#77, November 20, 2005
The Now Nation
When I was at Princeton as one of
their paid serfs, a preceptor as they could them, I was very fortunate to have
the opportunity to teach in Sean WilentzÕs class called ÒThe New Nation.Ó I say fortunate because it was
definitely a great learning experience, especially since I was teaching in an
area that was largely unfamiliar territory for me. And it was fortunate in another way – it provided
grist for several mills.
Already, for example, I have made no more than two statements about this
course, and yet I have two stories I need to tell. I will recount them before continuing with the main
narrative:
1) Although the course had this title, the wonderfully imaginative people at the Princeton KinkoÕs decided that the course really ought to be called ÒThe Now Nation.Ó Emblazoned across the bountiful Xerox package (a story within a story: this was just the packet for the second half of the semester, the equally large packet for the first half, which I should add, parenthetically, accompanied a book for each week, had been put together by the department secretaries, who clearly troubled by the expansion of American democracy at their own expense had farmed out the job to the commercial sector – one wanted to say Òprivate sectorÓ but of course Princeton University and all it contains falls into that sector also – another digression suppressed), therefore, was this title – much to SeanÕs consternation, and to my pleasure and sense that, in fact, the course had received its rightful name. I suppose the need to explain that last claim is the reason why God, or a Princeton professor, created footnotes. I will leave you unfootnoted, however (as I am neither God nor a Princeton professor – another digression suppressed, this one featuring Woodrow Wilson, who managed both roles rather famously), to work it out for yourself, or come up with your own story.
2) The manner in which I came to be teaching this course was rather strange. There were two preceptors for the course. There were two others for Daniel T. RodgersÕ course on the Gilded Age (title escapes me as I didnÕt get the chance to teach it). It was very curious to me that the two working for Wilentz were historians who were very familiar with the Gilded Age and its aftermath, while the two teaching for Rodgers were very clearly experts in the Now Nation. Why was this? I asked myself. In a conversation, apropos of something else entirely (digression suppressed), Rodgers intimated to me that Sean had asked specifically for me to be one of his preceptors. I assumed too that he had asked for the other person as well – a Princeton graduate student who knew a whole lot more about Detroit than post-revolutionary detritus (digression suppressed). Why would he have done this? My precepting buddies, colonial and new-nation scholars in their own writes (digression suppressed), could have greatly benefited from the opportunity to sit at the feet of the master and to read these very hefty Xerox packets; I, on the other hand, could have learned a great deal from a meander through The Education of Henry Adams or the world-view of a different Princeton professor. I have never taught the early national period since; I am quite sure these other fellows have never taught what they learned from Rodgers since either. Wilentz had no reason to ask for me; my c.v. was not much different from my fellow preceptors and I was even being paid less than they were (digression suppressed – this one featuring Mr. Smallwood from Bleak House). The only reason was that since I wasnÕt an expert I would be less a troublesome assistant. What if, after all, I had turned out to be a nascent ÒNew Political Historian,Ó a future card-carrying member committed to what Wilentz has described as Ôbargain basement Nietszche and Foucault, admixed with earnest American do-goodism [whatever is meant by that last part].Ó If that were the case, it would certainly be better that I be off my beaten path and strolling in the personally uncharted terrain of the New Nation. I wouldnÕt be much trouble, and my interventions would be those of the relative novice. Precepting lunches would not be particularly taxing and I would just need to do his bidding – which I think I did (I was being paid less than the other preceptors – same digression suppressed – so I knew which side my bread was buttered on – different digression suppressed). In short, none of the preceptors was able to come up with a satisfactory explanation.
So, that is about the size of it. In writing just two lines about Sean and
Princeton one immediately needs to digress or suppress the desire to do
so. Let me see whether I can get
to the task at hand.
The very first class meeting was of
some moment; Santayana would have been able to include it nicely in his novel The
Puritan. Wilentz is a lively lecturer – or certainly was
then. I do think he was better
when he moved from the podium and away from his text, but he just had so much
knowledge to impart that he couldnÕt do that very often. This, after all, was the course that
would be the foundation of his thousand-page tome, ÒThe Rise of American
DemocracyÓ – I believe I just unwittingly digressed. In this first lecture, Wilentz
outlined, as I recall (though I probably should go back to my voluminous notes
to look), the course subject, which was the rise and growth of American
democracy. It was stirring
stuff. We were sitting in a
lecture hall packed, and it was the aftermath of Tienanmen Square massacre, and
Sean ended with a dedication of all his lectures (one of two such dedications
he would make during the semester – digression half-suppressed) to the
martyrs of Tienanmen Square. Why
was he doing this? Because they
were the direct descendants of the people he was talking about fighting to
bring democracy into the world and allowing its spread so that it could be a
global force for the benefit of all.
Oy, I thought. ÒHouston (I
sometimes refer to myself thus), we have a problem here.Ó Not only did I have trouble with the
genealogy being presented (all no doubt bargain-basement Nietzsche), but why I
wondered would someone in Princeton really think that a dedication of this sort
would be meaningful to anyone in China – all of a sudden the events in
Tienanmen Square seemed to be less about what was occurring in China, and more
about what was occurring in the mind of a Princeton professor – but God
works in mysterious ways. The
students, though, saw no problem.
