AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM 1815 TO 1833.

INTRODUCTORY.

When and where the literature of the American continent had its origin, is a question on which opinions have differed widely. Richardson conscientiously begins his history with a discussion of Indian war-chants. In Prof. Moses Coit Tyler's comprehensive work, as in several hand-books, the name of the picturesque Captain John Smith heads the list of American authors, and the patriotic citizen is congratulated on the fact that our literature sprang from the British at the time of Elizabethan greatness. Brander Matthews says: "It would be possible to maintain the thesis that American literature began in 1809 with the publication of Irving's Knickerbocker's History of New York." And a recent article by Thomas Wentworth Higginson on The Birth of a New Literature2 deals with the early days of the Atlantic Monthly.

A national literature is the expression of national tendencies; and before a first date is assigned, it is well to discover when these tendencies began to make themselves felt. Unfortunately, this is not an easy matter; tendencies grow, but they are never born. A conservation of energy seems to exist in the intellectual as well as in the physical world. Dormant forces are awakened; diffused impulses suddenly become concentrated; old movements change their direction; but only the superficial historian ventures to put his finger on a date and say, "At this moment some

1 Whitcomb Chronological Outlines of American Literature: Introduction, page iz 'Atlantic Monthly, April, 1897. Mr. Higginson parenthetically acknowledges the existence of Irving and Cooper.

thing new came into the intellectual life of the world." It is no doubt possible to find in the literature of today the effects of some influences that can be traced back to the time of the True Relation, if not to the earlier poets of the Choctaw and the Sioux. Classifications must, however, be made on broad grounds; and if we look at the subject comprehensively, we shall find that American writers of the 17th and 18th centuries did not bequeath much to their successors in the 19th. The close of the second war with Great Britain seems better than any other event to mark the date at which began a continuous and significant movement in American literature—a movement that has continued without real interruption to the present day.

Indeed, the historian seldom finds an epoch more distinctly marked than was that which began about 1815. This year saw the close of our war at home,' and the battle of Waterloo abroad. Both in America and in Europe circumstances favored a readjustment of conditions, political, economic, and literary. This was especially true in the United States, where the nation first really saw its destiny. Says Henry Adams:2 "Until 1815, nothing in the future of the American Union was regarded as settled. As late as January, 1815, division into several nationalities was thought to be possible." And again: "In 1815 for the first time Americans ceased to doubt the path they were to follow. Not only was the unity of their nation established, but its probable divergence from older societies was also well defined."

It is the purpose of this study to trace the general course of literature in America from this critical date until another change in conditions occurred about the year 1833; to discover some of the forces that seem to have acted, and what were their results; to note some of the impulses that writers of this period transmitted to their successors; and perhaps incidentally to offer

1 The treaty of peace was signed at Ghent, Dec. 24, 1814, but the news was not received in this country until the opening of the new year. The battle of New Orleans was fought Jan. 8, 1815.

"History of the United States, ix., 219.

Ibid., ix., 220.

slight help toward the solution of the question whether there has yet been an American literature in any other than a geographical sense.

THE PRECEDING PERIOD.

The period just preceding 1815, which Prof. Matthews includes in the beginning years of our literature, was characterized by great bitterness of feeling, not only toward the common enemy, but between factions at home. Party spirit has rarely, if ever, run higher. The course of the government paralyzed commerce and touched the pockets of thousands of men. Naturally enough intense feelings were aroused, and even disruption of the union was openly spoken of, and no doubt wished by some.

Literature, if such it may be called, was mainly devoted to the cause of party, and was largely satirical. Bryant, a boy of thirteen, caught the spirit, and wrote The Embargo, an attack on the dominant party, which went through two editions in as many years. Fessenden produced his Pills, Poetical, Political, and Philosophical, the title of which is suggestive enough of its nature. Ingersoll wrote the Inchiquin Letters, a satire on books by English travellers in America; and Paulding the Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan. Some genius was shown in all these works, and much facility of expression; but the reader of today can only feel that such talents as their authors had, were wasted for the sake of a few months' notoriety. A few writers who did exert some slight influence on their successors will be mentioned in another place.

TENDENCIES OF THE PERIOD-POLITICAL.

The most significant political fact at this time was the growth of the national idea. The treaty of peace and the battle of New Orleans had the effect of merging party discontents in a general feeling of national triumph. It was evident that with but scanty resources, and in spite of dissensions at home, the United States could at least hold her own against a powerful enemy.

BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN,

Indeed, the theory that the war was a drawn contest seems hardly to have been thought of; all Americans regarded it as a decided victory, and all exulted in it. The old motto seemed to be reversed: in strength there was union, though there had been disunion when strength was most needed. The promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine was one of the expressions of this sense of national power.

The years just after the war became known by the now famous name of "The Era of Good Feeling", but it must not be supposed that all political antipathies were laid aside. Some odium still attached to New England for its support of the Hartford Convention, and in parts of New England an especial odium attached to those who had taken part in it. Human nature was the same in those years as in others, and feuds and hostilities, though dormant, still existed. One reason that they did not show more plainly was that the interest in politics was less than ever before.

The natural reaction after great excitement was helped on by influences from abroad. The French craze of an earlier time had had its day, and Napoleon had disgusted many Americans who, in spite of hostilities, knew of Continental affairs largely through the English. After Waterloo nothing in the European situation obtruded itself on the Americans, commercially or otherwise. As a result, they were willing to let political theories take care of themselves. As Henry Adams pointedly says, speaking of the difference between 1801 and 1815, "The Rights of Man occupied public thoughts less, and the price of cotton more." At the same time democracy, which had had its rise a few years earlier, was becoming a settled fact, rather than an aggressive theory.

ECONOMIC.

This feeling of national greatness must find expression in action. The war was over; political strife was laid aside by common consent: naturally, in a new and undeveloped country at

1 History of the United States, ix., 104.

At

tention turned to territorial and commercial expansion. first some manufacturing industries that had been built up during the war were unable to compete with foreign rivals, but this quickly called forth inventions to cheapen the cost of production. Foreign immigrants were just beginning to come in large numbers.1 In the east they tended to make the population more cosmopolitan, while in the west they aided in the development of new states. By 1821, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, and Missouri had been admitted to the union, in the order named. As a natural consequence of the rapid territorial expansion, much attention was paid to means of travel.2 Improvements in steam navigation were introduced, turnpikes were built, and attention turned to canals. The Erie canal was opened in 1825.

The completion of Stephenson's first locomotive is another event usually assigned to the year 1815, and the importance of the new invention was recognized in America fully as soon as in England. At first it was looked upon as of doubtful practical value, but a decade later it was attracting wide attention. The Quincy railroad (operated by horse power) was begun in 1825, and finished in 1826.3 The first locomotive was brought to the United States in 1828. The West soon saw what overland communication by steam meant for its future, and by 1830 the new mode of travel was a favorite theme of discussion as far west as civilization extended.4

As facilities for communication increased, the position of New York gave it a great commercial advantage. Its only rival

1" During the year 1817, 22,000 immigrants were reported as entering the United States. Twelve or fourteen thousand were probably Irish; four thousand were German. More than two thousand arrived in Boston, while about seven thousand landed in New York, and the same number in Philadelphia. The greater part probably remained near where they landed." Adams, History of the United States, ix., 161.

* For a statement of the relation between facilities for transportation and the continuance of the United States as one nation, see Adams, History of the United States, volume i., chapter i.

'There seems to be some question about this date, though most chronologies agree on the one given. Johnson's Encyclopedia gives 1826 for the inception and 1827 for the completion of the road.

See several articles in volume i., of the Illinois Monthly Magazine, Vandalia, 1830.