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Contested Identities: Nationalism, Regionalism, and Patriotism in Early American Textbooks Margaret A. Nash Immediately after the American Revolution, the founders set about the task of ensuring the continued existence of the fledgling republic. Facing a host of problemsFeconomic, social, and governmentalF some founders promoted a concept of schooling that would inculcate patriotism and forge a uniquely American identity. Noah Webster wanted to create an American language, and Benjamin Rush wanted schools to ‘‘convert men into republican machines.’’ 1 Webster, Rush, Thomas Jefferson, and others all wanted to use some version of common schooling to instill in children a sense of nationalism. Textbooks used in these common schools would be a likely way to further promote a sense of American identity. What that identity should be, though, and what the ‘‘good citizen’’ of the new republic should look like, was sharply contested, and textbooks of this period reflect many of the fissures in the work of nation building. This paper reexamines texts published during the period of the initial formation of the nation, from 1783 to 1815, or from the end of the American Revolution through the War of 1812. If textbook authors had sought to help create a sense of unified American nationhood, we would find messages of commonality over difference, Americanism over Europeanism, and the promotion of a clearly defined sense of patriotism. Instead, this examination of thirty-one textbooks (sixteen geographies and history texts, and fifteen readers and grammar books), most written by New Englanders but also sold widely in the South, History of Education Quarterly Vol. 49 No. 4 November 2009 Copyright r 2009 by the History of Education Society My thanks to Ben Justice, John Wills, Sharon Hobbs, Christine Woyshner, Begon ˇa Echeverria, Michael Fultz, Doug Mitchell, Susan Harlow, the Riverside Writing Group, and the reviewers for reading and commenting on drafts of this manuscript. Special thanks to Wayne Shapiro for his excellent research assistance and his insights. 1 Benjamin Rush, ‘‘A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledge in Pennsylvania; to Which Are Added, Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education, Proper in a Republic,’’ in Essays on Education in the Early Republic, ed. Frederick Rudolph (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [1786] 1965), 17; Keith Whitescarver, ‘‘Creating Citizens for the Republic: Education in Georgia, 1776– 1818,’’ Journal of the Early Republic 13 (Winter 1993): 455–79.

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Page 1: Contested Identities: Nationalism, Regionalism, and Patriotism in Early American Textbooks

Contested Identities: Nationalism,Regionalism, and Patriotism in EarlyAmerican Textbooks

Margaret A. Nash

Immediately after the American Revolution, the founders set about thetask of ensuring the continued existence of the fledgling republic.Facing a host of problemsFeconomic, social, and governmentalFsome founders promoted a concept of schooling that would inculcatepatriotism and forge a uniquely American identity. Noah Websterwanted to create an American language, and Benjamin Rush wantedschools to ‘‘convert men into republican machines.’’1 Webster, Rush,Thomas Jefferson, and others all wanted to use some version of commonschooling to instill in children a sense of nationalism. Textbooks used inthese common schools would be a likely way to further promote a senseof American identity. What that identity should be, though, and what the‘‘good citizen’’ of the new republic should look like, was sharplycontested, and textbooks of this period reflect many of the fissures inthe work of nation building.

This paper reexamines texts published during the period of theinitial formation of the nation, from 1783 to 1815, or from the end of theAmerican Revolution through the War of 1812. If textbook authors hadsought to help create a sense of unified American nationhood, we wouldfind messages of commonality over difference, Americanism overEuropeanism, and the promotion of a clearly defined sense ofpatriotism. Instead, this examination of thirty-one textbooks (sixteengeographies and history texts, and fifteen readers and grammar books),most written by New Englanders but also sold widely in the South,

History of Education Quarterly Vol. 49 No. 4 November 2009 Copyright r 2009 by the History of Education Society

My thanks to Ben Justice, John Wills, Sharon Hobbs, Christine Woyshner, BegonaEcheverria, Michael Fultz, Doug Mitchell, Susan Harlow, the Riverside Writing Group,and the reviewers for reading and commenting on drafts of this manuscript. Specialthanks to Wayne Shapiro for his excellent research assistance and his insights.

1Benjamin Rush, ‘‘A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusionof Knowledge in Pennsylvania; to Which Are Added, Thoughts Upon the Mode ofEducation, Proper in a Republic,’’ in Essays on Education in the Early Republic, ed. FrederickRudolph (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [1786] 1965), 17;Keith Whitescarver, ‘‘Creating Citizens for the Republic: Education in Georgia, 1776–1818,’’ Journal of the Early Republic 13 (Winter 1993): 455–79.

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reveals little consistency of principle beyond that of the insistent andstrongly worded demands for virtue and piety.2 National unity was notthe predominating sentiment in either readers or geographies publishedin the decades following nationhood; rather, regional bias was strong,and there was a wariness regarding democracy itself. Further, althoughpatriotism often lends itself to a romanticized gloss on history, the earlynational period was not a period of telling only heroic or glowing tales ofthe United States, and textbook authors did not shy away from pointingout to students the faults of their past and current leaders.

This look at textbooks raises questions about the meaning ofnationalism and patriotism in the early republic, and about the ways inwhich local and regional values were part of the larger project of nationbuilding. Competing ideals of what the new country should be resultedin books for schoolchildren that did not present a unified approach.Textbooks of this and other periods need to be reexamined in the contextof new work on nation building. Specifically, most scholarly for-mulations of nationalism project a top-down approach, as does thefamiliar story of Webster and Rush, in which political leaders articulatean agenda that is adopted by the public. Newer theories ask us to look atnationalism from the ground upFi.e., from the point of view of thecommon person. In this article I suggest that it might be useful to seetextbooks as inhabiting a space in between the elite and the averageperson. Most textbooks were written by local religious leaders, notnational political leaders; as such, the authors may have been responsiveto local loyalties and values at least as much as to nationalistic ideologies.Yet these authors were not simply promoting their region; they were partof a larger contest over defining what it should mean to be an American.

Historiographical Background

Many leaders of the Revolutionary generation spoke of the need tocreate a sense of national identity. John Jay in Federalist Number Tworeferred to ‘‘one united people y speaking the same language,professing the same religion, attached to the same principles ofgovernment, very similar in their manners and customs.’’3 For somefounders who shared the goal of inculcating national unity in the wake of

2Michael V. Belok, ‘‘Forming the American Character: Essayists andSchoolbooks,’’ Social Science 43, no. 1 (1968): 12–21; Cynthia M. Koch, ‘‘TeachingPatriotism: Private Virtue for the Public Good in the Early Republic,’’ in Bonds ofAffection: Americans Define Their Patriotism, ed. John Bodnar (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1996); Cynthia M. Koch, ‘‘The Virtuous Curriculum: AmericanSchoolbooks, 1785–1830’’ (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1991).

3Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Federalist Papers (New York: Penguin, 1987), 91.

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the Revolution, common schooling seemed a likely way to meet thisgoal. According to this view, common schooling was ‘‘a politicallyunifying force in the heterogenous country,’’ and therefore Americans‘‘almost compulsively set themselves to the task of making theirindependence complete’’ through creating new literature, art, andeducation that would unify the country.4 Jefferson, Rush, and Websterrepresent the desire to use schooling to create the ‘‘uniform American,’’the ‘‘homogenous American,’’ and ‘‘to create a new unity, a commoncitizenship and culture.’’5 The main reason for Americanizing childrenwas to create citizens who would be loyal to the new country.

