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Natural Law and Manifest Destiny in the Era of the American Revolution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Leon Dion
Leon Dion*
Affiliation:
Université Laval
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Extract

Wee hope to plant a nation, where none before hath stood.—Alexander Whitaker, Good Newes from Virginia, 1613.

Anthropological studies have shown that the myth of destiny, along with the myth of origin, has exerted a tremendous influence in shaping tribal mentality and sustaining tribal solidarity. In the history of many modern nations the influence of the myth of destiny can also be perceived. Thus, the belief in a peculiar destiny which had already been formulated among the separate colonies throughout the early period of American history was of special import in the growth of a consciousness of national identity among American colonists during the years of their struggle for independence.

This study aims at scrutinizing the changes in the formulation and meaning, during the revolutionary era, of the myth of a peculiar destiny and the impact of the doctrine of natural law in bringing about these changes. The main theses are, first, that the American colonists met the need felt during the revolutionary era for new evidence of and support for an American “destiny” by appealing to the seemingly secure tenets of the doctrine of natural law; and, second, that, as a consequence of this intermingling of “destiny” and “natural law,” the assertion of an American destiny was transformed from a “faith” to a “certainty,” or, more accurately, from a dream to an appointment “manifest.”

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , May 1957 , pp. 227 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957

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Footnotes

*

This study was made possible by funds granted by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

References

1 Though of recent origin as a formal expression, “manifest destiny” expresses a variety of beliefs and attitudes whose origin must be traced in the mentality of colonial Americans. Thus for reasons of accuracy as well as of convenience, the expression has been used in this article even if it cannot be found as such in the revolutionary literature. For the exact origin of the term, see Pratt, Julius W., “The Origin of Manifest Destiny,” American Historical Review, XXXII, 1927, 795–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pratt says that the first-noted use of the phrase occurred in the editorial by O'Sullivan, John L. in the New York Morning News, 12 27, 1845.Google Scholar See also Weinberg, Albert K., Manifest Destiny: A Study of Imperialist Expansion in American History (Baltimore, 1935), 65 ff.Google Scholar Weinberg's classical study fails to explain the processes by which a special destiny for America became “manifest” during the revolutionary era. Furthermore, it deals mostly with the American brand of imperialism during the later part of the nineteenth century which used the notion of “manifest destiny” as a moral justification. Thus it is a study in ideology, whereas the approach of this essay is genetic.

2 See: Chinard, Gilbert, L'Exotisme américain dans la littérature française au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1911)Google Scholar; and more particularly, by the same author, L'Amérique et le rêve exotique dans la littérature française au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1934).Google Scholar

3 For the import of space and the frontier, see: Vail, R. W., The Voice of the Old Frontier (Philadelphia, 1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for the Puritans in particular, Haller, William Jr., The Puritan Frontier (New York, 1951)Google Scholar; also, Pierson, G. W., “The Frontierand Frontiermen of Turper's Essays,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LXIV, 1940.Google Scholar

4 Wright, Louis B., Religion and Empire: The Alliance between Piety and Commerce in English Expansion, 1558-1625 (Chapel Hill, 1943).Google Scholar

5 CaptainJohnson, Edward, A History of New England or Wonderworking Providence of Sions Saviour (London, 1654)Google Scholar, quoted in Hart, Albert Bushnell, ed., American History Told by Contemporaries (New York, 1897), I, 366–7.Google Scholar

6 A Holy Commonwealth (London, 1657).Google Scholar For a discussion see Schneider, Herbert Wallace, The Puritan Mind (New York, 1930), 14 ff.Google Scholar

7 Eddy, Sherwood, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream: The Religious and Secular Ideals of American History (New York, 1941).Google Scholar

8 Adams, James Truslow, The Founding of New England (Boston, 1921), 98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also: Ellis, George E., The Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1629-1685 (Boston and New York, 1888,) chap, VIGoogle Scholar; Pearson, A. F. Scott, Church and State: Political Aspects of Sixteenth-Century Puritanism (Cambridge, 1928)Google Scholar; Phillips, Clifton, “Puritan and Unitarian Views of Church and Society in America,” mimeo. thesis, Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley, 1944 Google Scholar; and the numerous studies of Perry Miller. These works give ample documentation of the Holy Commonwealth in America.

9 Cotton Mather, Magnolia, Part I, Book I, chap, IV, s. 2, quoted in Schneider, , The Puritan Mind, 78.Google Scholar

10 Haroutunion, Joseph, Piety versus Moralism: The Passing of New England Theology (New York, 1932).Google Scholar Pinson, K. S., in Pietism as a Factor in the Rise of German Nationalism (New York, 1934)Google Scholar, has shown the tendency in Germany for pietism to find in the nation a substitute church. Humphrey's, E. F. Nationalism and Religion in America (Boston, 1924)Google Scholar, has similarly indicated an influence of Puritanism on the development of American nationalism. See also Gabriel, R., The Course of American Democratic Thought (New York, 1940)Google Scholar and George H. Williams, “The Church, the Democratic State and the Crisis in Religious Education,” address at the opening sessions of Harvard Divinity School for the academic year 1948-9. These views, with which I am in complete agreement, do not contradict the present argument.

