Liberty Chronicles

Michael Douma joins us for the first part of a two-part series to discuss how we see the past as as an interpretative history. He argues that history is a creative discipline because we choose to arrange facts in a certain way.Douma goes through his new book, Creative Historical Thinking, and how he typically asks his students to draw a timeline of their lives or a timeline of American history. Quite often, each students’ timeline forms differently. Relating that to the study of the past, Douma argues that every timeline a historian draws, is a different interpretation of the past, creating history. Everyone has a different mental model or “timeline” in which they view their lives and that allows history to be a creative endeavor.Is the past simply what happened? With that in mind, is history our interpretation of the past? Is history how we give meaning to the past? What is the difference between an error in conception and an error in fact? If you had to drawl the timeline of your life how would you drawl it

Timothy Sandefur joins us this week to discuss how Frederick Douglass and his beliefs do not align perfectly to today’s political factions. He is often mischaracterized due to his legendary status. Has Douglass been purposefully distorted over time? Does the omission of facts about what he did and how he acted play a large role in that distortion?Frederick Douglass is defined as an individualist, which is best exemplified by his speeches and attitudes toward serving in the military. In his speeches and writings, he believed that slaves should join the army, not to serve their country, but rather, to give themselves a sense of pride. This, he believed, was a crucial way for the slaves to feel empowered because they earned their freedom in a way that ensured that it would never be taken away.Further ReadingFrederick Douglass: Self-Made Man, by Timothy SandefurHow Libertarians Ought to Think About the U.S. Civil War by Timothy SandefurNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Him

1848 was a wild ride. That year the Free Soil Party tried to force Whigs and Democrats to take a stand on the issue of slavery in the territories. Once and for all, politicians would have to openly declare themselves either in favor of Free Soil for free society or Slave Territory, for the planters’ personal dominion.Further Readings/References:Johnson, Reinhard. The Liberty Party, 1840-1848: Antislavery Third-Party Politics in the United States. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University. 2009.From historian Joel Silbey:The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting Behavior, 1841-1852. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 1967.Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2002.Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Election of 1848. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. 2009.Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The average Free Soiler was a radical Loco-Foco, probably from New York, touched by more than a decade of early libertarianism. But always and everywhere there were also the opportunists, the schemers, the self-advancing office seekers, desperate to leverage free soil into greater personal power, and right there at the top of this magnificent new party was the schemer in chief, the little magician, the Red Fox of Kinderhook, the architect of the Second Party System itself, and now the perpetrator of one of the dirtiest double games in all of politics, Martin Van Buren.Further Readings/References:For an overview of the later Loco-Foco movementBlue, Frederick. The Free Soilers, Third Party Politics, 1848-54. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 1973.Earle, Jonathan. Jacksonian Antislavery & the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2004.Mayfield, John. Rehearsal for Republicanism: Free Soil and the Politics of Antislavery. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat

The Polk Administration was a strange time in the early history of American Libertarianism called Locofocoism. In many ways, it was the time of ultimate triumph. Polk was as committed to their economic program as anyone else on the national stage, including their champion, Martin Van Buren. He was a Republican nationalist and an expansionist, and so were many of the more hopeful and naive Locofocos. By 1844, Locofocoism was all over the country, from the shores of New England, through the mountains of New York, and out to the plains of Ohio and Wisconsin, right the way down, even in the South, to places like Montgomery, Alabama, and for at least a brief period, Polk was their man. Everything looked bright, but the peace within the democracy was uneasy at best. Then along came Polk’s war on Mexico, an unforgivable tragedy to some, and an insurmountable political disaster to most others. To set things aright, to protect the power and interests of the North’s free citizens, to expand the zone of liberty and Repu

