History of American Socialisms

Social Theory.

[Leading propositions of Bible Communism slightly condensed.]

Chapter I.—Showing what is properly to be anticipated concerning the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven and its institutions on earth.

Proposition 1.—The Bible predicts the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Dan. 2: 44. Isa. 25: 6-9.

2.—The administration of the will of God in his kingdom on earth, will be the same as the administration of his will in heaven. Matt. 6: 10. Eph. 1: 10.

3.—In heaven God reigns over body, soul, and estate, without interference from human governments. Dan. 2: 44. 1 Cor. 15: 24, 25. Isa. 26: 13, 14, and 33: 22.

4.—The institutions of the Kingdom of Heaven are of such a nature, that the general disclosure of them in the apostolic age would have been inconsistent with the continuance of the institutions of the world through the times of the Gentiles. They were not, therefore, brought out in detail on the surface of the Bible, but were disclosed verbally by Paul and others, to the interior part of the church. 1 Cor. 2: 6. 2 Cor. 12: 4. John 16: 12, 13. Heb. 9: 5.

Chapter II.—Showing that Marriage is not an institution of the Kingdom of Heaven, and must give place to Communism.

Proposition 5.—In the Kingdom of Heaven, the institution of marriage, which assigns the exclusive possession of one woman to one man, does not exist. Matt. 22: 23-30.

6.—In the Kingdom of Heaven the intimate union of life and interest, which in the world is limited to pairs, extends through the whole body of believers; i.e. complex marriage takes the place of simple. John 17: 21. Christ prayed that all believers might be one, even as he and the Father are one. His unity with the Father is defined in the words, "All mine are thine, and all thine are mine." Ver. 10. This perfect community of interests, then, will be the condition of all, when his prayer is answered. The universal unity of the members of Christ, is described in the same terms that are used to describe marriage unity. Compare 1 Cor. 12: 12-27, with Gen. 2: 24. See also 1 Cor. 6: 15-17, and Eph. 5: 30-32.

7.—The effects of the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, present a practical commentary on Christ's prayer for the unity of believers, and a sample of the tendency of heavenly influences, which fully confirm the foregoing proposition. "All that believed were together and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every man had need." "The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." Acts 2: 44, 45, and 4: 32. Here is unity like that of the Father and the Son: "All mine thine, and all thine mine."

8.—Admitting that the Community principle of the day of Pentecost, in its actual operation at that time, extended only to material goods, yet we affirm that there is no intrinsic difference between property in persons and property in things; and that the same spirit which abolished exclusiveness in regard to money, would abolish, if circumstances allowed full scope to it, exclusiveness in regard to women and children. Paul expressly places property in women and property in goods in the same category, and speaks of them together, as ready to be abolished by the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven. "The time," says he, "is short; it remaineth that they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that buy as though they possessed not; for the fashion of this world passeth away." 1 Cor. 7: 29-31.

9.—The abolishment of appropriation is involved in the very nature of a true relation to Christ in the gospel. This we prove thus: The possessive feeling which expresses itself by the possessive pronoun mine, is the same in essence when it relates to persons, as when it relates to money or any other property. Amativeness and acquisitiveness are only different channels of one stream. They converge as we trace them to their source. Grammar will help us to ascertain their common center; for the possessive pronoun mine, is derived from the personal pronoun I; and so the possessive feeling, whether amative or acquisitive, flows from the personal feeling, that is, it is a branch of egotism. Now egotism is abolished by the gospel relation to Christ. The grand mystery of the gospel is vital union with Christ; the merging of self in his life; the extinguishment of the pronoun I at the spiritual center. Thus Paul says, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." The grand distinction between the Christian and the unbeliever, between heaven and the world, is, that in one reigns the We-spirit, and in the other the I-spirit. From I comes mine, and from the I-spirit comes exclusive appropriation of money, women, etc. From we comes ours, and from the We-spirit comes universal community of interests.