11 The literature on this subject is abundant. Beside Schneider, The Puritan Mind, Baldwin, Alice M., The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham, N.C., 1928)Google Scholar, may be recommended. Perry, R. B., in Puritanism and Democracy (New York, 1944)Google Scholar, over-stresses the democratic element in Puritan social theory and practice and thus introduces a biased interpretation of Puritanism. See also: Baron, Hans, “Calvinistic Republicanism and Its Historical Roots,” Church History, VIII, 1939 Google Scholar; Hudson, W. S., “Democratic Freedom and Religious Faith in the Religious Tradition,” Church History, XV, 1946.Google Scholar

12 See the splendid work of Morris, R. B., Studies in the History of American Law (New York, 1930), 12 ff.Google Scholar; and the doctoral thesis of Reinsch, Paul S., “English Common Law in the Early American Colonies,” Madison, Wis., 1899 Google Scholar, and his article under the same title in Select Essays in Anglo-American History (Boston, 1907), I, 367–415 Google Scholar; also Dale, R. C., “The Adoption of the Common Law by the American Colonies,” American Law Register, n.s., XXI, 1882 Google Scholar, and other works and articles by R. B. Morris, T. M. Dill, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

13 Wright, Benjamin Fletcher, American Interpretations of Natural Law: A Study in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), 8 ff.Google Scholar; Haines, Charles Grove, The American Doctrine of Judicial Supremacy (New York, 1914), 40 ff.Google Scholar, and his The Revival of Natural Law Concepts (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), 52 ff.Google Scholar

14 Baldwin, The New England Clergy. The role of the Puritan clergy was of paramount importance since they provided the transitional link in the process from a religious to a secular structure.

15 Warren, Charles, A History of the American Bar (Boston, 1911).Google Scholar

16 One very misleading interpretation of natural law in America as a pragmatical tool without further import is that of LeBoutillier, Cornelia Geer in American Democracy and Natural Law (New York, 1950).Google Scholar

17 Paris, 1925.

18 Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), 86 ff.Google Scholar

19 The literature on the subject is abundant; good accounts are those of Schlesinger, Arthur Meir, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; Rossiter, Clinton L., Seedtime of the Republic (New York, 1953).Google Scholar Other works are those of M. Kraus, Charles A. Beard, Charles McLean Andrews, E. B. Greene, L. H. Gipson, R. B. Morris, and G. H. Guttridge.

20 See, for example, the last four paragraphs of the Declaration of the Causes of Taking up Arms drafted by a committee appointed in June, 1775, during a meeting of the first continental Congress at Philadelphia. The right of resistance to oppression had been affirmed by Locke, but the colonists would no doubt have appealed to it in any case, as the English themselves had done before publication of the Second Treatise during the glorious revolution.

21 This fear of being enslaved was very often expressed in the newspapers and was one of the main topics, in particular, of the resolution written by Otis, James and Adams, Samuel, The Rights of the Colonists (1772)Google Scholar (see Adams, Samuel, Writings, II, 350 ff.Google Scholar); of the pamphlet of Otis, Rights of the British Colonies; and of the oration sermons delivered at Boston in commemoration of the Boston Massacre (see Niles, Hezekiah, ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America (1st ed., Baltimore, 1822), New York, 1876, 38).Google Scholar See also Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, I, 130, 426, and the sermon of the Reverend Cooke in Thornton, J. W., The Pulpit of the American Revolution (New York, 1860).Google Scholar

22 Bland, Richard, in his pamphlet, An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies (Williamsburg, 1766)Google Scholar, ed. E. G. Swem (Richmond, Va., 1922), was one of the first to hold this view which, by 1774, was general. Coke was influential in this respect. See B. F. Wright, American Interpretations of Natural Law. The leit-motiv, “No taxation without representation,” which was intrinsic in the doctrine of natural law, pointed out the urgency of revising the old imperial system. American representation in the English Parliament was suggested but the impracticability of this reform was too evident to make the suggestion popular. As a better alternative, the modern theory of a commonwealth of the British nations in all equality under the Crown was formulated by Franklin, John Adams, and others. See Adams, R. G., Political Ideas of the American Revolution: Britannic-American Contributions to the Problem of Imperial Organization, 1765-1775 (Durham, N.C., 1922).Google Scholar

