Political Works

"What therefore is precisely the subject of this discourse? It is to point out, in the progress of things, that moment, when, right taking place of violence, nature became subject to law; to display that chain of surprising events, in consequence of which the strong submitted to serve the weak, and the people to purchase imaginary ease, at the expense of real happiness."

"In reality, the difference is, that the savage lives within himself while social man lives outside himself and can only live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the feeling of his own existence only from the judgement of others concerning him. It is not to my present purpose to insist on the indifference to good and evil which arises from this disposition, in spite of our many fine works on morality, or to show how, everything being reduced to appearances, there is but art and mummery in even honour, friendship, virtue, and often vice itself, of which we at length learn the secret of boasting; to show, in short, how abject we are, and never daring to ask ourselves in the midst of so much philosophy, benevolence, politeness, and of such sublime codes of morality, we have nothing to show for ourselves but a frivolous and deceitful appearance, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness."

"I know that [civilized men] do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains.... But when I see [barbarous man] sacrifice pleasures, repose, wealth, power, and life itself for the preservation of this sole good which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see animals born free and despising captivity break their heads against the bars of their prison; when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom."

"Listen, O man, from whatever country you may be, whatever your opinions! Here is your history such as I believe to read it, not in books written by your fellow men, who are liars, but in nature, which never lies. Everything that comes from nature will be true. Nothing will be false, except what I might unintentionally have included of my own. The times of which I shall speak are very distant. How much you have changed from what you once were! It is, so to speak, the life of your species I will describe to you according to the qualities that you have received, and that your education and your habits have been able to corrupt but not destroy. There is, I believe, an age at which an individual might want to stop growing older; you will look for the age at which you wish your species to have gone no further. Discontented with your present state for reasons that herald even greater discontent for your unfortunate posterity, you might perhaps wish to be able to go back in time. And this sentiment must lead to the praise of your first ancestors, the criticism of your contemporaries, and dread for those who will have the misfortune of living after you."

"[D]emandant toujours aux autres ce que nous sommes et n'osant jamais nous interroger là-dessus nous-mêmes..."

"Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million."

"Never exceed your rights, and they will soon become unlimited."

"Le premier qui, ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa de dire: Ceci est à moi, et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la société civile. Que de crimes, de guerres, de meurtres, que de misères et d'horreurs n'eût point épargnés au genre humain celui qui, arrachant les pieux ou comblant le fossé, eût crié à ses semblables: Gardez-vous d'écouter cet imposteur; vous êtes perdus, si vous oubliez que les fruits sont à tous, et que la terre n'est à personne."

"Peoples once accustomed to masters are not in a condition to do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke they still more estrange themselves from freedom, as by mistaking for it an unbridled license to which it is diametrically opposed, they nearly always manage, by their revolutions, to hand themselves over to seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before."

"At the west I met some persons who claimed to be disciples of Owen. From what I saw of them, I should judge it would be very difficult to form a Community of such material. They were very strong in the doctrine that every man has a right to his own opinion ; and declaimed loudly against the effect of religion upon people. They said the common ideas of God and duty operated a great deal worse upon the characters of men, than southern slavery. There is enough in such notions of independence, to break up any attempt at Communism."

"'This Communistic experiment and failure was nearly simultaneous with that of New Harmony, and was the immediate antecedent of Frances Wright's famous lecturing-tour. In December 1828 she was raising whirlwinds of excitement by her eloquence in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York..."

"No life of idleness... is proposed to the whites. Those who cannot work must give an equivalent in property. Gardening or other cultivation of the soil, useful trades practiced in the society or taught in the school, the teaching of every branch of knowledge, tending the children, and nursing the sick, will present a choice of employment sufficiently extensive."

"No difference will be made in the schools between the white children and the children of color, whether in education or any other advantage. ...It will be seen that this establishment is founded on the principle of community of property and labor: presenting every advantage to those desirous, not of accumulating money, but of enjoying life and rendering services to their fellow-creatures; these fellow-creatures, that is, the blacks here admitted, requiting these services by services equal or greater, by filling occupations which their habits render easy, and which to their guides and assistants, might be difficult or unpleasing."

"The trouble at Brook Farm, according to Hawthorne, was that the amateurs who took part in that 'pic-nic,' did not like to serve as 'chambermaids to the cows.'"

"Her plan in brief was, to take slaves in large numbers from time to time (either by purchase, or by inducing benevolent planters to donate their negroes to the institution), and to prepare them for liberty by education, giving them half of what they produced, and making them pay their way and purchase their emancipation, if necessary, by their labor. The working of the negroes and the general management of the Community was to be in the hands of the philanthropic and wealthy whites associated with the lady-founder. The theory was benevolent; but practically the institution must have been a two-story commonwealth, somewhat like the old Grecian States which founded liberty on Helotism."