10.—The abolishment of exclusiveness is involved in the love-relation required between all believers by the express injunction of Christ and the apostles, and by the whole tenor of the New Testament. "The new commandment is, that we love one another," and that, not by pairs, as in the world, but en masse. We are required to love one another fervently. The fashion of the world forbids a man and woman who are otherwise appropriated, to love one another fervently. But if they obey Christ they must do this; and whoever would allow them to do this, and yet would forbid them (on any other ground than that of present expediency), to express their unity, would "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel;" for unity of hearts is as much more important than any external expression of it, as a camel is larger than a gnat.

11.—The abolishment of social restrictions is involved in the anti-legality of the gospel. It is incompatible with the state of perfected freedom toward which Paul's gospel of "grace without law" leads, that man should be allowed and required to love in all directions, and yet be forbidden to express love except in one direction. In fact Paul says, with direct reference to sexual intercourse—"All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any;" (1 Cor. 6: 12;) thus placing the restrictions which were necessary in the transition period on the basis, not of law, but of expediency and the demands of spiritual freedom, and leaving it fairly to be inferred that in the final state, when hostile surroundings and powers of bondage cease, all restrictions also will cease.

12.—The abolishment of the marriage system is involved in Paul's doctrine of the end of ordinances. Marriage is one of the "ordinances of the worldly sanctuary." This is proved by the fact that it has no place in the resurrection. Paul expressly limits it to life in the flesh. Rom. 7: 2, 3. The assumption, therefore, that believers are dead to the world by the death of Christ (which authorized the abolishment of Jewish ordinances), legitimately makes an end of marriage. Col. 2: 20.

13.—The law of marriage is the same in kind with the Jewish law concerning meats and drinks and holy days, of which Paul said that they were "contrary to us, and were taken out of the way, being nailed to the cross." Col. 2: 14. The plea in favor of the worldly social system, that it is not arbitrary, but founded in nature, will not bear investigation. All experience testifies (the theory of the novels to the contrary notwithstanding), that sexual love is not naturally restricted to pairs. Second marriages are contrary to the one-love theory, and yet are often the happiest marriages. Men and women find universally (however the fact may be concealed), that their susceptibility to love is not burnt out by one honey-moon, or satisfied by one lover. On the contrary, the secret history of the human heart will bear out the assertion that it is capable of loving any number of times and any number of persons, and that the more it loves the more it can love. This is the law of nature, thrust out of sight and condemned by common consent, and yet secretly known to all.

14.—The law of marriage "worketh wrath." 1. It provokes to secret adultery, actual or of the heart. 2. It ties together unmatched natures. 3. It sunders matched natures. 4. It gives to sexual appetite only a scanty and monotonous allowance, and so produces the natural vices of poverty, contraction of taste and stinginess or jealousy. 5. It makes no provision for the sexual appetite at the very time when that appetite is the strongest. By the custom of the world, marriage, in the average of cases, takes place at about the age of twenty-four; whereas puberty commences at the age of fourteen. For ten years, therefore, and that in the very flush of life, the sexual appetite is starved. This law of society bears hardest on females, because they have less opportunity of choosing their time of marriage than men. This discrepancy between the marriage system and nature, is one of the principal sources of the peculiar diseases of women, of prostitution, masturbation, and licentiousness in general.

Chapter III.—Showing that death is to be abolished, and that, to this end, there must be a restoration of true relations between the Sexes.

Proposition 15.—The Kingdom of Heaven is destined to abolish death in this world. Rom. 8: 19-25. 1. Cor. 15: 24-26. Isa. 25: 8.

16.—The abolition of death is to be the last triumph of the Kingdom of Heaven; and the subjection of all other powers to Christ must go before it. 1 Cor. 15: 24-26. Isa. 33: 22-24.

