10

DEBATE OVER A DEAF COMMONWEALTH

In the late 1850s, deaf people had a remarkable discussion in the pages of the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb about a proposal to create a separate deaf state in the West. The idea was not altogether new. Years before, when Congress gave land in Alabama to the American Asylum, Laurent Clerc had suggested selling part of it to cover the school’s operating expenses and retaining the rest as a location where deaf people could settle. That did not occur. Similarly, in the 1830s, Edmund Booth and twelve other graduates of the American Asylum considered purchasing land out west so they might continue to live close to each other. However, members of the group found jobs in different states, and the project died.

Neither of these antecedents had the scope or ambition of the 1850s plan. The debate was ignited by John Jacobus Flournoy, a deaf man from Georgia. The son of a prosperous slaveowner, Flournoy briefly attended the University of Georgia, leaving when other students made him the target of ridicule. He also studied at the American Asylum, although he never actually enrolled. A rather eccentric person, Flournoy seldom cut his hair, wore a raincoat in all weather, and assumed the appearance of poverty even though he was well off. At one point, he committed himself to a mental institution, but soon released himself when he decided he was not going insane. He supported polygamy; when his first wife became an invalid, he tried to marry a young teen. Despite such bizarre behavior, Flournoy was an important advocate for deaf people. He published dozens of pamphlets on deaf education and other topics at his own expense. He lobbied for the establishment of the Georgia School for the Deaf and, later, a national deaf college. Yet none of his activism gained as much attention as his call for a separate deaf commonwealth.

William Chamberlain, 1897

In 1855, Flournoy issued a circular suggesting that deaf people should petition Congress for land in the West. Those who desired could migrate there and establish their own state. All the citizens would be deaf. They would manage their own affairs, away from “rejections and consignments to inferior places” by hearing people.

Flournoy asked William W. Turner, then the principal of the American Asylum, for his opinion. Turner wrote that the plan was “beautiful in theory” but impractical. Deaf people would be unlikely to want to leave their friends and relatives, he said. Moreover, it would be difficult to keep the community deaf, since most children of deaf couples would be hearing. Finally, Turner denied that deaf people suffered from prejudice, saying instead that they had natural limitations. “You would not send a deaf and dumb man to Congress or to the Legislature of a State; not for the reason that he was deficient in intelligence and education, but because his want of hearing and speech unfits him for the place,” he wrote.1

Flournoy responded with typical fervor, asserting (in the first letter below) that deaf people did commonly endure discrimination. He had experienced rejection firsthand. Driven by what his cousin called a “burning thirst for office,” Flournoy ran for government positions several times without success.2

When the Annals published Turner’s and Flournoy’s letters, they struck a nerve with readers across the nation. Several deaf people sent in responses, which are excerpted here. Edmund Booth and John Carlin weighed in against Flournoy’s proposal, arguing that it was in deaf people’s interest to live scattered among the hearing. Others, such as William Chamberlain and P. H. Confer, expressed support, suggesting that some deaf people would be happier living among others who shared the same language and worldview.

In 1858, Laurent Clerc addressed the controversy at a meeting of the New England Gallaudet Association of Deaf-Mutes. Clerc, the most well-known deaf person in America, was seen by many as the first person to have proposed the idea of a separate deaf place. Now, however, Clerc spoke against Flournoy’s idea, saying it was too exclusive and impractical. He asked the deaf people present if they felt themselves mistreated by hearing people. They responded negatively. After that, the debate over Flournoy’s plan appears to have subsided.

Most deaf people who wrote about the proposal were against it. Perhaps these writers did not experience the kind of estrangement that Flournoy did. His odd behavior no doubt made him more of a social outcast. Unlike other correspondents, he lived in the antebellum South, which was often less progressive. In addition, most of the deaf people who responded were successful. They did not have as much trouble with English as other deaf Americans, and did not depend as much upon sign language. Uneducated deaf people, who made up a sizable portion of the deaf population, did not really participate in the written debate. Perhaps many of them would have supported the plan.

Flournoy himself gave up pamphleteering by the time the Civil War broke out. If in many ways he was a peculiar man writing incendiary prose, in others he was ahead of his time. His defiant belief that deaf people could contribute much more to society, and his refusal to accept limitations on their potential, anticipated the more aggressive activism of deaf people in the twentieth century.

Flournoy’s dream of a separate deaf place was by no means unique. Not only did Clerc and Booth promulgate similar ideas on a lesser scale earlier in the century, but also deaf people in England and France debated separatist plans. In addition, during the nineteenth century other minorities, such as African Americans, the Amish, and Mormons, occasionally sought to separate themselves from mainstream society. Like these groups, deaf people sometimes shared a utopian vision of having a place where they could escape prejudice and flourish on their own.

John J. Flournoy to William Turner

After William Turner, the principal of the American Asylum, gently rejected Flournoy’s proposal for a deaf commonwealth, Flournoy sent him the following response. The letter was published in the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb in 1856.

Rev. W. W. Turner:

Rev. and Dear Friend: I am in receipt of your kind favor of the 6th inst., replying to my inquiry of last summer, concerning the feasibility and propriety, in your view, of colonizing some small territory in our country with a population of mutes. Your objections I have duly considered and weighed: and although I accord to them that respect and that deference due from me to your sentiments, still I might confess my want of conviction as yet, unless you would do away with the force of the following observations, predicated as an answer to your remarks. …

You will observe that my appeal, circulated among my class of our people, and sent to Europe, did not have intention of persuading the migration of the entire deaf population of those regions—but only a portion of them! And it is presumable that there are among them a sufficient number who would agree to emigrate, provided the General Government would do what I clearly laid down, I believe, in those papers: secure the government and offices of small territory or State, to the mute community! Neither home, nor parents, nor friends, would or ought to deter a body of enterprising and resolute deaf men from moving to such a possession! We do not ask it as a grant, boon or charity from the government—the ruling powers and legislature have too much grudged us any pittance they have seen their predecessors give in its infancy to the American Asylum at Hartford—but we will pay our pre-emptive right money for the acres, if only guaranteed the control of the commonwealth. That government will give us such a prerogative to a State about the size of Rhode Island or Connecticut, I confess I do not feel sanguine enough to hope! But there is nothing like trying. …

The old cry about the incapacity of men’s minds from physical disabilities, I think it were time, now in this intelligent age, to explode! You asked, how could a deaf man legislate and govern among the hearing, any more than a blind man lead an army? (I use your ideas—not your language. The matter is just as I give it.) Did you ever believe lame men, and blind men, and deaf men, when usefulness was in view, were as useless as dumb beasts? Certainly not. Then where does your reasoning limit their capacity? You use a military figure: and I will dwell a little on one. Have you ever heard how Muley Molech had himself borne in a litter, when lamed by wounds, to the head of his legions, and how he vanquished the foe? So much for a lame man. Then, as for a blind one, such a one as the beggared Belisarius of declining Rome or Byzantium; was such a man of no military moment because sightless?3 I would myself, if I were contemporary with himself, suggest to the Romans that he be provided with a military academy to teach the strategy of war—or be kept on a hill near a battle to direct emergencies, while the seeing faithfully inform him of events. Here then, literally meeting you with your own weapons, is a great blind general made consummate leader, if experienced. But the application of such views to the deaf is not legitimate. We do not claim all offices, nor to do every thing. But we do attest that we are capable of many of which the prejudice, and sometimes even malignance of our hearing brethren deprive us!!4 It were better that Congress had the presence of some blind philosophers to lead the way in legislation, than to have only seeing men without wisdom. The court of the Areopagus, at ancient Athens, blindfolded the judges to prevent prejudice against unprepossessing suitors. And so long as this was the custom, no judicial decision was so faultless as that of these people. So much for your simile in disparagement of the blind.

So of the deaf. Many of us have hearts, of an integrity superior to the mad hearing partisans that go to Congress and to legislatures, and fill presidential and gubernatorial seats; and when the fact is that some of us are sages, so far as rational views and Christian principles be taken into consideration;—you can not but observe that the loss is greatly the country’s, in not being able to avail of our supervision, from the prejudices and disparagements of the world about a sense or two!5

Advocating, therefore, a formation out West, of a deaf State, I wish to persevere in urging a measure by which alone our class of people can attain to the dignity and honor of Human Nature. Else our course is (under the idea that a deaf and dumb man is of little consequence) within the circle of diffident humility. I spurn this imputation of thousands of my hearing inferiors—who give the fatness of power and office to their own class—and keep me, like Lazarus, out at the gate of splendid and munificent patronage without sending me a solitary crumb from the table.6

Place me for an example in any Capitol with Legislative sanctity, and I will move for an aid, a hearer and amanuensis, to reveal to me what is said, what to be done, what to do, and to read my speeches. And by this way I can get along supremely well, as Legislator. The gist and gravamen being that my intelligence and judgment may prove better and superior to the hearing majority.7 So your object about deaf incapacity is answered. …

Can I then concede that hearing men “are the ones and wisdom shall die with them?” No sir—No. I am to lead—and can only lead where deaf capacity be widely acknowledged. I am not in your estimation, I hope, descending to “fanaticism,” or to “peculiarity.” Evasions like these will not do! Men must think. They must investigate before they feel warranted to traduce sterling persons who are not made to sit down and acquiesce in perfidy to self and to mankind.

That deaf men have not my feelings and ambition, is no reason that they should not find a habitation of their own.

If only in such a State forty deaf men, or even twelve, were found, the constitution guarantying power to them alone, they may rule all the hearing collected in that small corner. Let not the audacity and avarice of the hearing owning continents, encroach on the deaf there. If our children hear, let them go to other States. This Government is to be sacred to the Deaf alone. In hearing communities how many children stay with their parents? Do brothers and sisters continue together? How then expect deaf-mutes to be such perpetual children as to claim and assert nothing appertaining to the dignity and grandeur of humanity, but to stick to home.8

The idea, therefore, of acquiring a commonwealth for themselves ought not to be abandoned.

