On to DemocracyII,
On to DemocracyIII,
By Christopher Caustic L. L. D.
In 1805, Thomas Green Fessenden published the poem, Democracy Unveiled, a satire in the Hudibras tradition in which he impaled Thomas Jefferson on his pen. While President Jefferson deserves much credit for his role in the early shaping of the United States, he was not without flaws which Dr. Caustic, the pen name for TGF, was quick to point out.
Of late, the question of Mr. Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings has brought the press to twitter about things of which they know nothing. It is said to have begun with a "vitriolic attack" on Jefferson which appeared in the Richmond Recorder a newspaper, on September 1, 1802. Based on that account, much speculation as to the parentage of Sally Hemings children has been made. Publishing the results of DNA analysis of the heirs in a Nature journal article entitled, "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child", simply muddied the waters further. (See a synopsis in THE WEEK, June 7, 2002, pp9.) Reading Fessenden's poem, Democracy Unveiled, helps put in place "the character of Jefferson" so that a better understanding of how the slavery question was being addressed.
Thomas Fessenden was not the only writer to cast uncomplimentary remarks at Thomas Jefferson. In his famous work, Salmagundi, Washington Irving wrote of the President and Congress and how they did much about nothing, and nothing about much. Nathaniel Hawthorne in Thomas Green Fessenden's obituary published in The American Monthly, 1838 had this to say about Democracy Unveiled.
"In Democracy Unveiled, our friend Dr. Caustic appears as a citizen of the United States, and pours out six cantos of vituperative verse, with copious notes of the same tenor, on the heads of President Jefferson and his supporters. Much of the satire is unpardonably coarse. The literary merits of the work are inferior to those of Terrible Tractoration; but it is no less original and peculiar. Even where the matter is a mere versification of newspaper slander, Dr. Caustic's manner gives it an individuality not to be mistaken. The book passed through three editions in the course of a few months. Its most pungent portions were copied into all the opposition prints; its strange, jog-trot stanzas were familiar to every ear; and Mr. Fessenden may fairly be allowed the credit of having given expression to the feelings of the great Federal party."
In closing his obituary, Hawthorne wrote, "Let his grave be marked out, that the yeomen of New England may know where he sleeps; for he was their familiar friend, and has visited them at all their firesides. He has toiled for them at seed-time and harvest: he has scattered the good grain in every field; and they have garnered the increase. Mark out his grave as that of one worthy to be remembered both in the literary and political annals of our country, and let the laurel be carved on his memorial stone; for it will cover the ashes of a man of genius."
It is easy to recognize our current day politicians dressed in the cloaks of (dis)honor described by Thomas Green Fessenden. Perhaps party names have changed but the morals and character of the individuals are clearly revealed.
Better yet, read the words of Fessenden and draw your own conclusions as we begin with the muse sounding (searching) the ruin-boding Togsin, or outer garment which when opened reveals the character of those concealed within.
ARGUMENT
The wight, who led the Royal College
To furious fight, which all acknowledge
Exceeded, nineteen times to one,
All battles else beneath the sun,
Commences war with certain brats,
Who stile themselves good Democrats
Although in ten there's more than nine,
Just nine times worse than Cataline,
And first begins, sans any coaxing,
To sound his ruin-boding tocsin;
An awful prelude to the battle,
he means to wage with such vile cattle.
Devoid of influence or fear,
I trace Democracy's career,
And paint the vices of the times,
While bad men tremble at my rhymes,
And I'll unmask the Democrat,
Your sometimes this thing, sometimes that,
Whose life is one dishonest shuffle,
Lest he perchance the mob should ruffle;
And who by public good, intends
Whate'er subserves his private end,
And bawls for freedom, in his high rant,
The better to conceal the tyrant.
Determin'd I'll do what I can do,
And pray what more can mortal man do?
For weal and welfare of our nation,
And this backsliding generation.
I'll blow my shrewd satiric horn,
The taunting finger point of scorn
At vice and folly, fools and knaves;
It must be done or we be slaves.
In Tom Paine's "Rights of Man" no smatterer,
The people's friend, but not their flatterer;
I'll not electioneer nor job,
Adore sage Mammoth, nor king mob.
For Chronicle abuse I care not;
But I will cry aloud and spare not,
The tyrant Democrat unveil,
Though damn'd for such a damning tale.
Those who assume, at Faction's call,
A right t' infringe on rights of all,
Who swear all honest a hum,
Who rise because they are the scum,
May hide their heads, for I determine,
To set my foot upon the vermin,
Except some creeping knaves exempt,
Who have not risen to contempt!
A mortal foe to fools and rogues,
Your Democrats and demagogues,
Who've sworn they will not leave us a brick,
Of freedom's blood cemented fabric.
