The Society for Constitutional Information

In our household we are hoping for a late election. My son turns 18 in the summer, so the timing will determine whether or not he can vote in the forthcoming general election. This approaching milestone makes my current work on citizenship education all the more pertinent. Alongside this, in my classes on early modern history at Newcastle University I have been exploring with my students the development of political institutions between 1500 and 1800. In discussing the constitutional changes that occurred during the Civil Wars, or the proposals put forward by reformers in the late eighteenth century, some students have commented that they do not feel they have a good understanding of the workings of our political system today and that school did little to prepare them for their role as adult citizens.

The members of the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI), which was established in 1780, were equally concerned about the lack of an understanding of the constitution among residents of Britain in the late eighteenth century. Of course, the circumstances then were very different. In 1780 it is estimated that only 3% of the population of the United Kingdom had the vote. Today the percentage is approximately 68%. The main activity of the SCI was to disseminate knowledge of the British constitution among the population as a means of gaining support for the campaign for parliamentary reform.

In their first Address to the Public, the Society set out the fundamental belief that underpinned their commitment to reform:

LAW, TO BIND ALL, MUST BE ASSENTED TO BY ALL (An Address to the public,

from the Society for Constitutional Information. London, 1780, p. 1).

Statue of John Cartwright in Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury, London. Image by Rachel Hammersley

This reflects an understanding of liberty that insists that people are free if they are subject only to laws that they (or their representatives) have made. The idea was outlined more fully in the Declaration of Rights written by one of the SCI's founding members Major John Cartwright:

Fourthly, That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of Representatives, do

not enjoy liberty; but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their

Representative: for to be enslaved, is to have Governors whom other men have set over

us, and to be subject to laws made by the Representatives of others, without having had

Representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.

Fifthly, That a very great majority of the Commonalty of this Realm are denied the

privilege of voting for Representatives in Parliament; and consequently, they are

enslaved to a small number, who do now enjoy this privilege exclusively to

themselves (John Cartwright, A Declaration of the Rights of Englishmen. London, no

date, p. 2).

This reflects the concept of Neo-Roman liberty analysed by the eminent historian Quentin Skinner, which has its origins in the Roman law distinction between those who are free and those who are slaves. Judged according to this principle, the members of the SCI concluded that the vast majority of the population of the United Kingdom were not free. Indeed they went so far as to argue that a small number of individuals without 'virtue' or 'abilities' were effectively disenfranchising their electors (A Second Address to the Public from the Society for Constitutional Information. London, 1782, p. 9).

They went on to outline three reform proposals that would need to be enacted to remedy the situation. First, they called for a redistribution of parliamentary seats.

This issue was summarised in the Report of the Sub-Committee of Westminster produced in March 1780. That committee included a number of members of the SCI and its reports were printed by the SCI for distribution:

That it appears to this Sub Committee, that many towns and boroughs, formerly

intitled "for their repute and population," to send members to Parliament, have

since fallen into decay, yet continue to have a representation equal to the most

opulent counties and cities; while other towns and places, which have risen into

consideration, and become populous and wealthy, have no representatives in

Parliament (Westminster Committee. King's Arms Tavern, March 20, 1780. Report of

the Sub Committee, appointed to enquire into the state of the representation of this country.

1780, p. 2).

Nine years later, the SCI declared that their 'most immediate object' was to gather and then publish 'a compleat State of the representation of the people in Parliament' and to this end they invited people to report on the situation regarding voters and elections in their local constituencies (The National Archives: TS 11/961. SCI Minutes for Friday 29th May 1789). The results appear in one of the SCI volumes held at the National Archives.

Concern at the unequal distribution of parliamentary seats was not a new idea in the late eighteenth century. In the Agreement of the People that was presented by an alliance of soldiers and civilian radicals to the General Council of the Army at the Putney Debates in October 1647 it was asserted:

That the People of England being at this day very unequally distributed by

Counties, Cities, & Boroughs, for the election of their Deputies in Parliament, ought

to be more indifferently proportioned, according to the number of the Inhabitants:

the circumstances whereof, for number, place, and manner, are to be set down

before the end of this present Parliament. (An Agreement of the People, for a firme and

present Peace, upon grounds of Common-Right. London, 1647, p. 2).

Secondly, the SCI advocated universal manhood suffrage, which set them apart from some of the more conservative reform societies at the time. As Cartwright declared in the second article of his Declaration of Rights:

That every man of the Commonalty (excepting infants, insane persons, and

criminals) is of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the

full enjoyment of liberty. (Cartwright, A Declaration of the Rights of Englishmen, p. 1).

