic which had brought her across the Atlantic in 1818. As strong a de fender of the United States as ever, she remained committed to the idea that perfectionism was possible in the new world.
Frances Wright’s Views may be regarded as not only a mine of information about the writer, but also as an abstract of what she would be concerned about for the rest of her life. In this publication she was frank about the books which she had read and how they appealed to her.
Because she did this, it is not difficult to identify either the sources or the major ideas and themes which came from them. Many of the same themes would not be dropped from her later writings, but if one plunges into an examination of her works midway through her career, many of the references will be far more obscure. In addition to providing the reader clues to her fountains of knowledge, Wright's Views touches upon every major reform idea about which she would
63wright, Views, p. 187. The translation here is from the edition by Paul Baker. Wright's citation is to the History of Florence (1532), Book III, lines 1-5. 52 later be concerned: the greatness and glory of America; the educability and perfectability of men, especially in America; the progressive nature of people, government, and society in the United States; the egalitarian nature of American social classes; the imperative need for educating and thus liber ating women; the suffocating philosophies of institutional ized religion and the clergy; and, what she called the "foul blot" of Negro slavery. All this and more, then, is con tained in Views, making it the imperative starting point among the works of Frances Wright. CHAPTER IV
THE SINGLE EVIL
While the minute details of Frances Wright's life
during the years (1821-1824) between her two visits to the
United States do not concern us here, reference should be made to certain sources of ideas that were introduced into her thought during that period. One important new inspira
tion was Jeremy Bentham. Impressed by Wright's book, Ben tham corresponded with its young author, who in turn
journeyed to London and took advantage of the philosopher's offered friendship as an entree into the intellectual circles of London. For a time Bentham was her mentor, her
"old Socrates" as she later called him, and the influence of his utilitarian thought would surface in Frances Wright's later works. Bentham was fascinated by the young intellec tual, but he was not certain that he liked being compared to
Socrates.
Fanny Wright told me Scorates was pure as an icicle. I answered that it was my misfortune to read Greek, and to know better. What I read of Socrates was in sipid. I could find in him nothing that distinguish ed him from other people, except his manner of putting questions. This would have been good, had it been explained why; . . . For didactic purposes, it
53 54
is good for bringing forward the appropriate sub ject of speculation.1
The other great impression made on Wright's life during this
European period was the acquaintanceship of the Marquis de
Lafayette, a name glorified in much that Wright had read
about the American Revolution. The two became friends, and
when the Marquis returned to the United States for a trium
phal tour in 1824, Frances Wright came, too; although after
a time she left the general's entourage and departed on her
own quest.2
At some point earlier in her life the problems of
the slaves in the United States had kindled a fire in her
mind; she had written rather passionately about slavery in
Views, but now she was ready to propose action aimed at
eradicating that foul blot from the land which she loved.
What changed her attitude from intellectual passion to re
form action is still not clear. Her proposals were outlined
in a pamphlet published in Baltimore by Benjamin Lundy under
the title A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the
United States, without danger or loss to the citizens of the
Ijohn Bowring, ed., The Works of Jeremy Bentham (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), X, 583.
William Randall Waterman, Frances Wright (1924; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967), pp. 83-89. 55
South and also published in Lundy's newspaper, the Genius of
Universal Emancipation.2
Wright's discussion of slavery in A Plan opened on
much the same note as she had left the subject in Views,
i.e., slavery was an immense evil which would bring terrible
consequences (such as war) on the country if it was not
eliminated.4 Since her earlier visit to America had con vinced her that in the United States anything was possible,
she wanted the people of the country to consider throwing off the yoke of slavery. Her call to action, it must be pointed out, was a conservative one, for in her travels through the South in 1824 and 1825 she had gotten a sense from certain slave owners that they really did not like slavery; in her mind there appeared to be two unanswerable questions: (1) how would the owners absorb the economic loss of their labor supply; and, (2) where would the freed slaves safely reside?
Frances Wright's answer was that the emancipation
^Frances Wright, A Plan (Baltimore: Printed by Benjamin Lundy, 1825). A Plan was also published in Benja min Lundy, ed., Genius of Universal Emancipation and Balti more Courier, I, No. 8 (15 October 1825), 58-59; The New- Harmony Gazette, I (1 October 1825), 4-5.
Frances Wright, Views (1821; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 269. The page numbers listed in the notes for A Plan will refer to the pamphlet style publication of the work by Lundy in 1825; A Plan, p. 3. 56
could come by establishing self-sustaining communities where
the slaves could work off their freedom, in effect exchang
ing value units of labor for the expenses incurred in their
purchase and maintenance until the time of freedom. They
would then be colonized, for despite her belief in man
generally, Wright was not yet convinced that at that time
black men could live in harmony with white men. So at the
end of their terms they would be freed and colonized as
families in a suitable place such as Mexican Texas or Haiti.
According to Wright, her inspiration for a community
experiment had been received from what she had observed at
the Rappite colony at Harmony, Indiana, and at other similar establishments undertaken by religious groups.® On the
Wabash a band of German pietists under George Rapp had used
the communal structure which they saw in the history of the
early Christian church as a means, to spiritual growth and
physical prosperity in completing their settlement. By
working together they had conquered the wilderness and created a functioning community.® Wright knew that other
such communitarian experiments based on common labor had
®Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 1, 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844 (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), p. 25.
®Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1965), pp. 69-95. 57 also succeeded, so she was convinced that it could function as a part of a plan to free the slaves.?
Unfortunately for Frances Wright, and perhaps out of her opposition to religion, she overlooked the essential element in the success of such settlements as the Rappites,
Shakers, and Moravians—their common religious faith. She seems to have ignored the adhesive that bound the fellow believers together into a cohesive, functioning unit. She also overlooked the fact that each of the successful reli gious communities was under the influence of a charismatic leader such as the patriarchal George Rapp. Franklin Littell has suggested that "the patriarchal principle, especially when reinforced by religious sanctions, worked much better than philosophical anarchism as a social cement" in the p nineteenth century communities. On this point Wright could not plead ignorance, for even James Madison told her in a letter dated September 1, 1825, that all of the establish ments of the communitarian nature which she was suggesting had "a religious impulse in. the members, and a religious authority in the head, for which there will be no
^Frances Wright to Julia Garnett, 8 June 1825 in Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, "The Nashoba Plan for Re moving the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829," Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 (1975), 238-47. 2Nordhoff, Communistic Societies, Prefatory essay by Franklin H. Littell, p. xx. 58 substitutes of equivalent efficacy in the emancipating
establishment."0
Her plan called for buying "two sections of congress
lands, [about 1200 acres] within the good south western
cotton line" and locating from fifty to one hundred negro
slaves there—the greater the number, the greater the good
(a debt, no doubt, to her mentor Bentham).1° Frances Wright
was not so foolish as to threaten the status quo with her
experiment, so in addition to building in compensation for
the owners and removal of the freed slaves, she stipulated
that all the communities to be built under her plan should
be so far removed from nearby plantations as to keep the slaves separated from those on normal establishments.!! A
school of industry would be opened for the young and there would be evening adult education sessions for the slaves past the age for formal schooling.!2 The slave families would be kept intact and careful records would be maintained of their labor credits in order for the initial costs and maintenance to be recovered. In this bookkeeping, also, would be the means of coercion, for misconduct or failure to
0James Madison, Letters and other Writings of James Madison (New York: R. Worthington, 1884), III, 497.
lOwright, A Plan, p. 5.
ülbid., p. 7. l2Ibid., p. 5. 59
work would result in debits against their account which
would have to be eliminated by additional service.3-3
Frances Wright hoped that the success of her exper
iment would encourage others, that soon there would be at
least one similar community in each state and that gradually
more and more planters would lease their lands to such in
stitutions. 14 The entire society would benefit, for both
master and slave could be freed from the burden of slavery,
free whites could then enter the labor market, and the land
of liberty would indeed be free.3-3
At the time Frances Wright launched her crusade
against slavery in the United States, the cause of antislav
ery, or abolition, as it came to be called, did not have widespread popular support. Most efforts against slavery before 1825 may be described as gradualist in nature, e.g., when groups of Quakers freed their slaves or bought a few to be freed. Slavery was illegal by law in certain northern
states, the oceanic slave trade was outlawed, and the Ameri can Colonization Society had purchased a few slaves and had transplanted them to the shores of Africa to establish what is today Liberia. In short, there was no widespread popular agitation against slavery. To be sure, there were
3®Wright, A Plan, p. 6.
3-4Ibid. , p. 7. 13Ibid., p. 9. 60
individuals such as Benjamin Lundy, who were publishing
their antislavery views, but Lundy and the others like him
had to struggle for many years in order to maintain their -1 publications.0
Although William L. Garrison would not declare war
on slavery in an editorial of his newspaper until 1831,
slavery was an issue of growing concern at national politi cal levels.l2- ? Thomas Jefferson had been alarmed by the
"fire bell in the night" on the slavery question in 1820
when, during the debate over the admission of Missouri and
Maine into the union, it had been agreed to limit the
northern boundary of slavery territory at 36° 30' north
latitude from the western Missouri border to the limits of the United States.2 -2* *
Nevertheless, whatever the clangor that alarmed
Jefferson, there was no widespread clamor of activism
against slavery. Into this breach stepped Frances Wright, a
striking, indomitable, reform-minded woman, launching a
l^Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966). 2-?William Lloyd Garrison, ed. , The Liberator, I, No. 1 (1 January 1831), 1. l8For recent explorations into the "human" Jefferson, see Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson; An. Intimate History (New York: Bantam, 1975). For a discussion of the Missouri Compromise, see Ray A. Billington, Westward Expansion, 4th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1974), Ch. 21. 61
personal crusade against slavery at a time when most women
stayed at home. Wright in certain ways was cognizant of the
problems implicit in proposals to emancipate all the slaves:
(1) she realized that there was an economic loss involved
and was not opposed to compensation; (2) she was aware that
gradualism (gradual emancipation over time) had a better
chance of acceptance than immediatism (all slaves freed at
once); and (3) she believed that colonization was necessary
to remove the freed slaves from the danger of possible con
flict with white society. On these points, then, Frances
Wright was not a radical. Where she differed from the other
antislavery people of her day was (1) in the means by which
she sought to attain her end; and (2) in her complete disa vowal of the church.
It is probably a truism that we are concerned about problems half a world away, but we do not want meddlers in our own neighborhoods. Wright could persuade southerners from Jefferson and Jackson (both slaveholders) down to the local planters, that slavery was bad, but when she bought lands and set up an antislavery community within the limits of slave territory she became a troublemaker and an agitator.1°
!°Paul Aaron Matthews, "Frances Wright and the Nashoba Experiment: A Transitional Period in Antislavery Attitudes," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications, 46 (1974), 43 states that Wright purchased from William 62
Secondly, she differed radically in terms of her
connection with the organized churches, which often served
as a springboard for reforms and reformers (especially
ministers whose search for personal salvation led them into
roles as reform leaders). The churches were an influential
force which Frances Wright opposed by denying their basic
beliefs, accusing the clergy of quackery, and challenging
supporters of religion to question the purposes for which
donations were spent. In her open criticism of institution
alized religion, she encountered a powerful climate of opin
ion about public morality. In Salem, Massachusetts, in the
late seventeenth century, she would have been accused of
witchcraft; in the early 1950’s, she would have been a
so-called communist; but in the 1820’s she was a priestess
of Beelzebub, an atheist, an infidel.23
Argumentum ad hominem was not new in the middle
1820's and Frances Wright was thus opposed. Her personal
philosophies were attacked in such a way as to insinuate
that everything which she did ways of the devil, and should
Lawrence and William A. Davis three hundred acres of Wolf River bottom lands, and then later purchased additional acreage until she owned 1,860 acres of land near Memphis.
23As the proslavery crusade mounted in later years, it was common to couple abolitionism, infidelity [non-belief in God], and the dissolution of the family. See Ante-Bellum: Writings of George Fitzhugh and Hinton Rowan Helper on Slavery, ed. Harvey Wish (New York: Capricorn, 1960), pp. 128-29. 63 therefore be forbidden. In short, as if it were not bad enough that she was a woman out of the kitchen, she was espousing an organized effort to eradicate slavery, and, worst of all, she was not acting in the name of God. To her bitterest foes, she was not a woman, but the devil personi fied in female form.
However visionary and potentially controversial her ideas, Frances Wright was determined to carry out her plan.
She journeyed to Tennessee, bought two sections of public land (1,280 acres) and tried to set up the community which she had envisioned. Plagued from the start by poor location, lack of personnel, and absence of public support, Wright's community (which she had named Nashoba) staggered even more when its leader was forced to leave in order to escape re current attacks of malaria.22- In her absence there was no leadership and reports soon circulated in the newspapers of immoral practices at Nashoba.22
Wright came to the defense of her community in what may be called her third American publication, another pam phlet, which she entitled Explanatory Notes, respecting the
Nature and Objects of the Institution of Nashoba, and of the
22-Waterman, p. 106; Wright's broken health at this point is also confirmed in the Joel Brown Manuscripts, p. 28.
22Waterman, p. 117. 64
Principles upon which it is founded. Addressed to the
Friends of Human Improvement, in all Countries and of all
Nations. This piece differed from both Views and A Plan
in that its tone was argumentative and it was intended to
defend the people of Nashoba against their critics. Explan
atory Notes was similar to Views, however, in that the crit
ical reader can be more certain of the wellsprings of her
thought. A Plan appears to be more like an outline or a
skeleton, while Explanatory Notes is fully fleshed and
Wright's ideas may be seen at work once again.
One evident source of ideas implied in limited ways
in A Plan was the thought of Jeremy Bentham, particularly
the emphasis on utilitarianism. Bentham's lifelong aim was
to produce a simplified legal system, the grounding of which
he saw in utilitarianism with its perception that one ought
to work at achieving the greatest good for the greatest
22Besides being published as a separate pamphlet, Explanatory Notes, respecting the Nature and Objects of the Institution of Nashoba, and of the Principles upon which it is founded. Addressed to the Friends of Human Improvement, in all Countries and of all Nations (hereafter cited as Explanatory Notes) was also published in The New-Harmony Gazette, III (30 January 1828; 6 February 1828; 13 February 1828), 124-25, 132-33, 140-41; later it was also published by a Fanny Wright adversary under the title: Fanny Wright Unmasked by her own pen. Explanatory Notes, Respecting The Nature And Objects Of The Institution of Nashoba, And of The Principles Upon Which It Is Founded. Addressed To The Friends Of Human Improvement, In All Countries And Of All Nations. All page numbers listed from here on in the notes will refer to the New-Harmony Gazette edition. 65 number.24 This principle of utility as it has been called, considered human psychology in terms of man as driven be tween pain and pleasure; utility would function when plea sure was achieved for the greatest number. This is crucial in reading Wright, for the theory of humanity espoused by
Bentham seems readily converted to Frances Wright's theory of knowledge, wherein we know nothing unless we can sense it through seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, or hearing. In this connection Wright was drawing not only on her "old
Socrates" but also on her understanding of the philosophy of
Epicurus.23 Wright's ideas about the teachings of Epicurus are contained in an essay published in 1822 entitled A Few
Days in Athens. Inasmuch as the work was dedicated to Jeremy
Bentham and as Wright interchanges the terms Epicurus and
Master in the dialogue, it appears that she drew little dis tinction between the thought of the two men. At one point she has Epicurus say:
"No, my sons, that only is real, is sterling know ledge, which goes to make us better and happier men, and which fits us to assist the virtue and happiness of others. All learning is useful, all the sciences are curious, all the arts are beautiful; but more
24D. H. Monro, "Jeremy Bentham," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), I, 281-85.
23P. H. De Lacy, "Epicurus," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), III, 3-5. 66
useful, more curious, and more beautiful is the perfect knowledge and perfect government of our selves. "26
From her study of certain Greek philosophers, she
had gathered the notion that only sense data are true, i.e., meaningful to an individual. Only sense data are immediate
and relevant as well as ultimate, for what else can really be known? This is, of course, the basis for her entire
theory of knowledge. Thus, pleasure and pain are integral parts of sensory perception, and according to the Epicurean teachings (at least as Frances Wright understood them), there is no good and evil apart from the sense of pleasure and pain. Wright, likewise, seems to have accepted the
Epicurean idea that practical wisdom is more important than philosophy itself.
