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Title: The Peaceful Revolutionist Author: Josiah Warren Date: 1833 Language: en Topics: revolution, individualism Source: Retrieved on October 7, 2011 from https://web.archive.org/web/20111007004019/http://www.crispinsartwell.com/warrenpeaceful.htm
Josiah Warrenâs claim â or othersâ claim on his behalf â that he was the
first American anarchist, rests largely on the now extremely rare
periodical The Peaceful Revolutionist, of 1833, which Warren wrote and
printed. That date indeed, for what itâs worth, places Warrenâs
expression of anarchism before Thoreauâs, or the radical abolitionist
Henry Wrightâs, though I daresay it was fairly commonplace in radical
Protestant religious movements of two centuries before. We could say,
however, that The Peaceful Revolutionist was a very early expression of
secular anarchism, preceding Proudhon, for example. But how ever we may
adjudicate priority, The Peaceful Revolutionist contains some of
Warrenâs liveliest writing (e.g. truly public-spirited officials âare
not found even in the proportion of ten to the population of Sodomâ) and
demonstrates that his anarchism and individualism were fully formed by
that date. His economic theory was still nascent, and in place of the
cost principle he deployed Owenâs principle of the equal exchange of
labor; Warrenâs economics were not formed fully until he had performed a
variety of practical experiments.
The PR was presented from the edge of America (deepest Cincinnati) and
in a different context altogether than his work of the 1850s or 1870s.
Warrenâs reaction to Owen was still his fundamental source of energy,
and he had recently read Alexander Bryan Johnson. In addition, heâs a
bit bolder on some matters than he was later to become: he rarely
expressed his atheism post-PR, for example. What I intend to do is
reproduce one entire issue (dated April 5, 1833, and listed as vol. 1,
no. 4; holdings of the Wisconsin Historical Society), which I think
imparts a nice savor. Then I will give extracts of other issues.
My âredactionâ consists of alterations of punctuation, removal of
italics, small caps etc.
The texts are drawn from three issues. As far as I have been able to
conclude, these are the only issues extant, though there were at least
five: four from 1833, and one printed in 1848. There may have been
others. The final bit reprinted here, âOn Originality,â is one Warrenâs
liveliest and most personal essays.
---
When Robert Owen promulgated the proposition that âwe are effects of
causes, and therefore cannot deserve praise of blame,â a very few looked
upon this as the proper basis of an entirely new state of society which
alone could produce âpeace on earth and good will among menâ; while
others called Mr. Owen a madman, some charged him with being an agent of
the king of England sent here to undermine our republic.[1] Some
suspected he was a designing speculator; some thought he was the
antichrist spoken of in the Christian bible; and some took him to be the
preacher of some new religion.
Thus did this simple language of Mr. Owen produce almost as many
different conclusions as there were individuals who heard it. The
general observer referred it to all human thoughts, feelings, and
actions, and attributed this difference to the different causes which
had acted upon each individual, and therefore attached neither merit to
themselves nor demerit to those who differed from them; and upon this
knowledge individual liberty was so far established. But it was
established only with a few, and with them, in the mind only. Our
surrounding institutions, customs and public opinion calls for
conformity: they require us to act in masses like herds of cattle: they
do not recognize the fact that we think and feel individually and ought
to be at liberty to act individually. But this liberty cannot be enjoyed
in combinations, masses and connections in which one cannot move without
affecting another.
Nothing is more common than such remarks as the following. âNo two
things are alike.â âThere can be no rules without exceptionsâ &c. Yet,
we are constantly called upon to conform to rules that do not suit our
case, to acquiesce in numerous different opinions all at the same
moment, and no laws in the world preserve the liberty of the governed to
make exceptions to the rules which they are required to obey. To give
others the power to construe laws and make exceptions is equivalent to
giving them the power to govern without laws.
A little observation will disclose an individuality in persons, times,
and circumstances which has suggested the idea that one of our most
fatal errors has been the laying down rules, laws, and principles
without preserving the liberty of each person to apply them according to
the individuality of his views, and the circumstances of different
cases. In other words, our error, like that of all the world that has
gone before us has been, the violation of individual liberty.
The first objection that is made to the above will illustrate the
individuality of minds and show our error in depending on conformity.
The foregoing article was chiefly written soon after our experiment at
New Harmony to suggest the cause of our failure. I had written much more
to illustrate that individuality to which I have alluded and which may
be considered the governing principle in every step which has been taken
in the experiment now in progress.
But I suppress what I had written and refer readers to a much superior
illustration of the same subject which came to hand last week in a
pamphlet entitled âA Discourse on Language,â by A.B. Johnson.[2]
This is a continuation of his invaluable labors on language. The perusal
of it furnished another strong proof that there are great truths upon
which men, even strangers to each other and in different parts of the
world will agree as soon as we begin to look through words to things.
The singular coincidence of my own views with those of such a mind as
Mr. Johnsonâs would amply compensate me for their being out of fashion
with half the world beside.
I have already had, and shall often have, occasion to avail myself of
Mr. Johnsonâs labors. I crave his forgiveness for detaching as it were
an eye of the forehead of a fine portrait, but my apology will be found
in utility.
