The Reform Community: 1820-60
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The Tradition of Reform in American Rhetoric
- Communities that unite in the service of Reform have been a
constant of American life. The constancy of the presence of reform communities
has brought together two themes that we studied earlier..
- From the Puritans came communitarianism: the tradition of seeing the achievement
of an ideal community as a legitimate public motivation. The Puritans
talked about New England as a place to perfect life as God would
have it lived. Their public life centered around achieving that perfection.
Sermons defined the good community, declared how the community fell short
of that perfection, and intoned dedication to achieving it. The rhetorical
form that framed this way of seeing public achievement was the jeremiad.
- From the Virginia Frontier came the focus on the development of
the individual as a public commitment. The development has been justified
by the Declaration of Independence's commitment to the dignity of the individual,
and the Virginia frontier's commitment to negative liberty, the freedom
of each individual, and his/her due of respect and equal rights.
- Other resources of American rhetoric emerged to become important additions
to how reform was shaped.
- The Revolution began the secularization
of the jeremiad to American national identity. The revolution was fought
to further the experiment of self-government. Americans began to talk about
their destiny as the fulfillment of the mission of the revolution.
- The Constitution was "to
form a more perfect union." The American rhetorical vision was
built through this secularization.
- The growth of reform has been intensified by American religious
experience, including the energy of the many denominational splits
resulting from the search for perfection in doctrine and living, and the
disagreements about what that perfection would be.
- With these resources Americans have built public life around two types
of reform communities.
- America has been the place for innumerable utopian community
experiments including Oneida, New Harmony, Ephrata, and even Waco. These
communities created an extensive public life in separation from the rest
of society.
- Americans have also built reform communities when political systems
have failed them. A cycle of failure and reform has shaped this
process. Government fails to respond to public concerns. Advocates begin
to form a community of public concern external to government. If the reform
grows, the political system seeks to co-opt the energy of the reform community.
Examples are the abolition movement co-opted by the Republican Party and
the reform movement by farmers in the 1880s and 90s that grew into the
Populist Party.
- All of this has led Americans to see their nation as a long-running
attempt to always achieve the better life -- a quest for perfection. This
quest has yielded a constancy of reform.
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Reform as a motivational rhetoric
Any rhetoric of reform motivates public action in a particular way.
The form has common characteristics.
- Reform is built around the rhetorical power of perfection.
The rhetoric has a recognizable motivational form:
- A concept of purity. How the world should be and why it should
be that way is central to the vision at the heart of the rhetoric. This
is usually a vision of the world held dear by the society the rhetoric
would reform. Thus at the heart of reform is a reaffirmation of basic values
of the society.
- A denial of the purity. There are often lurid reports of the
offense against the perfection. This rhetoric shows the gap between a society
and its vision of itself. These imperfections motivate change because the
imperfections violate the perfection of the vision.
- Directed toward the system rather than the person. More conservative
rhetoric sees violations of perfection as personal decisions. Thus, our
criminal justice system operates by isolating the person who committed
the "crime" and punishing him/her. The rhetoric of reform sees
the imperfections as the responsibility of the system rather than of the
person. Thus, those proposing reform of the criminal justice system see
the responsibility for the failings of the system with the system itself
and not with the people who compose it. Thus, reform rhetoric encapsulates
the individual within the system.
- This motivates re-forming the community into a more pure
form.
- Reform uses rhetoric to reconstitute rhetorical power. This
is another way of saying that the rules about who talks, who is listened
to, where they are heard, and what they are allowed to talk about are frequently
the focus of reform. Thus reform works by:
- Changing the vocabulary. Reformers develop a different vocabulary
that allows them to talk about the world in which they live in terms of
its imperfections rather than its accomplishments. With this new vocabulary,
society comes to see things that it did not see before and to see some
things it saw before differently. Old normalities become injustices.
- Revising Authority. Reformers generally attack established authority,
point to the "wise" not now listened to, and urge listening to
them. Thus, they propose revised authority in the speaking community.
- Introducing new ideographs. The reformers construct new ideographs
that point to different interests.
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Characteristics of American Reform
- American reform has been rooted in community. From the Puritans
to the utopians to today, Americans have viewed reform as best accomplished
by forming tight communities who live the promise of reform. Often these
communities have been required to separate themselves from the corrupted
society, but even when that step is not seen as necessary the secret of
reform has been seen as living the values and principles of the vision
in conjunction with others.
- American reform has been non-governmental. Reformers have never
seen the government as an avenue for reform and American government has
generally resisted reform. However, politicians have often co-opted reform
by seeking to attract reformers to their political cause, thus cloaking
themselves in the reform. When they do so, they adopt some of the reforms
into the existing political system, thus sapping the energy of the reform
movement. The result is that reform has revised the American system at
frequent intervals -- abolition, the populists, the progressives, suffrage,
the New Deal, the civil rights movement -- but reformers are continually
having to reassert and restart their movements.
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The American Reform Community of 1820-1860
- This period is an intense time of reform. There are many issues
-- prohibition, slavery, women's rights, schools, children's lives, labor,
Sunday Schools, and others -- and the reformists tended to support several
of the these movements, even though they were often known for their work
in one cause or the other.
- Reform at this time stimulated by several factors:
- Closed Public Life. National public life at the time was built
on the sentimental style that suppressed public participation except as
listeners. That lid on emotional involvement sought a place to come to
the surface.
- Evangelical Fervor. This was the time of the third Great Awakening.