I'll search in Democratic annals,
Elicit truth from dirty channels,
Describe low knaves in high condition,
Though speaking truth is deem'd sedition.
I would not, willingly, omit
One scoundrel, high enough to hit,
But should I chance to make omission,
I'll put him in my next edition.
But still with caution will refrain
From giving honest people pain;
And only private vice unmask,
Where public good requires the task.
I would not wantonly annoy �
No good man's happiness destroy;
None lives, I say, with honest pride, who
Despises slander more than I do.
But when vile convicts make pretence
To power and public confidence,
the indulgent Muse of satire urges
The honest bard to ply her scourges.
And therefore be it known to all,
That though the risk I run's not small,
I'll lash each knave that's now in vogue,
Merely because he is a rogue;
And hope at least to pull the pride down,
Of those, who our best men have lied down,
And have contriv'd the rogues, to rise
By arts, which honest men despise.
Unite your force then, Chronicleers,
With those who have, or have not � ears �
The Aegis-man, and both the Tonies,
May join with half a dozen Honees.
Come, Cheetham, Duane, Smith and Pasquin,
In presidential favor basking;
With all your scoundrel gand affords,
Who straddle poles, or wear wood swords;
Imported patriots, whose fit station
Should be that kind of elevation,
Which happens oft to rogues, less callous,
When they're exalted on the gallows.
I hope your knaveships won't refuse,
To honour me with your abuse;
But let not these, my modest lays,
Be blasted by a scoundrel's praise; �
For since my country's good demands
This piece of justice from my hands,
I'll string you up, sans ceromonie,
From Duane down to dirty Tony.
No threats, nor growling, shall prohibit
My hanging you on satire's gibbet;
Expos'd in dolorous condition,
Like flies impal'd by old Domitian.
Now, since ye are a ruffian crew
As honest Jach Ketch ever knew;
Have chang'd your names, as well as courses,
Like folks who trade � in stealing horses.
I'll take each Demo. And expose his
Form in his each metempsychosis,
Although he takes as many shapes
As Jove for managing his rapes.
As Tories many of you vex'd us,
As Antifederals then perplex'd us,
And ever bent upon confusion,
Oppos'd the Federal Constitution.
And then, camelion like, vile brats!
You call yourselves good Democrats;
And next to drive deception's game,
Self-stil'd Republicans � for shame.
And when by dint of different phases,
You crowd into your betters' places;
Republicans, by process curious,
Are split to "genuine" and "spurious."
But after all these shifts � your rogues,
You're nothing more than demagogues,
And bawl for freedom, in you high rant,
The better to conceal the tyrant!
But my design, and hope, and trust is,
To bring your leading knaves to justice;
Exposed on satire's gibbet high,
To frighten others of the fry.
Thus, when our prudent farmers find
Your Democrats of feather'd kind,
Crows, blackbirds and rapacious jays,
Dispos'd to plunder fields of maize;
If hapt they destroy a few
Of such a lawless, plundering crew,
They hang them in conspicuous places,
To terrify the pilfering race.
ILLUMINISM
ARGUMENT.
We now the origin will trace
Of that dire pest two human race,
That freedom with which France was curst
,
Ere Bonaparte the bubble burst;
The fiend exorcise from our land,
Who erst with desolating hand,
Bade Democrats, a horrid trin,
Half Europe heap with hills of slain.
There was a gaunt Genevan priest,
Mad as our Methodist at least,
Much learning had but no pretence
To wisdom, or to common sense.
This crazy wight, by some mischance,
Had rights to prosecute in France,
By legal subterfuge was cheated,
By pettifogging knaves mal-treated;
Found foppish Frenchmen as they were
Delineated by Voltaire;
Polish'd their manners, but insidious,
Professing friendship, but perfidious.
But since they ere, by reputation,
A most polite and gallant nation,
And since the fickle, fluttering elves,
Were almost worship'd � by themselves;
�Twas thence concluded, by Rousseau,
That all refinement did but go
To alter nature's simple plan,
And scoundrelize the creature man
.
From such rude data theoriz'd.
That man wre best unciviliz'd,
Like those philosophers, who prate
Of Innocence in the savage state.
Ev'n took it in his crazy noodle,
A savage was perfection's model;
And nature without cultivation,
The ne plus ultra of creation.
Anticipated, happy dealings,
When mankind, rul'd by social feelings,
Would be perfected, sans a flaw,
Without the Tyranny of Law.
From such sagacious theorizing,
Was form'd plan of his devising,
By which society destroy'd,
Perfection might be unalloy'd.
A group of sophist him succeed,
French Democrats, detested breed!