You say that deaf persons have privileges among the hearing and can amass wealth. But how tardily, where competition by the auricular is such that no isolated deaf person is able to break through a single web of its massive Free Masonry? The auricular are not satisfied with hearing, nor with the usual mutual sympathies of their own class, but are banded and combined together in associations, open, and societies, secret, until they form a compact moral mechanism, that fairly by their majority, puts us in the shade. I know not how at this day the people of your section comport towards the deaf. But when I was at Hartford, I saw that a tailor (A. S. B.) disdainfully repelled away a mute applicant for the post of foreman (D. A. S.). Even if it be better for our class now in New England, it is far from one-ninety-ninth so, in Georgia, whose Legislature, after my prayer in 1834, granting a deaf education to the mutes here, a few years thereafter, became chagrined at having honored me, and though they dared not revoke their education, still they made a law to “make deaf and dumb persons idiots in law and to provide them guardians.”* Thus in the South we are contemned, spurned, degraded and abhorred, and I see no redemption but in forming a powerful oligarchy of our own to control a State at the West—a Deaf-mute Republic.

We constitutionally allow no foreigner to be President—nationally. We would in that small State allow no hearing man to have any lucrative office.9 This is all I care about. Its Legislature, Judiciary, &c., all mutes.

A deaf community, once established, to whom only offices are open to Congress and at home, as none others should be eligible—would easily draw mute recipients for the bounty from all sections. Once fixed, I see nothing deterrent.

I fear my letter is quite annoyingly lengthy, and will now close. I have said all I believe necessary to convince you of the propriety of our plan, which will only fail because the deaf and dumb are not worthy of a better destiny, or are as unlike as possible,

Your affectionate and obliged humble servant,

John J. Flournoy

Edmund Booth to Flournoy

Edmund Booth wrote this response to Flournoy. Although it was not intended for publication, Booth agreed to allow the Annals to publish it in January 1858, along with a number of other letters on the subject of a deaf commonwealth.

Dear Sir,

In regard to a community of deaf-mutes in the West, or any where—supposing you mean a community exclusively or mainly of mutes—let me say candidly that I hold it to be an impossibility, save in the commencement, and that on a very small scale. Just consider a moment. A community of this class would be a mixture of a few well and many half-educated; and among them must be many non-readers and frivolous.10 And then the general equality claimed with all by the latter, would operate to keep the more sensible from joining such community; for we all know that gossip, scandal, backbiting and other diabolisms are as common among mutes as among hearing persons.

Again: They will need to work at a variety of trades, and a commonwealth of mutes could never exceed 10,000, supposing all in the U.S. were brought in. A sparsely settled state would make nobody rich, and would satisfy few; and no law could be made effectual to prevent their selling their lands, buildings, &c., to hearing persons. Thus the distinct nature of the community would soon be lost. And it would so happen in any event, for their children being mostly of the hearing order, it would become a hearing community faster than the fathers and mothers died out.11

I think the wiser course is to let the mutes remain as they are—scattered and in one sense lost—among their hearing associates. In such situations they are compelled to read and write, and thus keep their minds under the educational process through life.12

In reply to your other questions: the country will suit them. But in Iowa there is no land unsold or in market, save the railroad lands, which are withdrawn, and they are narrow strips and cannot be obtained save at $2.50 per acre or more, and that at cash down the moment they are brought into market. Speculators have drained Iowa completely of her government lands, with the exceptions as above. Government lands can be obtained in Minnesota, where they are not yet in market, especially in the western part of that territory; but it is too far north and too cold to suit my ideas of a residence. The cold in the West is less than in the same latitude East. For a community of mutes, Nebraska is almost out of the question. It is mostly a barren country. I speak from observation, having traveled through it from the Missouri River to the South Pass. Iowa is a prairie country. Perhaps one-tenth of it timber. One-twentieth would be nearer the truth. The guide books say one-third or one-fourth. My own observations say one-tenth.

I see no country that would suit your ideas so well as Kansas. But to me the whole scheme looks much like those of other communities formed on the exclusive system, like those of Mons. Cabet, Rapp, &c.13 They had the incentive of religion and friendship and community of goods, labor and profit. With us it would be otherwise; and we should break through before we had made half a trial.

Yours truly,

E. Booth

Flournoy to Turner

Flournoy’s response appeared with Booth’s letter in the same issue of the Annals.

Rev. Mr. Turner:

My Dear Friend—This being a free country, where every “smart” man, and his name is legion, has his opinion whether crude and vulgar, or refined and intellectual, the American community are very unquiet and debatable, subject to a thousand though not very learned or profound sentiments, political and social. The deaf and dumb have taken a color of character from this disputatious habit, a specimen of which is evinced in the enclosed letter from Edmund Booth, Esq. Instead of meeting my project with a philosophical view, I am met by objections, some of which, like yours and Mr. Booth’s, are truly formidable! It would seem then, that without intending to be the great leader and original mind, I am the chief in this cause, and that if I carry it not forward, the idea of a deaf community may prove abortive as to any practical result.

There is always some objection to every project under the sun, and often very cogent ones. What is a man then to do? Abandon every scheme because impeded by natural and conventional obstacles? Certainly not. Many of the greatest nations have been founded in time by defiance of the untoward predictions of impracticable visionaries. Many a costly experiment has been forsaken on no better hypothesis. The invention of the daguerreotype—the photogenic art—was not accidental, but by a design; and persistent, philosophical chemists began and followed out the plan, until Daguerre, in the final series of the successive experimenters, perfected the science by which our features are in exact copies transmitted to posterity.14 Resolution and perseverance will accomplish wonders. And I pray God that the deaf and dumb may prove worthy of the name of men.15

Mr. Booth thinks the West will not suit the mutes. From his description of the North-west I agree with him in that opinion. His other views have been answered before in the Annals and elsewhere.

I do not know what kind of a constitution the mutes may superstruct, whether to make real estate inherent only in the deaf, by that organic law all have to respect and defer to; or in case of default, to escheat to the estate. This, however, is certain, that the control of our community over the commonwealth would be strict and universal. This is what we want and for what we may emigrate. The government of a piece of Territory. Nothing more or less.

Mr. Booth believes we can do better, and will read more, scattered as we are and “lost” among the hearing. I challenge him to show me twenty deaf-mutes in a hundred, that are constant readers, adequate to comprehending either literature or science, as they now are dispersed among hearing people, who do not read any or much themselves, and who have a sense (auricular) by which they gather in their knowledge, a privilege debarred the deaf, who therefore are the more ignorant for being thus scattered. Whereas if convened in a land peculiarly their own, the concentration of reading intellects would set a beneficial example; and preaching and lectures in the sign language, and libraries of suitable books, may improve their minds and hearts, beyond what is attainable in their scattered condition. For this, as a principal cause and source of improvement, this colony is a desideratum.

But the difficulty that meets me on all sides is, how can you keep up the mute population? The children of deaf parents are mostly hearing. These will inherit property and the community will not endure. This reasoning seems to take it that our society is to be organized like that of the hearing, and to be modeled upon the same principles. Now there is no such thing. I acknowledge that the hearing children of deaf parents may not inherit land in that anomalous and contracted community—neither power nor patronage. But the other States are so near, and their parents may supply them with the means to buy real estate in them. When they have a good location, the mutes would come in from all parts of the world. An Asylum for their education may be founded there, as well as other Institutions, so that there will be no lacking of the deaf materiel. What then of this visionary difficulty! We will allow such hearing persons as come for trade or residence, to vote with us. We would give woman that right.16 Hence we may always possess sufficient population to be a State. But even if this be futile, we can remain a Territory of the Federal Government and enjoy its powerful protection under Omnipotence; the General Government guaranteeing to us the peculiar Constitution we may devise: “Republican in form.”

If mutes cannot do this they are justly held as inferior and useless in the world. For they ought not to pretend to be “any body” among hearing men, who do what deaf “dogs” shrink from achieving alone. But we are men, and have under God only to try, and the thing is a finished work!

After this argument, which if published I hope may satisfy the overscrupulous, I would approach the great point that is before us. I think we can acquire territory enough from the Cherokees or other red men, West of Arkansas, and very cheaply, on which to make our experiment, or else from the State of Maine. Perhaps some one of the New England, Northern or Middle States may grant space enough for this purpose. I myself prefer the Indian Territory, if the U. S. government would sanction and aid a cession. Hence, no fear about trade and business. Capital will accumulate in our hands when our skill and industry are concentrated, and our ruling prerogative unimpeachable. Whereas now, in their scattered condition, especially in the Middle and Southern States, few deaf men have employment of respectability, and their ignorance is “stereotyped,” as I have shown, by their unfortunate and dispersed situation, without preaching or any instruction whatsoever. When combined, competition and a sense of high duty and responsibility will cause them to study books, documents, and men and things, and like other communities we shall produce men of intellectual predominance.

Even should the contemplated colony fail, as Mr. Booth predicts, one great utility to ourselves will have been derived from a practical experience. We shall have proved to the other nations and our own, that deaf and dumb people are capable of many things; and to our successors in misfortune, offices and employment may be opened. They may be treated as men and women of some use to society and to the country, and respected accordingly. And this will to us be no inconsiderable triumph; and the victory sure, as the deaf now continues to prove his competency and fidelity in lands and other trusts. And this, we, as accountable beings, who may not bury our talent in a napkin, owe to the long and harmless line of the “pantomimic generations” that are to come after us!

I have now fully, I hope, in attempting something like a reply to Mr. Booth, given what refutation I am able, to the many objects that are ever starting up to confound this project. I hope the Annals will embrace both Mr. Booth’s letter and mine. I presume that invaluable periodical will devote some space to this discussion, as relating so closely to the welfare and interests of the community, to whose benefit it is so inseparately devoted.