When the idea sources in Explanatory Notes are examined, the influence of Bentham and Epicurus are not long in being revealed. From the outset she wished her readers to accept her motives in founding Nashoba as being theory put to a practical test, for of what value is theory without practice? If theories do not have experiments
26Frances Wright, A Few Days In Athens; Being The Translation Of A Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum (Boston: 5T P. Mendum, 1850), p. 115; or from The New-Har- mony Gazette, 6 December 1826, p. 75. 67
(i.e., the application of the senses) to back them, how can theories be accepted?2?
Quite early in the pamphlet Wright prepared an idea-
mixture made up of a dash of Epicurus and Bentham, a pinch
of Botta/Ramsay, and a dollop of her own thoughts to come up
with a rather interesting result. From Epicurus and Bentham
she drew the notions for her assertion "that men are virtu
ous in proportion as they are happy, and happy in proportion
as they are free."28 Then turning back to her old friends
Botta and Ramsay, she put forward the idea that "one nation,
and, as yet, one nation only, has declared all men 'born
free and equal,’ and conquered the political freedom and equality of all its citizens."23 In the United States there was political freedom she asserted, but moral freedom existed nowhere, at least in the terms she saw it.33*
From her own reflections she seems to have drawn the conclusion that given the state of knowledge in the world, it was reprehensible that man's most neglected science was the study of man. Man had so neglected man that "the first great science of human beings, the science of human life, remains untouched, unknown, and unstudied."33- Man was
2?Wright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 30 January 1828, p. 124. 28Ibid. 2®Ibid.
33Ibid. 33-Ibid. 68
alienated wrongly, divided into laboring versus intellectual
classes, and the state of polarization was such that
the soldier, who lives by our crimes, the lawyer by our quarrels and our rapacity, and the priest by our credulity or our hypocrisy, are honored with public consideration and applause.22
Of course, in the ideas behind the last remark the influence
of Bentham is to be seen and to a degree Epicurus; Bentham
being opposed to cunning lawyers and crafty priests while
Epicurus accepted nothing not reducible to sense data, neither institutionalized religion nor complicated legal
systems being so reducible.
No fool, Wright did not expect the pamphlet to achieve wholesale conversion to her cause, but she did hope it would win the sympathy of some like-minded souls. Unfor tunately for Frances Wright, her impassioned defense of individual choice expressed in Explanatory Notes was likely to alienate all but the most broad-minded among the general public. Asserting that Nashoba was based on principles of human liberty and equality without exceptions or limitations,
Wright assured her readers that the personal independence of each member of the society was secured in the charter of the founder. Husbands, therefore, did not bring wives into the society, or vice versa; each came in on his or her own merit,
22Wright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 30 January 1828, p. 124. 69
She believed that wives might not demand of their husbands nor husbands of their wives more than affections would carry.
Moreover, the impassioned writer continued, the matrimonial law was a tyrannical one which probably had its source in religious prejudice or priestly rapacity.22 One observer reported of Wright's perception of marriage:
F.W. and Mrs. Darismont though husband and wife, their property was Sepperate. F.W. believed that a woman ought not to give up a Single natural right to a man by marriage not even her person without her consent, that She Should dictate how many children She Should be Mother off, that the children Should bear the name of the Mother, instead of the Father.24
However much her opening paragraphs had been directed as an appeal for public sympathy, Frances Wright lost all but the smallest residue of support when she thus publicly attacked both the institution of marriage and the church.
To add fuel to the fire she was building, she described marriage as a terrible institution. Part of the problem, she believed, was in a lack of education about sex and marriage. It would be her idea to teach differently: "Let us not teach that virtue consists in crucifying of the af fections and appetites, but in their judicious government."25
22Wright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 6 February 1828, p. 132. 34Joel Brown Manuscripts, p. 8. The reader should note that the original spelling has been retained. 3^Wright, Explanatory Notes, p. 132. 70
Given these published statements, it is not difficult to see how public opinion turned against her. Someone among her enemies, for example, had Explanatory Notes reprinted along with a copy of her letter to a fellow reformer named R. L.
Jennings concerning his hopes to become a part of the commu nity at Nashoba. In its reprinted form, this information was circulated under the title Fanny Wrigh t Unmasked By Her
Own Pen. Explanatory Notes, Respecting The Nature And Ob jects Of The Institution Of Nashoba, And Of The Principles
Upon Which It Is Founded. Addressed To The Friends Of Human
Improvement, In All Countries And Of All Nations. By
Frances Wright. To Which Is Affixed Her Letter To Robert L.
Jennings, Advising Him To Leave His Wife And Family, And
Follow Her Destinies.
In attempting to account for some of these ideas, the sources are located easily. To be sure, they might be pushed back to the yen and yang of the pain and pleasure, principle, but Wright does not appear to have been a hedo nistic sensualist, nor does her recorded life style include profligacy, the assertions of her enemies to the contrary notwithstanding. A harmonious balance would seem to be what she was considering when she wrote the following lines in A
Few Days in Athens:
Your affections both of soul and body may be shortly reduced to two, pleasure and pain; the one trouble some, and the other agreeable. . . . Perfect 71
pleasure, which is happiness, you will have attained when you have brought your bodies and souls into a state of satisfied tranquility.33
If anyone was still reading Frances Wright's
Explanatory Notes after her outburst against marriage and the family, they would have found that she returned to the subject of Nashoba and its purposes for helping the slaves.
However far ahead of her times she was in certain respects, she remained a conservative about the prospects of former slaves for intellectual growth. Her hope was that free blacks could be persuaded to join the society as full mem bers in order to demonstrate for the slaves of the community that freedom was possible. Even so, Frances Wright still had her doubts:
It is not supposed that (with some rare exceptions) human beings raised under the benumbing influence of brutal slavery can be elevated to the level of a society based upon the principles of moral liberty • and voluntary cooperation.3?
Again, however, she transgressed the prevailing attitudes of the day by suggesting that the whole problem of slavery was likely to be solved by the combination of two forces: (1) the declining price of upland cotton which would render the entire system unprofitable; and (2) the
3®Wright, "A Few Days In Athens," The New-Harmony Gazette, 13 December 1826, p. 82. ®?Wright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 6 February 1828, p. 133. 72 gradual intermarriage of the two races.32 If the majority of her readers had not been outraged by her views on indi vidual liberty for women, they would certainly be so by her notion that the two races should intermarry to the extent that there should no longer be a color problem. According to Joel Brown, who knew Frances Wright in her later years,
Wright believed that "if man is ever improved it will be by breeding, not by praying. No good breeder, would try to improve a race horse by prayer."32 Another interesting observation which Wright made on American prejudice was to ask why it was any more ridiculous for the Americans to be prejudiced on the basis of color than it was for Europeans to be prejudiced on the basis of birth?40
Frances Wright's prejudice against the clergy and institutionalized religion also was the object of critical remarks in Explanatory Notes. In the rules for the commu nity of Nashoba she forbade the existence of religion. She explained her views by writing that
she uses the term religion as distinct from moral practice, and as signifying belief in, and homage
22Wright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 6 February 1828, p. 133. on Joel Brown Manuscripts, p. 14.
40bright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 6 February 1828, p. 133. 73 rendered to, a Being or Beings not cognizable by the senses of man.43^
From the beginning of her American public career in
1818 (as a traveller) to its end in 1830 (as a lecturer and
editor), Frances Wright was deeply concerned about what she
perceived as the immense evil of slavery. In her first book
she had been content only to write about it, but by the time
she returned to the United States in 1824 she was convinced
that action should be taken to eradicate that foul blot,
that single evil which stained the promised land of liberty.
Clearly her passion against slavery pre-dates any of her
contacts with Bentham or Lafayette. While some writers have
credited Lafayette with inspiring her on the matter of anti
slavery, it appears that, if he had any influence, he only
reinforced ideas already strongly held. Indeed, in her
writings and correspondence related to the inception of her
Plan, there is no mention of Lafayette, save with respect to
Wright's intention that she should have his blessings for
the project.42 What she had perceived in Views and con
ceived in A Plan did not work out in reality as Wright had
hoped. Forced onto the defensive in Explanatory Notes,
Wright revealed to the public a woman passionately concerned
43Wright, Explanatory Notes in The New-Harmony Gazette, 13 February 1828, p. 140.
42Frances Wright to Julia Garnett, 8 June 1825 in Payne-Gaposchkin, p. 243. 74 not only about slavery, but also with education, women's rights, the institution of marriage, and the established church. CHAPTER V
"A KINDLING OF WRATH"
Whatever rhetorical activities of Frances Wright had
angered or shocked the American public before 1828, her ac
tions as a public speaker in that year sparked a "kindling
of wrath" against her.l For in 1828, Wright emerged as the
first female public speaker in the United States.2
Her debut before an audience took place on the
Fourth of July, 1828, at New Harmony, Indiana. The people
listening could not be classified as an ordinary gathering of the American citizenry. These were the reformers and their like-minded followers who had gathered on the banks of the Wabash under the leadership of Robert Owen. Their quest was societal perfection through communitarian effort.2 As a consequence, Wright's listeners would include Robert Dale
Owen, son of the New Harmony proprietor, Robert L. Jennings,
^Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lec tures 1834/1844, Preface (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), p. viii.
2Ida M. Tarbell, "The American Woman," American Magazine, 69 (1910), 363.
2For information concerning Robert Owen and the community at New Harmony see Robert Dale Owen, Threading My Way, 1st ed. (1874; rpt. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967) .
75 76
educator and editor, and Guillaume Sylvan Casimir Phiquepal
D'Arusmont, experimental French educator.
What the audience heard on that Independence Day in
1828 could not have been described as inflammatory or scan
dalous. To be sure, there was a distinct uniqueness in
seeing a woman standing on the platform to give a public
lecture, but what she said was in no sense a radical cry.
Frances Wright's theme in this first speech was, as one might expect from the occasion, the glorious accomplish ments which had been achieved in the United States since the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence and the
succeeding governments under it. To Wright the Declaration was one of the greatest achievements of mankind. Her over all theme, then, was almost identical to what she had con cluded about America when she read Carlo Botta's book in
1810 and what she had written about America beginning with the publication of her first book in 1821. So great was the challenge, suggested Frances Wright, that each year on
Independence Day the people of the country ought to look back and measure how much progress they had made in the past twelve months.4
4with the exception of specified quotations, refer ences in this text are taken from Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Course of Popular Lectures; with Three Addresses, on Various Public Occasions, and A Reply to the Charges Against the French Reformers of 1789, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/ 1844 (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972); "Address I," pp. 117-25. 77
Thus the overall framework of the address may be
viewed as a reassertion of the same values contained in her
first American book. The theme of the "rising glory of
America" which she had picked up from Ramsay and Botta was
clearly reflected in the address. As she had asserted in
Views, the government born of the Declaration was the most
important achievement which mankind had witnessed. From the
combination of the Declaration and its child (the federal
government) had come the example from which all the world
could draw inspiration for freedom.
Indeed, explained Wright, Americans were so blessed with freedom that nothing was impossible for them. They alone in the world were open to change. It was with this
shift to a discussion of change that Frances Wright indi cated the kind of spirit that would embroil her so deeply in controversy.3 To her it appeared that change was the most important principle in all the world, for without change, children were not born, flowers would not bloom and the world would not continue to progress. Americans were so free, she believed, that they would always change for the better. Such was their freedom that they could seek the knowledge which opens the door to change, thought Wright.
By change, Frances Wright did not mean simple
3Wright, "Address I," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 119. 78 development as the biological metaphors which she chose,
i.e., the birth of children, the blooming of flowers, etc.,
but radical alterations aimed at the salvation of mankind.
While she did not articulate her specific propositions in
this speech, her later crusades indicated that something
like this was in the back of her mind. Slavery, for example,
against which she had already launched a major effort, was
given reference only as the "one evil of immense magnitude" of which the United States was possessed.5 Indeed, the audience to which she spoke was such a select group of reform-minded folk that they could applaud the rather basic propositions which Wright put forward.
The same, however, could not be said for the rest of the inhabitants in the United States at the time. Jackson ian America, as Marvin Meyers has pointed out, was a period of paradox, when the people were, torn between the expanding capitalism of the day on the one hand and the simpler "man against the wilderness" ethic personified by Andrew
Jackson.? Although Jackson was not yet president in mid-
1828, he was already the people's folk hero.
Now Jacksonian society was caught between the ele ments—the liberal principle and the yeoman image—
6Wright, "Address I," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 121. ?Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), pp. 6-10. 79
and tried again to harmonize them. Americans were boldly liberal in economic affairs, out of convic tion and appetite combined, and moved their world in the direction of modern capitalism. But they were not inwardly prepared for the grinding uncertainties, the shocking changes, the complexity and indirection of the new economic ways. Their image of the good life had not altered: somehow, as men and as a society, they hoped to have their brave adventures, their provocative rewards, their open-ended progress, and remain essentially the same. . . . Under the Jacksonian persuasion men could follow their desires, protest their injuries, affirm their innocence. In this direction one can begin to meet the Jacksonian paradox: the fact that the movement which helped to clear the path for laissez-faire capitalism and its culture in America, and the public which in its daily life eagerly entered on that path, held never theless in their political conscience an ideal of a chaste republican order, resisting the seductions of risk and novelty, greed and extravagance, rapid mo tion and complex dealings.8
Not too surprisingly, a high premium was awarded to public morality and to its principal protector, the churches
While denominations and their clergy took no direct part in politics, the churches exercised a powerful influence by playing the role of public spokespersons for the upright and the good. Although actual church membership was not high, the number of those subscribing to the overall religious point of view constituted a sizeable majority.2 Sunday was a day widely observed as a holy day and church meetings
p °Meyers, pp. 7-8.
^Edward Pessen, Jacksonian America: Society, Per sonality, and Politics (Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey, 1969), pp. 75-84. 80
usually were well attended. Revivalism was also an estab
lished part of the scene in Jacksonian America. Outbursts
of religious enthusiasm on a national scale had already
occurred twice in the nineteenth century before Jackson's
election, in 1800 and in 1812. Out of these had sprung a
profusion of denominational splinters as well as a public
appetite for evangelism. Once such a movement was underway
in a city or rural area, it was likely to involve all the
denominations and many people. It happened so often in some regions of western New York state that the area became known as the "Burned-Over District."33
It was against this prevailing set of attitudes that
Frances Wright came as a platform lecturer in the summer of
1828. In the preface to her published volume of lectures and in her autobiographical "Memoir" she asserted that she went to Cincinnati to lecture against the outbreak of reviv alism which she knew to be raging there.33- Whatever she wrote in retrospect, her reasons for going to Cincinnati for the purpose of giving public lectures in the summer of 1828 were rather practical. Robert L. Jennings, her fellow reformer and resident co-editor of The New-Harmony Gazette,
lOpessen, pp. 75-84.
33D'Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lectures, Preface, pp. vii-viii; D'Arusmont, Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 1, 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 34. 81 had brought his family only as far west as Cincinnati. He wanted to bring them to New Harmony, so he proposed to
Wright that the two editors travel to the Queen City, where they could not only arrange for Jennings’ family to move, but also could give Frances Wright an opportunity to offer a course of public lectures. By the attention which she drew, she and Jennings were confident that they could attract new subscribers for their newspaper.!2
Wright and Jennings reached Cincinnati in July and immediately laid plans for the two to make a series of pub lic appearances. Perhaps they hoped to placate public opinion by having Wright appear in tandem with Jennings since women public lecturers were unknown. Frances Wright as an author, however, was not unknown, since her Plan, excerpts from the Nashoba Journal, and Explanatory Notes had already appeared in Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation.
Frances Wright and Robert L. Jennings rented a lecture hall in the Cincinnati courthouse and on Sunday,
July 27, 1828, Wright gave her lecture entitled, "On the
l2Camilla Wright Whitbey to Harriet Garnett, 20 November 1828 in Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, "The Nashoba Plan for Removing the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829," Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 (1975), 454. The Gazette had lost so much money in the previous year that Robert Dale Owen urgently needed help in editing it. See also, Robert Dale Owen, "An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats," Atlantic Monthly, 34 (July 1874), 67. 82 nature of Knowledge."33 Although her audience was small, it
did not require many hearers to understand what she was
.saying. Moreover, to increase the impact and widen the
audience, a repeat of this lecture was scheduled for Friday,
August 1. What Wright delivered on these two occasions was
the first of her lectures on knowledge, a lecture delivered
a number of times in the next six months and ultimately
published in The Free Enquirer.
