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Edited by Suzanne Rice & A. G. Rud

The Educational Significance of Human

and Non-Human Animal Interactions

Blurring the Species Line

The Educational Significance
of Human and Non-Human
Animal Interactions
The Educational Significance
of Human and Non-Human
Animal Interactions
Blurring the Species Line

Edited by

Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

THE EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN ANIMAL INTERACTIONS
Selection and editorial content © Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud 2016
Individual chapters © their respective contributors 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-50524-8
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS.
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137505255
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Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
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RG21 6XS.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The educational significance of human and non-human animal interactions :
blurring the species line / edited by Suzanne Rice, A.G. Rud.
pages cm
Includes index.
Summary: “The lives of animals and humans are deeply intertwined and
mutually influencing. In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation
of ways in which the interactions of human animals and non-human
animals matter educationally. This book seeks to contribute to the ongoing
conversation about animals and education”— Provided by publisher.
1. Humane education. 2. Human-animal relationships.
3. Animals—Social aspects. I. Rice, Suzanne, editor of compilation.
HV4712.E38 2015
179’.3—dc23 2015019733
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
 Contents

List of Figures vii

Foreword ix
Marc Bekoff
Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1
Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud
1 (Un)Learning Anthropocentrism: An EcoJustice Framework
for Teaching to Resist Human-Supremacy in Schools 13
John Lupinacci and Alison Happel-Parkins
2 Challenging Anthropocentrism in Education:
Posthumanist Intersectionality and Eating Animals as
Gastro-Aesthetic Pedagogy 31
Bradley Rowe
3 Transcending the Student Skin Bag: The Educational
Implications of Monsters, Animals, and Machines 51
Matthew T. Lewis
4 What Did Your Vet Learn in School Today? The Hidden
Curriculum of Veterinary Education 69
Nadine Dolby
5 Educational Experiences in Prison: Greyhounds and
Humans Teaching and Learning Together 87
Suzanne Rice
6 Experience, Strength, and Hope: An Analysis of Animal
Interaction with Alcoholism and Recovery 101
Mike Bannen
vi ● Contents

7 Lessons from Animals, Real and Imaginary, in the Work

of Theodor Geisel 117
Arlene L. Barry
8 The Work of Literature in a Multispecies World 133
Aaron M. Moe
9 Interspecies Encounters: A Prolegomenon to Educational
Thought Experimentation on Befriending Animals 151
Susan Laird with Kristen Ogilvie Holzer
10 Overcoming Veneer Theory: Animal Sympathy 173
Jim Garrison
11 Vermin, the Proximate and Often Unpleasant Stranger 191
Cris Mayo
12 Schweitzer, Dewey, and a Reverent, Rewilded Education 203
A. G. Rud

Afterword 215
Richard Kahn
List of Contributors 227
Index 231
 List of Figures

1.1 Ecological and Human-Centered Worldviews 19

1.2 Illusion of Disembeddedness 21
1.3 Ecological Understanding 24
 Foreword
Marc Bekoff

Anthrozoology, the study of human-animal interactions, is a “hot” and grow-

ing field internationally. Never before has there been so much interest by
scholars, in numerous and diverse disciplines, in studying and learning about
the many ways in which human animals encounter non-human animals in
venues ranging from the “wild,” to laboratories, zoos, and circuses, to dwell-
ings where human animals and non-human animals cohabitate. However,
despite the broad transdisciplinary interest in human–animal studies, there
has been less work by education scholars, and that is why this book is so
timely and important.
The essays in this book examine how animals have helped educate humans
andd how humans should educate their fellow humans about animals. Until very
recently, it has been taken for granted that animals will be and should be used
(in dissection labs, for example) to educate students. This book argues that
while we humans do stand to learn much from other animals, we also owe
much to them, including the obligation to educate ourselves about animal
kind – who other animals really are and what they want and need – and to
learn how to interact with animals in ways that are morally sound, and in
which our interests do not trump theirs. As we learn more and about the lives
of other animals we see that the line that separates “us” from “them” is blurry.
The fascinating questions at hand focus on how and why we differ from other
animals and how and why we share so many traits. From a scientist’s point of
view, the scope, and mission of this book—to highlight what we can learn
from other animals and how we are similar, different, and why—are just what
are needed in the broad field of anthrozoology in which education scholars
should and must have a place at the table. So, I’m glad that this book blurs
the species line, as the subtitle indicates, and that several of the authors do
just that in their chapters, as I have done in my work on the emotional lives
of animals. I agree too with the editors that “blurring the species line opens
up possibilities for repairing and enhancing life on our planet.”
x ● Foreword

Many of the essays in this collection focus on the educational importance

of teaching and learning about other animals both inside regular classroom
settings and outside the walls of the classroom. Nadine Dolby writes about
how veterinarians are socialized in veterinary schooling, and Aaron Moe dis-
cusses how literature can actually help educate students about the lives of
animals. Arlene Barry highlights how Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) was able to
teach pro-social and pro-environmental morals without preaching through
his use of animal characters, and she also shows how Geisel’s work was
inspired by actual animals.
This book also highlights the role of animals as teachers in non-traditional
settings. For example Suzanne Rice writes about greyhounds and inmates
sharing teaching and learning experiences in prisons, a win-win situation for
both the prisoners and the dogs, and in his chapter Michael Bannen writes
about how animals are helping men and women in recovery programs who
suffer from alcoholism to achieve and maintain sobriety. My own long-term
experience of teaching a course on animal behavior and conservation to
inmates has clearly shown that non-traditional classrooms can be goldmines
for educating people about the value of learning about and respecting other
animals.
If nothing else, we humans are surely self-centered. Thus, the topic of
anthropocentrism is discussed in detail in the first three chapters, each pro-
viding a different analysis of the problem of anthropocentrism and offering
suggestions that classroom teachers might employ to undermine and move us
away from human-centric worldviews and begin to work against the environ-
mental problems associated with these views. Other authors take on different
moral concerns that arise in relation to animals. These concerns span topics
as diverse as how the roots of human morality are found in non-human ani-
mal life (Jim Garrison), how we humans need to develop a moral outlook in
regard to so-called vermin animals (Cris Mayo), and how animals gave rise to
Albert Schweitzer’s comprehensive moral worldview (A. G. Rud).
All in all, the essays in this book capture a tension in human–animal inter-
actions, namely, that other animals have sometimes been used for human
educational purposes without regard for the animals so used. In this book,
and in some essays more than others, there is an effort to highlight how
human animal and non-human animal relations have the potential to be
mutually beneficial. What unifies the different chapters is the theme that
interactions between human animals and non-human animals are actually or
potentially educationally significant. While the authors have different views
and emphases, they are unified in viewing education as a multidimensional
process. They see education as a broad phenomenon that occurs inside and
outside traditional school settings, and this is a most welcome move away
 Foreword ● xi

from “the good old days” when students were taught about nature while con-
fined for hours on end in small rooms absent any perceptible actual nature.
I am thrilled to support this book because we must bring education schol-
ars into the fold of anthrozoology, and the essays in this book do just that.
I believe this book will get people to think outside the box and realize that
education can and does take place in many contexts and in many different
ways and also to realize just how much we can learn about ourselves as we
learn about the fascinating lives of other animals. As we learn about other
animals we’ll come to see that we are not the center of the universe, but rather
immersed in a magnificent and wondrous world in which peaceful coexis-
tence and sharing time and space should be cherished.
 Acknowledgments

While we have first-hand, personal experience of the educational significance

of human animal and non-human animal interactions, this book seeks to
provide a wider representation of this significance. Many of the people who
have made the book possible are named between its covers—as chapter con-
tributors, as authors cited by the chapter contributors, and as writers of the
preliminary and postliminary pages. We have learned much from and owe a
huge debt of gratitude to all those associated with this project. We are also
indebted to the four-legged teachers in our lives. Between us, at present that
includes most immediately the two cats and four dogs who share our homes.
Our spouses, Laurence Rice and Rita Rud, have made major contributions to
the book with their support, good cheer, and patience.
 Introduction
Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

