More secrets

To those of you who took the 2002 US History AP test–Here’s a familiar DBQ for you:

Document H

Source: Orestes A. Brownson, An address before the Society of the Mystical Seven at Wesleyan College, August 7, 1844.

I propose . . . to bestow . . . my remarks, my attention on several species of the genus QUACK REFORMERS . . . . The effort to cut loose from the past, and to create an entirely new social and industrial order . . . is the species of quackery practiced by our professed social reformers . . . . These systems of reform disown the past, condemn what has been, and propose the creation of an entirely new social order. . . . It is to no man’s credit that he disowns what has gone before him. . . . But what is this past which we in our folly condemn? It is that which has made us what we are. It is our mother. . . . Alas! He is a bad son who curses his own mother, and no good can come of him.

Wesleyan College? Boo, AP board!

(P.S. I’ve been asked why I focus more on the Mystical Seven and not the Skull & Serpent. This is because there’s just more information out there on the m7. That and if you google “Skull and Serpent” you get more Harry Potter fanfiction than I’m willing to deal with.)