In the end, a few thousand early libertarians in New York made the Mexican War a possibility. And almost right away, Polk began betraying Van Buren defectors. He ignored Van Buren’s cabinet suggestions and supported the conservative faction in New York.Further Reading:For an overview of the later history of locofocoism“The Artist as Exemplar: Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life”A quick life of Thoreau in the Encyclopedia of LibertarianismWalt Whitman’s Democratic Vistas (1871)Polk’s Special Message to Congress (11 May, 1846)Lincoln’s “Spot Resolutions” at the National ArchivesMusic by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Nima Sanandaji has a PhD in Engineering from Stockholm’s Royal Institute, and he has written over 20 books on policy, philosophy, current affairs and history. He joins me now to talk about his latest, “The Birthplace of Capitalism,” which explains how and why ancient Middle Easterners invented capitalism and entrepreneurship.Further Reading:Nima Sanandaji’s Wikipedia entryHis latest book, The Birthplace of Capitalism: The Middle East, Timbro (2018)Dr. Sanandaji’s 2016 speech on Nordic socialism at the Cato InstituteRoderick Long joins Free Thoughts to talk about libertarian themes in ConfucianismMusic by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Corporations are so commonplace, so ubiquitous, and considered so necessary that we barely stop to ask whether it’s ever been justifiable in the first place. Here to help us tackle one of the great, relatively forgotten questions in Libertarian history is Gary Chartier.Further Reading:Gary Chartier’s Wikipedia entryHis archive at the Center for a Stateless Society“Corporations: A Contractual Program” in Literature of Liberty, December 1979“The Limited Liability Corporation” in Literature of Liberty, September 1982William Leggett, “The Restraining Law and Its Abominations,” August 1836Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the grand catalog of 19th century America, there are few villains so worthy of a Libertarian’s scorn, as James K Polk. The Jacksonian period was one flush with eager upstarts, middling men who hit it big with cunning and peculiar talents. Polk, too, was one of these eager, young, upstart Americans.Further Reading:Frances Whipple, ed. Liberty Chimes. Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society of Providence. 1845.May, Robert. Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 2002.Morrison, Michael. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1997.Sellers, Charles. James K. Polk, Jacksonian: 1795-1845. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1957.James K. Polk, Continentalist: 1843-1846. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1966.Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We often learn that Manifest Destiny was the invention of racists and conquest-hungry imperialists, and there is some truth to that, but much as historians have ignored it and much as we might like to do the same, America’s first libertarian movement was also responsible. Jacksonian radicals called Locofocos provided the ideology that helped transform the United States from a limited republic into a continental empire. Uncomfortable as it might be, we will find that their early libertarianism was a jumping-off point for what only later became a much more typical racist imperialism.Further Reading:“Battling the Empire,” Part One and Part Two“The Oregon Question”“A Latent Leaning Toward Texas:” Republicanism vs. EmpireJohn L. O’Sullivan: The Great Nation of FuturityHorsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1981.Merk, Frederick. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. New York: Knopf. 1963.Stepha

As we have seen over the last several months on this show, America’s first libertarian movement called Locofocoism was, but one among many reform movements dotting the Jacksonian period. For a century and a half, historians have diligently detailed the stories of abolitionists, working people, feminists, land reformers, prohibitionists, suffragists, and suffragettes, free lovers, communists, industrialists, progressivists, free thinkers, transcendentalists, socialists, and the Young America Artistic Movement that lent credibility to the broad cause of reform. This week, we turn to an example of yet more mixed success in which radical Locofocoism was both implemented and watered down at the same time. New York’s Anti-Rent War and the Revolutionary Constitution of 1846.Further Reading:“Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions,” 7 June 1629Stephen B. Miller, Historical Sketches of Hudson, Embracing the Settlement of the City, City Government, Business Enterprises, Churches, Press, Schools, Libraries, &c. Hudson: B

Frances Whipple was born into the quintessential American aristocratic family. On her father’s side, the Whipple line included Rhode Island heroes like Abraham, who led the burning of the British ship Gaspee in 1772, and some of the earliest settlers of the colony. On Frances’ mother’s side, the Scotts included some of Roger Williams’ earliest and closest associates in the foundation of the Rhode Island colony. In 1815, though, nature leveled the Whipple clan. A storm called the Great Gale ravaged Providence, flooding wharves and destroying crops within a 40-mile radius of the city. It was also the year without a summer, thanks to the Tambora volcano in Indonesia, which erupted so violently that the ash clouds actually cooled the planet. With a future of nothing but drought, sooty clouds and gloom, her father sold the family farm in 1816 and Whipple was destitute. Frances supported herself through odd jobs and self-education. She became a very different sort of Whipple, and over her lifetime, she helped make

Little is known about the personal life of Ann Parlin, the woman who came up with the idea for clam bakes to raise relief money for the families of imprisoned suffragists. She married Dr. Louis Parlin on July 7th, 1839, in Maine before moving to Providence. In 1841, they appear in the city’s business records through Dr. Parlin’s homeopathy clinic. He’s considered the founder of homeopathy in Rhode Island, and he practiced there for two to three years while participating in the city’s bubbling radical politics. The Parlins were fairly well off and Louis was a landholder or a freeman allowed to vote, but both of them believed fully in the people’s sovereign power to reform their governments at will.Further Reading:“A Woman of Spunk: Ann Parlin’s Vision for Revolution”Russell DeSimone, “Lewis and Ann Parlin” in Rhode Island’s Rebellion: A Look at Some Aspects of the Dorr War, Bartlett Press. 2009.Comegna, “The Dupes of Hope Forever: The Locofoco of Equal Rights Movement, 1820s-1870s,” (PhD Diss.) University of P

