Abstract
Chapter 5 recounts the religious riots of the 1830s and stresses the persecution of Catholics by Protestants. Disenchantment with both religious traditions leads Brownson to create the Society for Christian Union and Progress in 1836—the same year he joins New England’s Transcendentalist Club. The chapter concludes by showing how several religious scandals in this region’s intellectual life—stimulated by the publication of William Henry Furness’ The Four Gospels, Bronson Alcott’s Conversations with Children, as well as Emerson’s Harvard Divinity School Address—practically drives Brownson to seek a haven from the storm.
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Notes
- 1.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Unitarians not Deists,’ in Patrick W. Carey, ed., Early Works of Orestes A. Brownson, Vol. 2: The Free Thought and Unitarian Years, 1830–1835 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 190.
- 2.
Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Co., 1992), 234.
- 3.
Quoted in Robert H. Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 73.
- 4.
Quoted in Sidney E. Mead, ‘Lyman Beecher and Connecticut Orthodoxy’s Campaign against the Unitarians, 1819–1826,’ Church History 9 (1940): 233.
- 5.
The Protestant Christian Examiner opined shortly after the incident that ‘we doubt not that religious fanaticism…had some influence in producing the wickedness which has been perpetrated in Charlestown. It was excited in part by gross calumnies, which had been proved to be unfounded before the deed was committed, and in part perhaps by the writing and preaching of some one or more of those pests of our community, who seem to have little other notion of religion, than it is a subject about which men’s passions may be inflamed, and they may be made to hate each other.’ (166) See Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Fire & Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834 (New York: The Free Press, 2000).
- 6.
Carleton Beals, Brass-Knuckle Crusade; the Great Know-Nothing Conspiracy, 1820–1860 (New York: Hastings, 1960), 34.
- 7.
Robert Howard Lord, ed., History of the Archdiocese of Boston in Various Stages of its Development, 1604 to 1943. Vol. 2 (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944), 203.
- 8.
Jeanne Hamilton, ‘The Nunnery as Menace: The Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834,’ United States Catholic Historian 14 (1996): 41ff.
- 9.
Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964; originally 1938), 75. See also Lord et al., History of Archdiocese, for a thorough discussion of the convent’s burning, 205–239. The Archives of the Archdiocese of Boston contain documents showing that a number of Catholic parishes purchased fire insurance during the late 1820s and early 1830s. E.g., see St. Mary’s Church, Charlestown, Boston (February 16, 1829); St. Peter’s in Sandwich, Massachusetts (April 12, 1830); St. Patrick’s in Lowell, Massachusetts (December 23, 1833).
- 10.
Quoted in Jody M. Roy, Rhetorical Campaigns of the Nineteenth-Century Anti-Catholics and Catholics in America (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 123.
- 11.
Caleb Stetson, A Discourse on the Duty of Sustaining the Laws (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Co., 1834), 14. See also Theodore M. Hammett, ‘Two Mobs of Jacksonian Boston: Ideology and Interest,’ Journal of American History 62 (1976): 845–868.
- 12.
David Grimsted, ‘Rioting in it Jacksonian Setting,’ American Historical Review 77 (1972): 362; Quoted in Carl. E. Prince, ‘The Great Riot Year’: Jacksonian Democracy and Patterns of Violence in 1834,’ Journal of the Early Republic 5 (1985): 3.
- 13.
Daniel A. Cohen, ‘The Respectability of Rebecca Reed: Genteel Womanhood and Sectarian Conflict in Antebellum America,’ Journal of the Early Republic 16 (1996): 457.
- 14.
Quoted in Roy, Rhetorical Campaigns, 156.
- 15.
Billington, Protestant Crusade, 108.
- 16.
See Bryan Le Beau, ‘“Saving the West from the Pope”: Anti-Catholic Propaganda and the Settlement of the Mississippi River Valley,’ American Studies 32 (1991): 101–114.
- 17.
Quoted in Billington, Protestant Crusade, 172.
- 18.
Quoted in Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 165.
- 19.
Quoted in Margaret C. DePalma, Dialogue on the Frontier: Catholic and Protestant Relations, 1793–1883 (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2004), 88.
- 20.
Quoted in Roy, Rhetorical Campaigns, 121.
- 21.
Quoted in Hammett, ‘Two Mobs,’ 855. England was plagued by similar trends: See E.R. Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968.).
- 22.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Letters to an Unbeliever,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 2, 280.
- 23.
