Philip Freneau: The Poet We Need Right Now

A new nation needs many things. A way of ordering its political life. A way of protecting itself. A way of sustaining its population. But a nation also needs something far less practical. It needs a story to tell itself about itself.

These kinds of origin stories have often been told in the form of poetry. The Romans had Virgil’s Aeneid, which follows Aeneas, a hero of the Trojan War, as he escapes the fall of Troy and embarks on a seven-year journey that culminates in founding the first Italian city and engendering the founders of Rome. The British had the story of Brutus of Troy, descendant of Aeneas, who accidentally kills his father in a hunting accident, hightails it to Albion—which would eventually become England—and founds a city called New Troy, which becomes London.

So it’s not surprising to find that, as British subjects crossed the ocean to America as colonists and then came to think of themselves as a new thing called Americans, this kind of poetic mythmaking crossed the ocean with them. One of the most prolific—but now most forgotten—poetic mythmakers was the editor of Philadelphia’s National Gazette, friend of James Madison, critic of the Federalists, sea captain, and abolitionist Philip Freneau (1752–1832). One could pull nearly any poem from his list of works and find something interesting to say about American identity and the revolutionary era. I think his most deliberate attempt to forge an American identity is his poem “The Rising Glory of America.”

“The Rising Glory of America” began as a poem written with Hugh Brackenridge for the commencement exercises of Princeton, then the College of New Jersey, in 1771. The poem was then revised and expanded for publication in 1772, and then re-edited and republished in 1786 as part of Freneau’s collected Revolutionary War–era verse. This last version is the one I’ll be depending on, as Freneau specified he had revised it so that only his lines and none of Brackenridge’s were included. 

So what does Freneau see as essential to American identity? When he creates poetic myth from the historical facts of our founding, where does he focus his attention? Let’s take a look.

The first third of Freneau’s poem focuses on the indigenous inhabitants of North America; it posits a variety of possible origins for them as survivors of the Flood or a surviving remnant from the city of Carthage. Freneau takes a broadly Lockean approach to justifying colonization of native land by saying that the original inhabitants hadn’t done anything to improve it. It’s not a stance that sits comfortably with modern understandings, nor should it, but Freneau is better on the subject than many of his contemporaries. Mostly he’s interested in pointing out that indigenous populations were treated much worse by the Spanish, whose colonial practices will serve as a foil for the American colonies throughout the poem.

But the real meat of Freneau’s poem is the three pursuits that he sees as fundamental to the American project and the American identity: Agriculture, Commerce, and Science. 

For Freneau, Agriculture serves as a way to distinguish the British colonial project and America’s past from the extractive and brutal Spanish colonial project. Freneau’s take on Spain’s extractive colonization practices argues that a land rich in gold and gems has nothing on America’s great wealth—topsoil, and virtuous citizens who are willing to work the land. 

Freneau’s argument strikes me as a fairly solid poetic representation of the “resource curse,” whereby countries that have abundant natural resources, like gold or oil, have higher rates of conflict and fail to develop good institutions because of an over-reliance on their resource wealth to drive development. We should be reminded here of Smith’s discussion of the Spanish colonies in The Wealth of Nations, where he dryly observes that “It was of importance to Columbus, however, that the countries which he had discovered, whatever they were, should be represented to the court of Spain as of very great consequence; and, in what constitutes the real riches of every country, the animal and vegetable productions of the soil, there was at that time nothing which could well justify such a representation of them” (IV.7) and “Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in them, there is none perhaps more ruinous than the search after new silver and gold mines.” (IV.7) Freneau gives us solid economic thinking in poetic form.

At the same time that he uses American agriculture as a way to continue to separate British/American practices from Spanish, Freneau uses it to connect the American colonists to the virtues of the classical world. 

Freneau loves this image of a classical world where wise and modest men serve their nation virtuously and then return home to their farms. In a poem written for Washington’s retirement from public life, he plays on the same strings, comparing Washington to the Roman General Cincinattus, “Thus He, whom Rome’s proud legions sway’d/ Return’d, and sought his sylvan shade.” Lines 203-214 in “The Rising Glory of America” give a longer version of this same praise of Washington.