Historians have documented, however, that the goals of theseleaders did not translate into action on the part of the generalcitizenry.6 All the talk about education, writes Jonathan Messerli,‘‘bought no bricks and built no schoolhouses. Neither did it producean indigenous national culture.’’7 Carl Kaestle notes that plans for state-supported schooling generally met with legislative failure; levying taxesto pay for common schools simply was not a popular idea, nor was it clearto voters or legislators ‘‘that the republic would collapse’’ without it.8

More recently, historian Siobhan Moroney has questioned the extent towhich national leaders represented the views of the general public. Asmall selection of essays on education in the new republic that proposedplans for building a system of common schooling has been canonized;but what did the popular press say about education? She compared thesecanonized essays to essays in weekly and monthly popular periodicalsand concluded that the national emphasis in the canon was not mirroredby essays in the popular press. Such a discussion was ‘‘just not there,’’Moroney writes.9 Education itself was a concern to many people.Formal and informal education increased, private schools and

4Jonathan Messerli, ‘‘The Columbian Complex: The Impulse to NationalConsolidation,’’ History of Education Quarterly 7, no. 4 (1967): 418; Lorraine SmithPangle and Thomas L. Pangle, The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of theAmerican Founders (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 101.

5David Tyack, ‘‘Forming the National Character: Paradox in the EducationalThought of the Revolutionary Generation,’’ Harvard Educational Review 36, no. 1 (1966):31; David Tyack, ‘‘School for Citizens: The Politics of Civic Education from 1790 to1990,’’ in E Pluribus Unum? Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Immigrant PoliticalIncorporation, ed. Gary Gerstle and John Mollenkopf (New York: Russell SageFoundation, 2001), 336, 38.

6There were exceptions to this, of course. See, for instance, Benjamin Justice, TheWar That Wasn’t: Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York State,1865–1900 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005).

7Messerli, ‘‘The Columbian Complex,’’ 428.8Carl F. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–

1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 9.9Siohban Moroney, ‘‘Birth of a Canon: The Historiography of Early Republican

Educational Thought,’’ History of Education Quarterly 39, no. 4 (1999): 487.

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academies flourished, and public schools began to grow. But theresimply was little popular interest in any sort of national plan or nationalpurpose for education.

The lack of popular interest in education as a means of sustainingthe republic or creating a national identity is reflected in textbooks of theearly national period, in which regional bias and cautionary talesabounded. Instead of erasing difference, many textbook authors fromthis period highlighted difference, praising the people of one region orstate and criticizing the people of other states or regions. Rather thanshowcasing only the glorious and illustrious past and present of the newcountry in order to build patriotic pride or a sense of national purpose,the authors pointed out faults and blunders as well as praiseworthybehavior. These books did not promote an already-existing sense ofcommonality. However, I argue that their emphasis on difference wascentral to that era’s work of nation building.

Recent work on nationalism and national identity helps explain thisphenomenon, as historians have analyzed ‘‘the contested character ofAmerican nationalism,’’ arguing that early views of nationalism ‘‘allowedfor and even encouraged conflict and dissent.’’10 Whether this airing ofdivergent views was the result of a value placed on dissonance, orwhether it was the result of each interest group attempting to dominatethe marketplace of ideas, is not clear.11 Historian Isaac Kramnickdescribes the ‘‘great national discussion’’ regarding the Constitution as‘‘a profusion and confusion of political tongues among the founders.’’Both Federalists and Anti-Federalists ‘‘tapped several languages ofpolitics y and the use of one was compatible with the use of anotherby the very same writer or speaker.’’12 Uniformity of thought certainlywas not a hallmark of the leaders of this era.

In addition to seeing diversity of opinion within the range of whatcould be considered nation building, another line of theorizing asks us toreconsider whether inculcating nationalism is as unidirectional as hasbeen implied. Don Doyle critiques earlier work on nationalism forassuming ‘‘a top-down dissemination of national identity,’’ ‘‘an idea orsentiment constructed by elites and foisted upon the masses.’’ Doylesuggests that studies of nationalism should also look at how ideas from

10Eileen Ka-May Cheng, ‘‘American Historical Writers and the Loyalists, 1788-1856: Dissent, Consensus, and American Nationality,’’ Journal of the Early Republic 23,no. 4 (2003): 493.

11John Bodnar, ed., Bonds of Affection: Americans Define Their Patriotism (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University, 1996); David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: TheMaking of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1997).

12Isaac Kramnick, ‘‘‘The Great National Discussion’: The Discourse of Politics in1787,’’ William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser 45 (1988): 4.

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the elites are received by the masses, and how those ideas are reconstitutedinto forms the masses can embrace. Where nationalist projects succeeded,argues Doyle, is where they ‘‘absorbed and complemented popularvalues’’ rather than battling them.13 One of the places that textbooks,and geography texts in particular, might reflect that absorption of popularvalues is in the matter of regional bias. In spite of the leaders’ desire fornational unity, the textbooks display considerable judgment about peoplein one state or region over another, as will be shown.

Why regional bias might have been an expression of local values canbe explained in the context of forming the new government. Rather thanseeing regionalism as in opposition to national unity, historians BrianSchoen and Peter Onuf have shown that nationalism and sectionalismwere not mutually exclusive but ‘‘coexisted as layers of early nationalidentities.’’14 Onuf argues that national identity in the early Americanrepublic did not depend on ‘‘dissolving preexisting parts in anhomogenous whole,’’ but on giving equal voice, and equal access topower, to those preexisting constituent parts. The goal was not to erasedifference, but for differences to be treated equitably. This emphasis onequal claims to representation reinforced the distinctions amongregions. According to Onuf, sectional alliances emerged ‘‘out ofpervasive anxieties y that selfish politicians would promote theparochial concerns of one region at the expense of others, that anunholy alliance of interest groups would construct a powerful centralgovernment’’ that would favor one region over others. The new federalgovernment, ‘‘by providing a context and language for identifyingregional identities and interests y inevitably heightened sectionalconsciousness.’’15 For James Madison, too, who was one of theprimary authors of the Constitution, equity depended on regionalism.Political balance could be maintained in the face of territorial expansiononly because of a system of sectional checks and balances. In this view,regional loyalties were not to be feared as leading to secession (although,of course, they did) but were to be welcomed as an important means ofkeeping the system in balance.16 Political historian Christopher Duncan

13Don H. Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question, Jack N.and Addie D. Averitt Lecture Series (Athens & London: The University of Georgia Press,2002), 36, 37.

14Peter Onuf, ‘‘The Origins of American Sectionalism,’’ in All Over the Map:Rethinking American Regions, ed. Edward L. Ayers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,1996); Brian Schoen, ‘‘Calculating the Price of Union: Republican EconomicNationalism and the Origins of Southern Sectionalism, 1790–1828,’’ Journal of theEarly Republic 23, no. 2 (2003): 177.

15Onuf, ‘‘The Origins of American Sectionalism,’’ 14–15.16Carville Earle, The American Way: A Geographical History of Crisis and Recovery

(New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Inc., 2003), 343.

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concurs, adding that to Anti-Federalists, ‘‘attempts to render the[nation] uniform’’ were not only ‘‘lacking in cultural support but also,and more important, [were seen as] anathema to the project of stabilityitself.’’17 With that in mind, the local emphasis in early Americantextbooks is more easily understood, as it reflects the ‘‘bottom up’’concerns held by individuals who feared for the fair treatment of theirregion, state, or commercial enterprise.

There was no ‘‘buying of bricks or building of schoolhouses’’ topromote a nationalistic vision because there was no clear consensus onwhat it meant to be patriotic, what it meant to be a good American,whether there was a need for a national culture, or what role formal tax-supported schooling should play in any of this. If we focus on the views ofnational leaders, we reasonably wonder why the vision was notimplemented. But if instead we see multiple visions, we might also seemultiple forms of implementation. Messerli noted the great variety offorms of educational institutions in the early national and antebellumera, and credited diversity itselfF ‘‘local interests, denominationalism,family loyalties, pluralism, immigration, and ethnic differences’’Fwithstrengthening the nation.18

This article, then, offers a new look at early American textbooks,seeing them as part of the ‘‘bottom up’’ vision of nationhood, articulatingas they do strong local values in the midst of instilling patriotism. Whatfollows is brief commentary on Webster’s efforts to Americanizelanguage, and then a larger discussion of regionalism in the textbooks.Although much of the regional bias followed a North–South divide, ittook significant other forms as well. Finally, this article examinestextbook commentary on U.S. government and history. In all of thesediscussionsFof language, regionalism, government, and heritageFtextbooks reveal the contested nature of ideals regarding thecharacteristics of good citizens. In debates over whether the citizenrywas one people or many, the books showcase the wide diversity of peopleand expose various views of what the ‘‘one people’’ ought to look like.