I am, dear sir, truly and respectfully,
your most obliged, obedient, humble servant,

J. J. Flournoy

Mr. Flournoy’s Project

The Annals published this additional response from Booth in April.

In the January number of the Annals, is a reply to my letter of Sept. 6th to Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Georgia. My letter being a brief answer to a previous letter of his desiring my views on the subject of a community of deaf-mutes, I necessarily took a practical view of the case; and Mr. Flournoy, in his reply of Oct. 3d, characterizes it as “a specimen” of the “disputatious habit” which prevails in the American community, and from which he says the deaf and dumb have “taken a color.” Well, I am in a most unfortunate position, being put on the defensive.

Let me say to Mr. Flournoy that the idea of a community of deaf-mutes is to me nothing new. In the year 1831, William Willard and five or six others, including myself, formed ourselves into an association with a view of purchasing land in some favorable spot in the west, and so arranging that we might, through life, live in close neighborhood and continue to enjoy the friendships we had formed in Hartford. At that time, we were pupils of the Asylum, and all, except myself, were to leave in a few weeks or months. By election we added a sufficient number of past pupils to make our whole number thirteen. It was a sort of secret society, as we preferred to put it into practical execution rather than have the project dissipate in mere talk. Time went on, and we all found ourselves compelled to attend to the stern realities of life—procuring a self-support—before we could attend to carrying out what Mr. Willard afterwards, in one of his letters to me, called our Don Quixotic scheme. Mr. Willard became a teacher in the Ohio Institution, I in Hartford; the rest of us were scattered over New England, and the project gradually died away.

One of our objects had been to form a nucleus around and within which others of our class might, in process of time, gather. But Mr. Flournoy’s idea of electing ourselves to the presidency of the United States, to Congress, to legislative and judicial positions, had no place in our heads, much less our deliberations. Mr. Flournoy’s idea of distinction in the world appears to be political elevation alone. Make a man, no matter how insignificant his amount of brains, president, judge of the Supreme Court, member of Congress; or send him on a foreign mission, and, forthwith, he is a great man! Socrates, the greatest man that Greece produced, and whom the populace and judges condemned to drink hemlock, should hide his head! We have in our own country, men—reformers—who would laugh to scorn the offer of a seat in Congress or on the bench, and who would not accept the presidency if the condition was that they should be bound by party ties. These are glorious men, who, like all such in all ages, are misunderstood and underrated, but whom the future will understand and appreciate. They work not merely for their own day, but for all coming times, and they can well afford to wait.

Mr. Flournoy says that I did not take a philosophical view of his project. I certainly did not view it as we do the abstractions of commercial conventions. Looking merely to the practical, and my letter being brief, I answered accordingly. But let us examine the philosophy of the thing. And here Mr. Flournoy admits difficulties “truly formidable,” but he does not notice, and, perhaps, he does not see, all. He speaks first of the organic law—the constitution—which the mutes may construct; and, in another part of his letter, he would allow hearing persons who come among us for trade or residence, to vote. Nor could we, under the constitution of the United States, prevent them, unless we were to be forever a territory and under a government like that of the Cherokees. Allow, then, hearing persons to vote, and they, far outnumbering us, would change the organic law to suit themselves. He would allow women to vote. Bravo! I agree with him there.

Mr. F. challenges me to show him “twenty mutes in a hundred that are constant readers, adequate to comprehending either literature or science, as they are now dispersed among hearing people, who do not read much themselves, etc.” The challenge is too comprehensive. Literature, as read in the United States, is generally wishy-washy; and of science, the elements alone are commonly studied or read. The time has not come when the masses are to be highly educated, but it will come; and the future will look back on the present as we do on the past—as a semi-barbarian era.

The masses—in the North at least—are almost universally readers, and the educated deaf-mutes, as a general rule, are not behind them in that respect. True, the deaf-mutes, taking them as a class, do not so well nor so readily understand all the words and technicalities of written language, but they obtain a pretty correct idea, and, for the present, that is much. Let ten or twenty years more pass by, and in all the schools for the deaf and dumb the period of instruction will be extended to ten and fifteen years—that is, from the earliest age to twenty-one.17 The justice of such a course will be clear to all men who are capable of thinking. Mr. Flournoy’s error in regard to “scattered and lost,” arises from judging from the Southern aspect of society. There, except among the few wealthy, education is almost unknown and books and newspapers rarely seen. Among such a population, an educated deafmute must necessarily be almost literally “lost.” The remedy is to educate the hearing masses; and if Mr. Flournoy, instead of fretting away his life in complaints, would endeavor to remedy the evil, he will have lived to some purpose. I hope he will not deem me as speaking harshly, for such is not the case.

There is another “formidable” difficulty in Mr. Flournoy’s plan—the descent of estates to hearing children. He says the parents may supply means to buy real estate in contiguous states. It happens, unfortunately, that in our country not more than one man in twenty is wealthy. Of course, few such parents could buy real estate in other states; but there is a still more “formidable” difficulty. How parents and children would consent or could be brought to consent to a separation for so utopian a whim, as I must call it, with all deference to Mr. Flournoy, as that of keeping up a separate organization of deaf mutes in order that they—the deaf-mutes—may be indulged in the desire of exercising the functions of government, and of sending some restless politician to represent them in Congress? I do not know whether Mr. Flournoy has a family. It would appear not, from the way he talks of sundering the ties of parent and child; and, besides, parent and child thus separated, the former, left alone in his old age, would most certainly be ready at any moment to join in any general effort for changing the organic law and bringing it more into consonance with the laws of nature. If the child must go, the parent must go with him. The rule is instinctive in the human heart and is universal. All or nearly all then go, and what is left of your community of deaf-mutes? Only the young and the middle aged, and they looking to self-banishment as their children grow up. Such a prospect is not the most pleasant for a man or woman to contemplate; and still less so when the chief motive advanced is only the glory of governing ourselves in our own way, and especially the glory of sending some ambitious aspirant—Mr. Flournoy for example—begging his pardon for so using his name—to the National Halls at Washington. We have already the full enjoyment of the rights, common to all, of voting at elections. We enter into such contests with the same zest and heartiness, and enjoy victory and defeat as fully; and if we are not ourselves elected, we are no worse off than the eighty or ninety odd thousand to every member, and who never set foot within the walls of the national capitol. I hold it to be a poor ambition which desires merely to figure on the stage of life without benefiting one’s fellows. Any baboon can do that, and human baboons do it every day and have done it since the creation.

Mr. Flournoy suggests, as an alternative, in case of failure on the subject of real estate, etc., which I have been considering, that we “can remain a Territory of the Federal Government, and enjoy its powerful protection under Omnipotence.” Mr. F. does not appear to be aware that, while powerful as regards foreign nations, because when it represents public sentiment it is backed up by the public, or, in common parlance, by the people, it is exceedingly weak as regards its power over that people. Theoretically speaking, there is no government except the government of the people. As a Territory, instead of governing ourselves, we should be largely under a foreign government. Our governor, secretary and judges must come from Washington. We should send only a delegate who would have no right to vote. We should elect that delegate, our own legislature and minor officers; and our politicians, desiring to be senators, etc., and to wield more power, would soon be clamoring for a State government. But, aside from all this, a Territorial condition is not agreeable to man’s self-respect, nor the best suited to his development. It is holding the relation of child to parent, and the child full grown, energetic and lusty.18 Heaven keep us from the “powerful protection” of the Federal, or any government other than our own! “We the people” of the States, scarcely know, save by its caprices, that such a thing as the Federal Government has an existence. In a Territory, we should feel its iron hand—sometimes light, sometimes heavy, and should at all times be reminded that we are more subjects than sovereigns.

Mr. Flournoy takes too disconsolate a view of the condition of educated deaf-mutes. Out of the three or four thousand who are educated, I am acquainted with at least one thousand and I have not perceived that they are much more unhappy than, or held inferior to, the masses around them. It is true they can not, save in rare cases, hold office, but this is exceptional and consequent on their deafness. It is true, likewise, that they do not enjoy life in its fullness as do their hearing associates.19 This too, results from the same cause; and, as regards the kind of happiness, must always continue so in a greater or less degree. The same may be said of the blind, the lame, etc. It is a part of the punishment inflicted for violation of nature’s laws, which violation—whether it comes from carelessness, design or ignorance—results in deafness, blindness, lameness, etc., and will so result until man has so far improved, mentally, morally, and physically, that diseases and accidents of a severe nature will be unknown.20

Again, looking at the condition of the educated deaf-mutes in the Northern states, every year adds to their sources of enjoyment. They reside among a dense population, and that an educated population. Every year sends from the various institutions of the land, better educated mutes, for these institutions are compelled to keep pace with the progress around; and the time allowed their pupils, formerly four years, is already nearly doubled, and must, ere long, be extended further. Then, rail roads are covering the North and West as with a net-work, thus rendering conventions and individual meetings of educated deaf-mutes easy and frequent. The South is more slow in these matters, and it will probably require one or more generations to bring about the same state of things there. Mr. Flournoy need not despair. He is one of the wealthy slaveholders of the South, and, as such, is entitled to hold and utter his own opinions.21 Instead then of confining his reading and contemplations to the barbarian glories of Greece and Rome, where were three or four white slaves to every freeman, let him discard the ancients and their rude ignorance and vague surmisings, and turn his attention to the writings of the philosophers who have lived and written since the French Revolution of 1789. Let him read the writings of Combe22 and other philosophers of the progressive school, and the bold, vigorous essays of such periodicals as the Atlantic Monthly, and become hopeful as regards man’s destiny; and, thereby, he will be enabled to cast off what appears to be a gloomy misanthropy; and, by so doing, he will increase his own happiness. He is not the only one who has suffered mentally from being endowed with greater capabilities than his fellows. What he most needs is a more complete understanding of men, and the hopeful and more cheerful spirit founded thereon.