The labors of this gentleman appear but little known. Whether it is
because they are superior to the intellects of the critics, or whether
because as he says âcriticism like every other mercenary employment will
conform to the market,â or whether the veil of individuality precludes
our investigation of motives, I shall not wait for critics, but act
individually and without hesitation acknowledge the benefit I have
derived from Mr. Jâs âLectures on Language.â
It is the first of all books which I ought to have read, and I shall
take care that my children benefit by it. I recommend it to all of
whatever age or profession, and especially to those with whom I am to
hold any intercourse; and, let me here inform my readers that I use
language with a constant regard for its principles as developed by Mr.
Johnson. Enquirers will thus always have a key to my meaning, and
opposers (should I have them) may save themselves much labor by studying
his work, as I do not intend to enter into any argument where the
language does not refer to some sensible âphenomena.â
Mr. Johnsonâs elucidation of language is a bridge over which I have
escaped from the bewildering labyrinths of verbal delusions called
arguments and controversies, and I do not expect to recross it but as a
free child of a peaceful village would approach the uproar and confusion
of a noisy city on a holiday in pursuit of variety.
Ed. P.R.
---
Passing through the New York canal in 1831, I was seized for the first
time with a fit of the ague. It was soon stopped with sulphate of
quinine. It returned again in â32, on getting wet in a shower. Quinine
would now keep it off only a day or two; a little exercise or exposure
to the sun brought it back repeatedly till I lost all faith in quinine
and resorted to a variety of other prescriptions with little success. A
friend referred me to an article in the New Harmony Gazette (3^(rd)
vol.) on Piperine, or extract of black pepper, which it described as
superior to quinine as a cure for the ague, that it was more effectual
and left the patient less liable to dropsy and some other diseases. A
medical friend also concurred in this, and added that he had for several
months used no other remedy than common black pepper. His common
practice was to advise patients to take their pepper box and mix up the
pepper with flour and molasses or any thing that will make it into
pills, and to take one or two every hour or two. He said he had scarcely
ever known this to fail, nor had the disease ever returned as after
taking quinine.
I tried this and have not had a fit of ague since. I have also
recommended to four of my acquaintance, one of whom had had the ague six
months; it succeeded in every case.
How far these facts justify a general rule I leave each individual to
judge.
Ed.
---
Laws and governments are professedly instituted for the security of
person and property, but they have never accomplished this object. Even
to this day every newspaper shows that they commit more crimes upon
persons and property and contribute more to their insecurity than all
criminals put together. The greatest crime which can be committed
society and which causes poverty and lays the foundation of almost all
other crimes, is the monopoly of the soil. This has not only been
permitted but protected or perpetrated by every government of modern
times up to the last accounts from the congress of the United States.
For this enormous crime, according to the spirit of all law, these
legislators ought to be severely punished. But the principles of law are
false. Every act of every legislator has been an effect over which he
could have no control while the causes existed. This is the only ground
upon which they can rationally be acquitted, and the same would protect
all other criminals from being lawfully murdered and should teach
legislators to remove causes rather than spend peopleâs money in
punishing effects. (Legislators have decided that âsociety has a right
to take the life of criminals to preserve itself.â Society has left its
interests to be preserved by forms of words like this, and gone to
sleep, while the causes of crime have remained untouched, and continue
to accumulate unseen [Warrenâs note]).
Beauchamp was hanged for killing Col Sharp to revenge what public
opinion called an unpardonable offence, thus showing that he would risk
his life to stand fair in the public eye.[3] Surely the public safety
could not require the death of one so blindly obedient to its voice. But
the law required his death; he was a sacrifice therefore to law, but not
to the public good. If any cases would justify murdering a criminal,
they must be very different from this, and if the experiments of three
thousand years have not produced laws better adapted to the
individuality of cases, perhaps we had better give up such projects and
try the effects of so arranging our affairs that we can act in each case
according to its merits.
Laws cannot be adapted to the individuality of cases, and if they could,
laws are language which is subject to different interpretations
according to the individuals who are appointed to administer them.
Therefore, it is individuals rather than laws that govern. Every
election illustrates this: we are told that our destinies depend on the
election of this or that man to office. Why? It is men not laws or
principles that govern society. There is an individuality among judges
and jurors as among all other persons, so that he whom one judge or jury
would acquit, another would condemn. Judge Jeffreys acquired the popular
epithet of âbloody Jeffreysâ from the remarkable number of persons
condemned under his administration of the same laws which in other hands
would have acquitted them.[4] There is no security in laws. We must seek
it elsewhere.
Citizens cannot know today what will be lawful tomorrow; laws made this
year are unmade the next and their repeal is often our only intimation
that they existed. All these uncertainties must exist even when laws are
framed with greatest wisdom and administered with the purest devotedness
to the public good without the least tinge of personal feeling or
private interest, provided such phenomena are to be found, but every
newspaper that comes to hand convinces that such are not found even in
the proportion of ten to the population of Sodom; but that,
notwithstanding all that revolutions have cost the world, laws and
governments still are what they always have been, viz. public means for
private ends.
