I don't believe anyone had defined "The American Way" back then. To my understanding, "The Way" was anything goes, each to his own. That was "The Way". Everyone having the freedom to do his/her thing without some damn bureaucrat sticking his/her nose into your business.
You look at the Puritans entirely from a 21st century point of view. To understand them better, you'd have to look at them more in their 17th century context. Certainly many of their contemporaries hated them for some of the reasons you lay down here. But some things you rebuke them for were common to many different groups in 17th century Britain, and in some things, the Puritans may have been "ahead of their times" (i.e. more like us).
Puritanism was largely a regional influence, and to understand early America you'd have to look at the other regions and the denominations that predominated in other colonies. I recommend Daniel Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed for its comparative study of New England, Virginia, Pennsylvania and the frontier. Also, Puritan New England changed a lot over its history. By the 18th century much of the old repressiveness had been lost, but there was some value to what remained -- rigorous examination of conscience, etc.
It might help to look at Puritanism in two contrasting lights. The first is as an example of the coercive utopianism that periodically plagues mankind. But the other is as an attempt to take seriously and apply many of the religous doctrines that have come down to us and that we still honor. It was a mistake to try to create a kingdom of the saints, since people aren't apt to live saintly lives for very long. But many of Puritanism's roots are our own, and in some things they may have been truer to that heritage than we have been. Still, I suspect that with all the talk about militant Islam, the repute of these militant Protestant Christians, is bound to decline for the forseeable future.
Finally, "futurepotus" sounds way too Clintonesque.
Son, it is your arrogance that is disgusting. You really believe that you are going to be a "Future POTUS"?
Winthrop's Massachussetts was a "city on a hill", the "eyes of all people" were upon it.
Note also that you don't seem to understand that the term "Puritan" has a much broader use. Of course, one who is arrogant enough to think that his writing is soooo good won't listen to the sound instruction required to correct his errors.
You get an "F."
The first is on the influence of Calvinism (the theology of the Puritans) on the formation of America, The Root of America. The second is a compendium of important source documents for American and Western history and civilization, the American Colonist's Library.
You will find that these links will greatly broaden your education in this vitally important area.
It contains opinion to be sure...but the opinions are supported by exhaustively documented historical facts and events. Your essay is an opinion supported by...well, nothing but assertion and invective. Poor persuasive techniques, to be sure...you deserved a C or worse.
I do not agree with all of the authors' opinions, as I'm sure you won't. But you would have been in a MUCH better position to write a solid essay had you read this book first.
Btw...taxes were extremely low during the Colonial period. For all their faults, puritans and their offshoots took care of their own problems. Which is one reason New England became an economic powerhouse.
But, for an A.P. class, I'd have to give it a D+.
The over-all ignorance and bias towards Puritans and their philosophy is disappointing. It reads as if your research consisted of skimming the Cliff Notes to Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" while watching the "Scarlett Letter" on TV.
Here are some more specific comments:
The Puritans, who made the trip to Massachusetts in the 1630's, in order to freely attempt to purify the Anglican Church, did not represent the American way.
Translation: “Settlers in the 1630’s viewed the world differently from those who lived two hundred years afterwords.”
Brilliant thesis.
The arrogance of Puritan leaders like John Winthrop was disgusting in itself. Winthrop said, "we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." None of the Founding Fathers of the United States shared these sentiments.
The US was described, by the Founding Fahters, as the great motherland of liberty. What could be more "arrogant" than the Delcaration of Independence? Even today American politicans describe the US as the last great bastion of freedom on earth, with people streaming to its shores, etc., etc.
The Puritans never gave what is now known in America as a fair trial. Nineteen people were hanged as a result of predominantly hostile testimony.
Quite a generalization based on the isolated events in one city.
Incidentally, the Puritans’ courts were based on the English common law and had virtually the same procedures. What constitutes a “fair trial” evolves. The Founding Fathers didn’t practice Miranda Rights, Exclusions of Evidence, and were far far more strict when it came to hearsay. The courts in 1790 differ more from the courts of 2001, than the did the courts of 1630 differ from the courts of 1790.