I desire here to correct an error into which I fell in my letter of Sept. 6th, to Mr. Flournoy. I stated that there were no government lands unsold in Iowa, except railroad lands. There is a large amount in the western and north-western part of Iowa not yet disposed of. My error arose from the fact that none were for sale at the time. There is a plan on foot in Wisconsin, among some Hartford and New York graduates—deaf-mutes—for going to one of these northwestern counties and settling in one neighborhood.23 This is carrying out the old plan formed by myself, Mr. Willard and others, over a quarter of a century ago, and free from the deformities of exclusiveness and of begging land of Congress. We are already, to some extent, carrying out the idea here in the place of my residence. We are already three families of deaf-mutes and expect as many more this spring; but I do not hold it wise for many of the same mechanical occupation to crowd into one town, unless such town is large. A city like New York can easily furnish occupation for a hundred in ordinary times. Less than a tenth of that number would be sufficient for a country village. …

Flournoy Elaborates on His Proposal

Further explanations from Flournoy also appeared in the April Annals.

Samuel Porter, Esq.:24

Dear Sir: The more I reflect upon the subject the greater is my conviction of the practicability and utility of the scheme of a Deaf Commonwealth. I am not the originator of it—though without being aware of his early promulgation of the same, I had suggested the views of my venerable friend, Laurent Clerc, to the deaf-mutes of America. He is the real father of the idea.25 To his wisdom and originality belong the project. “Honor to whom honor is due.” For my own humble part it is sufficient if I be deemed worthy, and receive a call from the deaf and dumb to the post of leader, that I devote myself in the inception and germ of the scheme to its virtual fulfillment. Difficulties, at first appalling, seem to vanish as we grapple with them, and the establishment of a sovereignty for our class, which are without tests of their capacity, tacitly rejected all election and preferment, appears to our anticipation a matter of easy accomplishment.

The location of our Empire may be in Oregon. Its winters are mild—situated as it is on an ocean, over which sweep and are tempered, the wintry blasts. It need not be marine, or on the sea shore, for we can not hear in the dark, and in tempests, so as to act as mariners—have therefore little to do with shipping and with sailing. Founded interior, a space of country forty miles square may fully answer our purpose. But should this far off province appear too distant to the deaf, we may look to some of the old Atlantic, gulf, lake, or conterminous states for the gift. But if a general negative meets us at all points, we can, with the permission and security of the Federal Government, negotiate with the Indian tribes that exist west of Arkansas, and purchase a tract sufficient for the intention. The government itself might purchase this small territory and sell it to each of our men on the principle of preemption;—the only benefit we ask from it being the securement to us of a constitution guaranteeing no controlling agency except by deaf and dumb men. Our design is to exhibit our competency for public and other affairs, and hence the peremptory necessity of this guaranty.

That the government will do this for us, remains to be tested by a memorial which may be written and signed soon after the adjournment of the next convention of the deaf mutes of New England, at Worcester, next September, when as I am credibly informed, the subject of this migration and colony will be fully debated by the members.26

I would, beforehand, warn the intelligent mutes not to expect or anticipate that the government, or the Congress and executive constituting it, would receive, with a good grace, any proposal from us which may look to a grant of land to our people. Congress will certainly give us no land. It has grudged all former such dispensations. Members of Congress have stigmatized such donations as those to the first deaf-mute Asylum founded in America, as “unconstitutional” and to be repressed, and characterized the precedents which anticipate gifts to the insane and other poor people, as perilous encroachments on the compact of our Union, which may finally lead to unwarranted and colossal appropriations. Indeed, it is known that President Pierce,27 when he vetoed (though unwillingly, as he said) the appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars to the construction and endowment of an Asylum for the Insane in our country, instanced the grant of money and land to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Hartford, in or about 1816, as a precedent which should not be approved into a pattern for further legislation. We are by this, therefore, admonished of the futility of any application for a grant of land in personal fee simple, to our class of the inhabitants of the country. … None, aside from such and collateral services, have ever been granted for the last thirty years. If any were, I know of none.

Our course, then, is to petition the Congress so soon as the deaf and dumb have had the matter laid before them generally, and have arrived at any conclusion, to lay out a small territory, to be reserved for the purchase, settlement, and government of the mutes, to whom only the pre-emption will hold valid. Nothing more need be sought or asked. I believe there are mutes in plenitude, who have enough money to take out bodies of land, and thus to create a society and political organization. There will, if untoward events deter emigration, be no lack of a sufficient number to be the governors of the country, or if that happen, there may exist an interregnum, in which the auricular may be substituted, by the constitution, to hold the state strictly in trust, until some deaf person approaches. Thus we can perceive that the commonwealth may be perpetuated indefinitely for our special use.

This is the plan, and it should be kept scrupulously in view. The difficulty of the whole vanishes as we approach to touch the thing, like the mists of morning before the rays of the sun. Mr. Booth, in his letter to me, published in the last Annals, believed it impracticable and an impossibility, if the state is to be entirely composed of deaf-mutes. I have shown that this was not the feature intended, and I suppose his objections may vanish. His answer, however, I await with cool anxiety. …

We deaf-mutes have a sort of abiding melancholy at our unfortunate deprivation, although our sanguine hope in a common and Almighty Father, who as He has led others to establish growing communities, will lead us also, and protect, uphold and prosper those who call on His name with a sincere and relying spirit, induces us to be gay and contented. It is the quiet of deference to our hearing brethren, and of dependence on Providence. We assume no arrogance in devising this benefiting project; pretend to no superiority, nor do we cogitate a mastery. We indeed do, as I have in my opening circular, sent to my class of the people, complain of rejections and consignments to inferior places or to none, without tests of capacity; but we do not arrogate to dictate, or to accomplish any policy, or to confirm any principle without the guidance or co-operation of our hearing friends, to whom, in some measure, by the order of Providence, we are in a state of pupilage. We feel duly grateful to them for what we know, which is due to their instructions; we are sensible of and grateful for their sympathy, and alike for them and ourselves, commiserate the circumstances of the whole human family upon the earth. But here we all have to live, and here must work and thrive and suffer, until the hour of withdrawal by death; and we ask only for some place, in which, without interfering with their business, we may quietly evince some competency that may tend to the welfare of coming generations of our unfortunate class.

Yours, etc.,

J. J. Flournoy

William Chamberlain on Flournoy’s Project

Other deaf people also had their opinions published in the April Annals. William Chamberlain, a deaf journalist in Massachusetts, became the first deaf person to give support (although limited) to Flournoy’s plan.

Samuel Porter, Esq.:

Dear Sir: The articles by Messrs. Booth and Flournoy, in the January number of the Annals, on a “deaf-mute commonwealth,” have interested me, and I am induced to send you some rough ideas of my own. Like Mr. Booth, I have some objections to Mr. Flournoy’s plan, although they may not prove so “truly formidable” as those of that gentleman and Mr. Turner; yet I can not agree with Mr. Booth in some of his ideas. He thinks a community composed exclusively or mainly of deaf-mutes “an impossibility;” I think that one exclusively of deaf-mutes could not long remain so, but I believe that if a company of deaf-mutes, say two or threehundred, more or less, with such of their hearing friends and relations as choose to join them, should go west, settle in some place where there was room enough, and form themselves into a community, governed by suitable laws, and headed by able leaders, such an institution would be both permanent and beneficial.

As far as my experience goes, I have always found deaf-mutes to be greater readers, better informed and more intelligent, where there are a number of them in the same place, than when scattered, as many, if not most of them are, among the hearing. I therefore can not agree with Mr. Booth that “the wisest course is to let them remain ‘lost’ among the hearing.” It is true, as Mr. Booth says, that deaf-mutes are compelled to read and write while in this “lost” condition, but it is for want of any better mode of communication with those with whom they live. It does not prove them to be better informed or more intelligent than they would be if placed in a body by themselves. A deaf-mute, generally speaking, is not apt to understand what he reads, by himself, so well as when he has access to some individuals of the same class. What one does not understand another can explain, and thus they promote each other’s improvement.

Mr. Booth says that “scandal, backbiting and other diabolisms” are as common with deaf-mutes as with hearing persons; I do not doubt it, but if he intends it as an objection against the formation of a community, it is a weak argument, for every one knows that other communities flourish in spite of such things.

I do not pretend that a community of deaf-mutes would be without disadvantages, yet when all things are considered, I think the benefits to be derived from one, if well regulated, are enough to render such a community desirable.

Mr. Flournoy wants Congress to grant us the government of a “piece of territory” large enough for a state; we, of course, to pay government prices for the land: it is not the land that he asks as a gift, but the government of the land. He seems to think that the land without the government would be undesirable. The extent of territory proposed “about the size of Rhode Island or Connecticut,” is an objection; all the deaf-mutes in the country could not settle it to advantage.28

The government of a “state” would be a very undesirable and inconvenient responsibility. There are ability, energy and talent enough among the deaf-mutes of this country to govern a state with credit to themselves and all concerned; but, as I believe that “politics and government, so far from being the ‘chief end of man,’ are a necessary evil, of which the less we have the better,” I propose to try the experiment on a smaller scale. I believe that an application to Congress would be a failure, and I do not intend to encourage a movement in that direction. It would be a waste of time, and in case of its failure, discouragements would arise. Our first movement must succeed, or many who would otherwise go with us will not come up to the aid of another and different plan. It becomes us to be prudent, and consider well, which of all the plans offered is most likely to succeed.

Mr. Booth would have us remain in our original “oblivion.” Mr. Flournoy would scatter us over a tract of territory where we should be like angel’s visits, “few and far between.”

I suggest that when a sufficient number of mutes, with their friends, are found, as I have no doubt there might be, they emigrate to some previously selected spot in the west, and buy up a piece of land six miles square. This would make a township of 23,040 acres, which, bought with land-warrants at present prices, would cost not far from $20,000. Let them settle it, choose leaders, and make laws to govern themselves, the laws always to be framed in accordance with the territorial laws and the Federal constitution.

