Antedatings in The Yale Book of Quotations - 39: Silent Majority

Baker, John JMB at STRADLEY.COM
Mon Jul 16 23:20:16 UTC 2007


        "Silent majority" seems to be much older than I would have
supposed.  The earliest I see is from an account of the congressional
debates of September 4, 1789, discussing the location of the permanent
seat of government of the United States.  "Mr. AMES never intended that
this question should be carried through the committee by the strength of
a silent majority; he had confidence in the weight of the arguments to
be urged in favor of the Susquehanna, and he was willing to put the
decision of the question on that ground."  This is from The Debates and
Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (aka The Annals of
Congress), available online at
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=001/llac001.db
&recNum=452.  According to the Library of Congress, the Annals of
Congress were not published contemporaneously, but were compiled between
1834 and 1856, using the best records available, primarily newspaper
accounts, and speeches are paraphrased rather than presented verbatim.

        Another early example is from The Pamphleteer, Vol. VII, No.
XIII, p. 68 (Mar. 1816) (Google Books full text), discussing the
relative considerations to be given the interests of the slave majority
and the white minority in determining whether to register slaves in the
British colonies in order to enforce the Abolition Acts:  "Nor is the
opposition to such a particular order deserving of the more respect,
because the great majority, comprising all other classes [besides the
white minority], is silent, when that silence is known to be not a
matter of choice, but a necessary consequence of the strict and despotic
subordination in which they are held.  In such a case, the legislature
is bound to consider whether the silent majority have really an interest
[letters or words missing] ption of the measure opposed."  The author's
name does not appear to be given.

        Finally, here is a nonpolitical use from A Sexton of the Old
School [Lucius Manlius Sargent], Dealings with the Dead, Vol. 2, p. 441
(1856; copyright 1855) (Making of America), referring to a quack:
"Those, who got well, proclaimed Dr. Bodkin's praises--those, who died,
were a very silent majority."


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Fred Shapiro
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 11:37 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Antedatings in The Yale Book of Quotations - 39: Silent
Majority

silent majority (OED 1874, political usage 1955)

1870 _Economist_ 19 Nov.  The silent majority which so seldom appears at
the polls.

Fred Shapiro

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