To be continued
---
The late Charles Gardyne, of Middleton, had an interesting lawsuit some
time previous to his death, with the taxman of the tolls and the road
trustees there, on the doubtful question whether the vehicle in which he
rode was a taxed cart or a chaise â a point which made an essential
difference in the rate of toll. After the decision of the supreme court,
Mr. Gardyne had the result painted in large legible characters on the
back of the carriage as follows.
A Taxed Cart by act of Parliament.
A Taxed Cart, by decision of the sheriff of Forfairshire.
A Taxed Cart, by decision of the court of session.
A Chaise, by a second decision of the same court.
Eight wise Judges said it was a Chaise.
Six not less wise said it was a Cart.
It has been three years on its law journey and at last has been obliged
to stop for want of law grease.
Charles Gardyne Froickâs Taxed Cart
Mr. G rode in this vehicle on all necessary occasions, during the
remainder of his life, and exhibited it at Perth once during the
circuit, at the George Inn door, to no small dismay of the judges,
council, and agents, and the amusement of the citizens.
---
invites discussion relative the use of machinery. This is well; it is
surely time that this subject was understood. I therefore invite
attention to the application of the equal exchange of labor to the use
of machinery as was stated in our first number, and as illustrated in
our report of practical progress which will be found below.
I submit this view of this important subject for the consideration of
all those who are honestly pursuing the solution of this riddle.
J.W.
---
Intercourse
There is now in operation a steam saw mill, probably the first machinery
of importance ever got up and worked upon such principles. It is
intended to work upon the principle of equal exchange of labor, by which
nothing is allowed for capital invested, but all who act upon this
principle are to receive the lumber by giving as many hours of their
labor as has been the human labor bestowed on the lumber. Upon this
principle machine labor benefits all equally, the owner receiving no
more of its advantages than any other citizen.
It will be perceived upon reflection that the use of machinery upon this
simple and just principle will enable society to preserve itself from
the dreadful reaction to which machinery is now driving the working
classes.
The principle upon which this machinery is to work, makes it for the
interest of every one to assist in getting it into operation, therefore
several persons have been steadily co-operating together for two years
past to attain this result, without entering into any verbal contract,
combination, or partnership. Every one has acted upon his own individual
responsibility and judgment. No one has been required in any particular
to conform to any laws, rules, or votes of majorities, nor to surrender
any portion of his individual liberty. Rather, in every step of the
progress the sovereignty of every individual has been strictly
preserved, and the most complete and harmonious co-operation have been
attained.
There is an old dogma held as much mysterious reverence as many others
equally vague and mischievous that âwhen we enter into society we must
necessarily surrender a portion of our individual liberty.â Aesop saw
the subtilty and mischief in this verbal delusion when he wrote the
fable of a man modestly asking the forest for a bit of wood, just to
make him an axe-handle. The good-natured, unsuspecting forest readily
granted it, but no sooner did the man get the handle than he fell to
work prostrating the whole forest, who began to repent giving the little
bit of wood. But it was too late; it should not have granted the
axe-handle.
Men have consented to give up a portion of their liberty of construing
their own language and of determining how much liberty the word
âportionâ shall mean in different cases, but they have left it to the
rulers, who have almost invariably decided that the word means the
axe-handle.
In our little experiment we have never granted this axe-handle: we have
at no time agreed to surrender any portion of our future liberty, nor
have we pledged not to make small sacrifices for the greater benefit of
others, but we have preserved our individual liberty to act according to
the circumstances of individual cases.
Thus, in Feb. 1831 the writer of this was present when one of a company
suggested that the first thing requisite upon our future location would
be a saw mill. This was seen by all, but had it not been, no law or vote
of the majority could have convinced any one. Therefore neither would
have been resorted to, but such persons would have been left to the free
exercise of their own judgment, while others who felt more confident
would have gone forward. They could have involved no one but themselves.
Another of the company suggested that we meet that evening to ascertain
what could be done towards raising enough credit for the accomplishment
of our purpose. It was enough to suggest this, for, as the machinery
would work equally for the benefit of all, each felt an interest in
attending the meeting and in contributing what he could do to forwarding
the object. So everyone attended without any rule or law on the subject.
When there, we did not refer to any laws or rules to tell us how to act,
but some one, knowing the object which brought every one there,
perceived that anything calculated to promote that object would be
acceptable to all present. On this knowledge he acted, and proposed that
anyone disposed to invest capital in this in this undertaking by making
it known would enable us to judge whether our object was attainable; but
no rule, law, dogma, or pledge, or vote of the majority was resorted to
in order to induce any one to make an investment. Every one was left
free to act according to his individual means, and to be the only judge
what portion of his individual convenience he would âgive up for the
general goodâ in that particular case. Nor did any law or vote of the
majority appoint any person to receive the investments and manage the
machinery, but every one was at liberty to invest his means where he had
the most confidence, &c. Notwithstanding all this individuality of
action, not the least clashing or jarring has occurred on any one point,
but the machinery is now in operation; it employs the capital of several
persons who are at liberty to withdraw it at any time they may choose to
do so. But while the machinery is used upon the principle of equal
exchange, we cannot choose to embarrass its operations. Therefore any
pledge or contract to invest for any certain time is not only
unnecessary, but it would produce a feeling of restraint which would
render us all uneasy until our capital was withdrawn, and thus might the
machinery be stopped by the injudicious means used adopted to ensure its
permanence: and thus would this violation of individual liberty perhaps
defeat its own object as laws and governments defeat their object. Their
professed object is the security and good order of society. But the
moment that any such power is erected over oneâs person or property,
that moment he feels insecure and sees that his greatest chance of
security is in getting possession of the governing power â in governing,
rather than being governed â of being the hammer rather than the anvil
and the strife for the attainment of this power, has in all ages up to
the present hour produced more confusion, destruction of life and
property, and more crimes and intense misery than all other causes put
together.
