History of American Socialisms Part 45

"It may not be improper to state, as we are speaking of our own affairs more fully than we have felt at liberty to do before in the columns of our paper, that, whatever be our trials of an external character, we have every reason to rejoice in the internal condition of our a.s.sociation. For the last few months it has more nearly than ever approached the idea of a true social order. The greatest harmony prevails among us; not a discordant note is heard; a spirit of friendship, of brotherly kindness, of charity, dwells with us and blesses us; our social resources have been greatly multiplied; and our devotion to the cause which has brought us together, receives new strength every day. Whatever may be in reserve for us, we have an infinite satisfaction in the true relations which have united us, and the a.s.surance that our enterprise has sprung from a desire to obey the Divine law. We feel a.s.sured that no outward disappointment or calamity can chill our zeal for the realization of a Divine order of society, or abate our effort in the sphere which may be pointed out by our best judgment as most favorable to the cause which we have at heart."

In the next number of the _Harbinger_ (March 21), an editorial addressed to the friends of Brook Farm, indicated some depression and uncertainty. The following are extracts from it:

"We do not altogether agree with our friends, in the importance which they attach to the special movement at Brook Farm; we have never professed to be able to represent the idea of a.s.sociation with the scanty resources at our command; nor would the discontinuance of our establishment or of any of the partial attempts which are now in progress, in the slightest degree weaken our faith in the a.s.sociative system, or our conviction that it will sooner or later be adopted as the only form of society suited to the nature of man and in accordance with the Divine will. We have never attempted any thing more than to prepare the way for a.s.sociation, by demonstrating some of the leading ideas on which the theory is founded; in this we have had the most gratifying success; but we have always regarded ourselves only as the humble pioneers in the work, which would be carried on by others to its magnificent consummation, and have been content to wait and toil for the development of the cause and the completion of our hope.

"Still we have established a center of influence here for the a.s.sociative movement, which we shall spare no effort to sustain.

We are fully aware of the importance of this; and nothing but the most inexorable necessity, will withdraw the congenial spirits that are gathered in social union here, from the work which has always called forth their most earnest devotedness and enthusiasm. Since our disaster occurred, there has not been an expression or symptom of despondency among our number; all are resolute and calm; determined to stand by each other and by the cause; ready to encounter still greater sacrifices than have as yet been demanded of them; and desirous only to adopt the course which may be presented by the clearest dictates of duty. The loss which we have sustained occasions us no immediate inconvenience, does not interfere with any of our present operations; although it is a total destruction of resources on which we had confidently relied, and must inevitably derange our plans for the enlargement of the a.s.sociation and the extension of our industry. We have a firm and cheerful hope, however, of being able to do much for the ill.u.s.tration of the cause with the materials that remain. They are far too valuable to be dispersed, or applied to any other object; and with favorable circ.u.mstances will be able to accomplish much for the realization of social unity."

This fire was a disaster from which Brook Farm never recovered. The organization lingered, and the _Harbinger_ continued to be published there, till October 1847; but the hope of becoming a model Phalanx died out long before that time. The _Harbinger_ is very reticent in relation to the details of the dissolution. We can only give the reader the following sc.r.a.ps hinting at the end:

[From the New York _Tribune_ (August, 1847), in answer to an allegation in the New York _Observer_ that "the Brook Farm a.s.sociation, which was near Boston, had wound up its affairs some time since."]

"The Brook Farm a.s.sociation not only was, but is near Boston, and the _Harbinger_ is still published from its press. But, having been started without capital, experience or industrial capacity, without reference to or knowledge of Fourier's or any other systematic plan of a.s.sociation, on a most unfavorable locality, bought at a high price, and constantly under mortgage, this a.s.sociation is about to dissolve, when the paper will be removed to this city, with the master-spirits of Brook Farm as editors. The Observer will have ample opportunity to judge how far experience has modified their convictions or impaired their energies."

[From a report of a Boston Convention of a.s.sociationists, in the _Harbinger_, October 23, 1847.]