T
he lives of animals and humans are deeply intertwined and mutually
influencing. Neither animal nor human experience can be under-
stood without reference to the other, a fact that has given rise to a field
of study called anthrozoology (now often referred to as human–animal stud-
ies, or HAS).1 There has been an explosion of interest in the multifaceted and
interdisciplinary field of HAS (e.g., Adams & Donovan, 1995; Bekoff, 2010;
Cavalieri, 2001; DeMello, 2010; Freeman, Leane, & Watts, 2011; Flynn,
2008; Manning, Aubrey, & Serpell, 1994; Robisch, 2009; Serpell, 1996;
Urbanik, 2012).
In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation of ways in which the
interactions of human animals and non-human animals matter educationally
(e.g., Andrzejewski, J., Baltodano, M, & Symcox, L., 2009; Bell & Russell,
2000; Bone, 2013; DeLeon, 2011; Humes, 2008; Kahn, 2010; Martin, 2011;
Melson, 2001; Nocella II, Bentley, & Duncan, 2012; Pedersen, 2011; Rice,
2013; Rowe, 2012; Rud & Beck, 2003). This book seeks to contribute to this
ongoing conversation. As the title indicates, the central claim advanced here
is that these interactions are actually or potentially educationally significant.
Because our subject is relatively new, a few clarifying comments are in order
at the outset. First, while different authors will have their own specific con-
ceptions of education, we are unified in viewing education as a complex and
multifaceted phenomenon. We all conceptualize education broadly and rec-
ognize that learning occurs not only in classrooms, but also in informal school
spaces (such as the lunchroom and hallways), as well as in extra-academic
contexts such as families, youth clubs, parks, and even prisons. Second, our
claim about the significance of animal and human interactions is not meant
to imply that all such interactions are “good” in any particular sense, let alone
that they are mutually educational or otherwise beneficial to both humans
and animals. Indeed, some interactions are significant in the negative sense of
being anti-educational or harmful. To pick an obvious example, dissection
2 ● Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

may help some biology students learn animal anatomy, but it may also be
psychically damaging to them or to others, and it is certainly deadly for the
animals involved (Oakley, 2009, 2013). Thus, when we claim that an interac-
tion between animals and humans is educationally significant, our claim is
that, educationally speaking, such an interaction bears on the ongoing devel-
opment of one or more parties involved. As we shall see, there is practically
limitless variety in the types of interactions and the wayss in which they are
educationally significant. Third, we use the term “interaction” to refer not
only to direct encounters between human animals and non-human animals,
but also to interactions that are indirect. Some such indirect interactions are
those involving readers and literary texts; others are more oblique, involving
received ideas about particular animals, which count as food, pets, and ver-
min, for instance (Herzog, 2010). Interactions occurring in the present are
shaped, sometimes quite powerfully, by past interactions and the meanings
attached to them.
The subtitle of the book is both descriptive and normative. “Blurring the
species line” describes what several authors actually do in their chapters by
showing, for example, that humans and animals are more continuous than
discrete and that non-human animals can teach humans as well as be taught
by them. But the subtitle is also normative; we believe that blurring the spe-
cies line opens up possibilities for repairing and enhancing life on our planet.
Our investigations into the educational significance of animal and human
interactions are organized into three main sections. The first section addresses
what its constitutive chapters variously refer to as anthropocentrism, human
supremacy, and humanist conceptions of the subject. Each chapter provides
not only a critique, but also an educational alternative. The book’s second
section examines a range of actual educational practices, materials, and phe-
nomena closely connected with some dimension of teaching and learning.
Each chapter is theoretically informed—some quite explicitly and deeply
so—but each also examines its central topic with an eye toward addressing
practitioners’ interests and concerns. “Practitioners” in the context of this
book include both K–12 and college classroom teachers and humans working
in educational capacities outside formal school settings. Some of these chap-
ters blur the species line by highlighting ways in which non-human animals
serve as teachers to human animals; some blur the line by showing that ani-
mals have characteristics once thought to belong exclusively to human
animals. The book’s third section is concerned explicitly and directly with
moral aspects of human animal and non-human animal interactions. At least
implicitly, all the book’s chapters are concerned with moral phenomena; it is
the depth and focus of these concluding chapters that set them apart.
 Introduction ● 3

Section One: Anthropocentrism, Human Supremacy,

and the Humanist Subject
In Chapter 1, John Lupinacci and Alison Happel-Parkins begin with a
description of anthropocentrism, which they see as a worldview according to
which humans are separate from and superior to all other life-forms and the
environments upon which they depend. Lupinacci and Happel-Parkins stress
that because anthropocentrism is cultural rather than given by nature, it is
amenable to change. Such change is imperative, they argue, in light of envi-
ronmental degradation and climate change and a multitude of related prob-
lems following in their wake. The stakes are high: According to these authors,
“The capacity of the planet for sustaining life depends upon future genera-
tions learning to live in harmony and at peace with the diverse ecosystems
within which they reside.”
Lupinacci and Happel-Parkins are not mere critics of anthropocentrism;
they challenge and undermine this worldview and seek ways of helping teach-
ers to do the same. They draw from the literature in ecojustice education
(Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2015), critical animal studies
(Nocella II, Sorenson, Socha, & Matuoka, 2014), and ecofeminist philoso-
phy (Plumwood, 1993, 2002) to introduce a pedagogical process designed to
help educators recognize an anthropocentric worldview, to examine how this
worldview is implicated in maintaining human (and male and white) suprem-
acy, and to rethink anthropocentrism in favor of an ecological alternative that
is socially just and encompasses all living systems.
In Chapter 2, Bradley Rowe also challenges anthropocentrism, a manifes-
tation of which he refers to as “human exceptionalism.” Like Lupinacci and
Happel-Parkins, Rowe questions the widespread assumption that humans
(and forms of human oppression) are distinct from or more important than
animals (and forms of animal oppression), and his questioning includes not
only humanist analyses, but those grounded in critical theory as well. When
humans are positioned theoretically over and above non-humans, this serves
to reproduce whole systems of injustice that encompass both.
Critical theory has given rise to various pedagogical undertakings that are
usually categorized under the rubric of “transformative education.” But trans-
formative educational projects, like the critical theory that informs them, have
tended to assume human supremacy and, beyond that, have been (ironically)
uncritical about that which is to be transformed. A result is that the most
widespread varieties of transformative education leave untouched forms of
non-human animal oppression. To the extent that human and non-human
oppressions are interrelated, these varieties of transformative education also
fall short where human liberation is concerned.
4 ● Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

In response to transformative education and its assumption of human

supremacy and the basic goodness of transformation, Rowe develops what he
calls “gastro-aesthetic pedagogy.” This pedagogy is concerned with the sense of
taste and the body’s gastrointestinal system, and it seeks to make apparent the
connection between the living body of the (human) eater and the dead (animal)
body of the eaten. Developing ideas first articulated by Richard Shusterman,
Rowe argues that eating animals is a somaesthetic practice and that bodily,
corporeal transformation should be included in discussions about transfor-
mative education (Shusterman, 1999). On Rowe’s account, it becomes appar-
ent that transformation per se is an unworthy educational goal if it comes at
the cost of animals’ lives.
Education has long been seen as the antidote to the monstrous (Lewis &
Kahn, 2010). Matthew T. Lewis’s challenge to “human exceptionalism” in
Chapter 3 entails reversing the ban on the monstrous in schools. Our educa-
tional system advances a modernist, humanist understanding of the human
subject as a unified, rational, and autonomous entity. This conception of the
subject holds that human individuals are entirely contained in their “skin
bags” (Hanson, 2014). Lewis observes that a consequence of this conception
is that human subjects appear to be isolated from one another and from other
non-human entities, especially animals and machines. In this view, the envi-
ronment, animals, and other humans appear fair game for exploitation.
Drawing on Donna Haraway’s cyborg myth, Lewis argues for a concep-
tion of the self that challenges the boundaries between humans, animals, and
machines (Haraway, 2008. The monster, appearing in the margins where our
boundaries have begun to erode, may be used for the educational purpose of
reconceptualizing relations between humans, animals, and machines. We fear
monsters, Lewis argues, because they collapse our ontological specificity and
singularity, but this fear only arises if we are attached to our modernist under-
standing of self. On Lewis’s account, the monster opens new human/animal/
machine possibilities. A pedagogy of the monster, Lewis believes, may pro-
mote more ethical connections between humans, animals, and machines.

Section Two: Educational Practices and Concerns

Using the concept of the “hidden curriculum” (Jackson, 1968), in Chapter 4,
Nadine Dolby examines the professional socialization of veterinarians, focus-
ing mainly on the range of attitudes toward animals and the perspectives on
human–animal relations that are embedded in the curriculum of veterinary
schools. She argues that historically veterinary schools have represented a nar-
row range of perspectives about animals that construe animals primarily in
terms of their economic worth. She points out that, despite the strength of this
 Introduction ● 5

theme in the hidden curriculum of veterinary schools, this curriculum is not

entirely static. She exemplifies her point with the debate over cat declawing.
At one time, declawing was presented as a relatively minor cosmetic proce-
dure, but in 2014 the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)
reclassified it as amputation. With that change in classification, the AVMA has
increased pressure on veterinarians either to stop declawing cats entirely or to
educate owners about alternative options prior to performing the surgery.
Beyond the importance of claws in the lives of cats, the debate over declawing
has exposed the hidden curriculum of veterinary education, illuminating ways
in which veterinarians value—or sometimes fail to value—animals.
Dolby argues persuasively that the hidden curriculum of veterinary educa-
tion has significance beyond the walls of academia:

Given the central role of veterinarians in educating their clients, the public, and
various branches and levels of government on animal health, and now animal
welfare, the “hidden curriculum” of veterinary education requires sustained
attention and scrutiny, including from educators located outside of veterinary
schools and colleges. Knowing and understanding what your veterinarian
learned in school today is a critical first step in re-educating both veterinarians—
and the rest of us—about the multiple ways that we must relearn how to value
non-human animals.

