Observers from Abroad
In the 1830s and 1840s, both the English and the French tended to regard the United States with the patronizing but affectionate curiosity of an elder sibling tending to a younger brother.
The most famous English visitor of letters—a woman—urged the causes of feminism and abolition. The most famous French visitor of letters—a man—urged less and described more. Yet both Harriet Martineau and Alexis de Tocqueville were fascinated by inequalities based on gender and race, and both influenced America's understanding of its own discourse of self-interest.Harriet Martineau, a Unitarian woman of educated background made her reputation—and her living—as a popularizer of the ideas of Thomas Robert Malthus (of whom, more in Chapter 8). She embraced the Malthusian argument that men as well as women should exert moral restraint—and that delayed (or even indefinitely postponed) marriage was no tragedy. Unlike Malthus, she hoped to reform, rather than abolish the Poor Laws. Also unlike Malthus, she was a staunch optimist and believer in the possibility of human progress.50
Once she found a publisher, her Illustrations in Political Economy became a best-seller, providing her with the means to plan a two-year tour of the United States—an adventurous plan not only due to the rigors of travel (especially compared with the more traditional European tour) but also to the contentious political environment. As the abolitionist movement gained visibility it also provoked a pro-slavery backlash. An installment of Martineau's Illustrations, ‘‘Demarara'', had deplored the plight of West Indian slaves and invoked Smith's critique of the economic efficiency of slavery. The captain of Martineau's ship, knowing her reputation, feared that she could not safely disembark in New York.
Martineau's Unitarian friends, many of them active in the abolitionist movement, welcomed her with open arms, but pushed her to publicize her support for their cause.
A turning point came when she witnessed William Lloyd Garrison dragged through the streets of Boston by a crowd threatening to tar and feather him. She found the Boston abolitionist's bravery infectious and risked her own physical safety at a meeting of the Female Anti-Slave Society in Boston in 1835 where she declared slavery ‘‘inconsistent with the law of God''.51 This declaration radicalized her reputation and circumscribed her welcome.Two books written by Martineau in this period displayed a vehemence lacking in her other work.52 Inconsistent individualism infuriated her. Her aptly titled chapter on ‘‘The Political Non-Existence of Women”, in Society in America accuses Americans of hypocrisy because their Declaration of Independence holds that governments derive just powers only from the consent of the governed. It calls Thomas Jefferson to task for failing to carry democratic principles to their logical conclusion. It pooh-poohs James Mill's argument that women are effectively represented by their male relatives.53 Beyond polemic, Martineau argues that extreme inequalities, whether based on race, gender, or class, create incentives for abuse. Inconsistent individualism, in other words, could undermine the moral sentiments and morph into pure, unadulterated greed.
Responses to Martineau, as to abolitionist feminists in general, were telling: The General Association of Massachusetts clergymen expressed alarm concerning possible ‘‘alterations in the female character'' in the direction of political self-reliance. A consistent theme of condemnation was the departure of women from their proper sphere.54 Martineau was personally ridiculed as an unattractive, masculine creature, and her popularization of Malthusian ideas increased her vulnerability to attack.55 One critic described her as the ‘‘anti-Propagation lady a single sight of whom would repel all fears of surplus population as regards himself, her aspects being as repulsive as her doctrines.''56 Others described preoccupation with the sexual abuse of slaves as a form of hysteria endemic among old maids.57