The Politics of Sectional Memory: Theodore Parker and the "Massachusetts Quarterly Review", 1847-1850

Abstract

On December 22, 1845, Rev. Theodore Parker of West Roxbury went to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to observe Forefathers' Day, a day-long public celebration that commemorated Pilgrims' landing in North America in 1620. Beyond feasts and parades that were traditional on these occasions, Parker took special pains to hear orators Edward Everett and Rufus Choate expound upon virtues, sufferings and sacrifices of New England's founding generation. By time he reached his West Roxbury home that evening, though, joy of occasion had worn off, and sober reflections inspired his nightly journal entry. It was joyous, he wrote, yet sad in recollection. Troubling his thoughts that night were recent political events surrounding annexation of Texas and growing power of southern slave interest in national government. Even more than these incidents themselves, however, Parker was disturbed by lack of any discussion of them in day's ceremonial pageantry. hate to judge men by one thing, he complained, in all day there was but one allusion, I think, to Freezing lessons of history into attractive but meaningless tableaus, brilliant but conservative orators at Plymouth threatened to sever moral link between New England's past glory and its present responsibilities in nation's crisis. Such a detachment of culture from life robbed New Englanders of their most important wellsprings of action, and Parker ultimately felt compelled to conclude that the Spirit of Pilgrims rests no longer in sons.2 Less than two years later, Parker joined Ralph Waldo Emerson and several other Massachusetts scholars, reformers, and politicians in founding Massachusetts Quarterly Review, a journal devoted to literature, politics, religion and humanity. Though initially sharing editorial duties with Emerson and James E. Cabot, Parker took sole custody of journal within a year and became dominant architect of its message. During his three years as editor, Parker used Review both to reinvigorate and to reinvent politics and culture of New England as larger nation struggled with issues of war, expansion, and slavery. Beyond his role as editor, Parker was also journal's most important contributor, and he used it as a platform from which to contest dominance of older, established Massachusetts periodicals whose political and cultural conservatism he saw as dangerous in context of a national crisis. Without fully embracing radical abolitionist ideology, he attempted to reestablish a bridge between his understanding of New England's place in America's republican past, and its crucial role in transforming American present. Reworking old symbols of Puritanism and Revolution, Parker also derived new sectional meaning from materials as diverse as abolitionism, Free Soil politics, and life of John Quincy Adams. Both selective and strikingly opportunistic in his use of sectional history, Parker clung tenaciously to New England's past while confidently rearranging it in search of present meaning. Groping toward more democratic modes of expression and appealing to broadly held sectional values, moreover, Parker also hoped to establish a New England antislavery culture that would transcend movement's ideological divisions.3 As an avenue for expression of New England's special place in American life, Massachusetts Quarterly Review was certainly not alone. Over past several decades, students of New England history have amply documented extraordinary sense of sectional pride and uniqueness that swept across region during early national and antebellum periods. By attending public festivals, creating historical societies, erecting monuments, and consecrating cemeteries, New Englanders not only reinforced a sense of corporate identity, but they also constructed a distinctive and normative image of their history and traditions. …