There are enough in the States, willing and able to do this, and all they need is a call from some of their more influential unfortunates. Aside from the benefits to be derived from association with each other, there would be no need of applying to Congress, and the government of the township would be as much as they would care to be troubled with. They could regulate their own affairs, build and plant, and would no doubt grow to be a respectable colony. They could have their own Sunday schools and churches, where the gospel would be preached in the silent but expressive language of signs, understood by all and felt by not a few. If a mute wishes to sell out, let him do so, and to whom he pleases; let the colony be truly republican in spirit. Of course, advantages would arise from the mutes being in the majority. They could not be kept so by hereditary descent, but let it begin well and be conducted wisely, and deaf-mute emigration will keep up the required number. The motives which govern those who go should be a desire for personal and mutual benefit. Let brotherly love prevail among them, and let them not go because they thirst for power and wealth. These will accrue to the colony in years to come; no one expects to find them in the wilderness without toil and patience.

I may have more to say in future numbers of the Annals. In the mean time, if any of my fellow mutes should have any ideas to communicate, I should be glad to hear from them.

Yours, &c.,

Wm. Martin Chamberlain

P. H. Confer Supports the Commonwealth Plan

A deaf man in Indiana, known to us only as P. H. Confer, was the first in print wholeheartedly to embrace Flournoy’s proposal. He gives poignant testimony of the prejudice encountered by some deaf Americans and their loneliness living among hearing people.

Mr. Samuel Porter:

I saw in the American Annals for January 1858, letters from E. Booth and J. J. Flournoy, speaking of forming a colony of deafmutes, and to that I would say that it would make me happy, as well as many more of my class of people, if such a thing could be brought about—for a great many reasons. The deaf-mutes would all be happy, as they can not now be, because they have nobody that can or will converse with them, and many people look on a deaf-mute as if he were a fool, because he can not talk, and because to them deaf-mutes look so foolish, just because they can not understand them. If they were by themselves, they could be happy; but as they are separated, they are in many cases despised by hearing men. That I have found out myself, because the hearing man says to the mute, You are a fool and crazy imposter. Therefore, I say, I am for a place where all my deaf-mute brethren could live and be happy; and I would say to J. J. Flournoy, that I like his enterprise, and if it should come so far as to buy the land, I would say, that I would give $5,000 to it in cash, and if all would help, the thing could be done. I am an orphan. I became deaf by sickness. I was then ten years old, and could never since enjoy myself, with all my father left me, a good farm of two hundred and fifty acres, worth $18,000. I am all alone. My father and mother, brother and sister, are all dead, and left me the farm and $2,000 in cash, which I loan out at ten per cent. But with all that, I am not happy, with the present condition of the deaf and dumb. I am twenty-four years old and am not married.

This is what I think of the case, and I would like to see it carried out as soon as possible. Please give me a place in the Annals.

P. H. Confer

John Carlin to Laurent Clerc

Carlin wrote the following opinion in a personal letter to Clerc. Though not composed for the public, he agreed to let the Annals publish it.

I read in the Annals, the January number, the letters of Messrs. Flournoy and Booth, in reference to the “Commonwealth of Deaf Mutes,” in some territory, for which I would most respectfully suggest the name of DEAF-MUTIA. Or, for euphony’s, sake, GESTURIA. They both are ably written, do much credit to their heads and to their Alma Mater. As to the merits of Mr. Flournoy’s theory, all that I can say is, that nothing is more pleasurable to our sensations, as we loll in our armchairs by the fireside, than the building of castles in the air. Without manual labor, we can rear up in the vacuum, structures surpassing Solomon’s temple in magnificence and costliness of materials, kingdoms of vast magnitude and power, or ladders of eminence to ascend to the summit of fame. But in practice, to ensure success, it requires dollars, eagles and dimes in countless bags, to commence the work with, besides perseverance, patience and industry to keep the work steady; we all would have to lend our shoulders to the wheel, and not to stand looking on or gesturing all the long day.

As regards the founding of a deaf-mute commonwealth any where, the obstacles to its ultimate success are truly formidable. It must be borne in mind that nine-tenths of the whole deaf-mute community in this country can not raise up the wind so as to swell the flapping sails of Mr. Flournoy’s scheme; besides, it is a well known fact that the majority of them show little decision of purpose in any enterprise whatever. For my own part, failing to perceive the practicability of the scheme, to which Mr. Flournoy clings with a constancy worthy of a better cause, I am content with my being “lost among the hearing persons,” whose superior knowledge of the English language benefits my mind far more than would the perpetual gestures of the thousands of the bona fide residents in Gesturia. Drive to the neighboring states our hearing children whom we love so well! I reckon Mr. Flournoy has no little prattlers of his own to cheer the solitude of his plantation.

John R. Burnet Weighs In

Burnet also sent in a rather flippant treatment of the proposal.

I wish to offer the tribute of my admiration for the magnificent views put forth by Mr. Flournoy. I hope he will go on and prosper. The government of a territory is the object to which he at present modestly limits himself. I think I foresee his views will soar higher yet, till he and the deaf-mutes of America will be content with nothing less than the control of an independent republic. Will not President Flournoy sound better than Governor Flournoy?29 For myself, having a turn for foreign travel, I would rather be an attache to the embassy in London or Paris (for which post I hope my application may have precedence on file), than a member of the state government; not intending, however, to decline any office in which it may be judged that I may be useful to my country that is to be; provided the acceptance does not oblige me to neglect my own family.

Speaking of family, I would suggest a way of getting over the difficulty raised by Mr. Booth. Let it be provided that the estates of deaf-mutes may pass to their daughters who hear and speak, provided these daughters marry only deaf husbands. And if there be no daughters, I would so far respect the paternal feelings of worthy deaf-mute citizens that I would let their hearing sons inherit, provided they would consent, like Ulysses on the coast of the Syrens, to stop their ears with wax. They would then have no advantage over deaf-mutes in public meetings and conversation at least, which is all that can be reasonably required.

I would further suggest, to make the scheme more practicable, that we need not insist on permanent residence in voters. Let all deaf-mutes come, pay tax, and vote, and then vamos, a la Kansas.30 Many would do that, who might not find it for their interest to pitch their stakes in the new promised land.

Flournoy’s Final Reply

Flournoy’s final comments on the subject appeared in the July Annals.

The April No. of the Annals contains the remarks of Mr. Booth, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Carlin, Mr. Confer and Mr. Burnet; all excepting those of Messrs. Chamberlain and Confer, repudiating my scheme. I do not look upon Mr. Chamberlain’s suggestion as adverse, it is a substitute, by a diminution. But he should have viewed the project with a more enlarged survey, and observed that as our Commonwealth is to be founded for all coming time, numerous, eventually, may be the emigrations of deaf-mutes from all parts of the civilized world; and hence, a six miles square would prove insufficient for them; and this is the contingency for which we should sagaciously provide, by the selection of a forty miles square territory. The deaf residing in its contiguous towns and settlements will never be materially scattered. Still, should the effort to induce this exodus of the deaf be practicable, some such plan as Mr. Chamberlain’s may be tried, on the principle and policy, “better a little than none.”

Mr. Carlin says he does not fancy a confinement among deafmutes, listening to their signs, as improving. Mr. Chamberlain has already refuted some of these objections, as to the facility for intelligence by such unions. But I would respectfully say to Mr. Carlin, that any amount of learning we deaf fellows can amass from conversational intercourse with the hearing, is greatly less than what we could derive from a conjunction of, and intercourse with, our own class of people. There is not a hearing man, that, except for occasional novelty and to while away a tedium, would like to hold written converse with any of us. It is too irksome. I always endeavor to make it a point never to put my neighbors to such trouble. They often have complained of the burden of conversing thus with me. And such hearing people as know the sign language, or alphabet of our class, never make it a point to convey to us one ninety-ninth of the information they constantly impart to each other by oral converse. Our last resource, then, is to have a unity; to read and to mutually impart our knowledge.

The subject of the Editorial remark on the disposition of Messrs. Flournoy and Confer, to consider the mutes as “despised” by the hearing, has two aspects.31 It is too obvious for denial, that, while by some we are not estimated of any importance at all to society, and encounter insurmountable prejudice where we would assert an equality, by others, we are only regarded patronizingly. It is true indeed, that by some few, and these the more philosophical and Christian portion of the hearing community, who also are intimate with some of us, we have respectful or affectionate consideration. But how few are these among the mass! The Editor therefore erred, in supposing Mr. Confer’s declaration groundless or unmerited by the world.

This communication must indispensably be long, but inasmuch as it is the last that I regard as requisite on this matter for me to put forth, I hope the indulgence of the Editor of the Annals. After this article the argument on my part is exhausted, and the project submitted to the choice of the deaf and dumb. Mr. Booth may reply as a finality, but I have with this concluded my lucubrations.

Mr. Booth sets out with calling his reply to my letter a practical one. It is its impracticability to which I object. He goes on to say, that himself, Mr. Willard, and others, had “formed an association with a view of purchasing land” at the West, which was abandoned by their appointment as teachers. Now I do not suppose this plan analogous with mine. It had none of the main features of the Commonwealth System, and any mention of it at all as cogent reasoning against what is now contemplated, is unnecessary and irrelevant. I say to Mr. Booth again, that if the ideal of going West embraced nothing more than a settlement under the auspices and supervision of the hearing, we might as well and better, remain in our present positions. I wish to be comprehended. It is a political independence, a STATE SOVEREIGNTY, at which I aim, for the benefit of an unfortunate downtrodden class, for they are downtrodden enough, when the human soul is denied its right because of our bodily imperfection. How else, but by acting with such an establishment, can we evince our intelligence, capacity and usefulness? Shall our energies be forever dormant, that is, the mass of us be made little better than slaves, with ability of course to vote for others, but to have none to vote for us; and without such commercial and agricultural facilities as our Union can engender, because Edmund Booth is satisfied with that summit of his ambition, a newspaper, and because George Homer and perhaps some few others, have a clerk’s place in the customs?32 Certainly, such contented deaf-mutes as they can stay where they are. My call is to those who have no emolument or hope beyond the incomes of their humble daily labor, which hearing competition abridges, and whom hearing arrogance effectually shoves aside. Until our hearing brethren will embrace us as co-equal spirits, we shall ever talk of them thus.

