By way of discussing some of the
conclusions that Richard Price offered in the final sections of his forty-page
anti-establishment pamphlet, Observations
on the Nature of Civil Liberty, it would seem prudent – if perhaps
outwardly counter-intuitive – to first take several steps back in order to establish
exactly how it was that this radical, Non-Conformist preacher settled upon the
outlook which his various arguments and assertions ultimately served to
endorse. The reason such an examination is necessary is that, while the parts
and sections of Observations cited
herein do successfully build towards the conclusion with which that document closes,
perhaps the most crucial idea said conclusion offers does not figure explicitly
into the overall structure of the piece. That is to say, though discussions of
“the Principles of the Constitution” and “the Honor of the Nation” do serve the
case which Price eventually determined to make, perhaps the most striking
element thereof represented the culmination of a train of thought that can be
found threaded throughout the relevant text rather than featured expansively. Indeed,
one gets the impression that, rather than put pen to paper wholly secure in the
knowledge of what point exactly he wanted to make, Price instead set out with
certain ideas in mind about what it was he wanted to discuss and then let the
actual process of writing lead him wherever it would. This lack of
predetermination seems most evident in the way that, between the beginning and
end of Observations, the basic
concept upon which Price eventually settled his examination of the
Anglo-American crisis appeared to be a source of inconsistency and
contradiction.
The question which Price seemed most keen
to answer – and which he accordingly appeared to grapple with across the length
of Observations – was, essentially,
whether it was preferable for the American colonies to maintain their
traditional connection with Great Britain, or whether breaking away entirely
was the better course of action. Doubtless this was a subject upon which many
contemporary observers were given to ruminate, be they British or American, and
which was almost certainly cause for intense philosophical debate among those
who were given to consider the Anglo-American crisis as something more than a
mere question of law and loyalty. Did it make sense for the American colonies
to remain an integral component of the British Empire when the administrators
thereof clearly held no reservations about abrogating the civil rights of the
American people? Would the British people ultimately suffer by being deprived
of their accustomed connection to America? Was it possible that the
Anglo-American relationship had simply run its course? Provided that a person
was not otherwise blinded by an overriding sense of pride or propriety – as a
member of the North Ministry might be forgiven for being – inquiries such as
this were fairly bound to occur.
Noteworthy in his day for being a radical
and a reformer, it is perhaps unsurprising that Richard Price was one of the
few among his fellow Britons to give public voice to such considerations, and
to explore the implications of both positive and negative responses. Despite
seeming particularly fitted to the role, however – and having a pretty definite
bias in favor of the increasingly independence-minded American cause – the
actual course of his engagement with these kinds of questions over the course
of penning Observations betrays a
decided uncertainty as to what, ultimately, the proper course amounted to.
Consider, to that end, one dimension of Price’s thinking, offered in Part II,
Section III. While discussing the degree to which the insistence of successive
British governments upon their absolute authority in America had served to call
too much attention to a legal and political relationship that could not easily
be justified, Price asserted that, had Britain only left well enough
alone,
Luxury,
and, together with it, their dependence upon us, and our influence in their
assemblies, would have increased, till in time perhaps they would become as
corrupt as ourselves; and we might have succeeded to our wishes in establishing
authority over them.—But, happily for them, we have chosen a different course.
By extensions of authority which have alarmed them, they have been put upon
examining into the grounds of all our claims, and forced to give up their
luxuries, and to seek all their resources within themselves [.]
Though ostensibly
discussing the manner by which the North Ministry could have secured the
loyalty of the American colonies rather than push them towards a course of
rebellion, the manner in which he chose to express himself strongly indicates
that Price’s mind was on another topic altogether.
