48
Phillippi says the "turning point in Shaker prosperity is set about 60
O -|

years ago (1850), particularly in western communities/1 Reasons given

were 1) dependence on- converts --the Shakers did not reproduce themselves;

2) because it was a communistic society, converts had to give up their indiv-

idual possessions and ambitions--something people became increasingly

reluctant to do; 3) some bad people, seeing an opportunity to control large

amounts of money, came in and defrauded the Shakers of unknown amounts;

4) in a community of this type, everything depends on the wisdom of the leader

and some Shakerfleaders were not wise; 5) the Shakers were opposed to war

(and the Civil War came along), but some Shakers left their villages and

enlisted and some were drafted,* and this loss of the young men had a bad

effect, "Underneath other causes, some leaders are convinced that lives

of sex separation are not in accordance with the divine order of things and

have lost their aggressiveness." 32

Melcher lists the reasons for the decline as: 1) abatement of original

zeal, that is, no new recruits with zeal for perfection and no prophet to in-

spire; 2) the new spiritualism in 1837 was less spontaneous, not a "vision"

but planned and calculated with an elaborate symbolic element and extreme

31. Phillippi, op. cit, p. 48
32. Ibid,, p. 4"5
* At the beginning of the Civil War, "through the scheming of Samuel
J. Tilden, the entire local conscription (draft) at New Lebanon fell
on the Shakers, " Secretary of War Stanton had lived in Ohio and knew
the Shakers; so he had them furloughed as fast as they were drafted,
and Lincoln o. k. r d this. [Phillippi, p. 72]