Some Embarrassing Questions
The usual answer to this question admits no doubt: liberalism is the tradition of thought whose central concern is the liberty of the individual, which is ignored or ridden roughshod over by the organicist philosophies of various kinds. But if that is the case, how should we situate John C. Calhoun? This eminent statesman, vice president of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, burst into an impassioned ode to individual liberty, which, appealing to Locke, he vigorously defended against any abuse of power and any unwarranted interference by the state. And that is not all. Along with ‘absolute governments’ and the ‘concentrations of power’, he unstintingly criticized and condemned fanaticism and the spirit of ‘crusade’, to which he opposed ‘compromise’ as the guiding principle of genuine ‘constitutional governments’. With equal eloquence Calhoun defended minority rights. It was not only a question of guaranteeing the alteration of various parties in government through suffrage: unduly extensive power was unacceptable in any event, even if of limited duration and tempered by the promise or prospect of a periodic reversal of the roles in the relationship between governors and the governed. Unquestionably, we seem to have all the characteristics of the most mature and attractive liberal thought. On the other hand, however, disdaining the half-measures and timidity or fear of those who restricted themselves to accepting it as a necessary ‘evil’, Calhoun declared slavery to be ‘a positive good’ that civilization could not possibly renounce. . . . So is Calhoun a liberal?
No doubts on this score were harbored by Lord Acton, a prominent figure in liberalism in the second half of the nineteenth century, an advisor and friend of William Gladstone. In Acton’s view, Calhoun was a champion of the cause of the struggle against any form of absolutism, including ‘democratic absolutism’; the arguments he employed were ‘the very perfection of political truth’. In short, we are dealing with one of the major authors and great minds in the liberal tradition and pantheon.
The question we have poised does not only emerge from reconstructing the history of the United States. Prestigious scholars of the French Revolution, of firm liberal persuasion, have no hesitation in defining as ‘liberal’ those figures and circles that had the merit of opposing the Jacobin diversion, but who were firmly committed to the defense of colonial slavery. The reference is to Pierre-Victor Malouet and members of the Massiac Club, who were all plantation owners and slaveholders. Is it possible to be a liberal and a slaveholder at the same time? Such was not the opinion of John Stuart Mill, judging at least from his polemic against the ‘soi-disant’, British liberals (among them, perhaps, Acton and Gladstone), who, during the American Civil War, rallied en masse to a ‘furious pro-Southern partisanship’, or at any rate viewed the Union and Lincoln coolly and malevolently.[1.]
We face a dilemma. If we answer the question formulated above in the affirmative, we can no longer maintain the traditional (and edifying) image of liberalism as the thought and volition of liberty. If, on the other hand, we answer in the negative, we find ourselves confronting a new problem: why should we continue to dignify John Locke with the title of father of liberalism? Locke regarded slavery in the colonies as self-evident and indisputable and personally contributed to the legal formalization of the institution in Carolinas, however vigorous his denunciations of the political ‘slavery’ that absolute monarchy sought to impose were. . . .
Now let us take a contemporary of Locke’s. Andrew Fletcher was a ‘champion of liberty’; and, at the same time, ‘a champion of slavery. Politically he professed to be a republican on principle and culturally was ‘a Scottish prophet of the Enlightenment’. Jefferson defined him as a ‘patriot’, whose merit was to have expressed the ‘political principles’ characteristic of ‘the purest periods of the British Constitution’- and those that subsequently caught on a prospered in America. Expressing positions rather similar to Fletcher’s was his contemporary James Burgh, who also enjoyed the respect of republican circles a la Jefferson, and was mentioned favorably by Thomas Paine in the most celebrated opuscule of the American Revolution (Common Sense).
Fletcher and Burgh are virtually forgotten today, and no one seems to want to include them among the exponents of the liberal tradition. The fact is that, in underlining the necessity of slavery, they were thinking primarily not of blacks in the colonies, but of the ‘vagrants’, the beggars, the odious ,incorrigible rabble of the metropolis. Liberal England presents us with another case. Francis Hutchinson, a moral philosopher of some significance (he was the ‘never to be forgotten’ master of Adam Smith), who, on the one hand expressed criticisms and reservations about slavery to which blacks were indiscriminately subjected. On the other hand, he stressed that, especially dealing with the ‘lower conditions’ of society, slavery could be a ‘useful punishment’: it should be the ‘ordinary punishment of idle vagrants as, after proper admonitions and trials of temporary servitude, cannot be engaged to support themselves and families by any useful labor.’ Were Fletcher, Burgh and Hutchinson liberals?
