1866 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Jenny d’Héricourt, “Illinois” (FR) (1866)

February 15, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur

If, through constant communications, through many stories, we know in France the morals and customs of that part of the United States that borders the Atlantic and which, as the first seat of colonization, mixes with the habits of democracy those of civilization European, this is not the case with the Western countries. There everything is new and follows not from the inspirations of tradition, but from the force of things and the demands of necessity. There, the genius of labor accomplished wonders, but with a strange and naive rustic quality. Large cities are improvised, ports are built, companies are founded and all the agitation of the large commercial centers gives way to the melancholic poetry of Indian solitude.

[…]

Calvin Blanchard, “Religion Made Intelligible” (1866)

March 5, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

Mr. Editor:—I was once, as you know, a mere sceptic, or unbeliever. But for many years past I have been a Positivist, certainly foreknowing, or claiming to foreknow, that, by means of Nature, including her cunning method, Art, the world will be populated from pole to pole by human beings, all of whom will be as far better developed than any that now exist, as the best of the present ones are superior to the ourang outang. Here is my Creed, if that which is positively known can properly be called a mere creed:—

[…]

Bakunin, Plan for a revolutionary association (fragment)

March 31, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From an undated manuscript, probably written in 1866.] Plan for a revolutionary association. ───────── 1) Those only can be international brothers who accept in their entirety and in their spirit these principles their bases for revolutionary politics. 2) An international brother must put the interests of the general revolution of Europe above the exclusive and narrow interests of his own country; he must at least understand that even by sacrificing to the general revolution the fleeting interests of his country, he assures that much better its permanent emancipation. 3) The international brothers must not be brothers in name, but in […]