AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
Keith E. Whittington
Supplementary Material
Chapter 5: The Jacksonian Era – Democracy and Liberty
Address of the Executive Committee of the Providence Association of the Friends of Moral Reform (1834)[1]
Religious revivalism and moral reform went hand-in-hand in the first half of the nineteenth century. Those fired by the Second Great Awakening were not content to nurture their own virtues. They felt obliged to help scrub society clean. Their diagnosis of sin and vice was that such individual failings had social causes and social consequences. If left unchecked, vice tended to spread as a social contagion. Moral corruption not only had consequences for the psyches and souls of those who departed from the straight and narrow path, but also had consequences for those around them and for society at large. Wives and children suffered from the debauchery of husbands and fathers. Society suffered when industry and independence gave way to idleness and dependence. Republican government suffered when discipline and self-control yielded to self-indulgence and intemperance.
The Providence Association of the Friends of Moral Reform was one of many such organizations that sprang up in the Jacksonian era to combat vice and encourage virtue. Men took the lead in this particular group, but many such societies were organized by women. The range of causes was wide, combatting everything from drunkenness to gambling to prostitution to pornography. The Providence group was dedicated to the promotion of virtue, purity and happiness – primarily by publicly exposing prostitution and pornography.
“In cities, vice is hidden with most ease,/Or seen with least reproach.”
The cause of Moral Reform, is identified with efforts to expose and counteract the evils of licentiousness, and to deepen and strengthen the foundations of personal liberty and collective virtue.
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There has been – and with humility be it confessed – a long and stubborn listlessness pervading the public mind, in regard to this mighty enterprise. The prevalence of a strange and morbid fastidiousness, has induced the virtuous to tremble at disclosures, and to shrink from even the suggestion of measures to counteract and save. The abomination of the evil – that which, of all things else, should be an incentive to bold and determinate effort against it – has been made the all-popular plea for non-resistance. Indeed, so omnipotent have been the scruples of a mistaken delicacy, that, the more the evil has strengthened in its strength . . . the greater have been the fears and doubts as to the expediency of a suppressing influence. . . .
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In the dispensations of a merciful God, however, this spell of listlessness is, in a degree, broken. The flame of sanctified love and undaunted faith, has lighted the Apostles of Reform to the secret haunts of the foe. . . . The evil, in something of the real horror of its effects, and awfulness of its magnitude, is revealed to public view. . . .
The evil does exist; and the question meets us, what shall be done? . . .
Something can be done in the work of self-government. Attention to this is enforced by every consideration of moral responsibility, and every motive that would drive from death, and allure to life. . . . Individual influence is that which purifies, or corrupts the world. Upon one and all, the command must come, with thrilling power, keep thyself pure.
Much can be done, by enlightening public opinion, in regard to the nature, effects, and guilt, of this vice. . . . To fortify the mind and conscience against an evil, reason requires that the evil be exposed. . . . Sin, to be conquered, must be resisted. . . . Public good requires that the evil be exposed; that it be traced, in all its ruinous effects, upon its subjects and upon society; and that the full weight of the deserved and threatened curse, which hangs over the heads of the guilty, be fearlessly and fully proclaimed. Then, if ever, will mind be aroused to know, and heart to abhor. . . .
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In thus speaking, we are not unapprised that objections, formidable to the minds of many, exist, against a development of facts and a general circulation of knowledge. Nor is it difficult for a timid delicacy to render these objections plausible. Will not the circulation of knowledge have a tendency to excite the curiosity, vitiate the minds, and pollute the imagination of the young, and thus tend to perpetuate, rather than supplant the evil? The answer . . . is undoubtedly, yes. . . .
Now, were it certain, as the objection supposes, that the minds of youth are pure, and unexposed to contamination, we would be silent. But this is not so. There is an organized companionship of vice, plotting – silently, it is true, but with tremendous reach –the pollution of the young and tender mind. . . . Books and plates have been found in the possession, or within the reach, of youth, which beggar the power of language to describe. And evidence exists, to prove that these paraphernalia of obscenity are exposed for sale at the corners of our streets and in stores; and this, in broad daylight. . . . Evidence, most appalling, of the contamination of children and youth, is before our eyes. . . .
. . . . Must we utter not a word; heave not a sigh; drop not a tear, except in secret – lest we be denounced as indelicate, and this by such as are dripping with pollution and covered with shame? . . .
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Fellow Christian! Where and what is thy influence? Canst thou, for Jesus’ sake, face the frowns of perverted sentiment? Canst thou, clad in the armor of eternal truth, and fired with a hope of heaven, face the sneers of a fastidious and sin-excusing world? Wilst thou come forth in virtue’s cause; or wilt thou shrink from the onset, and leave this Goliath in hell’s terrific host to roll the wheels of his ponderous car onward in blood?
[1] Excerpt taken from Providence Association of the Friends of Moral Reform, An Address of the Executive Committee of the Providence Association of the Friends of Moral Reform (Providence: S.R. Weeden, 1834).