1849 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Georges Duchêne, “Government” (1849-50)

January 31, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

Six thousand years of government have proven abundantly that power is, by its nature, spendthrift, prodigal, unproductive, invasive, despotic. Experience does not seem decisive for certain intelligences; and we are in the necessity, — if we do not want to attempt a new dictatorship, — of combatting the idea of authority, not by its historical antecedents, but in its very principle.

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P.-J. Proudhon, “Demonstration of Socialism, Theoretical and Practical”

July 6, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

DÉMONSTRATION DU SOCIALISME, THÉORIQUE ET PRATIQUE OU RÉVOLUTION PAR LE CRÉDIT Pour servir d’instruction aux souscripteurs et actionnaires de la Banque du Peuple, Par P.-J. PROUDHON, représentant de la Seine. I Je forme une entreprise qui n’eut jamais d’égale, qu’aucune n’égalera jamais. Je veux changer la base de la société, déplacer l’axe de la civilisation, faire que le monde qui, sous l’impulsion de la volonté divine, a tourné jusqu’à ce jour d’occident en orient, mû désormais par la volonté de l’homme, tourne d’orient en occident. Il ne s’agit pour cela que de renverser les rapports du travail et du capital, […]

Proudhon before the Court of Assizes (1849)

June 27, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

Citizen jurors, you have heard the accusation; you will evaluate the defense. You will judge the good faith of the first; allow me to begin by expressing gratitude for the devotion of the second. The Advocate General made a mistake just now when he believed that if I was not speaking after him, it was because I had in reserve a few arguments that I wanted to present to you in all their freshness, without allowing him to answer them. I repeat, the Citizen Advocate-General was mistaken; I have nothing to say to you regarding the accusation and I have nothing to add to the defence; I have only to tell you about the origin of this lawsuit.

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Joseph Déjacque before the court, 1849

May 1, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

POSSESSION OF MILITARY ARMS AND MUNITIONS. — Joseph Dejacques, a paper-hanger, condemned to transportation for participation in the insurrection of June 1848, and pardoned last May, appeared today before the magistrates’ court (7th chambre), presided over by M. Jourdain, for possession of two cartridges, several flints and a dozen caps.

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Equitable Commerce in 1849

July 29, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] January 17, 1849 Lecture by Josiah Warren. People’s Sunday Meeting.—The usual discussion next Sunday will be suspended in order to allow Mr. Josiah Warren, lately of New Harmony, (Ind.,) an opportunity to deliver a lecture on the subject of “Equitable Commerce.” This new mode of Social Reformation is one that Mr. Warren has paid much attention to for several years, and from the very favorable manner in which we have seen him noticed in Western papers, we have no doubt of his being a gentleman of considerable ability and well-qualified to give an interesting and […]

William B. Greene, “Capital and Labor” (1849)

June 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] This was the last series of articles from The Worcester Palladium incorporated into Equality (1849). The first installment underwent minor revisions, but “Socialism in Massachusetts” both begins and ends with substantially different sections. This was not, of course, the end of the articles by “OMEGA” or even the end of the “Equality” series. Greene would contribute at least another dozen articles to the Palladium, but that material never found a place in Greene’s book-length works. In the end, both Greene and Pierre Leroux would leave their respective series on equality unfinished. Wm. B. Greene in […]

William B. Greene, “Equality” (Worcester Palladium, 1949)

June 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

This series of articles from The Worcester Palladium would be incorporated into Equality (1849) and Mutual Banking (1850), which would, in turn, become the basis for the subsequent editions of William Batchelder Greene’s Mutual Banking. The first did not actually appear in Equality, but became the “Introduction” to the later book, where it appeared with only very minimal changes. The other two installments did appear in Equality, with a few revisions in the second and some fairly significant revisions in the third. Returned to their original sequence, with their original conclusion restored, aspects of Greene’s craft become apparent, as the parallels between the sections are clearer and the wide breadth of material addressed appears considerably less random.

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William B. Greene, “The Red Republic” (1849)

January 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] This early article by William Batchelder Greene is one of three written for The Worcester Palladium on the topic of plutocracy. It consists of a translation of most of the eighth chapter of Pierre Leroux’s De la ploutocratie, with commentary by Greene. Wm. B. Greene in “The Worcester Palladium” [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] For the Palladium. The Red Republic. The French national flag is composes, as every one knows, of three colors, read, white, and blue. These three colors represent the three estates of the former French realm: the white denotes the nobility, with […]

William Batchelder Greene, Letter to Orestes Brownson (1849)

June 6, 2016

From Orestes A. Brownson’s Middle Life from 1845-1855 (1899): Another Unitarian minister, the son of an old friend, one in whom Brownson had taken a great interest, had his reasonings and speculations submitted to a severe, but not unfriendly criticism, at about the same time as Channing. This was William B. Greene, whose name, however, did not appear as the author of the book to which he refers in the following letter: BROOKFIELD, MASS., Jan. 24th, 1849. DEAR SIR:—I Send you herewith a copy of my “Remarks on Science of History, etc.” I requested Mr. Crosby to send you a […]

Jeanne Deroin, “The Mission of Women in the Present and in the Future” (first article) (1849)

October 14, 2012

The Mission of Women in the Present and in the Future. (first article.) The February Revolution, by inscribing on its banner the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, has recognized in principle the right of the people and of women. But many women, and it is the majority, do not know what change the power of their influence would bring to bear on human destinies if they were called to take their proper rank in society. The majority even keep that thought at bay, as an attack on religion and morals, and as a danger to society; they have been persuaded that […]