Far from lamenting
the loss of an opportunity by which Britain and American might have been bound
more closely together, he instead exhibits an unambiguous sense of relief at
the colonies being spared such a fate. Having previously made clear his
unadulterated disdain for the luxury and corruption he believed was presently
suffocating whatever virtue yet remained in British social and political life,
Price accordingly declared it a happy accident that the heavy-handedness of the
North Ministry had saved America from the same ignoble destiny by causing them
to reject all things having to do with their colonial masters, “Give up their
luxuries, and […] seek all their resources within themselves [.]” Thus
described, the rupture of the Anglo-American relationship which developed over
the course of the 1760s and 1770s appears a manifestly good thing for the
colonists, having effectively cut off the possibility of any descent on their
part to the kind of corruption and dissipation which certain segments of the
British political and intellectual elite had been decrying for decades.
Particularly noteworthy in this sentiment is a kind of implied self-abnegation
not often given play within the generally hardnosed realm of politics. Though
well aware of the many advantages the government in which he was represented
and the society to which he belonged derived from continued British access to
American resources and American markets, Price nonetheless seems to identify
the ongoing preservation of American virtue – accomplished by the disruption of
the Anglo-American relationship – as being of greater importance. Britain, he
seemed inclined to conclude, was already too far gone in 1776 to avert the fate
to which its love of wealth and luxury had doomed it. But America might have been
saved, and so it most definitely should have been saved.
Price went on to
express much the same sense of relief at America’s separation from Great
Britain in Part II, Section V of Observations.
In the midst of discussing what he considered to be the likelihood of British
military force successfully quelling the incipient American rebellion, he
notably remarked that,
As to their
trade; having all the necessaries and the chief conveniences of life within
themselves, they have no dependence upon it; and the loss of it will do them
unspeakable good, by preserving them from the evils of luxury and the
temptations of wealth; and keeping them in that state of virtuous simplicity which
is the greatest happiness.
Again, Price seemed
unable to stop himself from expressing his abiding disdain for the corruption
to which he believed Great Britain had long-since succumbed. His country, he
was more or less convinced, had become subsumed in a morass of wealth and
ostentation, and was unwilling to defend its founding principles because it
could no longer conceive of their formerly unquestioned value. That America
would (unintentionally) be spared this moral disintegration was thus
understandably a source of some relief. An unspoken but no less significant
aspect of this conviction, of course, is that America could be spared because
it had yet to become quite as preoccupied as British society with the lure of
prosperity and ease. Evidently, Richard Price understood the various American
colonies as collectively embodying something like a time capsule of pre-1690s
Britain, unsullied by the overwhelming influence of central banking,
stock-trading, placemen, and standing armies. Having thus far avoided the worst
excesses of the modern British state, it doubtless pleased Price greatly to
imagine that America should continue in this state indefinitely.
This was, it must be said, a
somewhat rosy portrait of things. Certainly, late 18th century
America was devoid of many of the institutions and mechanisms of state with
which Price most took issue in his native Britain. Prior to the 1780s – at
which point, in 1782, the Bank of North America began its ill-fated attempt to
establish a stable base of credit – there was no national bank with
jurisdiction over the whole of the United States. Just so, there were no stock
exchanges in America prior to the early 1790s, and the existence of a standing
army under the command of the national government remained more or less
anathema as late as 1796. And while there may well have been “placemen” serving
within the various colonial governments – the legislative councils of New York
and Virginia, for example, were both filled via appointment by the Crown, thus
allowing for local favorites and loyalists to be given political influence in
exchange for social or financial support – the limited size of the institutions
in question compared to the vast bureaucracy that existed in contemporary
Britain severely limited the extent to which a given American administration
could become the plaything of the wealthy and influential. America, in short,
as it existed within the larger British Empire, did not particularly resemble
the seat of that empire in its basic political, economic, and institutional
dynamics. This is not to say, however, that such things were not subject to
change, or indeed were not bound to change in the event that the colonies in
question found themselves suddenly in need of resources and institutions that
they had not formerly required. War was an expensive proposition, financial
stability a necessary ingredient of independence, and bureaucratic and military
consolidation perhaps an inevitable consequence of a truly national
administration being summoned into existence.
