John Locke, Abolitionism, and the Reactionary Enlightenment
In the increasingly polemical abolitionist and pro-slavery literature of the eighteenth century, John Locke’s thought was often tokenized. Both sides appealed to him in their respective defenses. Abolitionists centralized the anti-slavery elements inherent to his social contract theory – natural lib...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Aperio
2025-01-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Modern Philosophy |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://jmphil.org/article/id/2503/ |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | In the increasingly polemical abolitionist and pro-slavery literature of the eighteenth century, John Locke’s thought was often tokenized. Both sides appealed to him in their respective defenses. Abolitionists centralized the anti-slavery elements inherent to his social contract theory – natural liberty, self-ownership, and the necessity of express consent – while pro-slavery apologists foregrounded his entanglements in colonial politics, specifically his role in composing the Carolina constitution. Things changed rather dramatically in the nineteenth century. Right around the time England abolished the slave trade in 1807, a string of successful vindication narratives helped to liberate Locke from his linkages to slavery. As a result, not only did prominent slavocrats begin to ridicule the Carolina constitution, but they also came to see Lockean natural law thinking as much more fundamentally incompatible with their worldview. This is the tradition Louis Hartz called the “reactionary enlightenment.” Leading nineteenth-century defenders of slavery in America, like John Gillies, George Fitzhugh, Henry Hughes, Albert Taylor Bledsoe, and Robert Dabney, dedicated a great deal of energy to refuting Locke’s ideas of natural liberty and express consent. They believed Lockean natural right principles had contaminated America at its founding and that Locke’s fetishization of individual liberty had become an obstacle to the development of a pro-slavery society. These attacks demonstrate the centrality of Locke’s influence in nineteenth-century humanitarian and liberatory movements. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2644-0652 |