History of American Socialisms Part 10

"I do not mean to be understood that all are of one mind. On the contrary, in a progressive state there is no demand for conformity. We build on _Individuality_; any difference between us confirms our position. Differences, therefore, like the admissible discords in music, are a valuable part of our harmony! It is only when the rights of persons or property are actually invaded that collisions arise.

These rights being clearly defined and sanctioned by public opinion, and temptations to encroachments being withdrawn, we may then consider our great problem practically solved. With regard to mere difference of opinion in taste, convenience, economy, equality, or even right and wrong, good and bad, sanity and insanity--all must be left to the supreme decision of each _Individual_, whenever he can take on himself the _cost_ of his decisions; which he cannot do while his interests or movements are united or combined with others. It is in combination or close connection only, that compromise and conformity are required.

Peace, harmony, ease, security, happiness, will be found only in _Individuality_."

A PEEP INTO MODERN TIMES.

Conversation between a Resident and a Reporter.

"We are not Fourierites. We do not believe in a.s.sociation. a.s.sociation will have to answer for very many of the evils with which mankind are now afflicted. We are not Communists; we are not Mormons; we are not Non-Resistants. If a man steals my property or injures me, I will take good care to make myself square with him. We are Protestants, we are Liberals. We believe in the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. We protest against all laws which interfere with INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS--hence we are Protestants. We believe in perfect liberty of will and action--hence we are Liberals. We have no compacts with each other, save the compact of individual happiness; and we hold that every man and every woman has a perfect and inalienable right to do and perform, all and singular, just exactly as he or she may choose, now and hereafter.

But, gentlemen, this liberty to act must only be exercised at the _entire cost_ of the individuals so acting. They have no right to tax the community for the consequences of their deeds."

"Then you go back to nearly the first principles of government, and acknowledge the necessity of some controlling power other than individual will?"

"Not much--not much. In the present depraved state of society generally, we--few in numbers--are forced by circ.u.mstances into courses of action not precisely compatible with our principles or with the intent of our organization, thus: we are a new colony; we can not produce all which we consume, and many of our members are forced to go out into the world to earn what people call money, so that we may purchase our groceries, &c. We are mostly mechanics--eastern men.

There is not yet a sufficient home demand for our labor to give constant employment to all. When we increase in numerical strength, our tinsmiths and shoemakers and hatters and artisans of that grade will not only find work at home, but will manufacture goods for sale.

That will bring us money. We shall establish a Labor Exchange, so that if my neighbor, the blacksmith, wants my a.s.sistance, and I in turn desire his services, there will be a scale to fix the terms of the exchange."

"But this would disturb Individual Sovereignty."

"I don't see it. No one will be _forced_ to barter his labor for another's. If parties don't like the terms, they can make their own.

There are three acres of corn across the way--it is good corn--a good crop--it is mine. You see that man now at work in the field cutting and stacking it. His work as a farmer is not so valuable as mine as a mason. We exchange, and it is a mutual benefit. Corn is just as good a measure of value as coin. You should read the pamphlet we are getting out. It will come cheap. Andrews has published an excellent work on this subject of Individual Sovereignty."

"Have you any schools?"

"Schools? Ah! we only have a sort of primary affair for small children. It is supported by individual subscription. Each parent pays his proportion."

"How about women?"

"Well, in regard to the ladies, we let them do about as they please, and they generally please to do about right. Yes, _they_ like the idea of Individual Sovereignty. We give them plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt; we have social parties, music, dancing, and other sports. They are not all Bloomers: they wear such dresses as suit the individual taste, _provided they can get them_!"

"And the _breeches_ sometimes, I suppose?"

"Certainly they can _wear the breeches_ if they choose."

"Do you hold to marriage?"