I venture the assertion that the establishing of such powers has been
the greatest error of mankind, and that society never will enjoy peace
or security until it has done with these barbarisms and acknowledges the
inalienable right of every individual to the sovereignty of their own
person, time, and property.
J.W.
---
In No. 18, third Vol. of the Free Enquirer I commenced a report of our
new social experiment founded upon individual liberty and equal exchange
of labor, and partly promised a continuation of it. But the
circumstances explained in the first number caused the delay of this
report until the present time.
Will the editor of the Free Enquirer if he please insert this, and
inform his readers that The Peaceful Revolutionist is established for
the purpose of continuing the subject.
The P.R. is published on, or near, the first day of each month. Each
number consists of four pages of the same size as the pages of the Free
Enquirer. The price, when paid in money, is thirty-seven cents for the
first six months. But, as circumstances may require changes, no
subscriptions are at present received for a longer term.
All subscriptions payable in advance, as the amount would not justify
any expense in its collection.
Any person who will forward one dollar post paid, will be entitled to
have four copies sent to any names they may furnish, and in the same
proportion for a greater number.
A few copies from the first to the present (fourth) number are yet on
hand.
Address the proprietor of The Peaceful Revolutionist, or Josiah Warren,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Previous subscribers will perceive a little difference between the above
terms and those proposed in a former number but the difference will be
placed to their credit.
---
If one wishes to hire a house, the owner knows not what rent to ask, he
considers the demand or want for houses and asks whatever he thinks he
can get without any regard to the cost of the house, and the one who
hires it, seeks to get it as cheap as possible and is regardless of the
cost as the owner. Each contends for the victory rather than for
justice. It is for the interest of one to make the other feel as much
want as possible, and for the interest of the other to conceal his
wants. Whatever either may say, neither can be believed. Confidence
cannot exist under such circumstances.
The owner of the house goes to purchase a pair of shoes, and he knows by
experience that the seller will ask as much as he thinks he can get and
is therefore prepared to commence a little war about the price. He puts
his shoes on and the sole rips off the first day. He goes to the seller
who tells him the maker lives in Boston or Lynn or some place so far off
as to be beyond the reach of responsibility. The responsibility is
divided between the maker and the seller and rests on neither. (Such are
some of the reasons for individuality of responsibilities and arranging
our affairs within such limits that responsibility may rest
unequivocally where it ought, so that every one would be governed by the
only government that can safely be trusted, viz, the natural and
unavoidable consequences of actions. [Warrenâs note]).
The shoe seller wants to purchase a coat, but he cannot tell where, to
apply to the best advantage till he has tried all over the city, because
ânew arrivalsâ may have changed the prices since yesterday at twelve
oâclock. After having made enquiries from one store to another and
striving with the sellers to get it as cheap as possible and they sell
it as dear as possible, he purchases perhaps a blue coat after having
spent as much time and labor as might have made the cloth â he puts it
on and is caught in a shower and his blue coat turns red. But the
manufacturer lives in another state, or another nation, is beyond the
reach of responsibility, and may continue to manufacture and sell blue
red coats as long as this species of fraud enables him to get more than
he could by any honest, useful employment.
No wonder that Jefferson called cities the sores of society.[5]
The equal exchange of labor would give as great a reward for honest and
useful employments as for useless and fraudulent ones, and individual
and unequivocal responsibilities (if for no other reasons) would induce
a preference for the honest. The necessity of paying for what we consume
in equal amount of our own labor might induce a preference for the
useful.
To be continued.
---
I thank the editor of that paper for publishing my advertisement
regarding the printing apparatus, but by transferring the article
without explanation it reads as if the Courier was printed with the
apparatus. I need not suggest the necessity of a correction. J. Warren.
---
popular British moralist and theologian.
Morality has for its object the good of society and is founded upon
three laws, as follows: (1) The law of the land. (2) The law of custom.
(3) The law of scriptures. Therefore, whatever practice among men is
agreeable to the law of land, to the law of custom, and the scriptures
is moral and just because it promotes the good of society.
Remarks. Nothing is easier than to construe the language of these laws
to mean any thing which suits the interests, prejudices or passions of
those who construe and apply them. Consequently, nothing is more common
than to see them prostituted to the basest purposes.
