The
Legendary English-Only Vote of 1795
Dennis
Baron
In April, 1987, an election judge from
Missouri wrote to Ann Landers citing the following excerpt from the local
Election Manual to support the argument that everyone's vote counts: “In 1776,
one vote gave America the English language instead of German.” The statement is
not strictly true, as many of Landers' more alert readers quickly pointed out.
The vote in question did not take place. However, language became a political
and an emotional issue as early as the 1750s, when British settlers in
Pennsylvania began to fear and resent the fact that a third of their fellow
Pennsylvanians were German speakers.
Since that time, American nativists have
sought to eradicate minority languages and discourage bilingualism wherever it
could be found: in Maine and Louisiana, California and New Mexico, Hawaii and
Puerto Rico, as well as in Pennsylvania. Complaints about Germans as well as
other non-English-speakers became all too common in the last quarter of the 19th
century, and again during and after World War I, when the fear of immigrants
and their languages prompted protective English-only legislation. Many
Americans considered nonanglophones to be less than human: in 1904 a railroad
president told a congressional hearing on the mistreatment of immigrant
workers, “These workers don't suffer—they don't even speak English” (Shanahan,
1989.) Today as well there is opposition to nonanglophones and bilinguals—this
time not Germans but Hispanic and Asian Americans. The result is the proposed
English Language Amendment (ELA), a Constitutional amendment making English the
official language of the United States.
Despite the latest rehearsal in Ann Landers'
advice column of the myth that German had once come close to replacing English
in the United States, Americans have never had a legally-established official
language. The so-called German vote did not take place in 1776, and it had
nothing to do with privileging German over English. The legend that it did,
which has gone around since at least the 1850s, was spread initially by
propagandists celebrating German contributions to American culture. It has
since been taken over by those who claim that the English language in the
United States is an endangered species. The story of the German Vote is
occasionally trotted out by ELA supporters to demonstrate the power of ethnic
groups to subvert national unity and to warn Americans that although the German
threat to English has been defused, the Spanish one has not.
The events whose misinterpretation gave rise
to the legend of the German vote occurred in 1795, though the date is
frequently changed to the more patriotically crucial year of 1776. As is
characteristic of such stories, what actually occurred is not entirely clear.
What is clear is that Congress never considered replacing English with any
other language or giving any other tongue equal status with English. In the
18th century there were rumors that a few Brit-bashing superpatriots campaigned
to have the new nation drop English in favor of Hebrew, French, or Greek,
considered in the late 18th century to be the languages of God, rationality,
and democracy, respectively. But the desire to found a New Eden rather than a
New Babel assured that the United States would be united both legally and
socially under a single language, and that language would be English. Noah
Webster championed a dialect-free Federal English based on his spelling book (and his own New England dialect).
John Adams rightly predicted that English would become the next world language.
And Roger Sherman of Connecticut is reported to have urged Americans to retain
English and make the British speak Greek. (See Baron, 1982.) Despite the solid
position of English both initially and throughout American history, the legend
of the German vote persists.
The German Vote
On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a
proposal, not to give German any official status, but merely to print the
federal laws in German as well as English. During the debate, a motion to
adjourn failed by one vote. The final vote rejecting the translation of federal
laws, which took place one month later, is not recorded.
The translation proposal itself originated
as a petition to Congress on March 20, 1794, from a group of Germans living in
Augusta, Virginia. A House committee responding to that petition recommended
publishing sets of the federal statutes in English and distributing them to the
states, together with the publication of three thousand sets of laws in German,
“for the accommodation of such German citizens of the United States, as do not
understand the English language” (American State Papers ser. 10, v. 1:114).
According to the succinct report in the Aurora Gazette, “A great variety of
plans were proposed, but none that seemed to meet the general sense of the
House” (22 January, 1795, p. 3).
A vote to adjourn and sit again on the
recommendation failed, 42 to 41, but there is no reason to believe from this
close vote that more than token support existed for publishing the laws in
German. The vote to adjourn seems to have been interpreted by the House as a
vote of no confidence both in the committee's recommendation to translate the
laws and in its recommendation on the distribution of the sets of laws once
they were published in English. While there is no record of debate on the
translation provision that day, if sentiment on the issue in Congress was
anything like sentiment in Pennsylvania, translation was probably opposed by a
substantial majority of the representatives.
On the other hand, the committee's plan for
distributing the sets of laws did provoke some strong disagreement in the
House. After objections to the latter were aired, a new committee was formed
and asked to report again, and the House agreed to adjourn. It is from the
close interim vote, not on an actual bill but on adjournment, that the socalled
“German vote” legend has been built.