"The breaking up of the life at Brook Farm was frequently alluded to, especially by Mr. Ripley, who, on the eve of entering a new sphere of labor for the same great cause, appeared in all his indomitable strength and cheerfulness, triumphant amid outward failure. The owls and bats and other birds of ill omen which utter their oracles in leading political and sectarian religious journals, and which are busily croaking and screeching of the downfall of a.s.sociation, had they been present at this meeting, could their weak eyes have borne so much light, would never again have coupled failure with the thought of such men, nor entertained a feeling other than of envy of experience like theirs."

The next number of the _Harbinger_ (October 30, 1847) announced that that paper would in future be published in New York under the editorial charge of Parke G.o.dwin, a.s.sisted by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana in New York, and William H. Channing and John S.

Dwight in Boston. This of course implied the dispersion of the Brook Farmers, and the dissolution of the a.s.sociation; and this is all we know about it.

The years 1846 and 1847 were fatal to most of the Fourier experiments.

Horace Greeley, under date of July 1847, wrote to the _People's Journal_ the following account of what may be called,

_Fourierism reduced to a Forlorn Hope._

"As to the a.s.sociationists (by their adversaries termed 'Fourierites'), with whom I am proud to be numbered, their beginnings are yet too recent to justify me in asking for their history any considerable s.p.a.ce in your columns. Briefly, however, the first that was heard in this country of Fourier and his views (beyond a little circle of perhaps a hundred persons in two or three of our large cities, who had picked up some notion of them in France or from French writings), was in 1840, when Albert Brisbane published his first synopsis of Fourier's theory of industrial and household a.s.sociation. Since then, the subject has been considerably discussed, and several attempts of some sort have been made to actualize Fourier's ideas, generally by men dest.i.tute alike of capacity, public confidence, energy and means. In only one instance that I have heard of was the land paid for on which the enterprise commenced; not one of these vaunted 'Fourier a.s.sociations' ever had the means of erecting a proper dwelling for so many as three hundred people, even if the land had been given them. Of course, the time for paying the first installment on the mortgage covering their land has generally witnessed the dissipation of their sanguine dreams. Yet there are at least three of these embryo a.s.sociations still in existence; and, as each of these is in its third or fourth year, they may be supposed to give some promise of vitality. They are the North American Phalanx, near Leedsville, New Jersey; the Trumbull Phalanx, near Braceville, Ohio; and the Wisconsin Phalanx, Ceresco, Wisconsin. Each of these has a considerable domain nearly or wholly paid for, is improving the soil, increasing its annual products, and establishing some branches of manufactures. Each, though far enough from being a perfect a.s.sociation, is animated with the hope of becoming one, as rapidly as experience, time and means will allow."

Of the three Phalanxes thus mentioned as the rear-guard of Fourierism, one--the Trumbull--disappeared about four months afterward (very nearly at the time of the dispersion of Brook Farm), and another--the Wisconsin--lasted only a year longer, leaving the North American alone for the last four years of its existence.

Brook Farm in its function of propagandist (which is always expensive and exhausting at the best), must have been sadly depressed by the failures that crowded upon it in its last days; and it is not to be wondered that it died with its children and kindred.

If we might suggest a transcendental reason for the failure of Brook Farm, we should say that it had naturally a _delicate const.i.tution_, that was liable to be shattered by disasters and sympathies; and the causes of this weakness must be sought for in the character of the afflatus that organized it. The transcendental afflatus, like that of Pentecost, had in it two elements, viz., Communism, and "the gift of tongues;" or in other words, the tendency to religious and social unity, represented by Channing and Ripley; and the tendency to literature, represented by Emerson and Margaret Fuller. But the proportion of these elements was different from that of Pentecost.

_The tendency to utterance was the strongest._ Emerson prevailed over Channing even in Brook Farm; nay, in Channing himself, and in Ripley, Dana and all the rest of the Brook Farm leaders. In fact they went over from practical Communism to literary utterance when they a.s.sumed the propagandism of Fourierism; and utterance has been their vocation ever since. A similar phenomenon occurred in the history of the great literary trio of England, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey. Their original afflatus carried them to the verge of Communism; but "their gift of tongues" prevailed and spoiled them. And the tendency to literature, as represented by Emerson, is the farthest opposite of Communism, finding its _summum bonum_ in individualism and incoherent instead of organic inspiration.

