Perry Miller - The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War, Books One Through Three

Perry Miller

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Revolution to the Civil War

Books One Through Three

Winner of the 1966,Pulitzer Prize in History

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The Life of the Mind in America

BOOKS BY PERRY MILLER

Orthodoxyt in MassachusettsThe Puritans (with Thomas H. Johnson)

The New England Mind: The Seventeenth CenturyEditor, Jonathan Edwards, Images or Shadows of Divine Things

Jonathan EdwardsThe Transcendentalists

The New England Mind: From Colony to ProvinceRoger Williams

Editor, American Thought, Civil War to World War IEditor, The American Puritans: Their Prose and PoetryErrand into the WildernessThe Raven and the Whale

Editor, Consciousness in Concord: The Text of Thoreau*s Lost JournalGeneral Editor, Major Writers of America

For Marie-Louise and Samuel Rosenthal

Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2018 with funding fromKahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/lifeofmindinamerOOmill

Foreword

Some seven or eight years before his death in 1963, when Perry Millerbegan thinking of how he would go about presenting an account ofthe development of an American mind" in the new nation, he wasprincipally engaged in an examination of the writers of what is usually considered the classic" period of American literature. Briefthough the time had been between the Revolution and their day,Emerson and Thoreau, Hawthorne and Melville, observing the headlong course on which the country was embarked, found themselvesvirtually united on one basic theme: the judgment of Nature uponthat society. Things" were in the saddle, and Natures nation couldbring forward no Newton, could hail no voice greater than Shakespeare."

Just as, in examining the New England Mind, he had found it necessary to backtrack to the Englishand ContinentalReformation, sothe writer now returned to the first days of the Republic, to begin, ashe hoped, to distinguish the various strands of intellectual experiencethat went into the establishing of an American identity. While thegrand design was completed, the present volume constitutes all thatwas written.

Book One, with its examination of the manner in which thechurches, through the mechanism of the Revival, found a means bywhich they could both prosper and preserve a unity of mission despite sectarian multiplicity, had been completed and had undergonethorough revision. Book Two, on the truly heroic exertions of juriststo construct a legal system, to establish courts for the new nation, hadundergone considerable revision. Of Book Three, on science and technology, only the first chapter had been completed, but the final working outline of what was to follow is included. The intention was thatthese books, together with a Prologue, The Sublime in America,"and another book on education, would constitute the first volume ofthe work as a whole.

Vll

FOREWORD

For those Americans who figure in this story, two considerationswere always present to their vision: the challenge of the vast territory,its limitless prairies, its great rivers, its sublime mountains, all waitingto be explored, to be mastered, to be mined; and the uniqueness ofthe new man, the American republican, who would indubitablyachieve marvels in the governance of society, in science, in letters andthe arts, indeed, who could, unlike the weary and debauched citizenof the Old World, legitimately aspire to the moral sublime. That partof the life of the mind in America that went on in Concord, Massachusetts, was often skeptical of such grandiose projections, but itshould be remembered that even Henry Thoreau could say, With alittle more wit we might use these materials so as to become richerthan the richest now are, and make our civilization a blessing."

Cambridge, MassachusettsMay 13, 1965

ELIZABETH W. MILLER

Foreword by Elizabeth W. Miller vii

Book One The Evangelical Basis

Chapter I The Intellect of the Revival 3

1. THE GRAND ERA OF THE REVIVAL 3

2. THE ASPIRATION OF THE REVIVAL 10

3. ENEMIES OF THE SPIRIT I4

4. THE COMPLEXITIES OF REBUTTAL 20

5. SOLITUDE AND SOCIETY 27

Chapter II Unity through Diversity 36

1. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 36

2. THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE 40

3. THE CONCORDANCE OF DISSENT 43

4. THE REFLEX OF MISSIONS 49

5. POWER IN THE PULPIT 59

6. THIS NATION, UNDER GOD 66

Chapter III Pentecost and Armageddon 73

1. THE BANDS OF SLOTH 73

2. THE PERILS OF BENEVOLENCE 78

3. THE MORALS OF THE CITY 85

4. THE EVENT OF THE CENTURY 88

Book Two The Legal Mentality

Chapter I The Rise of a Profession 99

1. NATURE VERSUS LAW 99

2. LAW VERSUS THE COMMON LAW IO5

CONTENTS

3. the highest political class and the most

CULTIVATED PORTION OF SOCIETY lOQ

Chapter II Intellectual Elegance 117

1. THE CRITERION OF REASON II7

2. THE REASONABLENESS OF IRRATIONALITY 121

3. SCHOLARSHIP 134

4. STYLE 143

Chapter III The Science of the Law 156

1. INDUCTION OR DEDUCTION? I56

2. THE CIVIL LAW 164

3. EQUITY 171

4. PRACTICALITY 182

Chapter IV Law and Morality 186

1. LEGAL BENEVOLENCE l86

2. THE CHRISTIAN FORUM 192

3. A DIFFERENT FORUM 198

4. TREPIDATION 203

Chapter V Definition by Negation 207

1. TELEOLOGY 207

2. INHERENT DEPRAVITY 214

3. MARSHALL, STORY, AND TANEY 2l8

Chapter VI The Hinge of Negation 223

1. BLACKSTONE AMERICANIZED 223

2. JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE 231

Chapter VII Codification 239

1. RATIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC SUBLIMITY 239

2. SCIENTIFIC and AMERICAN PRACTICALITY 249

3. DAVID DUDLEY FIELD 254

Book ThreeChapter I

ScienceTheoretical and Applied