The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal; a belief that the Puritans did not exhibit. The Puritans had the false notion that only "Saints" could receive God's grace. Reverend John Cotton said, "We teach that only Doers will be saved." If a person living in Salem was not a Doer, he or she was outcast from society, which is not the American way. The American way teaches that different is good. The Puritans were saved, somewhat, when Governor Phips stopped the witch trials.
You misunderstand the Declaration’s observation that all men are created equal. Locke’s statement had nothing to do with salvation; rather, it had to do with the equality of authority -- i.e, no man born of woman had an inherent right to rule over any other man. To the extent the Puritans were anti-royalists, they agreed with the Declaration’s statement of equality.
No outside factor was to blame for the failure of the Puritan society. The culprit was their own weak psychological state-of-mind.
Wow. You are a psychologist too?
How can a “state-of-mind” NOT be psychological?
The Puritans were religious zealots who alienated their fellow man and thought it was right. Any Puritan who wanted the gift of grace was required to go through the conversion experience. The conversion experience was often extremely humiliating, because the experience consisted of the potential member having to confess all of their sins in front of the congregation. The Puritans, in their disillusionment, were unable to see the complete and utter correctness of the beliefs belonging to Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Hutchinson, who was eventually banished to Rhode Island, believed in immediate conversion by God.
And now you are a theologian...
What legitimate historian would refer to one denomination as “disillusioned zealots” and another denomination as being “complete and utter[ly] correct”?
The above-paragraph would have got you and “F” in my day.
Separation of church and state was unheard of in the Puritan way of life. The Puritans were governed by John Winthrop's Bible Commonwealth, which met where the town church did, at the town meetinghouse. A moral decision is not always correct.
Wrong. A moral decision IS always correct.
That’s the definition of a moral decision.
The only thing that Americans in the 21st century can learn from the Puritans of the 17th century is that Puritanism is exactly what should not be happening today. If the United States government were solely concerned with religious matters, nothing would get accomplished.
The Puritans were, as you say, “solely concerned with religious matters”, and they built the foundation upon which we sit to this day. I think that is quite an accomplishment.
As a statement of fact today, I, too, would say that today's "People for the American Way" does not represent what, for over 200 years, has been known as "the American Way."
You are 400 years away from the Puritans. Doubtless, you have been schooled in a system that has brought you to your study of the Puritans with certain "blinders" on. The textbooks used in most schools largely were written by 20th Century writers with an agenda, and many literally re-wrote America's history to suit their own narrow agendas.
This I discovered several years ago when I was working on a project involving American history. When I began to delve into the writings of the people of that day, into the prolific writings of the Founders of our nation (both political figures and ordinary citizens), I found a totally different view of the founding philosophy than I had been taught in school and college.
You are to be commended for putting your paper out here and subjecting it to criticism.
May I respectfully suggest that you try to take off any "blinders" imposed on your God-given brain and reason by any so-called historians or teachers of the past 100 years and immerse yourself in the writings of the period you are studying and those preceding it--all the writings you can find through research.
Ideas have consequences, and the ideas of liberty that were the passion of Americans of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th Century are the ideas that have enabled you to live in a land of liberty.
So-called "American Way" ideas of the 20th Century have contributed to the national dilemma we find ourselves in now, for they have taken us backward into ideas of tyranny and coercive government power and control under the guise of "protecting" us from ourselves.
On your subject, you might find a copy of Governor Bradford's Diary of Plimouth Rock, examine the contents, and then go forward through the development of the events that followed. When, in 1776, Jefferson wrote words which he described as representing "the American mind" of the day, they capsulized an idea so powerful that it changed the world and brought about the greatest explosion of liberty, goods, and services the world has ever known.
Even in 1776, Edmund Burke recognized that the great spirit of liberty exhibited by British colonists in America came from their religious belief, and spoke of it in his impassioned "Speech on Conciliation" before the Parliament.
De Tocqueville traveled in America and wrote about it, and another Frenchman, Bartholdi, was so inspired by American liberty that he designed our Statue of Liberty, donated by the French government in honor of our Centennial.
Your paper is your writing of today.
If you aspire to POTUS status, I would encourage you to take no second-hand word of America's founding principles and ideas. Read them for yourself, and one day I look to see a far different paper.
