In this article I discuss the “terrible division of our age” in Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men. I argue that a division between politics and ethics persists through the novel and through Warren’s larger body of work. This schism is meant to be fundamental to modernity, and Warren does not intend a resolution to it. I use his first book, John Brown: The Making of a Martyr, as a lens of analysis to show how his portrayal of John Brown anticipates characteristics of central characters that personify the terrible divide in his seminal publication. In doing so, I demonstrate that Warren forces our attention to an underlying logic of modernity.
{"title":"Robert Penn Warren and His Persistent Schism between Fact and Idea","authors":"Douglas S. Van","doi":"10.1086/719263","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/719263","url":null,"abstract":"In this article I discuss the “terrible division of our age” in Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men. I argue that a division between politics and ethics persists through the novel and through Warren’s larger body of work. This schism is meant to be fundamental to modernity, and Warren does not intend a resolution to it. I use his first book, John Brown: The Making of a Martyr, as a lens of analysis to show how his portrayal of John Brown anticipates characteristics of central characters that personify the terrible divide in his seminal publication. In doing so, I demonstrate that Warren forces our attention to an underlying logic of modernity.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"185 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45514387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The US Constitution grants the president a virtually unlimited pardon power. The Ratification Debates demonstrate that disputes between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over the pardon power were based on their disagreement about separation of powers theory. Because Anti-Federalists feared that pardon power could be abused and promote monarchy, they insisted on textual restrictions (“parchment barriers”). The Federalists rejected these demands, moving beyond the Anti-Federalists’ “pure” theory of separation of powers and advocating a complex system of institutional checks and balances. This approach allowed the Federalists to show how the executive’s institutional structure not only improved the president’s use of pardon power but also helped prevent abuses. The president’s pardon power is as unlimited as the British king’s, but the Federalists insisted that it could nevertheless be safely granted to a republican magistrate because Congress could check misuse via an equally extensive power: impeachment and removal.
{"title":"Republican Manners, Monarchic Vigor: The Federalist Defense of Pardon Power","authors":"K. Burns","doi":"10.1086/719260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/719260","url":null,"abstract":"The US Constitution grants the president a virtually unlimited pardon power. The Ratification Debates demonstrate that disputes between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over the pardon power were based on their disagreement about separation of powers theory. Because Anti-Federalists feared that pardon power could be abused and promote monarchy, they insisted on textual restrictions (“parchment barriers”). The Federalists rejected these demands, moving beyond the Anti-Federalists’ “pure” theory of separation of powers and advocating a complex system of institutional checks and balances. This approach allowed the Federalists to show how the executive’s institutional structure not only improved the president’s use of pardon power but also helped prevent abuses. The president’s pardon power is as unlimited as the British king’s, but the Federalists insisted that it could nevertheless be safely granted to a republican magistrate because Congress could check misuse via an equally extensive power: impeachment and removal.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"209 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43482640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eric Rauchway. Why the New Deal Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021. Pp. 232. $26.00 (cloth).","authors":"Richard W. Coughlin","doi":"10.1086/717945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717945","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43337372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We revisit the 1764 anonymous pamphlet An Essay In Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America, from A Censure of Mr Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. With some Reflections on Slavery in General. The title page says “By an AMERICAN.” The pamphlet pretends to rebut Adam Smith for his supposed censure of American colonists as base wretches and the refuse of the jails of Europe. But Smith was referring to slave ship crews. The pamphlet’s true intent was to honor Smith and to promote his rebuke of the slave trade and slavery in general. The misconstrual of Smith satirizes the troubled communication between the American colonies and Britain. The final 40% of the pamphlet is an all-out condemnation of slavery. The pamphlet was recognized as such by Anthony Benezet and Thomas Clarkson. Authorship has been attributed to Arthur Lee, but we doubt it.
{"title":"Adam Smith’s Unmerited Censure: Revisiting a Satirical 1764 Pamphlet on Slavery","authors":"D. Klein, Kendra Asher","doi":"10.1086/717929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717929","url":null,"abstract":"We revisit the 1764 anonymous pamphlet An Essay In Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America, from A Censure of Mr Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. With some Reflections on Slavery in General. The title page says “By an AMERICAN.” The pamphlet pretends to rebut Adam Smith for his supposed censure of American colonists as base wretches and the refuse of the jails of Europe. But Smith was referring to slave ship crews. The pamphlet’s true intent was to honor Smith and to promote his rebuke of the slave trade and slavery in general. The misconstrual of Smith satirizes the troubled communication between the American colonies and Britain. The final 40% of the pamphlet is an all-out condemnation of slavery. The pamphlet was recognized as such by Anthony Benezet and Thomas Clarkson. Authorship has been attributed to Arthur Lee, but we doubt it.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"48 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48720738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Little remembered today, James W. Sullivan wrote the book that, more than any other, catalyzed the initiative and referendum movement in the United States. Crucial to the success of Sullivan’s Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum was his immersion in the labor radicalism of New York City in the 1880s, including as editor of the Boycotter and Union Printer and labor editor of Henry George’s Standard. Especially important in honing and publicizing his ideas was his tenure at the radical weekly Twentieth Century between 1889 and 1892. Forged in the bitter political and ideological conflicts, setbacks, and disappointments of the late 1880s, Direct Legislation showed “the radical world” a way to sidestep doctrinal fights about political economy and focus instead on knitting together a broad “opportunistic” coalition of labor and middle-class reformers with the power to remake political institutions.