---
over the initials âJ.P.â I am going to speculate that this refers to the
British reformer Joseph Priestley (1733â1804), who would have engaged
Paley in various debates.
Morality is the practice of securing to man his just rights, or
permitting him to enjoy them, and has for its object the happiness of
man. Otherwise, it is but an idle word, and worse than useless.
Manâs rights are as folows.
(1) All men, women, and children have an equal right to the free use of
all elements existing in a state of natuure. (2) All men, women, and
children have a right to enjoy or consume whatever is produced by his or
her labor, or an equivalent when exchanged. Therefore, any law of the
land, law of custom, or law of scripture which has any tendency to
prevent any man, woman, or child from enjoying these rights is immoral.
J.P.
It may be objected that our friend J.P.âs language is as equivocal as
Mr. Paleyâs, and like his admits of being prostituted to the worst
purposes: but neither these nor any other verbal forms would be subject
to this objection provided every citizen was at liberty to construe and
apply them for himself, and only for himself. But the exercise of this
liberty as in most other cases, requires an organisation of society
without close connections of persons or interests.
Ed. P.R.
---
I received a few days since a copy of a petition to congress âprayingâ
their aid in the establishment of schools throughout the Union for the
education of all children at public expense.
I know this measure has been advocated by some of the best heads and
hearts in the world, but they are not of this world.
However benevolent the motives of those who are active in this measure,
I fear it is not calculated to produce the results which the enlightened
friends of the rising generation aim at. At least, this is my individual
opinion, therefore I cannot find a motive to co-operate in this measure.
I could give many reasons for this opinion, but it may be sufficient to
state a few of the most prominent.
I would prefer to ascertain and assist in establishing remedies rather
than waste time in exposing the sickening corruption that every where
surrounds us, and would speak of principles rather than of persons,
where the liberty of choice is allowed me. But in this case, as
legislators stand in the way, I must say that I have no confidence in
them, nor in the ultimate benefit of any measure that might be entrusted
to them. If there are any among them who would not sell their people for
a mess of pottage, they cannot place themselves above suspicion.
Again, I think that the power of educating the rising generation is of
too much importance to be trusted in a manageable shape in the hands of
any small body of men, as society is now constituted.
The iron ore while diffused through the quarry, is at least harmless,
though useless. But, converted into a surgeonâs knife it may preserve
life or administer death, according to the manner of application.
Another objection to such a measure in my mind is that it would increase
our connected interests and divided responsibilities, which I think are
two of the roots of our social evils. The reverse of this is the very
foundation of the education which I expect to give my children, and
which I will now attempt to give in a few general terms, but in detail
hereafter as we progress in practice.
First, I shall dissolve as far as practicable all connected interests
and connected responsibilities between myself and my children, throw
them upon their own resources, and enable them to learn by experience
the responsibilities of life, assuming all the consequences of all their
actions and inaction. Thus situated, they see and feel the utility and
the necessity of the instruction and the habits which we desire to give
them, and ask our assistance as a favor, which is commonly resisted as
an arbitrary infliction of tasks which they cannot appreciate and
consequently can feel no interest in acquiring. Thus placed they will
experience the natural rewards and punishments of their conduct, which I
consider the only form of government that does not produce more evil
than good.
I shall see that they are in possession of their natural birthright, the
soil, and all the products of their own exertions, or their equivalent,
and shall act as their friend rather than as their master: or, as one
member of society should act towards another, strictly respecting their
individual rights and thus teaching them by example to respect those of
other people.
I am convinced from all I have read or seen that law makers will be the
last to learn and respect these rights: a proof of which is they are no
where enjoyed. Nowhere is the soil inherited as an inalienable right,
scarcely anywhere is labor rewarded with its equivalent, no where under
any government is personal liberty enjoyed, nor (except for a few
individuals) is it even understood. Instead, therefore, of praying law
makers to take care of my children, I should consider it as praying the
fox to take care of the chickens.
A man of old called great [Alexander], offered his services to Diogenes
[the Cynic], who replied that the greatest service he could render,
would be to stand from between him and the sun. And all I ask of
lawmakers is to stand aside and keep from between me and my individual
rights.
J.W.
---
It is probable that the next number will be delayed by the removal of
the printing apparatus to our new location, but this interruption will
not be unnecessarily prolonged. As the time of removal is uncertain, it
would be well to address all letters and papers to Cincinnati till the
removal is announced.
---
Perhaps there has been too much repetition of the same ideas in our
paper for the taste of some. I regret the necessity for this, but it
appears unavoidable in coming to the understanding of others.
Ed. P.R.
February 5, 1933 (Vol. 1. No. 2.)
---
alone produce the differences between people of different nations:
between a Hindoo who is painfully careful of the feelings of the
minutest insect, and a holy inquisitor of Christendom who sits with
perfect unconcern and hears the agonized shrieks and sees the cracking
skin and frying flesh of the burning unbeliever. It is the influence of
surrounding circumstances that makes one man a king, and another a
beggar, which divides society into rich and poor, which enables some to
command and others unable to do otherwise than obey. It is the influence
of circumstances which produces different classes in society, and that
influence only, which divides men into different political parties and
ranges them under different banners of religion. By that influence alone
some are made to observe with conscientious nicety the forms and
ceremonies of the worship of a mass of hideously painted wood, and the
same influence induces others to seek favor in the eyes of their god by
murdering the former as idolatrous heathens.
