Veg*n ideology

In 1820, Metcalfe began trying to appeal to a wider audience, utilizing the development of the printed press while connecting the ideas of the Bible Christian Church with those of a variety of reform movements.  

Under Metcalfe’s guidance, ten prevailing principles of the Bible Christian sect were codified in a constitution, emphasizing the real world applications of a biblically guided life. While existing biblical interpretations were invaluable and even prophetic, Bible Christians argued that continued study and interpretation was necessary to avoid the pitfalls of narrow, sectdriven loyalties. The Bible, when approached with an open, scientific mind would continue to reveal new secrets to healthy, ethical living. The Bible Christians emphasized the power of revelation through concerted study rather than blind adherence to the dictates of religious leaders or sects. Meat abstention, temperance, and moral living served to transform an individual “conjoined to the Lord, and the Lord to him.” Thus believers had the capacity to be reformed, regenerated, and finally saved.

The Bible Christians argued that religion, like science, could be rationally understood—emphasizing the power of individual, lay study over bombastic sermonizing. The group downplayed the idea of heavenly revelation in favor of learned epiphany, even questioning the ultimate divinity of Jesus Christ in favor of strict monotheism. The group emphasized that right living in body, mind, and soul ensured salvation for the individual as well as the community at large. The words of the Bible, Bible Christians believed, clearly called for the abstinence from the flesh of animals as food, intoxicating liquors as beverages, as well as war, capital punishment, and slavery. The second coming of the messiah was not a literal, physical event but rather the personal attainment of the divine truths revealed by concentrated study. 

There were, of course, ironies in the principles of Bible Christianity. At the same time that the Bible Christians criticized established churches led by cults of personality, the group was led by a vocal, gregarious personality in Metcalfe. And as church ranks grew, the group sought to build institutions that provided social legitimacy. While the religious and political views of the Bible Christian Church were radical, the group was decidedly conservative in its structure and notion of self-righteousness, sharing these values with other more established Philadelphia churches.  

Metcalfe’s exhortations met harsh responses from Philadelphia’s established religious elite. Warning of the dangers of “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” one Philadelphia religious body accused the Bible Christians of having “attacked the most plain and important doctrines of our holy religion” while seeking to “impose their own creed upon mankind, and take away from us the doctrines for which martyrs bled.” Bible Christians were often met in the streets with accusations of heresy. It seemed apparent to the Bible Christians that meat did, in fact, stir up animalistic responses in its consumers.  

Despite the angry reactions, the church and its membership continued to grow, thanks in part to a series of articles published in The Rural Magazine and Literary Evening Friend , an agricultural and literary-themed periodical headquartered in Philadelphia. In a series of “Letters on Religious Subjects” published throughout 1820 and 1821, Metcalfe expounded on a variety of reformist ideals, connecting them with religious justifi cations and explanations. In “The Duty of Abstinence from All Intoxicating Drinks,” he off ered one of the fi rst arguments in the United States for total avoidance of alcohol.

Metcalfe followed his protemperance essay in 1821 with Bible Testimony: On Abstinence from the Flesh of Animals , his first piece articulating the moral, religious, and health justifications of a meatless diet. At the heart of Metcalfe’s argument in favor of a flesh-free lifestyle was his interpretation of the biblical commandment against killing, whose application he believed “was benevolently intended to reach the animal creation.” The fact that the prohibition had not been understood as such was proof of humanity’s degradation. Humanity, however, had the power of reason to follow such prohibitions. 

Metcalfe equated meat consumption with violent, cruel tendencies, appealing to the most uncontrolled whims of human aggression. Even more than alcoholic spirits, a carnivorous diet was deleterious to the soul, an affront to the natural forces of life. Further, meat consumption was a violent rejection of God itself, a notion expressed by one Bible Christian hymn that warned, “Hold daring man! From murder stay: God is the life in all, You smite at God! When flesh you slay: Can such a crime be small?”

  It was the Bible Christians’ goal to “instruct . . . to correct general sentiment and to determine the principles of public habits so as to cherish universal humanity.” Metcalfe placed abstention from meat at the center of a plan for total reform. Once the church accomplished its goal of converting nonbelievers to its violence-free diet, Metcalfe believed that individuals would “withdraw themselves from a system of cruel habits . . . which has unquestionably a baneful eff ect upon the physical existence and the intellectual, the moral and religious powers of man.” The benefits of a vegetable based diet—mental clarity, a sense of morality, and an adherence to nonviolence—allowed individuals to lead lives of “benevolence,” caring for the “souls of all men.”  

Metcalfe’s pamphlet was the first published creed in favor of total avoidance of meat in the United States. The booklet helped spread the idea of a meatless diet to the general public, connecting food choices with a variety of reform principles ranging from pacifi sm to antislavery. And while Metcalfe was fundamentalist in his religious outlook, he utilized modern technologies and an Enlightenment-inspired emphasis on rational study to spread the word of his church. What started as a group of twenty families had nearly doubled by 1825, garnering increased attention among interested social reformers in Philadelphia.

