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The Religious Significance of Democracy in the Thought of Orestes A. Brownson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Richard M. Leliaert
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Extract

Our nation's bicentennial year 1976 also marks the centennial of the death of Orestes A. Brownson (1803–1876). Throughout his life, Brownson was a lecturer and editor as well as a prolific writer on all aspects of nineteenth-century American life. His voluminous writings are of sweeping range. They include political treatises on American democracy, church-state relations, foreign policy, theological works, social commentaries on slavery, war and peace, the feminist movement, education, economic writings on the relationship between business and government, philosophical critiques of French, German, Italian and British philosophy, literary criticism and aesthetic evaluations of poetry and native American literature.

Type
Articles
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 1976 , pp. 3 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1976

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References

* Born in Vermont, Brownson imbibed the spirit of New England Puritanism although he was not raised in any specific religious denomination. He turned to Presbyterianism as a young adult (1819–22), but then became a Universalist minister (1826–28), lost his calling and espoused social reform as a radical humanist (1829–31), resumed preaching and was ordained a Unitarian minister (1832). In 1836 he founded his own Church of the Future primarily for the unchurched working class of Boston. In 1838 he founded his Boston Quarterly Review. He criticized yet participated in certain aspects of the New England Transcendentalist movement. Following this “Pilgrim's Progress,” he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1844. After a distinguished but stormy career as a Catholic layman, he died in 1876. He is buried in the crypt of Sacred Heart Church at Notre Dame.

1 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, A Pilgrim's Progress: Orestes A. Brownson (1939; Boston, 1966)Google Scholar.

See also Sveino, P., Orestes A. Brownson's Road to Catholicism (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Gilhooley, L., Contradiction and Dilemma: Orestes Brownson and the American Idea (New York, 1972)Google Scholar; and Marshall, H., Orestes Bronwson and the American Republic: An Historical Perspective (Washington, D. C, 1972)Google Scholar.

2 United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 13 (September, 1843), 257 (hereafter cited as DR).

3 Brownson, Orestes A., The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, 20 vols. (Detroit, 1882–1887), 18:209Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Works).

4 Ibid., 208. For a fine study of Brownson's church-state doctrine, see McMahon, F. E., “Orestes Brownson on Church and State,” Theological Studies, 15 (06, 1954), 175–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid.

6 For Brownson's essays on “The Origins and Ground of Government” see Works, 15:296–404; and DR, 13 (08, 1843), 129–47Google Scholar; (September, 1943), 241–62; (October, 1843), 353–77. For Brownson's The American Republic (1866), see Works, 18:1–222.

7 Works, 18:4.

8 Boston Quarterly Review, 1 (10, 1838), 417–32Google Scholar (hereafter cited as BosQR). See also BosQR, 1: 433–44; and Works, 15:8.

9 Christian Examiner, 17 (09, 1834), 63–77Google Scholar; ibid., 21 (September, 1836), 33–64.

10 Ibid., 21:53.

11 BosQR, 2 (01, 1839), 86–113Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., 111, 110.

13 Works, 15:284–6.

14 Ibid., 285.

15 DR, 12 (05, 1843), 529Google Scholar.

16 Brownson to Van Buren, Brownson Papers, University of Notre Dame Archives, Notre Dame, Indiana (hereafter cited as Brownson Papers, UNDA).

17 Works, 15:3.

18 BosQR, 2 (10, 1839), 479Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., 1 (October, 1838), 445–7.

20 Ibid., 1375; ibid., 2:478–517.

21 Brownson, H. F., Brownson's Early Life (Detroit, 1898), p. 182Google Scholar.

22 Works, 15:4.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., 17.

25 Ibid., 18; DR, 13 (10, 1843), 364–5Google Scholar.

26 BosQR, 1 (01, 1839), 123–36Google Scholar.

27 DR, 12 (04, 1843), 374Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., 532–3; BosQR, 5 (01, 1842), 27–59Google Scholar.

29 BosQR, 5 (01, 1842), 37–8Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., 31, 30.

31 Ibid., 40.

32 Ibid., 45, 41.

33 Ibid., 47–8.

34 Cf. Works, 15:451–93; DR, 12 (05, 1843), 535Google Scholar; ibid., 13 (August, 1843), 129; ibid.,353. See also letters to I. T. Hecker (1842–43). Brownson Papers, UNDA.

35 Works, 4:100–139.

36 DR, 12 (05, 1843), 534Google Scholar.

37 Ibid.

38 DR, 13 (08, 1843), 133Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., 135–6.

40 Ibid., 136–47.

41 DR, 13 (09, 1943), 256–7Google Scholar. By “principle” Brownson meant an ontological cause rather than a verbal statement.

42 Ibid., 256.

43 Ibid., 258–9. For a fuller development of Brownson's church-state doctrine, cf. ibid., 257–8, 259.

44 DR, 13 (10, 1843), 354–5Google Scholar. See also Works, 1:58–129.

45 DR, 13 (09, 1843), 260Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., 261.

47 Ibid., 262.

48 DR, 13 (10, 1843), 360–70Google Scholar. Brownson's essays were shaped to a great extent by his reactions to the democratic theories of John L. O'Sullivan; cf. DR, 12 (05, 1843), 537–443Google Scholar; 13 (December, 1843), 653–60.

49 Works, 11:355.

50 Ibid., 572.

51 Ibid., 571–2. See also Brownson's letters to Father Isaac Hecker during the 1850's, Brownson Papers, UNDA.

52 Works, 11:551–84.

53 Ibid., 567; cf. 560ff.

54 Ibid.

55 He mentions John C. Hurd's The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, and Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Suarez, Pierre Leroux, and Gioberti.

56 Cf. Works, 2:101–270. For Brownson, the Ideal Formula meant the First Principle or ontological cause of the universe.

57 DR, 13 (08, 1843), 133Google Scholar.

58 Works, 18:126–7. Brownson here was refuting his conception of James Madison's political theory on the social compact.

59 Cf. Works, 18:100–13; cf. also DR, 13 (10, 1843), 359–60Google Scholar.

60 Cf. Works, 18:127.

61 Ibid., 114, 115.

62 Ibid., 113. For Brownson's remarks on T. Jefferson, J. Madison, and D. Webster on the priority of the written Constitution, cf. ibid., 119–126.

63 Ibid., 126, 115.

64 Ibid., 139–40.

65 Compare Brownson's letters to Hecker of 29 August 1855, 5 August 1857, and 29 September 1857, with those of 10 March 1868, and 17 March 1868, Brownson Papers, UNDA.

66 Brownson's Quarterly Review (January, 1873), pp. 1–33.

67 Ibid., p. 3. Brownson probably has Revivalism in mind here and explicitly singles out Methodism for attack.

68 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

69 Ibid., p. 3.