If a child be placed at birth among cannibals and surrounded with them
only, will adopt their habits and manners, and will eat human flesh with
as little compunction as he would eat the flesh of beasts and fowls,
were he bred among us; and were he placed at birth among the Hindoos, he
would respect and worship bulls with as conscientious a devotion as he
would worship a mass of wood in India, or some form of his imagination
among Jews or Christians.
If he be placed at birth exclusively among Presbyterians and their
practices, he is likely to become a Presbyterian; if among Quakers, a
Quaker; among Shakers, a Shaker. And upon the same principle he might be
compelled to become a sincere believer in any religion in the world, or
a disbeliever in all religions.
He may be rendered kind, hospitable, tender, and respectful of the
feeling of others, or he may be made brutally careless of all but
himself, and a âdemon of mischief to all around him.â
It will be seen that this knowledge warrants us in a critical
examination into our own condition and all the circumstances which have
surrounded us from birth, to see whether they have been, or are, such as
are most favourable to our happiness. And it teaches us not to reverence
or perpetuate bad circumstances simply because we are born under them,
for the same reason would justify cannibals in continuing the custom of
eating each other.
This knowledge therefore lays a broad, rational, and consistent
foundation for unlimited improvement. It furnishes us with the rational
data by which to estimate ourselves and our customs, laws, habits, and
opinions. And when we have so estimated them, we are enabled to respect
our own judgment and persevere in the measures which it dictates and
approves.
---
We daily and hourly hear our citizens ask each other, âWhat do you think
of nullification?â[6] âWhat new states have come out in favor of
nullification?â and so on. If I can form any clear idea of this subject,
it is a quarrel between dignity and liberty â the one a shadow, the
other a ghost.
Dignity insists upon it that the laws shall be obeyed, and that the
union must be preserved. But these two words âmustâ and âshallâ rouse
the ghost of murdered liberty to resistance. Dignity abandons the real
subject of dispute, and resolves the whole matter into a mystical
reverence for the two words âunionâ and âlaws.â I say for two words,
because if we look for their meaning we find, as in all other words of a
general and indefinite character, that there are very few if any who
will agree in their manner of applying them. If the word law has ever
meant one thing more than another, that thing has been the will of those
in power.
By the word âunion,â some refer to certain words on paper, which serve
as an excuse for a great deal of speech making and disunion every year
at the rate of eight dollars per day. Others by the word âunionâ
understand a similarity of interests, feelings, and objects;
co-operating action and mutual assistance in case of need. The question
now occurs, which, or what union is it that is to be preserved? It can
be the former only that can be preserved; the latter is to be attained.
It never has existed since the revolution, and existed then only from
the circumstances of the time. Mutual danger and similar interests at
that time induced fellow feeling and union in sentiment and action. This
union existed independent of words: it was the necessary and unavoidable
effect of the circumstances of that time, and it as necessarily ceased
as those circumstances ceased to exist. But our ancestors, under the
influence of that excitement, were betrayed into a compact of union: a
thing so extremely indefinite that perhaps there are no two individuals
concerned who can construe or apply it alike, and they did not preserve
the liberty to differ.
It might rationally be asked, what has that to do with us? yet this
incomprehensible something now calls on us their posterity to feel and
to act and talk alike, in cases where the reasons for it and the power
to do so do not exist. If there is any one point upon which union of
sentiment can be attained and to which every individual will consent, it
is, perhaps, in their liberty to differ from others. And if we are ever
to commence doing so doing as we would be done by, now is the time to
respect the liberty of others to differ from us.
âLanguage has no meaning when it does not refer to some taste, smell,
sound, sight or feeling, or, to some combination of these sensationsâ
[Alexander Bryan Johnson] â what does the word âunionâ refer to? Not a
taste, not a smell, not a sound; it refers to nothing or, to sights or
feelings. What sights? Co-operating actions? These will be seen only as
force excludes co-operating feelings, or only when we have co-operating
interests, as in the time of the revolution. What feeling does the word
âunionâ refer to?? Does it refer to such of our clashing interests have
excited during the last ten years? Are these to be âpreservedâ? Or, as
artillery has been sent to enforce union, perhaps the word refers to
those feelings which accompany a broken head.
Or, is the artillery sent there to compel our neighbors to bear expenses
where they receive no benefits? Jefferson says, âA wise and frugal
government which restrains men from injuring one another and shall leave
them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvements, and shall not take from the mouth of industry the bread it
has earned; this is the sum of good government.â[7] Instead, therefore,
of sending troops to compel our neighbors to appropriate a portion of
their property contrary to their feeling or judgment, should we not have
it sent to protect every individual in the âfree management of their
industryâ and the disposal of their proceeds in any way they themselves
may choose? If this is impracticable under present circumstances, then
let us turn our attention to these circumstances. Let us direct our
artillery against them rather than against persons. If the fault is in
surrounding circumstances, we are as much to blame as our southern
brethren.