Dozens of greyhound adoption groups in the United States have devel-

oped prison-based programs in which inmates are taught how to prepare dogs
for adoption and life outside the racing industry. In Chapter 5, Suzanne Rice
draws on Jane Roland Martin’s theory of education as encounter and John
Dewey’s theory of experience in her chapter discussing the educational sig-
nificance of such programs (Dewey, 1938/1997; Martin, 2011). Rice illus-
trates parts of these theories by examining one of the first prison-based
programs developed in the United States, TLC Greyhound Adoption at the
Hutchinson Correctional Facility in Kansas. At the point that human inmates
and greyhounds enter the prison system, they are separated from their famil-
iar lives, the inmates from mainstream society and the dogs from the racing
industry. In their interactions with one another and with volunteers who
teach inmates how to care for and teach dogs, prisoners and greyhounds alike
undergo educative transformations.
Participating inmates certainly gain skills as dog handlers and caretakers,
but on their own accounts, even more importantly, they often gain new ways
of being human. Despite differences in individual inmates’ experiences,
nearly all mention becoming more responsible, socially engaged, compas-
sionate, and loving. Such changes are a result of interactions not only with
volunteers who help the inmates learn how to care for greyhounds, but also
6 ● Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

with the dogs themselves, who are totally dependent on the inmates and even
live in the men’s cells. The greyhounds are transformed by this experience as well.
Nearly all enter the prison having little face-to-face experience with humans
and the human-built environment. At the point they are adopted and leave
the prison, the vast majority are highly affectionate, “house savvy,” and com-
municative creatures who, according to all indications, enjoy happy lives in
the company of humans (Branigan, 2003/1992; Wolf, 2012).
Prison-based greyhound adoption programs have been an educative force
in the lives of tens of thousands of individual prison inmates and dogs once
connected with the racing industry. Rice argues that, according to Martin’s
theory, these programs can be seen as effecting a society-wide educational
transformation, one which might be judged by the extent to which we have
taken up more humane and generous ways of thinking about and living with
greyhounds.
In Chapter 6, Michael Bannen begins by providing a historical examina-
tion of alcoholism as conceptualized over two periods—first, in classical
Athens, and second, in late-nineteenth–early-twentieth-century America and
Britain—both locations and time periods that represent distinct orientations
toward the human–animal–alcoholic relation. It was in the second of these
periods that the “disease model” of alcoholism emerged, and with that model,
animal-assisted therapy for alcoholics seeking recovery.
Much of Bannen’s chapter addresses the human–animal–alcoholic relation
in terms of its educational implications, where “education” and “therapy” are
viewed as related processes undertaken with the hope of cultivating a capacity
for reflective insight. The mere presence of a dog or other animal can reduce
stress and anxiety in therapeutic settings. But in addition to that, animals are
companions, guides, and teachers who provide men and women seeking
recovery from alcoholism with a sense of meaning, purpose, and responsibility.
Bannen quotes Nancy Schenck (2009) who wrote that many addicts “embark
on the journey back to self-awakening while holding a paw, hoof, claw, wing,
fin, or whatever.” Bannen emphasizes the ways in which animals help human
addicts, but he notes that the animal–alcoholic relation is more reciprocal
than might be assumed. Animals can only help humans to recover when
humans are responsible caregivers, meeting the physical and emotional needs
of their animal companion(s). Thus, the animal–human relationship in
which the animal serves as a therapeutic guide and teacher has, Bannen says,
“a reciprocating force.”
In Chapter 7, Arlene Barry discusses the dual significance of animals in the
work of Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss). First, Geisel’s creativity
was fueled by animals; a lifelong lover of actual animals, even his earliest
sketches, made as a child, represent both real-life creatures and the caricatures
 Introduction ● 7

they inspired. Second, particularly in his mature work, fanciful animal-like

beings enabled Geisel to “teach” moral lessons without preaching.
While Barry provides important insights into the significance of animals in
Geisel’s early years, the main focus of her chapter is on Geisel’s mature work.
As she points out, Geisel was a champion of progressive politics and moral
causes, and her chapter includes discussions about how these are manifested in
several of the most famous Dr. Seuss books. The main character in Horton
Hears a Who, for example, is a humane elephant who champions the proverbial
little guy and reminds the reader that real worth does not depend on status or
privilege. (Given what science now tells us about the emotional lives of ele-
phants, one wonders if Geisel’s observations of real elephants led him to repre-
sent a fanciful rendition of this particular animal as a paragon of empathy.)
Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moosee exemplifies the virtue of hospitality—and
illustrates the idea that virtue can be difficult and even dangerous for its
practitioners. Not all Geisel’s books include characters resembling real-life ani-
mals, but Geisel’s choice between “realistic” and totally fanciful is not incidental.
The Lorax, the main character in a book of the same name, has no clear
corollary in real life and can be perceived as any number of creatures, depend-
ing on one’s point of view and experience. This “animal,” Barry points out,
emerged from Geisel’s pen at the beginning of the environmental movement,
and “his” species ambiguity is in keeping with Geisel’s point: We all have a
responsibility for environmental well-being.
These are but a few of the stories Barry discusses; others are concerned with
such political and moral concerns as “racism, despotism, dedication, annihila-
tion, dependability, hospitality, materialism, destruction, and kindness.”
As Barry argues, in the great majority of these works, animals do the heavy
lifting, creating imaginative moral universes that readers might aspire to cre-
ate in the world they actually inhabit.
In Chapter 8, Aaron Moe also discusses literature in relation to human
animals and non-human animals, but seeks to illuminate a rather different
dimension of this relation. Moe discusses the literature classroom as a place
where students can be encouraged to examine the lives of actual, biological
animals. In this context, students may encounter literature that calls on them
to rethink what are usually considered solely human attributes: “language,
speech, culture, rhetoric, agency, poetics, intelligence.” The concept of zoopo-
etics (Moe, 2014) figures importantly in Moe’s analysis and illustrates ways in
which animal gestures and vocalizations contribute to the formal, as well as
substantial, content of literature ranging from Walt Whitman to W. S. Merwin.
A turkey-hen for Whitman is not simply a bird as Other, Moe argues, but has
a bodily poetics different from, but also related to, human poetics. The bound-
ary between turkey poetics and human poetics is porous, and not simple
8 ● Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

or static. Citing Kenneth Burke, Moe shows how these boundaries can func-
tion as “terministic screens,” where language selects a reality while deflecting
other realities (1966, pp. 44–62). Animal studies today undermines the ter-
ministic screen of human-centric language and culture prevalent in the
humanities. Moe invites us to read works that attend to other species, such as
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dickk or the poetry of Walt Whitman or Gary
Snyder. Engaging students in such reading is one way in which we might help
them to “cultivate a respectful attentiveness” to those among us with fins,
feathers, or fur.

Section Three: Moral Aspects of Human Animal

and Non-Human Animal Interactions
In Chapter 9, Susan Laird and Kristen Ogilvie Holzer challenge what
Jane Roland Martin has called “the deep structure of educational thought”
(2011, p. 36). This structure relegates critical animal studies to the periphery
of learning and “treats nonhuman animals merely as objects of human ani-
mals’ intellectual study and consumption in schools and as less worthy of
moral consideration than humanity.” Laird and Holzer seek to participate in
bringing about a change in educational thought, particularly in regard to
how human and non-human animal relations are construed and maintained.
To this end, their chapter considers the possible educational value in not
merely observing or studying non-human animals, but actually befriending
animals, an ideal they believe has classic modern roots (Carson, 1956/
1979/2011; Wollstonecraft, 1791/2001). They ask: “When different species
meet, what can this concept of befriending animals mean to educators? What
care-sensitive ethical learning might such befriending encounters foster? How
might befriending animals differ in kind and degree from encounter to
encounter, with multiple educational agents both non-human and human,
and to what problematic or care-sensitive ethical ends?” They adapt the natu-
ralists’ practice of taking “field notes” (Canfield, 2011) in order to illustrate
the value of befriending animals in terms of moral education.
In Chapter 10, Jim Garrison draws on the work of noted primatologist
Frans de Waal to show that what many consider to be a human invention,
namely ethics, is substantively present in both human and non-human animals.
“Veneer theory,” mentioned in the title of Garrison’s chapter, refers to the idea
that morality in humans is merely a cultural construct that lies upon the surface
of and partially covers “real” human nature, which is selfish and brutish.
Garrison argues that “sympathy as found in all primates is the primordial origin
of human ethics” and he connects de Waal’s research on sympathy in primates
to philosophical writings by John Dewey and Nel Noddings. Morality for
Dewey is not simply a human construction, although human language and
 Introduction ● 9

its power of abstraction have shaped the morality humans conceive and
practice. We share sympathy and many other social traits with other animals
and thus, as Garrison states succinctly, “Our morality emerges from a
Darwinian matrix without breach of continuity, although it is hardly reduc-
ible to such a medium.” Garrison subscribes to de Waal’s view that morality
is like a Russian doll, where there are elemental layers, such as emotional
contagion and primate sympathy, which are encased by other layers involving
cognition. He connects de Waal’s insight to care theorist Nel Noddings who
sees ethical care emerging from natural care, where a moral “ought” is based
upon a natural good, such as emotional contagion. In this way, Noddings too
rejects veneer. Garrison concludes that the sympathy we may feel for a loved
one enables us, because of the evolutionary connectedness of primordial feel-
ing among human animals and non-human animals, as well as all creation, to
feel sympathy.
When asked to consider the “human–animal bond,” what comes to mind
for many are the cuddly creatures featured on greeting cards. In Chapter 11,
Cris Mayo asks that we consider quite different creatures—vermin—for the
challenges they pose to our ethical thought and practice. Having a relation-
ship built on the ethics of trust, care, or compassion with a mewling kitten is
one thing, and with a destructive rodent quite another. Thus vermin test our
ethical outlooks and conceptions. We should widen our ethics to include
vermin, Mayo argues, because we are responsible for their existence; without
humans there are no vermin. “Animals become vermin in relation to us,”
Mayo observes. We are unintentionally hospitable to animals, which we then
call vermin, providing warm and easily accessible dwelling places and plenti-
ful food cultivated by human hands.
In many cases, humans inadvertently invite vermin into previously
human-only spaces, but we humans are often the invaders, encroaching on
environments that have long been the homes of other species. Mayo reminds
us that what we do on the land, whether it is clearing forests for building new
structures or hydraulically fracturing the earth previously undisturbed by
human animals, has consequences for all involved. She reminds us also that
when we encounter a non-human animal, the best response may well be
avoidance and a deepened awareness that human activity occasioned the
encounter in the first place, raising deep questions about land-use policy.
Such responses, however, do not figure easily into moral orientations based
on face-to-face care. Some humans do not like rats or bats or wolves, let alone
having to care for them, but that does not mean that we should feel ethically
free to treat these creatures in whatever manner is most convenient to us,
without regard for their lives and ways of being.
A dominant tendency in the modern, developed world has been for humans
to think that they are above and outside nature, that human intelligence not
10 ● Suzanne Rice and A. G. Rud