Universal manhood suffrage was also not a completely new idea in 1780. At the Putney Debates, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough voiced the stirring line (now recalled in a plaque in Putney Church): 'for really I thinke that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest hee'. He went on:

and therfore truly, Sir, I thinke itt's cleare, that every man that is to live under a

Government ought first by his owne consent to putt himself under that

Government; and I doe thinke that the poorest man in England is nott att all bound

in a stricte sence to that Government that hee hath not had a voice to putt himself

under (The Clarke Papers, ed. C. H. Firth. London, 1992, p. 301).

Engraving of the quotation from Thomas Rainsborough in St Mary’s Church, Putney. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

In those debates the alternative view was expressed by Colonel Henry Ireton (Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law) who insisted that only those with landed property should be allowed to vote, since only they had a fixed interest in the country and could, therefore, be trusted to make decisions in the common good. The SCI turned Ireton's assumption on its head, insisting:

The poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the

legislature than the rich one (An Address to the Public, p. 7).

The third demand made by the SCI was for more frequent - ideally annual - parliaments. Major Cartwright's Declaration asserted it is 'the right of the Commonalty of this Realm to elect a new House of Commons once in every year, according to ancient and sacred laws of the land' (Cartwright, A Declaration, p. 2). If elections were held less frequently, he argued, those people who had recently arrived in an area would be deprived of their right. Moreover, longer parliaments would be more susceptible to corruption and undue influence.

Once again the roots of this concern can be found in the seventeenth century. Between 1629 and 1640 Charles I ruled without calling parliament. In theory there was nothing wrong with this since it was up to the monarch to call Parliament when (s)he wanted (usually when they needed money). But Charles's behaviour prompted anger and when Parliament met in 1640 one of the first actions it took was to institute a Triennial Act which required Parliament to be called at least once every three years. Some at the time felt that even this did not go far enough and called for annual parliaments as a crucial mechanism to mitigate the corrupting effects of power. As John Streater explained:

A Free State, governed by Annual Representatives, is Naturally good, it cannot be bad;

for that no one can obtain in such a Government opportunity to do Hurt: and it

behoveth every one of them to do all the good they can, in regard that they must

Return to a private state and Condition, in which they shall participate and be

sharers of the good they have procured, or been parties in ordaining (J. S. [John

Streater], A Shield Against the Parthian Dart. London, 1659, pp. 16-17).

If we compare the SCI demands to how things are today, we see that one demand - universal manhood suffrage - has not only been achieved, but surpassed. Today it is not only adult men who have the vote, but women too. This is especially interesting given that this was seen as the most extreme demand in the eighteenth century and one that not all supporters of reform at that time were willing to endorse. A second demand - an equal distribution of parliamentary seats - is recognised as important and the distribution is continually updated. A local election leaflet that came through my front door this week explains:

Following a review by the Boundary Commissions, changes have been made in the

coming elections for electing your Ward Councillors and member of Parliament

(MP). The changes aim to rebalance the number of electors in each area and ensure

that they are represented effectively by the candidates you elect.

Yet the third demand - annual parliaments - has neither been put into practice, nor is widely advocated today. There are, perhaps, good reasons for this, in that annual elections would be costly and would risk encouraging even greater short-termism in politics than is currently the case. On the other hand, as the Streater quotation suggests, more frequent elections would ensure that MPs have to live under the laws they make and would strengthen the sense of their accountability to their constituents. It would also ensure that whatever is decided in the next few months, my son wouldn't have to wait another five years before being able to express his political voice in a General Election.

'Ut Spargam' and other Hollis Marginalia

An example of the smoke printed symbol of the pilius or liberty cap taken from Henry Neville, Plato Redivivus, or a dialogue concerning government (London, 1763). This copy, which was donated by Hollis to the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, is now held at the National Library of Scotland: ([Ad]. 7/1.8). It is reproduced here under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.

In last month's blogpost I noted that social media platforms have now taken over as the dominant source of news and political information for younger citizens in the UK. One of the main concerns about this shift in news consumption habits is the notion that such platforms tend to generate echo chambers. This results in individuals rarely being confronted by - and therefore required to engage with - views that differ significantly from their own. It can produce a polarisation of positions and a tendency to demonise - rather than seeking to understand - alternative viewpoints. The political dissemination campaigns of the late eighteenth century that were the focus of my last blogpost could be seen as leading to a similar outcome, with campaigners voicing particular viewpoints (such as the benefits of political reform), and dismissing alternative views. Yet in the case of Thomas Hollis, the picture is more complex.