"Oh, marriage! Well, folks ask no questions in regard to _that_ among us. We, or at least some of us, do not believe in life-partners.h.i.+ps, when the parties can not live happily. Every person here is supposed to know his or her own interests best. We don't interfere; there is no eaves-dropping, or prying behind the curtain. Those are good members of society, who are industrious and mind their own business. The individual is sovereign and independent, and all laws tending to restrict the liberty he or she should enjoy, are founded in error, and should not be regarded."

CHAPTER XI.

CHANNING'S BROOK FARM.

We are now on the confines of the Fourier movement. The time-focus changes from 1826 to 1843. As the period of our history thus approaches the present time, our resources become more ample and authentic. Henceforward we shall not confine ourselves so closely to Macdonald's materials as we have done. The printed literature of Fourierism is more abundant than that of Owenism; and while we shall still follow the catalogue of a.s.sociations which we gave from Macdonald in our third chapter, and shall appropriate all that is interesting in his memoirs, we shall also avail ourselves freely of various publications of the Fourierists themselves. A full set of their leading periodicals, (probably the only one in existence) was thrust upon us by the freak of a half-crazed literary gentleman, nearly at the very time when we had the good fortune to find Macdonald's collections. We shall hereafter refer most frequently to the files of _The Dial_, _The Present_, _The Phalanx_, _The Harbinger_, and _The Tribune_.

In order to understand the Fourier movement, we must look at the preparations for it. This we have already been doing, in studying Owenism. But there were other preparations. Owenism was the socialistic prelude. We must now attend to what may be called the religious preparations.

Owenism was limited and local, chiefly because it was thoroughly non-religious and even anti-religious. In order that Fourierism might sweep the nation, it was necessary that it should ally itself to some form of popular religion, and especially that it should penetrate the strongholds of religious New England.

To prepare for this combination, a differentiation in the New England church was going on simultaneously with the career of Owenism. After the war of 1815, the division of Congregationalism into Orthodoxy and Unitarianism, commenced. Excluding from our minds the doctrinal and ecclesiastical quarrels that attended this division, it is easy to see that Providence, which is always on both sides of every fight, aimed at division of labor in this movement. One party was set to defend religion; the other liberty. One stood by the old faith, like the Jew; the other went off into free-thinking and the fine arts, like the Greek. One worked on regeneration of the heart; the other on culture of the external life. In short, one had for its function the carrying through of the Revival system; the other the development of Socialism.

The royal men of these two "houses of Israel" were Dr. Beecher and Dr.

Channing; and both left royal families, direct or collateral. The Beechers are leading the Orthodox to this day; and the Channings, the Unitarians. We all know what Dr. Beecher and his children have done for revivals. He was the pivotal man between Nettleton and Finney in the last generation, and his children are the standard-bearers of revival religion in the present. What the Channings have done for Socialism is not so well known, and this is what we must now bring to view.

First and chief of all the experiments of the Fourier epoch was BROOK FARM. And yet Brook Farm in its original conception, was not a Fourier formation at all, but an American seedling. It was the child of New England Unitarianism. Dr. Channing himself was the suggester of it. So says Ralph Waldo Emerson. As this is an interesting point of history, we have culled from a newspaper report of Mr. Emerson's lecture on Brook Farm, the following summary, from which it appears that Dr.

Channing was the pivotal man between old-fas.h.i.+oned Unitarianism and Transcendentalism, and the father of _The Dial_ and of Brook Farm:

EMERSON'S REMINISCENCES OF BROOK FARM.

"In the year 1840 Dr. Channing took counsel with Mr. George Ripley on the point if it were possible to bring cultivated, thoughtful people together, and make a society that deserved the name. He early talked with Dr. John Collins Warren on the same thing, who admitted the wisdom of the purpose, and undertook to make the experiment. Dr.