The American colonies arguably could
not have collectively assumed the powers and responsibilities formerly
exercised by the British government without to some extent also becoming
susceptible to the dangers therein. In order to finance such national projects
as would be deemed necessary and prudent by the nascent government of the
United States, money would need to be borrowed from somewhere, a line of credit
would need to be established, and opportunities would accordingly arise for
profiteering, personal enrichment, and the development of a general dependence
on fast and easy wealth. Likewise, while the vastness of America’s likely
frontier, combined with the existence of hostile native communities and
European empires in close proximity, would seem to have rendered the creation
of some manner of permanent military establishment a fait accompli, such an
outcome was bound to carry with it the potential for any number of unintended
consequences – from the creation of an aristocratic military class within
American society to the emergence of a tyrannical central government with
permanent military backing. Granting, as they say, that hindsight is 20/20,
Price perhaps ought to be forgiven for failing to account for just how many of
these outcomes would indeed shortly befall the nascent American union. He was,
after all, a noted advocate for social and political reform, and thus – almost
by necessity – given to imagine that things which to most people appeared
wholly intractable were in fact entirely capable of being radically altered. In
consequence, while most contemporary observers would likely have predicted that
an independent America would, in due time and in large measure, eventually come
to resemble the empire which it seemed otherwise bent on rejecting, Price was
meanwhile intellectually inclined to imagine that it was possible for a free,
stable, and prosperous government to be erected without necessarily resorting
to the same methods which the ruling classes in his own country took entirely
for granted.
Be that as it may,
however, it would be difficult – even when taking a decidedly liberal view of
the subject – to imagine the post-Revolutionary history of the United States
playing out in a manner other than it did in fact. Even in the event that the
union of states entirely disintegrated – arguably the likeliest outcome that
did not actually take place – the individual states would almost assuredly have
been forced to adopt most of the trappings of nationhood which Price found to
be the source of contemporary Britain’s particular woes. Though smaller by far
than its national counterpart, a Massachusetts Army would certainly have posed
the same threat to the people of that jurisdiction as a United States Army to
the American people at large. Just so, while a Bank of New York or a Bank of
Pennsylvania would inevitably have dealt in smaller amounts than a Bank of the
United States, opportunities for corruption, embezzlement, and financial
manipulation would have abounded all the same. There would almost certainly
have been attempts at innovation, particularly in terms of structure, terms of
office, and the availability of the franchise. Pennsylvania’s unorthodox 1776
constitution, which vested power in a twelve-member council rather than a
singular chief executive, would seem to affirm the likelihood thereof. But in
such matters as would involve interfacing with the wider world – the
establishment of international credit, for example, or national defense – it
seems rather difficult to imagine how even the most dedicated American Whigs
could have avoided all of the sins which were arguably endemic to late 18th
century European-style statehood.
The purpose of this series, of
course – nay, this entire project – is not to call into question the judgment
of the featured authors, but to strive to understand them and their words more
completely and more complexly. In consequence, while Price was almost certainly
guilty within the passages cited above of taking a somewhat naïve view of the
“purity” and “virtue” he perceived in contemporary American society and
culture, what matters in the present context is that he truly believed the
words which he ultimately put to paper. In consequence, regardless of whether
he was ultimately proven to be right or wrong, the assertions which Price
endeavored to advance within the text of Observations
should generally be interpreted as having been wholly sincere. Consider, to
that end, a further passage from Part II, Section V. Having once more given vent
to his spleen over the supposedly degenerated state of contemporary Britain,
Price rallied by way of observing that,
In America we see a number of rising states
in the vigour of youth, inspired by the noblest of all passions, the passion
for being; free; and animated by piety.—Here
we see an old state, great indeed, but inflated and irreligious; enervated by
luxury; encumbered with debts; and hanging by a thread.—Can any one look
without pain to the issue?
