Political Works

"Constitution No. 6. August 25. The people held a meeting at which they abolished all officers then existing, and appointed three men as dictators."

"August 20. After Mr Owen had given his usual address, it was unanimously agreed by the meeting that the entire population of New Harmony should meet three times a week in the Hall, for the purpose of being educated together. This practice was continued about six weeks, when Mr. Owen became sick and it was discontinued."

"I now declare to you and to the world, that Man, up to this hour, has been in all parts of the earth a slave to a Trinity of the most monstrous evils that could be combined to inflict mental and physical evil upon his whole race. I refer to Private or Individual Property, Absurd and Irrational systems of Religion, and Marriage founded on Individual Property, combined with some of these Irrational systems of Religion."

"Constitution No. 5. May 30. In consequence of a variety of troubles and disagreements, chiefly relating to the disposal of the property, a great meeting of the whole population was held, and it was decided to form four separate societies, each signing its own contract for such part of the property as it should purchase, and each managing its own affairs ; but to trade with each other by paper money."

"May 27. The immigration continued so steadily, that it became necessary for the Community to inform the friends of the new views that the accommodations were inadequate, and call upon them by advertisement not to come until further notice."

"Mr. Owen... made a selection, and by solemn examination constituted a nucleus of twenty-five men, which nucleus was to admit members, Mr. Owen reserving the power to veto every one admitted. There were to be three grades of members, viz., conditional members, probationary members, and persons on trial. (?) The Community was to be under the direction of Mr. Owen, until two thirds of the members should think fit to govern themselves, provided the time was not less than twelve months. This may be called Constitution No 4."

"Constitution No. 2. Mr. Owen returned to New Harmony on the 12th of January, 1826, and soon after the members of the Preliminary Society held a convention, and adopted a constitution... entitled The New Harmony Community of Equality. Thus in less than a year, instead of three years as Mr. Owen had proposed, the 'half-way house' came to an end, and actual Communism commenced. A few of the members, who, on account of a difference of opinions, did not sign the new constitution, formed a second Community on the New Harmony estate about two miles from the town, in friendly connection with the first."

"[Owen] tendered them a Constitution, of which we find no definite account, except that it was not fully Communistic, and was to hold the people in probationary training three years, under the title of the Preliminary Society of New Harmony. "After these proceedings Mr. Owen left New Harmony for Europe, and the Society was managed by the Preliminary Committee.(!) We may imagine... what the nine hundred did while Mr. Owen was away. Macdonald compiled from the New Harmony Gazette a very rapid but evidently defective account of the state of things in this important interval."

"On the departure of the Rappites, persons favorable to Mr. Owen's views came flocking to New Harmony (as it was thenceforth called) from all parts of the country. Tidings of the new social experiment spread far and wide... in the short space of six weeks from the commencement of the experiment, a population of eight hundred persons was drawn together, and in October 1825, the number had increased to nine hundred. [As to the character of this population] it was as good as it could be under the circumstances... many intelligent and benevolent individuals... were at various times residents at New Harmony. [But] it is certain... that there was a proportion of needy and idle persons, who crowded in to avail themselves of Mr. Owen's liberal offer; and that they did their share of work more in the line of destruction than construction."

"Thus Owen, the first experimenter in non-religious Association, had substantially the ready-made material conditions which Fourier and his followers considered indispensable to success."

"Such were the people who gave Robert Owen his first lessons in Communism, and sold him their home in [New Harmony] Indiana. Ten of their best years they spent in building a village on the Wabash, not for themselves (as it turned out) but for a theater of the great infidel experiment."

"On the banks of the Wabash they [the Rappites or Harmonites] built a new village and again called it Harmony. Here they prospered more than ever, and their number increased to nearly a thousand. In 1824 they again became discontented with their location, on account of bad neighbors and malaria. Again they sold all, and returned to Pennsylvania ; but not to their old home. They built their third and final village in Beaver Co., near Pittsburgh, and called it Economy. There they are to this day. They own railroads and oil wells and are reported to be millionaires of the unknown grade. In all their migrations from the old world to the new, from Pennsylvania to Indiana, and from Indiana back to Pennsylvania ; in all their perils by persecutions, by false brethren, by pestilence, by poverty and wealth, their religion held them together, and their union gave them the strength that conquers prosperity."