I have touched on Hollis and his campaign several times in previous blogposts, so will not go into great detail here. Suffice to say that he sent a huge number of books to university and public libraries in Britain, continental Europe, and North America. Harvard College in Massachusetts was the recipient of the largest collection of donations, with around 3,000 volumes being sent over several years. Part of Hollis's aim in sending works to university libraries was to influence the education of the rising generation.

An example of the embossed symbol of the wise owl again taken from the National Library of Scotland’s copy of Neville’s Plato Redivivus: ([Ad].7/1.8). Reproduced under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.

As well as sending the works free of charge, Hollis also manipulated the physical appearance of the volumes he sent in order to shape how they were read and understood. One technique he deployed was to add symbols or emblematic tools to the works (either smoke printed into the text or embossed onto the binding) which served as a shorthand for the content. A pilius or liberty bonnet indicated that the work advocated liberty, a sword was associated with the right to overthrow tyrants, the cock symbolised alertness or vigilance, and an owl showed that the work was wise (unless it appeared upside down in which case it had the opposite meaning). More details on the emblematic tools Hollis used are provided in William Bond's lecture, 'Thomas Hollis: His Bookbinders and Book binding', which can be accessed here.

Another method Hollis used was to add handwritten comments to the texts expressing his views on them or pointing readers towards related works in the collection. Most of these comments were specific to the text itself (and I discussed some of these in a previous blogpost) but there were at least three phrases that can be found repeatedly in works that form part of the Harvard collection.

An example of Hollis’s handwritten marginalia. This comes from an edition of John Milton’s Works, ed. Richard Baron (London, 1753). Reproduced with permission from the Harvard Library copy.

One of these is the phrase 'Ut Spargam', which translates roughly as 'that we may scatter them', 'spargo' being the Latin verb meaning to scatter, strew, or sprinkle. Hollis added this phrase by hand to more than twenty of the volumes he sent to Harvard College. For the most part these are works that set out and celebrate the rights and liberties of the people in politics and religion. They include: several works from the French monarchomach tradition, written by Huguenots in the late sixteenth century, opposing absolute monarchy and justifying tyrannicide; several collections of speeches, acts, or declarations by the English parliament of the 1640s during its confrontation with Charles I; English republican texts such as James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana and Catharine Macaulay's History of England; and several works that deal explicitly with the rights of the people, including Benjamin Hoadly's The common rights of subjects, defended, William Petyt's, The antient right of the Commons of England, and a 1658 work called simply The rights of the people. The point of the Latin phrase was presumably to indicate that these works should be disseminated so that people around the world would come to know their rights.

A box commemorating the repeal of the Stamp Act. From the National Museum of American History. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License.

There were, of course, particular reasons why this message was pertinent to the American colonists in the 1760s (when Hollis sent most of these works to Harvard). This was a period during which the conflict between the colonists and the British government was escalating. The imposition of the Sugar Act in April 1764 and of the Stamp Act in March 1765 had led the colonists to fear that the British were seeking to exploit and oppress them - imposing taxes without according them representation, thereby infringing their rights as British subjects. The second of these acts provoked the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 - an early example of co-ordinated action on the part of the colonists. Yet despite securing the repeal of the Stamp Act the following year, the exercise of British control continued. The repeal was deliberately accompanied by the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament's right to control the colonies. In June 1767 further customs duties were imposed, and the following year British troops moved into Massachusetts, which had been the focus of the colonial protests. It is not difficult to read off from Hollis's gifts to Harvard his attitude towards the crisis and the fact that he saw it as crucial in this context to remind young American citizens of their rights and the threats posed by overbearing power.

The second phrase Hollis adds to multiple volumes is 'Felicity is Freedom and Freedom is Magnanimity'. It appears in seven works, most of which are recognisably republican texts and two of which also bear the 'Ut Spargam' tag (Harrington's Oceana and Macaulay's History). Interestingly it also appears in A short narrative of the horrid massacre, which described the Boston Massacre of 1770 when British troops fired on protestors. A direct connection is, therefore, drawn between the events of mid-seventeenth-century England and recent colonial affairs. In fact there is a third strand to the parallel, since Hollis attributes the phrase 'Felicity is Freedom and Freedom is Magnanimity' to Thucydides. In Book 2 of The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides praises the bravery of the Athenians who died in that war, sacrificing themselves for their country, and he urges their successors to follow their example:

For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own,

where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a

record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as

your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of

valour, never decline the dangers of war.

(http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.2.second.html)

Like the ancient Athenians and the republicans of seventeenth-century England, the American colonists were displaying a spirit of patriotism that led them to put the good of their country ahead of their own personal interests. The 'Felicity is Freedom' tag endorsed their willingness to fight - even to the death - to defend their rights.

