INTRODUCTION + READING ASSIGNMENT + WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Assignment 12:
CREVECOEUR & MADISON

Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer was an instant success when it was first published in 1782, by a bookseller in London, England; and a success once again when a French edition of it was published in Paris one year later. The Revolution had created--among Europeans--a wide interest in things American, and Crevecoeur met the demand with a reverential, almost mythical, vision of the New World.

"What then is the American, this new man?" asks Crevecoeur's speaker, James, a thriving Pennsylvania farmer of the pre-Revolutionary period, whose ancestors had escaped the oppression of European aristocracy and built the farm James works entirely on his own behalf. He pictures the American as one who, freed from "serivle dependence, penury and useless labor," undergoes a total transformation. Beginning with the prospect of working for himself and owning land, the American sloughs off his European "prejudices and manners" and begins to think for himself, to act "upon new principles," and "entertain new ideas." In Europe, he says, men "were so many useless plants"; here, the "men are become men."

The interesting thing is that James thinks of himself as a British subject rather than as an American citizen; and the freedom of which he sings is, he implies, guaranteed by the British crown. When the Revolution breaks out, in the twelfth and last of his letters, he is equally concerned by British severity as by the violence of Whig revolutionaries. Caught between these extremes, his decision is, amazingly, to head west and take up residence among the Indians. This decision makes thematic sense, though, given the subjects of preceding letters. The early chapters do paint an idyllic picture of agrarian life in the colonies, but James becomes increasingly aware of the potential for evil, as well. This is particularly clear in Letter IX, when he journeys to Charleston, South Carolina, and witnesses first-hand the brutalities of slavery. If anything, indeed, Charleston is depicted there as an overcivilized culture, a center of urban decadence, and symbolic of how European values press westward too, just behind the frontiersman. Perhaps this is why James decides to head for the frontier and life in a wigwam: he hopes to recuperate the idyll of simplicity and closeness to nature, from which (he believes) freedom and goodness spring.

This is the plot of Crevecoueur's chapters, told in the form of an "epistolary fiction" (a fiction in letters), with an imaginary author and addressee, but dealing with actual places and populations. Close reading of the excerpts in our anthology will disclose its main lines of development. All along, pay close attention to those opposed forces between which James will always seek a middle path: for example, there is decadent Europe, and the savage wilderness, and in-between them both lies the good land of his Pennsylvania farm.

James's quest for the middle-ground between the extremities of American civilization can effectively take us into the Federalist #10, an essay on the danger of factions in the new Republic. Printed over the name of "Publius," the tenth of the Federalist papers was in fact written by James Madison and addressed to the people of New York in 1787, the second year of a financial crisis which also prompted Shays' Rebellion (the background for Royall Tyler's play, The Contrast). Its sole purpose was to persuade New York voters to adopt the proposed Constitution. In particular, Madison's task was to persuade them that representative, rather than pure democracy, was best suited to the task of providing a stable government capable of steering its way between the extremities of political parties.

Reading Assignment
  1. Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (pages 640-665).
  2. James Madison, The Federalist #10 (pages 746-751).
Writing Assignment
  1. In Letter III, what are the main contrasts between Europe and America, as James sees them? By the same token, how does he contrast the settled culture of middle-America with that of the wilderness and its "back settlers"?

  2. From where does the citizen derive that freedom which, James says, is essential to American culture?

  3. In what ways, according to James in Letter III, are men "like plants"; and what does he do with that metaphor in the subsequent Letters? Consider, in particular, how the citizen takes on characteristics of the geography he inhabits--Nantucket and Charlestown for example.

  4. What specific contrasts does James develop, in Letter IX, between the culture of the slaveholding south, and that of his native Pennsylvania?

  5. In Letter XII, why does James oppose the revolutionists? And why--most interesting of all--does he propose to give up his beloved farm and take up residence in a "wigwam" among the Indians?

  6. Produce a topic outline of Madison's argument in Federalist #10, using your own (or some of Madison's) phrases or brief sentences to detail the main points of his essay.

  7. How does Madison employ ideas about "the nature of man," and about factionalism as a "disease," in arguing that representative democracy is the best "remedy"?

  8. In what ways does Madison propose to balance the needs and demands of both majority and minority parties against each other?

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