10/29/2015
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 Return to some of Professor Rael’s questions of last month (9/30), this
time not in the manner of volleying, but that of ball boy.
 “Conflict arose instead [of the clash of material interests per se
between North and South; which is to say, their economic
systems] over the social values arising from these different
systems, and over who would control political primacy over the
state.”
o “How did clashing values and ideas translate into political
conflict?”
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 Central question for today: “Trace the connections, to a certain cast of
the mid-19th c. American mind, between religion, free trade, and
abolitionism. Were the connections made by logic or expediency?”
 Tricky. There were many casts of mind. A statement like James L.
Houston’s, quoted by Palen (p. 2015, 292) -- “abolitionists
possessed a biblical political economy, not a classical liberal one” –
is undoubtedly partly true. Also partly false.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 Central question for today: “Trace the connections, to a certain cast of
the mid-19th c. American mind, between religion, free trade, and
abolitionism. Were the connections made by logic or expediency?”
 Tricky. There were many casts of mind. A statement like James L.
Houston’s, quoted by Palen (p. 2015, 292) -- “abolitionists
possessed a biblical political economy, not a classical liberal one” –
is undoubtedly partly true. Also partly false.
 The aim here is to exemplify a few casts of mind, show how
“clashing ideas and values translate[d] into political conflict.”
 Among the exemplars, Rev. William Goodell (1792-1878).
(But get to him later.)
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10/29/2015
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 A case study. Consider two men, same generation, same training,
similar vocations, same provenance:
Rev. Calvin Colton
(1789-1857)
Rev. Joshua Leavitt
(1794-1873)
JL
CC
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 Both the intellectual and moral progeny of the Second Great
Awakening.
 Educated by Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College
o Co-founder, 1812, Connecticut Society for the Reformation of
Morals and the Suppression of Vice.
o Leavitt, similarly, co-founder in 1813 of “Yale College Benevolent
Society”; secretary, American Seamen’s Friend Society; editor,
Sailor’s Magazine; editor, The Evangelist; co-organizer, New York
City Anti-Slavery Society; prominent participant, American AntiSlavery Society (AASS); editor, The Emancipator.
o Colton, pastor, Western New York; depressed, poorly paid,
overworked guy; author of a Manual for Emigrants (1832) from
England to America: “slavery … an entailed, grievous, and
lamented evil.”
 Yet they end up on opposite sides of abolitionism – also tariffs. How?
N.W. Taylor / “Common sense” at Yale
L. Beecher / “…Suppressing
Vice, by Means of Societies”
Second
great awakening 1803
C.G. Finney /
Mohawk valley revivals
Finney (ed. J. Leavitt) /
Lectures on Revivals…
‘51
‘35 ’37-’38 ‘39
‘22 ‘26
Presbyterian
schism
S. Colwell / New Themes
for Protestant Clergy
C. Colton / …Preferring Episcopacy
W.L. Garrison /
immediatism
Slavery &
abolition
1830
Leavitt /
Evangelist;
[…Emancipator]
Leavitt /
Liberty party
’31 -’37 … ‘39 ‘40
Free Soil party
‘48
C. Colton /
Abolition a Sedition
Tariff
controversy
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10/29/2015
N.W. Taylor / “Common sense” at Yale
L. Beecher / “…Suppressing
Vice, by Means of Societies”
Second
great awakening 1803
C.G. Finney /
Mohawk valley revivals
Finney (ed. J. Leavitt) /
Lectures on Revivals…
‘51
‘35 ’37-’38 ‘39
‘22 ‘26
Presbyterian
schism
S. Colwell / New Themes
for Protestant Clergy
C. Colton / …Preferring Episcopacy
abolitionism
Leavitt /
Evangelist;
[…Emancipator]
W.L. Garrison /
immediatism
Slavery &
abolitionism
1830
’31 -’37 … ‘39 ‘40
free trade
Tariff of
Abominations
nullification
1828
protection
Free Soil party
‘48
C. Colton /
Abolition a Sedition
anti-abolitionism
Tariff
controversy
Leavitt /
Liberty party
‘33
C. Colton /
Junius Tracts
(U.K.) Anti-Corn
Law League
Leavitt / Free trade
memorials
‘38 ‘41 ‘44 ‘48 ‘50
C. Colton / Public
Economy for U.S.
S. Colwell / Relative
position …of dom.trade
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 Enter Rev. William Goodell – like Leavitt, but different.
 At the Address to the Macedon Convention, what is his aim?
“Civil Government we understand to be that degree and description
of authoritative control which the Common Father of all men has
committed to society, to be exercised, in accordance with equity and
justice, over each one of its members, for the protection of all and of
each, in the safe possession and full enjoyment and use of all their
original and heaven-conferred rights unimpaired; forbidding nothing
but the infringement of those rights, and requiring and enforcing
nothing but what is requisite for their protection and enjoyment.” (p.
3, col. 1).
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MORAL UPLIFT
 Enter Rev. William Goodell – like Leavitt, but different.
 At the Address to the Macedon Convention, what is his aim?
 Back to the central question: “Trace the connections, to a certain cast
of the mid-19th c. American mind, between religion, free trade, and
abolitionism. Were the connections made by logic or expediency?”
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