Jon Lauck’s “The Good Country” is an extraordinary book, a celebration of the good, the true, and the beautiful as well as a revelation of the deepest flaws in American history. One comes away from reading it with immense energy to follow its creatively conservative paths.
The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900 by Jon Lauck (350 pages, University of Oklahoma Press, 2022)
Jon Lauck has achieved something extraordinary with his latest book, A Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900. Indeed, as one presenter at the recent Midwest History Association meeting in Grand Rapids rightly noted, Lauck has become, for all intents and purposes, our new Frederick Jackson Turner. A Good Country radically reinterprets history in a most conservative fashion, forcing us to take his argument in all future arguments about the Midwest and about America’s nineteenth century.
Not surprisingly—much like David McCulloch recently did—Lauck begins with the founding document that most shaped the creation of the Midwest, or what would have been known as the Old Northwest: the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. That organic document fundamentally proclaimed a loving longevity of English common law on the American frontier. It promoted complete religious toleration, established the primacy of the right of association (what Tocqueville called the most fundamental of all natural rights), called for means of education, labeled the American Indians as future citizens of the republic, prevented the creation of empire, and forbade, forever, slavery and involuntary servitude. As a document, it led to the creation of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin (and just a bit of Minnesota), each an experiment in republican liberty and creating, north of the Ohio River, the a valley of Democracy. As Lauck wisely argues, the Northwest Ordinance not only established republicanism, but it created the greatest thriving democracy the world had yet seen.
Three things must be noted about Lauck’s book. First, and most importantly, The Good Country, is relentlessly brilliant. The research, the writing style, and the rigorous establishment of arguments are all impeccable. Truly, this is a model for all historical scholarship. In the book, Lauck makes a call for “proportionality” and perspective, knocking to the ground such recent arguments promoting the denigration of America (such as the 1619 Project, though never named in Lauck’s book). Instead, Lauck seeks balance, analyzing the good and the bad of history. To be sure, Lauck celebrates the republic, but he never shies away from its faults, especially in its hypocritical and violent dealings with the American Indian.
If I found any flaw in Lauck, it was simply that he gives too much credence to the formation of a kind of generic Protestant character of Midwestern citizenship by the end of the nineteenth century. Nothing here should suggest that Lauck is wrong, but he does give only scant attention to the innumerable Catholic and Lutheran immigrants who settled not only the country side but who also populated Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, St. Louis, South Bend, Chicago, and Milwaukee. This is, admittedly, a very minor flaw and should not detract from the book’s overwhelming excellence.
Overall, reading The Good Country reminded me of my friend and colleague’s (Miles Smith IV) admonition to remember that America might have perpetuated slavery, but it also created abolitionist societies.
Second, and related to the above point, Lauck’s book demonstrates the sheer raw demographic, cultural, and economic power of the Old Northwest/Midwest. One can think of the 24th Michigan, for example, one of the most celebrated regiments on the first day of Gettysburg, sacrificing itself to prevent the Confederacy from taking the high ground to the south of that little Lutheran village. Or, one can think of an Abraham Lincoln, a U.S. Grant, a William Tecumseh Sherman, each a son of the Midwest. Sherman, perhaps, revealed this raw power best in his own memoirs, recollecting the Grand Review of the Army of the West in May 1865:
It was, in my judgment, the most magnificent army in existence–sixty-five thousand men, in splendid physique, who just completed a march of nearly two thousand miles in a hostile country…. The steadiness and firmness of the tread, the careful dress on the guides, the uniform intervals between the companies, all eyes directly to the front, and the tattered and bullet-riven flags, festooned with flowers, all attracted universal notice. Many good people, up to that time, had looked upon our Western army as a sort of mob; but the world then saw, and recognized the fact, that it was an army in the proper sense, well organized, well commanded and disciplined; and there was no wonder that it had swept through the South like a tornado. For six hours and a half the strong tread of the Army of the West resounded along Pennsylvania Avenue, not a soul of that vast crowd of spectators left the place; and, when the rear of the column had passed by, thousands of spectators still lingered to express their sense of confidence in the strength of a Government which could claim such an army.
Whether one appreciates Sherman or not, it’s impossible to deny the importance of this classically-trained red-headed Ohioan to nineteenth-century America. Equally true, it would be ridiculous to dismiss the total war and soft peace policies of the three men in shaping (or reshaping) the American republic.
Third, and finally, The Good Country reaffirms, as discussed briefly above, of the importance of the right to associate. In direct contrast to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a totalitarian and nationalist Rousseauvian statement—“The source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body, no individual can exercise authority that does not explicitly proceed from it”—Article II of the Northwest Ordinance stated that “no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements.” The American project, as such, allowed for the flourishing of families, churches, businesses, communities, schools and colleges, and fraternal orders.
Again, let me reiterate: The Good Country is an extraordinary book, a celebration of the good, the true, and the beautiful as well as a revelation of the deepest flaws in American history. One comes away from reading Jon Lauck’s book with immense energy to follow its creatively conservative paths.
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