"Owen learned all he really knew about practical Communism, and more than he was able to imitate, from the Rappites. They learned Communism from the New Testament and the day of Pentecost."

"She [Wright] visited the German settlement of Rappites at Harmony, on the Wabash river, and after examining the wonderful industry of that Community, she was struck with the appropriateness of their system of coöperation to the carrying out of her aspirations. She also visited some of the Shaker establishments then existing in the United States, but she thought unfavorably of them."

"This experiment was made in Shelby Co., Tennessee, by the celebrated Frances Wright. The objects were, to form a Community in which the negro slave should be educated and upraised to a level with the whites, and thus prepared for freedom; and to set an example, which, if carried out, would eventually abolish slavery in the Southern States; also to make a home for good and great men and women of all countries, who might there sympathize with each other in their love and labor for humanity. She invited congenial minds from every quarter of the globe to unite with her in the search for truth and the pursuit of rational happiness."

"MacDonald erects a magniloquent monument over the remains of Nashoba, the experiment of Frances Wright. ... she was the leading woman in the communistic movement of that period, but... she had a very important agency in starting two other movements, that have had far greater success, and are at this moment strong in public favor, viz., Anti-Slavery and Woman's Rights. If justice were done, we are confident her name would figure high with those of Lundy, Garrison, and John Brown on the one hand, and with those of Abby Kelly, Lucy Stone and Anna Dickinson on the other."

"The writer of this sketch has since heard the history of that eventful year reviewed with honesty and earnestness by the best men and most intelligent parties of that unfortunate social experiment. They admitted the favorable circumstances which surrounded its commencement ; the intelligence, devotion, and earnestness which were brought to the cause by its projectors ; and its final total failure. And they rested ever after in the belief that man, though disposed to philanthropy, is essentially selfish ; and that a community of social equality and common property is impossible."

"It was useless to remind all parties that the common labor of all ministered to the prosperity of the Community. Individual happiness was the law of nature, and it could not be obliterated ; and before a single year had passed, this law had scattered the members of that society, which had come together so earnestly and under such favorable circumstances, back into the selfish world from which they came."

"Still they hoped, and many of them no doubt believed, that though social equality was a failure, community of property was not. But whether the law of mine and thine is natural or incidental in human character, it soon began to develop its sway. The industrious, the skillful and the strong, saw the products of their labor enjoyed by the indolent, the unskilled, and the improvident ; and self-love rose against benevolence. A band of musicians insisted that their brassy harmony was as necessary to the common happiness as bread and meat ; and declined to enter the harvest field or the work-shop. A lecturer upon natural science insisted upon talking only, while others worked. Mechanics, whose day's labor brought two dollars into the common stock, insisted that they should, in justice, work only half as long as the agriculturist, whose day's work brought but one."

"Self-love was a spirit which would not be exorcised. It whispered to the lowly maidens, whose former position in society had cultivated the spirit of meekness—"You are as good as the formerly rich and fortunate ; insist upon your equality." It reminded the favorites of former society of their lost superiority ; and in spite of all rules, tinctured their words and actions with the love of self. Similar thoughts and feelings soon arose among the men... deep and strong. ...at the end of three months—three months!—the leading minds in the Community were compelled to acknowledge to each other that the social life of the Community could not be bounded by a single circle. They therefore acquiesced, but reluctantly, in its division into many little circles."

"Although Christianity was wholly ignored in the system, there was no free-loveism or other looseness of morals allowed. In short, this Community began its career under the most favorable auspices ; and if any men and women in the world could have succeeded, these should have done so."

"At Cincinnati he soon found many congenial spirits, among the first of whom was Daniel Roe, minister of the "New Jerusalem Church," a society of the followers of Swedenborg. This society was composed of a very superior class of people. They were intelligent, liberal, generous, cultivated men and women—many of them wealthy and highly educated. They were apparently the best possible material to organize and sustain a Community such as Owen proposed."

"Full of zeal for the improvement of society Owen conceived that he had discovered the cause of most of its evils in the laws of meum et tuum [mine and yours] ; and that a state of society where there is nothing mine or thine, would be a paradise begun. He brooded upon the idea of a Community of property, and connected it with schemes for the improvement of society, until he was ready to sacrifice his own property and devote his heart and his life to his fellow men upon this basis."