only allows us to manipulate nature, but also justifies our doing so. A. G. Rud
questions these beliefs in Chapter 12. Rud presents a conceptual framework
comprising three ideas that might inform our relationships with animals and
with nature more broadly. He turns to the work of two thinkers from the last
century, Albert Schweitzer and John Dewey, and connects their thoughts to a
current movement in conservation biology. Schweitzer articulated a principle,
Reverence for Life, as a guide to how we human animals should live as part of,
rather than separate from, nature (Schweitzer & Joy, 1950). Schweitzer’s prin-
ciple captures an attitude and orientation toward being responsible for the world
and not harming it. Rud connects Schweitzer’s Reverence for Life principle to
Dewey’s pragmatic naturalism. Dewey argued that we are not separate knowers,
gazing upon a world outside our senses and yet deriving understanding through
our senses and cognitive constructs, and called this the “spectator theory of
knowledge.” In contrast, he posited that we are part of this world and defined by
our relations within it. We always find ourselves in the middle of things, both a
part of history and nature, and also conditioned by these phenomena. It makes
no sense to talk of a separation, because nothing of the sort exists. Rud joins
both Schweitzer and Dewey with the idea and movement in conservation biol-
ogy called “rewilding,” where large carnivores are reintroduced to nature, and
discusses the broader cultural connotations of “rewilding our hearts” as well as
rewilding education (Bekoff, 2014). He argues that these three ideas together
provide a powerful framework for guiding our relations with animals and with
nature. Rud ends with a meditation upon the possibility of a reverent, rewilded,
sustainable future where humans exist within nature rather than as dominant
outsiders to nature, and with other animals rather than over them.

Note
1. There is ongoing debate over terms used to refer to the fauna of this world. This
debate is reflected in the terms used by authors in this volume. The introduction
tries to give a sense of this debate by sometimes spelling out the distinction between
“human animals” and “non-human animals” and by sometimes referring, more
conventionally, to “humans” and “animals.” We have intentionally changed the
order in which one or the other of these terms, “human animal”/“human” or “non-
human animal”/“animal,” appears in an effort to avoid implying species superiority.

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 Introduction ● 11

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 CHAPTER 1

(Un)Learning Anthropocentrism: An
EcoJustice Framework for Teaching to
Resist Human-Supremacy in Schools
John Lupinacci and Alison Happel-Parkins

I
n the Living Planet Report 2014 4 by the WWF (formally known as the
World Wildlife Fund), researchers introduce a new index that considers
“10,380 populations of 3,038 species of mammal, bird, reptile, amphib-
ian and fish from around the globe” (p. 136). This report indicates that since
1970 the planet has experienced a 52% loss in species (WWF, 2014). Further,
this index states that the world’s freshwater species have dropped by 76% in
that same time span. These statistics come to us amid an ongoing debate
among scientists as to whether the designation of our current time period, the
Holocene (meaning entirely recent), t is outdated, and whether Anthropocene
(combining human with the new) might be a more accurate identifier. Despite
the continued contestations, scientists agree that “human-kind has caused
mass extinctions of plant and animal species, polluted the oceans and altered
the atmosphere, among other lasting impacts” (Stromberg, 2013, para. 3).
Confronted by this reality, it is important that critical educators, especially
teacher educators, address how schools create, support, and sustain human-
centered learning experiences that contribute to the development of anthro-
pocentric thinking1—a belief system by, and through, which humans are
understood as separate and superior to all other living and nonliving things.
While some speculation exists in the scientific community as to the causes of
environmental degradation, a considerable number of world leaders and sci-
entists agree that citizens of the twenty-first century will be faced with the
imperative of addressing increased levels of poverty, hunger, and access to
healthy food and safe drinking water due to environmental degradation and
14 ● John Lupinacci and Alison Happel-Parkins
P

climate change (UNICEF, 2004, 2009; IPPC, 2007, 2013). Given the sever-
ity of this global issue, the need arises for educational pedagogies and prac-
tices that focus on the planet’s health. The capacity of the planet for sustaining
life depends upon future generations learning to live in harmony and at peace
with the diverse ecosystems within which they reside. Given that we are inter-
connected and dependent on diversity for survival, it is alarming that more
resources in education are not allocated for teaching and learning that foster
the capacity for socially just and sustainable decision-making.
A primary premise guiding this work is that the manifestation of a human-
supremacist worldview is cultural. A foundational premise of the work intro-
duced in this chapter is that cultural habits of mind based on a system of
human-supremacy—referred to as anthropocentrism—are pervasive in how
we as humans in Western industrial culture learn to interpret and assign value
to differences. Nocella II, Sorensen, Socha, and Matsuoka (2014) explain
that anthropocentrism is a belief system that “advocates privileging humans”
and functions to “maintain the centrality and priority of human existence
through marginalizing and subordinating non-human perspectives, interests,
and beings” (p. 4). Further, EcoJustice scholars take the position that anthro-
pocentrism is so pervasive in the metaphors we teach and learn in Western
industrial schools that, in order to interrupt the dominant belief system,
human-supremacy educators must first learn to name and recognize anthro-
pocentrism as problematic in connection with what can be done to rethink,
or (un)learn, anthropocentrism. From school lunches and dissections to the
mechanistic metaphors of science classrooms that liken the members of com-
plex living systems to simple parts of machines, non-human species are sepa-
rated into culturally constructed categories, like resources, by which their
existences are understood only through their relationship not only to humans
but specifically to humans living in accordance with Western industrial cul-
ture. Given how dominant and foundational anthropocentrism is in schools
and society, this chapter introduces a process for interrupting anthropocen-
trism; it considers what a nonanthropocentric education might look like.
Anthropocentrism in education is possible because we, as humans, specifi-
cally those of us within dominant Western industrial culture, have learned to
think and behave according to a culturally constructed way of understanding
that we use to interpret relationships and thus shape meaning. In most cases,
educators in Western industrial cultural have learned to think and act in
accordance with maintaining human-supremacy. Since meaning is con-
structed culturally, it can be constructed differently. Thus, our foundational
assumptions can be made explicit, interrupted, and shifted if we learn to
think differently about our relationships to each other and to the natural
world. By examining and exposing how human-supremacy underwrites
 (Un)Learning Anthropocentrism ● 15

dominant cultural assumptions in Western industrial culture, this chapter

introduces a framework for recognizing and reconstituting such assumptions
in day-to-day educational practices. Anthropocentrism is imperative to
address whether scholar-activist educators are serious about overcoming
social inequalities and suffering across the world. Drawing from EcoJustice
Education (Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2015), Critical Animal
Studies (Nocella II et al., 2014), and ecofeminist philosophy (Plumwood,
1993, 2002), this chapter introduces a pedagogical process that engages edu-
cators in recognizing an anthropocentric worldview, examining how that
worldview contributes to constituting and maintaining human–male–white
supremacy, and rethinking anthropocentrism in favor of an ecological world-
view supportive of socially just and inclusive living systems.

Critical Animal Studies and EcoJustice Education

Critical Animal Studies (CAS), as a scholar-activist project, focuses on the
atrocities that stem from and perpetuate the rationalization of cruelty to ani-
mals in modern society—the systematic discrimination and domination by
humans against other humans and all other species. Defining CAS, the
Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS) explains:

Rooted in animal liberation, CAS is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to

establishing a holistic total liberation movement for humans, nonhuman ani-
mals, and the Earth. CAS is engaged in an intersectional, theory-to-action
politics, in solidarity with movements to abolish all systems of domination.
(Retrieved from http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/about/)