If our southern neighbors cannot exercise their inalienable liberty
without involving us in consequences contrary to our interests, it shows
that connected responsibilities and clashing interests are the evils to
be cured, and that disconnection or co-operating interests are the
rational and proper remedies. Not a disconnection that would leave us
liberty to act together where we might have similar interests, but an
undoing of whatever was done by our ancestors in a moment of excitement.
This makes us now think that we are bound to act together in all cases
even though all parties would be most benefited and union be best
preserved by encouraging the liberty to differ and to act individually.
By preserving the liberty to differ, we do not necessarily bind
ourselves not to agree in any cases, but let us preserve our liberty to
agree or to differ as circumstances may govern. Liberty is a safe, and
the only safe principle to which we can pledge ourselves. If it be
objected that this liberty is unattainable, and that great national
objects could not be attained where such latitude was encouraged, I
reply that there can be no national object greater than national
happiness, and that this, as I understand it, consists of the happiness
of the individuals who compose the nation, and that individual happiness
consists in nothing so much as the liberty of person and property. If
this is unattainable in large masses, that shows us one circumstance
with which we have to contend, and proves that society will have to
dissolve its imaginary masses and resolve itself into individuals before
liberty can be anything but a word.
May 1848 (Volume 2, Number 1.)
---
Straws are often better to show which way the wind blows than the most
labored invention. I cannot give a better sign of progress, than that
the store-o-crat in the neighborhood says we âmust be stopped.â I
suppose he has heard of calicoes being sold here on the cost principle
for eleven cents a yard, similar in quality to those often sold for
twenty cents. It seems that his public spirit has taken the alarm; he
cannot allow the public to be so imposed upon; threatens us with law on
account of issuing labor notes as a circulating medium. Why, bless you
sir, this is nothing. The sun will still rise as usual.
I was prepared for hostility from the store-o-crats, but found none that
was alarming. On the contrary, I met with two merchants whose hearts had
not been destroyed by profit making, and who acknowledged that these
were the only correct and equitable principles, that the sooner they
prevailed, the better for every one, that they almost hated themselves
for the manner in which they were now compelled to get their living out
of their customers. Some of my best friends are no store keepers in New
Harmony, and were so, during the two years and a half of the Time Store
in that place. However, if we cannot get attention to the subject in a
more pleasant way, I, for one, should be glad of a little persecution,
particularly from a source so evidently self-interested.
---
The âcombined wisdomâ of New York, it appears, has passed a law to
unmake the laws heretofore preventing married women from exercising
their right of individual property, beyond the control, and free from
the liabilities of the husband.[8] The legislators of several other
states have already done themselves the credit of doing this little item
of justice. It is but an item of their just rights, and yet this one
step toward individuality constitutes one of the most important features
of modern legislation. How long are Ohio, Indiana, and the rest of the
states and the world to linger behind this simple demand of self evident
equity and common sense?
---
All the world is convulsed with revolution. Labor has at last suddenly
recoiled from the degradation, the starvation allotted to it and claims
its rights. Alas! What are they? This is the great problem which they
aim to solve in the midst of contradictory theories, clashing interests,
and the confusion of political revolution. The people govern the
governments, and yet they demand of the governments what they cannot do
for themselves. If all the philanthropy, all the capital, all the
intellect, all the labor that have been bestowed upon community and
Fourierist experiments, by chosen spirits, peacefully stepping aside
from the confusion of the world and acting at their leisure; with the
best of motives and feelings; backed by the most desperate resolution;
all end in defeat and disappointment, what will be the end of the
attempts to carry out these systems, or any other, in large,
promiscuous, national masses, in a day! In a moment! In a passion! In
the frenzy of starvation! I tremble for the result. The spirit is good,
is holy; it is glorious. But here alone may ye exult. Exult now, for the
future is not for exultation. Ye plant the worm with the tree: the
future is for disappointment, for confusion, perhaps for despair.
---
To J.H.L.
It seems almost necessary since what you mentioned yesterday, to say a
word or two upon a subject which I intended never to dwell upon, nor to
be the first to broach. I have always found that the idea of merit for
originality, by exciting envy of rivals, stood directly in the way of
progress, and through the whole course of twenty one years labor I have
found the greatest obstacle in myself. My personality stood directly in
my way at every turn I could make. I have seen a man deny the very
success that he himself had prophesied beforehand, which I could account
for in no other way than that he feels jealous of the credit which would
attach to the author, and I have seen more than this.
I have a thousand times felt that if the subject had originated with
some one who was dead I could have done, perhaps, a thousand times more
for it. I have suffered and I know that the subject has suffered much
from this detracting spirit. A man by the name of John Pickering in
Cincinnatti has put forth what he denominates a âcriticism on Warrenâs
system of equitable exchangeâ and says it âprofesses to be a new
developmentâ &c. Now, whence this word âprofessesâ? Does he wish to
intimate that I have put forth claims for originality which are not
true? My reputation is my property, and I am not ready to surrender it
at the demand of every one who chooses to attack it. He calls it
âWarrenâs system.â I never called it so. He calls it âEquitable
Exchange,â thereby confining the subject to merely pecuniary matters.
