Books, Maps, and Politics: A Cultural History of the Library of Congress, 1783-1861

Chapter One. Books, Classical Republicanism, and Proposals for a Congressional Library

7 CHAPTER ONE g Books, Classical Republicanism, and Proposals for a Congressional Library The Library of Congress today is an immense institution whoseplace on the American cultural scene is unquestioned. As of the year 2000, the two hundredth anniversary of its foundation, the Library housed some 119 million items in 460 languages on a universal array of subjects.1 Copyright deposits and congressional appropriationsensureits continued collection development. And although ministering to the needs of Congress remains an important aspect of its mission, the Library ’s staff also caters to researchers from around the world as well as to ordinary American citizens. The Library plays an important leadership role in the library world, and through agencies such as its Center for the Book, which promotes the importance of reading and the study of book history, the Library reaches out from Washington to the rest of the country. As a symbol of the nation’s commitment to the value of literature and the preservation of knowledge, the Library is an indispensable and seemingly irreplaceable institution. Who could object to such a magnificent institution?2 And yet, when the idea for a congressional library—let alone a national library—was first broached, it did meet opposition. The story of the Library of Congress properly begins not with its founding but with failed attempts in the 1780s and 1790s to establish such a library. These 8 chapter one failures demonstrate that even a modestly funded governmental library with a strictly circumscribed role was at the time a controversial proposition . For the idea of a congressional library to succeed, it would have to be perceived by frugal legislators as a strictly utilitarianventure.Andonce this utilitarian rationale for a library took hold, those legislators and cultural critics who envisioned a more grandiose mission for the Library found it difficult to dislodge. In this chapter, I describe these first attempts to found a congressional library, including the reasons cited in support of and in opposition to such a library. Taking into account the political and cultural context of the era, one finds that books occupied a conflicted place in classical republican ideology of the late eighteenth century. Republican political theorists valued books insofar as they fell under the rubric of useful knowledge and could help solve practical problems. Examinationoftheir published papers shows how the founding fathers relied on a core of books in politics, economics, law, and history in conducting state affairs. On the other hand, books—and by extension, a congressional library— were also potentially regarded as symbols of the corrupting power of luxury to subvert republican institutions. The association of books with luxury, once raised in these initial debates over a federally funded library, recurred persistently through the nineteenth century in discourse surrounding the Library of Congress and its role in American life. The Madison Proposal of 1783 James Madison and Theodorick Bland, as members of the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, were the initial sponsors of a congressional library.3 Bland, a delegate from Virginia, proposed on 1 July, 1782 that a list of books be imported for the use of Congress. On 21 November, Bland’s motion was referred to a committee consisting of James Madison as chair, Hugh Williamson, and Thomas Miflin.4 Madison’s committee reported in favor of Bland’s motion in January 1783 and presented a list of 307 titles it recommended for the use of Congress, as well as a set of arguments in favor of the proposal. Madison’s notes from the Journals of the Continental Congress on the reasons offered in favor of and against the purchase of books effectively summarize the committee’s thoughts on the uses that governmentally owned books would serve. In favor of the report, Madison records, the contention was made that authors on “the law of Nations, treaties, proposals for a congressional library 9 negotiations, etc.” were indispensable in order to render proceedings of the Congress “conformable with propriety”; the lack of such authorities was already “manifest in several important acts of Congress.” It was also argued that Congress should lose no time in collecting books and tracts related to American history and the affairs of the United States, because they would be necessary “not only as materials for a history of the United States, but might be rendered still more [valuable] by future pretensions against their rights from Spain or...