While several critical, social justice projects and frameworks take a broad
view of injustice and even focus on the cultural roots of forms of domination
and violence, CAS offers a more extensive critique than these other perspec-
tives. It pushes mainstream definitions of social justice by insisting that
humans critique and deconstruct their foundational assumptions about their
relationships with other species and the earth. CAS is a fast-growing field
inspired by and supportive of direct action organizations such as the Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) as well as the
diverse networks of activist-scholarship conducted in direct response to the
systems of oppression endemic in Western industrial culture (Nocella II,
2004; Nocella II & Best, 2012; Twine, 2012). CAS scholars interrogate the
ideological manifestation of anthropocentrism in relationship to humanist
cultural assumptions that emerge through an ontology rooted in Western
philosophy and science (Nocella II et al., 2014).
Another random document with
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 The gentleman, in commenting on the policy of the government in
relation to the new states, has introduced to our notice a certain
Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, to whom he attributes the
celebrated ordinance of ’87, by which he tells us, “slavery was
forever excluded from the new states north of the Ohio.” After
eulogizing the wisdom of this provision in terms of the most
extravagant praise, he breaks forth in admiration of the greatness of
Nathan Dane—and great indeed he must be, if it be true, as stated by
the senator from Massachusetts, that “he was greater than Solon and
Lycurgus, Minos, Numa Pompilius, and all the legislators and
philosophers of the world,” ancient and modern. Sir, to such high
authority it is certainly my duty, in a becoming spirit of humility, to
submit. And yet, the gentleman will pardon me, when I say, that it is
a little unfortunate for the fame of this great legislator, that the
gentleman from Missouri should have proved that he was not the
author of the ordinance of ’87, on which the senator from
Massachusetts has reared so glorious a monument to his name. Sir, I
doubt not the senator will feel some compassion for our ignorance,
when I tell him, that so little are we acquainted with the modern
great men of New England, that until he informed us yesterday that
we possessed a Solon and a Lycurgus in the person of Nathan Dane,
he was only known to the south as a member of a celebrated
assembly, called and known by the name of the “Hartford
Convention.” In the proceedings of that assembly, which I hold in my
hand, (at p. 19,) will be found in a few lines, the history of Nathan
Dane; and a little farther on, there is conclusive evidence of that
ardent devotion to the interest of the new states, which, it seems, has
given him a just claim to the title of “Father of the West.” By the 2d
resolution of the “Hartford Convention,” it is declared, “that it is
expedient to attempt to make provision for restraining Congress in
the exercise of an unlimited power to make new states, and
admitting them into the Union.” So much for Nathan Dane, of
Beverly, Massachusetts.
In commenting upon my views in relation to the public lands, the
gentleman insists, that it being one of the conditions of the grants
that these lands should be applied to “the common benefit of all the
states, they must always remain a fund for revenue;” and adds, “they
must be treated as so much treasure.” Sir, the gentleman could
hardly find language strong enough to convey his disapprobation of
the policy which I had ventured to recommend to the favorable
consideration of the country. And what, sir, was that policy, and what
is the difference between that gentleman and myself on that subject?
I threw out the idea that the public lands ought not to be reserved
forever, as “a great fund for revenue;” that they ought not to be
“treated as a great treasure;” but that the course of our policy should
rather be directed toward the creation of new states, and building up
great and flourishing communities.
Now, sir, will it be believed, by those who now hear me,—and who
listened to the gentleman’s denunciation of my doctrines yesterday,
—that a book then lay open before him—nay, that he held it in his
hand, and read from it certain passages of his own speech, delivered
to the House of Representatives in 1825, in which speech he himself
contended for the very doctrine I had advocated, and almost in the
same terms? Here is the speech of the Hon. Daniel Webster,
contained in the first volume of Gales and Seaton’s Register of
Debates, (p. 251,) delivered in the House of Representatives on the
18th of January, 1825, in a debate on the Cumberland road—the very
debate from which the senator read yesterday. I shall read from the
celebrated speech two passages, from which it will appear that both
as to the past and the future policy of the government in relation to
the public lands, the gentleman from Massachusetts maintained, in
1825, substantially the same opinions which I have advanced, but
which he now so strongly reprobates. I said, sir, that the system of
credit sales by which the west had been kept constantly in debt to the
United States, and by which their wealth was drained off to be
expended elsewhere, had operated injuriously on their prosperity.
On this point the gentleman from Massachusetts, in January, 1825,
expressed himself thus: “There could be no doubt, if gentlemen
looked at the money received into the treasury from the sale of the
public lands to the west, and then looked to the whole amount
expended by government, (even including the whole amount of what
was laid out for the army,) the latter must be allowed to be very
inconsiderable, and there must be a constant drain of money from
the west to pay for the public lands.” It might indeed be said that
this was no more than the refluence of capital which had previously
gone over the mountains. Be it so. Still its practical effect was to
produce inconvenience, if not distress, by absorbing the money of
the people.
 I contended that the public lands ought not to be treated merely as
“a fund for revenue;” that they ought not to be hoarded “as a great
treasure.” On this point the senator expressed himself thus:
“Government, he believed, had received eighteen or twenty millions
of dollars from the public lands, and it was with the greatest
satisfaction he adverted to the change which had been introduced in
the mode of paying for them; yet he could never think the national
domain was to be regarded as any great source of revenue. The
great object of the government, in respect of these lands, was not so
much the money derived from their sale, as it was the getting them
settled. What he meant to say was, he did not think they ought to hug
that domain AS A GREAT TREASURE, to enrich the Exchequer.”
Now, Mr. President, it will be seen that the very doctrines which
the gentleman so indignantly abandons were urged by him in 1825;
and if I had actually borrowed my sentiments from those which he
then avowed, I could not have followed more closely in his footsteps.
Sir, it is only since the gentleman quoted this book, yesterday, that
my attention has been turned to the sentiments he expressed in
1825; and if I had remembered them, I might possibly have been
deterred from uttering sentiments here, which, it might well be
supposed, I had borrowed from that gentleman.
In 1825, the gentleman told the world that the public lands “ought
not to be treated as a treasure.” He now tells us that “they must be
treated as so much treasure.” What the deliberate opinion of the
gentleman on this subject may be, belongs not to me to determine;
but I do not think he can, with the shadow of justice or propriety,
impugn my sentiments, while his own recorded opinions are
identical with my own. When the gentleman refers to the conditions
of the grants under which the United States have acquired these
lands, and insists that, as they are declared to be “for the common
benefit of all the states,” they can only be treated as so much
treasure, I think he has applied a rule of construction too narrow for
the case. If in the deeds of cession it has been declared that the
grants were intended for “the common benefit of all the states,” it is
clear, from other provisions, that they were not intended merely as
so much property; for it is expressly declared, that the object of the
grants is the erection of new states; and the United States, in
accepting this trust, bind themselves to facilitate the foundation of
these states, to be admitted into the Union with all the rights and
privileges of the original states. This, sir, was the great end to which
all parties looked, and it is by the fulfillment of this high trust that
“the common benefit of all the states” is to be best promoted. Sir, let
me tell the gentleman, that in the part of the country in which I live,
we do not measure political benefits by the money standard. We
consider as more valuable than gold liberty, principle, and justice.
But, sir, if we are bound to act on the narrow principles contended
for by the gentleman, I am wholly at a loss to conceive how he can
reconcile his principles with his own practice. The lands are, it
seems, to be treated “as so much treasure,” and must be applied to
the “common benefit of all the states.” Now, if this be so, whence
does he derive the right to appropriate them for partial and local
objects? How can the gentleman consent to vote away immense
bodies of these lands for canals in Indiana and Illinois, to the
Louisville and Portland Canal, to Kenyon College in Ohio, to Schools
for the Deaf and Dumb, and other objects of a similar description? If
grants of this character can fairly be considered as made “for the
common benefit of all the states,” it can only be, because all the
states are interested in the welfare of each—a principle which,
carried to the full extent, destroys all distinction between local and
national objects, and is certainly broad enough to embrace the
principles for which I have ventured to contend. Sir, the true
difference between us I take to be this: the gentleman wishes to treat
the public lands as a great treasure, just as so much money in the
treasury, to be applied to all objects, constitutional and
unconstitutional, to which the public money is constantly applied. I
consider it as a sacred trust which we ought to fulfil, on the
principles for which I have contended.
The senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to present, in
strong contrast, the friendly feelings of the east towards the west,
with sentiments of an opposite character displayed by the south in
relation to appropriations for internal improvements. Now, sir, let it
be recollected that the south have made no professions; I have
certainly made none in their behalf, of regard for the west. It has
been reserved for the gentleman from Massachusetts, while he
vaunts over his own personal devotion to western interests, to claim
for the entire section of country to which he belongs an ardent
friendship for the west, as manifested by their support of the system
of internal improvement, while he casts in our teeth the reproach
that the south has manifested hostility to western interests in
opposing appropriations for such objects. That gentleman, at the
same time, acknowledged that the south entertains constitutional
scruples on this subject. Are we then, sir, to understand that the
gentleman considers it a just subject of reproach that we respect our
oaths, by which we are bound “to preserve, protect, and defend the
constitution of the U. States?” Would the gentleman have us
manifest our love to the west by trampling under foot our
constitutional scruples? Does he not perceive, if the south is to be
reproached with unkindness to the west, in voting against
appropriations which the gentleman admits they could not vote for
without doing violence to their constitutional opinions, that he
exposes himself to the question, whether, if he was in our situation,
he could vote for these appropriations, regardless of his scruples?
No, sir, I will not do the gentleman so great injustice. He has fallen
into this error from not having duly weighed the force and effect of
the reproach which he was endeavoring to cast upon the south. In
relation to the other point, the friendship manifested by New