Quoted in Ibid., 286.
- 24.
Samantha C. Harvey, Transatlantic Transcendentalism: Coleridge, Emerson, and Nature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 25.
- 25.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Benjamin Constant on Religion,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 2, 366.
- 26.
Quoted in Ibid.
- 27.
Orestes Brownson, ‘A Discourse on the Wants of the Times,’ in Patrick W. Carey, The Early Works of Orestes A. Brownson, Vol.3: The Transcendentalist Years, 1836–38 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2002), 66.
- 28.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Opposition to Authority,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 2, 401.
- 29.
Brownson, ‘A Discourse on the Wants of the Times,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 3, 66.
- 30.
Ibid., 61.
- 31.
Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 475.
- 32.
This emphasis was typically made by New England Unitarians. See Daniel Walker Howe, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805–1861 (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1988; originally 1970), 93–120, for a useful discussion.
- 33.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Progress of Society,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 2, 430.
- 34.
Orestes Brownson, ‘A Sermon on Righteousness,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 2, 165.
- 35.
Brownson’s annual salary was $500.00. See Orestes Brownson to Sarah H. Brownson, October 15, 1832, in Daniel R. Barnes, ‘An Edition of the Early Letters of Orestes Brownson,’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Kentucky, 1970), 110.
- 36.
Isaac Hecker, ‘Dr. Brownson in Boston,’ The Catholic World 45 (July 1887): 470–471.
- 37.
Isaac Hecker, ‘Dr. Brownson and the Workingman’s Party Fifty Years Ago,’ The Catholic World 45 (May 1887): 205.
- 38.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Society for Christian Union and Progress,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 3, 71.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
Orestes Brownson, ‘A Discourse on the Wants of the Times,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 3, 69. Readers who regard Brownson’s definition of Unitarianism as vapid should consult Paul K. Conkin, American Originals: Homemade Varieties of Christianity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 68.
- 41.
Patrick W. Carey, Orestes Brownson: American Religious Weathervane (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), 59.
- 42.
Quoted in Mario De Pillis, ‘The Quest for Religious Authority and the Rise of Mormonism, ‘Dialogue 1 (1966): 72.
- 43.
Ibid., 88. At the same time, there is a striking similarity between the conversion narrative of Joseph Smith and that of many antebellum evangelicals. See Christopher C. Jones, ‘The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s First Vision,’ Journal of Mormon History 37 (2011): 88–114. On Mormonism’s close connection to Protestant evangelicalism, see Gordon S. Wood, ‘Evangelical America and Early Mormonism,’ New York History 61 (1980): 359–386.
- 44.
Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 39.
- 45.
Quoted in Dan Vogel, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), 40.
- 46.
Quoted in Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Rolling Stone (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 37.
- 47.
Quoted in Ibid.
- 48.
Orestes Brownson, ‘On the New Birth,’ in Patrick W. Carey, ed., Early Works of Orestes A. Brownson, The Universalist Years, 1826–1829, Vol. 1 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000), 143. Smith and Brownson’s judgment is also corroborated by Randolph Roth, Democratic Dilemma: Religion, Reform, and the Social Order in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 1791–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 208.
- 49.
There is a body of social science literature claiming that ‘individuals who come from religiously heterogeneous families will leave their original faith at a higher rate than children from homogamous parents.’ (173) See, for example, Darren E. Sherkat, ‘Leaving the Faith: Testing Theories of Religious Switching Using Survival Models,’ Social Science Research 20 (1991): 171–187.
- 50.
Whitney R. Cross, ‘Mormonism in the ‘Burned-Over District,’ New York History 25 (1944): 326–338.
- 51.
Laurence Milton Yorgason, ‘Some Demographic Aspects of One Hundred Early Mormon Converts, 1830–1837,’ (M.A. Thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974), 44.
- 52.
Arrington and Bitton, Mormon Experience, 29.
- 53.
Religious mobility is a tremendously important phenomenon that has yet to receive its historian. The anecdotal evidence in primary and secondary documents is that it was exceedingly common. It appears to have been especially prominent among Protestants, who often drifted from one denomination to another. But as Brownson’s case suggests, religious mobility also could produce Catholics. This writer knows of no Protestant denomination that kept records of conversions, and Catholic sources vary widely and are often unreliable. The most plausible figure (around 57,000) for Catholic conversions in the nineteenth century appears in Christine M. Bochen, ‘Personal Narratives by Nineteenth-Century American Catholics: A Study of Conversion Literature,’ (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1980). This figure is basically corroborated by Jon Gjerde, Catholicism and the Shaping of 19th Century America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Until the appearance of a comprehensive scholarly work mapping out the dimensions of religious mobility, readers are advised to consult the informative American Converts Database at http://americanconverts.org/.
