I quote
Professor [Geoffrey] Stone in full.
The Christian
establishment responded with a vengeance [to the spread of Deism]. As early as
1759, Ezra Stiles warned that “Deism has got such a Head” that it is necessary
to “conquer and demolish it.” Thirty years later, Timothy Dwight, the president
of Yale, published a biting antideist work, The Triumph of Infidelity,
and Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was literally
put to the torch at Harvard because of “its uncomplimentary interpretation of
early Christianity.” In 1784, Ethan Allen, the leader of the Green Mountain Boys
and the hero of the Battle of Ticonderoga, published a book-length argument for
deism. This work, Reason the Only Oracle of Man, was furiously condemned
by the clergy. Timothy Dwight accused Allen of championing “Satan’s cause,”
Ezra Stiles charged that Allen was “profane and impious,” and the Reverend
Nathan Perkins called him “one of the wickedest men that ever walked this
guilty globe.”
Stone’s
consistent use of terms like “with a vengeance,” “warn[],” “biting,” “accused,”
and “charged” is puzzling. Is it really true the clergy not only “condemned”
Allen’s Reason the Only Oracle of Man, but that they did so “furiously”?
How does one fairly distinguish a furious condemnation from a plain condemnation
from a mere emphatic disagreement or an honest debate over strongly held
beliefs and principles? The choice of such terms is, in most (albeit, not in
all) cases, indicative of a lack balance, of a lack of perspective. Much of
what Stone describes above was nothing more than writings and speeches in private
letters, sermons, and books. In law review articles, traditionally, such speech
is usually characterized in less judgmental and more neutral terms, i.e., as
core First Amendment protected activity (although there was, of course, no
First Amendment at this time).
Indeed, if such
speech is fairly characterized as “respond[ing] with a vengeance,” merely
because it opposes other speech and comes next-in- time, then this
Article and every other academic disagreement will fall under the orbit of that
expression. At that point the phrase itself ceases to be meaningful.
Admittedly, not all of the statements quoted by Stone were vanilla,
even-handed, and unthreatening: Stiles’ “conquer and demolish” statement does
seem a touch strong. But Stiles looks much better in fuller context.
It is true with
this Liberty [of accepting deistical books into religiously-affiliated
university libraries] Error may be introduced; but turn the Tables [and see
that] the propagation of Truth may be extinguished [if you do otherwise]. Deism
has got such Head in this Age of Licentious Liberty, that it would be in vain
to try to stop it by hiding the Deistical Writings: and the only Way left to
conquer & demolish it, is to come forth into the open Field & Dispute
this matter on even Footing—the Evidences of Revelation in my opinion are nearly
as demonstrative as Newton’s Principia, & these are the Weapons to be used
. . . . Truth & this alone being our Aim in fact, open, frank &
generous we shall avoid the very appearance of Evil.
How is this an
example of the “establishment respond[ing] with a vengeance” to the spread of
Deism? If anything Stiles overflows with a very boring, almost trite excess
of Brandeisian toleration, although he clearly is attached to his own parochial
theological views. To me at least, Stone’s “conquer and demolish” snippet
misses much more than it explains.
As to Stone’s
fantastic claim that circa 1789 Gibbon’s Decline and Fall was “literally
put to the torch at Harvard,” I see no evidence that any such event ever
happened. To make his case, Stone wholly relies on Professor Kerry
Walters’ 1992 publication: Rational Infidels: The American Deists. Walters
does not actually say “torched,” he says “burned.” Walters, in turn, relies
on William Henry Channing’s The Life of William Ellery Channing, D.D.
and G. Adolf Koch’s Republican Religion. But neither work supports
Walters’ position. Channing merely records that “[t]he patrons and
governors of the college made efforts to counteract the effect of the[]
[principles of the French Revolution] by exhortation, and preaching, and
prayer, as well as by the publication of and distribution of good books
and pamphlets.” I see no indication of any book-burning. By contrast,
Koch writes that in 1791 “Gibbon’s famous work was publicly banned . . .
by the President of Harvard College from that institution.” Again, no
book-burning, no torching, no auto-da-fé.
Nevertheless
book-banning at a university is pretty terrible behaviour (or, at least, it is
when adjudged under contemporary standards). But it seems there was no book
banning either! Koch’s only source is John Quincy Adams’ Life in a New
England Town: 1787, 1788. Adams does not indicate that Gibbon was banned;
rather, Adams indicates that in setting the curriculum the President preferred
Millot’s Elements of History to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. To sum
up, in 1791 Harvard made a mundane curriculum decision; it was recorded in a
1903 publication; in 1933 it became a book-banning; in 1992 it became a book-burning,
and in 2008 Professor Stone tells us Gibbon was “literally put to the torch” at
Harvard. Literally.
The
constellation of facts, misunderstandings, misstatements, exaggeration, and
error hardly seems believable. Still, there is no reason to judge Stone
harshly: such mistakes do happen.** His mistake, such as it was, was to rely on a
single source, Walters, who, apparently misquoted Koch, who expanded on Adams’
initial statement.
***
. . . Here we
come to an awkward and difficult point. Leave aside Professors Stone, and
Walters, and Koch—what about you, the reasonable and well-informed reader. When
you read Stone’s claim in regard to a book burning at Harvard, circa 1789, did
you believe it? Try to remember your reaction, if any. Did it seem shockingly
wrong, or did you just read past his claim as a matter of no real consequence,
or did it seem reasonably tenable to you? And if you thought the latter, what other
historical fictions (or unsupported factual claims) might you believe in error
(or absent sufficient evidence), and what does that say about the prejudices
you may harbor in relation to people different from yourself? Did you blush
when you read Stone’s claim, or are you blushing now?
The above is from my 10-year-old publication: Seth
Barrett Tillman, Blushing Our Way Past Historical Fact And Fiction: A
Response to Professor Geoffrey R. Stone’s Melville B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture
and Essay, 114 Penn St. L. Rev.
391, 402–09 (2009) (footnotes omitted) (asterisked footnote added), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=1333576>.
**My comment here was prescient.
