STUDY GUIDE FOR “Noah Webster and the Demoralization of the Body Politic”

Ch. 4 in Scandal and Civility, by Marcus Daniel

Due 10/28

1.     What is the significance of the title of this chapter?  Webster brought the word “demoralize” to the English language.  It reflects his attitude to the French Revolution and American politics.

2.     Discuss Noah Webster’s attitudes toward the relationship between religion and politics.  Religion was a huge part of Webster’s life.  He recalled an early he could remember being taught religion.  It was a way of life for him growing up. Politics was his motivation to start the national language.

3.     How did Webster’s opinions about the French Revolution change over time?  Moral order and religious belief has been shattered.  He thought that when he lost his faith with the French Revolution, it was also the changing point for him and American Politics.

4.     We know Webster for his work as a lexicographer. What was Webster’s goal in publishing children’s spelling books and in writing dictionaries?   The speller was supposed to lay the basis for a distinctively American Literary culture – and moral  order – independent of European cultural influence, and its appeal was explicitly nationalistic and propagandistic.

5.     Google the following terms and discuss their relevance to this chapter: Calvinism, The Enlightenment, Samuel Johnson, primogeniture, xenophobia, Minerva, Alien and Sedition Acts, Great Awakening and Second Great Awakening.  During Webster’s youth, he was raised under a Calvinistic lifestyle.  The Enlightenment was a focus on reason to make decisions.  He was exposed to this at college.  Samuel Johnson was a lexicographer, much like Webster.  Primogeniture is the inheritance of the estate by the oldest sibling, most of time male.  Webster fought to abolish this tradition. Xenophobia is an attitude that Webster had.  He wanted American to be free of foreign influence.  Minerva was a publication that Webster read.  The Alien and Sedition acts were created to protect the Americans from foreign interference with governmental affairs.  The Awakenings were reconstructions of the Protestant faith.  Webster was always teetering on whether religion should be factor in government.

6.     Discuss Webster’s attitude towards political parties. How are his ideas relevant today? What’s your attitude toward parties? Do you think Webster was right?  He believed in a central government.  All power should be vested in the people.  The greatest number of people are in control of creating the laws and number control their execution.  My attitude is that we need parties.  Not too many of nothing would get done, just enough to keep the others in check.

7.     How did Webster’s political ideas change over the course of his life?  He used religion to guide his feelings, then he saw the collapse of the French Revolution and the struggle of American politics and lost his faith.

8.     Discuss one of these quotable quotes from the book:

“Men were innately corrupt and self-interested, he believed, and consequently it was absurd to make their political virtue the basis for political institutions.” (149)  This theory uses his view on The Enlightenment.  He developed this was of thinking when he was a student at Yale.  He continued this practice of reasonable thinking when he made his way in publishing and expressing his political views.