Once again, he
seemed unable to resist making known his evident belief that the separation of
the American colonies from the British Empire was likely for the best given the
much corroded state of British virtue. America, to his thinking, was possessed
of youthful vigor, nobility, piety, and passion, all of which he seemed to feel
were virtues in and of themselves. Britain, by comparison, was “enervated by
luxury; encumbered with debts; and hanging by a thread.” Whatever one’s
national attachments, Price’s characterization of these qualities fairly clearly
implied, it was thus the better part of wisdom to sympathize with the nascent
United States. Britain had arguably gone past the point where it was any longer
possible to shrug off the vices that had since the 1690s so completely
transformed its political culture, and there could be no purpose in hoping that
a reversal would take place. America, therefore, represented the next great
bastion of civil liberty in the classical Whig tradition, and the best chance
for such fundamental freedoms as ostensibly guaranteed by the British
Constitution to survive into the 19th century.
Bearing all of this
in mind, it is rather unfortunate that Price’s hopes would at length be dashed.
Banking – on the local, state, and national level – would soon enough become a
central pillar of the American economy, stock trading and land speculation
would become a favored pastime of the wealthy elite, and a bureaucracy the
likes of which the individual colonies could never have supported would very
shortly take shape. The United States, for better or worse, would become a
nation like many others, powerful in some ways and flawed in others, but in no
sense immune to the worst aspects of power, politics, and money. Though Price
did not live to see this transformation – having passed away in 1791 – Thomas
Jefferson did. A radical reformer of much the same opinion as Price on a number
of subjects, it would accordingly seem a safe assumption that the reaction of
the Sage of Monticello to the evolution of the American republic from virginal
stronghold of piety and virtue to bustling fiscal-military state might be taken
as a reasonable gauge of how the author of Observations
would himself have measured the socio-economic progress of the American
communities in which he held such a keen and passionate interest. Consider, to
that end, a passage from a letter written by Jefferson in May of 1816 to fellow
Virginian John Taylor (1753-1824). At seventy-three years old, and having just
watched the nation he helped build struggle mightily to fund a second sustained
military conflict against Great Britain, the author of the Declaration of
Independence declared that banking – in which the outcome of said war had
prompted a renewed interest – was,
A blot left
in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction,
which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its
progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens.
President James
Madison, it bears noting – friend, ally, and protégé of Jefferson – had gone
against longstanding Republic Party dogma by agreeing to charter a second
national bank in April of 1816. Jefferson’s lament to John Taylor the following
month was thus likely motivated in equal parts by personal as well as
philosophical frustration. That being said, considering the degree to which
Price seemed to align with the Sage of Monticello in their common ideological
and moral aversion to high finance, it would seem far from a stretch to imagine
the author of Observations reacting
in much the same way. Notwithstanding the hope he manifested in the 1770s,
America would at length have disappointed him if he had but lived long enough
to see it.
He did not, of course, and that was
very possibly for the best. In spite of the cynicism with which he appeared to
regard the culture and politics of his homeland, Richard Price was, in the
general tenor of his philosophical outlook, an idealist at heart. Britain, he
time and again affirmed, may well have become corrupted beyond redemption, but
the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies yet had
a great deal for which to be thankful and hopeful. Having separated themselves
from the corrupting influences inherent to the structure and function of the
contemporary British state, they were accordingly secure in the preservation of
that quality of liberty and virtue to which the people of Britain proper could
no longer lay claim. Not only did this bode well for the American colonists –
now safe from the degeneracy which had terminally infected Britain – but the
world at large stood to benefit from the result. Speaking to this rather lofty
claim in the aforementioned Part II, Section V, Price asserted that,
It may be
permitted on purpose to favor them, and in them the rest of mankind; by making
way for the establishment, in an extensive country possessed of every
advantage, a plan of government, and a growing power that shall astonish the
world, and under which every subject of human inquiry shall be open to free
discussion, and the friends to Liberty, in every quarter of the globe, find a
safe retreat from civil and spiritual tyranny.
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