England towards the west, in their support of the system of internal
improvement, the gentleman will pardon me for saying, that I think
he is equally unfortunate in having introduced that topic. As that
gentleman has forced it upon us, however, I cannot suffer it to pass
unnoticed. When the gentleman tells us that the appropriations for
internal improvement in the west would, in almost every instance,
have failed but for New England votes, he has forgotten to tell us the
when, the how, and the wherefore this new-born zeal for the west
sprung up in the bosom of New England. If we look back only a few
years, we will find in both houses of Congress a uniform and steady
opposition on the part of the members from the Eastern States,
generally, to all appropriations of this character. At the time I
became a member of this house, and for some time afterwards, a
decided majority of the New England senators were opposed to the
very measures which the senator from Massachusetts tells us they
now cordially support. Sir, the Journals are before me, and an
examination of them will satisfy every gentleman of that fact.
It must be well known to every one whose experience dates back as
far as 1825, that up to a certain period, New England was generally
opposed to appropriations for internal improvements in the west.
The gentleman from Massachusetts may be himself an exception, but
if he went for the system before 1825, it is certain that his colleagues
did not go with him.
In the session of 1824 and ’25, however, (a memorable era in the
history of this country,) a wonderful change took place in New
England, in relation to western interests. Sir, an extraordinary union
of sympathies and of interests was then effected, which brought the
east and the west into close alliance. The book from which I have
before read contains the first public annunciation of that happy
reconciliation of conflicting interests, personal and political, which
brought the east and west together and locked in a fraternal embrace
the two great orators of the east and the west. Sir, it was on the 18th
of January, 1825, while the result of the presidential election, in the
House of Representatives, was still doubtful, while the whole country
was looking with intense anxiety to that legislative hall where the
mighty drama was so soon to be acted, that we saw the leaders of two
great parties in the house and in the nation, “taking sweet counsel
together,” and in a celebrated debate on the Cumberland road,
fighting side by side for western interests. It was on that memorable
occasion that the senator from Massachusetts held out the white flag
to the west, and uttered those liberal sentiments which he yesterday
so indignantly repudiated. Then it was, that that happy union
between the two members of the celebrated coalition was
consummated, whose immediate issue was a president from one
quarter of the Union, with the succession (as it was supposed)
secured to another. The “American system,” before a rude,
disjointed, and misshapen mass, now assumed form and consistency.
Then it was that it became “the settled policy of the government,”
that this system should be so administered as to create a reciprocity
of interests and a reciprocal distribution of government favors, east
and west, (the tariff and internal improvements,) while the south—
yes, sir, the impracticable south—was to be “out of your protection.”
The gentleman may boast as much as he pleases of the friendship of
New England for the west, as displayed in their support of internal
improvement; but when he next introduces that topic, I trust that he
will tell us when that friendship commenced, how it was brought
about, and why it was established. Before I leave this topic, I must be
permitted to say that the true character of the policy now pursued by
the gentleman from Massachusetts and his friends, in relation to
appropriations of land and money, for the benefit of the west, is in
my estimation very similar to that pursued by Jacob of old towards
his brother Esau: “it robs them of their birthright for a mess of
pottage.”
The gentleman from Massachusetts, in alluding to a remark of
mine, that before any disposition could be made of the public lands,
the national debt, for which they stand pledged, must be first paid,
took occasion to intimate “that the extraordinary fervor which
seems to exist in a certain quarter, (meaning the south, sir,) for the
payment of the debt, arises from a disposition to weaken the ties
which bind the people to the Union.” While the gentleman deals us
this blow, he professes an ardent desire to see the debt speedily
extinguished. He must excuse me, however, for feeling some distrust
on that subject until I find this disposition manifested by something
stronger than professions. I shall look for acts, decided and
unequivocal acts; for the performance of which an opportunity will
very soon (if I am not greatly mistaken) be afforded. Sir, if I were at
liberty to judge of the course which that gentleman would pursue,
from the principles which he has laid down in relation to this matter,
I should be bound to conclude that he will be found acting with those
with whom it is a darling object to prevent the payment of the public
debt. He tells us he is desirous of paying the debt, “because we are
under an obligation to discharge it.” Now, sir, suppose it should
happen that the public creditors, with whom we have contracted the
obligation, should release us from it, so far as to declare their
willingness to wait for payment for fifty years to come, provided only
the interest shall be punctually discharged. The gentleman from
Massachusetts will then be released from the obligation which now
makes him desirous of paying the debt; and, let me tell the
gentleman, the holders of the stock will not only release us from this
obligation, but they will implore, nay, they will even pay us not to
pay them. But, adds the gentleman, so far as the debt may have an
effect in binding the debtors to the country, and thereby serving as a
link to hold the states together, he would be glad that it should exist
forever. Surely then, sir, on the gentleman’s own principles, he must
be opposed to the payment of the debt.
Sir, let me tell that gentleman, that the south repudiates the idea
that a pecuniary dependence on the federal government is one of the
legitimate means of holding the states together. A moneyed interest
in the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as it
operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it to the
government,—just so far as it operates in creating sympathies and
interests that would not otherwise exist,—is it opposed to all the
principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriotism.
Sir, the link which binds the public creditors, as such, to their
country, binds them equally to all governments, whether arbitrary or
free. In a free government, this principle of abject dependence, if
extended through all the ramifications of society, must be fatal to
liberty. Already have we made alarming strides in that direction. The
entire class of manufacturers, the holders of stocks, with their
hundreds of millions of capital, are held to the government by the
strong link of pecuniary interests; millions of people—entire sections
of country, interested, or believing themselves to be so, in the public
lands, and the public treasure—are bound to the government by the
expectation of pecuniary favors. If this system is carried much
further, no man can fail to see that every generous motive of
attachment to the country will be destroyed, and in its place will
spring up those low, grovelling, base, and selfish feelings which bind
men to the footstool of a despot by bonds as strong and enduring as
those which attach them to free institutions. Sir, I would lay the
foundation of this government in the affections of the people—I
would teach them to cling to it by dispensing equal justice, and above
all, by securing the “blessings of liberty” to “themselves and to their
posterity.”
The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts has gone out of his
way to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. In the most
impassioned tones of eloquence, he described her majestic march to
greatness. He told us, that, having already left all the other states far
behind, she was now passing by Virginia and Pennsylvania, and
about to take her station by the side of New York. To all this, sir, I
was disposed most cordially to respond. When, however, the
gentleman proceeded to contrast the state of Ohio with Kentucky, to
the disadvantage of the latter, I listened to him with regret; and when
he proceeded further to attribute the great, and, as he supposed,
acknowledged superiority of the former in population, wealth, and
general prosperity, to the policy of Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts,
which had secured to the people of Ohio (by the ordinance of ’87) a
population of freemen, I will confess that my feelings suffered a
revulsion which I am now unable to describe in any language
sufficiently respectful towards the gentleman from Massachusetts. In
contrasting the state of Ohio with Kentucky, for the purpose of
pointing out the superiority of the former, and of attributing that
superiority to the existence of slavery in the one state, and its
absence in the other, I thought I could discern the very spirit of the
Missouri question, intruded into this debate, for objects best known
to the gentleman himself. Did that gentleman, sir, when he formed
the determination to cross the southern border, in order to invade
the state of South Carolina, deem it prudent or necessary to enlist
under his banners the prejudices of the world, which, like Swiss
troops, may be engaged in any cause, and are prepared to serve
under any leader? Did he desire to avail himself of those remorseless
allies, the passions of mankind, of which it may be more truly said
than of the savage tribes of the wilderness, “that their known rule of
warfare is an indiscriminate slaughter of all ages, sexes, and
conditions?” Or was it supposed, sir, that, in a premeditated and
unprovoked attack upon the south, it was advisable to begin by a
gentle admonition of our supposed weakness, in order to prevent us
from making that firm and manly resistance due to our own
character and our dearest interests? Was the significant hint of the
weakness of slaveholding states, when contrasted with the superior
strength of free states,—like the glare of the weapon half drawn from
its scabbard,—intended to enforce the lessons of prudence and of
patriotism, which the gentleman had resolved, out of his abundant
generosity, gratuitously to bestow upon us? Mr. President, the
impression which has gone abroad of the weakness of the south, as
connected with the slave question, exposes us to such constant
attacks, has done us so much injury, and is calculated to produce
such infinite mischiefs, that I embrace the occasion presented by the
remarks of the gentleman of Massachusetts, to declare that we are
ready to meet the question promptly and fearlessly. It is one from
which we are not disposed to shrink, in whatever form or under
whatever circumstances it may be pressed upon us.
We are ready to make up the issue with the gentleman, as to the
influence of slavery on individual or national character—on the
prosperity and greatness, either of the United States or of particular
states. Sir, when arraigned before the bar of public opinion, on this
charge of slavery, we can stand up with conscious rectitude, plead
not guilty, and put ourselves upon God and our country. Sir, we will
not consent to look at slavery in the abstract. We will not stop to
inquire whether the black man, as some philosophers have
contended, is of an inferior race, nor whether his color and condition
are the effects of a curse inflicted for the offences of his ancestors.
We deal in no abstractions. We will not look back to inquire whether
our fathers were guiltless in introducing slaves into this country. If
an inquiry should ever be instituted in these matters, however, it will
be found that the profits of the slave trade were not confined to the
south. Southern ships and southern sailors were not the instruments
of bringing slaves to the shores of America, nor did our merchants
reap the profits of that “accursed traffic.” But, sir, we will pass over
all this. If slavery, as it now exists in this country, be an evil, we of
