What lead Orestes Brownson to coin the term Manifest Destiny - Research Paper Example

What lead Orestes Brownson to coin the term Manifest Destiny? Religion for many centuries offered different “school of thoughts” which scholars also term as "truth-claims”, hence a feeling of being an American. These truth claims offer different ideologies, which are based according to the nature of the religion. Orestes Brownson, is considered to be a founding father of one “school of thought”, as he declared out of all of the states of the Western Hemisphere, the America only had a “destiny.” This meant that America as he saw it had been chosen to do marvellous things in the history of humanity. Thus, the Manifest Destiny concept is based on the idea that America had a divine providence. However, there were concerns that were cropping up, which seemed to challenge this notion and slavery was the main issue. It raised issues on whether they should be allowed into the territories and the impact it could have on America being the divine destiny. Various aspects such as that of George Bancroft, of The American Republic stipulates that the state originates in man's social nature and derives its rights, not from consent or agreement of individuals, or the surrender of the rights of individuals, but, under God, from society itself, and therefore has for its mission to protect and defend the rights on one hand of society, and an individual. There is no society without individuals, but there are no individuals without society George Bancroft (1866). George (1866), continues to state that Orestes, though believing in theme of society, he had difficulty with this concept of the "people" as it was not always clear who the people" were, or who were to be recognized as their legitimate or illegitimate spokesmen. George (1866) continues to state that, there was unease of an apotheosis of a people that was together, which was the origin of "socialism." George states that as, “...for if the society, were great or supreme in the best sense, the final court of questions, assertion of individual liberty in the face of the democratic nation would not exist.” On America as a Nation, Orestes Brownson believed that Countries can be viewed as individuals from a big picture or scale, have life, sense of individuality, reason, a mind of their own and same law that govern development and growth or even decay as a person. Moreover, a nation had to know itself, understand why it exists, power that it has faculties, rights and destiny. This meant that a nation provided sub-categories, that made it whole. The Mission of the nation, according to Orestes, meant that: “Every living nation has an idea given it by Providence to realize, and whose realization is its special work, mission, or destiny. Every nation is, is some sense, a chosen people of God. It mean that the Jews were considered to be the the chosen people of God, from whom the tradition were to remain until the messiah came back. History did not save its mission, and as far as they are known, they have contributed to the development or issues such as corruption of religion and civilization. Despotism is barbaric and abnormal.” Orestesbrownson online (2009). Another issue that Orestes found necessary for the nation to be a manifest destiny was the need to understand the constitution. This was because the constitution of America being defective. He argued that if the states that had slaves was as a simple agreement, then they would never prosper. However, the issue was How to assert union, without there being consolidation and state rights without disintegration. Moreover, the nation had to have a nature for it to be a government. He believed that; The nature or essence of government is to govern. A government that does not govern is simply no government at all. If it has not the ability to govern and governs not it may be an agency, an instrument in the hands of individuals for advancing their private interests, but it is not government. To be government it must govern both individuals and the community. If it is a mere machine for making prevail the will of one man, of a certain number of men, or even of the community, it may be very effective sometimes for good, sometimes for evil, most often for evil, but government in the proper sense of the word it is not. Orestesbrownson online (2009). Man had to have a right, According to OrestesBrownson online (2009), man had a right of the nation, citizen that were held independently of society and that was not from God through the state. This gave recognition of these rights by modern society such as Christianity because barbarian did not offer a sense of personal freedom and independence, but for themselves only. Hence, they did not hold the conception of personal freedom or universal right that Brownson held. George(1866) in relation to nation and politics was that in the tradition of Aristotle and his disciples down through the centuries. He believes that the answer to the problem must be found in the analysis of natural order. Politics must finally answer to ontology. The natural reality of society is an exalted human condition, taken abstractly, but it is not ontologically supreme in the divine order of things. With Aristotle and Aquinas, Brownson holds the naturalness of social and political reality the first principle of a sound politics, the neglect of which fatally flawed liberal political theories. Brownson also believed in destiny was that the government had the right to govern, political authority, which was derived from people or society from God. The government was vested in the political nation, not in an individual, family, class as they were levelled under the Christian law. Moreover, he also believed a nation’s constitution was twofold in which the constitution of the nation, the work of the nation itself and the constitution of the state, which in its original state was from God. The nation had to exist as a political community, and then later have a constitution. In connection to the constitution being twofold, there was providential constitution, which the nation is born, and is the source of the vitality of the state, that which controls or governs its action and determines its destiny. Orestes Brownson also defined a nation as a Sovereign. This constituted organic people or nation, which formed an