Yet Hollis's strategy was not simply to present his readers with one side of the story. One of the works to which he added the phrase 'Ut Spargam' was Henry Sacheverell's account of his trial. Sacheverell was an Anglican clergyman and popular preacher. In a sermon delivered in November 1709, which he subsequently printed illegally, he attacked Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, comparing the Gunpowder Plot to the execution of Charles I. At his trial, which opened in February 1710 and was accompanied by rioting, Sacheverell was found guilty. As a strong advocate of the Dissenting cause, Hollis will not have shared Sacheverell's views and the parallel drawn between Catholics and Dissenters will have been an affront to Hollis's staunch anti-Catholicism. Yet he still believed that Sacheverell's own account of his trial should be widely disseminated.

Moreover, the plot thickens further if we draw into the discussion Hollis's third repeatedly used inscription: 'Floreat Libertas, Pereat Tyrannis'. The words themselves celebrate the triumph of liberty over tyranny. Yet the works to which Hollis added these words were produced not by advocates of liberty, but by their tyrannical opponents. They include: the collected works of Charles I and his account of his trial; the Letters and dispatches of Charles's close advisor the Earl of Strafford who was executed by Parliament in 1641; and The free-holders grand inquest by the divine right theorist Robert Filmer. It is no doubt significant that while he strongly opposed the arguments reflected in these works, Hollis did not hide them from the Harvard students, but deliberately sent them copies, alerting them by his handwritten inscription that these works contained the arguments of tyrants. Hollis's position seems to have been that it was not sufficient for the colonists to be educated on their rights, they also needed to have a clear picture of what tyranny looked like so that they could recognise it and act quickly when it was imposed against them.

Underlying these decisions by Hollis we can perhaps glimpse the hand of the man he described as 'the divine Milton' (Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, Esq., ed. Francis Blackburne. London, 1780, pp. 60 and 93). In Areopagitica (1644) John Milton argued against the censorship of books, drawing a contrast between the food of the body and that of the mind:

Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in

John Milton in the ‘Temple of British Worthies’ at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. Image by Rachel Hammersley

the healthiest concoction; but herein the

difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet

and judicious Reader serve in many respects to

discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate (John

Milton, Areopagitica. London, 1644, p. 11).

Hollis, following Milton, believed that the American colonists needed to engage with and understand tyranny in order to be able to defend their rights and liberties. The same argument holds today. We cannot understand, let alone defend, what is right, if we are not prepared to listen to, and engage with, alternative viewpoints - even those we might find distasteful.

British Republicans 2: Richard Carlile

The first volume of Richard Carlile’s periodical The Republican. Bodleian Library: Johnson e.3662 Photograph by Alex Plane, courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries.

On Friday 27 August, 1819, there appeared the first issue of a journal entitled The Republican edited by Richard Carlile. Its publication was a direct response to the Peterloo Massacre that had occurred just under two weeks before. Despite the header declaring it to be 'No. 1. Vol. I.', this was not, in fact, an entirely new journal but, as the editorial explained, the continuation of Sherwin's Weekly Political Register, which had been appearing for several years.

The change of title was, however, deliberate. Carlile was publicly identifying as a 'republican'. In his address to readers that prefaced the first volume he took pains to explain his understanding of the term. Noting that 'it has been the practice of ignorant or evil-minded persons' to associate republicanism purely with 'the horrors of the French Revolution' he urged his readers to look more closely at the etymology of the word. A republican government, he explained, is one 'which consults the public interest - the interest of the whole people' (The Republican, I, 'To the Readers of the Republican'). This, as I have argued in a previous blogpost, accorded with the traditional understanding of the term dating right back to ancient times. Yet, because Carlile was writing in the early nineteenth century, he was well aware of the additional connection that had been forged between republicanism and anti-monarchism. He engaged directly with this point, arguing rather cleverly that: 'Although in almost all instances where governments have been denominated Republican, monarchy has been practically abolished; yet it does not argue the necessity of abolishing monarchy to establish a Republican government.' In truth, Carlile believed that securing government in the public interest required a proper system of representation and that if this were to be introduced the abolition of monarchy was likely to follow. Nevertheless, his understanding of the double meaning of 'republican', and his emphasis on establishing government in the public interest rather than simply abolishing the monarchy, indicates continuity with the longer history of English republican thought.