One month later, on February 16, 1795, the
House once again considered the question of promulgating the laws, and among
the issues, once again, was translating the federal statutes into German. This
time some of the actual debate has been preserved. Rep. Thomas Hartley of
Pennsylvania argued that “it was perhaps desirable that the Germans should
learn English; but if it is our object to give present information, we should
do it in the language understood. The Germans who are advanced in years cannot
learn our language in a day. It would be generous in the Government to inform
those persons. Many honest men, in the late disturbances [the Whiskey
Rebellion], were led away by misrepresentation; ignorance of the laws laid them
open to deception.”
Rep. William V. Murray of Maryland, who
opposed translating the laws into German, countered “that it had never been the
custom in England to translate the laws into Welsh or Gaelic, and yet the great
bulk of the Welsh, and some hundred thousands of people in Scotland, did not
understand a word of English” (Annals of Congress 4:1228-29). The House finally
approved publication of current statutes, as well as future ones, in English only.
The bill was agreed to by the Senate and signed by President Washington the
following month.
The January vote on adjournment is sometimes
known as “the Muhlenberg Vote,” after the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Pennsylvania's Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, a Federalist who
spoke German with difficulty, so it is claimed, and who was at any rate a
member of a prominent family of assimilated Germans who favored English as the
language of education and religion (Dorpalen 1942, 178). Although the roll call
vote does not survive, tradition has it that Muhlenberg stepped down to cast
the deciding negative, thereby dooming German in America to minority-language
status. Tradition notwithstanding, too much weight should not be given to the
fact that the Speaker was not in the chair on this occasion. It was common for
the Speaker to step down, and Muhlenburg did so on many other occasions during
the Third Congress. Even a positive vote on the adjournment issue could not
have led to approval of German translations of the laws, a concession which the
Congress has repeatedly refused to make ever since.
Nonetheless, Muhlenberg was blamed for
selling out German language interests by Franz Lher, whose 1847 History and
Achievements of the Germans in America
presents a garbled though frequently cited account of what is supposed to have
happened. Lher places the crucial language vote not in the U.S. Congress, but
in the Pennsylvania legislature, over which Muhlenberg had earlier presided.
There is no evidence as to Muhlenberg's actual views on German publishing; no
evidence that he cast a tie-breaking vote on the matter; and no contemporary
indication that the German community was displeased with his stewardship over
the Third Congress. However, Muhlenberg later did manage to irritate his German
constituents by casting the deciding vote in favor of the Jay Treaty during the
Fourth Congress, a move which drove his brother-in-law to stab him and which
cost him the next election in 1796. This significant tie-breaker soon became
confused with the earlier adjournment cliff-hanger, conveniently fleshing out
the myth of the German vote (Feer 1952, 401).
Official English Then and Now
Opponents of moves to make English the
official language of the United States frequently suspect that English-only
advocates are motivated by more than political idealism. This suspicion is
certainly justified by the historical record. For the past two centuries,
proponents of official-English have sounded two separate themes, one rational
and patriotic, the other emotional and racist. The Enlightenment belief that
language and nation are inextricably intertwined, coupled with the chauvinist
notion that English is a language particularly suited to democratically
constituted societies, are convincing to many Americans who find discrimination
on non-linguistic grounds thoroughly reprehensible (see Baron, 1990). More
prominent though, throughout American history, have been the nativist attacks on
minority languages and their speakers: Native Americans, Asians, the French,
Germans, Jews and Hispanics, to name only the most frequently-targeted groups.
The English-only nativists who attacked the
Germans used arguments similar to those heard nowadays against newer
immigrants. Benjamin Franklin considered the Pennsylvania Germans to be a
“swarthy” racial group distinct from the English majority in the colony. In
1751 he complained, “Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into
our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners
to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English,
become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us
instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs,
any more than they can acquire our Complexion?” (The papers of Benjamin
Franklin. Ed. Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1959. vol
4:234).
The Germans were accused by other
eighteenth-century Anglos of laziness, illiteracy, clannishness, a reluctance
to assimilate, excessive fertility, and Catholicism. They were even blamed for
the severe Pennsylvania winters (Feer 1952, 403; Mittelberger 1898, 104). Most
irritating to Pennsylvania's English-firsters in the latter 1700s was German
language loyalty, although it was clear that, despite community efforts to
preserve their language, Germans were adopting English and abandoning German at
a rate that should have impressed the rest of the English-speaking population.
Anti-German sentiment spread along with
German immigration, and the nation as a whole resisted both the German
bilingual schools that were established in parts of the Midwest in the 19th
century and the common practice of publishing legal notices in German-American
newspapers. On a number of occasions the U.S. Congress again rejected motions
to print laws or other documents in German as well as English. The motions were
often treated jocularly and were shouted down amidst racist cries of, “What! In
the Cherokee? [and in] the Old Congo language!” (Congressional Globe 1844, 7).
Antagonism toward Germans and their language
resurfaced in the Midwest in the late 1880s and early 1890s, and again across
the country during and after World War I. Between 1917 and 1922 most of the
states dropped German from their school curricula. Nebraska's open meeting law
of 1919 forbade the use of foreign languages in public, and in 1918 Governor
Harding of Iowa proclaimed that “English should and must be the only medium of
instruction in public, private, denominational and other similar schools.
