- FOURTH OF JULY, 1845
(Text from the New York Tribune, July 4, 1845.)
[This is a still more vigorous assertion of Margaret’s in-
creasing comprehension of and sympathy for the cause of
American nationalism. Her patriotism now includes both
a faith in the multitude and a contempt for the inade-
quacies of the citizens.]
The bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the
river shore; the boys sally forth with shouts and little
flags, and crackers enough to frighten all the people they
meet from sunrise to sunset. The orator is conning for
the last time the speech in which he has vainly attempted
to season with some new spice the yearly panegyric upon
our country; its happiness and glory; the audience is
putting on its best bib and tucker, and its blandest ex-
pression to hsten.
And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one
pulse of genuine, noble joy. Those who have obtained their
selfish objects will not take especial pleasure in thinking of
them to-day, while to unbiassed minds must come sad
thoughts of national honor soiled in the eyes of other na-
tions, of a great inheritance risked, if not forfeited.
Much has been achieved in this country since the Dec-
laration of Independence. America is rich and strong; she
has shown great talent and energy; vast prospects of ag-
grandizement open before her. But the noble sentiment
which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished; she
has shovm that righteousness is not her chief desire, and
her name is no longer a watchword for the highest hopes to
the rest of the world. She knows this, but takes it very
easily; she feels that she is growing richer and more power-
ful, and that seems to suffice her.
These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pro-
nounce the words “my country” with pride and peace only
so far as steadfast virtues, generous impulses, find their
home in that country. They cannot be satisfied with super-
ficial benefits, with luxuries and the means of obtaining
knowledge which are multiplied for them. They could
rejoice in full hands and a busy brain, if the soul were ex-
panding and the heart pure; but, the higher conditions
being violated, what is done cannot be done for good.
Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal
bursts upon the ear. This year, which declares that the
people at large consent to cherish and extend slavery as one
of our “domestic institutions,” takes from the patriot his
home. This year, which attests their insatiate love of wealth
and power, quenches the flame upon the altar.
Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken
away. If nations go astray, the narrow path may always be
found and followed by the individual man. It is hard,
hard indeed, when politics and trade are mixed up with
evils so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear
of being defiled. He finds his activity checked in great nat-
ural outlets by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy
the free use of his limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide;
but struggling, panting, must fix his eyes upon his aim,
and fight against the current to reach it. It is not easy, it
is very hard just now, to realize the blessings of independ-
ence.
For what is independence if it do not lead to freedom?
—freedom from fraud and meanness, from selfishness,
from public opinion so far as it does not agree with the
still, small voice of one’s better self?
Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This
country presents great temptations to ill, but also great in-
ducements to good. Her health and strength are so remark-
able, her youth so full of life, that disease cannot yet have
taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, made
her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood.
Things are still in that state when ten just men may save
the city. A few men are wanted, able to think and act upon
principles of an eternal value. The safety of the country
must lie in a few such men; men who have achieved the
genuine independence, independence of wrong, of vio-
lence, of falsehood.
We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as
examples of the practicability of virtue. We want shining
examples. We want deeply-rooted characters, who cannot
be moved by flattery, by fear, even by hope, for they work
in faith. The opportunity for such men is great; they will
not be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing
witness to the truth, yet they will be tested most severely
in their adherence to it. There is nothing to hinder them
from learning what is true and best; no physical tortures
will be inflicted on them for expressing it. Let men feel
that in private lives, more than in public measures, must
the salvation of the country lie. If that country has so
widely veered from the course she prescribed to herself,
and that the hope of the world prescribed to her, it must
be because she had not men ripened and confirmed for
better things. They leaned too carelessly on one another;
they had not deepened and purified the private lives from
which the public vitality must spring, as the verdure of
the plain from the fountains of the hills.
What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The
bier of General Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a
golden urn. The men who placed it there lament his de-
parture, and esteem the measures which have led this
country to her present position wise and good. The other
side esteem them unwise, unjust, and disastrous in their
consequences. But both respect him thus far, that his con-
duct was boldly sincere. The sage of Quincy! Men differ
in their estimate of his abilities. None, probably, esteem
his mind as one of the first magnitude. But both sides.
All men, are influenced by the bold integrity of his char-
acter. Mr. Calhoun speaks straight out what he thinks.
So far as this straightforwardness goes, he confers the bene-
fits of virtue. If a character be uncorrupted, whatever bias
it takes, it thus far is good and does good. It may help
others to a higher, wiser, larger independence than its own.
We know not where to look for an example of all or
many of the virtues we would seek from the man who is
to begin the new dynasty that is needed of fathers of the
country. The country needs to be bom again; she is pol-
luted with the lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs
fathers good enough to be godfathers— men who will stand
sponsors at the baptism with all they possess, with all the
goodness they can cherish, and all the wisdom they can
win, to lead this child the way she should go, and never
one step in another. Are there not in schools and colleges
the boys who will become such men? Are there not those
on the threshold of manhood who have not yet chosen
the broad way into which the multitude rushes, led by
the banner on which, strange to say, the royal Eagle is
blazoned, together with the word Expediency? Let them
decline that road, and take the narrow, thorny path where
Integrity leads, though with no prouder emblem than the
Dove. They may there find the needed remedy, which,
like the white root, detected by the patient and resolved
Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of men,
disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly
yielded in the forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty
of men.
Source:
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES COLLEGE LIBRARY MARGARET FULLER: AMERICAN ROMANTIC Perry Miller was bom in Chicago and graduated from the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1931. That year he became an instructor at Harvard University. He has been Professor of American Literature at Harvard since 1946. During 1962-63, he was at the Institute for Advanced Studies, in Princeton, where he was composing an analysis of the American intellect in the early nineteenth century— the era of Margaret Fuller. Among his many books are: Orthodoxy in Massachu- setts; The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century; Jonathan Edwards; Roger Williams; The New England Mind: From Colony to Province; The American Puritans (A80); The American Transcendentalists (A119); and The Legal Mind in America (A313). Digitized by tlie Internet Arcliive in 2012 witli funding from LYRASIS IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://archive.org/details/margaretfulleraOOfull MARGARET FULLER AMERICAN ROMANTIC A SELECTION FROM HER WRITINGS AND CORRESPONDENCE EDITED BY PERRY MILLER Anchor Books Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York 1963 The Anchor Books edition is the first publication of Margaret Fuller: American Romantic. Anchor Books edition: 1963 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-13082 Copyright © 1963 by Perry Miller All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America
