Joel Barlow

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Joel Barlow bigraphy, stories - American diplomat

Joel Barlow : biography

March 24, 1754 – December 26, 1812

Joel Barlow (March 24, 1754 – December 26, 1812) was an American poet, diplomat, and politician.Modern biographies are James Woodress, A Yankee’s Odyssey:the life of Joel Barlow, 1958, and Samuel Bernstein, Joel Barlow: A Connecticut Yankee in an age of revolution, 1985; an essay on Barlow’s ruminations on the planetary hydrological cycle is part of Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory 1995:245ff. In his own time, Barlow was well known for the epic Vision of Columbus,Brian Pelanda, 58 Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., 431, 442-448 (2011). though modern readers may be more familiar with The Hasty-Pudding (1793). He also helped draft the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, which includes the controversial and disputed phrase: "…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…"Boston, Rob, "", Church & State, Volume 50, No. 6, June 1997, pp 11–14.

Poetry

In 1807 he had published in a sumptuous volume the Columbiad, an extended edition of his Vision of Columbus, more pompous even than the original; but, though it added to his reputation in some quarters, on the whole it was not well received, and it has subsequently been much ridiculed. The poem for which he is now best known is his mock heroic The Hasty-Pudding (1793), first published in the New York Magazine and now a standard item in literary anthologies. Besides the writings mentioned above, he published Conspiracy of Kings, a Poem addressed to the Inhabitants of Europe from another Quarter of the Globe (1792); View of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United States (1800); the Political Writings of Joel Barlow were published (2nd ed., 1796) but much of his speculation never passed beyond his voluminous notebooks, many of which are conserved in Harvard’s Houghton Library.

Thought

Prof. Goetzmann describes Barlow as a cosmopolitan along with other Founding Fathers. He saw that the new country of America was a model civilization that prefigured the "uniting of all mankind in one religion, one language and one Newtonian harmonious whole".Goeztmann, pg 143 He "saw the American Revolution as the opening skirmish of a world revolution on behalf of the rights of all humanity".Goetzmann, pg 142 An optimist, he saw that scientific and republican progress, along with religion and peoples growing sense of humanity would lead to the coming of the millenium. For him American civilization was world civilization. He also looked forward to the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.Goetzman, pg 143

Diplomacy

In 1788 he went to France as the agent of the Scioto Land Company, his object being to sell lands and enlist immigrants. He seems to have been ignorant of the fraudulent character of the company, which failed disastrously in 1790. He had previously, however, induced the company of Frenchmen, who ultimately founded Gallipolis, Ohio, to emigrate to America. In Paris he became a liberal in religion and an advanced republican in politics. He helped Thomas Paine publish the first part of The Age of Reason while Paine was imprisoned during The Reign of Terror. He remained abroad for several years, spending much of his time in London; was a member of the London Society for Constitutional Information; published various radical essays, including a volume entitled Advice to the Privileged Orders (1792), which was proscribed by the British government; and was made a citizen of France in 1792.

He was American consul at Algiers in 1795-1797, securing the release of American prisoners held for ransom, and negotiating a treaty with Tripoli (1796). He returned to America in 1805, and lived at his home, Kalorama, in what is now Washington, D.C., until 1811, when he became American minister plenipotentiary to France, charged with negotiating a commercial treaty with Napoleon, and with securing the restitution of confiscated American property or indemnity therefor. He was summoned for an interview with Napoleon at Wilna, but failed to see the emperor there; became involved in the retreat of the French army; and, overcome by exposure, died at the Polish village of Żarnowiec.