In analyzing the relationship that the three liberal revolutions (Dutch, British and American) developed on the one hand with blacks, and on the other with the Irish, Indians and natives, it is misleading to start out from the presupposition of an homogeneous historical time unmarked by fractures and flowing in unilinear fashion. Clearly predating Locke and Washington, and a contemporary of Grotius, was Montaigne in whom we find a memorable self-critical reflection on the West’s colonial expansion that we would seek in vain in them. ‘Every man calls barbarous anything he is not accustomed to.’ People took their own country as a model ‘There we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything!’ Going back further, we encounter Las Casa and his critique of the arguments employed to de-humanize the Indian ‘barbarians’. . .
Recourse to vulgar historicism to ‘explain’ or to repress the surprising tangle of freedom and oppression that characterizes the three liberal revolutions we have referred to is fruitless. The paradox persists and awaits a genuine, less comforting explanation.
To render it explicable, the paradox must first be expounded in all its radicalism. Slavery is not something that persisted despite the success of the three liberal revolutions. On the contrary, it experienced its maximum development following that success. The total slave population in the Americas reached about 330,000 in 1700, nearly three million by 1800, an finally peaked at over six million in the 1850s. Contributing decisively to the rise of an institution synonymous with the absolute power of man over man was the liberal world. In the mid-eighteenth century, it was Great Britain that possessed the largest number of slaves (878,000). Although its empire was far more extensive, Spain came well behind. Second position was held by Portugal, which possessed 700,000 slaves and was in fact a kind of semi-colony of Great Britain: much of the gold extracted by Brazilian slaves ended up in London. Hence there is no doubt that absolutely pre-eminent in this field was the country at the head of the liberal movement, which had wrested primacy from the Glorious Revolution onward. ‘No nation in Europe has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Great Britain.’ ( Pitt the Younger, House of Commons, April, 1792). In John Wesley’s view, ‘American slavery was ‘the vilest that ever saw the sun. ’James Madison, slave-owner and liberal, observed that ‘the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man- power based on mere distinction of color- was imposed in the most enlightened period of time’ . . .
The Elusive Liberalism of de Tocqueville’s America
The usual answer to this question admits no doubt: liberalism is the tradition of thought whose central concern is the liberty of the individual, which is ignored or ridden roughshod over by the organicist philosophies of various kinds. But if that is the case, how should we situate John C. Calhoun? This eminent statesman, vice president of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, burst into an impassioned ode to individual liberty, which, appealing to Locke, he vigorously defended against any abuse of power and any unwarranted interference by the state. And that is not all. Along with ‘absolute governments’ and the ‘concentrations of power’, he unstintingly criticized and condemned fanaticism and the spirit of ‘crusade’, to which he opposed ‘compromise’ as the guiding principle of genuine ‘constitutional governments’. With equal eloquence Calhoun defended minority rights. It was not only a question of guaranteeing the alteration of various parties in government through suffrage: unduly extensive power was unacceptable in any event, even if of limited duration and tempered by the promise or prospect of a periodic reversal of the roles in the relationship between governors and the governed. Unquestionably, we seem to have all the characteristics of the most mature and attractive liberal thought. On the other hand, however, disdaining the half-measures and timidity or fear of those who restricted themselves to accepting it as a necessary ‘evil’, Calhoun declared slavery to be ‘a positive good’ that civilization could not possibly renounce. . . . So is Calhoun a liberal?
No doubts on this score were harbored by Lord Acton, a prominent figure in liberalism in the second half of the nineteenth century, an advisor and friend of William Gladstone. In Acton’s view, Calhoun was a champion of the cause of the struggle against any form of absolutism, including ‘democratic absolutism’; the arguments he employed were ‘the very perfection of political truth’. In short, we are dealing with one of the major authors and great minds in the liberal tradition and pantheon.
The question we have poised does not only emerge from reconstructing the history of the United States. Prestigious scholars of the French Revolution, of firm liberal persuasion, have no hesitation in defining as ‘liberal’ those figures and circles that had the merit of opposing the Jacobin diversion, but who were firmly committed to the defense of colonial slavery. The reference is to Pierre-Victor Malouet and members of the Massiac Club, who were all plantation owners and slaveholders. Is it possible to be a liberal and a slaveholder at the same time? Such was not the opinion of John Stuart Mill, judging at least from his polemic against the ‘soi-disant’, British liberals (among them, perhaps, Acton and Gladstone), who, during the American Civil War, rallied en masse to a ‘furious pro-Southern partisanship’, or at any rate viewed the Union and Lincoln coolly and malevolently.[1.]