"In the first years of the present century, old Würtemburg, a province always famous for its religious enthusiasms, was fermenting with excitement about the Millennium ; and many of its enthusiasts were expecting the speedy personal advent of Christ. Among these George Rapp became a prominent preacher, and led forth a considerable sect into doctrines and ways that brought upon him and them severe persecutions. In 1803 he came to America to find a refuge for his flock. After due exploration he purchased 5000 acres of land in Butler Co., Pennsylvania, and commenced a settlement which he called Harmony. In the summer of 1804 two ship-loads of his disciples with their families—six hundred in all—came over the ocean and joined him. In 1805 the Society was formally organized as a Christian Community, on the model of the Pentecostal church. ...[they] soon made the wilderness blossom around them like the rose. In 1807 they adopted the principle of celibacy ; but in other respects they were far from being ascetics. Music, painting, sculpture, and other liberal arts flourished among them. Their museums and gardens were the wonder and delight of the region around them. In 1814, desiring warmer land, and a better location for business, they sold all in Pennsylvania and removed to Indiana."

"Owen did not build the village of New Harmony, nor create the improvements which prepared his 30,000 acres for his family of nine hundred. He bought them outright from a previous religious Community [ the Rappites ] ; and it is doubtful whether he would have ever gathered his nine hundred and made his experiment, if he had not found a place prepared for him by a sect of Christian Communists."

"Owen was the first Socialist that stirred the enthusiasm of the whole American people ; and he was the first, so far as we know, who tried the experiment of a non-religious Community [commune]. And the whole series of experiments belonging to the two great groups of the Owen and Fourier epochs, followed in his footsteps. The exclusion of theology was their distinction and their boast."

"Jonathan Edwards, whose life extended from 1703 to 1758, was the father of it. So that not only since the war of 1812, but before the Revolution of 1776, we find Revivalism, as a system, strictly an American production."

"While the Bible men have worked for the regeneration of the soul, the infidels and liberals have been busy on the problem of the reconstruction of society. Working apart and in enmity, perhaps they have accomplished more for final harmony than they could have done together. Even their failures when rightly interpreted, may turn to good account. They have both helped to plant in the heart of the nation an unfailing hope of the "good time coming." ...we may hope that the next phase of national history will be that of Revivalism and Socialism harmonized, and working together for the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Doubtless the Revivalists and Socialists despise each other, and perhaps both will despise us for imagining that they can be reconciled. But we will say what we believe ; and that is, that they have both failed in their attempts to bring heaven on earth, because they despised each other, and would not put their two great ideas together. The Revivalists failed for want of regeneration of society, and the Socialists failed for want of regeneration of the heart."

"Undoubtedly the Socialists will think we make too much of the Revival movement ; and the Revivalists will think we make too much of the Socialistic movement ; and the politicians will think we make too much of both, in assigning them important places in American history. But we hold that a man's deepest experiences are those of religion and love ; and these are just the experiences in respect to which he is most apt to be ashamed, and most inclined to be silent. So the nation says but little, and tries to think that it thinks but little, about its Revivals and its Socialisms ; but they are nevertheless the deepest and most interesting passages of its history, and worth more study as determinatives of character and destiny, than all its politics and diplomacies, its money matters and its wars."

"These two ideas, which in modern times are so wide apart, were present together in original Christianity. When the Spirit of truth pricked three thousand men to the heart and converted them on the day of Pentecost, its next effect was to resolve them into one family and introduce Communism of property. Thus the greatest of all Revivals was also the great inauguration of Socialism."

"The Revivalists had for their great idea the regeneration of the soul. The great idea of the Socialists was the regeneration of society, which is the soul's environment. These ideas belong together, and are the complements of each other. Neither can be successfully embodied by men whose minds are not wide enough to accept them both."