Thomas Paine by Laurent Dubos, c. 1791. National Portrait Gallery. NPG 6805. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Carlile also associated his ideas more directly with those of earlier English republicans. He was a committed disciple of Thomas Paine and was responsible for printing and disseminating Paine's works. He was also an admirer of Thomas Spence, declaring that Spence's Land Plan was 'the most simple and most equitable system of society and government that can be imagined' and that it was 'a subject' about which it was 'worth thinking, worth talking, worth writing, worth printing' (Richard Carlile, Operative, 3 March 1839 as cited in Malcolm Chase, '"The Real Rights of Man": Thomas Spence, Paine and Chartism', in Rogers and Sippel (eds), Thomas Spence and His Legacy: Bicentennial Perspectives, special issue of Miranda 13 2016, pp. 3-4). Spence was himself a disciple of the seventeenth-century English republican James Harrington, and Carlile too made frequent reference in his writings back to the period of the Stuarts. He implied that the tyranny enacted by his own government at Peterloo and in its aftermath was similar to that performed by Charles I and his sons. In an open letter to the Prince Regent, which appeared in the second issue of The Republican, he warned the Prince that if he failed to deal justly with the perpetrators of the Peterloo massacre then 'the fate of Charles or James, is inevitably yours. And justly so.' (The Republican, No. 2 Vol. 1. 3 September 1819). Carlile also celebrated the heroic martyrs of the period, including John Hampden and Algernon Sidney.

Carlile repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to act as a martyr to liberty and to sacrifice his own personal freedom in the greater cause by stoically enduring repeated prison sentences. He was imprisoned for his role in publishing Paine’s works in 1819 soon after launching The Republican. This image was produced to celebrate his release six years later. ‘On his liberation after six years of imprisonment’ (Richard Carlile) by an unknown artist, 1825. National Portrait Gallery. NPG D8083. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

More substantively, The Republican echoed earlier English republican works in celebrating both civil and religious liberty, and in emphasising the interrelationship between the two. In the very first issue, Carlile explicitly declared his willingness to submit to martyrdom 'in the cause of liberty' and in the second issue he accused the despots of Europe of seeking to: 'abridge and destroy the liberties of their subjects, and to make their own authority absolute' (The Republican, No. 1 Vol. 1, 27 August 1819 and No. 2 Vol 1, 3 September 1819). Of particular importance to Carlile were the liberties of free speech and freedom of association. What was particularly galling about the Peterloo Massacre was that the individuals who had been killed had simply been enacting their right, under the British constitution, 'to assemble together for the purpose of deliberating upon public grievances as well as on the legal and constitutional means of obtaining redress' (The Republican, No. 5 Vol. 1, 24 September 1819). Such actions were necessary in Carlile's eyes because, like earlier British commonwealthmen, he believed that the British constitution had become corrupt and its balance disturbed. Echoing the late seventeenth-century thinker Henry Neville, Carlile argued that the balance of the constitution lay too much with the monarch and that too little power was wielded by the House of Commons. It had once dominated the other branches 'but that controul is quite destroyed, and through the influence of Boroughmongering, they are become the base and contemptible tools of every vicious faction that can get into power' (The Republican, No. 4 Vol. 1, 17 September 1819).

Richard Carlile, by an unknown artist. National Portrait Gallery, NPG 1435. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Again like earlier English republican authors, Carlile was adamant that citizens should enjoy religious as well as political liberty. Echoing John Milton and other so-called 'godly republicans' of the mid-seventeenth century, he insisted on a clear and complete separation between church and state: 'I maintain on this head, that no government should legislate as to what shall or shall not be the religion of its subjects; or what differences should exist in their creeds' 'an established priesthood, of whatever tenets, is incompatible with civil liberty' (The Republican, I 'To the Readers of the Republican'). Yet in terms of his own personal religious convictions, Carlile had less in common with the 'godly republicans', instead taking the path previously developed by John Toland and his associates at the turn of the eighteenth century, whereby rabid anti-clericalism morphed into deism and even atheism. All forms of religion, Carlile declared, are 'an imposture and fraud practised by base and designing men on the credulous part of mankind' (The Republican, No. 2 Vol. 1, 3 September 1819). By publishing the controversial theological works of Paine, Carlile hoped to be able to emancipate minds from the slavish fears associated with Christianity (The Republican, No. 6 Vol. 1, 1 October 1819). Carlile's readers expressed similar views. In a letter that appeared in the second issue, Joseph Fitch of Old Road Academy, Stepney, praised Carlile for the patriotic firmness with which he faced tyranny after being charged with sedition for publishing the theological works of Paine. He urged those who saw the views voiced by Carlile as a threat to the state to stop being 'the voluntary dupes of priestcraft and corruption' and he ended by urging support for the cause of 'civil and religious liberty' (The Republican, No. 2 Vol. 1, 3 September 1819).

