A few weeks ago, while browsing through issues of John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States, I came across an intriguing text whose author I could not identify.
The text in question was a polemic “On Slavery,” excerpted from a larger work called “American Essays.” At the end of the piece appeared the initials “E.C.” My first thought was that this might be a mangled attribution to Crèvecouer, but that was a stretch.
I took the problem to history Twitter, to see if anyone recognized either the initial essay, the collection “American Essays,” or the style or initials of the author. Several scholars of the Early Republic chatted with me via Twitter messages as we tried to narrow down the possibilities. None of us could find sections of the piece quoted elsewhere, and, as Joseph Adelman pointed out, the argument of the essay—that slavery is a necessary evil to which Africans are particularly well-suited—is not a fit for Crèvecouer.
I had all but given up on solving the mystery when I received a cheering message from Benjamin H. Irvin, editor of the Journal of American History. “That’s a nicely burrowed rabbit hole,” he wrote. “I am sorry to have fallen in, but I came out with Edward Church by the ears. Email me if you want my methods.”
I have never written an email so fast in my life. I wanted to know everything.
Columbo-style, the good Professor Irvin laid out all the clues and told me how he figured it out. With his permission, I am reprinting his email below:
I searched the “Gazette” for “American Essays” to find out how many had been printed. I found thirteen, and thought, ok, this will be short work. But to my surprise, in an era of liberal reprinting, none of these essays appeared anywhere else. This non-discovery led me to suspect that, contrary to my assumption that these “extracts” had been taken from a larger project printed elsewhere, they might have instead been tailor-written for the “Gazette,” or perhaps they were intended for publication later. I confirmed this theory when I went back to the first essay, “On Religious Toleration,” which opens with the explanation that the author “proposes soon to offer” the essays for publication.
Then I feared that my search was sunk. But I kept going for a bit—rabbit hole—by searching the internet for distinctive passages from the text of the essays, hoping to find one that had been reprinted elsewhere. No luck. No luck. No luck. No luck even with material that genuinely should have been printed elsewhere or at least cited by latter-day historians: On Duelling, Honestus and Constantia, on Female Indelicacy. Surely someone has quoted and analyzed this material.
Still no luck. Just as I was about to give up, I ran “give freedom to the shackled mind,” from the last paragraph of “On Religious Toleration.” That language, and portions of the essay from which it is excerpted, appeared in “Inquisitive Traveller: a Poetic Essay, with Some Preliminary Observations,” published by E.C., Edward Church, in 1802. You may view the text here:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008404604
Is this conclusive? Not perfectly, but the initials match and the text contains verbatim passages. Hopefully that’s enough to get you started. (Depending on your purpose, you might use care to distinguish among different Edward Churches in the same family. I stumbled upon a Church genealogy site, the descendant-author of which was befuddled about which Edward Church authored “Inquisitive Traveller.”)
My deepest thanks to Prof. Irvin for pursuing this trail of clues all the way to its very credible conclusion.
After he provided me with the name “Edward Church,” I searched the Adams family papers and discovered that Church had written a screed against John Adams (I know; take a number) because Adams had failed to secure Church a position in the Washington administration.
In any case, interested scholars will now have some insights into the identity of the author of a collection of thirteen essays discussing various social issues in America at the dawn of the Early Republic, published in John Fenno’s Gazette.
Thanks to the Chronicling America database, the vibrant community of historians on Twitter, and the persistence of a savvy scholar and editor….mystery solved!
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Edward Church was one of those that appears to have been crafting these letters. I looked at his correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. Others included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison and at least 20 others.
“History may distort truth, and will distort it for a time, by the superior efforts at justification of those who are conscious of needing it most. Nor will the opening scenes of our present government be seen in their true aspect, until the letters of the day, now held in private hoards, shall be broken up and laid open to public view. What a treasure will be found in General Washington’s cabinet, when it shall pass into the hands of as candid a friend to truth as he was himself!”
[Thomas Jefferson, To Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823, Letter Founders Online MHI: Adams Paper]
What has kept these letters “private” from academic scrutiny for over 200 years is that they are 18th century literal metaphorical ciphers that used a method of ciphering invented by Benjamin Franklin.
I have located over 1000 of them at this point in time which makes sense once one comes to understand their purpose. They expose a constitutional legacy that was deemed to be ahead of its time. An intellectual war against right wing ideology.
I am a software architect with over 20 years of experience. On December 2 2015 I stumbled onto the contextual “key” to these letters though I did not know it was ALSO a key at the time. A literal algebraic equation that was crafted with extremely clever English, Mathematics and Human Psychology.
It was not within the power for the authors of these letters to end slavery. It took a civil war to do that. From a very young age Benjamin Franklin was not buying into what 18th century society was trying to sell him. He saw people cherry picking scripture and using skin pigment and money as logic. He was only found of the Quakers because they weren’t so much science deniers and didn’t mind educating the black man.
Benjamin Franklin wanted to invent a better society. He recognize that there was no cure for our own human nature and wouldn’t be one any time soon. In order to get that society he first needed a constitution to protect it from its own human nature. The problem was in getting the colonies to agree to it. He knew that they tended to think only in black and white and use emotion as logic. As they say.. follow the money. He knew they would read what they wanted too. He knew anyone could be a tyrannical thinker if they didn’t think of their fellow man first.
As a polymath Benjamin Franklin through everything he had at this. He was a master of human psychology. He could likely sum up a person in 10 minutes by first studying their “approach to thinking”. When the human ego gets too big it will usually conclude that it knows everything. This is impossible. When the ego concludes it knows everything the we also know when a persons curiosity has died.
It doesn’t matter how intelligent we are or how intelligent we are not. Our education may or may not support the truth of history. Benjamin Franklin had to find a way to outsmart 18th century society to tell a future time what was really going on a provide a method for reading the constitution so that it could no longer be cherry picked.
The ‘candid a friend” to truth was just an anticipated variable in the American Experiment. These letters are a primary component. Benjamin Franklins first attempt to activate the experiment was in 1754 with his Albany Plan. That didn’t work out. After the revolutionary war was fought and won nothing really changed. The sub-cultures of human oppression instantly became their own kingdoms. The experiment was activated on December 15, 1791. It concluded on December 2 2015.
These letters prove themselves as being ciphers using the objectivity of mathematics. There is also an explanation for why the Eagles head on the Seal is facing the “olive branches” and not the “arrows” as it was published in 1782 FIVE YEARS PRIOR to the convention. Were some of the more enlightened of 18th century society well-versed in the usage of hyphens? Yes. “We hold these truths to be self-evident”. Benjamin Franklin was the “creator”. Who would be better qualified? George Mason? Patrick Henry? No. While I’m in no way a slavery apologist these letters will likely explain the paradox of Thomas Jefferson as being a slave owner. He was told to stay put as a slave owner and a Virginian so that the old boys club wouldn’t be suspicious of him. A conspiracy? Yes. A conspiracy of human nature. There has never been an easier sales pitch in human history than a perception of a gift of power and POWER = MONEY = ARMS. Liberty is the output of this equation but only as Noah Webster defined it.
Unfortunately I don’t have the letters “PHD” behind my name as proof of intelligence. I find it a bit ironic. I don’t know why everyone has always assumed that James Madison was not smart enough to have known how to construct a sentence. It is black and white thinking to believe that an entire society didn’t know when to use hyphens. We can CHOOSE to think only in terms of black and white but sometimes the truth can live in the gray. In this regard a truth has been lost for over 224 years. Its discovery was anticipated because experience was to be the best teacher and that would take time to wake up and smell the coffee. The children of Parkland have been in Pursuit of Happiness. They will have it as constitutional right.