"These movements—Revivalism and Socialism—opposed to each other as they may seem, and as they have been in the creeds of their partizans, are closely related in their essential nature and objects, and manifestly belong together in the scheme of Providence, as they do in the history of this nation. They are to each other as inner to outer—as soul to body—as life to its surroundings."

"There was a time between 1831 and 1834 when the American people came as near to a surrender of all to the Kingdom of Heaven, as they came in 1843 to a socialistic revolution. The Millennium seemed as near in 1831, as Fourier's Age of Harmony seemed in 1843. And the final effect of Revivals was a hope watching for the morning, which remains in the life of the nation, side by side, nay identical, with the great hope of Socialism."

"Since the war of 1812-15, the line of socialistic excitements lies parallel with the line of religious Revivals. ...Nettleton and Finney were to Revivals what Owen and Fourier were to Socialism."

"Our theory harmonizes Owenism with Fourierism, and regards them both as working toward the same end in American history."

"The Communities and Phalanxes died almost as soon as they were born, and are now almost forgotten. But the spirit of Socialism remains in the life of the nation. It was discouraged and cast down by the failures of 1828 and 1846, and thus it learned salutary caution and self-control. But it lives still, as a hope watching for the morning, in thousands and perhaps millions who never took part in any of the experiments, and who are neither Owenites nor Fourierites, but simply Socialists without theory—believers in the possibility of a scientific and heavenly reconstruction of society."

"As a man who has passed through a series of passional excitements, is never the same being afterward, so we insist that these socialistic paroxysms have changed the heart of the nation; and that a yearning toward social reconstruction has become a part of the continuous, permanent, inner experience of the American people."

"We must not think of the two great socialistic revivals as altogether heterogeneous and separate. Their partizans maintained theoretical opposition to each other; but after all the main idea of both was the enlargement of home—the extension of family union beyond the little man-and-wife circle to large corporations. ...The same men, or at least the same sort of men that took part in the Owen movement, were afterward carried away by the Fourier enthusiasm. The two movements may, therefore, be regarded as one; and in that view, the period of the great American socialistic revival extends from 1824, through the final and overwhelming excitement of 1843, to the collapse of Fourierism after 1846."

"Consider that several of the men who were leaders in this excitement, were also leaders then and afterwards in the old Whig party; and he will have reason to conclude that Socialism, in its duplex form of Owenism and Fourierism, has touched and modified both of the party-sections and all departments of the national life."

"Fourier (by proxy) started another national excitement in 1842. With young Brisbane for its cosmopolitan apostle, and a national newspaper, such as the New York Tribune was, for its organ, this movement, like Owen's, could not be otherwise than national in its dimensions."

"Owen and his followers—especially his son Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright—continued to agitate the country with newspapers, public lectures, and "Fanny Wright societies," till their ideas actually got foot-hold and influence in the great Democratic party. The special enthusiasm for practical attempts at Association culminated in 1826, and afterwards subsided; but the excitement about Owen's ideas, which was really the Owen movement, reached its height after 1830; and the embers of it are in the heart of the nation to this day."

"Owen in 1824 stirred the very life of the nation with his appeals to Kings and Congresses, and his vast experiments at New Harmony. Think of his family of nine hundred members on a farm of thirty thousand acres! A magnificent beginning, that thrilled the world! The general movement was proportionate to this beginning; and though this great Community and all the little ones that followed it failed and disappeared in a few years, the movement did not cease."

"The numbers engaged in the practical attempts were very small, in comparison with the masses that entered into the enthusiasm of the general movements and abandoned themselves to the idea of an impending social revolution."

"A vast spiritual and intellectual excitement is one thing; and the institutions that rise out of it are another. We must not judge the excitement by the institutions."

"The duration of fourteen Associations is not reported; twelve lasted less than 1 year; two 1 year; four between 1 and 2 years; three 2 years; four between 2 and 3 years; one between 3 and 4 years; one 4 years; one 5 years; one 6 years; one 12 years; and one (it is said) 17 years. All died young, and most of them before they were two years old."

