We hear much mourning today over federal gridlock. Because contention is built right into our system of checks and balances, Washington, D.C., institutions have actually been at loggerheads for much of our history. Yet the striking reality is that even amid government paralysis, American society has repeatedly been able to improve itself in dramatic ways.
I’ve just written a historical novel that illustrates this in spades. It’s set in the most fractured, partisan, and socially limping phase of U.S. history: the Jacksonian era. That’s when modern party warfare was invented. Political brawling and corruption in the Tammany Hall style was a norm in many parts of the country. Drunkenness, prostitution, racial and ethnic animosity, and violence erupted often on our streets. Riots, some of them requiring declarations of martial law to restore order, were common in cities. Disagreements regularly escalated to bloody beatings, pistolings, and personal defamations that make current quarrels look like quibbles.
The Brothers: A true-life saga of the remarkable family who made America free fastidiously tracks real 19th-century events. It is imagined only in the details of its dialogue. And though it is suffused with heartbreaking conflict of the sort sketched above, the book ultimately traces 50 years of roaring social advance.
Progress in the face of dense government malfeasance and malaise? Is that possible? Yes, it is, when our countrymen band together in muscular voluntary efforts to shift hearts and minds.
“Everybody thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself,” so wrote Leo Tolstoy, who went on to warn that the only societal reforms that last are those built on moral transformation, where there is a “regeneration of the inner man.” From Jonathan Edwards to Martin Luther King Jr., the greatest American culture improvers have shared that view and argued that the key to refining our country is changing selves, regenerating the inner person.
The heroes of my historical tale, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, were masterful transformers of people and society. They may be the most consequential Americans you have never heard of. The Tappans created a booming silk-importing business. In an era of manipulative haggling, Arthur pioneered transparent, low-price sales. Lewis dreamed up the new industry of credit reporting, which was central to making commerce work across a continental nation. The brothers were also bold innovators in publishing and other fields.
In addition to being inventive entrepreneurs, the Tappans were devoted Christians. They were reverse tithers, in many years giving away 90% of their income. And through their heavy giving, their brilliant organizing, and the energy they poured into building a “benevolent empire” of charities focused on inner regeneration, the Tappan brothers became some of the most potent drivers of culture change ever to operate in America.
When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across America in the 1830s, he was astonished at the way our citizens banded together on their own to solve problems in their communities. Societal needs that in Europe would have to be addressed by government or some lord were in the U.S. tackled by everyday people. Tocqueville was hosted during his tour by members of the Tappan family, who were spark plugs behind many of the voluntary civic innovations that impressed him.
One of the problems the brothers geared up to solve was the fact that up to half of all American children were not getting formal schooling. Youngsters had to work, either at farm chores or in city jobs such as shoeblacking or newspaper vending. Realizing that there was one day of the week when even poor children had time off, Sunday, the Tappans and thousands of other donors and volunteers began to set up Sunday schools where millions of needy children were offered free literacy lessons as well as character training. The number of Sunday schools soared from zero to more than 200,000, and historians report that many young Americans of that era picked up more of their learning at Sunday school than they did in our inadequate public schools.
Another issue the Tappans and their allies wrestled with was substance abuse. The problem then was not fentanyl or crack but rather rotgut liquor. Per capita consumption of alcohol was three to four times today’s level, and wanton inebriation wrecked family life, damaged economic productivity, and fueled crime and street disorder. A temperance movement convinced huge numbers of Americans to step away from booze, and this voluntary behavior change yielded a 70% reduction in alcohol consumption.
The Tappan brothers were particular leaders in America’s most climactic social reform of all time: the abolition of slavery. Battling fierce opposition by government officials ranging from city councilors to U.S. presidents, the Tappans created a “moral suasion” campaign aimed at convincing their fellow citizens that enslavement was a sin and a violation of American principles. They launched magazines and newspapers, public-speaking campaigns, legal defenses, and educational efforts that turned abolitionism into a mass popular movement. Their organizing created a consensus that human bondage must not continue and ultimately produced the Republican Party and President Abraham Lincoln.
Culture change of the type undertaken by Arthur and Lewis Tappan was not for cowards. Beneficiaries of slavery, prostitution, and trafficking in alcohol and opium attacked the brothers verbally, physically, and economically. Partisan journalists and political figures excoriated them. Lewis’s family home was gutted by rioters. A boycott ruined Arthur’s business. There were kidnap and assassination attempts, abetted by Tammany Hall officials. Senators and U.S. presidents threatened the Tappans and encouraged vigilante attacks on their civil-society activities.
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Yet the brothers persevered and ultimately triumphed. They not only convinced the public to eliminate slavery, but also wrought, with millions of helpers, powerful improvements in everyday society. For just one example among many, the large Five Points slum in Manhattan, where the Tappans devoted lots of time and resources, was remade from one of America’s most pestilential sores into a respectable working neighborhood where thousands of immigrants were able to transition to success.
The Tappans led a surge of charitable organizing, generous giving and volunteering, and moral reform that allowed our country to surmount social pathologies deeper than any we face today. The private actions of public-spirited men and women remade the U.S. into one of the healthiest, most prosperous, and most unified nations on earth. And they left us a playbook for continual social renewal through citizen initiative and inner transformation — even when our political system is unable to deliver solutions.
Karl Zinsmeister is author of the new historical novel The Brothers: a true-life saga of the remarkable family who made America free.