American Language and Literature

Webster is spoken of as having single-handedly unified the countrylinguistically with his dictionary and his speller. He ‘‘did more thanperhaps any other American to give a distinctive tone and substance’’ toeducation in the first decades of the new nation, according to some

17Christopher M. Duncan, The Anti-Federalists and Early American Political Thought(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1995), 164.

18Messerli, ‘‘The Columbian Complex,’’ 430.

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authors.19 The popularity of his books is undeniable. However, this ismuch more true of the 1830s and the following decades, and not of theearly national period. In the decades between the Revolution and theWar of 1812, there were numerous rival spellers, all of which usedBritish, not American, dictionaries as the basis for spelling,syllabification, and pronunciation.20 One study of these early spellersconcludes that there was ‘‘keen and even bitter rivalry between thoseauthors who followed’’ the British rules and those who preferredWebster.21 Webster caustically alluded to this competition when hereferred to Dilworth’s grammar text as ‘‘the oldest and most imperfectguide’’ commonly used in schools, adding acerbically that its authorityhas become ‘‘as sacred as the traditions of the Jews, or the Mahometan[sic] bible.’’22 He went on to declaim Dilworth’s speller as ‘‘defective’’ in‘‘almost every part,’’ ‘‘one half y is totally useless and the other halfdefective and erroneous.’’ Yet, he complained, ‘‘ten thousands of thesebooks, are annually reprinted and find rapid sale.’’23 Evidently, Websterwas not exaggerating the popularity of Dilworth’s book. Over 75editions, with an average print run of 10,000 each, were printed before1800 in at least thirteen different American cities.24 Clearly, thecompulsion to create an American language was not a collective one.

Virtually all of the geography textbooks from the early nationalperiod use British spelling rather than American; there are numerousexamples in the quotations that follow. This is not to say that in the earlynational period Webster did not have the goal of creating an Americanlanguage; it is undeniable that he did. However, apparently few othersshared his goal, and his dictionary was not published until 1825Fnotin the post-Revolutionary years. Webster’s system of Americanizedspelling did not get wide use until popularized by the McGuffey’sReaders, the first of which did not appear until 1836.25

Less famous now than Webster’s, but more popular then, werereading texts by Caleb Bingham (American Preceptor, 1794; ColumbianOrator, 1797), and Lindley Murray (English Reader, 1795; Sequel to the

19Pangle and Pangle, The Learning of Liberty, 133.20John A. Nietz, Old Textbooks (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1961),

10–44.21Ibid., 20.22Noah Webster, A Grammatical Institute, of the English Language, Comprising, an

Easy, Concise, and Systematic Method of Education, Designed for the Use of English Schools inAmerica, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1783), 8 (italics in original).

23Ibid., 10.24Thomas Dilworth, A New Guide to the English Tongue, ed. R. C. Alston, vol. 4,

English Linguistics, 1500–1800 (Leeds: The Scholar Press Limited, 1967), ii; Raoul N.Smith, ‘‘Interest in Language and Languages in Colonial and Federal America,’’Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 123 (1979): 36.

25Nietz, Old Textbooks, 42.

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English Reader, 1800; and Introduction to the English Reader, 1801).Bingham was vocal in his desire to use as texts ‘‘the productions ofAmerican genius.’’26 This sentiment is in perfect keeping with the desireto promote Americanism, and his books sold well: the Preceptor sold640,000 copies and the Orator 200,000 copies by 1832.27 Yet Bingham’sreading texts were supplanted in popularity by those of Murray, whomade no attempt whatsoever to select works by ‘‘American geniuses.’’Murray, although born in Pennsylvania, spent the last forty years of hislife in England, and it was there that he compiled and published hisreaders. Notice that even the titles of his books used the term English, inreference to the language, rather than terms such as American, National,or Columbian that referenced a country. His books were popular inEngland, Ireland, and Canada, in addition to the United States,demonstrating the lack of emphasis on one nation above others.Murray’s readers were revered by none less than Abraham Lincolnhimself, who is alleged to have called that reader ‘‘the best school-bookever put into the hands of an American youth.’’28 This ‘‘best school-book’’ contained no works by any authors born or living in the UnitedStates, yet were the most widely used readers and grammars until the late1820s, and are estimated to have sold as many two million copies by1850.29

In the early national period, then, published compilations ofreadings for use by schoolchildren did not emphasize Americanism,nationalism, or American authors. If nationalism was not present inreaders, one might expect to find it in geography texts, which had as agoal the understanding of particular countries and forms of government.Eighteenth and nineteenth century geography books defined geographybroadly to include historic geography (boundaries, indigenous peoples),political geography (religion, government, laws, population), civilgeography (manners and customs, languages, literature, education,commerce), and natural geography (mountains, rivers, lakes, climate,botany, zoology, mineralogy).30 In texts that highlighted political andcivil geography we might expect material that promoted national unity

26Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and SelectedPieces, Together with Rules, Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the Ornamental andUseful Art of Eloquence (Troy, NY: O. Penniman and Co., 1803), iv.

27Granville Canter, ‘‘The Active Virtue of The Columbian Orator,’’ The New EnglandQuarterly 70, no. 3 (1997): 463.

28Michael V. Belok, Forming the American Minds: Early School-Books & TheirCompilers (1783–1837) (Moti Katra, Agra: Satish Book Enterprise, 1973), 21–22, 189, 96.

29Ibid., 23, 221; Rollo Lyman, English Grammar in American Schools before 1850(Washington: Bureau of Education, 1921), 80.

30Horatio Gates Spafford, General Geography and Rudiments of Useful Knowledge. InNine Sections. Digested on a New Plan, and Designed for the Use of Schools (Hudson: Croswell& Frary, 1809).

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and a coherent sense of national purpose. Instead, we find heavypromotion of one region or state over another.

The Slavery Divide

The most obvious division in these early textbooks was that of North andSouth, free and slave states. Textbook writers in the early national periodmade no effort at all to smooth over this distinction. Nor did they shyaway from criticizing, not just individuals who owned enslaved people,but the institution itself. Slavery, according to the author of one text, is‘‘utterly abhorrent to good policy, to morality, and to the spirit ofChristianity.’’31 The institution jeopardizes the military strength of aregion, stated one author, and ought to be done away with on thosegrounds alone, ‘‘without any reference to the immorality and wickednessof the practice.’’ Therefore, the author hoped for ‘‘the ultimate abolitionof such an impolitic and unjust encroachment upon the unalienablerights and liberties of men naturally born free.’’32

Many of the negative comments about slavery centered around theconcept of liberty and freedom. Having just fought a revolution on thesegrounds, it is not surprising that some people thought these principlesshould extend to all. Some authors used sarcasm to make theirviewpoints crystal clear. For instance, Jedidiah Morse wrote that overa million ‘‘degraded people are still held in slavery in this land of libertyand equal rights.’’33 Others seemed to call for another revolution: ‘‘Noris there any hope that this dismal stain will be washed away, till the slaves,by the destruction of their masters, shall rise to freedom y .’’34

Textbook authors correlated life in a slave state with low characterand morals of whites, and life in a free state with higher character andmorals. The system of slavery produces ‘‘idleness, luxury, tyranny, andinhumanity’’ among whites, along with a ‘‘disdain’’ for labor and ‘‘lessrespect for the Sabbath, for the institutions of religion and its ministers’’stated an 1807 text. This is in direct contrast to people in the North whoengage in ‘‘incessant labor’’ and view their ministers ‘‘with affectionateesteem.’’35 ‘‘The practice of slave-holding has a direct tendency to imbue

31Ibid., 165.32John Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography: Designed for Schools

and Youth in General (Worthington, OH: Putnam and Israel, 1813), 169–70 (italics inoriginal).