{"title":"The Opportunist: James W. Sullivan and the Origins of the Initiative and Referendum in the United States","authors":"R. Ellis","doi":"10.1086/717930","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717930","url":null,"abstract":"Little remembered today, James W. Sullivan wrote the book that, more than any other, catalyzed the initiative and referendum movement in the United States. Crucial to the success of Sullivan’s Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum was his immersion in the labor radicalism of New York City in the 1880s, including as editor of the Boycotter and Union Printer and labor editor of Henry George’s Standard. Especially important in honing and publicizing his ideas was his tenure at the radical weekly Twentieth Century between 1889 and 1892. Forged in the bitter political and ideological conflicts, setbacks, and disappointments of the late 1880s, Direct Legislation showed “the radical world” a way to sidestep doctrinal fights about political economy and focus instead on knitting together a broad “opportunistic” coalition of labor and middle-class reformers with the power to remake political institutions.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"1 - 47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44736663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This review essay considers the question of authority and authorization in contemporary black political culture in light of two recent books, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. and Afropessimism by Frank B. Wilderson III.
{"title":"Who Decides What We Do with Our Despair?","authors":"Jared A. Loggins","doi":"10.1086/717947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717947","url":null,"abstract":"This review essay considers the question of authority and authorization in contemporary black political culture in light of two recent books, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. and Afropessimism by Frank B. Wilderson III.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"125 - 140"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41670349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Louis Menand. The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021. Pp. 857. $35.00 (cloth).","authors":"Susan McWilliams Barndt","doi":"10.1086/717948","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717948","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43588597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brian Danoff. Why Moralize Upon It? Democratic Education through American Literature and Film. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2020. Pp. 142. $90.00 (cloth).","authors":"T. W. McCarty","doi":"10.1086/717946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717946","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48689797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This review essay considers two recent publications: David S. Brown’s The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams, and Ormond Seavey’s Henry Adams in Washington: Linking the Personal and Public Lives of America’s Man of Letters. Henry Adams was the descendant of two American presidents (John Adams and John Quincy Adams) and raised in the revolutionary atmosphere that continued to linger in New England at the time of Adams’s birth in 1838. Yet, by the time of his death in 1918, the republic that his great-grandfather helped to found had been transformed into a large, industrial democracy poised to become one of the twentieth century’s superpowers. Brown, a historian, and Seavey, a literary critic, offer insight into the remarkable life and works of a very private man from one of America’s most public families.
{"title":"Henry Adams: The Political Wisdom of His Biography, History, and Freedom","authors":"N. Taylor","doi":"10.1086/717949","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717949","url":null,"abstract":"This review essay considers two recent publications: David S. Brown’s The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams, and Ormond Seavey’s Henry Adams in Washington: Linking the Personal and Public Lives of America’s Man of Letters. Henry Adams was the descendant of two American presidents (John Adams and John Quincy Adams) and raised in the revolutionary atmosphere that continued to linger in New England at the time of Adams’s birth in 1838. Yet, by the time of his death in 1918, the republic that his great-grandfather helped to found had been transformed into a large, industrial democracy poised to become one of the twentieth century’s superpowers. Brown, a historian, and Seavey, a literary critic, offer insight into the remarkable life and works of a very private man from one of America’s most public families.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"116 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48775848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ralph Waldo Emerson sometimes proclaims radical individualism and a deep antagonism to associational living. Other times—especially in the context of abolitionism and reformism—he urges solidarity and membership in associations. We can understand Emerson as a consistent political theorist through his treatment of moral authority, which he suggests must be located beyond associational life. In Emerson’s writings, moral authority takes two forms: a positive embrace of a moral superstructure (variously called the “Over-Soul,” “God,” “Genius,” and more), and a negative or critical resistance against the corrupting features of associational life. This article sheds light on the extent to which these seemingly disparate features of Emerson’s political theory overlap and sometimes operate in tandem. By illuminating the external quality of moral authority, this article enables a fuller appreciation of Emerson’s democratic political theory.
{"title":"Keeping the “Perfect Sweetness … of Solitude”: Toward a Consistent Emersonian Political Theory","authors":"J. Rattey","doi":"10.1086/717928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/717928","url":null,"abstract":"Ralph Waldo Emerson sometimes proclaims radical individualism and a deep antagonism to associational living. Other times—especially in the context of abolitionism and reformism—he urges solidarity and membership in associations. We can understand Emerson as a consistent political theorist through his treatment of moral authority, which he suggests must be located beyond associational life. In Emerson’s writings, moral authority takes two forms: a positive embrace of a moral superstructure (variously called the “Over-Soul,” “God,” “Genius,” and more), and a negative or critical resistance against the corrupting features of associational life. This article sheds light on the extent to which these seemingly disparate features of Emerson’s political theory overlap and sometimes operate in tandem. By illuminating the external quality of moral authority, this article enables a fuller appreciation of Emerson’s democratic political theory.","PeriodicalId":41928,"journal":{"name":"American Political Thought","volume":"11 1","pages":"73 - 95"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60725159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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