"The beginning of the Owen movement in this country was signalized by a conjunction with Swedenborgianism. The significance of this fact will appear more fully, when we come to the history of the marriage between Fourierism and Swedenborgianism which afterwards took place at Brook Farm."

"The fame of New Harmony has... overshadowed and obscured all other experiments that resulted from Owen's labors in this country. It is perhaps scarcely known at this day that a Community almost as brilliant as Brook Farm, was started by his personal efforts at Cincinnati, even before he commenced operations at New Harmony. The following sketch, clipped by Macdonald from some old newspaper (the name and date of which are missing), is not only pleasant reading but bears internal marks of painstaking and truthfulness. It is a model memoir of the life and death of a non-religious Community..."

"He [Owen] confessed that until he received the revelations of Spiritualism, he had been quite unaware of the necessity of good spiritual conditions for forming the character of men. The physical, the intellectual, the moral, and the practical conditions, he had understood, and had known how to provide for ; but the spiritual he had overlooked. Yet this, as he now saw, was the most important of all in the future development of mankind."

"Judging from all our experience and observation, we should say that the two most essential requisites for the formation of successful Communities, are religions principle and previous acquaintance of the members. Both of these were lacking in Owen's experiment. The advertising method of gathering necessarily ignores both."

"The socialistic theorizers all assume that Association is a step in advance of civilization. If that is true, we must assume also that the most advanced class of civilization is that which must take the step ; and a discrimination of some sort will be required, to get that class into the work, and shut off the barbarians who would hinder it. ...This method, or something like it, has been tried in most of the non-religious experiments. The joint-stock principle, which many of them adopted, necessarily invites all who choose to buy stock. That principle may form organizations that are able to carry on the businesses of banks and railroads after a fashion ; because such businesses require but little character, except zeal and ability for money-making. But a true Community, or even a semi-Community, like the Fourier Phalanxes, requires far higher qualifications in its members and managers."

"Owen's method of getting together the material of his Community, seems to us the most obvious external cause of his failure. It was like advertising for a wife ; and we never heard of any body's getting a good wife by advertising."

"Although the apparent effect of the failure of Owen's movement was to produce discouragement, still below all that discouragement there is, in the whole nation, generated in part by that movement, a hope watching for the morning. We have to thank Owen for so much, or rather to thank God, for using Owen to stimulate the public mind and bring it to that state in which it is able to receive and keep this hope for the future."

"They have taught us one great lesson ; and that is, that good circumstances do not make good men. I believe the circumstances of mankind are as good as Providence can make them, consistently with their own state of development and the well-being of their souls. Instead of seeking to sweep away existing governments and forms of outward things, we should thank God that he has given men institutions as good as they can bear. We know that he will give them better, as fast as they improve beyond those they have."

"The people Mr. Owen had to deal with in Scotland were of the servile class, employes in his cotton-factories, and were easily managed, compared with those he collected here in the United States. When he went to Indiana, and undertook to manage a family of a thousand democrats, he began to realize that he did not understand human nature, or the principles of Association."

"The internal affinities of Owen's Commune were too weak to resist the attractions of the outer world. Had he brought his New Lanark disciples to New Harmony, the result would not have been different. Removed from the mechanical pressure of despair and want his weakly cohered elements would quickly have crumbled away."

"Owen was a skeptic by training, and a cautious man of business by nature and nationality. He was professedly an entire convert to his own principles ; yet set an example of distrust by holding on to his thirty thousand acres himself. This would do when dealing with starving Scotch peasantry, glad of the privilege of moderately remunerated labor, good food and clothing. Had he been a benevolent Southern planter he would have succeeded admirably with negro slaves, who would have been only too happy to accept any 'Principles.' He had to do with people who had individual hopes and aspirations."

"Owen was a Scotch metaphysician of the old school. As such, he was a most excellent fault finder and disorganizer. He could perceive and depict the existing discord, but knew not better than his contemporaries Shelley and Godwin, where to find the New Harmony. Like most men of the last generation he looked upon society as a manufactured product, and not as an organism endued with imperishable vitality and growth. Like them he attributed all the evils it endured to priests and politicians, whose immediate annihilation would be followed by immediate, everlasting and universal happiness. It would be astonishing if an experiment initiated by such a class of thinkers should succeed under the most favorable auspices."

"What were the causes of these failures? People will give different answers, according to the general sentiments they entertain. For myself I should say, that such experiments must fail, because it is impossible to mold to Communism the characters of men and women, formed by the present doctrines and practices of the world to intense individualism. I should indeed go further by stating my convictions, that even with persons brought up from childhood to act in common and live in common, it would be impossible to carry out a Communistic system, unless in a place utterly removed from contact with the world, or with the help of some powerful religious conviction. Mere benevolence, mere sentiments of universal philanthropy, are far too weak to bind the self seeking affections of men."

