William Batchelder Greene

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William Batchelder Greene, “The Right of Suffrage” (1875)

June 6, 2016
TOWN and State paupers are persons notoriously incapable of supporting themselves, because demonstrably devoid of the faculties demanded for a successful administration of their own private affairs. Being incompetent to acquit themselves with credit in matters with which they are presumably conversant, they cannot be trusted to exercise sovereignty in matters pertaining to the general welfare. Paupers are persons and people; but they are not voting people. Insane persons and idiots are notorious for their incapacity for self-government, and have, by law, and on account of their incapacity, guardians appointed over them to prevent them from injuring themselves and others. […]
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George Willis Cooke, “William Batchelder Greene”

June 5, 2016
“WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE” from George Willis Cooke’s Historical and Biographical Introduction to the Rowfant Club reprint of The Dial (Cleveland, 1902) [NOTE: There is considerable disagreement among sources about the particulars of Greene’s literary output. Titles and dates in this account may be unreliable. In particular, poetry volumes attributed to Greene, such as “Imogen,” may be the work of his son, also William Batchelder Greene. In the third number of the second volume of “The Dial” was printed an article on “First Principles” by William Batchelder Greene, then minister of the Unitarian church at Brookfield, Mass. This was his only […]
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Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D. (excerpts)

June 5, 2016
Two fragments from Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s Reminiscences of Rev. Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D. (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1880) [William B. Greene / Transcendentalism / Emerson – pages 364-365] In the last year of Dr. Channing’s life I one day said to him, showing him a passage in his sermon on “Likeness to God,”–“Lieutenant Greene says the whole Transcendental movement in New England is wrapped up in this paragraph”: “The divine attributes are first developed in ourselves, and thence transferred to our Creator. The idea of God, sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spiritual nature, purified […]
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Thomas Wentworth Higginson on William Batchelder Greene

June 5, 2016
Two fragments from Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s Cheerful Yesterdays (Boston, 1898) [William B. Greene at Harvard Divinity School – pages 106-107] Two of the most interesting men in the Divinity School were afterward, like myself, in military service during the Civil War. One of them was James Richardson, whom Frothingham described later as “a brilliant wreath of fire-mist, which seemed every moment to be on the point of becoming a star, but never did.” He enlisted as a private soldier and died in hospital, where he had been detailed as nurse. The other had been educated at West Point, and had […]
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James Freeman Clarke, Reminiscences of William B. Greene

June 5, 2016
From James Freeman Clarke’s Diary and Correspondence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1891) [Col. William B. Greene’s Army command outside Washington, DC, November, 1861 – pages 278-282] The whole aspect of the city is changed. It is like a city of Europe,–like Berlin, or Vienna, or St. Petersburg,–but with a difference. For this of ours is not a mere standing army, to be wielded blindly in the interests of despotism, but an intelligent army of freemen, come to protect liberty and law. It is the nation itself which has taken up arms, and come to Washington to defend its own life and […]
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William Batchelder Greene Timeline & Miscellany

May 6, 2016
1819 April 4: William B. Greene born in Haverhill, MA. Records show the name as “Green,” and this is probably before WBG’s father changed his own name from Peter Nathaniel Green to Nathaniel Greene. 1821 Mary Gardiner Greene born in Haverhill, MA. In 1821, the Greenes moved to Boston, where Nathaniel established the American Statesman. 1831 May(?): WBG enters Chauncy Hall School, Boston, G. F. Thayer, principal. 1833 May: WBG leaves Chauncy Hall School, enters Haverhill Academy, Haverhill, Ebenezer Smith, Jr., principal. 1834 October: WBG leaves Haverhill Academy. October 9: WBG sets out from NYC, en route to Havre and […]
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The Mutual Banking Writings of William Batchelder Greene

August 30, 2015
The important works are: Equality. West Brookfield, Mass.: O. S. Cooke, 1849. [published anonymously] [74 pages] Mutual Banking. West Brookfield, Mass.: O. S. Cooke, 1850. [95 pages] The Radical Deficiency Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages Of A Mutual Currency. Boston: B. H. Greene, 1857. [239 pages] Mutual Banking, Showing The Radical Deficiencies Of The Existing Circulating Medium, And The Advantages Of A Free Currency. Worcester, Mass.: New England Labor Reform League, 1870. [52 Pages] Mutual Banking. Modern Publishers, Indore City, India, 1946 plus a couple of short sections in Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic and Financial Fragments (Boston: Lee […]
Contr'un

William Batchelder Greene: more biographical details

September 22, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
“We are gratified (says the Transcript,) that the Commonwealth has secured the services of Mr. William B. Greene as Colonel of the Essex (14th) Regiment. Mr. Greene is a native of Essex County, and is forty-two years of age. He left West Point at the end of two years on account of ill health, but after regaining his strength, was selected to drill troops for many months upon Governor’s Island. He then procured active service as a Lieutenant in 7th U. S. Infantry in the Florida war. He distinguished himself in that severe service, having, most of the time, the […]
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A glimpse of William B. Greene in 1854

September 22, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
“For Turkey.—A Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune says, that upon the proposal of a medical student, twenty young American students volunteered in ten minutes to aid the Turks with their unpracticed skill. The same writer states that Americans were leaving every day for the Turkish camp. Among those who had gone, were Col. Macgruder, of Mexican war celebrity; Mr. Quincy Shaw, of Boston, and the Rev. William B. Greene, late Unitarian clergyman at Brookfield.” [Boston Investigator, April 26, 1854]
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William B. Greene, “Plutocracy” (1849)

February 21, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s one of William B. Greene’s letters to The Worcester Palladium which was not incorporated into either Equality or the 1850 Mutual Banking. Thanks again to Brady Campbell for the research assist on these. A number of my questions from two years ago remain, but I’m back at the work of transcribing and collating the mutual bank writings, so perhaps we can clear most of them up soon. [2010 note] Wm. B. Greene in “The Worcester Palladium” For the Palladium. Plutocracy. The term Plutocracy occurs in the Democratic State Address: it is derived from the words Plutus (the god of […]