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 THE
REPUBLICAN
REVERSAL
 THE
REPUBLICAN
REV ERS AL
Conservatives and the Environment
from Nixon to Trump

JA M ES M ORTON TURNER
A ND REW C. IS ENBERG

Cambridge, Mas­sa­chu­setts London, ­England 2018

 Copyright © 2018 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca

First printing

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data

Names: Turner, James Morton, 1973–­author. | Isenberg, Andrew C.
(Andrew Christian), author.
Title: The Republican reversal : conservatives and the environment from
Nixon to Trump / James Morton Turner and Andrew C. Isenberg.
Description: Cambridge, Mas­sa­chu­setts : Harvard University Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009744 | ISBN 9780674979970 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Republican Party (U.S. : 1854–)—­History—20th ­century. |
Anti-­environmentalism—­United States—­History—20th ­century. |
Conservatism—­United States—­History—20th c­ entury. |
United States—­Politics and government—­History—20th c­ entury.
Classification: LCC GE197 .T87 2018 | DDC 333.70973—­dc23
LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2018009744

Jacket design: Jill Breitbarth

Jacket photograph: Aaron Foster/The Image Bank/Getty Images

For my parents—JMT
For Amy—AI
 Contents

Introduction  1
1 Conservatives before and ­after Earth Day   19
2 Visions of Abundance   54
3 The Cost of Clean Air and ­Water   98
4 American Exceptionalism in a Warming World   145
Conclusion  196

Notes  219
Acknowl­edgments   259
Index  261
 THE
REPUBLICAN
REVERSAL
 Introduction

ON O CTOBER 18, 2015, during an interview on Fox News Sunday with

the journalist Chris Wallace, Donald J. Trump suggested that, if elected
to the White House, he would eliminate the Environmental Protection
Agency. “What they do is a disgrace,” he told Wallace. “­Every week they
come out with new regulations.” “Who’s g­ oing to protect the environ-
ment?” Wallace asked. “­We’ll be fine with the environment,” Trump an-
swered. “We can leave a ­little bit, but you ­can’t destroy businesses.”1
Over the next year, culminating with his victory in the November 2016
presidential election, Trump regularly reiterated his belief that environ-
mental regulations harmed the American economy. At a Republican
presidential primary debate in February 2016, Trump repeated his pledge
to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), arguing that
environmental regulations w ­ ere a waste of money that weakened the
­nation’s ability to compete globally.2 Elsewhere on the campaign trail,
Trump promised to restore jobs to the coal industry by rescinding
­environmental protections and opening public lands for energy devel-
opment. In late 2015, he described climate change as a “hoax” at a cam-
paign rally, and promised to pull the United States out of the Paris
climate accord aimed at reducing green­house gas emissions from fossil
fuels.3
2 Introduction

Trump’s environmental agenda put him in lockstep with many of his

Republican contemporaries. By the time he announced his candidacy,
his most extreme statements, such as his pledge to eliminate the EPA
and his dismissal of climate science, had become familiar conservative
talking points. In 2003, Senator James Inhofe (R-­Oklahoma) described
the threat of catastrophic global warming as the “greatest hoax ever
perpetrated on the American p ­ eople.” Inhofe was one of hundreds of
elected officials to sign a pledge orchestrated by conservative lobbyists
promising opposition to a carbon tax.4 By 2013, many Tea Party Re-
publicans echoed such language. Representative Dana Rohrabacher
­(R-­California) claimed that “global warming is a total fraud” concocted
in order to erode individual freedoms. “Liberals” at the local level, he ar-
gued, had ceded decision making to liberals at the state level, who in turn
had ceded it to liberals in the federal government, who “want to create
global government to control all of our lives. That’s what the game plan
is.” The end result, Rohrabacher predicted, would be a “government offi-
cial” in some developing country taking away “our freedom to make our
choices.”5 Rohrabacher’s views w­ ere the product of de­cades of rightward
movement in the Republican Party, which increasingly dismissed scien-
tific expertise and saw in environmental policy an insidious po­liti­cal
agenda that put global interests, not American interests, first.
Thus, when Trump assumed office in January 2017, he could count
on the support of a large number of elected Republicans who had long
nurtured an opposition to environmental protections and w ­ ere ready
and ­eager to advance his environmental agenda. Within weeks of
Trump’s inauguration, Matt Gaetz, a newly elected Republican repre-
sentative from Florida, introduced a one-­sentence resolution into the
House of Representatives to eliminate the EPA. Three House Republi-
cans quickly joined Gaetz as co-­sponsors of the resolution.6 As elimi-
nating the agency seemed unlikely, Trump settled for drawing from the
ranks of the Republican Party a new EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt,
hostile to the agency’s mission. Pruitt had made a name for himself as
Oklahoma’s attorney general, an office he won in 2010 not on a promise
to fight crime, but to fight President Barack Obama’s “radical” regula-
tory agenda. In following through on that promise, Pruitt sued the EPA
fourteen times as Oklahoma’s attorney general to block administration
 Introduction 3

rules addressing issues such as mercury pollution, smog, and green­house

gas emissions. In e­ very case but one, regulated industries ­were also party
to the suits.7 That agenda made Pruitt a leader among both conserva-
tive Republicans and industry supporters. The Republican Attorneys
General Association, which Pruitt chaired twice, drew millions of dol-
lars in support from the likes of Koch Industries, Murray Energy Cor-
poration, and Continental Resources. When the Obama administration
ramped up its climate agenda at the start of Obama’s second term in
2013, one lobbyist described Pruitt as “the lawyer-­in-­chief ” for the
opposition.8
To head the Department of the Interior, which oversaw energy devel-
opment, endangered species protection, and national parks and wild-
life refuges on the nation’s public lands, Trump tapped a Montanan,
Ryan Zinke. During his one term in the House from 2015 to 2017, Zinke
earned a rating of 4 ­percent from the League of Conservation Voters,
an environmental group that evaluates congressional voting rec­ords.9 As
a member of the House, Zinke had opposed the protection of endan-
gered species, the development of clean energy, and the regulation of
toxins in the air and w­ ater. Despite that rec­ord, on April 25, 2017, Zinke
described himself as “a Teddy Roo­se­velt guy,” when he appeared before
reporters to explain Trump’s signing of an executive order authorizing
him, as secretary of the Interior, to review all national monuments
that the three previous presidents—­Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and
Obama—­had created since January 1, 1996 ­under the Antiquities Act.
Ironically, it was Theodore Roo­se­velt himself who signed the Antiquities
Act into law in 1906 and immediately used it to protect the unique
Dev­il’s Tower geological formation in Wyoming. In 1908, b ­ ecause Con-
gress was hesitating to make the ­Grand Canyon a national park, Roo­se­velt
used the Antiquities Act to protect it as a national monument.10
With Pruitt and Zinke at the helm, the Trump administration vigor-
ously pursued its anti-­environmental agenda during Trump’s first year in
­office. One of Trump’s first acts was to sign into law a congressional reso-
lution that overturned protections the Obama administration had put in
place to protect streams and downstream communities from mountaintop
removal coal mining. Representative Bill Johnson (R-­Ohio) promised
the law would keep electricity prices low and “thousands of hardworking
4 Introduction

Ohioans” out of the “unemployment line.”11 In February, Trump di-

rected the EPA to take action to narrow the scope of the Clean W ­ ater
Act, describing it as a “destructive and horrible rule,” that unfairly bur-
dened farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers across the nation. In
March, flanked by coal miners, Trump directed the EPA to review the
Clean Power Plan, a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s effort
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by, in part, reducing Amer­i­ca’s reli-
ance on coal. Upon signing the order, Trump said to the miners:
“­You’re ­going back to work.”12 In June, Trump announced the United
States was initiating steps to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
He described the commitment to green­house gas reductions and finan-
cial support for developing countries as a “bad deal.” “The Paris Accord
is very unfair at the highest level to the United States.”13 In December 2017,
the president acted on Zinke’s recommendations, and issued executive
­orders drastically reducing the size of two national monuments in Utah,
arguing they far exceeded the law’s requirement that monuments be
“confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and manage-
ment of the objects to be protected.” Such sweeping actions ­were only
the administration’s most publicized initiatives. It also ­adopted ­orders
that called on agencies to eliminate two regulations for e­ very new regu-
lation developed, arbitrarily capped the length of environmental impact
statements at 150 pages, and took steps to accelerate the opening of federal
lands for oil and gas development.
The scope, speed, and precision with which the Trump administra-
tion attacked the nation’s environmental protections was, in some re­
spects, surprising. In its first year, the Trump administration strug­gled
to find its bearings and Trump’s presidency seemed to hinge on impul-
sive decisions and poorly planned initiatives, sending mixed signals on
issues including immigration, healthcare reform, and international
trade. But no such confusion and few such missteps characterized the
administration’s approach to environmental policy. With determined
leaders in place at the EPA and the Department of the Interior and Re-
publican majorities in the House and Senate, the Trump administra-
tion moved swiftly and decisively to advance its anti-­environmental
agenda.
 Introduction 5

What Is the Republican Reversal?

To many observers, it appeared that the Trump administration aimed

to dismantle nearly ­every aspect of the Obama administration’s envi-
ronmental legacy—­much as Trump had promised on the campaign trail.
But the significance of the Trump administration’s environmental
agenda was greater than just that. The Trump administration repre-
sented a complete break with an older and equally impor­tant tradition
of Republican environmentalism that dated back to the nineteenth
­century. It was ­under Republican presidents—­Ulysses S. Grant and
­Benjamin Harrison—­that the United States created its first national parks
and national forests. At the beginning of the twentieth c­ entury, it was a
Republican president—­Theodore Roosevelt—­who made the conserva-
tion of natu­ral resources a federal policy priority. Republican support
for environmental protection was also impor­tant when the modern en-
vironmental movement gained momentum in the 1960s and 1970s. It
was a Republican president—­R ichard Nixon—­who signed the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on January 1, 1970, and declared
it the start of an environmental de­cade. That same year, Nixon created
the EPA by executive order and signed the Clean Air Act—­one of a dozen
environmental protection laws passed with overwhelming ­bipartisan sup-
port that Nixon signed into law. Ronald Reagan’s administration starting
in 1981 marked the beginning of Republican backpedaling on environ-
mental protections, but nonetheless some Republicans continued to
support such protections. In 1986, Reagan, who most often opposed en-
vironmental regulations, signed a pathbreaking global environmental
treaty, committing the United States to aggressive efforts to address the
stratospheric ozone hole. Moderate Republicans played a key role in
building on the environmental gains of the 1970s and 1980s. In the early
1990s, George H. W. Bush described himself as the “environmental pres-
ident” and pushed through an amended Clean Air Act that tackled acid
rain and supported the international agreement that established a frame-
work for addressing climate change.
Indeed, Republicans once took ­great pride in the party’s long history
of environmental leadership. But that was not the case with the Trump
administration or the 115th Congress. Not since Reagan’s first term in
6 Introduction

office had a president so forcefully marshaled his administration in op-

position to existing environmental laws and regulations. This turnabout
on environmental protection, which was nearly four de­cades in the
making, starting with the Reagan administration and reaching its fullest
expression at the start of the Trump administration, is what we describe
as the Republican reversal. Certainly, the Republican Party has reversed
itself—or at least wavered—on other issues in the last four de­cades. In
the 1980s, Republicans backed away from their support for w ­ omen’s
rights, refusing to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment in its party
platform.14 Most Republicans supported civil rights legislation such as
the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s; by the time of Trump’s election vic-
tory, Republicans in numerous state legislatures sought to disenfranchise
nonwhite voters by raising the chimera of voter fraud. Yet the Repub-
lican reversal on the environment stands out: elected Republicans w ­ ere
almost unanimously in support of the landmark environmental laws of
the early 1970s; by the time of Trump’s election, rolling back environ-
mental regulations had become a Republican rallying cry. It is one of
the most profound and far-­reaching transformations in modern Amer-
ican po­liti­cal history, on par with the transformation of twentieth-­
century Demo­crats from the party of states’ rights and segregation to
the party of the New Deal and civil rights.
Three characteristics distinguish the Republican reversal on the envi-
ronment. Through the 1970s, the Republican Party (1) viewed environ-
mental issues with a sense of urgency that demanded action, (2) put faith
in scientific research and professional expertise, and (3) embraced an
essential role for government in regulating business and industry to
safeguard the environment and public health. Indeed, in this context,
the Republican Party championed its role as an environmental leader.
In the 1972 election, the party’s platform trumpeted President Nixon’s
leadership on environmental issues at home and abroad and chided the
Demo­crats who controlled Congress for failing to enact more of his
e­ nvironmental agenda.15 But such a strategy stands in sharp contrast
to the party’s 2016 agenda. Since the 1980s, the Republican Party has
­increasingly (1) viewed environmental concerns as alarmist and exag-
gerated, (2) cast doubt on scientific research and dismissed professional
expertise, and (3) viewed many environmental regulations as unnecessary
 Introduction 7

burdens on the economy and as threats to individual freedom and the

­free enterprise system. As the party explained in its 2016 platform, “We
firmly believe environmental prob­lems are best solved by giving incen-
tives for h ­ uman ingenuity and the development of new technologies,
not through top-­down, command-­and-­control regulations that stifle
economic growth and cost thousands of jobs.”16
In approaching the history of environmental politics and the Repub-
lican Party together, this book aims to place the histories of conservatism
and environmental politics into conversation with each other. Although
both are rich fields of study, and while at least one po­liti­cal scientist,
Judith Layzer, has studied conservatives’ anti-­environmentalism, no work
of history provides an overarching analy­sis of the ways in which envi-
ronmental issues have contributed to and been affected by the rise of
modern conservatism.17 Most histories of environmental politics,
many of them excellent, focus foremost on environmentalists, the issues
they sought to address, and their successes. Such histories often start
with a few scientists or citizen activists who first became alert to a
prob­lem before raising the alarm that resulted in the enactment of new
regulations.18 The po­liti­cal scientist Roger Pielke Jr. has characterized
such science-­driven activism as “tornado politics”—­a subject to which we
­will return in this book’s conclusion.19 Much of this book addresses how
conservatives responded to the environmental laws that tornado politics
produced in the 1970s. In many histories of the environmental move-
ment, opponents of environmental reform are often cast as foils for
­environmentalists. But Republicans who came to oppose environmen-
talists and the policies they advanced saw themselves as common-­
sense realists unwilling to defer to elite scientists, ready to set aside their
emotions, and committed to keeping the nation’s core priorities—­for
individual freedom, economic growth, and international competitive-
ness—at the forefront of their agenda. Thus, what this book advances is
not a history of environmentalism, but a history of environmental poli-
tics, focused on the contentious and evolving debates over the urgency
of environmental issues, how best to address them, and how ­those is-
sues and strategies should be weighed against other public priorities.
We contend that t­hose debates have played an understudied, but
central role in shaping the rise of modern conservatism and the evolution
8 Introduction

of the Republican Party. Most studies of the conservative transforma-

tion of the modern Republican Party since the mid-1970s emphasize
the importance of social issues, such as right-­to-­life, race politics, or
gun rights, in forging a co­a li­tion of the white working class, evangelical
Christians, and suburbanites, especially in the South and Sunbelt. But
many scholars have noted that the conservative turn in the Republican
Party hinged on the ability of party leaders and politicians to fuse to-
gether social activists and business interests in common cause against
big government. Although few studies consider how the Republican
Party repositioned itself on environmental issues, joining cultural con-
cerns and business interests has been especially impor­tant for Repub-
lican strategy on public lands protection, energy policy, and climate
change. In this book, we contend that we cannot fully understand the
success of the modern conservative Republican Party since the 1980s,
especially in rural areas, such as the American West or Appalachia, and
deindustrialized areas such as the Rust ­Belt, without accounting for
the effectiveness with which it mobilized conservative interest groups,
citizens, and legislators in opposition to environmental reform and in
­favor of policies that favored energy development, extractive industries,
and manufacturing. Indeed, an unwavering faith in the market, skepti-
cism of scientific and technocratic elites, and a belief in American ex-
ceptionalism have become distinguishing characteristics of modern
conservatism and the Republican Party.

What Explains the Republican Reversal?

The Republican reversal began in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan
broke with the bipartisan consensus on the importance of environmental
protection. But conservative opposition to environmental reform was
not fully formed at the time of Reagan’s election. Although many f­ actors
contributed to the evolution and consolidation of the Republican
r­ eversal, in the pages that follow we focus our analy­sis on three inter-
related f­actors which have proven instrumental in this po­liti­cal
transformation.
First, conservative ideology played an impor­tant role in re­orienting
the Republican Party. If Republicans w ­ ere ­going to roll back the ex-
 Introduction 9

panding regulatory state, they needed a message to c­ ounter environmen-

talists’ narrative of the need for state regulation to manage resources,
curb pollution, and protect public health. Beginning with the ascendancy
of Reagan, Republicans drew on conservative ideology to create a vision
of an American economy that, if left unfettered by regulation, could be
the engine not only of a higher standard of living but of technological
solutions to environmental prob­lems. Conservatives suggested that the
environment was neither as limited in its resources nor as polluted as
environmentalists believed; t­hose environmentalists, they argued, ­were
alarmists.20 Reagan called them “doom-­cryers.” The United States, con-
servatives argued, was an exceptional nation: extraordinarily productive,
blessed with abundant natu­ral resources, and populated by optimists
who refused to bow to limitations of any kind. Reagan called the United
States “a shining golden hope for all mankind.”21 Persuading Republicans
of this gospel of exceptionalism happened by degrees. Reagan’s sweeping
electoral success in 1980 hinged on his ability to bring together a new
Republican majority that included business interests, social conserva-
tives, Christian evangelicals, and rural Americans.22 Despite Reagan’s
electoral success, many Americans remained deeply concerned about the
environment. In Congress, t­here remained a bloc of moderate Republi-
cans, many of whom hailed from New E ­ ngland, who saw an impor­tant
role for government regulations, especially in protecting the environ-
ment. Yet, as the po­liti­cal center of the Republican Party continued to
shift to the rural West and the South, the party’s moderate wing weak-
ened in the 1990s and 2000s, which helped a conservative Republican
Party consolidate its power and its opposition to environmental reform.
One of the emerging tenets of conservative ideology was a growing
suspicion of scientific research and technocratic expertise, especially
when it pointed ­toward the need for restraints on a ­free market economy
and exploitation of resources. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have de-
scribed how a network of conservative and libertarian think tanks,
supported by conservative business interests, cultivated academics and
other experts to question mainstream science. It was a tactic that
conservative interests had pioneered in debates over regulating smoking,
leaded gasoline, and the pesticide DDT.23 But as the strength and sophis-
tication of conservative interests grew in the 1990s and 2000s, they
pursued this tactic aggressively. Such misinformation campaigns,
10 Introduction

spearheaded by conservative think tanks such as the George C. Mar-

shall Institute and Heartland Institute, are most often associated with
debates over global warming. But since the 1980s the strategy has been
impor­tant to conservative efforts to derail policies meant to address
acid rain and protect endangered species, among other issues. In the
view of conservatives, environmentalism was a ­house of cards that
rested on a foundation of faulty science. If they could cast doubt on the
science that informed environmentalists’ arguments for addressing is-
sues such as the ozone hole, acid rain, endangered species, or climate
change—­which they argued was often theoretical and model based—­
then the entire ­house of cards would collapse. Such misinformation
campaigns found a ready audience among conservative legislators,
media pundits, and citizen activists in the 1990s and 2000s.
The hardening of the Republican Party’s anti-­environmental agenda
rests, in large part, on the growing importance of conservative interest
groups in shaping the party’s agenda. This is the second f­ actor we focus
on in this book. Although ­there has been much attention to the role of
money in politics since the Supreme Court lifted limitations on corpo-
rate campaign contributions in the 2010 Citizens United decision, that
is only the most recent chapter in a longer history of corporate po­liti­cal
mobilization. As the historians Julian Zelizer and Kim Phillips-­Fein have
argued, in response to the wave of new regulations in the 1970s, in-
cluding new environmental, occupational safety, and health rules, con-
servative interests have been “seeking to establish new ways of lobbying,
developing new po­liti­cal identities, devising regulatory approaches,
building broad popu­lar campaigns . . . ​and creating new ways of thinking
about the economy and politics.”24 New organ­izations, such as public in-
terest law firms, including the Mountain States ­Legal Foundation and
Pacific Law Foundation, and think tanks, such as the Heritage Founda-
tion, Marshall Institute, and the Cato Institute, ­were all or­ga­nized by
business interests in the 1970s and 1980s, with the goal of marshaling
the research of conservative intellectuals and academics in a concerted
campaign to shape the reach and power of the regulatory state in the
name of protecting f­ ree markets and American competitiveness.25 ­These
new organ­izations ­were matched by the reor­ga­ni­z a­tion of existing
­lobbies, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which positioned it-
 Introduction 11

self as the “voice of business,” rallying entrepreneurs and business

­people, to a conservative social and economic agenda.26
The importance of t­ hese think tanks, lobbies, and trade groups, which
together we refer to as the “public interest right,” in shaping environ-
mental politics grew in the 1990s and early 2000s, as conservative
interests gained influence in the Republican Party, caught up to their
counter­parts on the left, and invested more resources in mobilizing con-
servative activists.27 Grassroots opposition had played a limited role in
early environmental debates. Starting in the 1980s, however, conserva-
tive citizens, often supported by and in coordination with the public in-
terest right, began to or­ga­nize more effectively. Groups such as ­People
for the West! and Americans for Prosperity contributed to an uptick in
grassroots activism in response to issues such as endangered species pro-
tection and energy taxes. Such campaigns, led by citizens and often
supported by business interests, countered the efforts of environmen-
talists, leading to protests, letter-­writing campaigns, and citizen testi-
mony at hearings. Th ­ ese efforts made it clear that it was not only corpo-
rations, but workers, farmers, and ranchers, who w ­ ere concerned about
the implications of environmental policies that might curb resource
extraction, farming practices, or consumer choices.28 During ­these
years, evangelical Christians, who largely stood on the sidelines during
environmental debates before the 1990s, also became more involved.
While some evangelicals ­adopted an ethos of “creation care,” which em-
phasized environmental stewardship, other evangelicals subscribed to
“dominion theology,” which found in Scripture a biblical mandate to
exploit natu­ral resources and harbored a deep suspicion of secular en-
vironmentalists. Each of t­ hese strands of evangelical thought has
been impor­tant to modern environmental politics in ways that belie
easy generalization, but it was dominion theology that has more often
aligned with conservative approaches to energy policy, resource ex-
traction, and climate policy. It is what the historian Darren Dochuk
has described as a “providential view” of resource extraction that
“fused Chris­tian­ity and capitalism” together, with power­ful consequences
for the Republican Party.29
The ferocity with which conservatives or­ga­nized in response to envi-
ronmental issues in the 1990s was not simply a product of changes from
12 Introduction

within the Republican Party and the growing power of conservative in-
terest groups and ideas, however. This brings us to the third f­ actor that
helped drive the Republican reversal: the ways in which the nature of
environmental prob­lems and the scope of environmental governance
changed ­after 1970s. When the bulk of the nation’s environmental laws
­were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the early 1970s,
­those laws w ­ ere forged in a moment of environmental crisis. Scientists
warned of a “population bomb” and impending famine in developing
countries, rivers polluted with petrochemicals caught fire, pesticides had
brought species such as bald ea­g les an brown pelicans to the brink of
extinction, ­children bore the consequences of lead pollution, and growing
cities regularly suffered through days of smoggy skylines. Thus, when
Demo­crats and Republicans came together to pass laws such as the
­National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered
Species Act, t­ hose laws w
­ ere enacted in response to a clear and pres­ent
danger.30 By the 1990s, however, the urgency of environmental issues
was no longer so pressing, at least in the view of conservative critics. De-
bates over endangered species increasingly hinged on little-­k nown ani-
mals such as the delta smelt or gnatcatchers. Debates over ­water pollu-
tion revolved around protecting seasonal wetlands or limiting pollutants
mea­sured in parts per billion. Debates over forestry policy shifted away
from setting aside specific wilderness areas to ending below-­cost logging.
And, by the early 2000s, the most pressing environmental challenge, cli-
mate change, was seemingly abstract, global, and on a distant time ho-
rizon. A clear example of how the evolution of environmental prob­lems
has affected environmental politics is the Clean Air Act, which Congress
approved in 1970 by votes of 73–0 in the Senate and 375–1 in the House.
Republicans w ­ ere united ­behind the legislation, which regulated pollut-
ants that w
­ ere obvious threats to h ­ uman health, such as carbon mon-
oxide, particulates, and sulfur dioxide. In 2009, however, when the
Obama administration determined that green­house gas emissions en-
dangered public health and the environment and, therefore, required
regulation u­ nder the Clean Air Act, Republicans uniformly denounced
the plan—­even among the small proportion of Republicans who
­acknowledged the real­ity of global warming, few considered it an ur-
gent or pressing prob­lem demanding government action.
 Introduction 13

At the same time that conservative Republicans dismissed the ur-

gency of environmental issues, they recoiled at the unanticipated scope
and effectiveness of the environmental regulatory state. In the 1960s and
1970s, few ­people had anticipated the reach of the new environmental
laws or the power of new agencies, such as the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency. By the 1990s, however, environmental regulations played
a central role in regulating public and private enterprise. Government
funded or permitted proj­ects—­whether building a bridge or approving
a new pesticide—­required the completion of environmental impact
statements that could be thousands of pages long and take years to com-
plete. Endangered species listings could place constraints on the devel-
opment of public and private property. Laws such as the Clean Air Act
and Clean W ­ ater Act required billions of dollars of public and private
investment in pollution-­control technologies. In short, the laws created
­legal “trumps” that prioritized clean air, ­water, or the recovery of an en-
dangered species over economic interests; and it empowered citizens to
sue the government to enforce the laws. The upshot of t­ hese regulations
­were significant gains in environmental quality for most Americans. In-
deed, the Clean Air Act and Clean W ­ ater Act have been among the
most impor­tant environmental and public health laws enacted in Amer-
ican history.31 But conservative critics saw in the growth of the envi-
ronmental regulatory state clear signs of regulatory overreach, not in the
name of addressing basic environmental prob­lems, but for less pressing,
more abstract, and often trivial issues—­such as the protection of a spe-
cies like the Delhi Sands flower-­loving fly from extinction. As the con-
servative commentator Peter Huber warned in 2000, “For ­people who
like big government and are a part of it, this is po­liti­cal ambrosia.”32
The Republican reversal did not hinge on any one of ­t hese ­factors
alone. Republican legislators ­were not simply bought off by corporate in-
terests; misinformation campaigns about climate science do not fully
explain Republican opposition to energy reform; nor do the teachings
of f­ree market thinkers or dominion theologians alone inspire the
sustained conservative opposition to environmental reform. At moments,
each of ­these ­factors was pivotal, as we ­w ill show in the chapters to
follow. But the Republican reversal is a profound re­orientation of the
Republican Party’s po­liti­cal agenda, extending beyond any one moment,
14 Introduction

single environmental issue, or constituency. It has depended upon the

mobilization of think tanks in Washington, D.C., the ideas of environ-
mental economists, and the engagement of rural citizens in places
such as South Dakota or California. To understand how this Republican
reversal has accelerated over the past forty years, we argue that each
of ­t hese factors—­the rise of conservative ideology, the mobilization of
interest groups and activists, and the changes in the environment and
regulatory state—­together best explain how and why Republicans came
to embrace an anti-­environmental agenda with vigor.
This book advances this argument in four chapters. The first chapter
is a concise history of the origins of the Republican reversal before and
­after Earth Day. It follows the role of moderate Republicans, including
President Richard Nixon, in enacting the nation’s core environmental
laws and how that bipartisan environmental consensus began to frac-
ture in the 1970s, as the Republican Party began its conservative turn,
exemplified by the election of Ronald Reagan and the elevation of his
anti-­environmental agenda. Although Reagan’s election was pivotal, Re-
publican anti-­environmentalism was not fully formed in the 1980s.
The Reagan administration introduced the beginnings of positions and
strategies that an increasingly conservative Republican Party would
pursue with greater, although uneven, success in the de­cades that fol-
lowed. In this way, the first chapter sets up the next three chapters of
the book, each of which takes the Reagan administration as a starting
point in explaining how the conservative right came to reshape Amer-
ican environmental politics in ways that culminate with the Trump ad-
ministration. Chapter 2 focuses on the public lands, where debates over
energy development and endangered species highlight the role the rural
American West played in the consolidation of the modern Republican
Party’s anti-­environmentalism. Chapter 3 focuses on the Clean Air Act
and the Clean ­Water Act, highlighting the continuing role of moderate
Republicans in safeguarding the most successful public health laws.
Chapter 4 examines the debates over climate change and how, in the
aftermath of the Cold War, the United States retreated from its histor-
ical role as a global leader on environmental issues, not b
­ ecause of eco-
nomic concerns or scientific misinformation alone, but b ­ ecause of the
threats addressing climate change posed to core conservative inter-
 Introduction 15

ests and values. The conclusion considers how ­these trends culminate
with the Trump administration, which harnessed conservative anti-­
environmentalism to an “Amer­i­ca First” agenda.

The Consequences of the Republican Reversal

Although much of this book concerns the origins of the Republican re-
versal, it is equally concerned with its consequences—­how effective
have conservative Republicans been at rolling back environmental laws
and weakening public health protections? For ­those concerned about the
­f uture of the environment and public health, this history offers both
cause for despair and a mea­sure of hope. Although this is not a book
about the environmental movement, one cannot understand the conse-
quences of the Republican reversal without considering the ways in
which environmentalists and their allies have mobilized to defend the
nation’s environmental laws and policies. Indeed, advocacy groups such
as the Sierra Club, policy think tanks such as the Environmental De-
fense Fund, and public interest law firms such as the Natu­ral Resources
Defense Council, Earth Justice, and the Center for Biological Diversity
have anchored the mainstream environmental movement and played a
key role in establishing and defending the nation’s environmental reg-
ulations. Thus, an impor­tant part of this story is the ways in which such
groups have responded to the Republican reversal, mobilizing citizens,
pursuing l­egal action in the courts, and lobbying legislators and
administrators.
To understand the consequences of the Republican reversal, and the
moments when environmentalists have succeeded in deflecting it, re-
quires reconsidering an impor­tant assumption about how environ-
mental policy gets made and unmade. Many ­people’s idea of what hap-
pens in Washington, D.C. dates back to School­house Rock, a 1970s
educational video series that told the story of a lonely bill that had dreams
of becoming a law: it was an arduous journey, but in time Congress passed
good bills and they became the law of the land. And, in the 1970s, ­there
was some truth to this: a bipartisan Congress responded to environmental
crises by passing major laws, like the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species
16 Introduction

Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act, to create new regulations and
programs to protect the environment and public health. But since the
mid-1990s, few major environmental laws have been enacted or reformed.
In part, this is due to the divergence of the Republicans’ and Demo­crats’
environmental agendas. The League of Conservation Voters has assessed
politicians’ voting rec­ords on environmental issues since the 1970s.
Their research shows that the gap between Demo­crats and Republicans
has steadily increased each de­cade, with most of the divide occurring
in the 1990s (see Figure 0-1). This party divergence has contributed to
an unyielding state of legislative gridlock: few legislative initiatives,
­either to address new prob­lems, such as global warming, or to reform (or
eliminate) earlier laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, have become
law since the 1990s.33
But congressional gridlock has not brought environmental policy-
making to a halt. Instead, it has made other ave­nues to policy reform
more impor­tant. As the po­liti­cal scientists Christopher Klyza and David
Sousa have argued, as congressional gridlock has deepened since the
1990s, both proponents and opponents of environmental reform have
pursued initiatives to both advance and roll back environmental poli-
cies through what Klyza and Sousa describe as “alternative policymaking
pathways.”34 The result is that most of the heavy lifting in recent envi-
ronmental politics has been done through executive ­orders, administra-
tive rulemaking, congressional appropriations, and the courts. Th ­ ose
have become the most dynamic and consequential arenas of modern en-
vironmental policymaking, ushering in (and out) efforts to address cli-
mate change, reduce smog, end mountaintop removal coal mining, and
protect wild lands. What this history reveals is that the passage of a law
is never the end of the story: just as impor­tant is how a law is imple-
mented, litigated, and defended. And, despite conservative Republican
efforts to roll back environmental laws since the 1980s, environmental
advocates and their allies have been diligent in their efforts to not only
defend t­ hese laws—in Congress, within administrations, and in the
courts—­but to ensure that they are implemented fully. Thus, environmen-
talists not only weathered many of the challenges posed by the Reagan
administration, Newt Gingrich’s Contract with Amer­i­ca, or George W.
Bush’s administration, at times they used t­ hese pathways to their advan-
 Introduction 17

100%
Average LCV voting score on environmental issues

75%

50%

25%

0%
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

House Democrats House Republicans

Figure 0-1 The growing partisan divide on environmental issues. Each year, the
League of Conservation Voters assesses the environmental voting rec­ord of each
member of Congress. The gap between Demo­crats and Republicans widened rapidly
in the mid-1990s and has continued to diverge. Data source: League of Conservation
Voters.

tage, succeeding in expanding the protections for clean air, clean w

­ ater, the
public lands, and public health.
In sum, what we aim to do in this short book is tell a clear story about
the surprising aftermath of the landmark environmental laws of the late
1960s and early 1970s. It is a story of ­great successes—­the overarching
arc has been to build on the legislative framework of the 1960s and 1970s
to strengthen protections for the environment, usually through expanding
the power of the federal government, in ways that have materially im-
proved public health and environmental quality—­and ­great failures,
such as the United States’ unwillingness to make a binding commit-
ment to reduce green­house gas emissions, to fully address w ­ ater pollu-
tion, or to prioritize issues of environmental justice. Ultimately, it is
also a story about how environmental protection has become more
18 Introduction

perilous, as it has become both po­liti­cally polarized and more volatile.

The shift away from legislative action in Congress and t­ oward alterna-
tive policymaking pathways has made the priorities of the president—­who
controls appointees, issues executive ­orders, and initiates rulemaking
activities—­increasingly impor­tant. Thus, never before have the potential
consequences of the Republican reversal been so g­ reat as during the
Trump administration.
Other documents randomly have
different content
delightful and improved expansion of the old apologue, originally
attributed to Menenius by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, but taken
immediately by Shakspeare from Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, and
from Camden's Remains.
The serious and elevated persons of the drama are delineated in
colours of equal, if not superior strength. The unrivalled military
prowess of Coriolanus, in whose nervous arm, "Death, that dark
spirit," dwelt; the severe sublimity of his character, his stern and
unbending hauteur, and his undisguised contempt of all that is
vulgar, pusillanimous, and base, are brought before us with a
raciness and power of impression, and, notwithstanding a very
liberal use both of the sentiments and language of his Plutarch, with
a freedom of outline which, even in Shakspeare, may be allowed to
excite our astonishment.[494:A]
Among the female characters, a very important part is necessarily
attached to the person of Volumnia; the fate of Rome itself
depending upon her parental influence and authority. The poet has
accordingly done full justice to the great qualities which the
Cheronean sage has ascribed to this energetic woman; the daring
loftiness of her spirit, her bold and masculine eloquence, and, above
all, her patriotic devotion, being marked by the most spirited and
vigorous touches of his pencil.
The numerous vicissitudes in the story; its rapidity of action; its
contrast of character; the splendid vigour of its serious, and the
satirical sharpness and relish of its more familiar scenes, together
with the animation which prevails throughout all its parts, have
conferred on this play, both in the closet, and on the stage, a
remarkable degree of attraction.
 32. The Winter's Tale: 1610. That this play was written after the
accession of King James, appears probable from the following lines:
—

——— "If I could find example

Of thousands, that had struck anointed kings
And flourished after, I'd not do't; but since
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villany itself forswear it."[495:A]

"If, as Mr. Blackstone supposes," observes Mr. Douce, "this be an

allusion to the death of the Queen of Scots, it exhibits Shakspeare in
the character of a cringing flatterer, accommodating himself to
existing circumstances, and is moreover an extremely severe one.
But the perpetrator of that atrocious murder did flourish many years
afterwards. May it not rather be designed as a compliment to King
James, on his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy, an event often
brought to the people's recollection during his reign, from the day on
which it happened being made a day of thanksgiving?"[495:B]
Thus Osborne tells us, that "amongst a number of other
Novelties, he (King James) brought a new Holyday into the Church
of England, wherein God had publick thanks given him for his
Majesties deliverance out of the hands of E. Goury. And this fell out
upon Aug. 5[495:C];" and from Wilson we learn, the title which this
day bore in the almanacks of the time:—"The fifth of August this
year (1603) had a new title given to it. The Kings Deliveries in the
North must resound here."[496:A]
From an allusion to this play and to The Tempest, in Ben Jonson's
Induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, there is some reason to
conclude, that these dramas were written within a short period of
each other, and that The Winter's Tale was the elder of the two. "He
is loth," he says, "to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that
beget Tales, Tempests, and such like drolleries."[496:B] Now, it will be
found in the next article, that we have no trifling data for attributing
the composition of The Tempest to the year 1611; and, could it be
rendered highly probable, that the production of The Winter's Tale
did not occur before 1610, an almost incontrovertible support would
be given to our chronology of both plays. It happens, therefore, very
fortunately, that in a note by Mr. Malone, annexed to his
chronological notice of The Winter's Tale, in the edition of our
author's plays of 1803, a piece of information occurs, that seems
absolutely to prove the very fact of which we are in search. It
appears, says this Critic, from the entry which has been quoted in a
preceding page, that The Winter's Tale "had been originally licensed
by Sir George Buck;" and he concludes by remarking, that "though
Sir George Buck obtained a reversionary grant of the office of Master
of the Revels, in 1603, which title Camden has given him in the
edition of his Britannia printed in 1607, it appears from various
documents in the Pells-office, that he did not get complete
possession of his place till August, 1610."[496:C] In fact, Edmond
Tilney, the predecessor of Sir George Buck, died at the very
commencement of October, 1610, and was buried at Leatherhead, in
Surrey, on the sixth of the same month; and it is very likely that,
during his illness, probably commencing in August, Sir George, as his
destined successor, might officiate for him.
We learn from Mr. Vertue's manuscripts, that The Winter's Tale
was acted at court in 1613, a circumstance which, though it may
lead us to infer that its popularity on the public stage had been
considerable, by no means necessarily warrants the supposition
which Mr. Malone is inclined to make, that it had passed through all
its stages of composition, public performance, and court exhibition,
during the same year.
Instead, therefore, of conjecturing with Mr. Malone that this play
was written in 1594, or 1602, or 1604, or 1613, for such has been
the vacillation of this gentleman in his chronology of the piece, or,
with Mr. Chalmers, in 1601, we believe it to have been written, for
the reasons which we have already assigned, and which will receive
additional corroboration from the arguments to be adduced under
the next head, towards the close of 1610, and to have been licensed
and performed during the succeeding year.[497:A]
"The observation by Dr. Warburton," remarks Mr. Douce, "that
The Winter's Tale, with all its absurdities, is very entertaining,
though stated by Dr. Johnson to be just, must be allowed at the
same time to be extremely frigid." Certainly had Warburton said this,
or nothing but this, he had merited the epithet; but Mr. Douce has
been misled by Dr. Johnson, for most assuredly Warburton has not
said this, but, on the contrary, has spoken of the play not only with
taste and feeling, but in a tone of enthusiasm. "This play,
throughout," says he, "is written in the very spirit of its author. And
in telling this homely and simple, though agreeable country-tale,

"Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,

Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

"This was necessary to observe in mere justice to the play: as the

meanness of the fable, and the extravagant conduct of it, had misled
some of great name into a wrong judgment of its merit; which, as
far as it regards sentiment and character, is scarce inferior to any in
the whole collection."[498:A] This, indeed, is all that Warburton has
said on the general character of The Winter's Tale, but it is high
praise, and coincides in almost every respect with what Mr. Douce
has himself very justly declared on the same subject, when, in the
passage immediately following that which we have already quoted
from his Illustrations, he adds,—"In point of fine writing it may be
ranked among Shakspeare's best efforts. The absurdities pointed at
by Warburton, together with the whimsical anachronisms of Whitson
pastorals, Christian burial, an emperor of Russia, and an Italian
painter of the fifteenth century, are no real drawbacks on the
superlative merits of this charming drama. The character of Perdita
will remain for ages unrivalled; for where shall such language be
found as she is made to utter?"[498:B]
As Shakspeare was indebted for the story of The Winter's Tale to
the Dorastus and Fawnia of Robert Greene, which was published in
1588, so it is probable that he was under a similar obligation for its
name to "A booke entitled A Wynter Nyght's Pastime," which was
entered at Stationers' Hall on May the 22d, 1594. It is, also, not
unlikely that the adoption of the title might influence the nature of
the composition; for, as Schlegel has remarked, "The Winter's Tale is
as appropriately named as The Midsummer-Night's Dream. It is one
of those tales which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary
leisure of a long winter evening, which are even attractive and
intelligible to childhood, and which, animated by fervent truth in the
delineation of character and passion, invested with the decoration of
a poetry lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject,
transport even manhood back to the golden age of imagination."
[498:C]

Such indeed is the character of the latter and more interesting

part of this drama, which, separated by a chasm of sixteen years
from the business of the three preceding acts, may be said, in some
measure, to constitute a distinct play. The fourth act, especially, is a
pastoral of the most fascinating description, in which Perdita, pure
as

——————————— "the fann'd snow

That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er,"[499:A]

ignorant of her splendid origin, yet, under the appearance of a

shepherd's daughter, acting with such an intuitive nobleness of mind,
that—

——————— "nothing she does, or seems,

But smacks of something greater than herself,"[499:B]

exhibits a portrait fresh from nature's loveliest pencil, where

simplicity, artless affection, and the most generous resignation are
sweetly blended with a fortitude at once spirited and tender. Thus,
when Polixenes, discovering himself at the sheep-shearing, interdicts
the contract between Perdita and his son, and threatens the former
with a cruel death, if she persist in encouraging the attachment, the
reply which she gives is a most beautiful developement of the
qualities of mind and heart which we have just enumerated:—

"Per. Even here undone?

I was not much afeard: for once, or twice,
I was about to speak; and tell him plainly,
The selfsame sun, that shines upon his court,
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on alike.—Will't please you, sir, be gone? (to
Florizel.
I told you, what would come of this: 'Beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,—
 Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further,
But milk my ewes, and weep."[500:A]
The comic characters of this play, which are nearly confined to
the last two acts, form a striking contrast and relief to the native
delicacy and elegance of manners which distinguish every sentiment
and action of the modest and unaffected Perdita; her reputed father
and brother and the witty rogue Autolycus being drawn with those
strong but natural strokes of broad humour which Shakspeare
delighted to display in his characterisation of the lower orders of
society. That "snapper up of unconsidered trifles," his frolic pedlar, is
one of the most entertaining specimens of wicked ingenuity that
want and opportunity ever generated.
33. The Tempest: 1611. The dates assigned by the two
chronologers, for the composition of this drama, seem to be inferred
from premises highly inconclusive and improbable. Mr. Malone
conceives it to have been written in 1612, because its title appears
to him to have been derived from the circumstance of a dreadful
tempest occurring in the October, November, and December of the
year 1612; and Mr. Chalmers has exchanged this epoch for 1613,
because there happened "a great tempest of thunder and lightning,
on Christmas day, 1612."[500:B] "This intimation," he subjoins,
"necessarily carries the writing of The Tempest into the subsequent
year, since there is little probability, that our poet would write this
enchanting drama, in the midst of the tempest, which overthrew so
many mansions, and wrecked so many ships."[500:C]
It is very extraordinary that, when all the circumstances which
could lead to the suggestion of the title of The Tempest, are to be
found in books, to which, from his allusions, we know our author
must have had recourse, and in events which took place, during the
two years immediately preceding the period that we have fixed
upon, and at the very spot referred to in the play, these critics
should have imagined that a series of stormy weather occurring at
home, or a single storm on Christmas day, could have operated with
the poet in his choice of a name.
It is scarcely possible to avoid smiling at the objection which Mr.
Chalmers so seriously brings forward against the conjecture of his
predecessor, founded on the improbability of the poet's writing his
Tempest in the midst of a tempest; a mode of refutation which could
only have been adopted one would think under the supposition, that
Shakspeare, during these three stormy months, had wanted the
protection of a roof. The inference, however, which he draws from
his own storm, on Christmas day, namely, that The Tempest must
necessarily have been written in 1613, is still less tenable than the
position of Mr. Malone; for we are told, on the authority of Mr.
Vertue's Manuscripts, "that the Tempest was acted by John Heminge
and the rest of the King's company, before Prince Charles, the Lady
Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine elector, in the beginning of the
year 1613."[501:A] Now we learn from Wilson the historian, that the
Prince Palatine was married to the Lady Elizabeth in February, 1613,
her brother Prince Charles leading her to church; and on this
occasion, no doubt, it was, that The Tempest, having been received
the preceding season with great favour and popularity, was re-
performed; for Wilson tells us, that in consequence of these nuptials,
"the feastings, maskings, and other Royall formalities, were as
troublesome ('tis presum'd) to the Lovers, as the relation of them
here may be to the reader;" and he adds, in the next page, that they
were "tired with feasting and jollity."[502:A]
 But how can this relation be reconciled with the chronology of Mr.
Chalmers? for, if The Tempest, as he supposes, was written in 1613,
it must have been commenced and finished in the course of one
month! a rapidity of composition which, considering the unrivalled
excellence of this drama, is scarcely within the bounds of probability.
Beside, were The Tempest the production of January, 1613, it must
have been written on the spur of the occasion, and for the nuptials
in question; and is it to be supposed that no reference to such an
event would be found throughout a play composed expressly to
adorn, if not to compliment, the ceremony?
If we can, therefore, ascertain, that all the circumstances
necessary for the suggestion, not only of the title of The Tempest,
but of a considerable part of its fable, may have occurred to
Shakspeare's mind anterior to the close of 1611, and would
particularly press upon it, during the two years preceding this date,
it may, without vanity, be expected, that the epoch which we have
chosen, will be preferred to those which we have just had reason to
pronounce either trivial or improbable.
So far back as to 1577, have Mr. Steevens and Dr. Farmer referred
for some particulars to which Shakspeare was indebted for his
conception of the "foul witch Sycorax," and her god Setebos[502:B];
but the circumstances which led to the name of the play, to the
storm with which it opens, and to some of the wondrous incidents
on the enchanted island, commence with the publication of Raleigh's
"Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana," a
book that was printed at London in 1596, and in which this great
man, after mentioning the Channel of Bahama, adds,—"The rest of
the Indies for calms, and diseases, are very troublesome; and the
Bermudas, a hellish sea, for thunder, lightning, and storms."[503:A]
 From this publication, therefore, our author acquired his first
intimation of the "still vexed Bermoothes," which was repeated by
the appearance of Hackluyt's Voyages, in 1600, in which, as Dr.
Farmer observes, "he might have seen a description of Bermuda, by
Henry May, who was shipwrecked there in 1593."[503:B] But the
event which immediately gave rise to the composition of The
Tempest, was the Voyage of Sir George Sommers, who was
shipwrecked on Bermudas in 1609, and whose adventures were
given to the public by Silvester Jourdan, one of his crew, with the
following title:—A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the
Isle of Divels: By Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Geo. Sommers, and Captayne
Newport, and divers others. In this publication, Jourdan informs us,
that "the Islands of the Bermudas, as every man knoweth, that hath
heard, or read of them, were never inhabited by any Christian, or
heathen, people, but ever esteemed, and reputed, a most
prodigious, and inchanted, place, affording nothing but gusts,
stormes and foul weather; which made every navigator and mariner
to avoid them, as Scylla and Charybdis, or as they would shun the
Devil himselfe."
Now these particulars in Jourdan's book, taken in conjunction
with preceding intimations, appear to us to have been fully adequate
to the purpose of suggesting to the creative mind of Shakspeare,
without any reference to succeeding pamphlets on the subject, or to
storms at home, the name, the opening incidents, and the magical
portion of his drama; for, when Mr. Chalmers refers us to A Plaine
Description of the Bermudas now called Sommer islands, it should
be recollected, that, even on his own chronology, this work, which
was printed in 1613, must, unless it had appeared on the first days
of the new year, have come too late to have furnished the poet with
any additional information.[504:A]
 That The Tempest had been produced anterior to the stormy
autumn of 1612 seems to have been the opinion of Mr. Douce; for,
alluding to the use which the commentators have made of the mere
date of Sommers's voyage, he adds,—"but the important particulars
of his shipwreck, from which it is exceedingly probable that the
outline of a considerable part of this play was borrowed, has been
unaccountably overlooked;" and then, after quoting the title, and
noticing some of the particulars of Jourdan's book, and introducing a
passage from Stowe's Annals descriptive of Sommers's shipwreck on
the "dreadful coast of the Bermodes, which island were of all nations
said and supposed to bee inchanted and inhabited with witches and
devills," he proceeds thus:—"Now if some of these circumstances in
the shipwreck of Sir George Sommers be considered, it may possibly
turn out that they are 'the particular and recent event which
determined Shakspeare to call his play The Tempest,' instead of 'the
great tempest of 1612,' which has already been supposed to have
suggested its name, and which might have happened after its
composition."[504:B]
From these circumstances, and this chain of reasoning, we are
induced to conclude, that The Tempest was written towards the
close of 1611, and that it was brought on the stage early in the
succeeding year.
The Tempest is, next to Macbeth, the noblest product of our
author's genius. Never were the wild and the wonderful, the pathetic
and the sublime, more artfully and gracefully combined with the
sportive sallies of a playful imagination, than in this enchantingly
attractive drama. Nor is it less remarkable, that all these excellencies
of the highest order are connected with a plot which, in its
mechanism, and in the preservation of the unities, is perfectly
classical and correct.
 The action, which turns upon the restoration of Prospero to his
former dignities, involving in its successful issue, the union of
Ferdinand and Miranda, the temporary punishment of the guilty, and
the reconciliation of all parties, is simple, integral, and complete. The
place is confined to a small island, and, for the most part, to the
cave of Prospero, or its immediate vicinity, and the poet has taken
care to inform us twice in the last act, that the time occupied in the
representation, has not exceeded three hours.[505:A]
Yet within this short space are brought together, and without any
violation of dramatic probability or consistency, the most
extraordinary incidents and the most singular assemblage of
characters, that fancy, in her wildest mood, has ever generated. A
magician possessed of the most awful and stupendous powers; a
spirit of the air beautiful and benign; a goblin hideous and
malignant, a compound of the savage, the demon, and the brute;
and a young and lovely female who has never seen a human being,
save her father, are the inhabitants of an island, no otherwise
frequented than by the fantastic creations of Prospero's necromantic
art.
A solemn and mysterious grandeur envelopes the character of
Prospero, from his first entrance to his final exit, the vulgar magic of
the day being in him blended with such a portion of moral dignity
and philosophic wisdom, as to receive thence an elevation, and an
impression of sublimity, of which it could not previously have been
thought susceptible.
The exquisite simplicity, ingenuous affection, and unsuspicious
confidence of Miranda, united as they are with the utmost sweetness
and tenderness of disposition, render the scenes which pass
between her and Ferdinand beyond measure delightful and
refreshing; they are, indeed, as far as relates to her share of the
dialogue, perfectly paradisaical. Nor is the conception of this
singularly situated character less striking, than the consistency with
which, to the very last, it is supported, throughout all its parts.
On the wildly-graceful picture of Ariel, that "delicate spirit," whose
occupation it was,

——— —— —— "To tread the ooze

Of the salt deep;
To run upon the sharp wind of the north:
To do business in the veins o' the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost;
—— to dive into the fire; to ride
On the curl'd clouds;
———————— to fetch dew
From the still vex'd Bermoothes;"

what language can express an adequate encomium! All his thoughts

and actions, his pastimes and employments, are such as could only
belong to a being of a higher sphere, of a more sublimated and
ætherial existence than the race of man. Even the very words which
he chants, seem to refer to "no mortal business," and to form "no
sound that the earth owes."
Of a nature directly opposed to this elegant and sylph-like
essence, is the hag-born monster Caliban, one of the most
astonishing productions of a mind exhaustless in the creation of all
that is novel, original, and great. Generated by a devil and a witch,
deformed, prodigious, and obscene, and breathing nothing but
malice, sensuality, and revenge, this fearful compound is yet, from
the poetical vigour of his language and ideas, highly interesting to
the imagination. Imagery, derived from whatever is darkly horrible
and mysteriously repulsive, clothe the expression of his passions or
the denunciation of his curses; whilst, even in his moments of
hilarity, the barbarous, the grotesque, and the romantic, alternately,
or conjointly, sustain, with admirable harmony, the keeping of his
character.
That the system of Magic or Enchantment, which has given so
much attraction to this play, was at the period of its production an
article in the popular creed of general estimation, and, even among
the learned, received with but little hesitation, may be clearly
ascertained from the writers of Shakspeare's times. Thus, Howard,
Earl of Northampton, in his "Defensative against the poyson of
supposed Prophecies," 1583; Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft"
and "Discours of Divels and Spirits," 1584; James, in his
"Demonologie," 1603; Mason, in his "Anatomie of Sorceerie," 1612;
and finally, Burton, in his "Anatomie of Melancholy," 1617, all bear
witness, in such a manner to the fact, as proves, that, of the
existence of The Art of Sorcery, however unlawful it might be
deemed by many, few presumed to doubt. The very title of Howard's
book informs us, that "invocations of damned spirits" and "judicials
of astrology" were "causes of great disorder in the commonwealth;"
and in the work, speaking of the same arts, he adds,—"We need not
rifle in the monuments of former times, so long as the present age
wherein we live may furnish us with store of most strange
examples." Scot declares, in his "Epistle to the Reader," that
"conjurors and enchanters make us fooles still, to the shame of us
all;" and in the 42d chapter of his 15th book, he has inserted a copy
of a letter written to him by a professor of the necromantic art, who
had been condemned to die for his supposed diabolical practices,
but who, through his own repentance, and the mediation of Lord
Leicester with the Queen, had been reprieved. An extract or two
from this curious epistle, will place in a striking light the great
prevalence of the credulity on which we are commenting. "Maister R.
Scot, according to your request, I have drawne out certaine abuses
worth the noting, touching the worke you have in hand; things
which I my selfe have seene within these xxvi yeares, among those
which were counted famous and skilfull in those sciences. And
bicause the whole discourse cannot be set downe, without
nominating certaine persons, of whom some are dead, and some
living, whose freends remaine yet of great credit: in respect thereof,
I knowing that mine enimies doo alreadie in number exceed my
freends; I have considered with my selfe, that it is better for me to
staie my hand, than to commit that to the world, which may
increase my miserie more than releeve the same. Notwithstanding,
bicause I am noted above a great many others to have had some
dealings in those vaine arts and wicked practises; I am therefore to
signifie unto you, and I speake it in the presence of God, that among
all those famous and noted practisers, that I have been conversant
with all these xxvi years, I could never see anie matter of truth, &c."
He then, after exposing the futility of these studies, and lamenting
his addiction to them, adds,—"For mine owne part, I have repented
me five yeares past: at which time I sawe a booke, written in the old
Saxon toong, by one Sir John Malborne, a divine of Oxenford, three
hundred yeares past; wherein he openeth all the illusions and
inventions of those arts and sciences: a thing most worthie the
noting. I left the booke with the parson of Slangham, in Sussex,
where if you send for it in my name, you may have it."
At the conclusion of this letter, which is dated the 8th of March,
1582, Scot says, as a further proof of the folly of the times,—"I sent
for this booke of purpose, to the parson of Slangham, and procured
his best friends, men of great worship and credit, to deale with him,
that I might borrowe it for a time. But such is his follie and
superstition, that although he confessed he had it; yet he would not
lend it; albeit a friend of mine, being knight of the shire, would have
given his word for the restitution of the same safe and sound."[509:A]
The reception of James's work on Demonology, which is as
copious on the arts of enchantment as on those of witchcraft, is
itself a most striking instance of the gross credulity of his subjects;
for, while the learned, the sensible, and humane treatise of Scot,
was either reprobated or neglected, the labours of this monarch in
behalf of superstition, were received with applause, and referred to
with a deference which admitted not of question.
Mason followed the footsteps of Scot, though not with equal
ability, when in 1612 he endeavoured to throw ridicule upon
"Inchanters and Charmers—they, which by using of certaine
conceited words, characters, circles, amulets, and such like vaine
and wicked trumpery (by God's permission) doe work great
marvailes: as namely in causing of sicknesse, as also in curing
diseases in men's bodies. And likewise binding some, that they
cannot use their naturall powers and faculties; as we see in Night-
spells. Insomuch as some of them doe take in hand to bind the
Divell himselfe by their inchantments."
Five years afterwards, Burton, who seems to have been a believer
on the influence which the Devil was supposed to exert in cherishing
the growth of Sorcery, records that Magic is "practised by some still,
maintained and excused;" and he adds, that "Nero and Heliogabalus,
Maxentius, and Julianus Apostata, were never so much addicted to
Magick of old, as some of our modern Princes and Popes themselves
are now adayes."[509:B]
 The Art of Magic had, during the reign of Elizabeth, assumed a
more scientific appearance, from its union with the mystic reveries of
the Cabalists and Rosicrusians, and, under this modification, has it
been adopted by Shakspeare for the purposes of dramatic
impression. Astrology, Alchemistry, and what was termed Theurgy,
or an intercourse with Divine Spirits, were combined with the more
peculiar doctrines of Necromancy or the Black Art, and, under this
form, was a system of mere delusions frequently mistaken for a
branch of Natural Philosophy. Thus Fuller, speaking of Dr. John Dee,
the Prince of Magicians in Shakspeare's days, says,—"He was a most
excellent Mathematician and Astrologer, well skilled in Magick, as the
Antients did, the Lord Bacon doth, and all may accept the sence
thereof, viz., in the lawfull knowledg of Naturall Philosophie.
"This exposed him, anno 1583, amongst his Ignorant Neighbours,
where he then liv'd, at Mortclack in Surrey, to the suspicion of a
Conjurer: the cause I conceive, that his Library was then seized on,
wherein were four thousand Books, and seven hundred of them
Manuscripts."[510:A]
This singular character, who was born in 1527, and did not die
until after the accession of James, was certainly possessed of much
mathematical knowledge, having delivered lectures at Paris on the
Elements of Euclid, with unprecedented applause; but he was at the
same time grossly superstitious and enthusiastic, not only dealing in
nativities, talismans, and charms, but pretending to a familiar
intercourse with the world of spirits, of which Dr. Meric Casaubon
has published a most extraordinary account, in a large folio volume,
entitled, "A true and faithful relation of what passed for many years
between Dr. John Dee and some spirits," 1659: and what is still
more extraordinary, this learned editor tells us in his preface, that he
"never gave more credit to any humane history of former times."
 Dee, who had been educated at Cambridge, and was an excellent
classical scholar, had, as might be supposed, in an age of almost
boundless credulity, many patrons, and among these were the Lords
Pembroke and Leicester, and even the Queen herself; but,
notwithstanding this splendid encouragement, and much private
munificence, particularly from the female world, our astrologer, like
most of his tribe, died miserably poor. His love of books has given
him a niche in Mr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Romance, where, under
the title of the renowned Dr. John Dee, he is introduced in the
following animated manner:—"Let us fancy we see him in his
conjuring cap and robes—surrounded with astrological,
mathematical, and geographical instruments—with a profusion of
Chaldee characters inscribed upon vellum rolls—and with his
celebrated Glass suspended by magical wires.—Let us then follow
him into his study at midnight, and view him rummaging his books;
contemplating the heavens; making calculations; holding converse
with invisible spirits; writing down their responses: anon, looking
into his correspondence with Count a Lasco, and the emperors
Adolphus and Maximilian; and pronouncing himself, with the most
heart-felt complacency, the greatest genius of his age! In the midst
of these self-complacent reveries, let us imagine we see his wife and
little ones intruding: beseeching him to burn his books and
instruments; and reminding him that there was neither a silver
spoon, nor a loaf of bread in the cupboard. Alas, poor Dee!"[511:A]
We have some reason to conclude, from the history of his life, of
which Hearne has given us a very copious account[512:A], that Dee
was more of an enthusiast than a knave; but this cannot be
predicated of his associate Kelly, who was assuredly a most
impudent impostor. "He was born," says Fuller, whose account of
him is singularly curious, "at Worcester, (as I have it from the
Scheame of his Nativity, graved from the original calculation of
Doctor Dee), Anno Domini 1555, August the first, at four o clock in
the afternoon, the Pole being there elevated, qr. 52 10—He was well
studied in the mysteries of nature, being intimate with Doctor Dee,
who was beneath him in Chemistry, but above him in Mathematicks.
These two are said to have found a very large quantity of Elixer in
the ruins of Glassenbury Abby.
"Afterwards (being here in some trouble) he (Kelly) went over
beyond the seas, with Albertus Alasco, a Polonian Baron, who——it
seems, sought to repair his fortunes by associating himself with
these two Arch-chemists of England.
"How long they continued together, is to me unknown. Sir Edward
(though I know not how he came by his knight-hood) with the
Doctor, fixed at Trebona in Bohemia, where he is said to have
transmuted a brass[513:A] warming-pan, (without touching or
melting, onely warming it by the fire, and putting the Elixir thereon)
into pure silver, a piece whereof was sent to Queen Elizabeth.—
"They kept constant intelligence with a Messenger or Spirit, giving
them advice how to proceed in their mysticall discoveries, and
injoining them, that, by way of preparatory qualification for the
same, they should enjoy their wives in common.—
"This probably might be the cause, why Doctor Dee left Kelley,
and return'd into England. Kelley continuing still in Germany, ranted
it in his expences (say the Brethren of his own art) above the
sobriety befitting so mysterious a Philosopher. He gave away in gold-
wyer rings, at the marriage of one of his Maid-servants, to the value
of four thousand pounds.—
 "Come we now to his sad catastrophe. Indeed, the curious had
observed, that in the Scheme of his Nativity, not onely the Dragons-
tail was ready to promote abusive aspersions against him (to which
living and dead he hath been subject) but also something malignant
appears posited in Aquarius, which hath influence on the leggs,
which accordingly came to pass. For being twice imprisoned (for
what misdemeanor I know not) by Radulphus the Emperor, he
endeavoured to escape out of an high window, and tying his sheets
together to let him down fell (being a weighty man) and brake his
legg, whereof he died, 1595."[513:B]
It appears, however, from other sources, that the trouble to which
Kelly was put, consisted in losing his ears on the pillory in
Lancashire; that the credulity of the age had allotted him the post of
descryer, or seer of visions to Dee, whom he accompanied to
Germany, and that one of his offices, under this appointment, was to
watch and report the gesticulations of the spirits whom his superior
had fixed and compelled to appear in a talisman or stone, which
very stone, we are informed, is now in the Strawberry-hill collection,
and is nothing more than a finely polished mass of canal coal! His
knighthood was the reward of a promise to assist the Emperor
Rodolphus the Second, in his search after the philosopher's stone;
and the discovery of his deceptive practices led him to a prison, from
which it is said Elizabeth, to whom a piece of the transmuted
warming-pan had been sent, had tempted him to make that escape
which terminated in his death.[514:A]
Such were the leaders of the cabalistic and alchemical Magi in the
days of our Virgin Queen; men, in the estimation of the great bulk of
the people, possessed of super-human power, and who,
notwithstanding their ignorance and presumption, and the exposure
of their art by some choice spirits of their own, and the immediately
subsequent period, among whom Ben Jonson, as the author of the
Alchemist, stands pre-eminent, continued for near a century to
excite the curiosity, and delude the expectations of the public.[514:B]
The delineation of Prospero, the noblest conception of the Magic
character which ever entered the mind of a poet, is founded upon a
distinction which was supposed to exist between the several
professors of this mysterious science. They were separated, in fact,
into two great orders; into those who commanded the service of
superior intelligences, and into those who, by voluntary compact,
entered into a league with, or submitted to be the instruments of
these powers. Under the first were ranked Magicians, who were
again classed into higher or inferior, according to the extent of the
control which they exerted over the invisible world; the former
possessing an authority over celestial, as well as infernal spirits.
Under the second were included Necromancers and Wizards, who,
for the enjoyment of temporary power, subjected themselves, like
the Witch, to final perdition.
Of the highest class of the first order was Prospero, one of those
Magicians or Conjurors who, as Reginald Scot observes, "professed
an art which some fond divines affirme to be more honest and
lawfull than necromancie, which is called Theurgie; wherein they
worke by good angels."[515:A] Accordingly, we find Prospero
operating upon inferior agents, upon elves, demons, and goblins,
through the medium of Ariel, a spirit too delicate and good to "act
abhorr'd commands," but who "answered his best pleasure," and
was subservient to his "strong bidding."
Shakspeare has very properly given to the exterior of Prospero,
several of the adjuncts and costume of the popular magician. Much
virtue was inherent in his very garments; and Scot has, in many
instances, particularised their fashion. A pyramidal cap, a robe furred
with fox-skins, a girdle three inches in breadth, and inscribed with
cabalistic characters, shoes of russet leather, and unscabbarded
swords, formed the usual dress; but, on peculiar occasions, certain
deviations were necessary; thus, in one instance, we are told the
Magician must be habited in "clean white cloathes;" that his girdle
must be made of "a drie thong of a lion's or of a hart's skin;" that he
must have a "brest-plate of virgine parchment, sowed upon a piece
of new linnen," and inscribed with certain figures; and likewise, "a
bright knife that was never occupied," covered with characters on
both sides, and with which he is to "make the circle, called
Salomon's circle."[516:A]
Our poet has, therefore, laid much stress on these seeming
minutiæ, and we find him, in the second scene of The Tempest,
absolutely asserting, that the essence of the art existed in the robe
of Prospero, who, addressing his daughter, says,—

———————— "Lend thy hand,

And pluck my magick garment from me.—So;
(Lays dawn his mantle.
Lie there my art."

A similar importance is assigned to his staff or wand; for he tells

Ferdinand,—

—— "I can here disarm thee with this stick,

And make thy weapon drop:"[516:B]

and, when he abjures the practice of magic, one of the requisites is,
to "break his staff," and to
 "Bury it certain fathoms in the earth."[516:C]

But the more immediate instruments of power were Books,

through whose assistance spells and adjurations were usually
performed. Reginald Scot, speaking of the traffickers in Magic of his
time, says,—"These conjurors carrie about at this daie, books
intituled under the names of Adam, Abel, Tobie, and Enoch; which
Enoch they repute the most divine fellow in such matters. They have
also among them bookes that they saie Abraham, Aaron, and
Salomon made. They have bookes of Zacharie, Paule, Honorius,
Cyprian, Jerome, Jeremie, Albert, and Thomas: also of the angels,
Riziel, Razael, and Raphael."[517:A]
Books are, consequently, represented as one of the chief sources
of Prospero's influence over the spiritual world. He himself declares,
—

———————— "I'll to my book;

For yet, ere supper time, must I perform
Much business appertaining;"[517:B]

and, on relinquishing his art, he says, that

—— "deeper than did ever plummet sound,

I'll drown my book;"[517:C]

whilst Caliban, conspiring against the life of his benefactor, tells

Stephano, that, before he attempts to destroy him, he must

—————————————— "Remember,
First to possess his books; for without them
He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not
 One spirit to command."[517:D]
Though we perceive the effect of Prospero's spells, the mode by
which they are wrought does not appear; we are only told that
silence is necessary to their success:—

——————————— "Hush, and be mute,

Or else our spell is marr'd."[517:E]

He afterwards assures us, that his "charms crack not," and that
his "spirits obey;" and, in one instance, he commissions Ariel to
"untie the spell" in which he had bound Caliban and his companions.
[518:A]

It is probable that any attempt to represent the forms of

adjuration and enchantment would have been either too ludicrous or
too profane for the purposes of the poet. In the one instance, the
mysterious solemnity of the scene would have been destroyed; and
in the other, the serious feelings of the spectator might have been
shocked; at least, such are the results on the mind of the reader, in
perusing the numerous specimens of adjuration in the fifteenth book
of Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. One of these, as including an
example of the then fashionable mode of conjuration, that of fixing
the spirit in a beryl, glass, or stone, according to the practice of Dee
and Kelly, shall be given; omitting, however, all those invocations
and addresses which, by a frequent use of names and phrases the
most hallowed and sacred, must, on such occasions, prove alike
indecorous and disgusting. The adjuration in question is termed by
Scot, "an experiment of the dead," or, "conjuring for a dead spirit:" it
commences in the following manner, and terminates in obtaining the
services of a good and beautiful spirit of the fairy tribe; and such we
may suppose to have been the process through which Prospero
procured the obedience and ministration of Ariel, for we are
expressly told, that "graves" at his "command"

"Have waked their sleepers; oped and let them forth."

"First fast and praie three daies, and absteine thee from all
filthinesse; go to one that is new buried, such a one as killed
himselfe, or destroied himself wilfullie: or else get thee promise of
one that shal be hanged, and let him sweare an oth to thee, after
his bodie is dead, that his spirit shall come to thee, and doe thee
true service, at thy commandements, in all daies, houres, and
minutes. And let no persons see thy doings, but thy fellow. And
about eleven o clocke in the night, go to the place where he was
buried, and saie with a bold faith and hartie desire, to have the spirit
come that thou dost call for, thy fellow having a candle in his left
hand, and in his right hand a christall stone, and saie these words
following, the maister having a hazell wand in his right hand, and
these names—written thereupon, Tetragrammaton + Adonay +
Craton. Then strike three strokes on the ground, and saie, Arise,
Arise, Arise!—
"The maister standing at the head of the grave, his fellow having
in his hands the candle and the stone, must begin the conjuration as
followeth, and the spirit will appeare to you in the christall stone, in
a faire forme of a child of twelve yeares of age. And when he is in,
feele the stone, and it will be hot; and feare nothing, for he or shee
will shew manie delusions, to drive you from your worke. Feare God,
but feare him not."
Then follows a long conjuration to constrain the appearance of
the spirit, which being effected, another is pronounced to compell
him to fetch the "fairie Sibylia."
 "This done, go to a place fast by, and in a faire parlor or chamber,
make a circle with chalke:—and make another circle for the fairie
Sibylia to appeare in, foure foote from the circle thou art in, and
make no names therein, nor cast anie holie thing therein, but make
a circle round with chalke; and let the maister and his fellowe sit
downe in the first circle, the maister having the booke in his hand,
his fellow having the christall stone in his right hand, looking in the
stone when the fairie dooth appeare."
The fairie Sibylia is then seventimes cited to appear:—"I conjure
thee Sibylia, O gentle virgine of fairies, by all the angels of ♃ and
their characters and vertues, and by all the spirits of ♃ and ♀ and
their characters and vertues, and by all the characters that be in the
firmament, and by the king and queene of fairies, and their vertues,
and by the faith and obedience which thou bearest unto them,—I
conjure thee O blessed and beautifull virgine, by all the riall words
aforesaid; I conjure thee Sibylia by all their vertues to appeare in
that circle before me visible, in the forme and shape of a beautifull
woman in a bright and white vesture, adorned and garnished most
faire, and to appeare to me quicklie without deceipt or tarrieng, and
that thou faile not to fulfill my will and desire effectuallie."
The spirit in the christall stone having produced Sibylia within the
circle, she is bound to appear "at all times visiblie, as the conjuration
of words leadeth, written in the booke," and the ceremony is wound
up in the subsequent terms:—"I conjure thee Sibylia, O blessed
virgine of fairies, by the king and queene of fairies, and by their
vertues,—to give me good counsell at all times, and to come by
treasures hidden in the earth, and all other things that is to doo me
pleasure, and to fulfill my will, without any deceipt or tarrieng; nor
yet that thou shalt have anie power of my bodie or soule, earthlie or
ghostlie, nor yet to perish so much of my bodie as one haire of my
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