"We have reason to think that nearly all of them bought, to begin with, a great deal more land than they paid for. This was the fashion of the socialistic schools and of the times."

"Land, land, land, was evidently regarded by them as the mother of all gain and comfort. Considering how much they must have run in debt for land, and how little profit they got from it, we may say of them almost literally, that they were "wrecked by running aground.""

"We should have advised the Phalanxes to limit their land-investments to a minimum, and put their strength as soon as possible into some form of manufacture. Almost any kind of a factory would be better than a farm for a Community nursery. We find hardly a vestige of this policy in Macdonald's collections. The saw-mill is the only form of mechanism that f1gures much in his reports. It is really ludicrous to see how uniformly an old saw-mill turns up in connection with each Association, and how zealously the brethren made much of it; but that is about all they attempted in the line of manufacturing."

"Judging by our own experience we incline to think that this fondness for land, which has been the habit of Socialists, had much to do with their failures. Farming is about the hardest and longest of all roads to fortune: and it is the kind of labor in which there is the most uncertainty as to modes and theories, and of course the largest chance for disputes and discords in such complex bodies as Associations. Moreover the lust for land leads off into the wilderness, "out west," or into by-places, far away from railroads and markets; whereas Socialism, if it is really ahead of civilization, ought to keep near the centers of business, and at the front of the general march of improvement."

"The amount of land reported is enormous. Averaging it as we did in the case of the number of members, we make a grand total of 136,586 acres, or about 3,000 acres to each Association. This is too much for any probable average. We will leave out as exceptional the 60,000 acres reported as belonging to New Harmony and the McKean Co. Association. Then averaging as before we have a grand total of 44,624 acres, or about 1,000 acres to each Association."

"Fourierism was introduced into this country by Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley in 1842, and then commenced another great national movement similar to that of Owenism, but far more universal and enthusiastic. We consider the year 1843 the focal period of this social revival ; and around that year or following it within the forties, we find the main group of Macdonald's Associations. Thirty-four of the list may clearly be referred to this epoch."

"Robert Owen came to this country and commenced his experiments in Communism in 1824. This was the beginning of a national excitement, which had a course somewhat like that of a religious revival or a political campaign. This movement seems to have culminated in 1826 ; and, grouped around or near that year, we find... eleven Communities."

"The Associations that are left after these exclusions, naturally fall into two groups, viz.; those of the OWEN MOVEMENT, and those of the FOURIER MOVEMENT."

"We dismiss two or three Spiritualistic attempts that are named in the list ; first because they never attained to the dignity of Assoc1ations ; and secondly, because they belonged to a later movement than that which Macdonald undertook to record. The social experiments of the Spiritualists should be treated by themselves, as the sequelæ of the Fourier excitement of Macdonald's time."

"We put out of account the foreign Associations, such as the Brazilian and Venezuelan experiments. With these may be classed those of the Icarians and some others, which though within the United States, are, or were, really colonies of foreigners. We see six of this sort..."

"We will lay aside the antique religious Associations, such as the Dunkers, Moravians, Zoarites, &c. We count at least seven of these, which do not properly belong to the modern socialistic movement, or even to American life. Having their origin in the old world, and most of them in the last century, and remaining without change, they exist only on the outskirts of general society."

"The plan and theory of this history are our own, and widely different from any that Macdonald would have been willing to indorse. With these qualifications, we still acknowledge a large debt of gratitude to him and to the Providence that gave us his collections."

"I here return my thanks to the fearless, confiding, and disinterested friends, who so freely shared with me what little they possessed, to assist in the completion of this work. I name them not, but rejoice in their assistance."

"It remains for a future historian to continue the labor which I have thus superficially commenced; for the day has not yet arrived when it can be said that Communism or Association has ceased to exist; and it is possible yet, in the progress of things, that man will endeavor to cure his social diseases by some such means; and a future history may contain the results of more important experiments than have ever yet been attempted."

"Of necessity the work is imperfect, because of the difficulty in obtaining information on such subjects; but the attempt, whatever may be its result, should not be put off, since there is reason to believe that if not now collected, many particulars of the various movements would be forever lost."