Topic 46A – Historic configuration of the united

states: from independence to secession war.

Reference novels: the scarlet letter and the red
badge of courage.

ORIGINS: The discontent of the colonies began to be truly obvious in the war

fought between 1689 and 1763. At the end of this war England had acquired from
France: Canada and all the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi,
and from Spain Florida.

The war brought about fiscal and administrative problems.

To solve them, a tariff was proposed on sugar, molasses and rum imported into
America from the West Indies. The colonies fought against it and won, denying the
right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies without representation.

The same happened with the Stamp Act, imposing that stamps be affixed to
newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents… the British gov. Repealed the act, but
imposes the Declaratory Act asserting the Parliament´s right to legislate for the
colonies.

Apart from these financial problems, another source of discontent in the colonies
was the presence of the British Army with headquarters in NY and later in
Boston. There were many clashes between colonialists and Red Coats. The worst:
the Boston massacre in 1770.

In 1767, Townshend Acts, imposing duties on certain imports. Once again the

British gov. Had to retreat, but left a tax on tea (The tea Act) to demonstrate that
the Declaratory Act was being upheld. By the Tea Act, the East India Company,
acquired a monopoly of the tea trade with America. The colonial response was to
dump into the water a whole cargo of tea that had arrived to Boston harbour. This
episody is known as the Boston tea Party.

The king of England, George III, decides to use the force, and the parliament
passes a series of punitive measures, the Intolerable Acts. The result was a
closer tie between the thirteen colonies.
September 1, 1774, a Congress was held in Philadelphia, where a boycott of
British goods, and a Declaration and Resolves were adopted, declaring the
colonists´right to life, liberty, and property.

From this date until July 4, 1776, the Americans fought against the British, not
explicitly seeking independence.

July 4, 1776, John Hancock, president of the congress, signed a declaration of

independence.

The war lasts until September 3, 1783. A definitive treaty is signed in which United
States secure its independence, with the Mississippi as its western boundary, and
the right to fish off Newfounland and Nova Scotia.

CONSEQUENCES:

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES: A constitutional system based on the consent of

the people was established. This constitutions were revolutionary, although based
on the colonial charters. The powers of the governor were deeply restricted, and
those of the legislature, increased.

All states, except Connecticut and Rhode Island adopted constitutions with this

principle.

Massachusetts went even further when it submitted its constitution to the

ratitication of the people.

The Virginia constitution added a Bill of Rights, which would be the model for

following constitutions.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL CHANGES:

Property law. Entail (an inheritance life state) and primogeniture (exclusive
inheritance by the first-born male) were abolished.

Religious area. Disestablishment of the church of england and the extension of

religious tolerance.

Reform of criminal law.

SLAVERY
This institution was untouched. The war triggered a movement in the northern
states to abolish it, but the southern states were against. Some southerners as
Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens expressed their opposition to slavery, but the
people were not ready for such a change. They had a long way to go, in a nation
where half a million people lived in slavery.

THE MAKING OF A NATION

The social and economic problems that had become evident after the revolution
were an important element in the closer union of the states. In 1786 a meeting was
called in Annapolis, Maryland, to resolve commercial difficulties. Only
representatives from 5 states came. But the result was the drawing up of
the Federal Constitution.

Its main characteristic is the concern for protecting individual rights against the
pretensions of authority. James Madison was the principal author of the document.
The constitution defined a central authority but maintained the existing structure of
state and local authority as a check on the central authority.

Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ,and

James Madison were the man who made possible the establishment of the new
government.

In 1778, they sign an alliance with France. In the 1790s, Hamilton wants an open

war with France (France and England were supposed not to respect maritime
American rights), breaking the alliance. Adams was opposed to the war. Both were
of the Federalist Party, but as a result of the disagreement, Hamilton abandones it.

The signing of the Jay Treatment with Britain, divided the public. Two parties
emerged: the Federalist (in favour of the treaty) and the Democratic Republicans
Washington and Hamilton, they are opposed to the treaty, and to every involvement
in European affairs. They try to erase the vestiges of the French Alliance.

When Jefferson becomes president in 1801 he maintains the same position, but
when the British and French renew attacks on American shipping, he decrees an
embargo on all foreign commerce. The majority was against, and Congress has to
repeal the act.

James Madison (1809) renews the embargo and in 1809 America goes to war with
Great Britain. At the end of the war, if there is a winner, that is the Republican
Party, who claims to have won honourably against a powerful enemy. The
Federalists can´t help being considered in the enemy´s part, and disintegrate.
James Monroe comes to the presidency in 1817 and old divisions seem to fade.

When Spain begins to lose its american empire, Both Britain and America hopes to
profit from it. England proposes a statement supporting Latin independence. When
they back away, the United States decide to do it alone. The result was the Monroe
doctrine, which states that the American Continents are not to be considered
subjects for future colonization by any European power, and the United States
renounces any intention of interfering in internal problems of Europe: the United
States had achieved total independence as a nation.