From the outset of her speech, Wright sought to
establish herself as a person of just knowledge and sound
reasoning, speaking out in a time of what she termed "unnat
ural excitement."34 What Wright meant by unnatural excite
ment was what she saw as the over-intense religious feelings
present in Cincinnati. Almost from her first remarks, then,
this first female public speaker was setting herself up as
the opponent of the clergy. This was a radical and danger
ous thing to do, given the prevailing pro-religious views of
33Frances Wright, "Lectures on Knowledge. Lecture I. On the Nature of Knowledge," The New-Harmony and Nashoba Gazette, or The Free Enquirer, I (7 January 1829; 14 January 1829), 81-83, 89-90; (4 March 1829; 11 March 1829; 18 March 1829), 146-47, 153-54, 161-63; later the speech was also published as part of Course of Popular Lectures in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 4-21. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures. 34Wright, The Free Enquirer, 7 January 1829, p. 81. 83
the time, as well as Cincinnati’s numerous denominations
and many churches.2-5
Frances Wright was not especially subtle in her
proposition that knowledge did not need heated imaginations
to function. She invited her hearers to attend the symbolic
temple of just knowledge, where one knew the truth as the
facts which one had ascertained through the senses.2-5 in
this passage, of course, she was simply reiterating the
Epicurean ideas which she had accepted for some time, but
which she had never before publicly espoused.2-? Some of her
hearers must have wondered in amazement at this striking
woman who stood before them asserting that there was no
knowledge beyond that of the five senses.
If her listeners were amazed at her propositions
about the attainment of just knowledge, they must have drawn
in quick breaths when she directed her remarks to a distinc
tion between knowledge and belief. Real knowledge was
15 In 1840 there were forty-three churches m Cin cinnati serving a population of 46,383 persons. Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 1841: Early Annals and Future Prospects (Cincinnati: Printed and Published for the Author, 1841), pp. 32-34, 96-99. l^wright, "On the Nature of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 7. l^For her Epicurean ideas see Frances Wright, A Few Days In Athens; Being The Translation of A Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1850), passim. 84
something to be concluded from positive sensations; belief
on the other hand was merely an expression of faith, without any demonstrable support.!8 Frances Wright's sensationalist
epistemology was completely antithetical to the religions of
the day, for how else did a man believe except by faith?
One could not see, feel, hear/ touch, or taste a god, Wright
argued, so how could anyone profess belief in such? What
she was expounding was compounded of her exposure to the
ideas of Epicurus and the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham.
It was, too, an articulation of science versus religion,
i.e., knowledge versus faith, arguments that would assume much broader proportions after the publication of Charles
Darwin's theories.
Frances Wright explained that she was stimulated in her youth by a sympathy for human suffering, but in her experience the members of the clergy (who represented the institutionalized church) were not truly interested in the needs of the people. She had visited in the slave states, she explained, where human beings were held in bondage, but no one spoke out in their behalf. The masters of the slaves were also the masters of the preachers and so nothing was said in opposition to the system of slavery. Outside the slave territory, she did not find the situation much better
l^wright, "On the Nature of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 10. 85 because she had found that the "harshest physician ... is
the religious physician."2-2 While her anti-clericalism would not be surprising to those who knew that she had refused a journey to Italy because it was ruled by "the leaden sceptre of the church," many of her listeners could not avoid surprise at the strength of her remarks against the clergy and the church.20
Wright had concluded that the preachers had no real interest in knowledge or truth, but were only interested in disguising the truth so they could control the door to heaven.21 Far worse, in Frances Wright1s eyes, was that the insatiate priestcraft had been instructed to be fishers of men, but were really only "fishers of women."22 in stern, challenging terms Frances Wright returned to a theme which she had first stated strongly in Views, and then reiterated in a slightly different connection in Explanatory Notes: the negligence of women's education and the domination of
l2Wright, "On the Nature of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 17.
20a. J. G. Perkins and Theresa Wolfson, Frances Wright, Free Enquirer. The Study of a Temperament (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), p. 24.
21wright, "On the Nature of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 18.
22wright here referred to the words ascribed to Jesus when he invited Peter to leave his fishing hets and become a fisher of men. See Luke 5:10; Matthew 4:18; Mark 1:17. 86 the clergy over the female mind. As Frances Wright per ceived it, women were neglected in the new world as well as in the old. As she had suggested in Views seven years earlier, women were not educated in the same way as the young men and she wanted to know why not? It was her obser vation, too, that because women were expected to stay in the kitchen, they were married too young, bore children too early, and were old by the time they were twenty-five.
Worst of all, she proclaimed, the priests do all in their power to make women their spiritual captives. If the clergymen could control the minds and actions of the women, then they could maintain much of their hold over public morality.23
One of the reasons why Wright's accusations against the clergy produced such a "kindling of wrath," as she called it, was that there was truth in what she said.24
Wright was not the only foreign visitor who commented about the influence of the clergy over women. Frances Trollope reported that she had never seen or read of "any country where religion had so strong a hold upon the women, or a
2®See Frances Wright, Views, ed. Paul R. Baker (1821; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 22 ff; Wright, "On the Nature of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 19-21.
24D'Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844, Preface, p. viii. 87 2 c slighter hold upon the men. 3 According to Alex de
Tocqueville, moreover, the ministers were a highly material
istic lot from whose preaching "it is often difficult to be
sure when listening to them whether the main object of
religion is to procure eternal felicity in the next world or prosperity in this."26
Frances Wright was not unaware of the possible
heated response to her remarks. She believed that anyone
who advocated just knowledge had to "be armed with courage
to dare all things, and to bear all things. . . . "2? Even
so, she proclaimed her continued belief in the possibilities
of progress in the United States. Given the perfection of
its government and the beauty of the frame upon which it
rested, only two things remained as prerequisites to change.
What was needed, Wright believed, was (1) a just system of education and (2) a fearless spirit of free inquiry.26
25Trollope’s book has numerous descriptions of young women under the influence of "spiritual religion." See Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of The Americans, ed. Donald Smalley (1836; rpt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), pp. 74 ff., 169, 172 ff., 211 ff., 230, 274-77, 344-45. It was Frances Wright who influenced Frances Trollope to go to America. See Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography (Stratford- Upon-Avon: Shakespeare Head Press, 1929), p. 17. 26Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer and Max Lerner; Trans, by George Lawrence (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 501. 2?Wright, "On the Nature of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 19. 28Ibid. 88
In the course of her first lecture on knowledge,
then, Frances Wright had restated many of the same themes
which she had first introduced in Views: (1) the rising
glory of America; (2) the need for education; (3) the need
for improving women’s rights and education; (4) the monopo
listic tendencies of the clergy; and (5) the terrible blot of slavery which fouled the country. In their restating,
the themes had become more impassioned in tone, especially with regard to the treatment of women’s rights and the domination of women by the clergy.
Two days after the repetition of her first lecture
Frances Wright returned to the courthouse to deliver a second lecture on knowledge. On August 3, 1828, she began her "Of Free Inquiry, considered as a means for obtaining just knowledge" with the same themes that she had left two nights before.23 Not only was her language in Lecture II tied by the web of her ideas to Lecture I, but it was also highly reminiscent of her similar thoughts published in
Views. In 1828 as in 1818, she was disappointed in the way
23Frances Wright, Lectures on Knowledge. Lecture II. Of Free Inquiry, considered as a means for obtaining just Knowledge," The New-Harmony and Nashoba Gazette, or The Free Enquirer, I (21 January 1829; 28 January 1829), 97-98, 105-07; (25 March 1829; 1 April 1829), 169-71, 177-79; later the speech was also published as part of Course of Popular Lectures in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 21-37. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures. 89 women were treated and educated, and in the second place position to which society had assigned them. She realized
that her beliefs were singular:
However novel it may appear, I shall venture the as sertion, that, until women assume the place in soci ety which good sense and good feeling alike assign to them, human improvement must advance but feebly.30
If, on the other hand, the two sexes should cooperate in a spirit of free inquiry, then there would be no more lack of equality in education.31
Wright believed that the way to begin overcoming the problem was through basic education at home. Since Frances
Wright was accused of nonbelief in God as well as the family, it may have seemed strange to hear her speak in support of family education. She hoped by appealing to familial love she might persuade mothers and fathers that daughters were equally as important to educate as were sons.32 Were they not both human beings? Wright urged the parents to instruct their children on the basis of facts discovered by the
30wright, "Of Free Inquiry," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 24. 31lbid., pp. 24-25.
32ibid., p. 29; also see E. D. Mansfield, Personal Memories (Cincinnati: Robert Clark & Co., 1879), pp. 113-14. "At that time, however, the education aimed at was not to advance the mind in higher cultures so much as to shine in society. In New England of that day no useful art in house keeping was likely to be neglected; but between these useful arts, and that of shining address, there seems to have been little or none of that solid intellectual education which is given now.” 90
senses. Then the children would be equipped with useful knowledge, for facts so discovered were like the knowledge of science and were not a trick or a fantasy. By implica tion, she was criticizing the clergy whom she considered to be the greatest species of quackery ever foisted on man kind.22 It was conjurers such as these so-called guardians of morality who kept people from learning by drawing the line on human reason.
Turning from the family to history as her second authority, Wright again used the kind of arguments which she forwarded in Views and in her 1828 "Fourth of July Address."
"Let us inquire, said Henry, said Jefferson, said Franklin, said the people and congress of *76."24 * In this passage
Wright invoked her trinity as a source of power against the clergy whom she so bitterly opposed. Her classic triune combined the founding fathers (the father), the people (the sons), and the congress (the spirit) into a system which found its inspiration in the Declaration of Independence
(her holy writ). From this source she drew the kinds of arguments advanced by the revolutionaries and by pamphle teers like Paine with whom she agreed that the first and
22D’Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844, Preface, p. vii. 24Wright, "Of Free Inquiry," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 34. 91 noblest of human rights was the alteration of reason.33
Here and in the argument about granting education to women
who were daughters and human beings, she was trying to reach
the fundamental natural law involved; for how could parents
or people in general deny the same natural rights arguments
which had led to the American Revolution?33 of course she
was now dealing with people who were the "haves" and no
longer the "have nots" as they had been in 1774, so the
natural rights argument was no longer, so readily accepted as
it had been in the earlier circumstances. With the natural
rights plank laid in her platform of arguments, Frances
Wright closed her second lecture, promising one more in her
series on knowledge, a speech which would deal with the
"More Important Divisions and Essential Parts of
Knowledge."3?
In the course of her first two lectures Frances
Wright had expanded on ideas about knowledge and education,
33Wright, "Of Free Inquiry," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 37. 36Ibid.
3?Frances Wright, "Lectures on Knowledge. Lecture III. Of the more Important Divisions and Essential Parts of Knowledge," The Free Enquirer, I (8 April 1829; 15 April 1829), 185-87, 193-95; later the speech was also published as part of Course of Popular Lectures in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 38-53. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures. 92
or free enquiry, as she preferred to call it. In her third
and final Cincinnati lecture in the summer of 1828, which
was first given on Sunday, August 10, she moved to a consid
eration of what people ought to study in their inquiry after
knowledge. Since her theory of knowledge was sensationalist
in nature, there were only two areas to which Wright thought
study should be applied: (1) knowledge of oneself, i.e.,
the physical body; and (2) physics or knowledge of the
material world, which Frances Wright divided into chemistry,
natural philosophy, and natural history.28 What Frances
Wright proposed for ordinary people to study was at the time
far beyond the reach of most college students. When she
spoke of knowledge of oneself, she was perceiving a kind of
psychological explanation unknown in her day, not the arid
philosophical disputations on metaphysics which occupied so much time. Physics or knowledge of the material world was
somewhat more likely as a possibility, but to the sons of the wealthy. To Wright, however, it seemed an absolute necessity since all the world's ills could be cured only by the rigorous study of physical science.20 Perhaps it might be suggested that Frances Wright was a pioneer student of human nature who claimed to be a scientist, since to her the
66Wright, "Divisions of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 40.
3°lbid. 93
only facts were those ascertainable by the senses from the
surrounding natural world.
By the time of her third lecture, Wright was fully
aware of the wrath which the clergy and the conservative
press had kindled against her.
The consequences of the course of lectures I then first delivered, on three successive Sundays, in the Cincinnati courthouse, and re-delivered in the theatre, were similar to those which have been wit nessed elsewhere;—a kindling of wrath among the clergy, a reaction in favour of common sense on the part of their followers, an explosion of the public sentiment in favour of liberty, liberality, and in structional reform, and a complete exposure of the nothingness of the press, which, at a time when the popular mind was engrossed by questions of the first magnitude, sullenly evaded their discussion, betray ing alike ignorance the most gross, and servility the most shameless. All that I then observed, conspired to fix me in the determination of devoting my time and labour to the investigation and exposure of existing evils and abuses, and to the gradual devel opment of the first principles of all moral and physical truth, every where so perplexed and con founded by the sophistry of false learning, the craft of designing knavery, and the blunders of con ceited ignorance.40
She realized all whom she might provoke by her beliefs, but she was so dedicated to the cause of human improvement that she could do no other:
I am here to speak that for which some have not the courage and others not the independence. I am here, not to flatter the ear, but to probe the heart; not to minister to vanity, but to urge self-examination; assuredly, therefore, not to court applause, but to
40d«Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844, Preface, p. viii. 94
induce conviction. Must it be my misfortune to offend? bear in mind only that I do it for con science sake—for your sakes.4!
A careful listener at this point might have observed that while she earlier had invoked a trinity of her own, she was now describing herself in messianic terms as one who came to bring not peace, but a sword in order that the world might be saved.42
If Frances Wright did indeed perceive herself in messianic terms, she certainly conformed to the prophetic tradition, because in Lecture III, as in the two earlier lectures, she directly challenged the existing religious authorities. Indeed, like earlier prophets, she would des troy the institutions as they then existed. Knowing before hand the wrath which she was provoking, Wright nevertheless proposed that all the resources spent in useless investiga tions such as religion should be rechanneled into projects for the good of mankind. The churches consumed an estimated
$20,000,000 per year, so why not take that money and put it into some good work? Turn the churches themselves into halls of science, Wright suggested, where the people could spend
4lWright, "Divisions of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 44. 42Wright's challenge and her recognition of it was parallel in structure, as Frances Wright no doubt knew, to the assertion made in Matthew 10:34 in which Jesus reported ly said: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." 95
their days studying body, mind, and the world of matter.
Preachers should be turned out, because they were only hired
and paid to say what their backers wanted. They did not
have the interests of the people or the good of society at
heart, for all they cared about were their own selfish
interests and the perpetuation of their power. If they
could be terminated, the wasting of money stopped, and the
churches converted into useful institutions of study, then
the people could begin to fill the vacuums of their minds by
asking "why" of every experience which confronted them.43
The preachers would not be missed, for men and women
did not need them as guardians of morality because people
could ascertain what was good or evil on the basis of exper
ience. Wright therefore urged her hearers to go to church,
listen, and then decide if what they heard was worth
$20,000,000. Do away with the clergy and the churches, quit
building colleges for the erroneous education of the few,
and instead organize a society for the promotion of just
knowledge, which would build a hall of science and a school
of industry that could do far more good than all the churches
ever did.44
Considering the ideas which she put forward in these
43Wright, "Divisions of Knowledge," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 46-48. 44Ibid., pp. 51-52. 96 three lectures, it is little wonder that there was a kin dling of wrath against her in Cincinnati. Her propositions attacked the very bastions of the existing society and urged its overthrow. Like Thomas Paine, who suggested in Common
Sense that the paternity of kings would not bear looking into, Frances Wright was asserting that the costs of the churches would likewise not bear investigation.45
Frances Wright's first six months as a public speaker were nothing short of sensational. Whether this may be understood to mean success is another matter, but she certainly stirred excitement wherever she went. In addition, she fed the fires of controversy raging about her by reveal ing ideas even more startling than those which the public had already read in her published works. Wright's first address, given at New Harmony on July 4, 1828, was not out of the ordinary in its emphasis on American greatness, both past and future; but after her initial appearance in Cincin nati, public discussion about her became widespread. Simply for a woman to speak on the platform was unusual, if not revolutionary, and for her to address herself to the people as a self-proclaimed philosopher and prophet against insti tutionalized religion was to enter the camp of radical
45See Nelson F. Adkins, ed., Common Sense And Other Political Writings (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953). 97
activists. Based on her wide readings and her profound
confidence in man’s educability, Frances Wright's speeches
and the ideas in them were drawn from a vast reservoir of
reflection.