The work is entitled Equitable Commerce and it is explained on the title
page as extending to all intercourse of mankind.
In Cincinnati, in 1827 and â28, when, by placing my labor on equal terms
with his as clock maker, he saved about one third of his previous
expenditures for store goods, he and all others, I believe, pronounced
the operation new. When his son, about 14 years old, learned shoe making
by paying 12 hours labor for instruction, instead of serving the
customary apprenticeship, and when he afterwards continued for months to
make shoes, which I sold him out of the Time Store at ordinary prices,
these âdevelopmentsâ were termed new. And when, in 1828 Mr. Pickering
and his two sons attended my school for instrumental music over the Time
Store on the corner of Fifth and Elm streets in Cincinnati, while some
paid me ten dollars per quarter, they paid for the same instruction,
fourteen hours of their own labor. If such developments as these and
others peculiar to equitable commerce in 1828 were made before the
eighteenth of May 1827, then I was not the first to develop them, ands
the principal obstacle to my freedom of speech and action on the subject
will be removed.
I entitled my work âa new development of principlesâ because I wished to
inform the despairing that there were grounds unknown to them, upon
which they might rest a hope; but I did not consider any man the
originator of principles or truths. We only discover and develop them.
The idea of labor notes was suggested by Robert Owen in 1826 as a medium
of exchange between communities at New Harmony. Whether the idea was
ever applied before the Time Store of 1827, I know not.
A man must have a good memory and more than memory to be able to trace
his general conclusions back to all the minute circumstances and
reflections that have led to them; and in this view, originality amounts
to very little, even if it were worth establishing. I think it high time
that these trifles ceased to assume so much importance with those who
are acting the part of pioneers in the great work of manâs redemption
from error and suffering. The principal reasons that I can see for
making this a subject at all are the necessity of replying to others
when they broach it and that, after having passed nearly a lifetime in
something like martyrdom for doing and thinking strange things, it is
but natural to wish to show our censors that we were all the time right
and they themselves were insane, were visionary. Having done this, we
may consider the account settled and we can begin anew, if it is not too
late, or we can die free from the affliction of having attached odium
upon truth.
I hope this is the only time that I shall feel called upon to say any
thing upon the subject. I would prefer to spend my time in a peaceful
and uninterrupted practical exhibition of the subject itself, which may
qualify everyone to judge of it according to its own intrinsic value,
independent of any merely personal considerations.
J.W.
---
I make no apologies for the size of the sheet, for the type or the
printing. I think that those who would require them are not very
desirable as pioneers in a reformation based on common sense. If I saw a
house on fire it is most likely I should cry out to its inmates without
hesitating to consider what tones would be prescribed in the schools of
elocution. I love to contemplate the beautiful, but cannot afford to be
whimsical. Nor am I disposed to acknowledge an authority set up by
capital, the direct tendency of which is to smother the voice of poverty
and suffering because it cannot speak with ânew type,â âfine paper,â
âlarge sheet,â &c., &c., &c. I refuse to follow any such lead; but
rather intend to show at how cheap a rate the voice of improvement can
be heard. Particulars relative to this will be given in the next number.
[1] Owen derived his determinism and the political and ethical
conclusions from William Godwin. He expressed these views, for example,
in A New View Of Society, Essays on the Formation of Human Character
(London: 1813).
[2] A later edition of this astounding work: Alexander Bryan Johnson, A
Treatise on Language (New York: Dover, 1968).
[3] This refers to the âBeauchamp-Sharp Affairâ (1825) a sensational
case in which a Kentucky lawyer, Jereboam Orville Beauchamp killed the
former attorney general of that state, Solomon P. Sharp, who had some
years before jilted the woman who became Beauchampâs wife. Apparently,
the murder was a conditioned imposed by Mrs. Beauchamp for the marriage
to take place. Beauchamp was hanged in 1826.
[4] George Jeffreys, seventeenth century Lord Chief Justice of England,
known as âhanging Judge Jeffreysâ or âbloody Jeffreysâ due to his
enthusiasm for capital punishment.
[5] â The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure
government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.â Thomas
Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX, e.g. in Jefferson
)New York: Library of America: 1984 [1787]), p.291.
[6] âNullificationâ referred to the doctrine that a state can override a
federal law within its territory, or, in a pinch, secede. The people
talking about secession in 1833 were Garrisonian abolitionists, whose
motto was âno union with slaveholders!â One may be disappointed by
Warrenâs failure to condemn slavery, and he simply denies the
presuppositions of both sides of the nullification dispute.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that he regards his principles as
incompatible with slavery: fixing cost as the limit of price, for
example, would immediately remove all motivation for slavery.
[7] Jeffersonâs First Inaugural Address (1801), e.g. in Jefferson (New
York: Library of America, 1984), p. 494.
[8] Passed by the New York legislature in on April 7, 1848, the law
specified that âThe real and personal property of any female who may
hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and
the rents issues and profits thereof shall not be subject to the
disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue
her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female.â