1868 Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

“Last Words of Calvin Blanchard” (1868)

December 6, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] LAST WORDS OF CALVIN BLANCHARD. Mr. Calvin Blanchard, recently deceased, aged 60, was a remarkable man. Thirty-five years ago, when he and we were journeymen printers in this City, he was currently nicknamed “Anti-Christ” by his associates—his creed being what most of us deemed infidelity, though he gave it a different designation. He afterward became an author, bookseller and publisher, giving currency to many works which were condemned as immoral as well as irreligious, though no one who knew him could doubt that he thought them otherwise. Dying, he left the […]

Letter from William B. Greene to Edward Atkinson, on the State of the Currency (1868)

June 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 10px”] This is perhaps the last article by William Batchelder Greene to appear in The Worcester Palladium. As it happens, it is also the next to last article left on a list I’ve been trying to track down for a very long time now, so I’m very pleased to be able to present it here. Wm. B. Greene in “The Worcester Palladium” [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] LETTER FROM WM. B. GREENE TO EDWARD ATKINSON, ESQ., On the State of the Currency —– Brookline, Mass., Oct. 21st, 1868. Dear Sir: — In our debate, last Saturday […]

Program of the International Society of the Revolution (1868)

February 26, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Program of the International Society of the Revolution First part. Theoretical principles. I. Negation of God and of the principle of authority, both human and divine, as well as every tutelage exercised by men over men—even when we wish to exercise that tutelage over individuals of the age of majority but deprived of instruction or else over the ignorant masses, whether in the name of an intelligence, or even in the name of scientific reason, represented by a group of men—recognized and licensed intelligences—or by any exclusive class, either of which would form a sort of aristocracy of intelligence—the most […]

Program of the Russian Socialist Democracy [Narodnoe Delo] (1868)

September 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[From the broadside: Program of the Russian Socialist Democracy. Drawn from the Newspaper “La Cause du peuple”, published in French, Geneva, 1868.] OUR PROGRAM We want the emancipation of the people, their intellectual, economic, social and political emancipation. I. The intellectual emancipation of the popular masses is indispensable in order for their political and social liberty to become complete and solid. Faith in God, the belief in the immortality of the soul, and, in general, all the idealist or supernatural utopias, necessarily based on a false principle, contrary to science, have been for the peoples a constant cause of slavery […]

The Program of “La Démocratie” (1868)

September 11, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

La Voix de l’Avenir, May 24, 1868, Chaux-de-Fonds Need I say that as far as a foreigner my be allowed to meddle in your affairs, I sympathize with all my heart with your courageous enterprise and that I subscribe completely to your program? You have the noble ambition of restoring the press in your country to the heights from which it should never have descended, whatever the storms that have assailed it, and of once again accustoming is to seek our inspirations there, a habit that we have lost for nearly 19 years. Be sure that, in all countries, all […]

Collective protest of the dissident members of the 2nd Congress of Peace and Freedom

July 20, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[September 25, 1868] Considering that the majority of the delegates to the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom have passionately and explicitly declared themselves against the economic and social equalization of classes and of individuals, and as no political program and action that does not aim at the realization of this principle could be accepted by the socialist democrats, by the conscientious and logical friends of peace and freedom, the undersigned believe it is their duty to separate from the League. Albert Richard J. Bedouch Hugo Byter Elisée Reclus Aristide Rey Victor Jaclard Keller Tucci Fanelli Friscia Bakounine […]

Bakunin to Karl Marx, December 22, 1868

August 5, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

December 22, 1868. Geneva 123. Montbrillant. My old friend – Serno has shared with me the part of your letter that concerned me. You asked him if I continue to be your friend. – Yes, more than ever, dear Marx, because I understand better than ever how right you are in following, and in inviting us all to march on the wide road of economic revolution, and in denigrating those among us who would lose themselves on the paths of either national or exclusively political enterprises. I now do what you yourself commenced to do more than twenty years ago. […]

Bakunin, Second Address to the Second Congress of Peace and Freedom (1868)

February 16, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Addresses to the Second Congress of Peace and Freedom Second Address (2ndsession)September 23, 1868 Gentlemen, I do not want to respond to all the pleasantries that have been hurled at me from the height of this rostrum. I would have too much to do if I wanted to unravel the truth through the mass of confused ideas and contradictory sentiments that have been raised against me. Several orators have employed, in order to combat me, some arguments so far from serious I would well have the right to put their good faith in doubt.–I would not do it, Gentlemen. I […]

César De Paepe, “To the Anti-Collectivists” (1868)

February 13, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

COLLECTIVIST POLEMIC [1] I. — TO THE ANTI-COLLECTIVISTS. [aka THE LEGITIMACY OF THE SOCIALIZATION OF PROPERTY] Thanks to a dialectics put in the service of a method more often metaphysical than scientific (which it is necessary to avoid confusing with the historical and objective method of Karl Marx), Proudhon has discovered in the social world some laws that observation confirms more from day to day; it is, however, incontestable that hypothesis still plays an infinitely more considerable role in the works of that thinker and that often he has concluded a priori or from insufficient observations: witness the conclusions […]

Speech of the citizen Bakunin to a public assembly of foreign socialists (1868)

January 19, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur

Speech of the citizen Bakunin to a public assembly of foreign socialists November 23, 1868 [After saying that the Assembly had not only gathered to pay homage to the memory of the brave republican Baudin, murdered by the brigands of December, but also to express its devotion to the principles of the democratic and social Republic, the citizen Bakunin expressed himself in these terms:] We are socialists, [he said,] that is to say that we all want: Equality of political, economic and social conditions for all; Equality of the means of support, education, and instruction for all children of both […]