John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[524] them might have enough to live on separately; yet he did not profess to understand the philosophical theory of Fourier. His advocacy had great weight, and for a long period the newspaper which Greeley conducted, the New York Tribune, set apart one or two columns every day, for which the editor didn't assume any responsibility, but which were conducted by Brisbane. That produced a great effect all over the country. Mr. Parke Godwin's writings, and those of the Rev. W. H. Channing on the same subject, were likewise of extraordinary force and persuasiveness.

Now, this new agitation took at once a very marked place in the moral discussions of that time, and in the social and economic discussions. Not that it drew away from either of the other intellectual and moral movements; there were just as many abolitionists after it as before, and just as many non-resistants; but a great many people-very intelligent people-took up this idea of social reform and of the reorganization of society upon the associative basis, applying the principle of association to industry, to art, to education, to the whole round of humanity's social existence. Acting under this impulse a party of philosophers in Boston, after long study and deliberation, now determined to try the experiment of an association, though without any of the special features of Fourier's system. The same determination was reached in other places. There was a party in Northampton, Massachusetts, which organized a small association. There was one begun by a Universalist clergyman, a most excellent man, the Rev. Adin Ballou, at Peacedale, also in Massachusetts. He was a non-resistant; so much so that I remember when a proposition was made to him, after several months, to combine his society with the Transcendental party that I have been speaking of, with Mr. Ripley and his associates, he emphatically declined. The Transcendentalists said, “Let us all go in together and put our resources together, then we shall be a good deal stronger and our chance of success will be increased.” “No,” said Mr. Ballou, “we cannot do it. We are non-resistants, and you tolerate the application of force in government. Therefore we must remain apart.”