© 2016 Noah R. Eber-Schmid ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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© 2016 Noah R. Eber-Schmid ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DEMOCRACY’S FANATICS: POLITICAL EXTREMISM AND DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC By NOAH ROBERT EBER-SCHMID A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Political Science Written under the direction of Stephen Eric Bronner And approved by ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Democracy’s Fanatics: Political Extremism and Democratic Politics in the Early American Republic By NOAH ROBERT EBER-SCHMID Dissertation Director: Dr. Stephen Eric Bronner Extending insights from contemporary democratic theory to the history of American political thought, this dissertation examines how extremism and fanaticism shaped practices of popular democratic politics during the American Founding era. Focusing on the ways that political actors advocated intractable positions and used passionate, intolerant, and often violent means to resist perceived obstacles to democratic political equality, this project demonstrates that extremism can be a democratic tool when it animates public opinion to resist and remove obstacles to political equality. Concentrating on the discourse of patriotism, zealotry, insurrection, and popular sovereignty surrounding the Boston Massacre and its memorialization, the unrest of Shays’s Rebellion, the political thought of Democratic Societies, and American reactions to the French Revolution, this dissertation argues that American democratic theory must rethink how popular democratic politics is conceptualized and address the theoretical question of what role a democratic politics shaped by extremism plays in the democratic life of the American polity. Following this insight, a new appreciation for the role of “extremists” in advancing democratic claims is necessary. ii Acknowledgments Many people have had a supporting hand in helping me along the path to completing this dissertation. My advisor and dissertation director, Steve Bronner, provided a constant source of encouragement, both as a sympathetic supporter and perceptive critic. Andrew Murphy carefully read and reread drafts of each chapter, providing helpful comments and direction, particularly with regards to historical and methodological considerations. I am also indebted to his graduate seminar on American Political Thought for sparking my interest in the topic and launching me on the path towards my current research. Dennis Bathory played a key role in introducing me to the world of democratic theory and the history of political thought with eye-opening conversations in the first days of my graduate studies, and I am thankful for his help at the other end of my training. I would also like to thank Jason Frank for serving on my dissertation committee. This project has benefitted significantly from his careful reading and challenging questions. In its early stages, elements of this dissertation were presented at meetings of the Rutgers Political Theory and Public Law Working Group, the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis, the American Political History Institute, the Western Political Science Association, the Association for Political Theory, and the Northeastern Political Science Association, and I am thankful for helpful comments by discussants and audience members at each of these meetings. This dissertation was immeasurably helped by the support of a University and Louis Bevier Dissertation Fellowship and a graduate fellowship from the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis. iii In addition to the professional and institutional support I received, this project would not have been possible without the personal support of my friends and family. Though there are too many to thank here, I would like to single-out Jonathan Seguine, Michael Richards, Alex Holmstrom-Smith, and Sarah Morgan-Smith for the time they spent patiently listening to or reading the ideas that went into making this work a reality. Finally, I would like to give a special thanks to Barbara Eber-Schmid and Robert Schmid for their constant support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract of the Dissertation ............................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iii Chapter One: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Fanaticism, Democracy, and the American Founding Era Chapter Two: Patriots in The Court of Pandæmonium ................................................................ 41 Massacre Day and the Patriot Zealot in Revolutionary Boston, 1770-1783 Chapter Three: Hostis Republicae .............................................................................................. 111 Extremism and Popular Deliberation in an American Insurrection, The Massachusetts Regulation of 1786–1787 Chapter Four: Democratic Friends and Aristocratic Enemies .................................................... 166 Extreme Speech and Popular Sovereignty in the 1790s Public Sphere Chapter Five: Faction’s Jacobin Fanaticks ................................................................................. 232 The Democratic Extremist as an Object of Political Fear Chapter Six: Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 285 The Challenge of Democratic Extremism Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 309 v 1 Chapter One: Introduction Fanaticism, Democracy, and the American Founding Era “Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium and rage are to anger…Once fanaticism has corrupted a mind, the malady is almost incurable.”1 Fanaticism, according to Voltaire in the Philosophical Dictionary, is a disease whose epidemic tide can only be turned-back by the inoculating power of “philosophical spirit.”2 As a political malady, fanaticism is a contagion that sickens the body politic as it sickens the man. Clouding his mind with irrational thoughts believed to be “Truth,” the fanatic lacks all reason. Within man, fanaticism degenerates reason, infecting the body and corrupting the mind. Within the body politic, fanaticism infects political discourse, threatening democratic polities by spreading intolerance, subverting reasoned deliberative discourse, and undermining liberal democratic regimes. The figure of the fanatic looms large in modern democratic history. Derided and rejected since before the Age(s) of Enlightenment(s), the fanatic is a figure whose alleged commitment to abstractions, rejection of the terms of political rationality, ardent devotion to a singular cause, unchecked passionate fervor, intolerance, and Manichean worldview have caused him to be dismissed as irrational and intolerable. Yet fanaticism, zealotry, and extremism have also historically accompanied the revolutionary and post-revolutionary prosecution of popular democratic politics. This juxtaposition of political extremism with the struggles 1 François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, “Fanaticism,” from The Enlightenment Reader, ed. by Isaac Kramnick (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 117-118. 2 Voltaire, “Fanaticism,” 118. 2 of democracy reveals an overlooked and intimate relationship between the two. From its beginnings, the practice of democratic politics in the United States has frequently involved conflicts over the continuing institutionalization of democracy, as well as the limits and forms of popular democratic practice. These often bitter and sometimes violent disagreements consistently feature the clash of two forces. On one side, we see constituted authorities, institutions, political elites, and governing officials that promote the hegemony of a particular interpretation of political order. On the other side, we find citizens, insurgents, and mass movements that seek to reform, resist, or remake this political order. Over the course of American history, clashes between these two forces have featured actors denounced as fanatics and extremists. This observation alone invites a theoretical and historical inquiry into the nature of this association in early American political thought. Yet, the need for an investigation into these historical, philosophical, and conceptual associations, the nature of practices that are both democratic and extremist, and the power relations and political conflicts in which they are enmeshed also derives from a more immediate and practical observation. Democratic practices today continue to be associated with extremism, rightfully or not.3 3 Reactions to contemporary democratic movements such as Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) by both governmental agencies and popular commentators demonstrate the persistence of this association. In December, 2012, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund released documents revealing that the FBI investigated OWS as a potential threat of “domestic terrorism.” (Alice Hines, “FBI Investigated ‘Occupy’ As Possible ‘Terrorism’ Threat, Internal Documents Show,” The Huffington Post, 24 December 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/fbi-occupy-wall-street_n_2355883.html).