the present day found it ready made to our hands. Finding our lot
cast among a people whom God had manifestly committed to our
care, we did not sit down to speculate on abstract questions of
theoretical liberty. We met it as a practical question of obligation
and duty. We resolved to make the best of the situation in which
Providence had placed us, and to fulfil the high trusts which had
devolved upon us as the owners of slaves, in the only way in which
such a trust could be fulfilled, without spreading misery and ruin
throughout the land. We found that we had to deal with a people
whose physical, moral, and intellectual habits and character totally
disqualified them from the enjoyment of the blessings of freedom.
We could not send them back to the shores from whence their
fathers had been taken; their numbers forbade the thought, even if
we did not know that their condition here is infinitely preferable to
what it possibly could be among the barren sands and savage tribes
of Africa; and it was wholly irreconcilable with all our notions of
humanity to tear asunder the tender ties which they had formed
among us, to gratify the feelings of a false philanthropy. What a
commentary on the wisdom, justice, and humanity of the southern
slave owner is presented by the example of certain benevolent
associations and charitable individuals elsewhere! Shedding weak
tears over sufferings which had existence in their own sickly
imaginations, these “friends of humanity” set themselves
systematically to work to seduce the slaves of the south from their
masters. By means of missionaries and political tracts, the scheme
was in a great measure successful. Thousands of these deluded
victims of fanaticism were seduced into the enjoyment of freedom in
our northern cities. And what has been the consequence? Go to these
cities now and ask the question. Visit the dark and narrow lanes, and
obscure recesses, which have been assigned by common consent as
the abodes of those outcasts of the world, the free people of color.
Sir, there does not exist, on the face of the whole earth, a population
so poor, so wretched, so vile, so loathsome, so utterly destitute of all
the comforts, conveniences, and decencies of life, as the unfortunate
blacks of Philadelphia, and New York, and Boston. Liberty has been
to them the greatest of calamities, the heaviest of curses. Sir, I have
had some opportunities of making comparison between the
condition of the free negroes of the north and the slaves of the south,
and the comparison has left not only an indelible impression of the
superior advantages of the latter, but has gone far to reconcile me to
slavery itself. Never have I felt so forcibly that touching description,
“the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of man hath not where to lay his head,” as when I have seen this
unhappy race, naked and houseless, almost starving in the streets,
and abandoned by all the world. Sir, I have seen in the neighborhood
of one of the most moral, religious, and refined cities of the north, a
family of free blacks, driven to the caves of the rocks, and there
obtaining a precarious subsistence from charity and plunder.
When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts and reiterates the
old charge of weakness as resulting from slavery, I must be permitted
to call for the proof of those blighting effects which he ascribes to its
influence. I suspect that when the subject is closely examined, it will
be found that there is not much force even in the plausible objection
of the want of physical power in slaveholding states. The power of a
country is compounded of its population and its wealth, and in
modern times, where, from the very form and structure of society, by
far the greater portion of the people must, even during the
continuance of the most desolating wars, be employed in the
cultivation of the soil and other peaceful pursuits, it may be well
doubted whether slaveholding states, by reason of the superior value
of their productions, are not able to maintain a number of troops in
the field fully equal to what could be supported by states with a
larger white population, but not possessed of equal resources.
 It is a popular error to suppose that, in any possible state of things,
the people of a country could ever be called out en masse, or that a
half, or a third, or even a fifth part of the physical force of any
country could ever be brought into the field. The difficulty is, not to
procure men, but to provide the means of maintaining them; and in
this view of the subject, it may be asked whether the Southern States
are not a source of strength and power, and not of weakness, to the
country—whether they have not contributed, and are not now
contributing, largely to the wealth and prosperity of every state in
this Union. From a statement which I hold in my hand, it appears
that in ten years—from 1818 to 1827, inclusive—the whole amount of
the domestic exports of the United States was $521,811,045; of which
three articles, (the product of slave labor,) viz., cotton, rice, and
tobacco, amounted to $339,203,232—equal to about two-thirds of
the whole. It is not true, as has been supposed, that the advantage of
this labor is confined almost exclusively to the Southern States. Sir, I
am thoroughly convinced that, at this time, the states north of the
Potomac actually derive greater profits from the labor of our slaves
than we do ourselves. It appears from our public documents, that in
seven years—from 1821 to 1827, inclusive—the six Southern States
exported $190,337,281, and imported only $55,646,301. Now, the
difference between these two sums (near $140,000,000) passed
through the hands of the northern merchants, and enabled them to
carry on their commercial operations with all the world. Such part of
these goods as found its way back to our hands came charged with
the duties, as well as the profits, of the merchant, the ship owner,
and a host of others, who found employment in carrying on these
immense exchanges; and for such part as was consumed at the north,
we received in exchange northern manufactures, charged with an
increased price, to cover all the taxes which the northern consumer
had been compelled to pay on the imported article. It will be seen,
therefore, at a glance, how much slave labor has contributed to the
wealth and prosperity of the United States, and how largely our
northern brethren have participated in the profits of that labor. Sir,
on this subject I will quote an authority, which will, I doubt not, be
considered by the Senator from Massachusetts as entitled to high
respect. It is from the great father of the “American System,” honest
Matthew Carey—no great friend, it is true, at this time, to southern
rights and southern interests, but not the worst authority on that
account, on the point in question.
Speaking of the relative importance to the Union of the Southern
and the Eastern States, Matthew Carey, in the sixth edition of his
Olive Branch, (p. 278,) after exhibiting a number of statistical tables
to show the decided superiority of the former, thus proceeds:—
“But I am tired of this investigation—I sicken for the honor of the
human species. What idea must the world form of the arrogance of
the pretensions of the one side, [the east,] and of the folly and
weakness of the rest of the Union, to have so long suffered them to
pass without exposure and detection. The naked fact is, that the
demagogues in the Eastern States, not satisfied with deriving all the
benefit from the southern section of the Union that they would from
so many wealthy colonies—with making princely fortunes by the
carriage and exportation of its bulky and valuable productions, and
supplying it with their own manufactures, and the productions of
Europe and the East and West Indies, to an enormous amount, and
at an immense profit, have uniformly treated it with outrage, insult,
and injury. And, regardless of their vital interests, the Eastern States
were lately courting their own destruction, by allowing a few
restless, turbulent men to lead them blindfolded to a separation
which was pregnant with their certain ruin. Whenever that event
takes place, they sink into insignificance. If a separation were
desirable to any part of the Union, it would be to the Middle and
Southern States, particularly the latter, who have been so long
harassed with the complaints, the restlessness, the turbulence, and
the ingratitude of the Eastern States, that their patience has been
tried almost beyond endurance. ‘Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked’—
and he will be severely punished for his kicking, in the event of a
dissolution of the Union.” Sir, I wish it to be distinctly understood
that I do not adopt these sentiments as my own. I quote them to
show that very different sentiments have prevailed in former times
as to the weakness of the slaveholding states from those which now
seem to have become fashionable in certain quarters. I know it has
been supposed by certain ill-informed persons, that the south exists
only by the countenance and protection of the north. Sir, this is the
idlest of all idle and ridiculous fancies that ever entered into the
mind of man. In every state of this Union, except one, the free white
population actually preponderates; while in the British West India
Islands, (where the average white population is less than ten per
cent. of the whole,) the slaves are kept in entire subjection: it is
preposterous to suppose that the Southern States could ever find the
smallest difficulty in this respect. On this subject, as in all others, we
ask nothing of our northern brethren but to “let us alone.” Leave us
to the undisturbed management of our domestic concerns, and the
direction of our own industry, and we will ask no more. Sir, all our
difficulties on this subject have arisen from interference from
abroad, which has disturbed, and may again disturb, our domestic
tranquillity just so far as to bring down punishment upon the heads
of the unfortunate victims of a fanatical and mistaken humanity.
There is a spirit, which, like the father of evil, is constantly
“walking to and fro about the earth, seeking whom it may devour:” it
is the spirit of FALSE PHILANTHROPY. The persons whom it possesses do
not indeed throw themselves into the flames, but they are employed
in lighting up the torches of discord throughout the community.
Their first principle of action is to leave their own affairs, and neglect
their own duties, to regulate the affairs and duties of others. Theirs is
the task to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, of other lands,
while they thrust the naked, famished, and shivering beggar from
their own doors; to instruct the heathen, while their own children
want the bread of life. When this spirit infuses itself into the bosom
of a statesman, (if one so possessed can be called a statesman,) it
converts him at once into a visionary enthusiast. Then it is that he
indulges in golden dreams of national greatness and prosperity. He
discovers that “liberty is power,” and not content with vast schemes
of improvement at home, which it would bankrupt the treasury of the
world to execute, he flies to foreign lands, to fulfil obligations to “the
human race” by inculcating the principles of “political and religious
liberty,” and promoting the “general welfare” of the whole human
race. It is a spirit which has long been busy with the slaves of the
south; and is even now displaying itself in vain efforts to drive the
government from its wise policy in relation to the Indians. It is this
spirit which has filled the land with thousands of wild and visionary
projects, which can have no effect but to waste the energies and
dissipate the resources of the country. It is the spirit of which the
aspiring politician dexterously avails himself, when, by inscribing on
his banner the magical words LIBERTY AND PHILANTHROPY, he draws to
his support that class of persons who are ready to bow down at the
very name of their idols.
But, sir, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the effect of
slavery on national wealth and prosperity, if we may trust to
experience, there can be no doubt that it has never yet produced any
injurious effect on individual or national character. Look through
the whole history of the country, from the commencement of the
revolution down to the present hour; where are there to be found
brighter examples of intellectual and moral greatness than have been