The Bible Christians came to the United States as a largely working-class group, drawn toward a meatless diet in cities like Liverpool and Manchester because of its affordability. While the group advocated for dietary reform while in England, it did little to reach out beyond its own small community. However, once in the United States and under Metcalfe’s guidance, Bible Christians began to branch outward. While many of the church’s original settlers left Bible Christianism aft er arriving in Philadelphia, the group’s reform-oriented ethos appealed to sectors of the city’s growing middle class.  

Spurred by Metcalfe’s growing visibility, and despite the group’s avowed antisectarian principles, the Bible Christians began to formalize their organization. In May 1823, they purchased a plot of land in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood on the north side of the city. On December 21, the Bible Christian Church opened its doors for the first time on North Third Street and Girard Avenue. With a new, more visible presence the group continued to grow, welcoming in a combination of converts and recently arrived British Bible Christian migrants. In 1830, the group was formally incorporated by the Pennsylvania state legislature. As the Bible Christians’ constitution specified, “none can be members . . . but those who conform to the rules, regulations, and discipline of said Church; which rules require abstinence from animal food.”  

Metcalfe’s increasing public presence helped spread the vegetable diet gospel outside the walls of the Bible Christian Church, introducing the notion to a general public that was becoming increasingly interested in reform. With its evangelical, reformist tradition, Philadelphia was the perfect city for the Bible Christians to attempt their experiment in meatless living. Knowledge of the Bible Christians’ creed continued to grow, even beyond Philadelphia.

Within this growing temperance environment the Pennsylvania Society for Discouraging the Use of Ardent Spirits was founded in 1827.  The name of the organization says much about its methodology, its attempt to discourage the use of alcohol through lectures, pamphlets, and education rather than advocating for the ban of spirits through legislation. Fear of alcohol abuse, including its medical, spiritual, and social eff ects, was widespread among members of Philadelphia’s medical elite, who saw the abuse of spirits as the primary cause of mortality and poverty in the 1820s and 1830s.

 Though reticent to legislate absolute prohibition, the society worked with 19 local magistrates to prosecute public drunkenness, gambling, and Sabbath violations.  The group warned against the destructive lives of both the “habitual drunkard” as well as the equally pernicious “occasional drunkard.”  The society advocated for stiff punishments under existing laws and believed in the need for internment in hospitals, almshouses, and prisons to reform alcohol abuse. In addition to its published reports, the Pennsylvania Society aimed to curb alcohol consumption through a network of agents and lecturers sent out to spread the gospel of sobriety, temperance, and clean living.  

In June 1830, Sylvester Graham set out to reach the masses, lecturing throughout Pennsylvania connecting alcohol consumption with both physical and spiritual debasement. Graham peppered his speeches with compelling evidence, anecdotes, and scientific reasoning, all under the umbrella of religious imagery. This methodology was part of Graham’s attempt to avoid “mere declamation against drunkenness” and instead provide his audiences with “the reasons why they should not use intoxicating drinks.” During this period Graham became fascinated with studying human physiology, connecting physical health with ethical development. Not surprisingly, given his existing preoccupation with the connections between alcohol and physiology, Graham eventually turned his attention to dietary habits.  

While Graham lectured throughout Philadelphia in 1830, he was introduced to members of the Bible Christian Church, beginning a correspondence with William Metcalfe that continued for most of their lives. Graham later claimed that his dietary decisions were “neither . . . founded on, nor suggested by, the opinions of others who have taught that vegetable food is the proper aliment of the human species,” though this was more a rhetorical device aimed at building personal credibility. The growing Bible Christian movement undoubtedly infl uenced Graham’s own dietary conversion, given his connection to Metcalfe. 

Graham’s specious claim that his vegetable diet was based purely on experimentation refl ected his methods as a lecturer, emphasizing rational science rather than loyalty to a mere philosophy.  Graham’s time working solely on temperance was short-lived, and he resigned from his post aft er just six months. But his life as a public reformer and lecturer was established. By the spring of 1831, Graham began delivering a series of lectures at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on what he labeled “the Science of Human Life,” including instruction on meat-free living, temperance, and the dangers of masturbation. Despite these other concerns, Graham’s philosophy of healthy living hinged on the adoption of a meatless diet; of the twenty-four lectures included in the Lectures on the Science of Human Life , fourteen focused on food, digestion, and the benefits of avoiding flesh foods. At the core of this lecture series—which Graham delivered in New York City immediately after lecturing in Philadelphia— was the notion that the human body could be controlled and maximized through the mechanism of deep self-awareness. In this sense Graham’s lectures offered a democratic notion of personal health care, arguing that it was the individual’s responsibility to understand how the human body functioned and to react by initiating the healthiest path of living.  

Graham presented a vegetable diet as “ the diet of man,” proven by a combination of anatomical and historical study. The fact that most Americans lived omnivorous lives was not proof of the dominant diet’s validity; rather, it reflected a general disconnect between humans and their natural, physiological state. Graham recognized the potentially controversial nature of his dietetics. A vegetable diet was not antireligious, he assured his audiences. Rather, there was “the most entire harmony between the Sacred Scriptures, and the dietetic and other principles” that he advocated.  While Graham’s ideas about meat were radical, the traditional awareness of the need to keep the humoral body in balance provided some familiarity and legitimacy to Graham’s dietary dictates, as he claimed that meat overheated the body.  