To her it seemed logical to request open education
for all including women, free inquiry and questioning, knowledge based on the senses, and abolition of religious beliefs. Religion was merely a body of opinion without any corpus of demonstrable support. How could people believe in something which they could not see, feel, hear, touch, or smell? Preachers, Wright asserted, were paid lackeys who espoused whatever causes their backers wished and they were of no use to the general public. Worst treated of all people, she proclaimed, were women, who were left uneducated and thus at the mercy of the clergy, that greatest species of quackery ever foisted off on mankind. The people would be far better off if they would give their money, time, and attention to a study of themselves and of the material world about them. Knowing that it was her mission to speak with out reticence and to probe the hearts of the people, Wright could not have been too surprised at the kindling of wrath aroused against her by her enemies. The public reacted negatively because a woman, doing the undoable, dared to speak the unspeakable. CHAPTER VI
THE JOURNEY OF A FREE ENQUIRER
The three lectures which Frances Wright gave in
Cincinnati during the summer of 1828 were repeated a number of times as she traveled the Ohio valley during the fall and then traced her way eastward toward New York via Wheeling,
Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Her reputation had so preceded her that when she announced a series of lectures at New
York's Park Street Theatre, one newspaper warned of possible dire consequences if such a person were allowed to lecture in public.1 In Louisville the previous fall when her oppo nents had tried to panic the audience by screaming fire, Wright remained calm and prevented hysteria.2 She lectured in spite of the warnings, beginning on January 10, 1829, and for the next five Saturdays, delivering her three lectures on knowledge, plus new ones on "Religion," "Morals," and
"Opinions." She became so upset with attacks against her
J-The Free Enquirer, 4 March 1829, p. 145, quotes the Evening Post of 26 January 1829. "'We are sorry to perceive from some of the morning papers, that Frances Wright means to persist in her determination to appear this evening at the theatre. We hope nothing will happen of a dangerous, or even of an unpleasant nature. We presume no modest woman will be seen there.'"
2 The New-Harmony Gazette, 15 October 1828, p. 404.
98 99
that after the close of her third lecture on knowledge, and
again after the presentation on "Religion," she delivered
some brief remarks entitled "Reply to the Traducers of the
French Reformers of the Year 1789."3
Wright was disturbed because her opponents among the
clergy and the supporters of religion were trying to blacken
her name by labelling her a fomenter of social unrest.
These ad hominem attacks were puzzling to Frances Wright,
because those persons who enjoyed liberty because of the
glorious American Revolution were turning their backs on it.
One critic in the New York Evening Post appeared to be advo
cating "feudal despotism" as he classified "political revol
utions among the crimes most inimical to man and odious to God."4 Worse than that, however, the "spiritual oracle"
[Wright’s terminology] who criticized her was slandering the
heroes of the French revolution who had upheld the same
principles as those "signed by a Franklin, an Adams, a Jefferson, and all the worthies of *76."5 How could the
people of liberty's land believe such "execration and oppro brium?"6 How could they believe such writing, when its only
3Frances Wright, "Reply to the Traducers of the French Reformers of the Year 1789," in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844 (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp. 158-60. 4Ibid., p. 159. 5Ibid.
6Ibid. 100 purpose was to serve clerical ambition?? Frances Wright was
worried because too many people believed what they read in the papers and too few were willing to inquire and learn.8
Given what she was saying about religion, it is not
too surprising that Wright received such virulent criticism
in New York and elsewhere. Her speech on "Religion" contin
ued the same anti-clerical themes which had been contained in the first three lectures on knowledge.0 In delivering
her remarks on religion, Wright hoped that the audience had
heard her three earlier lectures, but since she could not be
certain of that, she explained how difficult it was for
those first learning of free enquiry to follow her remarks.
Nevertheless, the quest was necessary, "error and misery
being inseparable companions, and knowledge and happiness the same."!0
Wright informed her audience that the ancient Greeks were as wanting in logic and physics as some modern "dogmat
ical deciaimers."}-}- She explained her belief that books
resting on Greek logic and philosophy were still used in
?Wright, "Reply to the Traducers of the French Reformers of the Year 1789," in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844, p. 160. 8Ibid.
°Frances Wright, "Lecture IV. Religion," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 53-68. }-°Ibid., p. 55. Hlbid., p. 56. 101
schools, so that "we [are] still in the habit of imparting
to a child a first idea of number through the medium of
allegorical ciphers, instead of tangible and visible
objects."12 Why not, she suggested, give a child an orange
and a knife, so they might learn parts of a whole in a practical manner?13
Wherever the senses are awakened, there is danger to
despotism, warned Frances Wright, and, therefore, the des
pots will not have it. She gave as her example the case of
the Swiss educator, Pestalozzi, whose educational reforms
had been rejected everywhere because they opened the minds of the people.14 In America as in Europe, the teachers of
superstition have impeded progress. Those whose senses have been educated do not make docile subjects for kings and
faithful disciples of priests.
Another reason for Wright's concern about religion was. because of her calculations that it engulfed more "money and more time, than any subject which ever agitated the
12Wright, "Religion," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 57. 13Ibid.
14Pestalozzi*s educational theory was a mixture of Christian piety and practical learning based on the senses, i.e., give a child supportive love plus an orange divided into sections and he will learn fractions more quickly than by any learned process of abstract reasoning. For a brief discussion of Pestalozzi, see Robert Ulich, "Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), VI, 121-22. 102 inquiring mind of man."25 How could this be, she wondered,
since religion was not a science, not knowledge made up of
things known? "Things known, constitute knowledge; and here
is a science treating of things unseen, unfelt, incompre-
hended! Such cannot be knowledge.Il2-6
What disturbed Frances Wright all the more (even as
she was disturbing the religious authorities) was all the
evils which had been done in the name of religion. Religion
so confounded the intellect that nations went to war in its name, pitting nation against nation and brother against brother. Women were the especial objects of religion’s curse, for they were drawn by priestcraft into the church where they were held helpless, driven mad and sometimes turned against their husbands.2-? Millions of dollars were wasted every year on religion with nothing coming back in return. To Frances Wright it would be the wiser course to turn away from the consideration of nothing to a considera tion of knowledge and the facts. Let the book of nature be the bible, one’s conscience the priest, and a hall of science the most orthodox church.
If Frances Wright’s enemies thought they could threaten, her into silence by their attacks in the newspapers,
^Wright, "Religion," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 60.
l^Ibid., p. 63. 17 Ibid., p. 64. 103
they were wrong. A week after giving her lectures on "Reli gion," she returned to inform her audience about "Morals."!8
Her purpose was to offer a rule of life as a substitute for
religion, since that subject was an .untrustworthy guide out
side the realm of the known. To Wright the answer appeared
to be available through the study of morals, the science of
human actions and human life.
Frances Wright's ideas at this point were revealed
more clearly than they had been since some sections of Views.
She plainly stated that it was with Epicurus that the
science of morals was found based upon its just foundations
—"the ascertained consequences of human actions."!0 Morals
as she understood them from Epicurus were a rule of life, a course of action beneficial to one's self.20 Morals, how
ever, were not the same as Religion, for by Wright's defini
tion, religion was "a belief in, and homage rendered to,
existences unseen and causes unknown."2! In a statement
!8Frances Wright, "Lecture V. Morals," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 69-84. From the available dates it appears that the lectures were given on successive Satur day evenings. Since it is known that the lecture on "Reli gion" was given on Saturday, 31 January 1829, it may be suggested that the three lectures "On Knowledge" had been given on 10 January, 17 January, and 24 January, while that on "morals" was delivered on 6 February 1829, followed on 13 February by the speech on "Opinions."
!°Ibid., p. 72. 20ibid.
2llbid., p. 73. 104
which sounds quite modern, she insisted on the importance of
accurate language, for without it there could be no accurate
ideas.22 Religion by Frances Wright’s definition was a mode
of belief, while morals was a just mode of practice.23
The listeners in Wright's audience who were sympa
thetic to religion must have recoiled in horror at her dis
missal of all religions as mere collections of laws which
really offered no operational principles of life. Her
position was simplicity itself, since every action could be
judged by the same standard of how it affected human happi
ness. As she put it:
How come we at a knowledge of virtue? By our sensa tions. What constitutes moral good? A course of actions producing beneficial results. What moral evil? A course of actions whose results are injuri ous. 24
Frances Wright's morals, or the science of human life, may have been simple in basic assumption, but she was in effect calling for a revolution in social structure.
Until some measures shall be adopted for the judi cious and equal instruction and protection of every son and daughter born to the Republic, ye cannot be (as I conceive) Republicans. Until exclusive col leges, paltry common schools, ignorant Sunday schools, and sectarian churches, be replaced by state institutions, founded by a general tax and supported by the same, (so long as it shall be nec essary—that is, till the well regulated industry of
22Wright, "Morals," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 73.
23Ibid. 24Ibid., p. 79. 105
the children shall meet the expenses of their educa tion;) and until, in these national institutions, the child of your Governor shall be raised with the child of your farmer, and the child of your Presi dent with that of your mechanic, ye cannot be (as I conceive) Republicans. And farther, until ye have good libraries and good teachers of elementary science in all your towns, for the mental improvement of the existing generation, and popular halls of assembly, where all adults may meet for the study and discussion of their social and national interests, as fellow creatures, and fellow citizens ye cannot be (as I conceive) Republicans.25
In the last lecture of the series given in early
1829, Frances Wright considered the "Formation of Opin ions."26 She was particularly concerned about the subject since so much of the strife between individuals took place because of strongly held opinions.
For eighteen centuries and upwards, the nations styled civilized, have waged a war of opinion, dying the altars of their faith with each other’s blood, or, in their gentlest mood, in this freest country, and in this (compared with all the past) enlightened age, judging in severity, sentencing in bitterness, and persecuting, by angry word and oppressive deed, each his fellow creature.27
To Wright it appeared that "persecution for opinion is the master vice of society."22 What puzzled Wright most was the anger precipitated by opinion, while the people argued little about the knowledge which they possessed.
25Wright, "Morals," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 83. 26Frances Wright, "Lecture VI. Formation of Opin ions," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 84-101.
27 Ibid., p. 84. 28Ibid., p. 85. 106
In Wright's view at least, the most opinionated
persecution in every country was always practiced by the
priesthood.29 Wright was largely speaking from experience
in this lecture, or so it would appear, for her anti-cleri
calism was so radical that she blamed all the world's diffi
culties on those teachers of opinions who called themselves
priests. The clergy responded in kind and Wright retorted
with her assertions about the viciousness of the priests and
the absolute worthlessness of religion, or a collection of
opinions as she called it.20 As if it were not enough that
she damned them for their narrowmindedness, she also
20The origins of Frances Wright's anti-clericalism lie somewhere in her early life. When she was about seven years old, an older lady was attempting to instruct her in things sacred by telling her much about God and God's son. The inquisitive Miss Wright listened carefully, and then asked her instructor if she would tell her about God's wife! Needless to say, the dear soul was at a loss for words. See Frances Wright, "Notes from my Pocketbook," The Free Enquirer, 17 December 1828, p. 57. Her refusal to tour Italy in 1818 (rather than America) was based in part on her repugnance at a country ruled by the "leaden sceptre of the church." There was, moreover, her father's experience with the established church in the controversy over Paine's Rights of Man. During her adolescent years, she became a disciple of Epicurus and accepted his teachings on knowledge as derived from the senses only, a position at the opposite pole from the faith demands of the church. Her later read ing, observations, and experiences would serve only to strengthen her established belief.
S^For examples of the charges and counter-charges between Wright and the clergy, see The Free Enquirer, 15 October 1828, p. 404; 18 July 1827, pp. 324-25; 25 February 1829, p. 144; 12 August 1829, pp. 329-32; 2 September 1829, pp. 357-60; 8 September 1829, pp. 365-66. 107 dismissed the missionary efforts both in the United States and foreign countries as of no value.31 That opinion was guaranteed to arouse additional controversy since the
Protestant denominations of North America, were in the early stages of their missions program. By what right, she asked, did the churches send out missionaries to foster strife in countries around the globe? Why not send out peaceful in structors in the useful arts, and until that is possible, send none at all?32
Wright did not denounce the clergy as men, but as part of a system.
I have denounced the system which splits this nation into parties, which encourages and authorizes indi viduals, under the plea of serving God and teaching faith, to injure what I believe the interests of man, and darken what every mind blessed with intelligence knows to be the light of truth. I have not denounced the clergy as men. I have denounced them as an or ganized body. As a body, set apart from the people, with other interests, other duties, other feelings. I have not denounced them as men—so help me that spirit of charity which I trust by my lip or my pen hath never been profaned! but I have denounced and (so help me the spirit of truth which arms me to fight this battle in its cause!) so will I denounce them, as the organs and ostensible representatives of a pernicious system, which is driving the moral character, and shaking the political frame of this nation, to its dissolution.33
Now, warned Wright, this cunning, secret influence
31Wright, "Opinions," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 92.
32 Ibid., p. 93. 33 Ibid., p. 97. 108
is ruining the people by postulating Sunday blue laws,
outlawing healthy amusements, and making Sunday a day of
penance.34 to Frances Wright, the worst feature of all this
was that it eliminated the possibility of a day in which the
people could improve their minds.
Thus, in the absence of innocent diversion, or im proving study, driving men. to intoxication, women to scandal, or to silly, sentimental, reason-confound ing novels, half filled with romance and half with superstition, and by dint of fatiguing the mind with irrational doctrines, and tedious exhortations, dis gusting youth with all instruction, and turning it loose upon a corrupt world with no light for its reason, no rein for its passions, no prop for its integrity.35
The very persons who make so much of keeping the Sabbath are
the same kinds of people who condemned Jesus for his actions
while he was alive, yet they claim to be acting in his
name.36 Wright was so bold as to suggest that if Jesus
entered New York in 1829, he would denounce the clergy of
that day as he had that in his own.
Frances Wright's own religious position was clear
and simple:
My friends, I am no Christian, in the sense usually attached to the word. I am neither Jew nor Gentile,
34wright, "Opinions," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 98. 35lbid., p. 99.
36ibid. Here Wright assumes her audience is famil iar with the story from Matthew 12:1-7 in which the reli gious leaders criticized Jesus for picking grain on the Sabbath. 109
Mahomedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family, and would accept of truth by whomsoever offered—that truth which we can all find, if we will but seek--in things, not in words; in nature, not in human imagination; in our own hearts, not in temples made with hands.6?
Despite the opposition of the clergy and her own
frustrations at being criticized, Wright continued to plead
her cause. By late March of 1829 she had bought an old
church in the Bowery and had begun remodeling it as the Hall of Science about which she had spoken.68 Her remarks at its
opening on Sunday, April 26, 1829, reflected her pride that
a building raised and consecrated to a sectarian faith had been transformed into a temple devoted to universal knowledge.60
Wright’s confidence in the future of the new endeav or was supported by her continued belief in the self-govern ment and political freedom of the United States. In this reference she was repeating the same theme of republican greatness which she had drawn from Botta and Ramsay and stated so often in Views and her earlier works. Her only warning to her hearers was that all should come to the hall
6?Wright, "Opinions," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 100-01. 68By an announcement in The Free Enquirer, 25 March 1829, p. 174, it is known that the old church had been pur chased. ^Frances Wright, "Address III," Delivered at the opening of the Hall of Science, New York, on Sunday, April 26, 1829, in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 140. 110
on an equal footing as humble learners who should not specu
late about what they did not know.43 Opinions were not to
be taught and disputed in the hall; all would learn the
facts of nature and themselves,. be led to first principles
and then draw their own conclusions from which they might select and keep their own private opinions.41
In this dedicatory address at the Hall of Science,
Frances Wright underscored the purpose of the building: whenever the building should
be occupied by a teacher, nominated by the trustees as a popular instructor, . it would appear to me de sirable that this subject should be invariable one of explanation, not of disputation—one whose text shall be chosen within the pale of knowledge, not sought in the limbo of opinions.42
The hall was closed to discussions of religion and of party politics since both subjects led to disputes and quarrel ing.43 Morals (the science of human life) was to replace religion.44 Without the benefit of the hall to improve society, all men and women could not be brought to under stand the first principles of 1776.4® It was the hope of
Frances Wright that the Hall of Science would be preparatory
43Wright, "Address III," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 144. 41Ibid., pp. 148-49. 42Ibid., p. 151.
