Arguments from Above: Dissent in Early Nineteenth-Century American Reformist Discourse

Transcendentalists and reformers of the American Renaissance based their own arguments on education, the struggle against poverty, temperance, women's rights, abolitionism, etc. to a large extent on gestures of dissent against the rulers of the day that echo the ethos of resistance in the Ameri...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Vol. 33; no. 1; pp. 5 - 20
Main Author:	Ludwig, Sämi
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Graz Institut für Anglistik, Universität Graz 01-01-2008 Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG
Subjects:	Abolitionism Children Christianity Church & state Dissent Enlightenment Equal rights Garnets Inspiration Negotiation Political attitudes Politics Religion Slavery
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Transcendentalists and reformers of the American Renaissance based their own arguments on education, the struggle against poverty, temperance, women's rights, abolitionism, etc. to a large extent on gestures of dissent against the rulers of the day that echo the ethos of resistance in the American revolution and even earlier Puritan 'non-conformity' in colonial times. Arguing for all kinds of basic rights and change for the good, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Child, Beecher-Stowe, Garrison, John Brown, the Grimké sisters, Stanton, Sojoumer Truth, Frances Harper, Douglass, Garnet, David Walker, and many others use an individualist language of moral dissent that is based on their religious intuition and their own personal sense of right. With few exceptions, they all refer to some higher or abstract metaphysics to justify their cause. Thus a formerly religious attitude of justification 'from above' has been secularized in America – not in the sense that it was eliminated, but in the sense that we can also find its conceptual formations in the realm of politics and the state and in cultural attitudes in general. This leaves many open questions about the nature of political debate and decision-making in the United States: How does it reflect on the American separation of church and state? Where or what is the 'end' of such dissent? What does it imply for the process of negotiation and what kind of new coherence will you get out of such a framework of oppositionalist change?
ISSN:	0171-5410