17.—The restoration of true relations between the sexes is a matter second in importance only to the reconciliation of man to God. The distinction of male and female is that which makes man the image of God, i.e. the image of the Father and the Son. Gen. 1: 27. The relation of male and female was the first social relation. Gen. 2: 22. It is therefore the root of all other social relations. The derangement of this relation was the first result of the original breach with God. Gen. 3: 7; comp. 2: 25. Adam and Eve were, at the beginning, in open, fearless, spiritual fellowship, first with God, and secondly, with each other. Their transgression produced two corresponding alienations, viz., first, an alienation from God, indicated by their fear of meeting him and their hiding themselves among the trees of the garden; and secondly, an alienation from each other, indicated by their shame at their nakedness and their hiding themselves from each other by clothing. These were the two great manifestations of original sin—the only manifestations presented to notice in the record of the apostacy. The first thing then to be done, in an attempt to redeem man and reörganize society, is to bring about reconciliation with God; and the second thing is to bring about a true union of the sexes. In other words, religion is the first subject of interest, and sexual morality the second, in the great enterprise of establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

18.—We may criticise the system of the Fourierists, thus: The chain of evils which holds humanity in ruin, has four links, viz., 1st, a breach with God; (Gen. 3: 8;) 2d, a disruption of the sexes, involving a special curse on woman; (Gen. 3: 16;) 3d, the curse of oppressive labor, bearing specially on man; (Gen. 3: 17-19;) 4th, the reign of disease and death. (Gen. 3: 22-24.) These are all inextricably complicated with each other. The true scheme of redemption begins with reconciliation with God, proceeds first to a restoration of true relations between the sexes, then to a reform of the industrial system, and ends with victory over death. Fourierism has no eye to the final victory over death, defers attention to the religious question and the sexual question till some centuries hence, and confines itself to the rectifying of the industrial system. In other words, Fourierism neither begins at the beginning nor looks to the end of the chain, but fastens its whole interest on the third link, neglecting two that precede it, and ignoring that which follows it. The sin-system, the marriage-system, the work-system, and the death-system, are all one, and must be abolished together. Holiness, free-love, association in labor, and immortality, constitute the chain of redemption, and must come together in their true order.

19.—From what precedes, it is evident that any attempt to revolutionize sexual morality before settlement with God, is out of order. Holiness must go before free love. Bible Communists are not responsible for the proceedings of those who meddle with the sexual question, before they have laid the foundation of true faith and union with God.

20.—Dividing the sexual relation into two branches, the amative and propagative, the amative or love-relation is first in importance, as it is in the order of nature. God made woman because "he saw it was not good for man to be alone;" (Gen. 2: 18); i.e., for social, not primarily for propagative, purposes. Eve was called Adam's "help-meet." In the whole of the specific account of the creation of woman, she is regarded as his companion, and her maternal office is not brought into view. Gen. 2: 18-25. Amativeness was necessarily the first social affection developed in the garden of Eden. The second commandment of the eternal law of love, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," had amativeness for its first channel; for Eve was at first Adam's only neighbor. Propagation and the affections connected with it, did not commence their operation during the period of innocence. After the fall God said to the woman, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;" from which it is to be inferred that in the original state, conception would have been comparatively infrequent.

21.—The amative part of the sexual relation, separate from the propagative, is eminently favorable to life. It is not a source of life (as some would make it), but it is the first and best distributive of life. Adam and Eve, in their original state, derived their life from God. Gen. 2: 7. As God is a dual being, the Father and the Son, and man was made in his image, a dual life passed from God to man. Adam was the channel specially of the life of the Father, and Eve of the life of the Son. Amativeness was the natural agency of the distribution and mutual action of these two forms of life. In this primitive position of the sexes (which is their normal position in Christ), each reflects upon the other the love of God; each excites and develops the divine action in the other.

22.—The propagative part of the sexual relation is in its nature the expensive department. 1. While amativeness keeps the capital stock of life circulating between two, propagation introduces a third partner.

2. The propagative act is a drain on the life of man, and when habitual, produces disease. 3. The infirmities and vital expenses of woman during the long period of pregnancy, waste her constitution. 4. The awful agonies of child-birth heavily tax the life of woman. 5. The cares of the nursing period bear heavily on woman. 6. The cares of both parents, through the period of the childhood of their offspring, are many and burdensome. 7. The labor of man is greatly increased by the necessity of providing for children. A portion of these expenses would undoubtedly have been curtailed, if human nature had remained in its original integrity, and will be, when it is restored. But it is still self-evident that the birth of children, viewed either as a vital or a mechanical operation, is in its nature expensive; and the fact that multiplied conception was imposed as a curse, indicates that it was so regarded by the Creator.

