1. 19th Century Philosophical Movements
Romanticism
Dissatisfaction with the Enlightenment’s reverence for reason.
Preoccupation with the self. and self-expresssion.
Preoccupation with nature and use of nature as metaphor and symbolism.
Emphasis on darkness.
Transcendentalism
Men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves & the world around them that "transcends" or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel, transcending or “rising above” the limits of reason and logic.
Transcendentalist writers and thinkers advocated personal spirituality, self-reliance, social reform, and harmony with nature.

2. Thomas Cole , The Oxbow, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, 1836

3. J.M.W Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840

4. "Nature" is what we see— The Hill—the Afternoon— Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee— Nay—Nature is Heaven— Nature is what we hear— The Bobolink—the Sea— Thunder—the Cricket— Nay—Nature is Harmony— Nature is what we know— Yet have no art to say— So impotent Our Wisdom is To her Simplicity.
“Nature” is what we see, Emily Dickinson

5. I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
“I Hear America Singing” – Walt Whitman

6. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist…
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist….Nothing is a t last sacred but the integrity of your own mind….It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of a crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude… A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines… Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today… To be great is to be misunderstood. “Self-Reliance” Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841

7. Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and Godspeed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.
An excerpt from Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau
* Thoreau not want to pay taxes because he believed they would be used to pay for The Mexican American War. Thoreau went to jail.