My object is not so much political honors for the mute, as the exhibition of our dormant qualifications. My plan is to make a HOME for the mutes, for mutual intercourse and improvement; and to show the world our abilities, which may induce governments and opulence to employ our brother-mutes in many posts for a living.

The prevailing idea of rulers and of people is that mutes are not capable of any political accomplishment; that, while hearing men are at hand, such unnecessary expletives may well be forever discarded. No deaf-mute therefore has any money by performing political services; besides, no one having an extensive manufacturing or other establishment, would prefer or allow him to have the profitable post of manager or overseer. All he can get is that of day laborer or mechanic. Such positions do not elevate him into wealth, while the hearing get rich by having the best employments.

Now, could we exhibit in some State, where all office and business is free to us, our competency, the prosperity of our Society will convince the world that we could do many things; and hence, office and lucrative appointments may be open to us in other lands. Does Mr. Booth now comprehend? Such of us as have devoted a life-time to politics, can give satisfaction if employed as ministers plenipotentiary, since in diplomacy all intercourse is carried on by writing. Many of us also could act as governors and legislators, all that is needed is some new arrangement in the order of representation. We could also very well be head-men or managers in some lucrative establishment, and in banks, and no mute will be a defaulter.

Mr. Booth goes on to allude to ambition as my governing motive. … In this matter I had no personal ambition. From a sick bed I sent out a call to my fellow-citizens who are isolated from all preferment by government, and patronage, by opulence as overseers and managers, directing their attention to meditations for the common good. I was to stay where I am and still to contend for the buried truth. The deaf-mutes I considered capable, if my advice be adopted, of acting without my personal agency. How, in this, can Mr. Booth, or any man, see ambition as the propelling passion?

If I become an inhabitant of our State, that may be, to be called GALLAUDET, and have election to Congress, I shall not have gone there without benefiting the people that sent me, by attending to their interests. It is mockery and disparagement of themselves and a depreciation of their intrinsic capacities, to see deaf persons talking about ambition as the motive of the would-be benefactors of their class. A slave could not utter a more significant idea of negro degradation, than when one tells another whose master grants him extra privileges, that he wishes to strut about like a white man! It is time for us, poor deaf men, to drop all such caricaturing, and to gravely and solemnly address ourselves to the plan of ameliorating our condition, without doing injury to our hearing brethren, and perhaps benefiting them by our devout and consistent examples.

The next objection of my friend, Mr. Booth, is on the score of the separation of parents and children. He supposes, with another correspondent, that I have no family. I have only a daughter, married, and removed to Wisconsin—and she left against my wishes. Children we see will not always abide at home, or near their parents. I do not see how this scheme would separate families before the adult age; but adults will disperse of themselves. The deaf and dumb appear to dwell on this subject. The affections of their parents for them in particular, is such as to stand no separation. Mothers and fathers are fond of deaf, more than of any other children. So wrote a deaf-mute of Columbus, Ohio, name unrecollected—Chase, I believe. Now the true philosophy of such a view is that parents can follow such adult children to the State of Gallaudet. But on what is this extraordinary attachment, forbidding all improvement of the condition of such favorites, founded? Be it founded not on rational affection, but rather on that favoritism that makes a child a perpetual pet, very much as some old woman in single blessedness loves a monkey, a cat, or a poodle dog—such enfeebling and frustrating attachment to a deaf child in particular, does not very much recognize it as an intelligence, and can not be tolerated, against the manifest destiny of its useful citizenship. But I will meet Mr. Booth’s philosophy on its very face. He had said that it would not be right (I use his ideas, not words) to part families. Again, he in the next postulate has a flattering picture of the fact that deaf schools may retain scholars fifteen years, “from infancy to twentyone.” And here is a virtual separation of parent and child at the tenderest age of the pet. To what then amounts his reasoning, when he infers that after such academical absence, the educated mute, long weaned from such lap-dog attachment, is to be retained by the family as a living automaton, a perpetual “darling”—doing nothing but some mechanical endearment all day long!

I respect the affection and sacredness of the family circle, and would forever consecrate such associations. But can not they be perfected equally in the community we wish to form? Nor when an emergency demands, can the energies of rational minds be contracted into everlasting childhood.

I have observed in my intercourse with the world, that if a first sight of me induce a deference of demeanor in the spectator, when he hears that I am deaf, he is at once familiar, even by speech and look; and though this would appear as a friendly disposition, it soon wears off, and attention and respect is given to others, while I am treated with neglect, or only occasional notice. Attention to us is thus exhibited as based upon inferior considerations. When we would claim equality, it offends. Viewing the case this way, I doubt if the estimation of parents for deaf children is as deep and abiding, all things considered, as that for the others. It is but cruelty to them, if adults, thus to contract their resources to the domestic hearth.

Mr. Booth had in his first letter asserted that by remaining “scattered and even lost” amid the hearing, deaf-mutes are induced to be a reading class. I demanded proof of one in a hundred, thus scattered, being a reader of many books. He replied, not by producing the proof to sustain his first position, but by disclaiming that in our age many of even the hearing are literary and scientific! In this as he fails to sustain his argument, his objection falls to the ground.

In his next attack, he observed that I “complain” and take a “wrong view of men,” and make myself unhappy by what he calls a “gloomy misanthropy”—after advising me to read other than Roman and Greek works, and those of the progressive philoso phers of the present times! Such misanthropy, as he calls it, has nothing to do with any effort to institute a deaf society. It was a movement of philanthropy. If he make out my proposal to be a complaint of a gloomy spirit, in what light would he conceive to have been the temper and feelings of those great master-spirits that in all epochs have ameliorated the condition of men? What authority had he for restricting a deaf-mute from using, though in a humble attitude, the weapons of Luther, of Columbus, or of Washington? Was Patrick Henry a “complaining, gloomy misanthrope,” because he was for independence? Was Washington no better, for contending against such a colossal power as Britain? The case of every reformer or ameliorator is analogous. If he could regard me as an unhappy, complaining misanthrope, he must so consider Luther and Washington, and the founders of the American Colonization Society, and those of the Domestic, Foreign and every other Mission—for they are all based on principles identical with mine—as aiming to correct the imperfection of actual circumstances. But here Mr. Booth finds himself placed hors de combat. He is himself the complainer—the “unhappy misanthrope”—for he opposes the improvement of the resources of his class of people, and arrogantly and patronizingly calls upon us all to do like himself, and diminish our prospects into a settlement out west of some village, where in one generation we shall have vanished away, without the trace of history or tradition! …

I know that if I could have induced Georgia early to adopt my plans (and they are not a single one), that she would have stood morally sublime, and the example of all the republic. I know too that if the deaf and dumb would cease to carp and cark, and to find objections, and to theorize, and move to the adoption of my emigration suggestion, that they would build up a commonwealth, governed solely by themselves, that would astonish the hearing by the magnitude of faculties they had hitherto conceived as impossible. So Mr. Booth need no longer oppose the manifest destiny of our people. God hath “turned our captivity,” and we are no longer the useless objects that the world has not yet ceased to consider us. We will have a small republic of our own, under our sovereignty, and independent of all hearing interference. We will also inhabit all parts of the country; and to such of us as remain in the old homesteads, the proof of our competency exhibited in the Deaf Commonwealth would be a material benefit. Whenever our hearing brethren acknowledge our use and equality, and conceding the privilege of office and preferment, so reorganize structures as to admit our participation in business and duties, national, state, and secular, and even religious, then will be the appropriate time for hearing such arguments as Mr. Booth and Mr. Carlin have given. Till then “our work is great,” and we can not attend to any of the Sanballats of society.33

The objection to the commonwealth, on the score of inability to buy land for the hearing children in the contiguous states, not thirty miles away, any way, from the center, may be refuted by the supposition that, should the deaf not live in fashion and luxury like the French and English and wealthy Americans, every man would have money enough to give to his children as they attain age. The mutes are proverbially a temperate people. We would have no drunkards or grog-shops among us. None need, therefore, be too poor to help his children to settle just less than twenty-five miles off. Again, as Mr. Booth held it, if the children must leave, the parents will; and there may be no mute population sufficient to keep up the state; and that it is poor inducement to remain there only to send me to Congress. But how many of our children may be engaged in mercantile employments, how many in mechanical? Such as will have real estate can rent it, or have it a little distance off. By this means a sufficient number will remain to people the state and its cities, and to carry on the government. Mr. Booth has given only one side, and that the darker one of the picture; whereas there are more favorable lights in the same compass; and should there be but forty deaf mutes in the country, they, with the government, will preserve the association, and exhibit what mutes can do; while experience will come in to correct mistakes and defects.

It is presumable that the Convention at Worcester will, if the idea be seriously entertained to found Gallaudet, thoroughly examine into the several aspects of the state. They would thus arrive at some definite shape in which the economy of these matters may be comprehended—our qualification for office, the order in which landed property may be owned and bequeathed, or the tenure by which it is to be held. It is true that nature has not separated the deaf and the hearing by any wide and imprescriptible margin, and no organization can be fixed that can have any precedent in former ages or former plans. It would be a quite novel experiment, which is alone for ends that we wish to attain; and some sacrifices must be made for the general welfare. We, as the right to the soil is in deaf mutes, may hold the territory subject to future legislation; we may ordain it that our hearing progeny shall live on, and work free of cost, our lands, on the principle of usufructuary rent, to be entailed upon the next deaf child that is born in the family, on the English plan of primogeniture; and that money be given to the hearing children, equal to the proportional value of the land. Our good management would make this easily possible at all times.