indissoluble whole. Thus a nation was made of many states. From his Background, Orestes Brownson was a supporter of Manifest destiny. Being a new convert of Catholicism and previously a Presbyterian, a Universalist, an agnostic Unitarian, a world reformer and a transcendentalist, his view on Manifest destiny covers a wide spectrum. He once stated that; “We have a manifest destiny, and the world sees and confesses it, some with fear and some with hope; but it is not precisely that supposed by our journalists, or pretended by our filibusterers, - although these filibusters may be unconsciously and unintentionally preparing for its fulfilment. It may be our manifest destiny to extend our government over the whole American continent , but that is in itself alone a small affair, and no worthy object of true American ambition...The manifest destiny of this country is something far higher, nobler, and more spiritual, - the realization, we should say, of the Christian ideal society for both the old world and the new” Christopher Buck (2009). Brownson’s views did not represent a school of thought within the catholic communion but individualistic. They presented a link to the understanding that catholic placed a role in the mission of America. America had a religious as well as a political destiny according to Brownson, hence there was no state without God, and any more than there is a church without Christ or the Incarnation. He believed that if an atheist were a politician, but no God, politics would not exist. Christopher (2009) also highlights this from Orestes’s view, which as theological principles is the basis of political principles. The effect to the country would be to harmonize church and state, religion and politics, not by absorbing either in the other, or by obliterating the natural distinction between them, but by conforming both to the real or divine order, which is supreme and immutable. Thus, he believes that America can fulfil its “catholic” mission by becoming more “catholic” in promoting a secular application of religious principles One would argue on Brownson’s approach to stating that America was a manifest destiny. Jenney (1994), states that Orestes was seeking to inspire American Catholic patriotism and that America's Manifest Destiny was for immigrants as well as Protestant natives. This is captured from Brownson’s statement; Especially should endear the country to every Catholic heart, and make every Catholic, whatever his race or native land, a genuine American patriot. For it is the realization of the Christian ideal of society, and the diffusion through all quarters of the globe, for all men, whatever their varieties of race and language, of that free, pure, lofty, and virile civilization which the church loves, always favours, and has from the first laboured to introduce, establish, and extend, but which, owing to the ignorance, barbarism, and superstitions retained, in spite of her most strenuous exertions, from pagan Rome and the barbarian invaders of the empire, she has never been able fully to realize in the old world. Franchot Jenny (1994). Leonard Gilhooley (1972) presents another aspect to which Orestes Brownson believed. This was that the Americans would only receive faith from Europeans in which the Americans would be in a position to learn more about political and social organization, as he did not see how America had a place for neither the Caesarism nor the Ultraliberalism, as the two ideologies emerged from false notions of liberty. Thus, there was need for a balance that would act as a link of transition between the two extremes. Moreover, Manifest of destiny was to him chronicles of vapid irrelevance. America needed a regeneration of true Catholicity to achieve an American Society which would be in accord with true Catholic principles. There was need to distinguish between the church and European Society in which the Catholic role in reforming civilazation and society in the world. Orestes Augustus Brownson (1955) further states that Orestus wanted to reconcile liberty with law as he stated this belief: “Yet its mission is not so much the realization of liberty as the realization of the true idea of the state, which secures at once the authority of the public and the freedom of the individual – the sovereignty of the people without social despotism, and individual freedom without anarchy. In other words, its mission is to bring out its life the dialectic union of authority and liberty, of the natural rights of man and those of society. The Greek and Roman republics asserted the state to the detriment of individual freedom; modern republics either do the same, or assert individual freedom to the detriment of the state. The American Republic has been instituted by providence to realize the freedom of each with advantage to the other.” Christopher Buck (2009) notes further that in respect to Religion and God, Orestes had a principle which was based on “God and country”, which means that America has a divine destiny and together with Catholicism, it would lead to the advancement of both. However, the Americans believed that a harmony exists between American values and Catholic ideals and would also act as a catalyst to America’s mission to reform civilization. Even with the evident anti-catholic sentiment which was aimed at Irish and other Catholic immigrants, the Americans believed that their democracy was compatible with catholic doctrines, of which was to offer great support to the republic. In relation to the republic, Brownson (1849) believes that a republic has its duties to itself and its responsible relations to other coun­tries. Embracing also a review of the late war between America and Mexico; its causes and its results ; and of those measures of government which have characterized the democracy of the union. He continues to argue that as American people in their political rights and duties, or to defend the late war with Mexico and the general policy of the Democratic par­ty. The only merit we can award it, if indeed so much, is that which the author says is the only merit he claims, - namely, the purity of its motives and concluding that America is a great coun­try ; we are a great people ; and the greatness of the country and of the people is all due to the expansive democracy. Democracy also constituted a major role in America being