33Jedidiah Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, or a Viewof the Present State of the World (Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1814), 101.

34Elijah Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, Designed for Schools.Compiled from the Latest and Most Distinguished European and American Travellers, Voyagersand Geographers (Newburyport, MA: Thomas & Whipple, 1807), 27.

35Ibid., 27–28.

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the people’s minds with insensibility of feeling,’’ noted one geographytext; perhaps worse in a republic, it also imbues them with ‘‘aristocratical[sic] principles and practices.’’36 The ‘‘great distinction among theinhabitants’’ of the South, ‘‘arising from the unbounded extent ofslavery,’’ is ‘‘disadvantageous’’ to their character.37

A few books mentioned that slavery existed in the North, but thesetexts always pointed out the dissimilarities. Northern slavery is ‘‘anominal’’ rather than a ‘‘real slavery,’’ as slaves and masters ‘‘labor inthe same field, sleep under the same roof, eat at the same table, attendpublic worship in the same congregation, and their children areinstructed in the same schools.’’ In contrast, Southern slavery ‘‘is amore bitter cup.’’38 Sometimes it seems as though the hot and humidclimate of the South was as responsible for vice as was the institution ofslavery. ‘‘A degree of sloth and effeminancy y exists among some of theslave holders in the warm climates of the southern states,’’ says onegeography text.39 Morse credited progress in North Carolina to ‘‘thegreat immigration of farmers and artisans [sic] from the northern states,who have roused the spirit of industry’’ among a people who otherwisehad lived lives of ‘‘dissipation and indolence.’’40

Although historians have, of course, long been aware of this North–South antagonism, many historical accounts place the beginnings ofhostility much later than the early national period. Historian Harry L.Watson agues that ‘‘sectional disputes seemed unlikely in 1815,’’although they became frighteningly visible by the Missouri crisis of1819.41 After all, there still were people enslaved as far north as NewYork as late as the late 1820s, in Connecticut as late as 1848, and in NewJersey until 1866.42 The first anti-slavery society, the existence of whichsharpened regional consciousness, was not formed until the early 1830s.According to Don Doyle, it was not until the late 1840s that sectionalanimosity was defined enough that people could talk about North andSouth as though they were ‘‘coherent, identifiable places withconflicting interests and values.’’ Further, according to Doyle, even as

36Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 201.37John O’Neill, A New and Easy System of Geography and Popular Astronomy; or, an

Introduction to Universal Geography (Baltimore: Dobbin & Murphy, 1808), 113.38Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 27.39Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 79.40Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 231.41Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York:

Hill and Wang, 1990), 57, 70–71.42David Menschel, ‘‘Abolition without Deliverance: The Law of Connecticut

Slavery, 1784–1848,’’ The Yale Law Journal 111, no. 1 (2001): 183–222; Simeon F. Moss,‘‘The Persistence of Slavery and Involuntary Servitude in a Free State (1685–1866),’’ TheJournal of Negro History 35, no. 3 (1950): 289–314; Margaret Washington, ed., Narrative ofSojourner Truth (New York and Toronto: Random House, 1993), xiv–xxii.

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late as the 1830s, slavery was condemned as a national sin, and not as aspecifically Southern problem.43 This may be true in the context ofovertly political public discourse, but seems not to be the case in thecontext of schoolbooks for children. Here, textbook authors had nodifficulty at all determining the ‘‘identifiable places’’ associated with theevils of slavery.

The strong anti-slavery language in these textbooks cannot beexplained by arguing that New Englanders wrote books for themselveswhile Southerners wrote their own books. This argument especiallydoes not work if we are to believe that the primary goal of early textbookwriters was that of building national unity and forging national identity;if such had been the case, we would expect to see a minimizing ofdifference in order to foster cohesion. The fact that Northern authorsand publishers produced books with derogatory statements about theSouth cannot be explained by asserting that they assumed thesebooks would be sold only in the North. The South readily boughtthese books, even after texts by Southern authors were available. TheNorthern books were so popular that when a North Carolina text waspublished, ‘‘the most striking aspect of the book [was] its similarity toother comparable school books of the period.’’44 The evident bias inbooks was not because they were intended only for a Northern audience,but the bias in the books did result in Southerners finally refusingto buy the texts and instead producing their own. This did not happen,though, until years later. Although one geography text was printed inSouth Carolina as early as 1803, it appears to be excerpted fromsomeone else’s text. The South Carolina text, with an anonymousauthor, is much briefer than other geographies and confines itselfmore to natural than to political or civil geography, making virtuallyno comments on customs, manners, or characteristics of anyone in theUnited States.45 The first known book produced especially for aSouthern audience was a primary level reader, published in 1839.46 AsSoutherners reacted against their portrayal in books written byNortherners, by the 1830s Northern authors softened the hostile toneto make the books more palatable, and therefore more marketable, to

43Doyle, Nations Divided, 74.44Keith Whitescarver, ‘‘School Books, Publishers, and Southern Nationalists:

Refashioning the Curriculum in North Carolina’s Schools, 1850–1861,’’ The NorthCarolina Historical Review LXXIX, no. 1 (2002): 38.

45An Easy Introduction to Geography, with a Brief View of the Solar System, &C. By Wayof Question and Answer. Adapted to the Use of Schools and Private Tuition (Charleston, SC: J. J.Evans & Co., 1803).

46The Southern Reader: Or, Child’s First Reading Book; a Collection of Easy andInstructive Lessons Adapted to the Capacities of Young Children (Charleston, SC: Babcockand M’Carter & Co., 1839).

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Southern audiences.47 Historian Keith Whitescarver argues that it wasnot until the 1850s that there was much Southern objection to the use ofNorthern texts. Even when a Southern text was available after 1851, itdid not sell well; Southern teachers and school boards continued to favortexts published in the North.48

Textbook writers revealed their local values in their condemnationof slavery, and as such, the books had a New England bias to them. Butthe writers promoted broad principles, and both praised the enactmentof those principles regardless of where they found them, and condemnedthe lack thereof, even when those absences occurred in pockets of NewEngland. The regionalism, then, was a principled, not a blanket,regionalism. These still may have reflected New England principles,but given that, when Southerners created their own textbooks, theyprinted many of the same stories and poems as in the Northern books,we cannot argue that these principles were exclusively Northern. Thevalues that transcended local and regional boundaries were those ofpiety and virtue, although people in different regions may have ascribeddifferent meanings to those terms.

Other Regionalisms

The divide over the issue of slavery was not the only expression ofregional values in these books. Bias about the character of theinhabitants of particular regions, or specific states, was much inevidence. Far from presenting a picture of a coherent nationalcharacter, one textbook author stated plainly that inhabitants ‘‘havenot formed any uniform or general character,’’ and ‘‘are like the image ofclay and iron, brass, silver and gold. They may be described in particularsections, but very few features are alike in all.’’49 ‘‘Sectionalism’’ does notaccurately describe the perspectives in these textbooks, as New Englandauthors, who wrote most of these books, did not praise everythingassociated with New England. Instead, the praise and criticism mightreflect more intensely local sensibilities.

