fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

“As the present crisis of human affairs is very solemn, as we, incommon with our fellow citizens, feel a lively interest in it, andas this University is soon to resign a considerable number ofher sons to the service of their country and mankind, I cannothelp but seize this opportunity to address these students as tosome large observations and counsels, suggested chiefly by thepresent state of the world...There is a society...which under the mask of universalphilanthropy has been aiming at the complete dominion oftheminds and bodies of mankind... A proposition was madeat the last convention for abolishing the altars of God, andhave been artfully contrived to destroy the observationand even the memory of the Christian sabbath. They alsodecreed that death was an everlasting sleep... So extensive aconspiracy against government and religion easily accountsfor the rapid progress of disorganizing principles, and thewonderful success of French arms and intrigues... the zealouscirculation of certain newspapers which are uniformly devotedto malignant falsehood and sedition, which aim to directlytend to undermine the religious, moral, and civil institutionsof this country... In this way you may effectively counterworkthe subtle policy of the common enemies of God and man.While they are seeking to brutalize the world, you are invited,indeed, have been summoned, to oppose this infernal artificeby supporting the great pillars of social order. While they areoutraging female modesty and dignity, reducing both men andwomen to brutal impurity and barbarism, while this be theboasted work of modern reformers, be it yours to assert thedignity of man, to guard and preserve the worth of the femalecharacter...”The Revolution of 1800Document ASource: James Madison, 1819“The Revolution of 1800...was as real a revolution in theprinciples of our government as that of 1776 was in its form; noteffected by the sword, indeed, as that, but by the rational andpeaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.”Document B Source: Abraham Bishop, ConnecticutRepublicanism, 1801“Every country is divided into two classes of men‐‐one whichlives by the labor of the head, and the other by the labor ofhands; each claims that its services are the hardest and mostimportant; the first professes great zeal for the public good,and means nothing by it; the last does his days work, makesno professions, but brings his produce to the best markets. Thefirst always governs the last either by deceit or by force. Deceitis the mildest way, but it requires great labor and management;force is surest.It will not be easy to break through the thick folds of error andimposture with which the friends of order keep the great partof mankind encompassed...You have been taught to reverenceyour friends of order...That humiliation that ordinary peoplefeel in the presence of wealth and power has been a leadingcause of all the slavery on earth...All your feelings of inferiorityand humiliation, all that makes you bow your heads and doffyour caps in front of gentlemen, that indeed, the whole culturethat sustained rule by the gentry elite are delusions fabricatedby all the great, the wise, the rich, and mighty men of theworld, those well‐fed, well‐dressed, chariot‐rolling, caucuskeeping, levee reveling federalists...These are the agentsof delusion, these so‐called gentlemen, that one‐tenth ofsociety who claim superiority over the rest...Why shouldnine‐tenths of ordinary people look up with fear and awe tothese deceiving few?...These self‐styled friends of order have,in all nations, been the cause of all the convulsions and thedistress, which have agitated the world...They fool people withtheir charming outsides, engaging manners, powerful address,and inexhaustible argument. They know well the force andpower of every word; the east, west, north, and south of everysemi‐colon; and can extract power from every dash...They areable to say more and argue better on the wrong side of thequestion than the people are on either side of it....The [subjects of the gentry’s guile are] the laboring andsubordinate people throughout the world. Their toil goes tosupport the splendor, luxury, and vices of the deluders, ortheir blood flows to satiate lawless ambition...[Imagine] theluxurious courtier who must have his peas and salmon before201