23 See Hamilton's, Alexander remark on this point in The Farmer Refuted (New York, 1775)Google Scholar; also Paine, Thomas, Common Sense, ed. van der Weyde, W. M. (Patriot's, ed.), II, 102.Google Scholar

24 See the quotation in Denison, J. H., Emotional Currents in American History (New York, 1932), 27 Google Scholar; also Niles, , ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 17.Google Scholar

25 Guttridge, G. H., English Whiggism and the American Revolution (Berkeley, Calif., 1942), 72–3.Google Scholar The colonists may have felt somewhat inhibited from affirming systematically the rights of man, for they were themselves committed to the practice of Negro slavery, which was integrated in the social structure of the South and in the mercantile interests of the North too completely to permit a strong movement for emancipation, a movement contemplated only by a few advanced radicals. Moreover, a provincial mentality is poorly equipped to attain universality. The systematic appeal to the rights of man was the essential peculiarity of the French Revolution. The French had no body of invested historical rights to uphold their attack on the Ancien Régime. However, many French radicals had clearly grasped the universal element in the American rebellion. See Sagnac, Philip, La Fin de l'Ancien Régime et la Révolution américaine, 1763-1789: peuples et civilisations (Paris, 1947), XII.Google Scholar This aspect of the American Revolution will be dealt with in part III, 1, of the present essay.

26 John, J. Hector St. (de Crèvecœur), Letters from an American Farmer (new ed., London, 1783), 51–3.Google Scholar See Greene, E. B., The Revolutionary Generation, 1763-1790 (New York, 1946), chap. V.Google Scholar On the subject of an emerging national character and the varied causes and circumstances favouring the development, see Kraus, Michael, Intercolonial Aspects of American Culture on the Eve of the Revolution (New York, 1928).Google Scholar

27 Writings, ed. Smyth, Albert Henry (1905–1907), IV, 4.Google Scholar

28 Quoted by Greene, , The Revolutionary Generation, 182.Google Scholar

29 Quoted by Ramsay, D., The History of the Revolution of South Carolina (Trenton, 1785), I, 12–13.Google Scholar This sentence makes sense only if one takes it as referring in vivid terms to the absence of an integrated intercolonial economy and implying that the basis for an intercolonial solidarity was absent.

30 Quoted by Frothingham, Richard, The Rise of the Republic of the United States (Boston, 1872), 188.Google Scholar

31 Typical representatives of such a change of mind were Benjamin Franklin himself, who in February, 1774, had denounced the Boston Tea Party, and, above all, William Henry Drayton, the South Carolinian planter who in 1769 had refuted the radical views of: Gadsden.

32 Niles, , ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 41.Google Scholar

33 Jefferson, , Writings, Ford, Ed., X, 343.Google Scholar

34 A good study of the mercantile background of the opposition movement and of the fundamentally conservative orientation of the movement as long as it remained in the mastery of merchants is presented by Schlesinger, Colonial Merchants.

35 On the propaganda and propagandists, and the reasons for the success of radical propaganda, see Davidson, Philip, Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763-1783 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1941).Google Scholar

36 Thoughts of French Affairs, 367.

37 One must note carefully, however, that these orientations were not so marked in America as they were going to be a few years later in revolutionary France.

38 For a vivid official formulation see “Exhortation Addressed to the Inhabitants of Philadelphia in 1779” in Moore's, Frank Diary of the American Revolution (New York, 1860), II, 166 Google Scholar; see also 4 Am. Archives, I, 976-7.

39 No comprehensive study of the Sons of Liberty as yet exists. For treatment, see Morris, R. B., ed., The Era of the American Revolution (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; Davidson, Philip G., “Sons of Liberty and Stamp Men,” North Carolina Historical Review, IX, 37–55 Google Scholar; Dawson, H. B., The Sons of Liberty in New York (Poughkeepsie, 1859)Google Scholar; and the numerous references in van Tyne, B. H., The Loyalists and the American Revolution (New York, 1929).Google Scholar

40 “Resolution of the Philadelphia Committee,” Sept., 1775, 4 Am. Archives, III, 731. For other similar texts see van Tyne, The Loyalists and the American Revolution.

41 “Z” in New York Gazetteer, Dec. 1, 1774; also 4 Am. Archives, I, 987-9. For similar complaints, see ibid., I, 438, 1011; II, 106; III, 731; and van Tyne, The Loyalists and the American Revolution.

42 Great doubt is often expressed about the sincerity of merchants, planters, and propagandists when they referred to natural law. One is surprised to see that in practical matters of organization and administration they very seldom mentioned this concept, which was, seemingly, used chiefly for moral justification and for galvanizing the masses. This fact points to their being sensible and responsible men. It does not prove that they did not believe in natural law. Even if this most improbable conclusion should be arrived at in some cases it cannot be extended to the masses of the people unless they can be shown to have been constituted of perverse geniuses. And, for the shaping of a national character, it is the attitude and the orientation of the masses that counts most.