exhibited by the sons of the south? From the Father of his Country
down to the DISTINGUISHED CHIEFTAIN who has been elevated by a
grateful people to the highest office in their gift, the interval is filled
up by a long line of orators, of statesmen, and of heroes, justly
entitled to rank among the ornaments of their country, and the
benefactors of mankind. Look at the “Old Dominion,” great and
magnanimous Virginia, “whose jewels are her sons.” Is there any
state in this Union which has contributed so much to the honor and
welfare of the country? Sir, I will yield the whole question—I will
acknowledge the fatal effects of slavery upon character, if any one
can say, that for noble disinterestedness, ardent love of country,
exalted virtue, and a pure and holy devotion to liberty, the people of
the Southern States have ever been surpassed by any in the world. I
know, sir, that this devotion to liberty has sometimes been supposed
to be at war with our institutions; but it is in some degree the result
of those very institutions. Burke, the most philosophical of
statesmen, as he was the most accomplished of orators, well
understood the operation of this principle, in elevating the
sentiments and exalting the principles of the people in slaveholding
states. I will conclude my remarks on this branch of the subject, by
reading a few passages from his speech “on moving his resolutions
for conciliation with the colonies,” the 22d of March, 1775.
“There is a circumstance attending the southern colonies which
makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those
to the northward. It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a
vast multitude of slaves. Where this is the case, in any part of the
world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of
their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind
of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, as in countries where it is a
common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, that it may be
united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior
of servitude, liberty looks among them like something more noble
and liberal. I do not mean, sir, to commend the superior morality of
this sentiment, which has, at least, as much pride as virtue in it—but
I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of
the southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a higher and
more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those to the
northward. Such were all the ancient commonwealths—such were
our Gothic ancestors—such, in our days, were the Poles—and such
will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In such a
people, the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit of
freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible.”
In the course of my former remarks, Mr. President, I took occasion
to deprecate, as one of the greatest evils, the consolidation of this
government. The gentleman takes alarm at the sound.
“Consolidation,” “like the tariff,” grates upon his ear. He tells us, “we
have heard much of late about consolidation; that it is the rallying
word of all who are endeavoring to weaken the Union, by adding to
the power of the states.” But consolidation (says the gentleman) was
the very object for which the Union was formed; and, in support of
that opinion, he read a passage from the address of the president of
the convention to Congress, which he assumes to be authority on his
side of the question. But, sir, the gentleman is mistaken. The object
of the framers of the constitution, as disclosed in that address, was
not the consolidation of the government, but “the consolidation of
the Union.” It was not to draw power from the states, in order to
transfer it to a great national government, but, in the language of the
constitution itself, “to form a more perfect Union;”—and by what
means? By “establishing justice, promoting domestic tranquillity,
and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
This is the true reading of the constitution. But, according to the
gentleman’s reading, the object of the constitution was, to
consolidate the government, and the means would seem to be, the
promotion of injustice, causing domestic discord, and depriving the
states and the people “of the blessings of liberty” forever.
The gentleman boasts of belonging to the party of National
Republicans. National Republicans! A new name, sir, for a very old
thing. The National Republicans of the present day were the
Federalists of ’98, who became Federal Republicans during the war
of 1812, and were manufactured into National Republicans
somewhere about the year 1825.
As a party, (by whatever name distinguished,) they have always
been animated by the same principles, and have kept steadily in view
a common object, the consolidation of the government. Sir, the party
to which I am proud of having belonged, from the very
commencement of my political life to the present day, were the
Democrats of ’98, (Anarchists, Anti-Federalists, Revolutionists, I
think they were sometimes called.) They assumed the name of
Democratic-Republicans in 1822, and have retained their name and
principles up to the present hour. True to their political faith, they
have always, as a party, been in favor of limitations of power; they
have insisted that all powers not delegated to the federal government
are reserved, and have been constantly struggling, as they now are, to
preserve the rights of the states, and to prevent them from being
drawn into the vortex, and swallowed up by one great consolidated
government.
Sir, any one acquainted with the history of parties in this country
will recognize in the points now in dispute between the senator from
Massachusetts and myself the very grounds which have, from the
beginning, divided the two great parties in this country, and which
(call these parties by what names you will, and amalgamate them as
you may) will divide them forever. The true distinction between
those parties is laid down in a celebrated manifesto, issued by the
convention of the Federalists of Massachusetts, assembled in Boston,
in February, 1824, on the occasion of organizing a party opposition
to the reëlection of Governor Eustis. The gentleman will recognize
this as “the canonical book of political scripture;” and it instructs us
that, when the American colonies redeemed themselves from British
bondage, and became so many independent nations, they proposed
to form a National Union, (not a Federal Union, sir, but a national
Union.) Those who were in favor of a union of the states in this form
became known by the name of Federalists; those who wanted no
union of the states, or disliked the proposed form of union, became
known by the name of Anti-Federalists. By means which need not be
enumerated, the Anti-Federalists became (after the expiration of
twelve years) our national rulers, and for a period of sixteen years,
until the close of Mr. Madison’s administration, in 1817, continued to
exercise the exclusive direction of our public affairs. Here, sir, is the
true history of the origin, rise, and progress of the party of National
Republicans, who date back to the very origin of the government,
and who, then, as now, chose to consider the constitution as having
created, not a Federal, but a National Union; who regarded
“consolidation” as no evil, and who doubtless considered it “a
consummation devoutly to be wished” to build up a great “central
government,” “one and indivisible.” Sir, there have existed, in every
age and every country, two distinct orders of men—the lovers of
freedom, and the devoted advocates of power.
The same great leading principles, modified only by the
peculiarities of manners, habits, and institutions, divided parties in
the ancient republics, animated the whigs and tories of Great
Britain, distinguished in our own times the liberals and ultras of
France, and may be traced even in the bloody struggles of unhappy
Spain. Sir, when the gallant Riego, who devoted himself, and all that
he possessed, to the liberties of his country, was dragged to the
scaffold followed by the tears and lamentations of every lover of
freedom throughout the world, he perished amid the deafening cries
of “Long live the absolute king!” The people whom I represent, Mr.
President, are the descendants of those who brought with them to
this country, as the most precious of their possessions, “an ardent
love of liberty;” and while that shall be preserved, they will always be
found manfully struggling against the consolidation of the
government—AS THE WORST OF EVILS.
The senator from Massachusetts, in alluding to the tariff, becomes
quite facetious. He tells us that “he hears of nothing but tariff, tariff,
tariff; and, if a word could be found to rhyme with it, he presumes it
would be celebrated in verse, and set to music.” Sir, perhaps the
gentleman, in mockery of our complaints, may be himself disposed
to sing the praises of the tariff, in doggerel verse, to the tune of “Old
Hundred.” I am not at all surprised, however, at the aversion of the
gentleman to the very name of tariff. I doubt not that it must always
bring up some very unpleasant recollections to his mind. If I am not
greatly mistaken, the senator from Massachusetts was a leading actor
at a great meeting got up in Boston, in 1820, against the tariff. It has
generally been supposed that he drew up the resolutions adopted by
that meeting, denouncing the tariff system as unequal, oppressive,
and unjust, and if I am not much mistaken, denying its
constitutionality. Certain it is, that the gentleman made a speech on
that occasion in support of those resolutions, denouncing the system
in no very measured terms; and, if my memory serves me, calling its
constitutionality in question. I regret that I have not been able to lay
my hands on those proceedings; but I have seen them, and cannot be
mistaken in their character. At that time, sir, the senator from
Massachusetts entertained the very sentiments in relation to the
tariff which the south now entertains. We next find the senator from
Massachusetts expressing his opinion on the tariff, as a member of
the House of Representatives from the city of Boston, in 1824. On
that occasion, sir, the gentleman assumed a position which
commanded the respect and admiration of his country. He stood
forth the powerful and fearless champion of free trade. He met, in
that conflict, the advocates of restriction and monopoly, and they
“fled from before his face.” With a profound sagacity, a fulness of
knowledge, and a richness of illustration that have never been
surpassed, he maintained and established the principles of
commercial freedom, on a foundation never to be shaken. Great
indeed was the victory achieved by the gentleman on that occasion;
most striking the contrast between the clear, forcible, and convincing
arguments by which he carried away the understandings of his
hearers, and the narrow views and wretched sophistry of another
distinguished orator, who may be truly said to have “held up his
farthing candle to the sun.”
Sir, the Senator from Massachusetts, on that, the proudest day of
his life, like a mighty giant, bore away upon his shoulders the pillars
of the temple of error and delusion, escaping himself unhurt, and
leaving his adversaries overwhelmed in its ruins. Then it was that he
erected to free trade a beautiful and enduring monument, and
“inscribed the marble with his name.” Mr. President, it is with pain
and regret that I now go forward to the next great era in the political
life of that gentleman when he was found on this floor, supporting,
advocating, and finally voting for the tariff of 1828—that “bill of
abominations.” By that act, sir, the senator from Massachusetts has
destroyed the labors of his whole life, and given a wound to the cause
of free trade never to be healed. Sir, when I recollect the position
which that gentleman once occupied, and that which he now holds in
public estimation, in relation to this subject, it is not at all surprising
that the tariff should be hateful to his ears. Sir, if I had erected to my
own fame so proud a monument as that which the gentleman built
up in 1824, and I could have been tempted to destroy it with my own
hands, I should hate the voice that should ring “the accursed tariff”
in my ears. I doubt not the gentleman feels very much, in relation to
the tariff, as a certain knight did to “instinct,” and with him would be
disposed to exclaim,—