The end of Brook Farm was virtually the end of Fourierism. One or two Phalanxes lingered afterward, and the _Harbinger_, was continued a year or two in New York; but the enthusiasm of victory and hope was gone; and the Brook Farm leaders, as soon as a proper transition could be effected, pa.s.sed into the service of the _Tribune_.

During the fatal year following the fire at Brook Farm, the famous controversy between Greeley and Raymond took place, which we have mentioned as Greeley's last battle in defense of retreating Fourierism. It commenced on the 20th of November, 1846, and ended on the 20th of May, 1847, each of the combatants delivering twelve well-shotted articles in their respective papers, the _Tribune_ and the _Courier and Enquirer_, which were afterward published together in pamphlet-form by the Harpers. Parton, in his biography of Greeley, says at the beginning of his report of that discussion, "It _finished_ Fourierism in the United States;" and again at the close--"Thus ended Fourierism. Thenceforth the _Tribune_ alluded to the subject occasionally, but only in reply to those who sought to make political or personal capital by reviving it."

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE SPIRITUALIST COMMUNITIES.

We proposed at the beginning to trace the history of the Owen and Fourier movements, as comprising the substance of American Socialisms.

After reaching the terminus of this course, it is still proper to avail ourselves of the station we have reached, to take a birds-eye view of things beyond.

We must not, however, wander from our subject. CO-OPERATION is the present theme of enthusiasm in the _Tribune_, and among many of the old representatives of Fourierism. But Co-operation is not Socialism.

It is a very interesting subject, and doubtless will have its history; but it does not belong to our programme. Its place is among the _preparations_ of Socialism. It is not to be cla.s.sed with Owenism, Fourierism and Shakerism; but with Insurance, Saving's Banks and Protective Unions. It is not even the offspring of the theoretical Socialisms, but rather a product of general common sense and experiment among the working cla.s.ses. It is the application of the principle of combination to the business of buying and distributing goods; whereas Socialism proper is the application of that principle to domestic arrangements, and requires at the lowest, local gatherings and combinations of homes. If the old Socialists have turned aside or gone back to Co-operation, it is because they have lost their original faith, and like the Israelites that came out of Egypt, are wandering their forty years in the wilderness, instead of entering the promised land in three days, as they expected.

We do not believe that the American people have lost sight of the great hope which Owen and Fourier set before them, or will be contented with any thing less than unity of interests carried into all the affairs of life. Co-operation as one of the preparations for this unity, is interesting them at the present time, in the absence of any promising scheme of real Socialism. But they are interested in it rather as a movement among the oppressed operatives of Europe, where nothing higher can be attempted, than as a consummation worthy of the progress that has commenced in Young America.

Our present business as historians of American Socialisms, is not with Co-operation, but with experiments in actual a.s.sociation which have occurred since the downfall of Fourierism.

The terminus we have reached is 1847, the year of Brook Farm's decease. Since then "Modern Spiritualism" has been the great American excitation. And it is interesting to observe that all the Socialisms that we have surveyed, sent streams (if they did not altogether debouch) into this gulf. It is well known that Robert Owen in his last days was converted to Spiritualism, and transferred all he could of his socialistic stock to that interest. His successor, Robert Dale Owen, has not carried forward the communistic schemes of his father, but has been the busy patron of Spiritualism. Several other indirect but important _anastomoses_ of Owenism with Spiritualism may be traced; one, through Josiah Warren and his school of Individual Sovereignty at Modern Times, where Nichols and Andrews developed the germ of spiritualistic free-love; another (curiously enough), through Elder Evans of New Lebanon, who was originally an Owen man, and now may be said to be a common center of Shakerism, Owenism and Spiritualism. In his auto-biographical articles in the _Atlantic Monthly_ he maintained that Shakerism was the actual mother of Spiritualism, and had the first run of the "manifestations," that afterwards were called the "Rochester rappings." And lastly, Fourierism, by its marriage with Swedenborgianism at Brook Farm, and in many other ways, gave its strength to Spiritualism.

