Emerson, American Democracy, and ‘Progress of Culture'

Abstract

Analyzes Emerson’s second Harvard Phi Beta Kappa address, delivered in 1867 and regarded both in his day and later as a conspicuous failure. Believes that, though Emerson spoke as a prominent, revered public figure, his address failed due largely to the circumstances of its performance, not from its now forgotten message. Notes how Emerson recognized in his speech that American culture was at a moment of crucial transition, under great challenge to sustain the costly but vital momentum for democratic social progress. Claims he attempts to tie the current historical moment in America to a larger philosophy of history consistent with a concept of social progress, seeing the Civil War as a decisive moment not only for America but for the fortunes of progressive democracy. Concludes Emerson seems at some moments to be proposing a version of history in which laws and principles, divorced from human actions, execute themselves, making progress the inevitable fulfillment or a preexisting transcendent order, but believes much of the energy of his address resists this deterministic theory of inevitable progress, insisting that human effort and accomplishment are the central facts of history.