Chapter IV.—Showing how the Sexual Function is to be redeemed, and true relations between the sexes restored.

Proposition 23.—The amative and propagative functions are distinct from each other, and may be separated practically. They are confounded in the world, both in the theories of physiologists and in universal practice. The amative function is regarded merely as a bait to the propagative, and is merged in it. But if amativeness is, as we have seen, the first and noblest of the social affections, and if the propagative part of the sexual relation was originally secondary, and became paramount by the subversion of order in the fall, we are bound to raise the amative office of the sexual organs into a distinct and paramount function. [Here follows a full exposition of the doctrine of self-control or Male Continence, which is an essential part of the Oneida theory, but may properly be omitted in this history.]

Chapter V.—Showing that Shame, instead of being one of the prime virtues, is a part of original Sin and belongs to the Apostasy.

Proposition 24.—Sexual shame was the consequence of the fall, and is factitious and irrational. Gen. 2: 25; compare 3: 7. Adam and Eve, while innocent, had no shame; little children have none; other animals have none.

Chapter VI.—Showing the bearings of the preceding views on Socialism, Political Economy, Manners and Customs, etc.

Proposition 25.—The foregoing principles concerning the sexual relation, open the way for Association. 1. They furnish motives. They apply to larger partnerships the same attractions that draw and bind together pairs in the worldly partnership of marriage. A Community home in which each is married to all, and where love is honored and cultivated, will be as much more attractive than an ordinary home, as the Community out-numbers a pair. 2. These principles remove the principal obstructions in the way of Association. There is plenty of tendency to crossing love and adultery, even in the system of isolated households. Association increases this tendency. Amalgamation of interests, frequency of interview, and companionship in labor, inevitably give activity and intensity to the social attractions in which amativeness is the strongest element. The tendency to extra-matrimonial love will be proportioned to the condensation of interests produced by any given form of Association; that is, if the ordinary principles of exclusiveness are preserved, Association will be a worse school of temptation to unlawful love than the world is, in proportion to its social advantages. Love, in the exclusive form, has jealousy for its complement; and jealousy brings on strife and division. Association, therefore, if it retains one-love exclusiveness, contains the seeds of dissolution; and those seeds will be hastened to their harvest by the warmth of associate life. An Association of States with custom-house lines around each, is sure to be quarrelsome. The further States in that situation are apart, and the more their interests are isolated, the better. The only way to prevent smuggling and strife in a confederation of contiguous States, is to abolish custom-house lines from the interior, and declare free-trade and free transit, collecting revenues and fostering home products by one custom-house line around the whole. This is the policy of the heavenly system—'that they all [not two and two] may be one.'

26.—In vital society, strength will be increased and the necessity of labor diminished, till work will become sport, as it would have been in the original Eden state. Gen. 2: 15; compare 3: 17-19. Here we come to the field of the Fourierists—the third link of the chain of evil. And here we shall doubtless ultimately avail ourselves of many of the economical and industrial discoveries of Fourier. But as the fundamental principle of our system differs entirely from that of Fourier, (our foundation being his superstructure, and vice versa,) and as every system necessarily has its own complement of external arrangements, conformed to its own genius, we will pursue our investigations for the present independently, and with special reference to our peculiar principles.—Labor is sport or drudgery according to the proportion between strength and the work to be done. Work that overtasks a child, is easy to a man. The amount of work remaining the same, if man's strength were doubled, the result would be the same as if the amount of work were diminished one-half. To make labor sport, therefore, we must seek, first, increase of strength, and secondly, diminution of work: or, (as in the former problem relating to the curse on woman), first, enlargement of income, and secondly, diminution of expenses. Vital society secures both of these objects. It increases strength, by placing the individual in a vital organization, which is in communication with the source of life, and which distributes and circulates life with the highest activity; and at the same time, by its compound economies, it reduces the work to be done to a minimum.