In the Science of Human Life lectures Graham presented the first unified theory of a meatless diet to general audiences, expunging the notion from the purely religious and placing it within the temporal and physical. Even though Graham’s dietary principles were controversial, they offered practical advice and reasoning on how to improve day-to-day life. Connecting the benefits of a vegetable diet to a variety of social changes, Graham successfully exploited the social reform spirit of the 1830s.

Graham’s lectures emphasized the naturalness of a vegetable diet based on the study of physiology, arguing that the human dental and alimentary systems were constructed to chew and digest only vegetable-based products. Carnivorous members of the animal kingdom had sharp, elongated teeth, perfect for chewing through flesh and sinew. Humans, in contrast, were blessed with flat teeth, perfect for the grinding necessary to break down fruits, vegetables, and grains. The goal of a meatless diet was a “more healthy, vigorous and long-lived” life, allowing for a “more active and powerful” intellect able to develop the most “moral faculties . . . rendered by suitable cultivation.” A moral and intellectually driven individual would not debase him-or-herself with the evils of stimulants such as meat. History, Graham argued, pointed toward the benefits of a vegetable diet. Ancient Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Jews all expounded on the virtues of the “natural diet.” A vegetable diet worked for Plutarch, Ovid, Hesiod, and Pythagoras; it was only logical that Americans, the torchbearers of modern republicanism, should follow this lead. 

Graham, however, was not arguing for animal rights. In fact, he referred to nonhumans as “the lower animals,” driven strictly by instinct, a quality to be managed and sublimated by humanity.  Meat abstainers feared humanity’s inclination to act like the rest of the animal world. Exposure to all kinds of sensory experiences—whether culinary, alcoholic, or sexual—worried dietary reformers, who believed that Americans had relinquished themselves to the most primal, animalistic urges. Proto-vegetarianism put little emphasis on the effects of meat production on the animals themselves, focusing instead on human ethics and their eff ect on physical functions.  

The concept of overstimulation was at the center of Graham’s antimeat doctrine, an idea derived from the traditional view of the balanced humoral body. Humanity’s natural state—which included a meatless diet—kept the body in a mode of regulated stasis. Substances such as meat, alcohol, and spices served to throw off this natural balance, overstimulating and overheating the human body, mind, and soul. Once the body was out of balance it would become susceptible to any number of serious physical and moral maladies.  

Graham’s claims about the dangers of meat and other stimulants gained more traction with the outbreak of a mass cholera epidemic. The simultaneous  growth of American cities and waves of new immigrants entering urban areas contributed to overcrowding. A lack of available municipal services ensured that impoverished urban areas remained dirty and disease-ridden. By June 1832 cholera appeared in North America in Quebec and quickly spread to the United States before the month was over. In just two months nearly 3,500 New Yorkers—primarily working-class inhabitants of the crowded slums— died from the epidemic. Diarrhea, vomiting, and intense stomach cramping culminated in the eventual collapse of the circulation system. Cities large and small along the East Coast were gripped by fear and hysteria. Wealthy citizens fl ed to the countryside fearing the spread of the disease, leading one New York reporter to refl ect that “the roads, in all directions, were lined with wellfilled stagecoaches, livery coaches, private vehicles and equestrians, all panicstruck, fleeing the city, as . . . the inhabitants of Pompeii fled when the red lava showered down upon their houses.” 

The medical response to the epidemic was slow and usually ineffective. In a pre–germ theory generation, cholera was not perceived as being communicable via interpersonal contact; rather, it was seen as an airborne illness, apt to attack the physically and morally weakest in the cities. Mercury chloride was given out to those afflicted as a strong purgative to induce purification, while laudanum—a powerful opiate that includes opium and morphine— was administered in a glass of hot brandy to treat intense stomach pains. On a federal level, all that Congress could offer was Senator Henry Clay’s call for a national day of fasting and prayer for a providential cure.

  As these treatments proved to be ineffective and Americans struggled to understand the reasons for the epidemic, Sylvester Graham offered strikingly different advice on how to best treat and avoid cholera. Graham argued that a combination of factors contributed to the epidemic, especially diet and overstimulation. Americans, Graham preached, were detached from and ignorant of the natural laws that regulated the human body, and drunk from a diet heavy in stimulants. Animal flesh was essentially rotting and inorganic, leading to impure blood and the draining of vital power in order to digest unnatural substances.  

Laying the blame squarely on meat-eating and alcohol consumption, Graham pointed toward “dietetic intemperance and lewdness” as the primary causes of the spread of cholera.  Only by adhering to natural laws—a flesh- and alcohol-free diet; cold, pure water; frequent bathing; exercise; and fresh air—could one avoid contracting the disease. Graham pointed further toward emotional strength as a weapon in the fi ght against choleric agents. Fear of the disease weakened the body’s constitution, making it more apt to overtax itself. Only through strength of mind, body, and soul could individuals avoid the importation of impurities. Through a vegetable diet and mastery over the laws of nature, Graham argued, individuals could avoid the perils of illness.