Aside from mentions of the institution of slavery, the South isportrayed in both positive and negative lights. Virginians, for example,possess a ‘‘greatness of soul’’ compared to people in other states, andVirginia has ‘‘produced the most men who have arisen to the highest civiland military offices’’ in the country. But on the other hand, Virginiafailed to live up to the highest democratic ideals: the ‘‘line of distinction

47Nietz, Old Textbooks, 216.48Whitescarver, ‘‘School Books, Publishers, and Southern Nationalists.’’49Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 27.

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between the rich and the poor is here more strongly marked than in thenorthern states.’’50 Another text writer also commented on the classdivisions in Virginia, noting that ‘‘the rich are sensible, polite andhospitable,’’ while ‘‘the poor are ignorant.’’51 According to the sameauthor, people in South Carolina are ‘‘affable, kind to strangers, andcompassionate to the afflicted,’’ but luxury has also made them prone to‘‘licentious dissipation’’ and their ‘‘mercy’’ does not extend to theenslaved.52 Another author noted that the character of Carolinianswas similar to that of Virginians, all of whom have hospitality as ‘‘adistinguished trait in their character.’’53 Southerners also are describedas flighty. Even their ‘‘common amusements, and topics ofconversations, are such as have little tendency to inform the mind, orrefine the manners.’’54

New Englanders generally are represented extremely favorably inthese books, which is not surprising given that 42 out of 50 authors oftextbooks published between 1783 and 1837 hailed from NewEngland.55 Therefore we read of New Englanders that they are ‘‘anindustrious and orderly people,’’ ‘‘well informed in general; fond ofreading; punctual in their observance of the laws,’’ ‘‘humane andfriendly, wishing well to the human race; indeed, they ‘‘form perhapsthe most pleasing and happy society in the world.’’56 They are ‘‘a hardyrace of peopleFindustrious, enterprising and independent;’’57 they are‘‘brave, industrious and energetic.’’58 The people of Vermont are ‘‘hardy,robust, enterprising, and laborious,’’ as well as ‘‘tenacious of theirrights.’’59 In ‘‘no part of the world’’ are ‘‘morals more pure’’ than inMassachusetts.60 Meanwhile, in Connecticut, the ‘‘regular and impartialadministration of justice in this state, undoubtedly exceeds that of anystate in the union.’’61 Every family owns a Bible, and nowhere is it ‘‘moreread, or more regarded’’; inhabitants of this state ‘‘pass through life

50Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 178–79.51Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 83.52Ibid., 94.53Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 201.54John Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography (Walpole, NH: Thomas & Thomas,

1803), 94.55Belok, Forming the American Minds, 64.56Nathaniel Dwight, A Short but Comprehensive System of the Geography of the World,

by Way of Question and Answer. Principally Designed for Children and Common Schools, 1stNew Jersey ed. (Elizabethtown, NJ: J. Woods, 1801), 153.

57O’Neill, A New and Easy System of Geography and Popular Astronomy, 65.58George Fisher, The Instructor, or American Young Man’s Best Companion, Improved.

(Philadelphia: Bioren, 1812); Benjamin Gleason, Geography on a New and Improved Plan(Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1814), 67.

59Spafford, General Geography, 205.60Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 48.61Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 57.

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without ever seeing two men engaged in fighting,’’ and everyone is safein their homes by 9 p.m.: ‘‘Every parish bell rings at 9 at night to call theinhabitants home, throughout the year; and very few disobey thesummons.’’62 Another writer claimed that the people of Connecticutwere known for their ‘‘steady habits,’’ and portrayed them as living ‘‘in astate of happy mediocrity,’’ being ‘‘more independent and practicallydemocratic, than in any other part of the nation.’’63

But some authors, including Jedidiah Morse, a pastor fromMassachusetts, did not hold back from criticizing other NewEnglanders. According to Morse, residents of Rhode Island were‘‘ignorant, irreligious, and loose in their morals.’’64 Elijah Parish,another New England minister, accused people in New Hampshire ofindulging in the ‘‘[t]oo free use of spiritous [sic] liquors.’’65

New Yorkers came in for mixed review. Morse commended themfor being ‘‘industrious, neat, and economical,’’ but noted that they‘‘seldom invent any new improvements in agriculture, manufactures, ormechanics.’’66 Kilbourn clucked that although the government of NewYork was republican, it ‘‘partakes of more aristocratic features’’ thanother states, as it imposes higher property requirements on voters thanothers.67 Education in the state of New York is good only in ‘‘those partswhere the New-England habits prevail’’; in other parts of the state,learning ‘‘is less assiduously cultivated,’’ concluded Dwight.68 Or,according to O’Neill, education in New York was ‘‘inferior to that ofthe states of New-EnglandFbut the desire to acquire knowledge isevidently diffusingFand the government are [sic] encouraging thisspirit’’ by adopting a plan similar to that of New England.69 However,Hubbard contradicted this, saying that where education is increasing, it‘‘is the effect of individual exertions, for the legislature have never doneanything’’ to advance education.70

Virtually all of the geography textbooks commented on the state ofeducation in each locale, and this was the occasion for both praise andcriticism. The praise was primarily directed at New England, where,according to Caleb Bingham in a 1795 text, the ‘‘state of literature’’ was

62Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 156–57.63Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 169–70.64Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 150.65Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 38.66Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 166.67Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 148.68Dwight, A Short but Comprehensive System of the Geography of the World, 172.69O’Neill, A New and Easy System of Geography and Popular Astronomy, 98–99.70Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 61. Hubbard repeats this assertion in his

1805, 1807, 1808, and 1814 editions.

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‘‘[s]uperior, perhaps, to that of any other country in the world.’’71 NewEngland, according to another text, had established schools in everyneighborhood, circulated newspapers in every town, and had libraries inalmost every parish; therefore ‘‘general knowledge is perhaps moreliberally diffused among the common people, than in any other part ofthe world.’’72 One author specified that it was Connecticut, not thewhole of New England, where education is better ‘‘than in any other partof the world.’’73

Most of the criticism regarding lack of education pointed to theSouth, but not exclusively. For instance, one text chided Rhode Island,where ‘‘the people are involved in ignorance, not known in any other partof New-England [sic].’’74 Another author also noted that ‘‘the greatbulk’’ of the residents of Rhode Island were ‘‘very illiterate.’’75 NorthCarolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky, in particular, are not‘‘quite so celebrated for literature as the other states,’’ but Binghamallowed that Charleston may be the exception to that rule, as it ‘‘is notdeficient in learning and politeness.’’76 In an 1803 edition, Bingham gavecredit for some growth in education in the South, saying that collegesand academies were ‘‘in their infancy,’’ and that ‘‘learning in general isreviving.’’77 Hubbard commented that ‘‘considerable provisions’’ hadbeen made for education in North Carolina, whereas although similar‘‘exertions’’ had been made in South Carolina, ‘‘it is still far from being ina flourishing condition.’’78

Several authors objected to the disparity in education between richand poor children. Higher education ‘‘has long been cultivated with zeal,by some classes of people; while the majority have received even less thanthe rudiments of a good common education,’’ said one text regardingNew Jersey.79 Hubbard made a class-based argument when he notedthat in New Jersey schooling is ‘‘left intirely [sic] to the volition of thepeople. Those parents who are poor and unable to pay for instructingtheir children must consequently bring them up in ignorance.’’80 Thesame critique was made in stronger terms regarding Maryland, wherethe ‘‘great distinction kept up between the wealthy planters and the

71Caleb Bingham, An Astronomical and Geographical Catechism for the Use of Children(Boston, MA: S. Hall, 1795), 21.

72Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 32.73Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 57.74Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 49.75Spafford, General Geography, 223.76Bingham, An Astronomical and Geographical Catechism for the Use of Children, 26.77Caleb Bingham, An Astronomical and Geographical Catechism for the Use of Children,

7th ed. (Boston: David Carlisle, 1803), 29–30.78Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 93, 99.79Spafford, General Geography, 248.80Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 66.