27.—In vital society labor will become attractive. Loving companionship in labor, and especially the mingling of the sexes, makes labor attractive. The present division of labor between the sexes separates them entirely. The woman keeps house, and the man labors abroad. Instead of this, in vital society men and women will mingle in both of their peculiar departments of work. It will be economically as well as spiritually profitable, to marry them in-doors and out, by day as well as by night. When the partition between the sexes is taken away, and man ceases to make woman a propagative drudge, when love takes the place of shame, and fashion follows nature in dress and business, men and women will be able to mingle in all their employments, as boys and girls mingle in their sports; and then labor will be attractive.

28.—We can now see our way to victory over death. Reconciliation with God opens the way for the reconciliation of the sexes. Reconciliation of the sexes emancipates woman, and opens the way for vital society. Vital society increases strength, diminishes work, and makes labor attractive, thus removing the antecedents of death. First we abolish sin; then shame; then the curse on woman of exhausting child-bearing; then the curse on man of exhausting labor; and so we arrive regularly at the tree of life.

Chapter VII.—A concluding Caveat, that ought to be noted by every Reader of the foregoing Argument.

Proposition 29.—The will of God is done in heaven, and of course will be done in his kingdom on earth, not merely by general obedience to constitutional principles, but by specific obedience to the administration of his Spirit. The constitution of a nation is one thing, and the living administration of government is another. Ordinary theology directs attention chiefly, and almost exclusively, to the constitutional principles of God's government; and the same may be said of Fourierism, and all schemes of reform based on the development of "natural laws." But as loyal subjects of God, we must give and call attention to his actual administration; i.e., to his will directly manifested by his Spirit and the agents of his Spirit, viz., his officers and representatives. We must look to God, not only for a Constitution, but for Presidential outlook and counsel; for a cabinet and corps of officers; for national aims and plans; for direction, not only in regard to principles to be carried out, but in regard to time and circumstance in carrying them out. In other words, the men who are called to usher in the Kingdom of God, will be guided, not merely by theoretical truth, but by the Spirit of God and specific manifestations of his will and policy, as were Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus Christ, Paul, &c. This will be called a fanatical principle, because it requires bona fide communication with the heavens, and displaces the sanctified maxim that the "age of miracles and inspiration is past." But it is clearly a Bible principle; and we must place it on high, above all others, as the palladium of conservatism in the introduction of the new social order.

Two expressions occur in the foregoing summaries which need some explanation; viz., in the first, the word Spiritualist; and in the second, the term Free Love. Without explanation, the modern reader might suppose these expressions to be used in the sense commonly attached to them at the present time. But if he will consider that the articles in The Berean were first published long before the birth of Modern Spiritualism, and that Bible Communism was published long before the birth of Free Love among Spiritualists, he will see that these expressions do not mean in the above documents, what they mean in popular usage, and do not in any way connect the Oneida Community with Modern Spiritualists, or with their system of Free Love. The simple truth is, that the Putney school invented the term Spiritualist to designate all believers in immediate communication with the spiritual world, referring at the time specially to Perfectionists and Revivalists, and marking the distinction between them and the legalists of the churches; and they invented the term Free Love to designate the social state of the Kingdom of Heaven as defined in Bible Communism. Afterward these terms were appropriated and specialized by the followers of Andrew Jackson Davis and Thomas L. Nichols. The Oneida Communists have for many years printed and re-printed in their various publications the following protest, which may fitly close this account of their religious and social theories:

Material Results.

The concrete results of Communism at Oneida, have been made public from time to time in the Circular, the weekly paper of the Community. The "journal" columns of this sheet, in which are given the ups and downs of Community progress, with much of the gossip of its home life, would fill several volumes. Referring the inquisitive reader to these for details, we shall limit our present sketch to the main outlines:

The main dwelling of the Community is a brick structure consisting of a center and two wings, the whole one hundred and eighty-seven feet in length, by seventy in breadth. It has towers at either end and irregular extensions reaching one hundred feet in the rear. This is the Community Home. It contains the chapel, library, reception-room, museum, principal drawing-rooms, and many private apartments. The other buildings of the group are the "old mansion," containing the kitchen and dining-room, the Tontine, which is a work-building, the fruit-house, the store, etc. The manufacturing buildings in connection with the water-powers are large, and mostly of brick. The organic principle of Communism in industry and domestic life, is seen in the common roof, the common table, and the daily meetings of all the members.