Channing repaired to his house with these thoughts; he found a well chosen a.s.sembly of gentlemen; mutual greetings and introductions and chattings all around, and he was in the way of introducing the general purpose of the conversation, when a side-door opened, the whole company streamed in to an oyster supper with good wines, and so ended that attempt in Boston. Channing opened his mind then to Ripley, and invited a large party of ladies and gentlemen. I had the honor to be present. No important consequences of the attempt followed. Margaret Fuller, Ripley, Bronson and Hedge, and many others, gradually came together, but only in the way of students. But I think there prevailed at that time a general belief in the city that this was some concert of doctrinaires to establish certain opinions, or to inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, or religion, but of which these conspirators were quite innocent. It was no concert, but only two or three men and women, who read alone with some vivacity. Perhaps all of them were surprised at the rumor that they were a school or sect, but more especially at the name of 'Transcendentalism.' n.o.body knows who first applied the name. These persons became in the common chance of society acquainted with each other, and the result was a strong friends.h.i.+p, exclusive in proportion to its heat.***

"From that time, meetings were held with conversation--with very little form--from house to house. Yet the intelligent character and varied ability of the company gave it some notoriety, and perhaps awakened some curiosity as to its aims and results. But nothing more serious came of it for a long time. A modest quarterly journal called _The Dial_, under the editors.h.i.+p of Margaret Fuller, enjoyed its obscurity for four years, when it ended. Its papers were the contributions and work of friends.h.i.+p among a narrow circle of writers.

Perhaps its writers were also its chief readers. But it had some n.o.ble papers; perhaps the best of Margaret Fuller's. It had some numbers highly important, because they contained papers by Theodore Parker.**

"I said the only result of the conversations which Dr. Channing had was to initiate the little quarterly called _The Dial_; but they had a further consequence in the creation of the society called the "Brook Farm" in 1841. Many of these persons who had compared their notes around in the libraries of each other upon speculative matters, became impatient of speculation, and wished to put it into practice. Mr.

George Ripley, with some of his a.s.sociates, established a society, of which the principle was, that the members should be stockholders, and that while some deposited money others should be allowed to give their labor in different kinds as an equivalent for money. It contained very many interesting and agreeable persons. Mr. Curtis of New York, and his brother of English Oxford, were members of the family; from the first also was Theodore Parker; Mr. Morton of Plymouth--engaged in the fisheries--eccentric; he built a house upon the farm, and he and his family continued in it till the end; Margaret Fuller, with her joyous conversations and sympathies. Many persons gave character and attractiveness to the place. The farm consisted of 200 acres, and occupied some spot near Reedville camp of later years. In and around it, whether as members, boarders, or visitors, were remarkable persons for character, intellect and accomplishments. *** The Rev. Wm. H.

Channing, now of London, student of Socialism in France and England, was a frequent sojourner here, and in perfect sympathy with the experiment.***

"Brook Farm existed six or seven years, when the society broke up and the farm was sold, and all parties came out with a loss; some had spent on it the acc.u.mulations of years. At the moment all regarded it as a failure; but I do not think that all so regard it now, but probably as an important chapter in their experience, which has been of life-long value. What knowledge has it not afforded them! What personal power which the studies of character have given: what acc.u.mulated culture many members owe to it; what mutual pleasure they took of each other! A close union like that in a s.h.i.+p's cabin, of persons in various conditions; clergymen, young collegians, merchants, mechanics, farmers' sons and daughters, with men of rare opportunities and culture."

Mr. Emerson's lecture is doubtless reliable on the main point for which we quote from it--the Unitarian and Channing-arian origin of Brook Farm--but certainly superficial in its view of the substantial character and final purpose of that Community. Brook Farm, though American and Unitarian in its origin, became afterward the chief representative and propagative organ of Fourierism, as we shall ultimately show. The very blossom of the experiment, by which it seeded the nation and perpetuated its species, was its periodical, _The Harbinger_, and this belonged entirely to the Fourieristic period of its career. Emerson dilates on _The Dial_, but does not allude to _The Harbinger_. In thus ignoring the public function by which Brook Farm was signally related to the great socialistic revival of 1843, and to the whole of American Socialism, Emerson misses what we conceive to be the main significance of the experiment, and indeed of Unitarianism itself.