a destiny. Brownson (1849) since both parties claim to be democratic, neither can offer any effectual check upon the tendency of the country to pure democracy. Both parties are necessarily compelled to make democratic appeals, and to give, as far as possible, a democratic interpretation to the Federal and State Constitutions. Both, wherever there is opportunity, favor ex­clusive democracy. Take the alterations effected in several of the State Constitutions; whether by one party or the other, and they all tend to remove restraints on the popular will, to expose the government more immediately to every fluctuation of popu­lar opinion. Their aim is, in all cases, to bring the govern­ment nearer to the people, and to give them a more direct voice in its administration. Such among others is the provision recently adopted in several of the States for electing the judges of the several courts immediately by the people ; such also is the tendency favoured in many of the States to alter, abridge, or abolish the common law. In New York, and a few other States, the democratic tendency has proved strong enough to invade even the sacred precincts of the family, and, under the pretence of protecting the wife against her husband, to prepare the virtual abolition of the marriage relations. If the tendency continues, it will not be many years before the notion that the husband is the head of the wife will be entirely exploded, and universal suffrage and eligibility be extended to women as well as to men. Education was another pillar in which Orestes based his belief. This was stated as, “We value education, and even universal education- which overlooks no class or child, however rich or however poor, however honoured or however despised – as highly as any of our countrymen do or can; but we value no education that is divorced from religion and religious culture. Religion is the supreme law, the one thing to be lived for; and all in life, individual or social, civil or political, should be subordinated to it, and esteemed only as a means to the eternal end for which man was created and exists. Religious education is their chief thing, and we wish our children to be accustomed, from the first dawning of reason, so to regard it, and to regard whatever they learn or do as having a bearing on their religious character or their duty to God. … We hold that education, either of the intellect or of the heart, or of both combined, divorced from faith and religious discipline, is dangerous alike to the individual and to society. All education should be religious and intended to train the child for a religious end; not for this life only, but for eternal life; for this life is nothing if severed from that which is to come.” OrestesBrowson online(2009). He also believed that the public schooling mode was not to be abandoned. In OrestesBrowson online (2009), he argued that “of course, deny the competency of the state to educate, to say what shall or shall not be taught in the public schools, as we deny its competency to say what shall or shall not be the religious belief and discipline of its citizens. We, of course, utterly repudiate the popular doctrine that so-called secular education is the function of the state. Yet while we might accept this second solution as an expedient, we do not approve it and cannot defend it as sound in principle. It would break up and utterly destroy the free public-school system, what is good as well as what is evil in it; and we wish to save the system by simply removing what it contains repugnant to the Catholic conscience – not to destroy it or lessen its influence. We are decidedly in favour of free public schools for all the children of the land, and we hold that all the property of the state should bear the burden of educating the children of the state – the two great and essential principles of the system, and which endear it to the hearts of the American people.” OrestesBrowson online (2009), emphasises that, “There was need to separate schools as he stated that the modification necessary to do this is much slighter than is supposed, and, instead of destroying or weakening the system, would really perfect it and render it alike acceptable to Protestants and to Catholics, and combine both in the efforts necessary to sustain it. It is simply to adopt the third solution that has been suggested, namely, that of dividing the schools between Catholics and Protestants and assigning to each the number proportioned to the number of children to educate. This meant that Catholics were free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the Catholic schools, and Protestants free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the Protestant schools.” OrestesBrownson online (2009). In conclusion, Brownson (1865) shows his believes which is that the nation was composed and published during the dark days of the American Civil War, transcending the historical and cultural parameters of the American political experience. Moreover, Orestes also developed a general notion of politics, which included an analysis of the origin and development of political authority and constitution, political obligation, the character of the American constitutional order, the arrangement of federal power, and the peculiar meaning and destiny of the America, that was based on education, political economy, sciences, United States as a Nation and civil and liberty. Thus presenting America as Manifest of Destiny. References Brownson's Quarterly Review (1849), The Republic of the United States of America: Art III. Retrieved from www.orestesbrownson.com/287.html Christopher Buck (2009), Religious Myths and visions of America: How minority Faiths Redefined Franchot, Jenny. Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism. Berkeley:  University of California Press, c1994 1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1x0nb0f3 George Bancroft (1866), Brownson Papers, Archives of the University of Notre Dame, Folder I-4-c. Leonard Gilhooley (1972), Contradiction and Dillemma: Oretes Brownson and the American Idea, Fordham Univ Press, 231 pages Orestes Augustus Brownson (1955), Selected political Essays: Transaction Publishers, 230 pages OrestesBrownson Online, (2009), Orestes Brownson Society, The Greatest writings of the 19th century. retrieved from http://www.orestesbrownson.com Read More