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labouring [sic] part of society’’ is ‘‘very unfavourable [sic] to the generaldiffusion of knowledge,’’ common schools are ‘‘very much neglected,and the common people very deficient in learning.’’81 In Virginia, the‘‘general want of schools, and the gospel ministry, exclude the commonpeople from religious and literary information.’’82 In North Carolina,the ‘‘education of the poorer classes of people has been indifferent, whilemany of the rich are expensively educated.’’83 Another text added,regarding Virginia, that the ‘‘poorer class of people, being unable todefray the expenses of such an education, have mostly neglected theinstruction of their children.’’84

Authors identified character traits of particular occupations, aswell, showing a decided preference for some over others. The firstsettlers of Maine, according to one geography book, were ‘‘hunters orfisherman,’’ whose ‘‘character partook of the unsettled and roving natureof their pursuits, and the vices incident to such a life were unhappilyprevalent. Since that period they have become farmers, and areimproving in their circumstances and their manners.’’85 The furtraders in the Michigan territory ‘‘are sunk in a degraded andmiserable state, occasioned by the nature of their employment.’’86 InMassachusetts, people work in agriculture, manufacturing, fishing, andship building, occupations that ‘‘necessarily impart y a diversity ofcharacter’’; in spite of that, residents ‘‘are, however, pretty generally, wellinformed, honest, industrious, and economical.’’87

The West, too, occasionally received strident condemnation.Referring to settlers in Kentucky, an 1807 text said that they were‘‘like wild Arabs,’’ constantly resettling when they used up the resourcesof one area. Full of ‘‘rough vices,’’ they ‘‘believe in witchcraft; andimagine that by muttering certain words over each other’s guns, they canbewitch them, and prevent their killing any creature. There are,however,’’ the author continued in a different tone, ‘‘some genteelfamilies, and gentlemen of abilities.’’88

Textbook authors clearly stated their biases and judgments aboutstates, regions, and groups of people. To whatever extent nationalleaders sought to articulate a sense of commonality based on nationalcitizenship, these textbook authors apparently felt little impetus to tone

81Ibid., 81.This passage is repeated verbatim in each edition of Hubbardexamined; it is on p. 81 of the 1803 edition. Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography.

82Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 83.83Spafford, General Geography, 289.84Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 87.85Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 131.86Ibid., 201.87Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 121.88Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 86.

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down their biases in order to promote a spirit of national cohesiveness.Rather, these authors promoted their visions of an ideal citizen, an idealthat comported with each author’s local values in a ‘‘bottom-up’’ efforttoward construction of a national character.

Views of Government

One area of commonality, however, was that all the authors did expressapproval of the new federal government. They seemed in agreement thata representative democracy was the best form of government. At thesame time, several textbooks expressed wariness about democracy, andurged students to be cautious about unintended effects. Glowingstatements abound about the new government. ‘‘The constitution isthe best in the world,’’ asserted one text.89 The country was ‘‘united intoone great confederated republic, furnished with the happiestgovernment and the best constitution in the world,’’ affirms another.90

The government of the United States was ‘‘admirably adapted topromote the happiness and secure the civil and religious liberties ofthe people and the only government on earth which is trulyrepresentative.’’91

While most writers wrote positively about the new republic, evensome of the positive statements were qualified, not laced withsuperlatives. The government of the United States was ‘‘one of thebest systems which have ever existed’’Fnot the best.92 Many authorsexpressed the contingent nature of this form of government, its successdependent on the ‘‘virtue and intelligence’’ of ‘‘the great mass of thepeople.’’93 ‘‘Freedom has found an asylum’’ in the United States, ‘‘andhere it will probably reside, as long as virtue shall be the ruling principle ofthe nation.’’94 An 1807 text noted that the Constitution allowed for thefederal legislature to end the importation of slaves in the coming year.‘‘Should they have virtue to do this,’’ wrote this author who clearly wasnot convinced that elected officials would possess the requisite virtue, ‘‘itwill immortalize their names, and weeping humanity will bless theirmemories.’’95

89Thomas Henderson, An Easy System of the Geography of the World by Way ofQuestion and Answer. Principally Designed for Schools (Lexington, KY: Thomas T. Skillman,1813), 51.

90Dwight, A Short but Comprehensive System of the Geography of the World, 150–51.91O’Neill, A New and Easy System of Geography and Popular Astronomy, 60–61.92Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 91.93Ibid., 128.94Henderson, An Easy System of the Geography of the World, 51 (emphasis added).

The same precise sentence also appears in Dwight, 1801, p. 151.95Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 30.

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Most geography texts described the federal government as well asparticular aspects of each state government. This makes perfect sense ifthe goal is to teach citizenship. Children need to understand how thegovernment works, so that when they grow up they can participate in it,monitor it, or even simply obey it. Therefore, describing thegovernment and the laws that govern the country is not surprising.What is surprising is that a textbook would not mention theConstitution at all. Such is the case with a book that was in print invarious editions for over 50 years. The 1786 edition described theArticles of Confederation. But so did the 1810 and 1812 ‘‘Improved’’editions of the same text, two decades after the Constitution wasratified.96 Indeed, texts that explicitly taught about government wererare. Just three were published before 1802 (Webster’s Federal Catechismin 1790, Chipman’s Sketches of the Principles of Government in 1793, andWinchester’s A Plain Political Catechism in 1796 and reissued in 1802); noother texts focused solely on government were published until 1831.Geography texts included information about forms of government, butcurriculum historian Michael Belok calls this information ‘‘meager,’’ andcontends that richer treatment of both United States history andgovernment did not appear in textbooks until the 1820s and 1830s.97

Although virtually all of the geography texts did discuss government, theextent of it was quite brief.

Textbook writers did not present a unanimous voice in support ofthe new form of government. Although most authors expressedconfidence in and appreciation for the new system of government,others acknowledged the problems, such as that of factionalism. ‘‘Everywork of man is imperfect,’’ cautioned one author who warned againstpolarized factions. Political parties ‘‘naturally arise in a land offreedoms,’’ which unfortunately leads to disputes between political‘‘sects’’ that ‘‘draw off the opponents to extreme views of eachquestion.’’98 Democratic elections succeeded in inspiring ‘‘a highsense of personal independence, and a jealous care of nationalfreedom,’’ but they also ‘‘destroy the necessary distinctions in society,and put all men on a level; y divide the community into [political]

96George Fisher, The American Instructor, or Young Man’s Best Companion, Revised andCorrected, 9th ed. (Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1748); George Fisher, TheInstructor, or American Young Man’s Best Companion, Improved (Philadelphia, PA: JohnBioren, 1810), 227; Fisher, The Instructor; George Fisher, The Instructor: Or AmericanYoung Man’s Best Companion, 2nd Worcester ed. (Worcester, MA: Isaiah Thomas, 1786),301.

97Michael V. Belok, ‘‘The Instructed Citizen: Civic Education in the UnitedStates During the Nineteenth Century,’’ Paedagogica Historica 18, no. 2 (1978): 258–60.

98Spafford, General Geography, 160.