"The Professor [Owen] appeared on the stage with a splendid reputation for previous thaumaturgy, with all the crucibles and chemicals around him that money could buy, with an audience before him that was gaping to see the last wonder of science : but on applying the flame that was to set all ablaze with happiness and glory, behold! the material prepared would not burn, but only sputtered and smoked ; and the curtain had to come down upon a scene of confusion and disappointment!"

"Almost the only redeeming feature in or near this whole scene of confusion—which might well be called New Discord instead of New Harmony—was the silent retreat of the Rappite thousand, which was so orderly that it almost escaped mention. Remembering their obscure achievements and their persistent success, we can still be sure that the idea of Owen and his thousand was not a delusion, but an inspiration, that only needed wiser hearts, to become a happy reality."

"Mr. Owen said he wanted honesty of purpose, and he got dishonesty. He wanted temperance, and instead, he was continually troubled with the intemperate. He wanted industry, and he found idleness. He wanted cleanliness, and found dirt. He wanted carefulness, and found waste. He wanted to find desire for knowledge, but he found apathy. He wanted the principles of the formation of character understood, and he found them misunderstood. He wanted these good qualities combined in one and all the individuals of the Community, but he could not find them ; neither could he find those who were self-sacrificing and enduring enough, to prepare and educate their children to possess these qualities. Thus it was proved that his principles were either entirely erroneous, or much in advance of the age in which he promulgated them. He seems to have forgotten, that if one and all the thousand persons assembled there, had possessed the qualities which he wished them to possess, there would have been no necessity for his vain exertions to form a Community ; because of necessity there would of necessity be brotherly love, charity, industry, and plenty. We want no more than these, and if we can not find it, we can not form Communities ; and if we can not find parents who are ready and willing to educate their children, to give them these qualities for a Community life, then what hope is there of Communism in the future?"

"I was cautioned not to speak of Socialism, as the subject was unpopular. The advice was good ; Socialism was unpopular, and with good reason. The people had been wearied and disappointed by it ; had been filled full with theories, until they were nauseated, and had made such miserable attempts at practice, that they seemed ashamed of what they had been doing. An enthusiastic socialist would soon be cooled down at New Harmony."

"June 18, 1827. The Gazette advertised that Mr. Owen would meet the inhabitants of New Harmony and the neighborhood on the following Sunday, to bid them farewell. I find no account of this meeting, nor indeed of any further movements of Mr. Owen in the Gazette. After his departure the majority of the population also removed and scattered about the country. Those who remained returned to individualism, and settled as farmers and mechanics in the ordinary way. One portion of the estate was owned by Mr. Owen and the other by Mr. Maclure. They sold, rented, or gave away the houses and lands, and their heirs and assigns have continued to do so to the present day."

"It is useless to follow this wreck further. Everybody sees it must go down, and why it must go down. It is like a great ship, wallowing helpless in the trough of a tempestuous sea, with nine hundred passengers, and no captain or organized crew."

"Jan. 1827. Although there was an appearance of increased order and happiness, yet matters were drawing to a close. Owen was selling property to individuals ; the greater part of the town was now resolved into individual lots ; a grocery was established opposite the tavern ; painted sign-boards began to be stuck up on the buildings, pointing out places of manufacture and trade ; a sort of wax-figure-and-puppet-show was opened at one end of the boarding-house ; and every thing was getting into the old style."

"In December the use of ardent spirits was abolished."

"Nov. 8. Many persons leaving."

"Eighteen months experience has proved to us, that the requisite qualifications for a permanent member of the Community of Common Property are, 1, Honesty of purpose ; 2, Temperance ; 3, Industry ; 4, Carefulness ; 5, Cleanliness ; 6, Desire for knowledge ; 7, A conviction of the fact that the character of man is formed for, and not by, himself."

"Constitution No. 7. Sept. 17. A large meeting of all the Societies and the whole population of the town took place at the Hall, for the purpose of considering a plan for the amelioration of the Society, to improve the condition of the people, and make them more contented.' A message was received from Mr. Owen proposing to form a Community with as many as would join him, and put in all their property, save what might be thought necessary to reserve to help their friends ; the government to consist of Robert Owen and four others of his choice, to be appointed by him every year ; and not to be altered for five years. This movement of course nullified all previous organizations. Disagreements and jealousies ensued, and, as was the case on a former change being made, many persons left New Harmony."