We are celebrating Liberty Chronicles’ one year anniversary with a special Free Thoughts/Liberty Chronicles crossover episode featuring Free Thoughts Podcast host Trevor Burrus. We’ll discuss the Dorr War and its Supreme Court Case Luther v. Borden.Further Reading:Luther v Borden (1849)—Taney’s Majority Opinion and Woodbury’s Dissenting OpinionDennison, George M. The Dorr War: Republicanism on Trial, 1831-1861. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press. 1976.Gettleman, Marvin. The Dorr Rebellion: A Study in American Radicalism: 1833-1849. New York: Random House. 1973.Grimstead, David. American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. 1998.Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Steve Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in Ball State University’s economics department. He has a PhD in economics from George Mason University, and his most recent book is Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions. In the interest of more clearly identifying the relationship between his highly theoretical discipline and our evolving set of humane histories here on Liberty Chronicles, Professor Horwitz joins us now.Further Reading:Steve Horwitz’ personal websiteHis Libertarianism.org author’s pageHis FEE author’s page“Libertarians and ‘Unicorn Governance,’” A Cato Daily Podcast Interview (Jan. 25, 2017)Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Liberty Chronicles, we are joined by Mike Douma and Phil Magness to discuss their new book “What is Classical Liberal History?”  Mike Douma is an Assistant Research Professor at Georgetown University and the Director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics. Phil Magness is a professor at Berry College’s Campbell School of Business and author of Colonization after Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement.Further Reading:Douma & Magness, eds. What Is Classical Liberal History? Lexington Books. 2017.“Creative Historical Thinking,” Mike Douma’s blogPhil Magness’ personal websiteBenedetto Croce, Selections from History as the Story of Liberty. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. 2000.Comegna, ed. Liberty and Power: A Reader. Washington, D.C.: The Cato Institute. 2017.Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David M. Hart is the Director of Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty. His latest book, Social Class and State Power, is a reader in libertarian class theory including documents from Richard Overton in the English Civil Wars all the way down to Libertarianism.org contributor Roderick Long.Further Reading:Hart, Chartier, Kenyon, and Long (eds.), Social Class and State Power: Exploring an Alternative Radical Tradition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.David Hart, ed. Tracts on Liberty by the Levellers and their Critics (1638-1660), 7 Vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. 2014. John Wade, The Extraordinary Black Book: An Exposition of Abuses in Church and State, Courts of Law, Representation, Municipal and Corporate Bodies; with a Precis of the House of Commons, Past, Present, and to Come. London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange. 1832. Republished by Liberty Fund.Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In July 1842, Rhode Island had two state governments divided into armed camps. The rest of New England watched, wondering if what they called “The Rhode Island Question” would spill into a widespread civil war. The fight was over which of the state’s two dueling authorities was legitimate—the Charter government established in 1663 by King Charles II, or the People’s Constitution which bypassed the legislature with a popular convention and vote.Further Readings/References:Dennison, George M. The Dorr War: Republicanism on Trial, 1831-1861. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press. 1976.Gettleman, Marvin. The Dorr Rebellion: A Study in American Radicalism: 1833-1849. New York: Random House. 1973.Frances Whipple & Levi Slamm: “Let Usurpers Tremble: The Unrepublican Anomaly” (1842)Ann Parlin, Speech at New York’s Shakespeare Hotel (1842)Marcus Morton’s Clam Bake Letter (1842)Music by Kai Engel See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Last week on Liberty Chronicles, we left off with May 19, 1842, when Thomas W. Dorr—The People’s Governor of Rhode Island, dressed up like Napoleon and carrying a sword—ordered his makeshift little army to storm the Providence state arsenal.. Most of Dorr’s warriors, though, were young men trying to impress girls in their neighborhoods. It was the furthest thing imaginable from a professional, committed army, and when met with even slight resistance, Dorr’s lines broke and his army scattered.Further Readings/References:Chaput, Erik. The People’s Martyr: Thomas Wilson Dorr and His 1842 Rhode Island Rebellion. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. 2013.Conley, Patrick T. Democracy in Decline: Rhode Island’s Constitutional Development, 1776-1841. Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society. 1977.Dennison, George M. The Dorr War: Republicanism on Trial, 1831-1861. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press. 1976.Gettleman, Marvin. The Dorr Rebellion: A Study in American Radicalism: 1833-1849. New York: Rando

In Rhode Island, 1842, politician Thomas W. Dorr (calling himself “The People’s Governor”) threatened civil war throughout New England. His main target was the famous colonial Charter issued by King Charles II in 1663. In the 19th century the document of world historical importance—the planet’s oldest existing written constitution at the time, and surely the most liberal in its own day. Radical Jacksonian and America’s first professional historian, George Bancroft, declared, “Nowhere in the world have life, LIBERTY, and property been safer than in Rhode Island.”Further Readings/References:Chaput, Erik. The People’s Martyr: Thomas Wilson Dorr and His 1842 Rhode Island Rebellion. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. 2013.Conley, Patrick T. Democracy in Decline: Rhode Island’s Constitutional Development, 1776-1841. Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society. 1977.Shalhope, Robert. “The Radicalism of Thomas Dorr,” Reviews in American History 2, No. 3 (Sep., 1974): 383-389.Dan King, “The Life and Times of Th