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parties, and in a great measure break up between them the common civil-ities of life.’’99

Another potential pitfall was that democracy could lead to bad laws.In Rhode Island, a law was passed to establish schools, but ‘‘the people’’objected, ‘‘sent other representatives to the legislature, the law wasrepealed, and they now can be legally ignorant,’’ reported one author indismay.100 True democracy depended on an educated citizenry; wheneducation was missing, so too was republicanism. The lack of schools inVirginia meant that ‘‘the poor are ignorant, and have little concern withpolitics; the government, therefore, though nominally republican, isreally oligarchical.’’101

Democracy also might lead to government run by people who wereincapable of governing well. In Pennsylvania, according to one text, the‘‘fiscal concerns y have been very badly managed.’’ Inordinate sumswere spent, with ‘‘no objects of national convenience, utility, orreputation to atone for the enormous spoilation!’’ Worse, publicworks now were funded by ‘‘the gambling profits of lotteries; a speciesof state swindling.’’102 As this example shows, bald criticism of leaders wasnot excluded from textbooks in an effort to promote respect forauthority. The President himself was not off limits. One author,Parish, went so far as to refer to Thomas Jefferson as an infidel.103

Although Parish did not name Jefferson, he did footnote Jefferson’swidely read Notes on Virginia, making clear who the target of his epithetwas. Parish’s book was published in the middle of Jefferson’s secondterm, so the accusation was made of a sitting President. Some politicalhistorians assert that a goal of Federalists was to ‘‘reconstitute’’ eachcitizen as ‘‘one who would be the object of national administration ratherthan an active subject in local self-government.’’104 This passage fromParish’s text serves to question that assertion, as Parish, an ardentFederalist, implicitly encouraged schoolchildren to critically assess thePresident. If these books were intended to instill patriotism in children,that patriotism did not include an unthinking obeisance to publicofficials, including the highest public official in the land. Instead, onemessage of these books is that citizenship requires critical appraisal and

99Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 103.100Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 49–50 (emphasis in

original).101Ibid., 83.102Spafford, General Geography.103Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 71.104Sheldon S. Wolin, ‘‘E Pluribus Unum: The Representation of Difference and the

Reconstitution of Collectivity,’’ in The Presence of the Past: Essays on the State and theConstitution, ed. Sheldon S. Wolin, The Johns Hopkins Series in Constitutional Thought(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 134.

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active engagement. Parish, ironically, was exemplifying Jefferson’s ownviews of one primary purpose of educationFto create citizens who keepa watchful eye on their government officials.

In addition, historians have emphasized the goal of authors in thisperiod of pulling away from things British, separating America from theevil tyrant. There certainly are references to the oppression suffered atthe hands of the British, and criticism of the English government, which,as ‘‘a compound of royalty, aristocracy, and democracy’’ was ‘‘preferableto absolute monarchy, [yet] gives great scope for venalty [sic] andcorruption.’’105 Yet many selections in geography books praiseEngland repeatedly. ‘‘The constitution of England,’’ says one, ‘‘is adisplay of political wisdom, demonstrated by the prosperity andhappiness of the people,’’ and the jury system ‘‘will ever be viewedwith admiration.’’106

The patriotic principles associated with the new republic also couldhave broad implementation, and were not always narrowly applied tojust this country. Patriotism meant upholding the principles of liberty,freedom, and justice, and this should not apply only to the United States,nor should such patriots feel at home only in the United States. Thisposition is perhaps best represented by the words of Benjamin Franklin,who wrote in 1789, ‘‘God grant that not only the Love of Liberty, but athorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nationsof the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his Foot anywhere on itsSurface, and say, ‘This is my Country.’’’107 Several authors used Biblicalreferences to express a similar view. Using the image from the book ofRevelation of ‘‘the four angels that stand on the four corners of theglobe,’’ Bingham envisioned a time when angels would proclaim that ‘‘allnations shall be united in ONE MIGHTY REPUBLIC!’’108 No lessthan the great nationalist himself, Noah Webster, advised students,‘‘Never reflect upon bodies of men y nor upon nations and societies.There are good as well as bad in all orders of men in all countries.’’109

That children were encouraged to see themselves as citizens of anyrepublic on earth runs counter to goals of national identification. Theideals of liberty, freedom, and justice were not portrayed as belonging

105O’Neill, A New and Easy System of Geography and Popular Astronomy, 223.106Parish, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 129.107I. Bernard Cohen, Science and the Founding Fathers: Science in the Political Thought

of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co.,1995), 195.

108Bingham, The Columbian Orator, iv (emphasis in original).109Caleb Alexander, The Young Gentlemen and Ladies’ Instructor (Boston: E. Larkin

and W. P. and L. Blake, 1797), 163–69; Matthew Carey, The Columbian Reading Book,or Historical Preceptor (Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1802), 112; Webster, A GrammaticalInstitute, 62.

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only to the United States, and the message in some of these textbookswas that children’s allegiance should be to these ideals wherever they arefound, rather than to their nation regardless of its embodiment of theseideals. This was not a message of American exceptionalism, but insteadreflects an Enlightenment view of universal principles. The cautionsabout the fragility and dangers of democracy also reinforce the positionthat liberty, freedom, and justice are not inherent in the Americansystem, but can be lost in the United States, and can exist elsewhere. It isfitting, then, that the books do not present the history of the UnitedStates only in positive terms, but instead use some historical incidents asfurther reason not to take freedom and liberty for granted.

Moral History

Critics of how U.S. history is taught today complain that telling storiesthat portray Americans in a bad light potentially interferes withinculcating love of country in our children. In an era in whicheducators and civic leaders wanted to build national unity and a senseof national pride, it would seem reasonable to expect a similar eschewingof negative stories. Yet the textbook writers of the early national perioddid not refrain from making critical comments about people or events inUnited States history. These comments furthered the work ofpromoting each author’s vision of what the national character shouldbe, as the stories convey morals.

The settlement of Rhode Island, for instance, was used to makedivergent points. It could be told as a tale of courageous believerscreating a place where they could practice their religion in peace. ButJedidiah Morse told young readers that Rhode Island was ‘‘a colony ofmalcontents from Massachusetts.’’110 In contrast, another text criticizedthe ‘‘religious intolerance of the Puritans in Massachusetts,’’ which‘‘compelled’’ Roger Williams to flee.111 Similarly, the author of an 1803text pointed out the hypocrisy of the ‘‘first settlers of the Massachusettsand Plymouth colonies, who fled from persecution in England’’ and yetwho ‘‘were very intolerant to all such as differed from them in religioussentiments. They even proceeded so far as to banish y persons whomthey considered as incorrigible heretics.’’112 Another author wrotescathingly of ‘‘those pious Puritans who exchanged their nativecountry for the wilds of America, for the sake of liberty of conscience,[but who] were no sooner invested with power, than they began to

110Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 72.111Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 132.112Hubbard, The Rudiments of Geography, 54–55.

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persecute all those who could not swallow their formulas!’’ This authorused the story of Rhode Island to warn against religious intolerance:‘‘My faith is the standard of perfection, says bigotryFand bigotry is thenatural and religious offspring of the pride of orthodoxy!’’113 O’Neill’stext focused on the courage of Roger Williams, indirectly calling peoplein Massachusetts his ‘‘persecutors.’’ Rhode Island ‘‘flourishednotwithstanding all the opposition and distress’’ the settlers suffered,but ‘‘as a compensation, they enjoyed their liberty of conscience.’’114

The same story, then, was used by different authors to teach differentprinciples: religious tolerance, the scourge of hypocrisy, or the socialdiscord wrought by ‘‘malcontents.’’ There was no version in which allthe actors came out looking good, as the point was not to glorify the past.But neither did all the authors present the same view of the moralprecepts involved.

Soldiers and military history often are valorized in schoolbooks,but such was not uniformly the case. Morse’s geography, in particular,celebrated the soldiers of particular states for their bravery during theAmerican Revolution. Delaware, for instance, was cited for valor.115 Butbad behavior was also noted. ‘‘The Pennsylvania line,’’ wrote Morse,‘‘with part of the New-Jersey troops, in January, 1781, revolted,complaining of a want of pay and of suitable clothing; the complaintswere redressed, and subordination was restored.’’116 This is not the storyof heroism we have to come expect when we hear tales of the AmericanRevolution. Instead, the American Revolution, so recently fought, wasused to teach lessons of citizenship. It is not entirely clear what the lessonwas. The restoration of ‘‘subordination’’ is presented as a good outcome.Yet clearly the soldiers’ complaints were not spurious; Morse did notimply that the leaders were wrong to cave in to the soldiers’ demands.The complaints were ‘‘redressed’’Fthat is, the soldiers deserved the payand the clothing they demanded. When treated appropriately, they werewilling to revert to their ‘‘subordinate’’ roles. Is this a message about thedemands of engaged citizenship in the new republic? Is it a warningabout the responsibility of leadership?