4 SLAVERY AND THE CIVIL WAR

Contradiction: “all men are created equal” <—> 6 th of population slaves

Society had been brought up in the conviction that the black race was an inferior
one, and even men like Jefferson had their doubts about it. But the ideologies of
the 18th century influence the Unites States, and the conflict arises.

The 1st victory of the antislavery agitation occured when Vermont, prohibits slavery
in its constitution. One by one, all the northern states followed its example. From
this point, the agitation against southern slavery began.

The critical time: 1819. Missouri (in which slavery existed) was to become a state.
There existed the idea (fantastic!) of emancipation under the condition of
expatriation to Africa, but the blacks belonged to a generation that didn´t even know
that continent.

Meanwhile abolitionists in Britain got slavery abolished in 1833.

The struggle becomes violent. In 1836, the Gag Rule, provides that every petitions
to congress on the subject of slavery be automatically disregarded. John Quincy
Adams, tries over and over to challenge the rule, but everytime is silenced by his
fellow members. The gag rule continued to be applied until 1843.

The Methodist, Baptist and Presbiterian church, were split in sections, pro and anti
slavery. From the pulpits of all the nation, slavery was denounced by some and
justified by others.

The future of slavery was intertwined with the issue of territorial expansion. When
Texas revolts against Mexico. The United States supports Them, and the result is
its anexation in 1835. The democrat candidat Polk supported following expansion
into Oregon, and south into Mexico, which makes him win the election. Later he
precipitates a war against Mexico over the issue of expansion, which is won in
1848. This makes the problem bigger, since this expansion also meant the
expansion of slavery.

In Clay´s time, a compromise is reached.

Pro slavery anti-slavery

Calif. Into Union fee. Utah and New Mexico

Left to local settlers

Strengthened fugitive Slavery trade over

Act was passed in Columbia

Soon becomes dead letter as one northern state after other passes personal liberty
laws that made almost impossible to apply the act. North gives back nulification of
Gag Rule.

By 1860, the voters went to the polls, the long agitation of the last decades
becomes a civil war. Peace was restored in 1865, slavery was removed, but the
constitutional sentence still was, and is, in contradiction with the social reality of the
United States.

Topic 46C – Historic configuration of the united

states: from independence to secession war.
Reference novels: the scarlet letter and the red
badge of courage.

He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachussets. He was a descendant of a long line

of puritan rulers. As a child, he heard many different stories from this puritan past.
One of his forefathers was the one that prosecuted the famous witches of Salem,
an episode that illustrates the puritan intolerance.

After graduating in Bowdoin College, he returned to his home town, where he spent
12 years in semi-isolation. During these years, he draws information about the early
story of america, and writes his first tales. These are alegoric tales, centered in
moral conflicts and in the effects of puritanism in the colonnies of New England.
These tales were recopilated in Twice told tales. The historical past of America,
and the roots of this country would always be a point of reference in his
career. Journal of a solitary man is a sort of autobiographical work, about a man
who spends a long time in isolation. When he leaves this isolation, he can no
longer mantain a normal relationship with the other members of the community.
Characters in Hawthorne´s novels are usually out of touch with the real people in
conventional situations. His main characters are usually allienated, in some way or
other.

In 1841 he spends 6 months in the communal society of Brook Farm, trying to get
an economical stability that would allow him to get married, and to have time to
write. Blithedale farm, a novel inspired in his stay in Brooke farm.

The following year he marries Amelia Peabody, from Salem, and they settle in
Concord, Massachussets. During this period, in which he works for the
government, he sets off to write his masterpiece, The scarlett letter, a story about
an adulter puritan, Hester Prynne, which refuses to reveal the name of his lover.

In 1850, he moves to Lenox (Massachussets), where he enjoys the friendship of

one of his admirers, the novelist Herman Melville. There he writes The house of
the seven gables , about the decadence of puritanism in an old New England
family, and

HAWTHORNE AND THE PAST

Another constant in his production is the constant dealing with the past. Past in
Hawthorne is not just a temporal context for his novels and tales, but also the only
way to understand present. He talks about American puritan past to make people
reflect about American present, and about what America has inherited from that
past. Besides, situating the facts in the past, allows him to create an atmosphere of
vagueness, as if time had removed the limits between legend and reality,
imagination and memory. He mixes real elements and supernatural ones, he
introduces allegories and comparisons, abstract terms supplying concrete ones,
creating a climate of vagueness, as if we saw facts through the fogs created by
time. In this sense, he is an example of magic realism, which Suramerican writers
would develope a century later. Besides, we have an intrusive narrator, which helps
to increase the sensation of distance between the reader and the text.