The extent and variety of industrial operations at the Oneida Community may be seen in part by the following statistics from the report of last year, (1868.)

Stock on the farm, 93 cattle and 25 horses. Amount of teaming done, valued at $6,260.

In addition to these, many branches of industry necessary for the convenience of the family are pursued, such as shoemaking, tailoring, dentistry, etc. The cash business of the Community during the year, as represented by its receipts and disbursements, was about $575,000. Amount paid for hired labor $34,000. Family expenses (exclusive of domestic labor by the members, teaching, and work in the printing office), $41,533.43.

The amount of labor performed by the Community members during the year, was found to be approximately as follows:

This is exclusive of care of children, school-teaching, printing and editing the Circular, and much head-work in all departments.

Taking 304 days for the working year, we have, as a product of the above figures, a total of 35,568 days' work at ten hours each. Supposing this labor to be paid at the rate of $1.50 per day, the aggregate sum for the year would be $53,352.00. By comparing this with the amount of family expenses, $41,533.43, we find, at the given rate of wages, a surplus of profit amounting to $11,818.57, or 33 cents profit for each person per day. This represents the saving which ordinary unskilled labor would make by means of the mere economy of Association. Were it possible for a skillful mechanic to live in co-operation with others, so that his wife and elder children could spend some time at productive labor, and his family could secure the economies of combined households, their wages at present rates would be more than double the cost of living. Labor in the Community being principally of the higher class, is proportionately rewarded, and in fact earns much more than $1.50 per day.

The entire financial history of the Community in brief is the following: It commenced business at its present location in 1848, but did not adopt the practice of taking annual inventories till 1857. Of the period between these dates we can give but a general account. The Community in the course of that period had five or six branches with common interests, scattered in several States. The "Property Register," kept from the beginning, shows that the amount of property brought in by the members of all the Communities, up to January 1, 1857, was $107,706.45. The amount held at Oneida at that date, as stated in the first regular inventory, was only $41,740. The branch Communities at Putney, Wallingford and elsewhere, at the same time had property valued at $25,532.22. So that the total assets of the associated Communities were $67,272.22, or $40,434.23 less than the amount brought in by the members. In other words between the years 1848 and 1857, the associated Communities sunk (in round numbers) $40,000. Various causes may be assigned for this, such as inexperience, lack of established business, persecutions and extortions, the burning of the Community store, the sinking of the sloop Rebecca Ford in the Hudson River, the maintenance of an expensive printing family at Brooklyn, the publication of a free paper, etc.

In the course of several years previous to 1857, the Community abandoned the policy of working in scattered detachments, and concentrated its forces at Oneida and Wallingford. From the first of January 1857, when its capital was $41,740, to the present time, the progress of its money-matters is recorded in the following statistics, drawn from its annual inventories:

Total net earnings in ten years, $180,580.26; being a yearly average income of $18,058.02, above all expenses. The succeeding inventories show the following result:

being an average for the last two years of over $38,000 per annum.

During the year 1869 the following steps forward have been taken: 1, an entire wing has been added to the brick Mansion House, for the use of the children; 2, apparatus for heating the whole by steam has been introduced; 3, a building has been erected for an Academy, and systematic home-education has commenced; 4, silk-weaving has been introduced at Willow Place; 5, the manufacture of silk-twist has been established at Wallingford; 6, the Communities at Oneida and Wallingford have been more thoroughly consolidated than heretofore; 7, this book on American Socialisms has been prepared at Oneida and printed at Wallingford.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XLVII.

REVIEW AND RESULTS.ToC

Looking back now over the entire course of this history, we discover a remarkable similarity in the symptoms that manifested themselves in the transitory Communities, and almost entire unanimity in the witnesses who testify as to the causes of their failure. General Depravity, all say, is the villain of the whole story.

In the first place Macdonald himself, after "seeing stern reality," confesses that in his previous hopes of Socialism he "had imagined mankind better than they are."