Several textbook authors expressed wariness about the military, acaution that was repeated in many state constitutions, the federalconstitution, and in oratory that quoted the Roman statesman

113Spafford, General Geography, 223.114O’Neill, A New and Easy System of Geography and Popular Astronomy, 86.115Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 183.116Ibid., 189.

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Cato.117 Spafford’s text noted that a standing army ‘‘is deemedincompatible with a republican government.’’118 Kilbourn referred tostanding armies as ‘‘repugnant to the principles of a republicangovernment.’’ This particular text was published in 1813, when thecountry was at war with ‘‘the belligerent nations of Europe.’’ The authorclearly did not oppose the War of 1812 and was not opposed to taking uparms to defend the country. He was, however, voicing caution about themisuses to which the power of an army could be put. His was not aposition of absolute trust in and obedience to federal authorities.119

Many reading texts, such as Caleb Bingham’s widely popular ColumbianOrator, included a speech delivered in 1780 by Jonathan Mason in whichMason stated, ‘‘We have publicly declared ourselves convinced of thedestructive tendency of standing armies.’’120 A reader published in 1816Fafter the conclusion of the warFincluded a passage that comparedwar to disease in terms of its ravages: ‘‘How soon is a flourishing towndepopulated by a pestilential disease. How soon is a nation cut off by theraging of a direful war.’’121 Historian Caroline Winterer argues that theclassical iconography of the early republic shifted from an emphasis onGreek and Roman warriors to an emphasis on wisdom and peace. Afterthe Revolution, the goddess Minerva (in Rome, Athena in Greece), forinstance, was no longer depicted in combat, as she had been during thecolonial period, but ‘‘gently beckoning’’ to literature, science, and thearts.122 Clearly, patriotism did not depend on glorification of militaryaction, nor on valorizing war indiscriminately.

Disputes between states, usually over borders, and disputes withinstates, also were discussed. Again, if authors shared national leaders’goals of promoting national cohesiveness, they would not have includedthese stories. Both New Hampshire and New York claimed control ofVermont before the Revolution, and Vermont issued its own declarationof independence in 1777. Its ‘‘progress was impeded by the contendingclaims’’ of the other states,123 resulting in ‘‘a long and violent dispute’’that was not settled until 1790.124 Not all residents of New Hampshire

117William S. Fields and David T. Hardy, ‘‘The Third Amendment and the Issueof the Maintenance of Standing Armies: A Legal History,’’ American Journal of LegalHistory 35 (1991): 393–431.

118Spafford, General Geography, 162.119Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 89.120Bingham, The Columbian Orator, 300.121Daniel Adams, The Understanding Reader: Or, Knowledge before Oratory, 8th ed.

(Dedham: Mann & Co., 1816), 12.122Caroline Winterer, ‘‘From Royal to Republican: The Classical Image in

Early America,’’ The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (2005): 1267.123Spafford, General Geography, 207–8.124Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 119. This story

is also told in Kilbourn, 104.

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were happy with its state constitution, resulting in an ‘‘insurrection’’ inwhich ‘‘insurgents assembled at Exeter and took the legislatureprisoners’’ until citizens rose up and ‘‘crushed’’ the rebellion.125 A landdispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania had to be mediated byCongress, after which the settlers simply ignored the decree ‘‘andrefused to yield their right of soil.’’126 These are cautionary talesabout good and bad enactment of citizenship. ‘‘Bad’’ citizens take theirlegislators prisoner; ‘‘good’’ citizens crush rebellion.

Democracy sometimes leads to corruption and abuse, warned someauthors, and the truth of this can be seen in our own history. Oneexample was the fraudulent sale of land by officials in Georgia, which‘‘was one of the most disgraceful acts, which perhaps was everperpetrated by a free government.’’127 This story was told in severaltexts. In one version, Georgia was called a ‘‘seat of intrigue’’ in whichthere had been ‘‘much bickering, and collision of sentiment.’’128 Giventhat there was such agreement regarding the role of education inimparting virtue, stories of corruption make sense as ways of teachingstudents what to be on guard against. Textbook authors could have donethis without providing examples from their own country, however.Authors might have, for instance, relied on tales of corruption orabuse of power in Europe, as part of a program to instill nationalpride by raising the United States to a morally superior position inrelation to the Old World. The texts certainly did highlight corruptionelsewhere (Catholic countries were a favorite target). If the goal was tocreate citizens who could ‘‘spot a rash of tyranny’’ or corruption in acandidate, foreign examples could have sufficed.129 That authors choseto use domestic examples demonstrates that their views of national unitydid not include an exceptionalist view of the country. Instead the authorswarned students that there is ‘‘imperfection of even the best of men, andy liability to error.’’130

Conclusion

Early American textbooks did not present a single unified view of what itmeant to be an American, or what it meant to be a good citizen. Therange of views presented in these books made room for a patriotism that

125Ibid., 125.126Spafford, General Geography, 230.127Morse, A Compendious and Complete System of Modern Geography, 250.128Kilbourn, A Compendious System of Universal Geography, 209.129Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life (New York:

The Free Press, 1998), 72.130Hannah Adams, An Abridgement of the History of New England for the Use of Young

Persons, 2 ed. (Boston, MA: Etheridge & Bliss, 1807), 47–48.

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was not one thing to all people, but instead advanced local or regionalvalues and beliefs even when these values and beliefs led to thedenunciation of other Americans. Rather than supplying evidence foran existing sense of national oneness, the books clearly highlighteddifference in order to further a particular vision of what the newAmerican citizen should be.

National leaders in the early republic promoted commonschooling as a way of forging a national identity, in the quest to buildnational unity in the wake of the American Revolution. Thehistoriography on education suggests that this promotion of unitythrough schooling held until the introduction of the McGuffey’sReaders, which were designed for Western students to advanceWestern values and culture separate from New England. Yet thisstudy demonstrates that textbooks from the early national period wererife with regional biases. This puts McGuffey’s books in a different light;they were not a break from precedent, but a much more popularcontinuation of an old trend. There were important differences,though. The earlier textbook writers were not writing specifically fortheir region, the way that McGuffey’s Readers were designed specificallyfor the West. They were not writing in order to stake a claim to theirregional uniqueness or to avow pride in their region, but to assert theirvision of the ‘‘good citizen.’’ In this context, regionalism in earlyAmerican textbooks appears as an unintended consequence ratherthan as the goal. In the ground-up work of nation building engaged inby these textbook authors the presentation of a range of views ofcitizenship was part of a pluralistic debate. The authors might haveused regionalism in an effort to transcend regionalism; that is, eachshowcased their regional, local, or idiosyncratic values as the best values,as those that should become the basis of the national character.

Historians have pointed out that the promotion of education bypolitical elites did not result in immediate action; no plans for commonschools came to fruition in the lifetimes of Thomas Jefferson, BenjaminRush, or Noah Webster. Textbooks from the period point to therampant regionalism and the focus on local values that kept thoseplans from coming to fruition. Citizenship and patriotism at thegrassroots level meant rallying around two sets of issues, neither ofwhich emphasized nationalism. First, at a time when state and regionwere far more salient than national unity and identity, textbooks writtenby local teachers and ministers reflected local values. Second, manytextbook authors encouraged students to feel a fierce attachment to theideals of liberty and freedom wherever those ideals flourished, ratherthan to the concept of a nation that might or might not be able to live upto those ideals.

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