How can Mr. Booth think that such an organization would be of no benefit to the mute community? Why does he not look upon them as scattered among the hearing, all the world over, and denied all office and all lucrative employment, and the only affluent ones among the nations being so by inheritance alone? It is impossible to see how a mute, with his present facilities and under prevailing prejudices, can, like the hearing man, with all his advantages, and privileges and prerogatives, become wealthy himself from original poverty. The transition, then, to this community, can not by any means injure the emigrants. It must be a benefit. It would advance the interest of the masses, whose situation is certainly worthy our consideration, instead of that of Mr. Booth and some others of the more favored of our class. The maxim, “the greatest good of the greatest number, and for the longest possible time,” is to be our controlling axiom; and no dogma that is satisfied with the gains of a few, exercises a predominating influence over deliberations which look to the future by the lights of the present, and rely on the same Divine Benignity that will qualify all innocent systems to the happiness of His creatures. …

We are not beasts, for all our deafness! We are MEN! The Era of de l’Epée has been the epocha of our birth of mind. After a long night of wandering, our planet has at length attained an orbit round a central luminary. Let us go manfully to the work. I welcome brothers Chamberlain and Confer, as spirits that stand forth in this early light of our history.

Mr. Chamberlain abjures political affairs, as constructed into government, as an evil with which we should have little or nothing to do. This sentiment is exceedingly unphilosophical. Our friend should recollect that he is under some government, and that he might as well be under his own, as that of others, who, more unwise than himself, might mold his destinies as they please. We can not avoid having to do with government! … We think, as deafmutes, that we can superstruct a more perfect model for our own benefit, than the one under which we now exist, which discards us from all honorable and lucrative posts; while to hearing men, often our inferiors in every thing but hearing, it gives large rewards for services and distinction. …

What do Messrs. Chamberlain and Booth want? A small township of deaf-mutes, like the Shakers at Lebanon, New York, in which even our social organization and habits must conform to rules, in which, from the nature of things, we can have no agency? Our few votes, in our scattered aggregate, have not a jot of influence in the deliberations of capitals. Every law and legal rule is made independent of the wishes of mutes. Often our peculiar necessities and such arrangements as may be indispensable to our welfare, are not known or provided for. In our trade and intercourse, in our multifarious concerns, some new regulation is necessary; and if the thing could be re-arranged, many of us could sit on juries, and consequently be impartial, and hold offices of emolument.

I had forgotten to notice the observations of Mr. Booth regarding the incongruities of a territorial state of government with our object as mutes. This, however, may be obviated by an early admission on the Kansas policy, when the population is less than the required number. For my own part I can not intend it to be a slave territory, or even to admit free Negroes.34 Our object is peace and happiness; and we wish to have, if possible, as sequestrated people, nothing to do with what is an ever threatening and pregnant bane to mar the harmony of our country, and to periodically menace the Union—that casket of liberty—the very sine qua non of it. Like the independency of Frankfort, or Hamburg, or the small Italian territory of San Marino, always exempt from wars and desolation, and as the inhabitants of ancient Delos, in Greece, we would be a province, in which, on approaching our soil, martial arms are hushed into silent repose. So far from imitating the fashions, dress, luxuries and customs of other men, we must organize a state of society in which brotherly and sisterly love shall continue without invidious distinction. Thus we shall endeavor to form a model in ourselves of what a Christian community can be, and Providence our guard and guide, shall enter the stream of life for Eternity.

Last Remarks by Booth

The July Annals also contained Booth’s closing words.

The April No. of the Annals gives us the views of some of the representative members of the deaf-mute community on Mr. Flournoy’s project. Messrs. Burnet and Carlin speak of it with philosophical good humor, and manifest a disposition to be quizzical at Mr. Flournoy’s expense. Mr. Confer, like other wealthy men, has more money than he knows how to enjoy, and wishes somebody to help him enjoy it. He, like Mr. Flournoy, has formed too low an estimate of the standing of persons who are deprived of one of the faculties common to mankind at large. It is evident that he is a ready reader; and if he is not able to enjoy life surrounded by books and newspapers, the best thing he can do is to seek associates such as he desires. Mr. Flournoy gives us another letter explanatory of his scheme, and in this I will touch on only one or two points.

In politics, in religion, in medicine, and in all other callings, we have a class of men who are fond of tracing out castles in the air, and who pass their lives in calling on the nation or the surrounding community to build the airy structures, with airy or unairy materials. They possess an unbounded confidence in possibilities, and usually an equally unbounded enthusiasm, and are often useful men in their way. They, on many occasions, show how much better the world can be made, by the pictures which they draw of a better and more elevated life than is the present; and thus man’s hopes, aspirations and energies are increased in activity, and so strengthened that his progress onward and upward is far greater than it otherwise would have been. Mr. Flournoy belongs to this class of dreamers; and, like many of them, he, while tracing out his castle in the air, gives but superficial attention to the nature of the materials with which it is to be built, or the foundation on which it is to be laid.

For instance, after casting about for some time for unoccupied territory wherein to place his commonwealth, he says, “The location of our Empire may be in Oregon.” Is not this capping the climax of absurdity, and the capstone of sufficient weight to crush the whole imaginary structure of a deaf-mute commonwealth to atoms? The proposal to locate in so distant a place as Oregon, with so little regard to the difficulties and cost of reaching that region, gives his whole project the air of a joke contrived for his own amusement. The government will do nothing toward building a Pacific railroad for years to come; and nothing short of a blind religious faith worked into fanaticism, would suffice to induce any number of deaf-mutes to encounter the expense of a sea-voyage, or the dangers and watchings of a land journey through a thousand miles of sandy desert, in order to obtain that which they have already—the right to self-government.

One other point in Mr. Flournoy’s “Further Explanations,” and I have done with it. He says … “We, deaf-mutes, have a sort of abiding melancholy at our unfortunate deprivation.” It may be, and doubtless is so with him. There is an abiding melancholy, or something like it to be found in certain persons among all classes of men and women, both mute and hearing. It is not so much owing to any particular misfortune or deprivation, as such persons generally imagine, as to the want of activity in the moral and intellectual life of those persons. A monk in a cell, wrapped up in his egotism, with his pater-nosters and his beads, is a type of that class. Their views do not extend beyond their own petty selves, which they surround with imaginary woes. Mr. Flournoy’s assertion no more applies to deaf-mutes as a class than to hearing persons as such; and as applied to myself, I scout it altogether.

Having said so much in the negative on Mr. Flournoy’s project, I ought to say something in the affirmative, and the more so as I am for progress in all things that tend to good, and this brings me to Mr. Chamberlain’s letter in the Annals. Mr. C. proposes to buy up a township of land six miles square, or 23,040 acres, and he says, “the government of the township is as much as they [the deaf-mutes] would care to be troubled with.” This plan is far more reasonable than Mr. Flournoy’s, and if Mr. Chamberlain can induce a sufficient number to enter into his project, it is far more practical. I imagine, however, that after a year’s experience, the deaf-mutes would care very little about the government part of the matter. I will give him an idea how it is managed. Here in Iowa, each township elects annually three trustees—generally staid, elderly or middle aged men—a township clerk, two justices of the peace, and two constables; also a president and directors of the township schools. Mr. C. will see that these offices are not such as make a man famous, or that in themselves they are particularly desirable.35 Hence, the government motive for an emigration is, after a short experience, blown to the winds for lack of weight.

I would not take up so much time on this subject were it not to come before the convention next autumn. Instead of voting, in convention, to migrate to the West, to Oregon, to the South Sea Islands, or to the moon, I would suggest that they discuss the subject—for thereby information may be diffused, reflection excited, and good done—and then lay it on the table, or lay it over till the next convention. In the two intervening years, a correspondence may be kept up between those now in the West, or who may come into the West, and those who remain in the East. The best plan, after all, is for deaf-mutes to follow the general current, and settle, a few in each neighborhood, and work at whatever mechanical occupation they may have learned while in school. Those who are not chambered with families might do well to push into western and north-western Iowa, or other thinly settled districts, where they can purchase land at a dollar, or two or three dollars, per acre. They will grow with the country, and can give information and advice to their friends in the East, who, if so disposed can follow them. After living nearly twenty years in the West, I am satisfied this plan is far better than any other yet proposed in the Annals.

Views of a Deaf Teacher

In addition, the July Annals featured the following letter from P. A. Emery, a deaf instructor at the Indiana Institution.

Mr. W. Martin Chamberlain,

Dear Sir: I have been much interested in the scheme called the “Deaf-Mute Commonwealth,” which has been set afloat upon the public wave through the American Annals. As to who is the originator of the plan I care nothing about, nor their motive. If the plan proves of service to the mute community, and not to their own aggrandizement, then I say with Mr. J. J. Flournoy, “Honor to whom honor is due.” I do not wish to be understood as discussing the subject, but merely to state my own views.

I am in favor of something, no matter what, so it renders more of the mutes happier than I have found many of them to be in their lost and lonely condition. Let the purpose be to find them plenty to do, where they can enjoy themselves best, and prevent them from falling into that melancholy state peculiar to deafmutes, and give them a place where they can have the gospel preached in their silent yet expressive language. If there are not enough of them at the first settling to support a minister, and to build a church, they can have a Bible Class until their numbers and means become greater.

I have thought some about the matter, but have not come to any settled conclusion, as I always make it my motto to “Look before I jump.” As to Mr. Flournoy’s plan, I, as one, have my objections; nor do I agree with Mr. Booth in considering it an impossibility. I believe in a practical life and not one of dreams. Your plan as set forth in the April number of the Annals is good, and in my humble opinion is the best. I think the best course to pursue, is, for those in favor of Mr. Flournoy’s, and those of yours, to form themselves into separate bands, and set their respective policies in operation; and which ever succeeds the best, we will set down as No. 1. …

Discussion at the Convention of the New England Gallaudet Association

Members of the New England Gallaudet Association of Deaf-Mutes discussed the idea of a deaf commonwealth at their third convention, which took place in September 1858 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Annals published the proceedings of the meeting the following month. Excerpted here are the portions dealing with Flournoy’s proposal.