And here we may say, in pa.s.sing, that this brilliant Community has a right to complain that its story should have to be told by aliens.

Emerson, who was not a member of it, nor in sympathy with the socialistic movement to which it abandoned itself, has volunteered a lecture of reminiscences; and Hawthorne, who joined it only to jilt it, has given the world a poetico-sneering romance about it; and that is all the first-hand information we have, except what can be gleaned from obsolete periodicals. George William Curtis, though he was a member, coolly exclaims in _Harper's Magazine:_

"Strangely enough, Hawthorne is likely to be the chief future authority upon 'the romantic episode' of Brook Farm. Those who had it at heart more than he, whose faith and energy were all devoted to its development, and many of whom have every ability to make a permanent record, have never done so, and it is already so much a thing of the past, that it will probably never be done."

In the name of history we ask, Why has not George William Curtis himself made the permanent record? Why has not George Ripley taken the story out of the mouths of the sneerers? Brook Farm might tell its own story through him, for he _was_ Brook Farm. It was George Ripley who took into his heart the inspiration of Dr. Channing, and went to work like a hero to make a fact of it; while Emerson stood by smiling incredulity. It was Ripley who put on his frock and carted manure, and set Hawthorne shoveling, and did his best for years to keep work going, that the Community might pay as well as play. It was no "picnic" or "romantic episode" or chance meeting "in a s.h.i.+p's cabin"

to him. His whole soul was bent on making a _home_ of it. If a man's first-born, in whom his heart is bound up, dies at six years old, that does not turn the whole affair into a joke. There were others of the same spirit, but Ripley was the center of them.

Brook Farm came very near being a _religious_ Community. It inherited the spirit of Dr. Channing and of Transcendentalism. The inspiration in the midst of which it was born, was intensely literary, but also religious. The Brook Farmers refer to it as the "revival," the "_newness_," the "_renaissance_." There was evidently an afflatus on the men, and they wrote and acted as they were moved. _The Dial_ was the original organ of this afflatus, and contains many articles that are edifying to Christians of good digestion. It was published quarterly, and the four volumes of it (sixteen numbers) extended from July 1840 to April 1844.

The first notice we find of Brook Farm is in connection with an article in the second volume of _The Dial_ (Oct. 1841), ent.i.tled, "_A Glimpse of Christ's Idea of Society_." The writer of this most devout essay was Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, then and since a distinguished literary lady. She was evidently in full sympathy with the "newness"

out of which Brook Farm issued. Margaret Fuller, one of the const.i.tuents of Brook Farm, was editress of _The Dial_, and thus sanctioned the essay. Its reference to Brook Farm is avowed in a note at the end, and in a subsequent article. The following extracts give us

THE ORIGINAL IDEAL OF BROOK FARM.

[From _The Dial_, Oct. 1841.]

"While we acknowledge the natural growth, the good design, and the n.o.ble effects of the apostolic church, and wish we had it, in place of our own more formal ones, we should not do so small justice to the divine soul of Jesus of Nazareth, as to admit that it was a main purpose of his to found it, or that when it was founded it realized his idea of human society. Indeed we probably do injustice to the apostles themselves, in supposing that they considered their churches anything more than initiatory. Their language implies that they looked forward to a time when the uttermost parts of the earth should be inherited by their beloved master; and beyond this, when even the name, which is still above every name, should be lost in the glory of the Father, who is to be all in all.

"Some persons, indeed, refer all this sort of language to another world; but this is gratuitously done. Both Jesus and the apostles speak of life as the same in both worlds. For themselves individually they could not but speak princ.i.p.ally of another world; but they imply no more than that death is an accident, which would not prevent, but hasten the enjoyment of that divine life, which they were laboring to make possible to all men, in time as well as in eternity.***