Eliphalet Kimball Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

PROJECT: There Ought Always To Be Anarchy

September 17, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Thoughts on Natural Principles (1867) Eliphalet Kimball in Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly (1873–1876) Eliphalet Kimball for President! (1852) Another side of Eliphalet Kimball (necrology, etc.) Eliphalet Kimball [tag feed] BOOK PROPOSAL There Ought Always To Be Anarchy: Thoughts on Natural Principles, 1852-1876 by Eliphalet Kimball (~32,000 words) Eliphalet Kimball was that rare thing, an enthusiastic and unapologetic advocate of anarchy, in an era when even the most active and prominent libertarian thinkers tended to be much more circumspect. So it is remarkable that the histories of anarchist thought have so consistently passed over him, while a wide array of other […]

Eliphalet Kimball, “Thoughts on Natural Principles” (1867)

July 28, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

It is only by anarchy and violence that a great accumulation of social wrongs can be removed. Anarchy is a good word. It means, “without a head.” Violence is the healing power of Nature applied to society. The violence which would follow from the abolishment of law, would be proportion to the number and magnitude of the wrongs that needed removal. There ought always to be anarchy, but there would be no violence where there were no wrongs.

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Eliphalet Kimball in “Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly”

May 1, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

Supposing that all man-made laws in the United States were abolished at once, disturbance and violence would take place only where they were needed. In parts of the country cursed with luxury, monopoly and rich men, society could be equalized and purified without violence. In neighbor hoods where the people were plain and none very rich, things would go on as they did before. If any undertook to commit crimes they would soon be straightened. Society would ferment and work itself clear like a barrel of new cider. Habitual rum-drinkers and opium-takers experience great distress when they undertake to leave off the habit. If they persevere in their abstinence they come right at last. Just so with law-drunken society. Within ten or fifteen years after the reign of natural law commenced, everything would be right.

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Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

LAW, COMMERCE, AND RELIGION. Eliphalet Kimball 1862 Mr. Editor:—Law, Commerce, and Religion, are the causes of the wrongs, vices, and consequent sufferings which have always prevailed in civilized nations. Natural law, or the healing power of Nature, would regulate society as it does the human body.—The mind of man is his body. Artificial law is a poison which deranges the course of Nature, and is sure to disorder society. The stillness of legal despotism is disorder. Artificial government turns morality upside down, and keeps it so by force. It protects a class of bad men in wronging others, but is […]

Eliphalet Kimball’s “Thoughts”

February 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve finished transcribing Eliphalet Kimball’s 1867 Thoughts on Natural Principles, which is about a defense of anarchism, in articles that originally appeared in The Boston Investigator. The rest is frequently inspired medical and culinary crankery, which should be read carefully for the analogies presented between it and the political thought. Analogy was, after all, all the rage in the 19th century, even, apparently, if you were a radical New England doctor. I’m now working on transcribing a couple of additional essays and some responses, so I can reissue the book in expanded form this spring.

Another side of Eliphalet Kimball

November 1, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

It looks to me like Eliphalet Kimball remained as obscure a figure to most of his peers as he is to us today—right up until the end of his life. And then, curiously, he developed a sort of notoriety, but one entirely unconnected to his writings on anarchy. Kimball seems to have spend most of his adult life in New Hampshire. It appears that he was born in 1799 or 1800 in Orford, NH, and the published works I’ve found all originate from west-central New Hampshire, or over the border in Vermont—except for one which seems to mark a short […]

Eliphalet Kimball in 1873

October 31, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here’s a bit of follow-up on the Eliphalet Kimball story I recently posted. More searching has not turned up any more direct account of Kimball’s 1852 presidential platform, but while filling some holes in my bibliography I found an 1873 article in the Boston Investigator which I had not see previously. In many ways, this newly unearthed article repeats the concerns and attitudes of Kimballs contributions in the 1860s, but it also seems to echo very strongly the ideas reported in 1852. My developing sense is that Kimball may have adopted his peculiar variety of anarchism quite early and stayed […]

Eliphalet Kimball for President! in 1852

October 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Eliphalet Kimball remains one of my favorite figures in the American anarchist tradition, in part because he remains so unknown, popping up here and there in the 19th century radical press to make the most amazing pronouncements and demands, but somehow managing to go almost completely unremarked in the scholarly literature. I first discovered Kimball’s anarchist writings in the Boston Investigator and Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly more than four years ago, and posted three of his essays: “Law, Commerce, and Religion,” “Civilization—Anarchy” and “Suggestions.” Recently, I was able to pick up an original copy of his one book, Thoughts on […]

Eliphalet Kimball, Suggestions

June 29, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

Eliphalet Kimball, “Suggestions,” Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, 8, 3 (June 20, 1874), 4. SUGGESTIONS. The reasons are many and powerful why husband and wife should not sleep in the same bed or even the same room. It is a familiarity that in time extinguishes love. Even by day, absence a good share of the time is necessary to the life of love. What is the cause that brother and sister have no love for each other? It is not because they are brother and sister; it is because they have lived from earliest childhood in the same family. Sleeping in […]

Eliphalet Kimball—”Anarchy is a good word.”

April 27, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur

As promised, here’s a bit more from Eliphalet Kimball. One of his early contributions to The Boston Investigator was “Law, Commerce, and Religion” (June 30, 1862). It may, in fact, be his earliest explicitly anarchist essay. And it’s a doozy—a mix of revolutionary and primitivist elements, written in fine ranting style. There’s something to amuse and/or offend pretty much any anarchist or libertarian. But, most importantly, there is the very existence of Kimball, a Yankee doctor calling for a very radical anarchy in the midst of the Civil War, as striking as he is unexpected. Here’s a taste: It is […]