Conversation in public places, on trains, and over the telephone should be in
the English language. Let those who cannot speak or understand the English
language conduct their religious worship in their home” (New York Times, 18 June 1918, p. 12). Such attitudes had a chilling
effect on language use. As many as eighteen thousand people were charged in the
Midwest during and immediately following World War I with violating the English-only
statutes (Crawford 1989, 23.)
The anti-German school laws were declared
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1923. In Meyer v. Nebraska, the
court ruled that “the protection of the Constitution extends to all,—to those
who speak other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue”
(262 U.S. 390). Similar anti-Japanese laws were invalidated by the court in
Farrington v. Tokushige in 1927 (273 U.S. 284). And the high court reaffirmed
the states' responsibility to educate non-English speakers effectively in Lau
v. Nichols (1974) (414 U.S. Reports 563), though the court did not specify how
this was to be accomplished.
Nonetheless, Americans remain troubled by
foreign languages and their speakers. Despite the fact that the 1980 U.S.
Census showed that more than 97 percent of the people in the nation speak
English (Waggoner 1988, 69), nativist fears for the safety of English seem
stronger than ever. The English Language Amendment (ELA) has been before the
Congress since 1981. California passed an official-English law in 1986, a year
in which a total of thirty-seven states considered official language measures.
In 1989 Arizona, Colorado and Florida passed English-only laws, and votes on
the issue are likely in Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania in the near
future. Today's attempts to suppress the use of Asian languages and Spanish in
the United States are manifest in state official-language referenda; in local
ordinances mandating the use of the roman alphabet on signboards or forbidding
the purchase of non-English books by public libraries; and in regulations which
require employees to use English on the job and during breaks, or which force
school children to use English in schoolbuses as well as classrooms.
Official-English is an emotional issue for
many people, involving questions of patriotism as well as racism, language
loyalty as well as assimilation. Supporters and opponents of the ELA almost
came to blows during a discussion of the subject on the “Donahue” show in Miami
a few years ago. Adding to the complexity of the issue is the problem that
language legislation, at least in the United States, is difficult if not
impossible to enforce. In 1906, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt ordered the federal
government to adopt simplified spelling in its official publications. This move
generated so much resistance that Roosevelt softly withdrew his order (see
Baron, 1982). The New Mexico constitution, establishing English as the new
state's official language, was ratified by means of bilingual ballots. A 1923
Illinois law making American, rather than English, the official language of
that state was quietly amended in 1969 because Illinois residents continued to
speak and teach English in defiance or ignorance of the statute. The English
Language Amendment, if it is passed, may also prove to be more of a symbol than
an enforceable statute, though many people fear that it could become a
dangerous tool for linguistic and cultural repression. In any case, though, the
ELA seems one final, and to some observers, paranoid, attempt to make up for
the perceived humiliation of 1795, when English reportedly came within a
hair's-breadth of losing out as the official language of the United States in a
vote which never really took place.
References
American State Papers 1834. Washington, D.C. ser. 10, v. 1:114.
Ann Landers. 1987. Your one vote can be
important. Los Angeles Times
(April 7).
Annals of Congress 1849. Washington, D.C. 4:122829.
Aurora Gazette 1795 (22 January), p. 3.
Baron, Dennis. 1990. The English-Only
question: An official language for Americans? New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
_______________. 1982. Grammar and good
taste: Reforming the American language. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
Congressional Globe 1844, 7.
Crawford, James. 1989. Bilingual
education: History, politics, theory, and practice. Trenton, N.J.: Crane Publishing.
Dorpalen, Andreas. 1942. The German Element
in Early Pennsylvania Politics, 1789-1800: A Study in Americanization. Pennsylvania
History 9:178.
Feer, Robert A. 1952. Official use of the
German language in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
76:394-405.
Franklin, Benjamin. 1959. The papers of
Benjamin Franklin. Ed. Leonard W.
Labaree. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press 4:234.
Lher, Franz. 1847. Geschichte und Zustnde
der Deutschen in Amerika. Cincinnati.
Mittelberger, Gottlieb. 1898. Journey to
Pennsylvania in the year 1750 and return to Germany in the year 1754. Trans. Carl T. Eben, Philadelphia.
Shanahan, Daniel. 1989. We need a nationwide
effort to encourage, enhance, and expand our students' proficiency in
languages. Chronicle of Higher Education 21 May, p. A40.
Waggoner, Dorothy. 1988. Language minorities
in the United States in the 1980s: The evidence from the 1980 census. In
Language diversity: Problem or resource?, ed. Sandra Lee McKay and Sau-ling Cynthia Wong. New York.: Newbury
House. Pp. 69-108.
_______________________
Dennis Baron is professor of English and
linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.