While the continuities between Carlile's understanding of republicanism and that of his predecessors are striking, he also introduced new elements. He was more critical than most earlier English republicans (with the exception of Spence) of the unjust inequalities between rich and poor. In issue six he attacked the 'Prince and Ministers, Sinecurists and Pensioners, Borough-mongers and Fundholders, Bishops and Parsons, Judges and Lawyers' for attacking the lower orders and seeking to keep them down (The Republican, No. 6, Vol. 1, 1 October 1819). He also championed the rights of other marginal groups within society, even asserting that women ought to be accorded political rights (The Republican, No. 5. Vol. 1, 24 September 1819).

Carlile's writings, and the continuity of his arguments with earlier English republicans, challenge the common assumption that the English have no sustained republican tradition. In fact, there is a rich and vibrant vein of republican thinking in this country, one that has been flexible enough to adapt to a variety of different circumstances and issues. The optimism and energy of Carlile's writings stemmed from his firm conviction that the unjust political system of his own day could be completely overturned if only the franchise were extended and the poor were given the vote. On this point history has proved Carlile wrong, which poses challenging questions for democratic republicans today. 

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Since the anniversary of the start of the first lockdown in the UK is approaching, it seemed appropriate to interrupt my 'Experiencing Political Texts' series of posts to reflect on the current situation.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought restrictions to our liberties of a kind that would not previously have been imagined. Under the current lockdown the reasons for which we can leave our homes are severely limited, our right to gather with others in public places is almost completely denied us, and even the control we have over our own bodies is compromised through the requirement to wear a face covering in shops and on public transport. There is also pressure being exerted on us to be vaccinated, and there have even been suggestions that some types of worker will be forced to do this.

This situation has led me to reflect in more detail on the concept of liberty and its history. The right to liberty in the abstract - as well as to the more concrete liberties of free movement, gathering in public spaces, and control over one's own body - were by no means a given in the past. They were only secured after hard fought battles and painful individual sacrifices. Nor are they universally enjoyed across the globe today. Nonetheless, liberty is central to contemporary political philosophies, and politicians of all stripes in the UK are keen to defend and protect liberty.

The virus challenges all of this not only by inducing governments to limit individual freedoms, but also by raising the uncomfortable question of whether the dominant place accorded to liberty in certain societies (including the UK) has actually increased the threat the virus poses to us and our lives. Many commentators have drawn attention to the fact that countries where restrictions on the freedoms of their citizens are more common often have far lower numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths than those countries that prize liberty. Vietnam is often cited on this point. At the time of writing it had recorded just 2,448 cases and only 35 deaths as compared with 4.18 million cases and 123,000 deaths in the UK. While I do not underestimate the value and importance of liberty, I do wonder whether we are paying too high a price for it just now.

Declaration fo the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Liberty has always had to be set against other values - and not just the right to life. Our modern veneration of liberty owes much to the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth century, especially the French Revolution. Its motto was Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. These three concepts were highlighted (and the relationship between them articulated) in the Declaration of the Rights of Man first issued in 1789, which began 'Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.' Soon after 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité was being emblazoned on everything from official documents and political texts to medals and even buildings.

The pandemic has not only brought restrictions to our liberties, but has also raised questions about our commitment to equality. In recent times, equal treatment, in various respects, has been extended for example to women, those from ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. This equality is widely recognised today and enshrined in legislation such as the 2010 Equality Act in the UK. However, our experience of the impact of Covid-19 might lead us to question (if we had not done so before) the extent to which equality operates in practice. Commentators have noted that in many homes the burden of childcare and home schooling is falling more heavily on women than men. A recent government advert that was quickly withdrawn after complaints that it was misogynistic in its depiction of lockdown life, was perhaps more realistic than we might care to admit. As a result, the long term effect of the pandemic on women's careers may be more significant and long-lasting than its impact on the careers of men. There is also clear statistical evidence that both infection and death rates have been higher in people from ethnic minority backgrounds than among the population as a whole. There may be several reasons for this, but it is certainly clear that those with lower levels of income, amongst whom ethnic minority families are overrepresented, have been more harshly affected by the virus. This is true both in terms of rates of illness and death and as regards the impact on employment and household income. Rather than complaining about the restrictions on our liberties imposed by Covid-19, perhaps we ought to be inquiring more deeply into the unequal nature of its impact on our lives.

Fraternity is perhaps less central to political life today than liberty or equality. Not only are the masculine connotations of the word off-putting, but it sits sharply at odds with the liberty of the individual that we so highly prize. Yet for the French revolutionaries, liberty and fraternity were seen as complementary rather than competing concepts, capable of both reinforcing and tempering each other. Certain phenomena this year - including the Thursday night clapping that punctuated the first lockdown and the actions of individuals like Captain Tom Moore - suggest that the sense of altruism and community to which the  concept of fraternity refers has certainly not disappeared completely. Yet at the same time the stockpiling of provisions and ugly scenes in supermarkets that were a feature of the first lockdown, together with vaccine nationalism, raises questions about this me-first attitude remains not just strong but also acceptable.