We face a dilemma. If we answer the question formulated above in the affirmative, we can no longer maintain the traditional (and edifying) image of liberalism as the thought and volition of liberty. If, on the other hand, we answer in the negative, we find ourselves confronting a new problem: why should we continue to dignify John Locke with the title of father of liberalism? Locke regarded slavery in the colonies as self-evident and indisputable and personally contributed to the legal formalization of the institution in Carolinas, however vigorous his denunciations of the political ‘slavery’ that absolute monarchy sought to impose were. . . .
Now let us take a contemporary of Locke’s. Andrew Fletcher was a ‘champion of liberty’; and, at the same time, ‘a champion of slavery. Politically he professed to be a republican on principle and culturally was ‘a Scottish prophet of the Enlightenment’. Jefferson defined him as a ‘patriot’, whose merit was to have expressed the ‘political principles’ characteristic of ‘the purest periods of the British Constitution’- and those that subsequently caught on a prospered in America. Expressing positions rather similar to Fletcher’s was his contemporary James Burgh, who also enjoyed the respect of republican circles a la Jefferson, and was mentioned favorably by Thomas Paine in the most celebrated opuscule of the American Revolution (Common Sense).
Fletcher and Burgh are virtually forgotten today, and no one seems to want to include them among the exponents of the liberal tradition. The fact is that, in underlining the necessity of slavery, they were thinking primarily not of blacks in the colonies, but of the ‘vagrants’, the beggars, the odious ,incorrigible rabble of the metropolis. Liberal England presents us with another case. Francis Hutchinson, a moral philosopher of some significance (he was the ‘never to be forgotten’ master of Adam Smith), who, on the one hand expressed criticisms and reservations about slavery to which blacks were indiscriminately subjected. On the other hand, he stressed that, especially dealing with the ‘lower conditions’ of society, slavery could be a ‘useful punishment’: it should be the ‘ordinary punishment of idle vagrants as, after proper admonitions and trials of temporary servitude, cannot be engaged to support themselves and families by any useful labor.’ Were Fletcher, Burgh and Hutchinson liberals?
In analyzing the relationship that the three liberal revolutions (Dutch, British and American) developed on the one hand with blacks, and on the other with the Irish, Indians and natives, it is misleading to start out from the presupposition of an homogeneous historical time unmarked by fractures and flowing in unilinear fashion. Clearly predating Locke and Washington, and a contemporary of Grotius, was Montaigne in whom we find a memorable self-critical reflection on the West’s colonial expansion that we would seek in vain in them. ‘Every man calls barbarous anything he is not accustomed to.’ People took their own country as a model ‘There we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything!’ Going back further, we encounter Las Casa and his critique of the arguments employed to de-humanize the Indian ‘barbarians’. . .
Recourse to vulgar historicism to ‘explain’ or to repress the surprising tangle of freedom and oppression that characterizes the three liberal revolutions we have referred to is fruitless. The paradox persists and awaits a genuine, less comforting explanation.
To render it explicable, the paradox must first be expounded in all its radicalism. Slavery is not something that persisted despite the success of the three liberal revolutions. On the contrary, it experienced its maximum development following that success. The total slave population in the Americas reached about 330,000 in 1700, nearly three million by 1800, an finally peaked at over six million in the 1850s. Contributing decisively to the rise of an institution synonymous with the absolute power of man over man was the liberal world. In the mid-eighteenth century, it was Great Britain that possessed the largest number of slaves (878,000). Although its empire was far more extensive, Spain came well behind. Second position was held by Portugal, which possessed 700,000 slaves and was in fact a kind of semi-colony of Great Britain: much of the gold extracted by Brazilian slaves ended up in London. Hence there is no doubt that absolutely pre-eminent in this field was the country at the head of the liberal movement, which had wrested primacy from the Glorious Revolution onward. ‘No nation in Europe has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Great Britain.’ ( Pitt the Younger, House of Commons, April, 1792). In John Wesley’s view, ‘American slavery was ‘the vilest that ever saw the sun. ’James Madison, slave-owner and liberal, observed that ‘the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man- power based on mere distinction of color- was imposed in the most enlightened period of time’ . . .
The Elusive Liberalism of de Tocqueville’s America
But now let
us pass over both populations of colonial origin and the poorest strata of the
white population, who were denied not only political rights, but also ‘modern
liberty’. Let us focus exclusively on the dominant class – i.e. white, male
property owners. Did full civil and political equality obtain in this milieu?