THE SCARLETT LETTER

PURITANISM
We can´t talk about this novel without understanding what puritanism was and what
represented in the first times of the American community.

Puritanism is a religious reform movement in the Church of England during the late
XVI and XVII century. It sought to purify the church from rests of Roman Catholic
popery. Puritanism is the American version of Calvinism, the doctrine of the first
colonists who arrived to America (1620, Plymouth Rock, Massachussets), from the
U.K.. It is a very fatalistic and pessimistic doctrine. Puritans see the world as a
sacred text written by God, and in which they must read the meanings which are
hidden in every fact, circumstance, or event. For the Puritan, everything is
extremely significative and symbolic. For them, law and religion is the same thing,
God´s law and man made law is the same, and going against law is going against
God himself. Example: what independence meant for Puritans.

PLOT AND MEANING: As we have said before, this novel presents the story of a
woman, Hester Pryne, who is condemned by all the puritan community in Boston,
to wear a badge of shame because she has committed adultery. She has a
daughter, Pearl, fruit of this adulterous relation, and she rejects to tell the
community who the father is. The other characters are Arthur Dimmesdale, Pearl´s
father and minister of the puritan community, and Roger Chillingworth, Hester´s
husband. Hawthorme presents her as a good natured woman, who has sinned
against the laws of men, but who hasn´t sinned against God. It is an attack on
ad condemnation of Puritanism. He makes an heroine of a “fallen woman”, and
presents the puritan community as the real sinners.

Hawthorne uses an exuberant imaginery to reflect this contraposition.

One example is the scene in the forest. Arthur and Hester meet in the forest after
having repressed their love for seven long years. It must remembered that Nature,
for the puritans, was the source of temptation and evil. As Hester removes the
stigma that society has placed on her for her sin, the badge of shame, nature
responds with ablessing on the couple in the form of a flood of sunshine, and
Hester´s beauty, which has been dimmed over the years of shame, appears fully
again. Sin only exists in the context of society, it is the repression of society the real
sin in the novel. What society condemns, nature smiles upon and blesses.

This contrast between what is natural and good and what is agaainst conventions,
and therefore, bad is evident in the emblematic letter A that Hester is forced to
wear on her breast as a symbol for shame. Hester transform this symbol in a thing
of beauty. The author describes it as artistically done, in accordance with the taste
of the age, but beyond what was allowed by the austere regulations of the colonny.
The author uses this American puritan past to offer a reflection about sin, crime,
and the effects of feeling guilty on the human beings.

STRUCTURE

The novel is structurated around 3 parallel scenes in the book, that mark three
different stages. The common factor of these three scenes is that they take place in
the scaffold raised in the square of the town.

The first scaffold scene presents a confrontation between Hester, accompanied by

Pearl, and the puritan community. It is important here the symbolic use of colours
used in this scene by Hawthorne:

Hester is wearing colourful garments, red clothes, she has shiny glossy hair. The
intrusive narrator already mentioned identifies her with the virgin. The puritan
community is wearing dim garments and gloomy clothes.

In this part of the novel, we are presented the dilemma the novel deals with.

The second scaffold scene takes place at night, the protagonist of this scene is
Arthur Dimmesdale. he feels guilty and he can´t bear this psychological torture. He
goes up the scaffold because he needs to confess his crime, although he knows
there is nobody there to hear him. However he is heard by Roger, Hester´s
husband. From this moment, Roger will display all his evil power to torture Arthur
psychologically. In this scene we can see one of the examples of supernatural
powers in the novel. There is a storm and

The lightning draws the letter A, now standing for Arthur, in the sky.

The third scaffold scene coincides with the end of the novel. Arthur delivers a
sermon in which he insinuates that he is Pearl´s father. He dies in the arms of
Hester. Some of the presents can see the letter A burnt on his flesh.

The letter A is a symbol, which stands for Adultery in the first scene, for Arthur in
the second, and for Angel in the last one.

PEARL

The Scarlett letter is also the story of Pearl, Hester´s daughter, who is the scarlett
letter, the symbol for adultery, in human form. To the child, the letter A stands for
Arthur. The first thing she sees, when she begins to become aware of the world
surrounding her, is the letter A on her mother´s bossom. In the first scene on the
scaffold, Arthur urges Hester to confess who Pearl´s father is. She keeps silent, but
Pearl, holds her arms at Arthur, with a half pleasant half plaintive murmur. This
chapter is called “the recognition”. Allthroughout the rest of the novel, Pearl will
urge her father, by means of insinuations and bits of play, to recognize her as his
daughter.

Finally, we must say that the value of this masterpiece are found in Hawthorne´s
ability to transform the raw materials of social, religious, and familiar history into
works of literature, and his dealing with the past as key for the understanding and
correcting of the present and as a literary device to achieve the magic and semi
legendary atmosphere that surrounds his narrative.