- 54.
See R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 25–47; Patrick Q. Mason, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
- 55.
See Rick Phillips, ‘Rethinking the International Expansion of Mormonism, Nova Religio 10 (2006): 52–68, for a quantitative and realistic assessment of Mormonism’s global presence. For an evaluation of Mormonism that sees it as a ‘World Religion,’ see Rodney Stark, ‘The Rise of a New World Faith,’ in James T. Duke, ed., Latter-day Saint Social Life: Social Research on the LDS Church and its Members (Provo: Religious Studies Center and Brigham Young University Press, 1998), 9–27.
- 56.
Quoted in Thomas R. Ryan, Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1976), 105.
- 57.
Orestes Brownson, ‘New Views of Christianity,’ Orestes Brownson Papers, Archives of the University of Notre Dame.
- 58.
Orestes Brownson, ‘New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church (Boston: James Monroe and Co., 1836), 3–4.
- 59.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Nature,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 3, 77.
- 60.
Carey, Orestes Brownson, 65.
- 61.
That Brownson misconstrued Emerson’s meaning does not change the fact that he perceived the sage’s philosophy as ultimately dangerous. And this because Brownson understood Emerson to be drawing a stark distinction between the senses and the spirit. In fact, Emerson posited a much more fluid and open interaction between these two spheres than Brownson allowed.
- 62.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Nature,’ in Brooks Atkinson, ed., The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: Modern Library, 1992; originally 1836), 373.
- 63.
Of course many have questioned this very conflation. For a useful discussion revealing the ambiguity of Emerson’s view of nature, see John E. Daly, ‘Orestes A. Brownson and Transcendentalism,’ (Ph.D. diss., Fordham University, 1955), 89–115.
- 64.
Francis Bowen, ‘Nature,’ Christian Examiner and General Review (January 1837): 380.
- 65.
Ibid., 371.
- 66.
Quoted in Barbara L. Packer, The Trascendentalists (Athens: University of Georgia, 2007), 55.
- 67.
Martin Luther Hurlburt, ‘Remarks on the Four Gospels,’ Christian Examiner and General Review (March 1837):104.
- 68.
Quoted in Anne C. Rose, Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830–1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 81.
- 69.
Quoted in Packer, Transcendentalists, 57.
- 70.
For a concise treatment of the history of Kneeland’s ideology, see Roderick S. French, ‘Liberation from Man and God in Boston: Abner Kneeland’s Free–Thought Campaign, 1830–1839,’ American Quarterly 32 (1980): 202–221. Still useful for its detailed examination of the court’s proceedings is Henry Steele Commager, ‘The Blasphemy of Abner Kneeland,’ The New England Quarterly 8 (1935): 29–41.
- 71.
I am indebted to Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 503 ff.
- 72.
Quoted in Rose, Transcendentalism, 72–73. It has been suggested that perhaps some of the religious dynamism we see during these years was a compensation for the economic turbulence shaking the nation. This interpretation may hold for groups like the Millerites, but I don’t see much relevance to Transcendentalists or Unitarians, who drew largely from the bourgeoisie and above. These issues are hinted at in Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), passim. See also Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway, eds., The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996).
- 73.
Quoted in D. Elton Trueblood, ‘The Influence of Emerson’s Divinity School Address,’ Harvard Theological Review 32 (1939): 47.
- 74.
Quoted in Robert D. Habich, ‘Emerson’s Reluctant Foe: Andrews Norton and the Transcendental Controversy,’ New England Quarterly 65 (1992): 208–237.
- 75.
Rose, Transcendentalism, 86.
- 76.
Orestes Brownson, ‘Introductory Remarks,’ in Carey, Early Works, Vol. 3, 256.
- 77.
Quoted in Ibid.
- 78.
Carey, Orestes Brownson, 66.
- 79.
Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Pilgrim’s Progress: Orestes A. Brownson (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1966; originally 1939), 43.
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Cortés, Á. (2017). ‘I Wished to Unite Men’: A Vision of Religious Calm in the Midst of an Intellectual Storm. In: Sectarianism and Orestes Brownson in the American Religious Marketplace. Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700-2000. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51877-0_5
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