Early in the French Revolution, not long before the Declaration of the Rights of Man was drawn up, Emmanuel Sieyès published his pamphlet What is the Third Estate? In that work he considered what a nation requires in order to survive and prosper. The nation, he observed, could continue to function efficiently without the privileged orders (the clergy and the nobility). But without the third estate everything would fall to pieces. The third estate, Sieyès argued, contains within itself everything that is required to form a complete nation. He then used this observation to justify the third estate's claim to political representation on an equal footing to that of the other two estates. Within six months of its publication, What is the Third Estate? had been used to justify the establishment of the National Assembly which represented the nation as a whole, but was made up simply of the third estate and those members of the other two estates who chose to join it.

Portrait of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

I was reminded of Sieyès's pamphlet, and of the notions of equality and fraternity it upholds, in the first period of lockdown, when our attention was drawn to the list of key workers who would have to continue working because our society cannot function without them. Despite their importance, it was apparent that many of these roles are neither the best paid nor high status in our society.

We should use the forthcoming anniversary of the lockdown to reflect more deeply on what we have learnt this year, on what Covid-19 has revealed about our society, and on what measures we need to take to construct a better future. Rather than rushing to recapture our lost liberties, I suggest that we devote our energies to reinvigorating our understanding of the other two concepts in the triad - equality and fraternity.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 3: Republics Require Virtuous Citizens

The events of the last two weeks have brought to the fore the relationship between the individual and society. The spread of Covid-19, as well as our ability to access food and other basic necessities, depend on whether people behave in their own or the public interest. Moreover, many commentators have noted that this crisis has brought out both the best and worst in people. Though this blogpost was written before the Coronavirus situation in the UK escalated and we were confined to our homes, exploring the role that virtue can and should play in society now seems particularly pertinent.

Those who have written about the history of republicanism tend to agree that two key concepts lie intertwined at its heart: liberty and virtue. Recent scholarship has placed greater emphasis on the former. Particularly influential has been Quentin Skinner's argument that there is a distinctive understanding of liberty popular with past republican thinkers, which insists that freedom requires not just the absence of physical restraint (as the liberal understanding would suggest) but also not being dependent on another person's will. This understanding of liberty as non-dependence is central to Philip Pettit's influential attempt to establish neo-republicanism as an alternative to modern liberalism today. It is no doubt easier for current advocates of republican government to emphasise liberty, which remains a fundamental and respected value in the twenty-first century, than to try to argue in favour of virtue, a value that, aside from aficionados of virtue ethics, brings with it connotations of ancient self-sacrifice and Christian moralising.

Another myth about republican government that potentially amounts to an objection to its revival in the present, then, is that it requires the exercise of an unreasonable degree of virtue on the part of citizens. As with the other myths that have been explored in this blog, there is some justification for this.

Jacques-Louis David, ‘Brutus and the Lictors’ reproduced thanks to the Getty’s Open Content program.

The ancient philosopher Cicero did much to cement the importance of virtue within the republican tradition. In his book De Officiis (On Duties) he took from Plato's Republic two crucial pieces of advice for those taking charge of public affairs: 'first to fix their gaze so firmly on what is beneficial to the citizens that whatever they do, they do with that in mind, forgetful of their own advantage. Secondly, let them care for the whole body of the republic rather than protect one part and neglect the rest' (Cicero, On Duties, ed. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, Cambridge, 1991, p. 33). Elsewhere in the work he voiced the idea that makes such behaviour seem impossible. Noting that, of the many fellowships that bind humans together, the most precious is the republic, he went on: 'What good man would hesitate to face death on her behalf, if it would do her a service?' (Cicero, On Duties, p. 23). 

This idea that republican virtue requires the subordination of one's private interests to the public good, and that a good republican must be prepared to make immense sacrifices for the good of the whole, was reiterated in the eighteenth century. Perhaps the most powerful reflection of it is to be found in the art work of the French revolutionary painter Jacques-Louis David. His painting Brutus and the Lictors (1789) drew on a famous story from Roman history to explore the central themes of patriotism and the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the state. Lucius Junius Brutus, who had been responsible for expelling the Tarquins from Rome and thereby establishing the republic, discovered that his sons had been acting to restore the monarchy. He prioritised the good of the state over his own family by sentencing his sons to death for treason. While David's picture captures the enormous weight of Brutus's sacrifice, the message is clear that he made the right decision.