43 II 123-4.

44 To some members of the National Assembly who suggested that France might be declared to have reverted to the state of nature, Mirabeau retorted: “Nous ne sommes point des sauvages arrivant des bords de l'Orénoque pour former une société. Nous sommes une nation vieille et sans doute trop vieille pour notre époque, nous avons un gouvernement préexistant, un roi préexistant, des préjugés préexistants. Il faut autant que possible assortir toutes ces choses à la Révolution.” Quoted by Barthou, L., Mirabeau (Paris, 1913), 177.Google Scholar

45 Niles, , éd., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 66.Google Scholar For a similar view of Thomas Dawes, Jr., see ibid., 51-2.

46 Works, IV, 200.Google Scholar For other similar views see Witherspoon, John, Works, V, 222–6Google Scholar; Judge Jay's charge, Sept. 9, 1777, in Niles, , ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 181 Google Scholar; 5 Am. Archives, 182; Otis, , Rights of the British Colonies, 11–12.Google Scholar

47 See Adams, John, Works, IV, 194.Google Scholar Some American leaders, Alexander Hamilton the most conspicuous among them, undoubtedly nourished secret affections for monarchy.

48 New York Tacket, March 28, 1776.

49 Ibid.

50 An oration delivered at the King's Chapel in Boston, April 8, 1776, in Niles, ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution.

51 Memorial Ed., XV, 334.

52 Memorial Ed., XV, 284. See also Adams, John, Works, IV, 290–3.Google Scholar

53 Adams, John, Works, III, 475–6.Google Scholar See also in Niles, ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, the speech of David Ramsay on the second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and many similar beliefs expressed by Jefferson, Mayhew, Edwards, Washington, Henry Laurens, Charles Caroll, Ward Chipman, and many others. These beliefs show that the original conviction expressed by the pious pilgrims of being God's new chosen people had not been discarded, however modified the meaning conveyed by this belief might have become during the revolutionary era.

54 Quoted by Chinard, Gilbert, Thomas Jefferson: The Apostle of Americanism (Boston, 1929), 122–3.Google Scholar

55 In Niles, , ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 66.Google Scholar

56 Quoted by Krapp, G. P. in The English Language in America (New York, 1925), II, 49.Google Scholar See also p. 49 ff. for other similar views.

57 Ford Ed., IV, 59.

58 Common Sense, II, 150.Google Scholar For expressions of similar hopes see Niles, , ed., Principles and Acts of the Revolution, 66-7, 347 Google Scholar; New York Packet, March 28, 1776, article by “Salus Populi.”

59 Sub-title of Gilbert Chinard's valuable Thomas Jefferson. The quotations from Jefferson given in the present sub-section are generally taken from Chinard and have been checked in the Memorial Edition or the Ford Edition.

60 Quoted in Greene, , The Revolutionary Generation, 184.Google Scholar

61 Ibid.

62 Quoted by Chinard, Thomas Jefferson; also Memorial Ed., XIV, 22. For another similar formulation, see Jefferson's letters of April 15, 1785 to James Monroe, Ford Ed., IV, 59.

63 Quoted by Chinard, , Thomas Jefferson, 397 Google Scholar, from the Jefferson papers, Library of Congress, June 13, 1800. Chinard, who was one of the first to look through the Jefferson papers, emphasizes their great importance. This quotation shows the mythical character of the imagery associated with space and its importance when translated into the objective sphere.

64 Quoted by Chinard, , whose Thomas Jefferson (396 ff.)Google Scholar contains a good presentation of the Jeffersonian creed. Washington had expressed the same wish some time before in his Farewell Address.

65 Quoted by Chinard, Thomas Jefferson; Memorial Ed., XV, 455. See also Jefferson's presidential address of Oct. 17, 1803 (Chinard, 424), and a great many other similar formulations in Memorial Ed., XV, passim.

66 Chinard, , Thomas Jefferson, 49.Google Scholar

67 Works, Memorial Ed., X, 294.

68 Quoted by Chinard, , Thomas Jefferson, 417.Google Scholar

69 Jefferson, , Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)Google Scholar, quoted by Chinard (in Thomas Jefferson), who provides an exhaustive treatment of this appeal by Jefferson to old Anglo-Saxon practice. In brief, Chinard says, the proprietary right of the American colonists was not derived from the King but “from their occupancy of a new and unsettled territory.”

70 Third annual message of the President to the Congress, Oct. 17, 1803, quoted by Chinard, , Thomas Jefferson, 417.Google Scholar The remark made in n. 63 applies also here.