A huge round of applause greeted this conclusion to the lecture, and
were I a Hollywood producer, or a contributor to The Now Republic, I would claim that this was a standing ovation
– though it may very well have been one, I just cannot quite recall. [I
should add, for the sake of full disclosure, that I have once dedicated my
lectures, though I set my sights rather lower than Sean. I dedicated them to the women who
happened to be looking after my children at the daycare center making it
possible for me to stand in front of the classroom. This was not so much for the benefit of the daycare workers,
who would were non-plussed by it when I mentioned it to them – did I
mention it to them? – but for the sake of the Penn students, who I
thought needed to be aware that however great they were going to turn out to
be, and however far they were able to spread American democracy with Sean, they
would still be doing so on the backs of people who were looking after their
kids and doing umpteen other things that they had palmed off onto the
poorer-paid members of the society – a side-swipe at SeanÕs playing down
of the significance of slavery in the Now Nation.]
The course continued in this
vein. If you have read the recent
Wilentz tome, or have read the reviews that recount his narrative (so that you
donÕt have to plough through the thousand pages), then you know roughly what it
is that he said in his lectures. I
had problems with the major arguments then; I have problems with them now. It was a self-congratulatory story
[ÒAmerican do-goodism,Ó perchance] and problems relating to race and gender
were put very much on the back burner.
Everything was moving towards more democracy and freedom, and the
contradictions were pushed under the carpet and trodden on very firmly (having
been taken off the back-burner first, one assumes!). I remember saying to Sean during the semester that I thought
the best book we had read in the course (up to that point) was Christine
StansellÕs City of Women. I did indeed think that this was an
excellent book, and I didnÕt say this to curry favor [and I never actually
talked to Stansell while I was a lecturer at Princeton, so I
wasnÕt attempting to gain potential allies – I was terrible at that] but
was rather mixing it up a little.
For, I felt, and still do, that the logical extension of the arguments
in that book, fundamentally unsettled, even undermined the main thrust of
SeanÕs lectures – I think it
did a number on Chants Democratic
also (and this was a beginning of ÒThe Empire and Mr. ThompsonÓ, just on the
off-chance you are interested).
His argument was one that couldnÕt deal with issues of gender and
race. He could handle women and
blacks, provided they stuck around and waited for democracy to be given to
them, but the very notion that his democrats would be racist and sexist –
and that his democracy might be founded in such isms – and not merely the
product of free-thinking high-minded idealists seemed too much for him to
contemplate – what would we have to pass on as a dedication to all those
martyrs, if this unseemly narrative gained a foothold in the academy?
Race was another problem. Sean found the backlash against
Jefferson, just getting off the ground at that time, anathema. Jefferson was one of the good
guys. Bad guys were Brits and
Hamiltonians. As you can imagine,
this could cause major difficulties when dealing with JeffersonÕs attitudes to
race and slavery, and just dealing with all those Virginian Founding Fathers
(especially with their response to Haiti and Gabriel Prosser) was a real
brainteaser. Some of those
documents among the photocopies were just fantastic. I could pull out a few, but I would be digressing a bridge
too far. They really did bring
into question the narrative established in the lectures, and made for some
interesting discussions in the preceptorials – at least I thought so; I
believe the students were less impressed with my fumbling of and stumbling
around ÒtheirÓ early history. But
Sean had a thing about Jefferson.
He hated, for example, the wonderful essay entitled ÒThe Power of
BlacknessÓ that Mike Zuckerman presented at the Davis Center (the following
year), in which Mike, very correctly in my humble opinion (digression
repressed), showed how Jefferson was willing to sacrifice the project for which
he would become renowned – the extension of the yeoman republic westward
– in order to have Napoleon come and put Toussaint LÕOuvertureÕs black
republic to the sword. For Sean,
all MikeÕs claims were absolutely unthinkable – and the claim that
Jefferson was the first racist – a metaphorical slam – which was in
a way just an extension of Edmund MorganÕs ideas (toward slavery, toward
racism, toward republic, anyone?), was nigh on sacrilegious.
And then there were those troublesome
American Indians and Jackson. Of
course, Sean laid out the horrific treatment meted out to the
IndiansÉ.necessary digression: The term we used during the course was Native
Americans, and this was considered politically correct at the time. While teaching at Penn, however, before
I got round to my momentous dedication, I used this term and learned that I had
insulted one of my teaching assistants (akin to Princeton preceptors, but not
so close to God). She was an
American Indian and objected to any other term being used. She was intellectually bigger than me
so I quickly changed my tune, only to come to Stockton and work under a Dean
who was also a self-described American Indian who hated Òall the pc crapÓ with
white American liberals trying to feel better by saying Native American. As mentioned previously, I know which
side my bread is buttered on – except when it comes to currying favor
close to God – and have used American Indian sinceÉ.returning to our
story. But if you focus on the
American Indian, how is one able to make Jackson, a veritable butcher, into a
hero, and a democratic hero at that?
Impossible (said with French accent please). But, again, that is just my humble opinion (same digression
repressed).
Well, all these thoughts, and more,
come tumbling back as a result of the publication of this tome. I donÕt really have the desire to deal with the
volume itself, so will just mention a few of the reviews. There is an interesting one in last
SundayÕs NY Times Book Review, by Gordon Wood, somewhat deferential, and too so
for my taste – but when reviewing a Princeton man who has managed to get a
publisher to print a thousand pages of his text one has to wonder whether there
are some mystical powers at play that one doesnÕt want to mess with. Even the great Eric Foner, in the pages
of The Nation
But you know they didnÕt do that!