Then Owen, accounting for the failure at New Harmony, says, "he wanted honesty, and he got dishonesty; he wanted temperance, and instead he was continually troubled with the intemperate; he wanted cleanliness, and he found dirt," and so on.

The Yellow Spring Community, though composed of "a very superior class," found in the short space of three months, that "self-love was a spirit that would not be exorcised. Individual happiness was the law of nature, and it could not be obliterated; and before a single year had passed, this law had scattered the members of that society which had come together so earnestly and under such favorable circumstances, back into the selfish world from which they came."

The trustees of the Nashoba Community, in abandoning Frances Wright's original plan of common property, acknowledge their conviction that such a system can not succeed "without the members composing it are superior beings. That which produces in the world only common-place jealousies and every-day squabbles, is sufficient to destroy a Community."

The spokesman of the Haverstraw Community at first attributes their failure to the "dishonesty of the managers;" but afterward settles down into the more general complaint that they lacked "men and women of skillful industry, sober and honest, with a knowledge of themselves and a disposition to command and be commanded," and intimates that "the sole occupation of the men and women they had, was parade and talk."

The historian of the Coxsackie Community says "they had many persons engaged in talking and law-making, who did not work at any useful employment. The consequences were, that after struggling on for between one and two years, the experiment came to an end. There were few good men to steer things right."

Warren found that the friction that spoiled his experiments was "the want of common honesty."

Ballou complained that "the timber he got together was not suitable for building a Community. The men and women that joined him were very enthusiastic and commenced with great zeal; their devotion to the cause seemed to be sincere; but they did not know themselves."

At the meetings that dissolved the Northampton Community, "some spoke of the want of that harmony and brotherly feeling, which were indispensable to success; others spoke of the unwillingness to make sacrifices on the part of some of the members; also of the lack of industry and the right appropriation of time."

Collins lived in a quarrel with a rival during nearly the whole life of his Community, and finally gave up the experiment from "a conviction that the theory of Communism could not be carried out in practice; that the attempt was premature, the time had not yet arrived, and the necessary conditions did not yet exist." His experience led him to the conclusion that "there is floating upon the surface of society, a body of restless, disappointed, jealous, indolent spirits, disgusted with our present social system, not because it enchains the masses to poverty, ignorance, vice, and endless servitude; but because they can not render it subservient to their private ends. Experience shows that this class stands ready to mount every new movement that promises ease, abundance, and individual freedom; and that when such an enterprise refuses to interpret license for freedom, and insists that every member shall make their strength, skill and talent, subservient to the movement, then the cry of tyranny and oppression is raised against those who advocate such industry and self-denial; then the enterprise must become a scape-goat, to bear the fickleness, indolence, selfishness, and envy of this class."

The testimony in regard to the Sylvania Association is, that "young men wasted the good things at the commencement of the experiment; and besides victuals, dry-goods supplied by the Association were unequally obtained. Idle and greedy people find their way into such attempts, and soon show forth their character by burdening others with too much labor, and, in times of scarcity, supplying themselves with more than their allowance of various necessaries, instead of taking less."

The failure of the One Mentian Community is attributed to "ignorance and disagreements," and that of the Social Reform Unity to "lack of wisdom and general preparation."

The Leraysville Phalanx went to pieces in a grumble about the management.

Of the Clarkson Association a writer in the Phalanx says that they were "ignorant of Fourier's principles, and without plan or purpose, save to fly from the ills they had already experienced in civilization. Thus they assembled together such elements of discord, as naturally in a short time led to their dissolution."

The Sodus Bay Socialists quarreled about religion, and when they broke up, some decamped in the night, with as much of the common property as they could lay hands on. Whereupon Macdonald sententiously remarks—"The fact that mankind do not like to have their faults and failings made public, will probably account for the difficulty in obtaining particulars of such experiments."

The Bloomfield Association went to wreck in a quarrel about land-titles.

Of the Jefferson County Association, Macdonald says, "After a few months, disagreements became general. Their means were totally inadequate; they were too ignorant of the principles of Association; were too much crowded together, and had too many idlers among them. There was bad management on the part of the officers, and some were suspected of dishonesty."

The Moorhouse Union appears to have been almost wholly a gathering of worthless adventurers.