It is a point of history worth noting here, that Mr. Brisbane is mentioned in the introduction to Andrew Jackson Davis's Revelations, as one of the witnesses of the _seances_ in which that work was uttered. C.W. Webber, a spiritualistic expert, in the introduction to his story of "Spiritual Vampirism," refers to this conjunction of Fourierism with Spiritualism, as follows:

"No man, who has kept himself informed of the psychological history and progress of his race, can by any means fail to recognize at once, in the pretended 'revelations' of Davis, the mere _disjecta membra_ of the systems so extensively promulgated by Fourier and Swedenborg. Davis, during the whole period of his 'utterings,' was surrounded by groups, consisting of the disciples of Fourier and Swedenborg; as, for instance, the leading Fourierite of America [Mr. Brisbane] was, for a time, a constant attendant upon those mysterious meetings, at which the myths of innocent Davis were formally announced from the condition of clairvoyance, and transcribed by his keeper, for the press; while the chief exponent and minister of Swedenborgianism in New York [George Bush] was often seated side by side with him. Can it be possible that these men failed to comprehend, as thought after thought, principle after principle, was enunciated in their presence, which they had previously supposed to belong exclusively to their own schools, that the 'revelation' was merely a sympathetic reflex of their own derived systems? It was no accident; for, as often as Fourierism predominated in 'the evening lecture,' it was sure that the prime representative of Fourier was present; and when the peculiar views of Swedenborg prevailed, it was equally certain that he was forcibly represented in the conclave. Sometimes both schools were present; and on those identical occasions we have a composite system of metaphysics promulgated, which exhibited, most consistently, the doctrines of Swedenborg and Fourier, jumbled in liberal and extraordinary confusion."

As might be expected, Spiritualism has taken something from each of the Socialisms which have emptied into it. It is obvious enough that it has the omnivorous marvelousness of the Shakers, combined with the infidelity of the Owenites. But probably the world knows little of the tendency to socialistic speculation and experiment which it has inherited from all three of its confluents. It has had very little success in its local attempts at a.s.sociation; and this has been owing chiefly to the superior tenacity of its devotion to the great antagonist of a.s.sociation, Individual Sovereignty, which devotion also it inherited specially from Owen through Warren, and generally from both the Owen and Fourier schools. In consequence of its never having been able to produce more than very short-lived abortions of Communities, its Socialisms have not attracted much attention; but it has been continually speculating and scheming about a.s.sociation, and its attempts on all sorts of plans ranging between Owenism and Fourierism, with inspiration superadded, have been almost numberless.

One of the first of these spiritualistic attempts, and probably a favorable specimen of the whole, was the Mountain Cove Community.

Having applied in vain for information, to several persons who had the best opportunity to know about this Community, we must content ourselves with a very imperfect sketch, obtained chiefly from statements and references furnished by Macdonald, and from doc.u.ments in the files of the Oneida _Circular_.

All the witnesses we have found, testify that this Community was set on foot by the rapping spirits in a large circle of Spiritualists at Auburn, New York, sometime between the years 1851 and 1853. It appears to have had active const.i.tuents at Oneida, Verona, and other places in Oneida and Madison Counties. Several of the leading "New York Perfectionists" in those places were conspicuous in the preliminary proceedings, and some of them actually joined the emigration to Virginia. The first reference to the movement that we have found, is in a letter from Mr. H.N. Leet, published in the _Circular_, November 16, 1851. He says:

"The 'rappings' have attracted my attention. I have scarcely known whether I should have to consider them as wholly of earth, or regard them as from Hades; or even be 'sucked in' with the other old Perfectionists. The reports I hear from abroad are wonderful, and some of them well calculated to make men exclaim, 'This is the great power of G.o.d!' But what I see and hear partakes largely of the ridiculous, if not the contemptible.