1) You can't talk about the Puritans without mentioning the world from which they came. These guys were the English Revolution, man---they weren't cultish small potato super-religious zombie hicks. They were the "radical" element of perhaps the most important revolution in history---the revolution which first questioned the "divine right" of kings and the power of centralized sovereignty.Learn to think for yourself, man, and don't merely regurgitate what your teacher tells you. Do that and you'll be fine.2) The "shining light upon a hill" was a pep talk given during a sermon, I believe, when the Puritans first left their ship. Hardly a chest-thumping boast, just a really, really good Knute Rockne speech.
3) The Puritans gave us Massholes the "town meeting," which is perhaps the only form of true democracy in the United States. They did do something positive.
Oh for heaven's sake! I get suspended for three days for using profanity, and this is the first thing I see when I get back?! What is this, some kind of test of my will power?
Look: The notion that fundamentalist Christians were one dimensional in the past OR that they are one dimensional today is SUCH a misguided notion that it seems to cross the line dividing mis-information from propaganda.
When I took AP history, the AP stood for "advanced placement." What does it stand for today, "advanced propaganda?"
The Pilgrims were a logical development of the Dissenters movement. The original "Nonconformists." Far from being "solely concerned with religious matters," it was the Dissenters who, in England, built canals, a dynamic banking system, a dynamic educational system, and, for the most part, planted the seeds that would later be exploited by a secular Britain and turned into the Industrial Revolution.
Fundamentalist Christians aren't one dimensional people. They're just people who have a different set of priorities than the secular Establishment. (FYI, commercial NMR imaging was perfected by an Evangelical Christian. One of the advanced versions of the Pentium chip was designed by a Born Again Christian.)
Mark W.
I'll studied that part of American history rather well.
The point you are trying to make reeks of post-modern thought.
If you want to read real information about the Puritans, may I suggest any thing written pre-civil war.
A lot closer historical and not biased by the philosophy of Neitze
"The Puritans had a lot on their plate in 1692. Disease, poverty, and paranoia about the Indians did a number on the social way of life in Salem. Teenage girls were unhappy with their mothers. The girls decided the best solution was to make others pay for their "suffering"- the Salem Witch Trials of 1692." This is frankly all the BULL I want to respond to. This LIBERAL REVISIONISM of history makes my head spin. Where is your support for this? Yeah, so what that some of the accusationers were rivals....it looks bad, but where is the PROOF that it was the reason behind the trials? Perhaps it was the fact that hysteria spread wild...ever think of that? No, because you are not able to see things objectively like a true historian. Now, perhaps you should talk to Richard Trask, a person who is an actual Puritan authority, unlike you. Mr. Trask is the historian in Danvers, Mass. and has access to all the primary source documents on the trials. He has written books on this subject and I have conversed with him about this topic. He says that there is absolutely no support for the idea that it was greed the motivated the trials. In fact, he says evidence flies in its face because even if people were executed, the property would almost never be able to change families to the people accusing them of witchcraft. Until you have read the Salem Witchcraft Papers, keep your ignorant mouth shut.
Please, before you ever run for President of the United States, read Edmund S. Morgan's _The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop_. Winthrop was the leader of the Puritan Colony at Massachusetts Bay, and he knew both Christian theology and the practical politics of leadership. You will be a better POTUS for having read about Winthrop's life. Morgan also addresses many of the intellectual problems that you and your teachers seem to have about the Puritans, and I recommend the book for that reason, also.
When I was in graduate school (MA, American History, Western Carolina University, 1976), I read Morgan's book, however, and thought that he had not dealt adequately with certain aspects of the "Puritan dilemma." Consequently, I dealt with them in my master's thesis, which was later published by Ross House, the publishing arm of the Chalcedon Foundation, as _The Guise of Every Graceless Heart: Human Autonomy in Puritan Thought and Experience_ (Ross House, 1981). I also recommend it for your study of some of the problems you mention in your essay. I think I tried to deal with most of them in my effort.
Best wishes to you in your continuing study! I'd have given you a D or so for your superficiality, but a B or so for courage and effort. The Puritans are worth your concentrated study; don't let the FR critics get you down, and don't let the academic humanists brainwash you into superficial conclusions.