This understanding of 'virtue' is still in evidence today in the respect shown to veterans and their families. Moreover it is currently on display among those working in the NHS, care homes, supermarkets, and other essential services who are continuing to attend work despite the risks to their own health. Nevertheless few would welcome the notion, under normal circumstances, that civilian citizens should regularly be expected to put their lives or those of their family on the line for the public good.

I want to offer two thoughts in response to this myth. First that if we understand what is required in less extreme terms we can perhaps find some value in grounding our society more firmly in virtue - in a concern for the public good rather than mere private interests. Secondly, that some republican theorists were well aware that expecting human beings willingly to make huge sacrifices for the good of the public was unrealistic. They suggested, instead, that laws and systems of rewards and punishments could be used to create a situation in which people could be motivated by self-interested concerns to behave in a way that benefited the public as a whole. This approach might offer some possibilities for future policy.

To some degree those of us living in countries with a welfare state already accept the principle of sacrificing individual advantages for the good of the whole. The National Health Service in the UK, for example, is premised on the belief that free health care at the point of need is a public good and that individual citizens must sacrifice a portion of their income in order to pay for it. Similarly, here in the UK taxes ensure that free primary and secondary education is available to all children up to the age of 18, and this is paid for by all citizens regardless of whether they themselves have children, or indeed whether they choose to send their children to state schools.

We could extend this idea to other aspects of society. In an article that I linked to in last month's blogpost, George Monbiot argues that the choice we have to make is between 'public luxury for all, or private luxury for some'. He encourages us to imagine a society in which the rich sacrifice their private swimming pools and the middle class their private gym membership, reinvesting that money in high quality public sports facilities that are open to all. A society where a purpose-built public transport system provides swift, efficient, and comfortable travel for everyone, making it rational for individuals to leave their cars at home or abandon them altogether. One in which private gardens of varying sizes are exchanged for vast public parks complete with imaginatively thought out, well constructed, and properly maintained playgrounds that provide opportunities for all children to play and have fun, while in the process improving their health and wellbeing

Portrait of Pieter de la Court by Abraham Lambertsz van den Tempel (1667). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The problem is how we persuade people to make such sacrifices. We can find some answers by examining republican arguments of the past. While some republicans - particularly those of a strongly religious bent such as John Milton and Algernon Sidney - insisted on the need for genuine virtue on the part of rulers and citizens alike, others - including the Dutch thinkers Johann and Pieter de la Court, the Englishman James Harrington, the Frenchman the Abbé Mably, and the American John Adams - did not have such high expectations of the human capacity for virtue. They accepted that the majority of people would not be willing to make sacrifices for the public good unless it was clearly in their interests to do so. Consequently they argued that laws should be designed so as to direct people towards virtuous behaviour or that other incentives - such as honours and rewards - could be used to induce people to act in the public interest.

Harrington's whole constitutional system was designed with this end in mind. His most famous articulation of the argument was his story of two girls dividing a cake between them. If one girl cuts the cake, but the other gets first choice as to which piece she wants, the first girl will be led by her own self-interest (in this case understood as her desire to get the largest piece of cake) to divide the cake as evenly as she possibly can. Harrington used this as a metaphor for the organisation of legislative power within the state. He insisted on a bicameral legislature and argued that the upper house or senate should make legislative proposals, but the lower house should have the final say as to whether to accept or reject them. By this means the senate would be induced only to propose legislation that was in the public interest, since if they put forward measures in their own interests, the lower house would reject them.

Portrait of Gabriel Bonnet de Mably. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

A different method was proposed by Mably. He insisted that human reason and virtue were too weak to act alone  and that only a small proportion of people in any society would be capable of being led by reason at all times. Yet, he believed that even some of the strongest passions, if carefully orchestrated, could become virtues by being directed towards the public good. Offering rewards for public-spirited behaviour could ensure that ambition or the desire for fame and glory could be channelled towards positive ends. There is a close link between these methods and what modern behavioural scientists call nudge theory.

It would be naïve to think that society could be transformed overnight, but it would also be wrong to think that governments are impotent in these matters. Changes can be made by those courageous enough to do so. On 29 February 2020 the government of Luxembourg introduced free public transport  across the entire country. In addition to seeing public transport as a public good, this is also a move designed to bring an even greater public benefit - that of improving the environment. There is evidence to suggest that this move alone may not be sufficient to encourage car users to make fewer journeys. But when pull factors - such as free public transport - are combined with push factors - an increase in parking fees, congestion charging, and increased fuel taxes - the desired outcome can perhaps be achieved. The pertinent question, then, is not whether citizens are virtuous enough to put the public good before their own private interests, but rather whether politicians are courageous enough to put in place the measures that would induce them to do this.