There are reasons to doubt it. One thinks of the ‘three-fifths’ constitutional
provision on the basis of which, in calculating the number of seats due the
southern states, partial account was also taken of the number of slaves. Far
from being a negligible detail, this clause played a significant role in the history
of the United States: ‘four southern voters ended up exercising more power than
ten northern voters. Thus is explained the “Virginia dynasty' that long succeeded
in holding the country’s presidency. This is why Jefferson was branded the ‘black
president’ by his opponents: he arrived in power thanks to the inclusion in the
electoral result of blacks who remained his slaves. On the eve of the Civil
War, Lincoln proclaimed polemically: “It is a truth that cannot be denied, that
in all the free States no white man is
the equal of the white man of the slave States". This thesis was repeated in
1864 by a French liberal (Edouard Laboulaye):
Because you have slaves, you will be allowed to elect a representative with ten thousand votes, while the Yankees of the North, who live off their own labor, will require thirty thousand votes. The conclusion for the folks of the South is that they constitute a particular, superior race, that they are great lords. The aristocratic spirit has been developed and strengthened by the Constitution. . . .
Because you have slaves, you will be allowed to elect a representative with ten thousand votes, while the Yankees of the North, who live off their own labor, will require thirty thousand votes. The conclusion for the folks of the South is that they constitute a particular, superior race, that they are great lords. The aristocratic spirit has been developed and strengthened by the Constitution. . . .
From Constant
onward, modern or liberal liberty has been described and celebrated as the
undisturbed enjoyment of private property. But slave-owners were in fact
subject to a whole series of public obligations. There can be no doubt that the
Glorious Revolution and then the American Revolution consecrated the
self-government of a civil society composed of, and hegemonized by, slave-owners,
who were more determined than ever not to tolerate interference by central
political power and the Church. But it would be mistaken to equate the self-government
of civil society, now freed from those fetters, with the free movement of the
individuals composing it.
“While the colonial slave codes see at first sight to have been to discipline Negros, to deny them freedoms available to other Americans, a very slight shift in perspective shows the codes in a different light. Principally, the law told the white man, not the Negro; the codes were for the eyes and ears of the slave-owners (sometimes the laws required the publication of the code in the newspaper and that clergymen read it to their congregations). It was the white man who was required to punish his runaways, prevent assemblages of slaves, enforce the curfews, sit on special courts, and ride the patrols.” [2.]
In crisis situations the duty of vigilance made itself ever more strongly felt. We have seen a ‘military service’ of whites patrolling day and night in Richmond in 1831. In such cases, observed Gustave de Beaumont during his journey in de Tocqueville’s company, ‘society arms itself with all its rigors and mobilizes all social forces, seeking in every possible way to encourage informing and control; in South Carolina, along with the fugitive slave the death penalty awaited any person who has helped him escape.’ Significant too were the the results of the passage of laws on fugitive slaves in 1850. Subject to punishment was not only the citizen who sought to hide or help the black pursued or sought by his legitimate owners, but also those who did not collaborate in his capture. This was a legal provision which (as its critics put it) sought to ‘compel every freeborn American to become a man-hunter.’
As well as slave-owners, slave society ended up affecting the white community as a whole. Precisely because, in addition to being chattels, black slaves were also the enemy within, abolitionists were immediately suspected of treason, thus become the target of a series of more or less harsh repressive measures. Severe restrictions were placed on the press: in 1800 the slave revolt in Virginia was often ignored by southern newspapers; there was the danger of spreading the contagion further. In 1863 the president of the United States permitted the postmaster general to block the circulation of all publications critical of the institution of slavery. Rounding off the gag placed on abolitionists, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution banning the examination of anti-slavery petitions.
In the South violence against abolitionists took the form of a pogrom that did not hesitate to torture and physically eliminate traitors and their supporters, with complete impunity. The situation in the South in the years preceding the Civil War was described as follows, in a letter written by Joel R.Poinsett at the end of 1850:
“While the colonial slave codes see at first sight to have been to discipline Negros, to deny them freedoms available to other Americans, a very slight shift in perspective shows the codes in a different light. Principally, the law told the white man, not the Negro; the codes were for the eyes and ears of the slave-owners (sometimes the laws required the publication of the code in the newspaper and that clergymen read it to their congregations). It was the white man who was required to punish his runaways, prevent assemblages of slaves, enforce the curfews, sit on special courts, and ride the patrols.” [2.]
In crisis situations the duty of vigilance made itself ever more strongly felt. We have seen a ‘military service’ of whites patrolling day and night in Richmond in 1831. In such cases, observed Gustave de Beaumont during his journey in de Tocqueville’s company, ‘society arms itself with all its rigors and mobilizes all social forces, seeking in every possible way to encourage informing and control; in South Carolina, along with the fugitive slave the death penalty awaited any person who has helped him escape.’ Significant too were the the results of the passage of laws on fugitive slaves in 1850. Subject to punishment was not only the citizen who sought to hide or help the black pursued or sought by his legitimate owners, but also those who did not collaborate in his capture. This was a legal provision which (as its critics put it) sought to ‘compel every freeborn American to become a man-hunter.’