New religions and denominations such as Mormonism and the Disciples of
Christ were being founded and a strong evangelical excitement was abroad
in more traditional denominations.
- Unattended Issues. Great problems such as slavery, the oppression
of minorities and women, the growth of factories, were going unaddressed.
- Rise of cities and towns. The increasing urbanization of America
was providing places where reform communities could live and interact.
- Reformers responded with a rhetoric of idealism.
- Communitarianism (from New England's rhetorical tradition) made these
public issues.
- Individualism (from the Virginia Frontiers pursuit of free will) formed
the vision that motivated the reformers,
- Reformers and those who fought their reforms worked from the rhetorical
tensions between the tradition of idealism and pragmatism
in American rhetoric.
|
Rhetoric of the Ideal |
Pragmatic Rhetoric |
|
Celebrated the Revolution |
Celebrated the Constitution |
| Celebrated the pursuit of a vision |
Celebrated the virtues of a machine-like system |
| Called for Change |
Called for Stability |
| The highest value was freedom and development of the individual |
The highest value was on efficiency |
- Reformers organized themselves into an oral movement. They travelled
a circuit of appearances giving speeches on the various causes of the day.
This gave impetous to local chapters of organizations that urged reform
in their particular communities. Publishing houses reprinted the speeches
and spread the word. The local communities met and planned the infrastructure
of the reform movement.
- Public Life in this reform community featured three important places for discouse.
- The parlor. Reformers got together in the parlors of their homes. Often those travelling in the reform circuits were a part of these get-togethers. They may have started with dinner and moved into the parlor where the discussion of reform was conducted with their rhetoric.
- The lecture hall. Locals would rent a lecture hall where those travelling the circuit would address large (or not so large) audiences from the community. These were opportunities to spread the word with speeches by the famous, and to celebrate the wisdom of reform.
- The convention. Each reform issue typically had an annual convention at which speeches of the most important figures were central features. These conventions brought people from across the country together and established the connections that would lay the groundwork for the circuit.
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An Example: The Abolition Movement
The dispute over slavery worsens in the 1830s
- Abolition begins as a Southern movement. But its successes in the South
frightens the Southern power structure. By the 1830s abolition is being
outlawed in the South. At the same time, the slave codes are being revised.
All semblance of slavery as an institution good for the slave is being
fleshed from the laws in favor of a system of absolute control. Thus, Southern
abolition worsens slavery. Abolition then moves north.
- The Senate passes legislation that refuses abolition petitions. At
about the same time, the Congress develops code words to form debate between
the sections -- state's rights, tariff, land policy, territorial admission
-- leaving slavery for rare occasions. Thus, the governmental system forfeits
its decision making on slavery.
- Issues of race were not simply North/South issues. Northern aversion
to African- Americans was perhaps greater because the races did not live
together in the North to the extent they did in the South. Garrison was
hung in effigy in Boston. Lovejoy was murdered in Illinois, a non-slave
state.
- The abolitionists organize. By 1840, there are 150,000 in the American
Anti-Slavery Society.
Three major areas of abolition agitation
- New England
- Western New York
- Ohio and the Midwest
Voices of Abolition in the 1830s and 1840s
- The Political Arena. Political voice of abolition could not
gain voice.
- Abolitionists who achieved office were met by gag rules in the Senate
and House. They could express anti-slavery only in the code acceptable
in the National Government.
- Thus, the political sphere transformed slavery from a moral issue into
a question of institutions: states versus federal power, nullification.
They thus removed the humanity from the issue. Thus South won by making
nullification the issue. Only way to save the union was to keep the government
out of the decision.
- Finally, this rhetoric became highly pragmatic. Evidence and argument
revolved around the constitution. Compromise is the essence of pragmatic
politics and compromise always left slavery in tact.
- So, the political voice never provided a motivation for abolition.
- Radical Abolitionists. William Lloyd Garrison the most famous.
- Grounded primarily in Jeffersonian rhetoric. Used the Declaration of
Independence most frequently. For the most part the Constitution was condemned
as a slave-owners document. The emphasis was on natural rights and their
violation in slavery, and their rhetoric was directly tied to the American
revolution.
- A rhetoric of division and rejection. No compromise with the slave
power.
- Evangelicals. Grew from the Burned over district of New York.
Theodore Weld was converted by Charles Gradison Finney. Weld goes to Lane
Theological Seminary in Southern Ohio, but is prevented from preaching
abolition. So, he leaves Lane and founds Oberlin College. Weld trains ministers
of aboilition.
- The fervor of the third Great Awakening sought a cause. Abolition became
that cause.
- Rhetorical Form was the jeremiad. Slavery is a sin. Documented the
cruelty of slavery and located the condemnation of slavery in the Bible.
God's plan required opposition to slavery.
- Power of religion in the frontier was converted to abolition
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Exercise: As a reformer, how would you live
your public life?
- Where would you go for public activity?
- Who would you tend to be there with?
- What sort of subjects would you expect to be discussed?
- How would you expect those subjects to be discussed? What ideographs
would you hear? What forms would structure the discourse? How would the
rhetoric attempt to motivate your participation?
- What would be your attitude toward politics?
- It is 1854 in upstate New York. An abolition rally is being held at the Wilburs. Write a short speech you would expect to hear from a speaker at such a rally.
- It is 1854 in Boston. William Lloyd Garrison has burned a copy of the Constitution and a meeting has been called in his defense. Write a speech you might have given at such a meeting condemning slavery.
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