A Republic of Men. Mark E. Kann

He wrote:

      All men would live somewhere eternally if they could, and they affect to become immortal even here on earth. To have their names perpetuated was the true spring of several great men’s actions; and for that only end have they patiently undergone all manner of toil and danger. But this inclination never discovers itself so plainly as in the care men take of their posterity. Some are content to live beggars all their days that their children after them may be rich, for they look upon these as their own persons multiplied by propagation; whence some as had none themselves adopted the children of others to bear their names.¹¹

      English critics stigmatized the Bachelor and the Redcoat for sterility. They demonstrated no commitment to family, friends, or nation. They procreated nothing of public value. They were destructive children who lived solely in the present, where they generated social disorder and fostered political tyranny. Like minors, they needed to be governed.

       America’s Vilest Race of Men

      The English introduced the Bachelor into American discourse as early as 1623, when Sir George Ferrars condemned Virginia colonizers as “unruly sparks, . . . poor gentlemen, broken tradesmen, rakes and libertines, footmen.” Sir Edwin Sandys hoped to calm colonial disorders by sending women to America to marry these disorderly men and make them “more settled.” Colonial administrators experimented with land incentives to encourage men to marry and penalties to discourage lengthy bachelorhood. Nonetheless, a 1708 missionary report criticized the inhabitants of Carolina as “the vilest race of men upon the earth . . . bankrupts, pirates, decayed libertines, sectaries, and enthusiasts . . . of large and loose principles.”¹²