Mr. Moore, in his Post Mortem on the Marlboro Association, very delicately observes that "the failure of the experiment may be traced to the fact that the minds of its originators were not homogeneous."

Macdonald, after studying the Prairie Home Community, says, "From all I saw I judged that it was too loosely put together, and that the members had not entire confidence in each other."

The malcontent who gives an account of the Trumbull Phalanx says: "Some came with the idea that they could live in idleness at the expense of the purchasers of the estate, and these ideas they practically carried out; while others came with good hearts for the cause. There were one or two designing persons, who came with no other intent than to push themselves into situations in which they could impose upon their fellow members; and this, to a certain extent, they succeeded in doing." And again: "I think most persons came there for a mere shift. Their poverty and their quarreling about what they called religion (for there were many notions as to which was the right way to heaven), were great drawbacks to success."

There were rival leaders in the Ohio Phalanx, and their respective parties quarreled about constitutions till they got into a lawsuit which broke them up. The member who gave the account of this Association says: "The most important causes of failure were said to be the deficiency of wealth, wisdom and goodness."

The Clermont Phalanx had jealousies among its women that led to a lawsuit; and a difficulty with one of its leading members about land-titles.

The story of the Alphadelphia Phalanx is briefly told thus: "The disagreement with Mr. Tubbs about a mill-race at the commencement of the experiment, threw a damper on it, from which it never recovered. All lived in clover so long as a ton of sugar or any other such luxury lasted. The officers made bad bargains. Laborers became discouraged. In the winter some of the influential members went away temporarily, and thus left the real friends of the Association in the minority; and when they returned after two or three months absence, every thing was turned up-side-down. There was a manifest lack of good management and foresight. The old settlers accused the majority of this, and were themselves elected officers; but they managed no better, and finally broke up the concern."

The Wisconsin Phalanx kept its quarrels below lawsuit point, but the leading member who gives account of it, says that the habit of the members was to "scold and work, and work and scold;" and that "they had among their number a few men of leading intellect who always doubted the success of the experiment, and hence determined to accumulate property individually by any and every means called fair in competitive society. These would occasionally gain some important positions in the society, and representing it in part at home and abroad, caused much trouble. By some they were accounted the principal cause of the final failure."

Mr. Daniels, a gentleman who saw the whole progress of the Wisconsin Phalanx, says that "the cause of its breaking up was speculation, the love of money and the want of love for Association. Their property becoming valuable, they sold it for the purpose of making money out of it."

The North American was evidently shattered by secessions, resulting partly from religious dissensions and partly from differences about business.

Brook Farm alone is reported as harmonious to the end.

It should be observed that the foregoing disclosures of disintegrating infirmities were generally made reluctantly, and are necessarily very imperfect. Large departments of dangerous passion are entirely ignored. For instance, in all the memoirs of the Owen and Fourier Associations, not a word is said on the "Woman Question!" Among all the disagreements and complaints, not a hint occurs of any jealousies and quarrels about love matters. In fact women are rarely mentioned; and the terrible passions connected with distinction of sex, which the Shakers, Rappites, Oneidians, and all the rest of the religious Communities have had so much trouble with, and have taken so much pains to provide for or against, are absolutely left out of sight. Owen, it is true, named marriage as one of the trinity of man's oppressors: and it is generally understood that Owenism and Fourierism both gave considerable latitude to affinities and divorces; but this makes it all the more strange that there was no trouble worth mentioning, in any of these Communities, about crossing love-claims. Can it be, we ask ourselves, that Owen had such conflicts with whiskey-tippling, but never a fight with the love-mania? that all through the Fourier experiments, men and women, young men and maidens, by scores and hundreds were tumbled together into unitary homes, and sometimes into log-cabins seventeen feet by twenty-five, and yet no sexual jostlings of any account disturbed the domestic circle? The only conclusion we can come to is, that some of the most important experiences of the transitory Communities have not been surrendered to history.

Nevertheless the troubles that do come to the surface show, as we have said, that human depravity is the dread "Dweller of the Threshold," that lies in wait at every entrance to the mysteries of Socialism.