Prof. L. Clerc then mounted the platform, and his appearance was greeted with hearty cheers.

He expressed his pleasure at seeing so many present; he had derived much pleasure from such gatherings in former years, and hoped for many more such social reunions; he held that we (the mutes) were not, as a general thing, inferior to our hearing brethren, and he did not believe that we were so considered by them. Hard times and distance probably had kept many of us at home who would otherwise have been present. He referred to the discussion which had been carried on, in the American Annals, for some months past, in relation to a commonwealth of deaf-mutes, the main features of which, according to Mr. Flournoy, of Georgia, the propagator of the scheme, were, the obtaining of a grant of land from Congress, and the exclusive right of deaf-mutes to the occupation and government thereof. He remarked that Mr. Flournoy had said in one of his letters, published in the Annals, that the credit of originating the Enterprise belonged to him (Mr. Clerc), and he would endeavor to explain his position in regard to the matter. It was well known that, in the early days of the American Asylum, Congress donated a tract of land in Alabama, for the benefit of the funds of that Institution. He had once said something about the plan of selling such part of the land as was necessary for the Asylum, and then having the rest as headquarters for the deaf and dumb, to which they could emigrate after being educated. Mr. Flournoy getting hold of the idea, published it, with such additional embellishments as he deemed expedient.

Mr. Clerc said that a mature deliberation on the whole matter had made it appear an impracticable plan; it could not be kept up without exclusiveness, and that was a very undesirable condition, for as most of his auditors would agree, it was very convenient to have some hearing persons within call in many cases, as for instance, sickness and fire. Besides all this, as the Commonwealth, if established at all, must be placed in some out of the way position, there was great probability that the inhabitants would have aggressions and encroachments to contend with, against which the laws of the land would be of little avail. He gave it as his opinion that the project was, in its main features, the offspring of a disordered imagination; to take it as a whole, if Mr. Flournoy had counted on the influence of Mr. Clerc in favor of his plan, he had reckoned without his host. The general opinion of the mutes seemed to be that they had better stay at home. Some curiosity had been expressed as to the absence of Mr. Flournoy’s name on the list of pupils of the American Asylum, it being well known that he was educated there, Mr. Flournoy was not, properly speaking, a pupil. Mr. Clerc taught him French and Mr. Turner, English.

[Editor’s note: Several hearing people also addressed the assembly about the commonwealth plan. The Rev. W. W. Turner, the principal of the American Asylum, denounced Flournoy’s suggestion that deaf people were despised and excluded, pointing to parents’ affection and concern, the legislatures that had allocated thousands of dollars to deaf education, the teachers who worked for the benefit of deaf people, and so forth. Turner concluded that “Mr. F’s objections and assertions rested on no foundation whatever.” The Reverend Thomas Gallaudet of New York, the eldest son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, told the convention that “he regarded the plan of Mr. Flournoy as a result of a morbid state of feeling, a dislike to the society of hearing men.”]

Mr. Clerc asked the Convention whether the members were despised or maltreated at home. Receiving a general no! for answer, he asked, then why emigrate? He also asked them whether they would prefer to form a community of deaf and dumb, and the general answer was, that they had rather live mixed with those who hear and speak.

*I have not, however, permitted any one to insult me with the application of such a law. [Flournoy’s note.]

1. William W. Turner, letter to J. J. Flournoy, reprinted in “Scheme for a Commonwealth of the Deaf and Dumb,” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 8 (1856): 118, 119.

2. E. Merton Coulter, John Jacobus Flournoy: Champion of the Common Man in the Antebellum South (Savannah: Georgia Historical Society, 1942), 15.

3. Belisarius (c. 505–565) was commander-in-chief of the Byzantine forces during the reign of Emperor Justinian. He led victorious campaigns in Africa, Sicily, and Italy. However, his achievements made him enemies. Implicated in a conspiracy against the emperor, his eyes were put out in 561. According to the historian Procopius, Belisarius lost all of his belongings and was reduced to begging in the streets of Byzantium.

4. This letter provides the strongest protest against oppression in this collection. It marks a counterpoint to the extensive gratitude to hearing people and occasional language of inferiority expressed elsewhere, such as at the Grand Reunion several years before.

5. Just as Clerc and Carlin argued earlier in this anthology that deaf education makes the United States a greater country, so Flournoy here contends that denying deaf people opportunities actually weakens the nation.

6. In John 16, Jesus tells the parable of a rich man who feasted sumptuously every day while a diseased beggar named Lazarus lay starving at his gate.

7. Flournoy foreshadows modern activists and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 by asserting that, if given proper access and support, he could contribute much to society.

8. By arguing against deaf people being “such perpetual children,” Flournoy effectively challenges the rhetoric at the 1850 grand reunion, where Thomas Brown and Laurent Clerc compared deaf alumni to children and their hearing supporters to parents (see p. 150, n. 9).

9. While previous deaf authors call English a foreign language to deaf Americans, Flournoy takes things further, suggesting that hearing people themselves are foreigners to the deaf experience.

10. An example of the occasional condescension that authors express toward uneducated deaf people in these pages. Compare Carlin, Burnet, and others calling uneducated deaf people “savage,” “heathen,” and so forth. Especially in this debate, we can see how the American deaf community was far from homogeneous and, like most groups, sometimes quite factional.

11. Approximately 90 percent of deaf people have hearing children.

12. Booth makes English literacy an issue in the debate over a deaf state. In arguing that deaf people should remain scattered so they will be forced to read and write English, he reveals how he, like Carlin and others, privileges competency in English over ASL and deaf culture.

13. George Rapp (1757–1847) founded the Harmony Society, a utopian religious and social community. They established a village called Harmony in Pennsylvania in 1805. The group prospered, but died out because of a rule of celibacy. Etienne Cabet (1788–1856) began the Icarian movement based on principles of pacifism and communism. In 1849 he founded a community in Illinois. Other villages were established in Missouri, Iowa, and California, but all were abandoned by the end of the century.

14. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1789–1851), a French painter, invented the daguerreotype, an early process for producing photographs on a silver or a silver-covered copper plate.

15. In making his case for a deaf state, Flournoy repeatedly appeals to readers’ manhood, independence, and pride. To be true men (and not children or second-class citizens), he contends, deaf Americans should emigrate to a place of their own.

16. Since women were not allowed to vote in the United States during the nineteenth century, Flournoy takes a progressive stance here.

17. Booth is right that the period of education for deaf students would lengthen, but it did not happen as quickly as he anticipated.

18. Here we again encounter parent–child rhetoric. While Flournoy presents a deaf commonwealth as the adult choice, Booth contends that living in a territory would make adults feel like children because they would be ruled by the federal government.

19. The debate is circling around four major issues: deaf Americans’ happiness and self-worth, their opportunities in mainstream society, their literacy, and the feasibility of creating a separate deaf commonwealth.

20. Booth addresses a question raised by Laurent Clerc in 1818: “Why are we deaf?” While Clerc, Carlin, and others view the answer as a divine mystery, Booth gives a more precise response: deafness is punishment for breaking “nature’s laws.” His comment contains tinges of the medieval view of deafness as a curse from God.

21. Flournoy did have some slaves. Somewhat paradoxically for a person who railed against prejudice, Flournoy saw African Americans as evil and wanted to send all black people to Africa. Since Booth was a strong abolitionist, and this exchange took place only a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War, we can perhaps understand why the tone between Booth and Flournoy is often bitingly sarcastic, even hostile.

22. This reference may be to William Combe (1742–1823), British writer and humorist.

23. Even as this debate waged, deaf Americans were already coming together and forming small communities in various places around the country.

24. Samuel Porter was the editor of the Annals at the time this debate took place.

25. Flournoy makes this claim based on the fact that, in 1820, Clerc had suggested using part of Congress’s land grant to the American Asylum as a place where deaf people could settle.

26. The proceedings of the relevant part of this meeting appear at the end of the chapter.

27. Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) served as U.S. president from 1853 to 1857. The grant of land was made to the American Asylum in 1820.

28. In his most recent letter, Flournoy had scaled down his proposal, suggesting an area of land “forty miles square” for the commonwealth.

29. The editor of the Annals included the following note: “It is proper for us … to advise Mr. Burnet, that Mr. Flournoy would tell him he has hit wide of the mark in one of his points. Mr. Flournoy writes, to Mr. Chamberlain, that he should not feel at liberty even to join the colony in person. ‘I have long been attempting,’ he says, ‘to play a sort of moral reformer in Georgia, to induce the deportation of the slaves to Liberia, and I fear, if I should go west now, I should be abandoning a sacred duty. …”’ Apparently Flournoy realized that even if deaf people did decide to emigrate west, they would be unlikely to elect him their leader.

30. Burnet probably is referring to the recent struggles over the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which left the question of whether Kansas would be a free or slave state up to its inhabitants. Both proslavery and antislavery settlers went to Kansas in an effort to affect the vote, resulting in the tragedy of “bleeding” Kansas and moving the nation closer to Civil War.

31. The editor of the Annals included a curious note with Confer’s letter disputing his claim that deaf people were sometimes despised by hearing individuals. Such feelings, the (hearing) editor wrote, had “no foundation … in fact.”

32. George Homer, a member of a distinguished Boston family, had gradually started losing his hearing at age ten. Although he attended the American Asylum and was one of the founders of the Boston Deaf-Mute Christian Association, he opposed the idea of deaf people congregating together.

33. In Nehemia 4, the governor of the province of Samaria, Sanballat, tries to prevent Nehemia from rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls.

34. We can infer that Flournoy would exclude deaf African Americans from the commonwealth.

35. Booth writes from experience, since he served in various minor government positions in Iowa.