They have had frequent meetings at the houses of Messrs. Warren, Foot, Gould, Stone, Mrs. Hitchc.o.c.k, etc.; and 'a chiel's amang them them taking notes;' but whether he will 'prent 'em' or not, is uncertain. I have from time to time been writing out what facts have come under my observation, and do so yet.

"Yesterday in their meeting, I heard extracts of letters from Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k written from Virginia; in which he states that they have found the garden of Eden, the identical spot where our first parents sinned, and on which no human foot has trod since Adam and Eve were driven out; that himself, Ira S. Hitchc.o.c.k, was the first who has been permitted to set his foot upon it; and further, that in all the convulsions of nature, the upheavings and depressions, this spot has remained undisturbed as it originally appeared. This is the spot that is to form the center in the redemption now at hand; and parts adjacent are, by convulsions and a reverse process, to be restored to their primeval state. This is the substance of what I heard read. The revelation was said to have been spelled out to them by raps from Paul."

In a subsequent letter published in the _Circular_ December 14, 1851, Mr. Leete sent us the spiritual doc.u.ment which summoned the saints to Mountain Cove, introducing it as follows:

"I send inclosed an authentic copy of a printed circular, said to have been received by Mr. Scott, the spiritual leader of the Virginia movement, in this manner, viz.: the words were seen in a vision, printed in s.p.a.ce, one at a time, declared off by him, and written down by some one else."

_Mountain Cove Circular._

"Go! Scarcely let time intervene. Escape the vales of death.

Pa.s.s from beneath the cloud of magnetic human glory. Flee to the mountains whither I direct. Rest in their embrace, and in a place fashioned and appointed of old. There the dark cloud of magnetic death has never rested. For I, the Lord, have thus decreed, and in my purpose have I sworn, and it shall come to pa.s.s. Time waiteth for no man.

"For above the power of sin a storm is gathering that shall sweep away the refuge of lies. Come out of her, O, my people!

for their sun shall be darkened, and their moon turned into blood, and their stars shall fall from their heaven. The Samson of strength feeleth for the pillars of the temple. Her foundation already moveth. Her ruin stayeth for the rescue of my people.

"The city of refuge is builded as a hiding place and a shelter; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; as an asylum for the afflicted; a safety for those fleeing from the power of sin which pursueth to destroy. In that mountain my people shall rest secure. Above it the cloud of glory descendeth. Thence it encompa.s.seth the saints. There angels shall ascend and descend.

There the soul shall feast and be satisfied. There is the bread and the water of life. 'And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord G.o.d will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it.' And I will defend Zion, for she is my chosen. There shall the redeemed descend. There shall my people be made one. There shall the glory of the Lord appear, descending from the tabernacle of the Most High.

"The end is not yet.

"You are the chosen. Go, bear the reproaches of my people. Go without the camp. Lead in the conquest. Vanquish the foe. As ye have been bidden, meekly obey. Paradise hath no need of the things that ye love so dearly. For earthly apparel, if obedient, ye shall have garments of righteousness and salvation. For earthly treasures, ye shall gather grapage from your Maker's throne. For tears, ye shall have jewels, as dewdrops from heaven. For sighs, notes of celestial melody. For death, ye shall have life. For sorrow, ye shall have fulness of joy.

Cease, then, your earthly struggle. All ye love or value, ye shall still possess. Earth is departing. The powers and imaginations of men are rolling together like a scroll. Escape the wreck ere it leaps into the abyss of woe. Forget not each other. Bear with each other. Love each other. Go forth as lambs to the slaughter. For lo, thy King cometh, and ere thou art slain he shall defend. Kiss the rod that smites thee, and bow chastened at thy Maker's throne."

Here occurs a long break in our information, extending from December 1851, to July 1853. How the Community was established and what progress it made in that interval, the reader must imagine for himself. Our leap is from the beginning to near the end. The _Spiritual Telegraph_ of July 2, 1853, contained the following: