When we last left our hero, John Flintoff, the young man had fled Mississippi a failure. He clashed with his uncle, disapproved of his cousins’ aristocratic lifestyle, and worst of all, had long moments of spiritual isolation. Only when he attended college—a Methodist school in Jackson—did his happiness flourish. Flintoff learned one thing in Mississippi: his contentedness depended on the nurturing associations of an evangelical community.
I am going to suggest that in the end, Flintoff’s prioritized* his religious needs over his economic and social aspirations. But as always, it’s not that easy. Upon his return to North Carolina and his mother—and a vastly different cultural environment—Flintoff remained unhappy. He resented his chronic indebtedness and continued to harbor aspirations for success as a cotton planter. Thus, after his retreat to Orange County, he reorganized, and this time armed with a wife and enslaved people, resumed his adventure in Mississippi.
This second attempt ended worse than the first. Broke, sick, and constantly at war with his uncle, Flintoff fled again. He spent a couple more years unhappy at home—now in Caswell County among his wife’s family—before he found some measure of economic stability and happiness.** Here’s my problem: I think you can make a convincing argument that Flintoff’s happiness was—perhaps unbeknownst to him—grounded in that economic stability.*** The story doesn’t make an equal analog between Mississippi and unhappiness and North Carolina and happiness. What came first, economic and social failure, or religious despair? Not too easy to prise that apart, but I think that in Flintoff’s own mind, the religious concern prevailed and his revised economic aspirations followed.
That’s what I’ve got to prove this week.
*I read recently where Darrett Rutman dismissed and mocked the idea of prioritization, so I’m alert to its vulnerability as a tool.
**This is a different story, but I’m certain that Flintoff’s newfound prosperity is attritutable to rising prices for tobacco and that industry’s expansion on the eve of the Civil War.
***Glenn Beck just condemned me to Hell, yet again, for this observation.
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