spring01final quotes

Read: in The Democratic Idea,

#30, On Liberty (John Stuart Mill) pp. 145 - 150

Mill is considered by many the father of modern libertarian thought. Your headnotes to this article are worth a good read, as they summarize his thinking in language a little easier to comprehend. Some would see Mill's thinking as a corrective to the abuses of majority rule. Others wonder if Mill's thinking, rigorously applied, might not cripple any positive action on the part of government. What are the proper boundaries of government, however? Can any given social program be construed as an infringement on individual liberty?

For Friday, May 10

Read: in The Democratic Idea,

# 36, Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty (Emma Goldman) pp. 177-184
# 29, The Communist Manifesto (excerpts-) (Karl Marx) pp. 137-144

We conclude our semester examination of the Democratic Idea with two essays which challenge Democratic government from very different perspectives. Emma Goldman was an anarchist, feminist, pacifist, and labor organizer who flourished in the early years of the 20th century. She questions the relationship between the individual and any nation. The events and incidents to which she refers will not make a lot of sense to you. The average citizen living then would have seen these in the daily newspaper. However, events of the past year make her observations worth investigating.

As far as the Communist Manifesto is concerned, We're obviously only going to have time to touch the surface. What I'd like to have you do, as you consider this document, is to set up two categories in your mind. The first you might call "diagnosis" ... the critique Marx and Engels make of the world of the 19th century and the historical chain of events leading up to the period in which they lived and wrote (1848). The second you might call "prescription" ... the call to action made. It is possible to be accurate in diagnosis and wrong in prescription (I suppose it is also possible to be wrong in diagnosis and right in prescription), which why this set of categories may be useful to you. .

Q1	Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Q2	If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society, but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.
Q3	Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man; the position of some is rendered worse, and he learns but too well that no people and no individual, however enlightened they may be, can lay claim to infallibility; the condition of others is improved, whence he infers that man is endowed with an indefinite faculty for improvement. His reverses teach him that none have discovered absolute good; his success stimulates him to the never ending pursuit of it. Thus, forever seeking, forever falling to rise again, often disappointed, but not discouraged, he tends unceasingly towards that unmeasured greatness so indistinctly visible at the end of the long track which humanity has yet to tread.
Q4	If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established for the benefit of all, they will be infinitely less than those that will surely come from state legislation regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race. We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow citizens,--our equals before the law. The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead any one, nor atone for the wrong this day done.
Q5	If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed: and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as each may be a check on the other--that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.
Q6	...that we here are highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom: and that government of the people, by th the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Q7	Resolved , That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority. Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.
Q8	The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things,it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.
Q9	The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.
Q10	The doctrine of self government is right - absolutely and eternally right - but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a Negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case he who is a man may, as a matter of self government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the Negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self- government to say that he too shall not govern himself ? When the white man governs himself that is self government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self government- that is despotism. If the Negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal'; and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.
Q11	Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore , the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority over others. The inhabitants of the other spots reason in a like manner, of course....
Q12	Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.
Q13	Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison....If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless when it conforms to a majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs it by its weight
Q14	We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Q15	There is another way in which the general opinion, that women are inferior to men, is manifested, that bears with tremendous effect on the laboring class, and indeed on almost all who are obligated to earn a subsistence, whether it be by mental or physical exertion--I allude to the disproportionate value set on the time and labor of men and women....There is yet another and more disastrous consequence arising from this unscriptural notion--women being educated, from earliest childhood, to regard themselves as inferior creatures, have not that self-respect which conscious equality would engender, and hence when their virtue is assailed, they yield to temptation under the idea that it rather exalts than debases them, to be connected with a superior being
Q16	You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So the purpose of the direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We, therefore, concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
Q17	In the conduct of human beings towards one another, it is necessary that general rules should for the most part be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect; but in each person's own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to free exercise. Considerations to a his judgment, and exhortations to strengthen his well, maybe offered to him, even obtruded on him, by others; but he himself is the final judge. All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.
Q18	Here now, the very being of a woman, like that of a slave, is absorbed in her master. All contracts made with her, like those made with slaves by their owners, are a mere nullity. Our kind defenders have legislated away almost all our legal rights, and in the true spirit of such injustice and oppression, have kept us in ignorance of those very laws by which we are governed.
Q19	Just as we formerly pointed out that "hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions," we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.
Q20	If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that in which the determination precedes the discussion, in which one set of men deliberate and another decide, and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?
Q21	So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, the worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded its adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh entrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old.

Doc. 13 The Declaration of Independence	Thomas Jefferson
Doc. 14 On Election to Parliament	Edmund Burke
Doc. 18 The Constitution of the United States of America
Doc. 19 The Federalist No. 10	James Madison
Doc. 20 The Federalist No. 51	James Madison
Doc 22 Legal Disabilities of Women	Sarah Grimke
Doc. 23 Letters on the Equality of the Sexes	Sarah Grimke
Doc. 24 The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
Doc. 25 The Subjection of Women	John Stuart Mill
Doc. 26 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience	Henry David Thoreau
Doc 27 Speech at Peoria	Abraham Lincoln
Doc 28 Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery	Abraham Lincoln
Doc. 29 The Communist Manifesto	Karl Marx
Doc. 30 On Liberty	John Stuart Mill
Doc. 31 a The Majority Opinion, Plessy Vs. Ferguson	Chief Justice Brown
Doc. 31 b The Dissenting Opinion, Plessy Vs. Ferguson	Justice John Marshall Harlan
Doc. 32. Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka	Chief Justice Earl Warren
Doc 36 Patriotism: a Menace to Liberty	Emma Goldman
Doc. 39 Public Statement (from internet)	eight Alabama clergyman
Doc. 40 Letter from Birmingham Jail (from internet)	Martin Luther King Jr.
Doc. 41 Infinite Perfectibility (from internet)	Alexis De Tocqueville