Expert: Hank Hokamp - 6/13/2008

Question
Hello,
I was wondering if you might be able to provide some insight for me as to the development of a sense of egalitarianism in American life from the time of John Winthrop's
Lay Sermon in 1630, to the Log Cabin Campaign of 1840? It seems that people had very different ideas about class, power and personal advancement in this times and I am wondering what you think might have helped contribute to this change?
Thank you for your help!

Answer

  Hello, Steve. Great subject.

  The dominant influences of business, government and education seemed increasingly directed, unthinkingly, to egalitarianism in American life. In so doing, they were unwittingly diminishing the strength of democracy in the American system from 1630 to 1840.

  Egalitarianism, in my mind, is a doctrine which sees equality of condition, outcome, reward, and privilege as a DESIRABLE goal of social organization. The bases for such beliefs have been religious and secular, and have ranged from crude slogans such as we all have the same stomachs, and only one of those, to more sophisticated Marxian statements about societies moving from the organizing principle of ‘from each according to their abilities to each according to their WORK (SOCIALISM} to ‘from each according to their abilities to each according to their NEEDS.’(COMMUNISM) But even this form of equality demands unequal treatment. Positive discrimination may have as its goal either the preparation of a ‘level playing-field’ or the facilitation of an endless series of draws with no winners or losers. Given the multi-dimensional nature of inequality and its seemingly ineluctable nature some socialist writers have sought to find equality in the unequal but inconsistent distribution of several facets of inequality. Prestige, income, education, and any other goods could be so arranged that their various levels of distribution balanced out, thus minimizing any sense of relative deprivation. In practice, however, this has involved the allocation of unacceptable levels of power to the state, the agency that is invariably charged with manipulating these social scales.

    A excerpt from the Lay Sermon (1630) states, " ... whereby this must be effected, they are twofold: a conformity with the work and the end we aim at. ... Thus stands the cause between God and us: we are entered into covenant with Him for this work; we have taken out a commission, the Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles, ... if we shall neglect the observation of these articles ... the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us. ... Therefore, let us choose life, that we, and our seed may live; by obeying. His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity."

    Citation: John Winthrop is the author of the Covenant.

    As for the Log Cabin Campaign of 1840, Harrison was the first president to campaign actively for office. He did so with the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." Tippecanoe referred to Harrison's military victory over a group of Shawnee Indians at a river in Indiana called Tippecanoe in 1811. Democrats laughed at Harrison for being too old for the presidency, and referred to him as "Granny," hinting that he was senile. Said one Democratic newspaper: "Give him a barrel of hard cider, and ... a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year ... and ... he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin."

    Whigs, eager to deliver what the public wanted, took advantage of this and declared that Harrison was "the log cabin and hard cider candidate," a man of the common people from the rough-and-tumble West. They depicted Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a wealthy snob who was out of touch with the people. In fact, it was Harrison who came from a wealthy, prominent family while Van Buren was from a poor, working family.

    *** Please rate my answer, Steve. Thanks.

                                       HANK