As well as slave-owners, slave society ended up affecting the white community as a whole. Precisely because, in addition to being chattels, black slaves were also the enemy within, abolitionists were immediately suspected of treason, thus become the target of a series of more or less harsh repressive measures. Severe restrictions were placed on the press: in 1800 the slave revolt in Virginia was often ignored by southern newspapers; there was the danger of spreading the contagion further. In 1863 the president of the United States permitted the postmaster general to block the circulation of all publications critical of the institution of slavery. Rounding off the gag placed on abolitionists, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution banning the examination of anti-slavery petitions.
In the South violence against abolitionists took the form of a pogrom that did not hesitate to torture and physically eliminate traitors and their supporters, with complete impunity. The situation in the South in the years preceding the Civil War was described as follows, in a letter written by Joel R.Poinsett at the end of 1850:
We are both heartily sick of this atmosphere
redolent of insane violence . . . there is a strong party averse to violent men
and violent measures, but they are frightened into submission – afraid even to
exchange opinions with others who think like them, lest they should be betrayed.
In fact, the
contemporary historian who cites this testimony concludes that with recourse to
lynching, violence and threats of every kind, the South succeeded in silencing
not only the opposition, but also any mild dissent. In addition to
abolitionists, those who wanted to distance themselves from the pitiless
witch-hunt felt threatened, and were threatened. They were impelled by terror
into ‘holding one’s tongue, killing one’s doubts, burying one’s reservations.’
There is no doubt about it, the terroristic power wielded by slave-owners over their blacks also ended up affecting, on a lasting basis, members and fractions
of the dominant race and class . . .[ And lasted more than a century after the
abolition of slavery itself] . . .
Has liberalism definitively left behind the dialectic of emancipation and dis-emancipation, with the dangers of regression and restoration implicit in it? Or is this dialectic still alive and well, thanks to the malleability peculiar to this current of thought?
However difficult such an operation might be be for those committed to overcoming liberalism’s exclusion causes, to take up the legacy of this intellectual tradition is an absolutely unavoidable task. On the other hand, liberalism’s merits are too significant and too necessary to credit it with other, completely imaginary ones. Among the latter is the alleged spontaneous capacity for self-correction often attributed to it. If one starts from such a proposition, the tragedy of peoples subjected to slavery or semi-slavery, or deported, decimated and destroyed, becomes utterly inexplicable. This was a tragedy which, far from being impeded or prevented by the liberal world, developed in close connection to it. Unfounded on a historiographical level, the habitual hagiography is also an insult to the memory of the victims. Only in opposition to the pervasive repressions and transfigurations is the book now ended presented as a ‘counter-history’: bidding farewell to hagiography is the precondition for landing on the firm ground of history.
Has liberalism definitively left behind the dialectic of emancipation and dis-emancipation, with the dangers of regression and restoration implicit in it? Or is this dialectic still alive and well, thanks to the malleability peculiar to this current of thought?
However difficult such an operation might be be for those committed to overcoming liberalism’s exclusion causes, to take up the legacy of this intellectual tradition is an absolutely unavoidable task. On the other hand, liberalism’s merits are too significant and too necessary to credit it with other, completely imaginary ones. Among the latter is the alleged spontaneous capacity for self-correction often attributed to it. If one starts from such a proposition, the tragedy of peoples subjected to slavery or semi-slavery, or deported, decimated and destroyed, becomes utterly inexplicable. This was a tragedy which, far from being impeded or prevented by the liberal world, developed in close connection to it. Unfounded on a historiographical level, the habitual hagiography is also an insult to the memory of the victims. Only in opposition to the pervasive repressions and transfigurations is the book now ended presented as a ‘counter-history’: bidding farewell to hagiography is the precondition for landing on the firm ground of history.
[1]When he
turned his attention to the colonies, however, Mill justified the West’s
‘despotism’ over ‘races’ that were still ‘under age’, and who were obliged to
observe an ‘absolute obedience’ in order to be set on the path of progress.
This formulation would not have displeased Calhoun, who likewise legitimized
slavery by reference to the backwardness and nonage of populations of African
origin.. In Mill’s view, ‘any means’ were licit for those who took on the task
of educating ‘savage tribes’; ‘slavery’ was sometimes a mandatory stage for
inducing them to work and making them useful to civilization and progress.
[2] Winthrop
D. Jordan, White Over Black, N.Y.,
Norton, 1977, p. 108.
No comments:
Post a Comment