For Freneau, agriculture demonstrates American moderation—in our desire for and stewarding of resources, and also in our commitment to serve the country when needed, but to return to a quiet private life when the job is done.

But Freneau knows that American minds are too busy to be satisfied staying forever in one place. 

Along with seeing commerce as an appropriate way to satisfy the ever striving and ever various American mind, Freneau is leaning hard into Montesquieu’s doux commerce theory that trade softens our manners and encourages good relations between neighbors. I also think it’s wonderful that he specifies that the exchanges here are “wished”—desired—rather than forced upon the unwilling. This seems a subtle but crucial word choice given how many of the American colonists’ complaints were about forced trade with England and forbidden trade with others. 

In a moment that perfectly anticipates Deirdre McCloskey’s work, he also takes the time to highlight the heroism of traders.

This is particularly important given the time he spends praising the virtues of American farmers. For Freneau both pursuits are vital to the American project, and both are valued parts of the American character. This makes Freneau stand out among contemporary economic commentators, many of whom thought that only farming, mining, and manufacturing created value, not commerce. And many boosters of commerce—even Adam Smith—gave relatively short shrift to the power of agriculture to shape a nation. For Freneau, however, this isn’t a zero-sum game for the soul of the nation. Agriculture demonstrates our moderation. Commerce demonstrates our heroic sociability. We need both.

But it is science that Freneau says allows both agriculture and commerce to flourish in America. He depicts the muses deserting Greece and Rome to cross the ocean to America “the last, the best/ Of Countries, where the arts shall rise and grow” (321–322) and he chooses as the great American hero of Science:

You would think that for Freneau, a discussion of science might open the door to considering American characteristics like ingenuity, inspiration, or technical expertise. But instead, for Freneau, American science is about proclaiming America as the land of “liberty and life, sweet liberty!/ without whose aid the noblest genius fails, / And Science irretrievably must die.” Science gives us Freneau’s last great characteristic of the American character: Liberty. Without free inquiry we have nothing to support and improve our agriculture and our commerce. 

Freneau’s poem closes with two competing visions for the future of the American project. The first is a grim vision of war with England that will bring about the violation of every aspect of the praiseworthy American character Freneau has just outlined.

Moderation and peaceful trade go out the window in the face of British avarice and violence, and liberty disappears as well. Perhaps worst of all, the destruction is infectious. “Our souls” as well are “kindled up to deeds of horror,” and the American character is violated in order to protect what it holds most dear.

But neither Freneau nor I want to leave you here. If the American characteristics he outlines are allowed to flourish, he argues, America will become a beacon to other nations, a “Paradise anew” where:

With a scabrous and algae-ridden reflecting pool in front of the Washington Monument, a war in Iran that no one seems to have the energy either to win or to peaceably settle, an economy on life support, political scandals breaking at such a rate we hardly have time to react, and levels of government corruption and interference that make even the most devoted FIFA followers blush, it is easy to scoff at Freneau’s forthright love of our country and his dream of its future greatness. It is easy to believe that he simply got it all wrong.

But maybe Freneau’s faith in an American character built on simple ideals like moderation, heroic sociability, and liberty is exactly what we need when things look most grim. Though he praises the heroes of the Revolution, Franklin and Washington in particular, Freneau’s real faith is in us, the average American citizen, engaged in our agricultural, commercial, and scientific projects, living our lives, and pursuing our dreams. He knows that these are the people who bear the real costs when nations go wrong, and he has faith that these are the people who can set it right again.

Freneau wrote in tumultuous times. His early versions of “The Rising Glory of America” were written amid rising local political rebellions as pre-Revolutionary tensions increased. His final version was published as the Revolution came to a close and Americans shouldered the daunting responsibility of creating a unified nation from a set disparate and querulous colonies. But he knew, and we must remember, that a nation is not its government. A nation is not its current political moment. A nation is its people and their projects and dreams. Freneau’s poetry is unread these days. But I think it’s exactly what we need.

Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.