43Ibid., p. 152. 44Ibid., p. 153.
43Ibid. Here again Wright is referring to the Declaration of Independence. Ill
to national institutions of a similar kind where all the
children of the land might be trained together as one family.46
Shortly after the dedication of the Hall of Science,
Wright journeyed to Philadelphia where she gave her six
lectures on knowledge, and for the first time, added a seventh, entitled "Of Existing Evils, and their Remedy."4?
Inasmuch as a number of the ideas in "Of Existing Evils" had already been expressed in a series of short newspaper articles, the opening paragraphs of the new lecture was a restatement of criticism already leveled against existing opinions of the day, the clergy, and prevailing ignorance.48
Nevertheless, Frances Wright could not forget the setting in which she spoke, for she was in Philadelphia, the birthplace of liberty, where "Jefferson penned the glorious declaration
46Wright, "Address III," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 155. 4?Frances Wright, "Lecture VII. Of Existing Evils, and their Remedy," The Free Enquirer, II (12 December 1829), 49-53; later the speech was also published as part of Course of Popular Lectures in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 101- 16. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures. Per kins and Wolfson incorrectly date this speech on July 4, 1829; it was actually delivered on July 2, 1829, and another address on the Declaration of Independence was given on July 4, 1829. See Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 126.
4 R For the newspaper articles see The Free Enquirer, 18 March 1829, p. 166; 25 March 1829, pp. 174-75; 1 April 1829, pp. 183-84; 15 April 1829, pp. 198-99, 205-06. 112 which awoke this nation, and the world."40 She reminded her listeners that they were descendants of the founding fathers and inhabitants of a city founded by that great statesman,
William Penn. Indeed, Wright tried to inspire feelings of national pride in her audience by invoking the name of the
Declaration and then warning them that the United States was fast following the footsteps of Europe by drawing away from the principles of liberty. She was now drawing on her stan dard "rising glory of America" theme in an effort to arouse people to action.
It was in this speech that the ever positive Frances
Wright expressed despair about the future of America for the first time, admitting her fears about the failure of the
United States to live up to the dream of '76. In Wright's public writings and speeches up until this time, she had constantly asserted her belief that in the cradle of democ racy the worst of old Europe could be escaped and a new world made. By June of 1829, she seems to have begun to doubt. She reminded her listeners of how she first visited
America in hope of escaping the unjust power of European aristocracy, and had, she thought, found political liberty.
After her second visit had become long term, however, she was disturbed.
40Wright, "Of Existing Evils," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 103. 113
The result of my observation has been the conviction, that the reform commenced at the revolution of '76 has been but little improved through the term of years which have succeeded; that the national policy of the country was then indeed changed, but that its social economy has remained such as it was in the days of its European vassalage.33
Frances Wright was depressed and disillusioned be cause America had remained too much like England. Her religion was the same as that of "monarchical England,"
American law was English law, and the educational systems were the same—controlled by the priests, who also dominated the press.31 Indicative of her despondency was her observa tion on social stratification, which was a marked contrast to the egalitarian tone of Views.
And more, my friends, see we not, in this nation of confederated freemen, as many distinctions of class as afflict the aristocracies of Britain, or the des potisms of the Russias; and more distinctions of sect than ever cursed all the nations of Europe to gether, from the preaching of Peter the hermit, to the trances of Madame Knudner, or the miracles of Prince Hohenlohe.32
Although the Declaration of ’76 had opened the gates of the temple of liberty, they had not been entered. It was still possible in the United States, however, if the people would enter upon a program of national, rational education for all, based upon the principle that all men are free and
®3Wright, "Of Existing Evils," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 105.
51 Ibid., pp. 105-06. 32Ibid., p. 106. 114
equal. She was certain that the people of Philadelphia to
whom she was speaking knew the existence of evil because a
town meeting committee headed by Matthew Carey (the pub
lisher) had just revealed a report showing the problems of
the town. If the birthplace of democracy had such difficul
ties, what hope was there for the rest of the nation?26
Saddened as she may have been about her adopted
country's shortcomings, Wright still thought there was a
chance for reform through education.
A Free people may boast that all power is in their hands; but no effectual power can be in their hands until knowledge be in their minds. . . . Such effec tive knowledge as shall render apparent to all the interests of all, and demonstrate the simple truths —that a nation to be strong, must be united; to be united, must be equal in condition; to be equal in condition, must be similar in habits and in feeling; to be similar in habits and in feeling, must be raised in national institutions, as the children of a common family, and citizens of a common countryT^^
Her idea was the creation of nationally supported schools into which children as young as two would be placed and would then pass through the succeeding schools without paren tal interference. She would raise the money for this by a double tax, a head tax on each child payable by the parents and a graduated tax on property.55 Wright believed the functioning of such an educational system would bring the
53wright, "Of Existing Evils," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 106-07.
54ibid., pp. 109-10. Hlbid. , p. 115. 115
reforms she had so long desired and the dream she had so
long held—a nation of free institutions.56
A little over a month later, Frances Wright gave
another address to the citizens of Philadelphia on the
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.57 There was
a marked contrast between this presentation and her first
"Fourth of July Address" given in 1828. In that first of her public speeches she had praised the Declaration of '76 and the people who lived under it as possessed of unique liberties. By July 4, 1829, however, she was no longer so optimistic; rather than affirming the principles of the
Declaration as in existence, she placed it in the future—
"Let this so be; for this is not yet."52 Although Americans are looked to all over the globe because of the ideals of their revolution, they have not yet lived up to their expec tations. "The cry of misery hath gone up from the land; and that cry is your condemnation."52 She was confident, how ever, that the goals could still be reached, for as she had
56Wright, "Of Existing Evils," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 116. 57According to Frances Wright, she delivered no other speech before the July 4th address except that "On Existing Evils" in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 139. Of course she may have delivered "On Existing Evils" several times. 59 52Wright, "Fourth of July Address," 1829, in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 128. 59Ibid., p. 131. 116
affirmed in her "Fourth of July Address" in 1828, the govern
ment and the people possessed the principle of improvement
and change, which could bring about the desired reforms and
create the nation free and equal.®3
However much hope for the future she expressed,
Wright's condemnation of current practices was biting.
Officials were being elected by only those men from a class whose interests were opposed to the nation as a whole.
"What have your popular elections to office, as yet, pro duced, but a system of electioneering?—the very word breathing of vice and venality."®1 Newspaper writers, more over, were writing for the public taste, not in search of the truth, lest they be attacked by every priest, lawyer, and politician in the land.®2
This does not have to be, Wright reminded her hear ers, for the founders of the country had deemed it otherwise in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution later adopted.®3 The only flaw in the system, according to
Wright, was that no system of general education had been provided whereby the people could be trained to exercise their faculty and elect representatives who would fulfill
33Wright, "Fourth of July Address," 1829, in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 133. ®1Ibid., p. 134. ®2Ibid.
®3Ibid., p. 135. 117
the destinies of the nation.6^ it is Up to the people of
the time to include the right of equal instruction among the
human rights guaranteed in the Constitution and then see to
their implementation by adding a system of republican in
struction to the republican government.
Wright believed that it was her duty to warn the people of the changes that needed to be made in order to realize liberty.
Conceiving, as I do, rational education to comprise the whole duty of man, to involve the principles of all law, all liberty, all virtue, and all happiness —to present the only possible cure for every vice in our existing practice, error in our opinions, and evil in our condition, I could not, on this day, speak of your national institutions without advert ing to an omission which it behoves you to supply, and which, by the light emitted from this charter, you may see to frame in unison with human nature, with human liberty, and with republican equality. Until this great oversight be rectified, the rev olution we this day commemorate will be incomplete and insufficient; the "declaration" contained in this instrument will be void.65
From the cradle of liberty at Philadelphia to the birthplace of revolution at Boston, Frances Wright swung north on her lecture tour. After giving her standard six lectures on knowledge in Boston she returned to Philadelphia where on September 25, 1829, she gave some introductory remarks and then delivered "On the State of the Public Mind
64wright, "Fourth of July Address," 1829, in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 135-36.
65Ibid., pp. 139-40. 118 and the Measures Which It Calls For."66 Her introductory
remarks were necessary because she had been scheduled to
deliver her lecture at the Walnut Street Theater on Sunday,
September 13, but her enemies had manipulated the closing
of the hall.6? As Wright saw it, her constitutional rights
had been violated by the people who had closed the theater
to her.
In this address as in her earlier ones, Wright was
concerned with her familiar themes: Man’s positive nature,
the possibilities of his improvement, and the magnificent
accomplishments of mankind. Yet, she warned, mankind had
sometimes been led astray, particularly by those teaching
that chimera called religion. Now, fortunately, men are becoming aware of that difficulty, for they are suspicious of the priest for his craft, the rich man for his hoard, and the politician for his influence.68 Frances Wright saw the
66prances Wright, "Introductory Remarks," The Free Enquirer, I (14 October 1829), 401-02; "Address on the State of the Public Mind, and the Measures Which It Calls For," The Free Enquirer, II (24 July 1830; 31 July 1830), 305-06, 313-15; later the speech was also published as part of Supplement Course of Lectures, Containing the Last Four Lec tures Delivered in the United States in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 169-83. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures. 6?Wright, "Introductory Remarks," The Free Enquirer, 14 October 1829, p. 401. 68Wright, "State of the Public Mind," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 174. 119
public as oppressed from every side, for the expansion of
business threatened the small capitalist,.the banks were a
source of industrial depression and national demoralization,
the professional aristocracy (priests, lawyers, and aspi
rants to law) interfered with the rights of man to the false
advantage of the few, and a false system of education had been stolen from aristocratic Europe.®® Hopefully, the
children of the men of 1776 will not let their freedoms go,
she said. Yet she would not want them to resort to revolu tion to recapture their freedoms; but accomplish their rescue by acting through their legislatures, united in favor of a plan for universal republican education, which would relieve the present generation and work for the improvement of the next.
What Frances Wright proposed to her audience was that they organize themselves into a union for the public good. Her model was taken directly from the actions of
Americans before the Revolution, a scenario which was readily available in both Botta and Ramsay.
I would suggest the propriety of organizing in each city, town, and district of influence, popular asso ciations, for the simple object of discovering and promoting the true interests of the American people, distinct from all class, all sect, all party, and all speculative opinions. That, the better to im part energy and unity of plan to the whole, a central
®9Wright, "State of the Public Mind," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 176-77. 120
point be chosen, say Philadelphia, that city appear ing the best prepared to take the lead; and that, by means of standing committees, a correspondence be tween that centre and all parts of the country be opened. . . .70
Frances Wright, the optimistic traveler of Views, had certainly changed. She was in effect counselling an organization aimed at political revolution. The depth of her disillusionment in the fall of 1829 is in part reflected in an address which she gave in New York at the Hall of
Science on October 18, 1829. In preparation for a long absence while she took the slaves from Nashoba to Haiti,
Wright explained her loss of faith in the American character.
She admitted that her attention to Negro slavery, according to her present judgment, "savored more of young enthusiasm than mature judgment."71 To her great disappointment, she admitted that there was an immense gap between American governmental theory and its development into practice. She had also been wrong in judging too hopefully about America in her first book. After a decade of exposure to American society, she saw evils other than slavery which could only be remedied by "the rational training of youth and, so far
70wright, "State of the Public Mind," in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 181-82.
?lFrances Wright, "Address Delivered at the New York Hall of Science on Sunday the 18th October 1829," The Free Enquirer, 31 October 1829, p. 1. 121 as possible, the instructional improvement of the present generation."?2
Wright explained that she was taking the slaves from
Nashoba to Haiti, because free black persons were not safe in the United States. They might be captured and resold into slavery or thrown into jail for resisting a white man who tried to seize, them and throw them into slavery. On her western journey to New Orleans she planned to speak along the way in order to awaken the people to the needs for a rational, national education.
"Not one, the worst of human errors—to look no farther than the country we inhabit, but, directly, or in directly, is fostered by the influence of the priesthood."73
Idleness, vice, disunion and corruption are all the result of the tribe of Levi. In Europe the priesthood is backed by kings and has spread bloodshed and death across the land.
The priest of America, on the other hand, stands, in the power of his craft alone, to protect an altar robbed of its main supports—a King, nobility and standing army; without the power of setting bayonets in motion, of instigating massacres, or even of en closing within prison walls the friends of peace and common sense, all his hope of saddling the con sciences of men is by misleading their minds, wring ing from their credulity money wherewith afterwards to undermine their honesty, and instigating them, by
?2wright, "Address Delivered at the New York Hall of Science on Sunday the 18th October 1829," The Free Enquirer, 31 October 1829, p. 1.
?6Ibid., p. 2. 122
alternate coaxing and threatning, to the murder of their own liberties, and to the sacrifice of all the knowledge, the joys and the peace of earth for the prospect of a throne, a harp and an incomprehensible vision in some unknown world which he is pleased to call a heaven.?4
The priest whose influence was already everywhere was
pushing his power into Washington. Wright perceived the
soul of priestcraft to be betrayed by the "sabbath mail question."?® The speaker warned her hearers to beware the
clergy for they had to have a day set aside or they could
not survive.
Allow men and women to seek rational instruction and healthy recreation on the day of which he claims ex clusive occupancy, and how long think you before the churches should show empty benches, and the clergy feel empty pockets??®
Wright was convinced that the clergy had envisioned a plan
wedding church and state in America in order to further
their schemes.
Frances Wright candidly admitted that it was her
primary object to overthrow priestcraft;—to hasten the downfall of the clergy, to empty their coffers, to sap their influence, to annihilate their trade and calling, and to render the odiousness of their profession apparent to all eyes—even, if possible, to their own. ... With their faith I meddle not, and would counsel them not to meddle with the faith of each other. But with the craft of their priests,
?4Wright, "Address Delivered at the New York Hall of Science on Sunday the 18th October 1829," The Free Enquirer, 31 October 1829, p. 3.
?5Ibid. ?®Ibid., p. 4. 123
I must meddle, and that for the good of those who are its victims.77
For the next six months, Frances Wright undertook a long and difficult journey westward to Pittsburg, then down river to pick up the slaves from Nashoba, taking them first to New Orleans, where she arrived early in January, 1830.
From New Orleans, she, William Phiquepal D'Arusmont, and the slaves embarked for Haiti.78
It was not until May 9, 1830, that Frances Wright once again delivered an address at the Hall of Science. Her title was "A Review of the Times," in which she attempted to defend herself against those who had criticized her in her absence. Early in the address she revived a bit of her youthful enthusiasm for America by asserting that the "dis tinctive characteristic of a free people shines forth in every epoch of American history."79 The people are one
77Wright, "Address Delivered at the New York Hall of Science on Sunday the 18th October 1829," The Free Enquirer, 31 October 1829, p. 4.
78william Randall Waterman, Frances Wright (1924; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967), p. 182.
79Frances Wright, "Address, Containing A Review of the Times," The Free Enquirer, II (7 August 1830; 14 August 1830), 321-23, 329-30; later the speech was also published as part of Supplement Course of Lectures, Containing the Last Four Lectures Delivered in the United States in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 184-97. This particular quotation is from p. 186. Her examples only encompass the years 1607- 1815. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures. 124
thing, but the clergy are another, for they are "freedom's ' worst enemy."60 The example of Washington was offered as one of the nation's leaders who would not identify himself with Christianity because he was not a Christian—-"that is: he believed not in the priest's God, nor in the divine authority of the priest's book."6l All the founding fathers, she insisted, were infidels according to priestly ideals.