Encyclopedists, justly dreaded,
Steely nerv'd, and cobweb-headed. pp24.
With these unite a German swarm,
Of devils, guis'd in human form,
Cold-blooded and wrong-headed wights,
Weishaupt's detested proselytes;
Philosophist, Illuminati,
Beings, of whom, at any rate,
May well affirm a viler set,
Ne'er this side Pandemonium met.
Though twenty volumes would not hold,
What might of them with truth be told;
Though setting forth the horrid tale,
May make New England men turn pale; �
Some of their tenets we will trace,
Which one would think could ne'er have place
This side the Democratic club,
Whose President is Beelzebub.
With other things, which mark the fiend,
That means are sanction'd by the end,
And if some good end we would further,
No matter if the means are murther!
That in this philosophic aera,
A God is found a mere chimaera,
By priest created, but for wildering
Fools, ignoramuses and children.
That worlds of mind may be explor'd,
By lights, which matter can afford,
And Power Omnipotent must bend,
To what a worm can comprehend;
That by some accidental clatter,
Of pristine, crude, chaotic matter,
(But how, and Atheist only knows)
This beauteous universe arose.
That there is nothing like reality,
In future life and immortality;
When death our thread of fate shall sever,
We go to rest, and sleep forever.
That actions are, or are not virtuous,
As they conduce most good or hurt to us,
The agent judging their propriety,
And operation in society.
And maximus hammer'd out for steeling
The mind against each social feeling,
To gain attainable perfection,
Would root out natural affection.
Maintain'd that fathers, children, brothers,
No matter were to us than others;
And as for that frail being, woman,
They held, she should be held in common;
That vice, in all te horrid shapes
Of murder, perjury, theft and rapes,
Is right in those, who can invent,
A mode t' escape from punishment;
That man should have no more remorse,
For evil actions than his horse,
Because, what vulgar folks call conscience,
Is nothing more than vulgar nonsense;
That Modesty is all a trick,
And Chastity � a fiddlestick,
A vile, old fashion'd sort of trimming,
Meant to set off your pretty women;
Like sly Finess, in fille de joye,
Who please more, by being coy,
Than if she came with air voluptuous,
Sans ceremonie dancing up to us.
That Thrones and Powers must be demolish'd,
And all things sacred be abolish'd,
Each man be all, and every thing,
A Subject, Magistrate and King.
Such principles as here are stated,
By Philosophs are circulated,
Sans intermission or fatigue,
By open force or dark intrigue.
No kind of care, nor pains were stinted,
To poison every thing that's printed;
By modes which older men would scorn,
From folio down to book of horn.
Among those human Demons, were
Condorcet, Diderot, Voltaire,
And other shrewd, self-boasted sages,
Whose names shall not disgrace our pages.
At Paris, many a Democrat
In this infernal conclave sat;
Brooding on eggs of dire confusion,
And hatch'd the Gallic revolution.
And reader, I affirm to thee,
A Democrat, Illuminee,
Though noted each by different name,
Are in reality the same.
They each object to the propriety
Of law and order in society;
Think reason will supply restraints,
And make mankind a set of saints.
Their leading tenets tally nicely,
And are, I think, the same, precisely,
Unfolded by that fish of odd fin,
The Jacobinic William Godwin.
They thought society was needing
A little salutary bleeding;
To kill one half mankind were best,
Just to philosophize the rest.
And now the boding storm began
To threaten civil, social man;
While vials of Illumination
Are pour'd on each surrounding nation
.
Kings, nobles, priests, besotted elver,
Strangely combin'd against themselves;
Oppose with blind infuriate zeal,
Their own, as well as public weal.
Scarce could the bard in half a century
Describe the progress of this gentry,
Or trace illuminated guilt
Through seas of blood by mad men spilt
.
Great Britain felt the fated shock,
But Pitt was her salvations's rock;
Like Calpe's mound amid the waves,
He stems the tide, his country saves;
He sees the aims and thwarts the plans
Of Democratic partizans;
Breaks down nefarious coalitions
Of self created politicians.
But well the reader knows, I fancy,
How Freedom alamode de Francois,
Was Forc'd to choose for her Protector,
The Corsic' Despot to perfect her.
Surrender'd all her harlot charms
To murderer Bonaparte's arms;
And, now, is doubtless safe enough in
The clutches of that ragamuffin. pp 54.
On to DemocracyII,
On to DemocracyIII,
Second Edition, Printed for the Author by David Carlisle, Boston, 1805.
Refer to Nathaniel Hawthorne - Thomas Green Fessenden (an obituary) which is posted on the web for a well balanced review of Mr. Fessenden's contribution to the development of the United States.
****
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