A PEEP INTO MODERN TIMES.
Conversation between a Resident and a Reporter.
"We are not Fourierites. We do not believe in Association. Association will have to answer for very many of the evils with which mankind are now afflicted. We are not Communists; we are not Mormons; we are not Non-Resistants. If a man steals my property or injures me, I will take good care to make myself square with him. We are Protestants, we are Liberals. We believe in the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. We protest against all laws which interfere with INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS—hence we are Protestants. We believe in perfect liberty of will and action—hence we are Liberals. We have no compacts with each other, save the compact of individual happiness; and we hold that every man and every woman has a perfect and inalienable right to do and perform, all and singular, just exactly as he or she may choose, now and hereafter. But, gentlemen, this liberty to act must only be exercised at the entire cost of the individuals so acting. They have no right to tax the community for the consequences of their deeds."
"Then you go back to nearly the first principles of government, and acknowledge the necessity of some controlling power other than individual will?"
"Not much—not much. In the present depraved state of society generally, we—few in numbers—are forced by circumstances into courses of action not precisely compatible with our principles or with the intent of our organization, thus: we are a new colony; we can not produce all which we consume, and many of our members are forced to go out into the world to earn what people call money, so that we may purchase our groceries, &c. We are mostly mechanics—eastern men. There is not yet a sufficient home demand for our labor to give constant employment to all. When we increase in numerical strength, our tinsmiths and shoemakers and hatters and artisans of that grade will not only find work at home, but will manufacture goods for sale. That will bring us money. We shall establish a Labor Exchange, so that if my neighbor, the blacksmith, wants my assistance, and I in turn desire his services, there will be a scale to fix the terms of the exchange."
"But this would disturb Individual Sovereignty."
"I don't see it. No one will be forced to barter his labor for another's. If parties don't like the terms, they can make their own. There are three acres of corn across the way—it is good corn—a good crop—it is mine. You see that man now at work in the field cutting and stacking it. His work as a farmer is not so valuable as mine as a mason. We exchange, and it is a mutual benefit. Corn is just as good a measure of value as coin. You should read the pamphlet we are getting out. It will come cheap. Andrews has published an excellent work on this subject of Individual Sovereignty."
"Have you any schools?"
"Schools? Ah! we only have a sort of primary affair for small children. It is supported by individual subscription. Each parent pays his proportion."
"How about women?"
"Well, in regard to the ladies, we let them do about as they please, and they generally please to do about right. Yes, they like the idea of Individual Sovereignty. We give them plenty of amusement; we have social parties, music, dancing, and other sports. They are not all Bloomers: they wear such dresses as suit the individual taste, provided they can get them!"
"And the breeches sometimes, I suppose?"
"Certainly they can wear the breeches if they choose."
"Do you hold to marriage?"
"Oh, marriage! Well, folks ask no questions in regard to that among us. We, or at least some of us, do not believe in life-partnerships, when the parties can not live happily. Every person here is supposed to know his or her own interests best. We don't interfere; there is no eaves-dropping, or prying behind the curtain. Those are good members of society, who are industrious and mind their own business. The individual is sovereign and independent, and all laws tending to restrict the liberty he or she should enjoy, are founded in error, and should not be regarded."
CHAPTER XI.
CHANNING'S BROOK FARM.ToC
We are now on the confines of the Fourier movement. The time-focus changes from 1826 to 1843. As the period of our history thus approaches the present time, our resources become more ample and authentic. Henceforward we shall not confine ourselves so closely to Macdonald's materials as we have done. The printed literature of Fourierism is more abundant than that of Owenism; and while we shall still follow the catalogue of Associations which we gave from Macdonald in our third chapter, and shall appropriate all that is interesting in his memoirs, we shall also avail ourselves freely of various publications of the Fourierists themselves. A full set of their leading periodicals, (probably the only one in existence) was thrust upon us by the freak of a half-crazed literary gentleman, nearly at the very time when we had the good fortune to find Macdonald's collections. We shall hereafter refer most frequently to the files of The Dial, The Present, The Phalanx, The Harbinger, and The Tribune.
In order to understand the Fourier movement, we must look at the preparations for it. This we have already been doing, in studying Owenism. But there were other preparations. Owenism was the socialistic prelude. We must now attend to what may be called the religious preparations.
Owenism was limited and local, chiefly because it was thoroughly non-religious and even anti-religious. In order that Fourierism might sweep the nation, it was necessary that it should ally itself to some form of popular religion, and especially that it should penetrate the strongholds of religious New England.
To prepare for this combination, a differentiation in the New England church was going on simultaneously with the career of Owenism. After the war of 1815, the division of Congregationalism into Orthodoxy and Unitarianism, commenced. Excluding from our minds the doctrinal and ecclesiastical quarrels that attended this division, it is easy to see that Providence, which is always on both sides of every fight, aimed at division of labor in this movement. One party was set to defend religion; the other liberty. One stood by the old faith, like the Jew; the other went off into free-thinking and the fine arts, like the Greek. One worked on regeneration of the heart; the other on culture of the external life. In short, one had for its function the carrying through of the Revival system; the other the development of Socialism.
The royal men of these two "houses of Israel" were Dr. Beecher and Dr. Channing; and both left royal families, direct or collateral. The Beechers are leading the Orthodox to this day; and the Channings, the Unitarians. We all know what Dr. Beecher and his children have done for revivals. He was the pivotal man between Nettleton and Finney in the last generation, and his children are the standard-bearers of revival religion in the present. What the Channings have done for Socialism is not so well known, and this is what we must now bring to view.
First and chief of all the experiments of the Fourier epoch was Brook Farm. And yet Brook Farm in its original conception, was not a Fourier formation at all, but an American seedling. It was the child of New England Unitarianism. Dr. Channing himself was the suggester of it. So says Ralph Waldo Emerson. As this is an interesting point of history, we have culled from a newspaper report of Mr. Emerson's lecture on Brook Farm, the following summary, from which it appears that Dr. Channing was the pivotal man between old-fashioned Unitarianism