Wright knew that her words would be misinterpreted, so she asked her hearers not to misunderstand her meaning— she was only asking for knowledge in the place of opinion.62
But her enemies had nothing to accuse her of, so they accused her of infidelity.66 As a further attempt to wound her, the opposition had coupled the epithet of infidelity with the accusation of agrarianism, two charges which Wright dismissed.64
A month later Wright again lectured at the Hall of Science, offering an address directed "To Young Mechanics."66
Her reasons for occasionally addressing herself specifically
°°Wright, "Address, Containing A Review of the Times," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 188. 81Ibid., p. 190. 62Ibid., pp. 192-93.
66Ibid., p. 195. 84Ibid., p. 197.
86Frances Wright, "An Address to Young Mechanics," The Free Enquirer, II (4 September 1830), 353-55; later the speech was also published as part of Supplement Course of Lectures, Containing the Last Four Lectures Delivered in the United States in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 198-205. 125
to the working classes were that they made up a large bloc
and that they "are more nearly approached to the great
natural interests of man ..." It was her hope that
during her forthcoming absence in Europe the people who
supported the Hall of Science would continue to do so and
bring in good public speakers.
Frances Wright's last public address in 1830 was
delivered in late June, just before her departure for Europe
The place was the Bowery Theater, and Wright stood on the
stage as she had so often done with the Declaration of Inde
pendence beside her.87 She reminded her audience that as
sponsors for the human race they stood pledged to oppose
those
in our pulpits of sloth and of slander, in our col leges of exclusion, in our banks of dishonesty, in our law courts of extortion, in our legislatures of special pleading, in all and every of those anti- American institutions invented or perverted to favour the pretensions of the few, and to crush down the rights of the many.88
qr Wright, "An Address to Young Mechanics," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 198.
87Frances Wright, "Parting Address," The Free Enquirer, II (21 August 1830; 28 August 1830), 337-39, 345- 47; later the speech was also published as part of Supple ment Course of Lectures, Containing the Last Four Lectures Delivered in the United States in Life, Letters and Lectures, pp. 206-20. In future references the page numbers will refer to the edition of the speech in Life, Letters and Lectures.
88 Ibid., p. 207. 126
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness needed once
again to be proclaimed, for in equal rights to all lay the
sum of human good. Add to that the universal improvement of
the human condition and Americans will have nothing to fear
from those who oppose them. Their object should be
practical equality, or, the universal and equal im provement of the condition of all, until, by the gradual change in the views and habits of men, and the change consequent upon the same, in the whole social arrangements of the body politic, the Ameri can people shall present, in another generation, but one class, and, as it were but one family—each inde pendent in his and her own thoughts, actions, rights, person, and possessions, and all cooperating, accord ing to their individual taste and ability, to the promotion of the common weal.82
What Frances Wright wanted for mankind was equal
rights, equal privileges, and equal enjoyments shared by all
on the face of the globe.90 This could be done only by a
system of rational and national republican education.22- Her hearers should be reminded that in all she had said and done
she had never claimed but one authority—the Declaration of
Independence. Nevertheless, she had been widely criticized and therefore hoped that her trip to Europe would allow her name to be dropped and the good interests of the people to progress.
During the eighteen months between her arrival in
22Wright, "Parting Address," in Life, Letters and Lectures, p. 216.
"ibid., p. 217. 91Ibid., p. 218. 127
New York in January, 1829, and her departure in July, 1830,
Frances Wright exhibited the first major modification of her
ideas about America. She had reached New York in good
spirits on New Year's Day, 1829, hopeful that The Free
Enquirer would flourish in the new setting and that her
speeches might arouse the people to reform. So bitter was
the opposition of the clergy and the criticism of some news
papers, that by mid-1829, she was beginning to doubt whether
the United States was the land of liberty which she had so
long envisioned. Then in the fall of 1829, she had to admit
that her experiment at Nashoba was such a major failure that
she was taking the slaves to Haiti where they would be given
their freedom. Upon her return to New York in the spring of
1830, she found her opponents more critical than ever.
After a brief period of speaking and editing, therefore, she elected to withdraw to Europe for a while. [Her reasons were not altogether intellectual: (1) Wright believed the working men's candidates would fare better in the fall elec tions if she were not present; (2) she was exhausted from her trip to Haiti and may have been suffering from her recurrent struggle with malaria; (3) Camilla was ill and needed attention; and (4) there is evidence to suggest that on the long sea voyage with D'Arusmont reason had been over come by romance and she was about three months pregnant.]
While Frances Wright regarded her withdrawal as only 128
temporary, she was in effect closing out her career as a
reformer and lecturer. Brief comeback attempts in 1836 and
1844 were failures. Her career had been short, brilliant, and provocative; had her listeners and readers bothered to look past the superficial, they would have found much to accept within the profound philosophy of Frances Wright. CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
When Frances Wright crossed the Atlantic in the
summer of 1830, accompanied by her sister and Phiquepal
D’Arusmont, she had, for all practical purposes, come to the
end of her reform career. She would return briefly to the
lecture platform in the late 1830's, but the old dynamism
was gone and few people came to hear her speak. The final
decade of her life would be lonely and bitter, as she fought
out a divorce settlement with D'Arusmont, was alienated from
her daughter, and spent her last years as a recluse, talking
to herself or lecturing to a kindly carpenter who happened
to be working on her house.1 What brought about this de
cline of vigor and mental powers along with a lapse into
virtual obscurity? Why, too, had she failed in her dream of
awakening American society to its potential as she saw it outlined in the Declaration of Independence? Why did this
first woman public speaker in the United States fade from view after only two years on the public platform? What, moreover, are the constraints that have prevented a more complete study of her intellectual framework?
Ijoel Brown, Manuscripts, Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, Ohio.
129 130 Whatever the reasons for her withdrawal from the
public scene, whether they were personal or philosophical,
she had certainly been in the glare of the world's spotlight
until then. Before beginning her speaking career she had
drawn public attention with her book about her first visit
to America and by her public activities against slavery.
Then, from July, 1828, until July, 1830, she had been a dy
namic public speaker whose appearances had attracted crowds
and controversies. Yet her impact was not a lasting one and
she aroused bitter enmity almost everywhere that she
appeared.
In order to better understand Frances Wright's thought and actions, an idea-centered approach has been followed in analyzing her rhetorical activities; the greatest care was taken in developing this strategy not to go beyond what was warranted by the evidence. Some of her critics, for example, asserted that nothing in her ideas was new, and that what she said "might, in substance, have been tran scribed from Hume, Locke, Newton, Euler, Davy, or even from
Butler's Analogy of Religion."2 However tempting it might be to follow up such suggested influences on Frances Wright, internal evidence in her works does not support such extrap olations. She was quite clear in tracing the development of
2The Free Enquirer, 12 August 1829, p. 329. 131
her basic ideas, explaining that before 1822 she had not
opened
the philosophical works of Voltaire and other French authors . . .; and the few English works in the sceptical, argumentative, or metaphysical style, which had fallen in my way, appeared to me obscure and insufferably dull and tedious. My own views of nature were simple conclusions of the mind, drawn from the study of chemistry and physics. . This will explain my continual reference to natural phenomena, in support of every view I may at any time have advanced; . . .3
If Frances Wright can be believed, she arrived at
her empiricism empirically and only later discovered that others agreed with her.4 it is from this theory of know
ledge, moreover, that Wright’s basic criticism of the church and the clergy came. Here, as in the case of possible in
fluences on her philosophical identity, care was taken not to fall prey to a faux amis by assuming that her anti-cleri calism might be the direct result of a particular individu al’s influence. It should be reiterated that she had com pleted the basic work on her Epicurean pamphlet by the time she was eighteen years old, which would have been five years before her first visit to America and eight years before she
^Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 2\ 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844 (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp. 5-6.
4The New-Harmony Gazette, 1 October 1828, pp. 389- 90. 132
met either Jeremy Bentham or the Marquis de Lafayette.®
Wright admitted that Bentham was influential in her life
after they became acquainted. Bentham was her "Old Socrates"
to whom she dedicated "A Few Days in Athens" when it was published in The New-Harmony Gazette.® There are, too,
clear expressions of a greatest good for greatest number
approach in several of her writings which suggest that some of Bentham*s ideas influenced her.
About the Marquis de Lafayette, however, the same cannot be said. While certain writers have suggested Lafay ette as the inspiration for Frances Wright's antislavery activities, there is nothing to support this in her writings.7 In Views for example, it was quite clear that
3D'Arusmont, Biography, No. _2, p. 5.
^Frances Wright, "A Few Days in Athens," The New- Harmony Gazette, II (4 October 1826; 10 October 1826; 18 October 1826; 25 October 1826; 1 November 1826; 8 November 1826; 15 November 1826; 22 November 1826; 6 December 1826; 13 December 1826; 20 December 1826; 27 December 1826; 21 March 1827; 28 March 1827; 4 April 1827; 11 April 1827), 9- 11; 17-18; 25-26; 33-34; 41-42; 49-50; 60-61; 74-75; 82-83; 89-90; 97-98; 193-94; 201-02; 209-12; 217-20; "Dedication.— To Jeremy Bentham, as a Testimony of her Admiration of his enlightened Sentiments, useful Labors, and active Philan thropy, and of her Gratitude for his Friendship, this Work is respectfully and affectionately inscribed by Frances Wright." 7See Edd Winfield Parks, "Dreamer's Vision: Frances Wright at Nashoba (1825-30)," Tennessee Historical Magazine, 2 (1932), 77; Sylva Camilla Guthrie, "Frances Wright at Nashoba," Thesis Columbia University 1946, p. 19; 0. B. Emerson, "Frances Wright and Her Nashoba Experiment," Ten nessee Historical Quarterly, 6 (1947), 298; William Randall Waterman, Frances Wright (1924; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967), pp. 94-95. 133 she abhored slavery; she had not yet met Lafayette. It might be noted, also, that Lafayette was not an intellectual mentor but a kindred spirit who had experienced the American
Revolution. As George Lefebvre has pointed out, Lafayette was only a symbol.
His sincerity, disinterestedness and generosity sur rounded him with a halo, but he was more a man of romantic illusions and somewhat juvenile vanity than of political skill or realistic sense. He was more a symbol than a leader.6
That seems precisely what he was for Frances Wright, a symbol of that marvelous time when men inspired by the
Declaration of Independence had established the land of freedom. There is no reference to any intellectual stimulus from Lafayette in any of her published works or in the ex tremely revealing letters published in 1975. Lafayette was for Wright a symbolic figure rather than a philosopher of revolution.
If Lafayette or Wright's experiences in France shaped her anti-clericalism, there is no reflection of it in her writings. Frances Wright's attitudes about the church, religion, and the clergy seemed to be shaped by three basic influences: (1) certain remembered experiences of her childhood; (2) her theory of knowledge, which had been
6George Lefebvre, The Coming of the French Revolu tion 1789, translated from the French by R. R. Palmer (New York: Vintage Books, 1947), p. 60. 134
arrived at before 1818; and, (3), her own mature observa
tions of the institutionalized church.
As a child, for example, she may not have been told
about her father's involvement with the religious and civil
authorities, but her mind was so turned to the practical
that impractical things made so sense. When she asked an
elder instructress about God's wife, for example, she re
ceived no satisfactory answer, she was demonstrating the kind of questioning which she would later carry to even greater lengths. Wright also was troubled by the presence of poverty in a world where wealth existed, wealth which the church could tap to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.
She was not happy with her uncle's answer that the poor were poor because they deserved no better.9
The sensationalist theory of knowledge which Wright espoused became crucial when she confronted the church as an opponent. To her what the church and its clergy asked people to believe was utter nonsense. The controversy with the church then fed on itself, because once Wright chal lenged the grounds on which the church and the clergy stood, then the matter could not be laid to rest until the Jezebel had been defeated. To Frances Wright, however, it seemed
9Joel Brown Manuscripts, pp. 18-21. 135
that all the clergy did was to become more absurd in their
arguments against her.
It was this experience with the church in America
that seemed to concretize Wright's anti-clerical perceptions
Although they should have shared resources against the com mon enemy of slavery, the religious institutions denounced
Frances Wright because of her immoral views on marriage and the family, not to mention her criticism of the church.
After her first speeches in Cincinnati, the more she criti cized the church, the harsher the religious strictures against Wright and so on.
Another of Frances Wright's fundamental problems was that she really did not understand the people to whom she spoke. Her assumptions about what her listeners thought and how they might react were posited in the realm of how it ought to be, not how it was. In this sense she was one of the most idealistic of the romantics, one whose perception of man was based on intellectual philosophizing, and not on firsthand interaction. Her rather naive romanticism was like many of the other reformers of her day who believed that man would freely chose to work out the perfectability of society. To admit this shortcoming on her part is to accuse her of failing in what she challenged her audiences to do, i.e., study one's self and the surrounding material world. As has been suggested earlier, Wright's knowledge of 136 most things was acquired in libraries, so that what she read of limited works about America (like Botta and Ramsay) be came her gospel and tinted her entire view of society in the
United States.
Because of her already described predispositions toward believing that America was truly the focal point of human liberty in the world, she looked only for proofs of her attitudes and either ignored or dismissed anything which ran contrary to her ideas. Assuming that all Americans were children of the Declaration of Independence and thus were ever ready to act upon its principles, Frances Wright chal lenged her audiences to labor on toward perfection. Unfor tunately for her, the people of America were not children of the Declaration of Independence in an intellectual sense or even in a political one. To most the Declaration of Inde pendence was a symbol of a glorious revolutionary past, not a creed for daily life. When she talked in philosophical terms about the historic document penned by the venerable
Jefferson, all who listened might nod in general agreement; but when she challenged her hearers to carry out the impli cations of the document in terms of rebuilding society, few, if any, were willing to go along with her.
Certain assumptions which she drew from the Declara tion simply were not compatible with the spirit of Jackson ian America. With respect to women, for example, Frances 137 Wright argued that they, too, deserved the promise of the
revolutionary generation. Under Thomas Jefferson’s rubric of ideas, suggested Wright, all persons were created free and equal. Education and general rights, therefore, should be extended equally to women as well as to men. Until this happened, prophesied Wright, American society could never
fulfill its potential for greatness. Here Frances Wright crossed the limit that American society was willing to tolerate in practice. In this connection she had already created something of a cause celebre by being on the plat form. Women simply did not appear in public situations, except to be seen, and never to be heard. Frances Wright, however, was making herself both seen and heard. She, un fortunately, was unwilling to accept less than an ideal model for American society. In 1818 she had come to America believing that the people of the country were busily engaged in building the perfect society and that they were willing to take any and all suggestions directed toward completion of that perfection. Further, in attempting to understand
Frances Wright, it should be noted that she persisted in this faith in American possibilities until 1829. Only after a year of bitter controversy did she finally admit that
America was not as she had believed it in the course of her first visit.
Whether she would have taken a different course had 138 her assessment of America been different is a matter for
speculation. So complete was her belief in American poten tial for goodness that she thought she could approach any reform subject without offending her earnest listeners.
America and Americans were simply not as liberal as Frances
Wright wanted to believe. It is in this connection that she committed her greatest strategic error. Most speakers and reformers of the day operated generally within the system, or within a sizeable movement, such as antislavery, which gave some measure of protection to those involved. Frances
Wright chose instead to take her course of extreme individu alism, which by itself might have been tolerated; but to it she added attacks on existing institutions, most notably the church.
More than anything else it was her criticism of the church and of the clergy which alienated her from the common people whom she professed to adore. In failing to assess the actual nature of the people who heard her, she made a fatal decision about what they were willing to tolerate on the part of the speaker. Wright’s frontal attack on organ ized religion was not readily acceptable by the majority of the people, or by any clear-cut minority. Indeed, if her criticism had been limited to the institution of the church and its wealth, or to corrupt clergymen alone, she might not have aroused so much wrath, but Frances Wright attacked both. 139 The most crucial mistake may have been in the assault on the men of the cloth. Lamenting about the millions disbursed by the church and how it might be better spent was not unheard of in the history of the world before Frances Wright; that approach might even have been supported by a few, but criti cizing both the church and the clergy brought down the wrath of the pulpiteers on her. Immediately she was personally vilified and castigated for any deviation from the norm by these keepers of public morality. It was not difficult at all for the clergymen to conclude and announce that if Wright were against them, then certainly she was against God, and, therefore, must be of the devil.
It may indeed be the Jezebel accusation that has long hindered researchers from accomplishing a really sub stantive look at the works of Frances Wright. Contemporary prejudice may cloud the perceptions of potential researchers and turn them to other subjects. Even as recently as last year the Memphis Press-Scimitar published a brief column which was entitled "Today, a Quiet Street; Then, a Memphis
Scandal."!0 The writer simply put together all the old tales, cliches, and rumors to write the usual stock-in-trade article about the notorious "Fanny Wright."
}-°Dave Hogan, "Today, a Quiet Street; Then, a Memphis Scandal," Memphis Press-Scimitar, 4 March 1976, pp. 1 & 6. 140
The irony in taking a scatalogical approach to the
life of Frances Wright is that one will be sorely disap pointed; if one seriously seeks the sources of the accusa
tions against her and attempts to document a scandalous life on her part, little of substance will be found. Such ad hominem attacks as labelling her the "red harlot of infidel ity" or the "priestess of Beelzebub" may have had their effects on contemporary audiences in keeping them away from lectures, but they certainly do not constitute the materials from which scholarly analyses are made.
What one does have to assess incoming to grips with
Frances Wright in terms of her success or failure, is not what people said she did, or even what she did, but the ideas and assumptions from which she operated. Indeed, it has been the purpose of this dissertation to do just that.
Imbued with an idealistic spirit about America drawn largely from reading Carlo Botta's book about the American Revolu tion, Frances Wright had come to the United States convinced that she would find the land of liberty. Her observations were fulfillments of her prior perceptions, so that she was not in the least critical of what she observed. After her first brief sojourn in America she withdrew to Europe, where she marveled with fellow idealists over the wonders of the
United States and the glorious triumphs wrought by revolu tion and democratic republicanism there. During this period 141
she had her philosophical attitudes confirmed by Jeremy
Bentham and her love for America shared by the Marquis de
Lafayette.
This European interlude from 1821 to 1824 served
only to reinforce Frances Wright's ideas, and so she came
back to the United States in 1824 no less idealistic than
she had been some six years earlier. Wright had so con
vinced herself of the republic's goodness and potential for
greatness that she believed the people could be persuaded to
follow her lead in eradicating slavery. Again, it should be
pointed out that this conclusion was reached on the basis of
intellectualizing rather than on the basis of research in
the marketplace. From her letters it appears that she con
cluded that the great evil could be eradicated. It would
appear, also, that during her first visit and the early part
of her second, Americans were simply too polite to her, for
they were reluctant to confront the rather charming and pleasant young visitor with the reality of the American ambiguity. They talked a great deal about liberty, but in day to day living they were not nearly so broadminded as they might appear to the observer who heard them involved in reflective conversation. It was not possible for politicians like the aged Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson to admit that they accepted slavery and that Wright was wasting her time.
They could not bring themselves to do it! 142 As has been suggested in earlier chapters, Frances
Wright's intellectual naivete led her to see things as she wanted them to be. One of the clearest examples of this came with regard to the model which she chose for her exper imental community. During her travels through the United
States she, like other European intellectuals, had been drawn to observe the several communitarian experiments then extant in the country. She had been most impressed by the accomplishments of the religious ones. Yet she noted only the achievements of the communities, i.e., their ends, not the means by which they realized them. Whether this was a failing of intellect or predisposition cannot be determined with absolute certainty; but, even with a clear warning from
James Madison, she did not recognize, or would not admit, that it was the religious philosophy which held these to gether under a charismatic leader. Because of her own theory of knowledge, she could not comprehend how persons lived out their lives in response to a faith in things unseen.
In this question as in most, one probably comes closest to an understanding of Frances Wright’s limitations by saying that she saw the skeleton but not the heart. Of her mistaken perception about the American people there can be no doubt. Even when she became disillusioned about the status of American society by the middle of 1829, she did not falter in her belief that all could be accomplished in 143 time if the American people applied their minds, wills, and
energies to the objective.
The present study has differed from earlier ones in
that it has attempted to trace Frances Wright's ideas from
the beginning to the end of her career as an activist.
Hopefully this has provided a framework out of which to take
another look at Wright's life and draw some different con
clusions. As a speaker and writer she held firmly, and
perhaps stubbornly to a basic set of ideas. It was these
beliefs about America, its people, the Declaration, women,
education, the clergy, and slavery that drove her on her
quest. However much her assumptions might have been misper
ceptions, these were Frances Wright's operational principles
and from these she was moved to action. The result may have
been unpopularity, rejection, and failure, but for Wright it
was the only course which she could follow, given the
premises on which she acted. Out of her convictions she
addressed her audiences, not out of a decision concerning what they might like to hear; out of intellectual con straints she wrote her newspaper articles and other essays,
not out of a hope for increased sales. As a result she was
a woman out of step with time who died an obscure failure.
Yet her contribution as a precursor should not be overlooked,
for however radical her ideas and actions may have been at
the time, later generations have adopted some of her beliefs
and accepted others. 144
In considering Frances Wright as a public speaker and rhetorical activist, it must be admitted that she was operating within a limited framework of ideas. After one has read a few of her speeches, it becomes apparent that she was saying the same things over and over again. In truth, there were really only five major topics which she addressed in her speeches and writings: (1) the Declaration of Inde pendence and American liberty; (2) the necessity of abolish ing slavery; (3) women and their role in society; (4) the church and the pernicious influence of the clergy; and (5) the need for a national, rational system of education.
Generally it may be suggested that there were some persons who shared Frances Wright's ideas, but few were willing to carry them as far as she did. With respect to the Declaration of Independence and its inherent principles, few would argue with Wright on theoretical grounds but few wished to apply the Declaration’s theories in an empirical setting. Frances Wright in her later years may have come very close to perceiving what Meyers has called the Jackson ian paradox—the clash between individual liberty and the marketplace.
During my first visit to America, I seemed to hear and see her declaration of independence every where. I studied her institutions, and mistook for the 145
energy of enlightened liberty what was, perhaps, rather the restlessness of commercial enterprise.H
Whatever she may have later realized, she espoused a positive view of America at a time when such a perspective was exceedingly popular. Hew Views was published before the strife of Jacksonian politics appeared on the scene and while the so-called Era of Good Feelings was still dominant.
While her friend Frances Trollope would bring down the wrath of the Americans because of her book, Wright's Views drew the praise of most Americans who read it. It was not the positive view of America that caused problems, but trying to put the principles of the Declaration into practice by giving equal rights to all, whether black or white, male or female. Americans were willing to talk about egalitarianism but not to practice it.
Her attempt to set up a community for freeing the slaves, moreover, was not popular in the slave states; what brought general disapproval was the equality of sexes and and races practiced there. The sensation associated with reported scandalous immorality was so great as to obscure the purpose for which Nashoba had been founded. Had Wright stayed there as leader-in-residence she might have con trolled the organization to a greater degree but its lack of
13-Frances Wright D'Arusmont, Life, Letters and Lec tures 1834/1844, Preface (1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp. v-vi. 146 cohesion doomed it even before it got under way. Nashoba
had resulted from Wright* s belief in the principles of the
Declaration, her faith in humanity, and her hatred of slav
ery. It failed because the Declaration was an outward sign
not indicative of an inward grace, because men talked about
equality but acted in a highly competitive way, because
antislavery was not yet a national crusade, and because of
bad publicity relating to alleged misbehavior at the commu
nity. There were in addition, the problems of poor location
and land, extreme climate, and disease.
In her defense of the Nashobans, Frances Wright also
reminded the public of another theme first introduced in
Views, the second class status of women. Especially in her
Explanatory Notes did Wright explain her belief that women
should be equal to and as free as men in all things. As she
had suggested in Views, the country could not achieve its
full measure of greatness until women had received every benefit extended to men. In this idea as in the case of antislavery, Frances Wright was a person far ahead of her
times. Women were still the "oven birds," and it was a repeated criticism of Wright that she should not be out in public speaking, but should be in a home caring for her family. However much the women of the day might cheer silently for Frances Wright, they were not yet ready to join her in a crusade for women’s rights. 147
The controversy in which Wright aroused most hostil
ity, and which was most damaging to her public image was
that with the church and the clergy. As has been suggested
earlier, this anti-clericalism may best be understood if
viewed as a matter of development through experiences over
time. From her childhood there had come a degree of skepti
cism to which she added an empirical approach to the world
during the intellectual gestation period of her adolescence.
But her anti-clericalism did not become passionate until re
fined by the fires of controversy after 1827. In this per
ception as in the case of egalitarianism, women's rights,
slavery, and education, Wright's ideas intensified rather
than changed during her career and seem best understood if viewed developmentally over time.
Education, also, was a case in point. Although
Frances Wright referred to the need for education in Views, the intensity of her feelings developed slowly, so that toward the end of her career she was advocating a national system of education based on equality of opportunity for all.
There was no change in her basic idea, but there was a more inclusive perception and an increased pitch of demand, i.e., it had to be done, for until it was accomplished the country could not achieve its potential for greatness.
The narrowness of her intellectual base and the inflexibility of her operational principles comprise one of 148
the reasons why she has remained little recognized or
studied in the one hundred and twenty-five years since her
death. Additionally, those who have taken up a study of
Frances Wright have not bothered to seek the nature of her
ideas and their sources. One of the areas for future re
search might well be to combine an idea analysis with an
examination of her activity in terms of those ideas. This
operation might very well result in a clearer, understanding
of Frances Wright both as person and as public figure.
However one approaches the study of her life, there
are certain basic situations which cannot be changed. First,
one cannot escape the shortness of her career. Although her
public career lasted over a decade, her activity on the
stage as a speaker encompassed only two years. To this
brevity of public participation must be added the limited
and widely scattered resource materials. The hesitancy to
study a public figure because of her sex is probably now
past; but for many years it seems possible that this pre
vented people from studying Frances Wright, or other women
for that matter, who were not figures so dominant that they
could not be avoided, e.g., Dorothea L. Dix. For many years
Wright’s daughter, grandsons, and great granddaughters played a protective role. Much which was written about
Frances Wright was either a complete garble to obscure certain facts (such as Sylva’s birth out-of-wedlock), or it 149
was the work of those who sought to capitalize on the sensa
tional aspects of Wright's career.
In connection with Frances Wright's family life, it
may be added parenthetically that some of the reasons for
the brevity of her speaking career and her retirement from
the public arena were personal ones, about which some
limited observations may be made. Although Frances Wright
gave the appearance of vigorous robustness, she was never
blessed with the kind of health which her schedule demanded.
She had been the victim of respiratory difficulties in
Europe which were compounded in America by malaria. Once
during her sojourn at Nashoba she was racked by fever, chills,
and violent headaches for weeks.2-2 Only patient nursing
coupled with liberal doses of quinine prevented her death.
There were also the psychological blows which she suffered
after leaving the United States, such as the birth of two
children, the death of her sister, and her marriage to
^Camilla Wright to Julia Garnett, 20 August 1826 in Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, "The Nashoba Plan for Re moving the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829," Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 (1975), 437-38. It should be noted, too, that during the final year of her life, when she was bedridden because of a broken hip, the fever returned and during the last weeks she frequently cried out from the anguishing pain in her head. A. J. G. Perkins and Theresa Wolfson, Frances Wright, Free Enquirer. The Study of a Temperament (New York: Harper and Brother, 1939), p. 382. 150
D'Arusmont, all within the space of eighteen months.!6
Some of the most penetrating insights into the moti
vational well-springs of Frances Wright are provided by the
reflective writings from her own pen. These are comprised
of the poetry, the jottings, the anecdotes, and the fables
which she interlaced through her own publications and the
newspapers which she edited. It is rather clear, for exam
ple, from the so-called "New Book of Chronicles," published
serially in The Free Enquirer, that she perceived herself in
the role of one of God's judges, or prophets, being opposed
by a stubborn people. From these writings in particular,
one receives an outline of how Wright operated from a posi
tion of righteousness. Righteousness, to be sure, may have
its place, and is a component in the personalities of many
zealous reformers, but its major problem is that the advo cate is left with no room for retreat. Once Wright had seen her vision shattered, she, too, had to fall back; her solace came from the visionary poetics which lay within her. In this frame of mind she could identify with Byron's Harold by writing:
Strange is the course I run, and far the goal. I sweep th' arena and no eye beholds, Yet soon with daring hand and fearless soul I seize the crown that Fame there distant holds.
13Payne-Gaposchkin, pp. 460-61. 151
Then when the herd I loathe and I despise, The dastard herd that made and mocked my pain Shall turn on one they spurned, admiring eyes,-- Then, Harold, thou shalt hear from me again.
Nor home nor loves nor country, yet I throw A long deep gaze upon the world behind; It holdesth one, it holdesth one I know With heart as waste—as deep, and proud a mind.14.
Strange indeed may have been the course which she ran, but is not impossible to follow it, and follow it we must if we would move toward a clearer understanding of
Frances Wright, her ideas, and their milieu. In many things,
Frances Wright seems to have been a century and a half before her time, but like Byron’s Harold, she believed that in her ideas and their legacies she lived beyond herself; "What am
I? Nothing: but not so art thou, Soul of my Thought!"13
14Perkins and Wolfson, p. 25.
13Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," in Anthology of Romanticism, 3rd ed., rev., ed. Ernest Bernbaum (New York: Ronald Press, 1948), p. 547. BIBLIOGRAPHY
152 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. PRIMARY SOURCES
1. Manuscripts
Brown, Joel. Manuscripts. Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Gholson, William Yates. Papers. Cincinnati Historical Society, - Cincinnati, Ohio.
Wright, Frances. Letters. Originals at Workingmen's Insti tute Library, New Harmony, Indiana. Copies at Cincin nati Historical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio.
2. Printed Materials
Bentham, Jeremy. The Works of Jeremy Bentham. Ed. John Bowring. 11 vols. New York: Russell & Russell, 1962.
Berrian, Hobart. A Brief Sketch of the Origin and Rise of The Workingmen's Party in the City of New York. Wash ington: Printed at the Office of the "Workingmen's Advocate," 1840.
Botta, Carlo. History of The War of The Independence of The United States of America. Trans, from Italian by George Alexander Otis. 3 vols. Philadelphia: J. Maxwell, 1821
Byron, Lord. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Anthology of Romanticism. 3rd ed., rev. Ed. Ernest Bernbaum. New York: Putnam's, 1948.
Calendar Of The Correspondence of James Madison. 1894; rpt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1970.
Cist, Charles. Cincinnati in 1841: Early Annals and Future Prospects. Cincinnati: Printed and Published for the Author, 1841.
D'Arusmont, Frances Wright. Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 1, 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844. 1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972. 154
D'Arusmont, Frances Wright. Biography, Notes, and Political Letters of Frances Wright D'Arusmont. No. 2, 1844, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844. 1844; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
______Course of Popular Lectures; with Three Addresses, on Various Public Occasions, and A Reply to the Charges Against the French Reformers of 1789, in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844. 1834; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
______. Supplement Course of Lectures, Containing The Last Four Lectures Delivered in The United States (1934), in Life, Letters and Lectures 1834/1844. 1834; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Nature." Representative Selections, With Introductions, Bibliography, and Notes. Ed. Frederic I. Carpenter. New York: American Book Company, 1934, pp. 10-50.
Evans, George Henry. "History of the Origin and Progress of the Working Men's Party in New York." The Radical, in Continuation of the Working Man's Advocate (January 1842), 1-9.
Everett, L. S. An Exposure of the Principles of the 'Free Inquirers.' Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey, 1831.
Fearon, Henry B. Sketches of America. A Narrative Of A Journey Of Five Thousand Miles Through The Eastern And Western States Of America; . . . London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818.
Gilbert, Amos. Memoir of Frances Wright, The Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Human Rights. Cincinnati: Longley Brothers, Printers, 1855.
Grimké, Angelina Emily. Appeal To The Christian Women Of The South. 1st ed., 1836; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1969.
Hall, Lieut. Francis. Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816 and 1817. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818.
Lincoln, Abraham. "Second Inaugural Address." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Ed. Roy P. Basler. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953. VIII, 332-38. 155
Madison, James. Letters and Other Writings of James Madison. 4 vols. New York: R. Worthington, 1884.
Moore, Thomas. "A Letter From Niagara Falls." Anthology of Romanticism. 3rd ed., rev. Ed. Ernest Bernbaum. New York: Putnam's, 1948.
Owen, Robert Dale. "An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats." The Atlantic Monthly, 34 (July 1874), 67-78.
______. "Frances Wright, General Lafayette, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley." The Atlantic Monthly, 32 (October 1873), 448-59.
______. "My Experience of Community Life." The Atlantic Monthly, 32 (September 1873), 336-48.
______. Threading My Way. 1st ed., 1874; rpt. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967.
Owen, Robert Dale and Frances Wright. Tracts on Republican Government and National Education. Addressed to the Inhabitants of the United States of America. London: J. Watson, 1840.
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense And Other Political Writings. Ed. Nelson F. Adkins. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776. Ed. Ber nard Bailyn. 1 vol. to date (1750-1765). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965.
Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena. "The Nashoba Plan for Removing the Evil of Slavery: Letters of Frances and Camilla Wright, 1820-1829." Harvard Library Bulletin, 23 (1975), 221-51 and 429-61.
Ramsay, David. The History of the American Revolution. 2 vols. Philadelphia: n.p., 1789.
______. History of the United States. 2 vols. Philadel phia: M. Carey, 1817.
"Review of Views of Society and Manners in America; in a series of Letters from that country to a friend in England, during the years 1818, 1819, and 1820. By an Englishwoman. From the first London edition, with 156
additions and corrections by the author." North Ameri can Review, 14 (January 1822), 15-26. de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Ed. J. P. Mayer and Max Lerner. Trans. George Lawrence. New York Harper & Row, 1966.
Trollope, Anthony. An Autobiography. Stratford-upon-Avon: Shakespeare Head Press, 1929.
Trollope, Frances. Domestic Manners of The Americans. Ed. Donald Smalley. 1836; rpt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.
Trollope, Thomas Adolphus. What L Remember. 2 vols. 2nd ed. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1887. I, 151-53.
Wright, Frances. Altorf, A Tragedy. Philadelphia: M. Carey & Son, 1819.
______. Fanny Wright Unmasked by her Own Pen. Explana tory Notes, Respecting the Nature and Objects of the Institution of Nashoba, and of the Principles upon Which It Is Founded. Addressed to The Friends Of Human Im provement , in All Countries and of All Nations. New York: Printed For The Purchasers, 1830.
______. A Few Days In Athens; Being The Translation Of A Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum. Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1850.
______. "Of Existing Evils and Their Remedy." The Annals of America. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968. V, 290-97.
____ . A Plan for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the United States, Without Danger or Loss to the Citi zens of the South. Baltimore: Printed by Benjamin Lundy, 1825.
____ . Plan of National Education in Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright, Tracts on Republican Government and National Education. Addressed to the Inhabitants of the United States of America. London: J. Watson, 1840.
____ . Views of Society and Manners in America. Ed. Paul R. Baker. 1821; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963. 157
3. Contemporary Newspapers
Cincinnati Daily Gazette. August-September 1828.
Cincinnati Daily Gazette. December 1852.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by Frances Wright, Robert Dale Owen, and Robert L. Jennings. Vol. 1, 29 October 1828-21 October 1829. New York: Microfilm borrowed from the Illinois State Historical Library.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by Frances Wright, Robert Dale Owen, and Robert L. Jennings. Ser. 2, vol. 1, 1828- 1829; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by Frances Wright, Robert Dale Owen, and Robert L. Jennings. Ser. 2, vol. 2, 1829- 1830; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen. Ser. 2, vol. 3, 1830-1831; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by Frances Wright, Robert Dale Owen, and Amos Gilbert. Ser. 2, vol. 4, 1831-1832; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by H. D. Robinson. Ser. 2, vol. 5, 1832-1833; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by H. D. Robinson. Ser. 3, vol. 1, 1833-1834; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The Free Enquirer. Ed. and Pub. by H. D. Robinson. Ser. 3, vol. 2, 1834-1835; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
Genius Of Universal Emancipation. Ed. and Pub. by Benjamin Lundy. Supplementary to vol. IV, September 1825. Bal timore: Microfilm borrowed from the Library of Congress.
Genius of Universal Emancipation, And Baltimore Courier. Ed. and Pub. by Benjamin Lundy. Vol. I, 14 October 1825. Baltimore: Microfilm borrowed from the Library of Congress.
The Liberator. Pub. by William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp. Boston, Massachusetts, vol. 1, 1831. 158
The New-Harmony Gazette. Ser. 1, vol. 1, 1825-1826; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The New-Harmony Gazette. Ser. 1, voi. 2, 1826-1827; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
The New-Harmony Gazette. Ser. 1, voi. 3, 1827-1828; rpt. New York: Greenwood Reprint, 1969.
B. SECONDARY SOURCES
1. Books—Materials related to Frances Wright
Albion, Robert Greenhalgh. The Rise of New York Port [1815- 1860] . New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939.
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American Issues. Ed. Willard Thorp, Merle Curti, and Carlos Baker. Rev. ed. Chicago: J. B. Lippincott, 1955. I, 443-51.
Ante-Bellum Reform. Ed. David Brion Davis. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
Ante-Bellum: Writings of George Fitzhugh and Hinton Rowan Helper on Slavery. Ed. Harvey Wish. New York: Capri corn, 1960.
The Antislavery Argument. Ed. William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
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The Concise Dictionary of National Biography. Part I. Ed. Sir Sidney Lee. 2nd ed., 1906; rpt. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Crawford, Charles W. Yesterday1s Memphis. Miami, Florida: E. A. Seeman, 1976. 159
Davis, James D. The History of the City of Memphis. Facsimile Edition, 1873. Memphis, Tennessee: West Tennessee Historical Society, 1972.
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Dillon, Merton L. Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966.
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Eaton, Clement. The Growth of Southern Civilization 1790- 1860. New York: Harper & Row, 1961.
Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. Ed. Mirian Schneir. New York: Random House, 1972.
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Keating, J. M. History of the City of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee. 3 vois. Syracuse, New York: D. Mason, 1888.
Lane, Margaret. Frances Wright and the ’Great Experiment.' Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1972.
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Mansfield, E. D. Personal Memories. Cincinnati: Robert Clark & Co., 1879.
Meier, August and Elliot M. Rudwick. From Plantation to Ghetto : An Interpretive History of American Negroes. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.
Meyers, Marvin. The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957.
Morison, Samuel Eliot, Henry Steele Commager, and William E. Leuchtenburg. The Growth of the American Republic. 6th ed., rev. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. I, Ch. 26.
Nordhoff, Charles. The Communistic Societies of The United States. Prefatory Essay by Franklin H. Littell. 1875; rpt. New York: Schocken Books, 1965.
Notable American Women 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Ed. Edward T. James. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Har vard University Press, 1971. Ill, 675-80.
Oliver, Robert T. History of Public Speaking in America. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1965.
Owen, John B. The Eighteenth Century : 1714-1815. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976.
Park, Clyde W. The Lady from Keppel Street. Cincinnati: C. J. Krehbiel Company, 1958.
Parks, Edd Winfield. Nashoba. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1963.
Parrington, Vernon L. The Romantic Revolution in America, 1800-1860. 2 vois. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1927. 161 Perkins, A. J. G. and Theresa Wolfson. Frances Wright, Free Enquirer. The Study of a Temperament. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939.
Pessen, Edward. Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics. Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press, 1969.
______. Most Uncommon Jacksonians: The Radical Leaders of The Early Labor Movement. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967.
Pope-Hennessy, Una. Three English Women in America. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1929.
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Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. New York: Vintage, 1956.
Standard History of Memphis, Tennessee From a Study of the Original Sources. Ed. Judge J. P. Young. Knoxville, Tennessee: H. W. Crew, 1912.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom1s Cabin. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, n.d.
Tyler, Alice Felt. Freedom"s Ferment: Phases of American Social History to 1860. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1944.
Waterman, William Randall. Frances Wright. 1924; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1967.
Woodward, Helen Beal. The Bold Women. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953.
2. Books—Materials related to Rhetorical Criticism
Auer, J. Jeffery. An Introduction to Research in Speech. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959.
Black, Edwin. Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method. New York: Macmillan, 1965. 162
Bryant, Donald C. Rhetorical Dimensions in Criticism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973.
Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric. Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1972.
Gottschalk, Louis. Understanding History: A Primer of His torical Method. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954.
Hillbruner, Anthony. Critical Dimensions: The Art of Public Address Criticism. New York: Random House, 1968.
Lefebvre, Georges. The Coming of the French Revolution-1789 Trans. R. R. Palmer. New York: Vintage, 1947.
Lerner, Max. Ideas Are Weapons : The History and Uses of Ideas. New York: Vail-Ballou, 1939.
Nichols, Marie Hochmuth. Rhetoric and Criticism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967.
The Rhetoric of Aristotle. Ed. Lane Cooper. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1932.
Scott, Robert L. and Bernard L. Brock. Methods of Rhetori cal Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric. Ed. James J. Murphy. New York: Random House, 1972.
Thonssen, Lester, A. Craig Baird, and Waldo W. Braden. Speech Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: Ronald Press, 1970.
Winterowd, W. Ross. Rhetoric: A Synthesis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968.
3. Articles—Materials related to Frances Wright
Brown, Anna B. A. "A Dream of Emancipation." Indiana Maga zine of History (1904), 494-99.
De Lacy, P. H. "Epicurus." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967. Ill, 3-5.
Elliott, Helen. "Frances Wright's Experiment with Negro Emancipation." Indiana Magazine of History, 35 (1939), 141-57. 163
Emerson, 0. B. "Frances Wright and Her Nashoba Experiment." Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 6 (1947), 291-314.
Heisey, D. Ray. "Slavery: America’s Irrepressible Conflict." America in Controversy: History of American Public Address. Ed. DeWitte Holland. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown, 1973, pp. 103-21.
Hillbruner, Anthony. "Frances Wright: Egalitarian Reformer." Southern Speech Journal, 23 (1958), 193-203.
Jones, Arnita A. "From Utopia to Reform: the Collaboration of Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen, 1826-31." Un published paper, American Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 28 December 1975.
Kendall, Kathleen Edgerton and Jeanne Y. Fisher. "Frances Wright on Women's Rights: Eloquence Versus Ethos." The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 60 (1974), 58-68.
Matthews, Paul Aaron. "Frances Wright and the Nashoba Experiment: A Transitional Period in Antislavery Atti tudes." East Tennessee Historical Society Publications, 46 (1974), 37-52.
Monro, D. H. "James Mill." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967. V, 312- 14.
______. "Jeremy Bentham." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967. I, 280- 85.
Morris, Celia. "Frances Wright: She Fought the Major Battles of her time and ours." Ms, January 1976, pp. 15-24.
Neal, John. "Jeremy Bentham." The Atlantic Monthly, 16 (November 1865) , 575-83.
Noyes, John Humphrey. "The Nashoba Community." History of American Socialisms (1870), pp. 66-72, rpt. in The Annals of America. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968. V, 253-55.
Parks, Edd Winfield. "Dreamer's Vision: Frances Wright at Nashoba (1825-30)." Tennessee Historical Magazine, 2 (1932), 75-86. 164
"The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolu tions." Documents of American History. 9th ed. Ed. Henry Steele Commager. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1973. I, 315-17.
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes. "Fanny Wright." Revolution, n.v. (29 April 1869), 258-59.
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. "Beauty, the Beast and the Mili tant Woman: A Case Study in Sex Roles and Social Stress in Jacksonian America." The Private Side of American History: Readings in Everyday Life. Ed. Gary G. Nash. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. I, 214-36.
Tarbell, Ida M. "The American Woman." American Magazine, 69 (1910), 363-66.
Ulich, Robert. "Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi." The Encyclo pedia of Philosophy. Ed. Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967. VI, 121-22.
Wells, Ann Harwell. "Lafayette in Nashville, 1825." Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 34 (1975), 19-31.
Yoakam, Doris G. "Women's Introduction to the American Platform." A History and Criticism of American Public Address. 1st ed. Ed. William Norwood Brigance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1943. I, 153-92.
4. Articles—Materials related to Rhetorical Criticism
Brockriede, Wayne. "Trends in the Study of Rhetoric: Toward A Blending of Criticism and Science." The Prospect of Rhetoric. Ed. Lloyd F. Bitzer and Edwin Black. Engle wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 123- 39.
Croft, Albert. "The Functions of Rhetorical Criticism." The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 42 (1956), 283-91.
Hochmuth, Marie. "The Criticism of Rhetoric." A History and Criticism of American Public Address. 3 vols. Ed. Marie Kathryn Hochmuth. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965. Ill, 1-23.
Parrish, Wayland. "The Study of Speeches." American Speeches. Ed. Wayland M. Parrish and Marie H. Nichols. New York: Longmans Green, 1954, pp. 1-20. 165
"Report of the Committee on the Advancement and Refinement of Rhetorical Criticism." The Prospect of Rhetoric. Ed. Lloyd F. Bitzer and Edwin Black. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 220-27.
Rosenfield, Lawrence. "The Anatomy of Critical Discourse." Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective. Ed. Robert L. Scott and Bernard L. Brock. New York: Harper & Row, 1972, pp. 131-57.
Wrage, Ernest J. "Public Address: A Study in Social and Intellectual History." Methods of Rhetorical Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective. Ed. Robert L. Scott and Bernard L. Brock. New York: Harper & Row, 1972, pp. 103-11.
5. Dissertations and Theses
Aghazarian, Aram Avedis. "The Rhetoric of Henry Winter Davis." Diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham paign, 1974.
Bond, Wayne Stanley. "The Rhetoric of Billy Graham: A Description, Analysis and Evaluation." Diss. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1973.
Guthrie, Sylva. "Frances Wright at Nashoba." Thesis Columbia University, 1946.
Palmer, Phyllis M. "Frances Wright D'Arusmont: Case Study of a Reformer." Diss. Ohio State, 1973.
Parnell, Marie Patricia. "The Educational Theory of Frances Wright D'Arusmont." Diss. Rutgers, 1964.
Stovall, Richard Lee. "The Rhetoric of Bourke Cockram: A Contextual Analysis." Diss. Ohio State University, 1975.
Vickrey, James F., Jr. "The Rhetoric of Rhetorical Criti cism: A Comparative Study of Selected Methods of Rhetori cal Criticism. A Search for 'Essentials' in the Criti cal Analysis and Evaluation of Rhetorical Transactions." Diss. Florida State University, 1972.
White, Larry A. "Rhetoric of James A. Pike: A Humanistic Criticism." Diss. Southern Illinois University, 1972. 166
6. Newspapers
Commercial Appeal [Memphis, Tennessee], 27 July 1903.
"Fanny Wright." Memphis Public Ledger, 28 April 1874, p. 3.
"Her Life Reads like a Romance: Career of Madame Sylvo Phiquefol D'Arusmont de La Guthrie, Whose Recent Death Recalls Memories of Her Brilliant, Eccentric Mother, Frances Wright." Commercial Appeal [Memphis, Tennessee], 2 August 1903.
Hogan, Dave. "Today, a Quiet Street; Then, a Memphis Scan dal." Memphis Press-Scimitar, 4 March 1976, pp. 1 & 6.
"A Memphis Idyl." Memphis Public Ledger, 25 April 1874, p. 3.
"A Memphis Romance Memphis Public Ledger, 24 April 1876, p. 3.
The New York Times 9 December 1944, p. 17.
The New York Times 10 December 1944, p. 53.
The New York Times 28 July 1959, p. 27.
Pope, LeRoy. "Fanny Wright: Remarkable Grandmother of a Surprising Priest." Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 22 January 1933.
"Shelby County-Historic Places—100 Years Ago. Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 8 April 1947.
"Shelby-County-Historic Places—25 Years Ago.' Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 16 April 1947.
"Shelby County-Historic Places—75 Years Ago." Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 25 October 1957.
"Shelby County-Historic Places—75 Years Ago." Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 14 July 1958.
"Shelby County-Historic Places—Nashoba." Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 29 December 1962.
Waddell, John. "Nashoba-Noble Experiment that Failed." Commercial Appeal [Memphis], 9 October 1938. 167
7. Tape Recordings
Lerner, Gerda. "Frances Wright." Pacifica Tape Library, Archive No. BB 3802.01, n.d.