Journal Article•
Language and Political Meaning in Revolutionary America
TL;DR: In this paper, Howe argues that the major metaphors employed in the conflict engendered confusion among audiences due to their unsuitability and pointed out that the attribution of a self-evident meaning to political language failed to provide the political stability its proponents promised.
Abstract: Language and Political Meaning in Revolutionary America. By John Howe. Andover: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004; pp. 1-288. $39.95. John Howe sets out to uncover how eighteenth-century American revolutionaries and their British opponents understood the functioning of language in political society. The result is a cogently argued and well supported analysis of a neglected aspect of the discursive constitution of the American polity in the era encompassing the revolution and the ratification of the Constitution. Howe's study charts the progress of two divergent views regarding the nature and function of political language. The earliest view of language developed during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. During this period, English grammarians sought to "normalize" the English language. These theorists conceived of language as "a fixed and unvarying medium of expression existing apart from the changing contexts of history, a medium stable in its grammar and vocabulary, certain in its meanings, and unambiguous in its capacity to express universal truth." Standardization of the English language, it was believed, would free discourse from ambiguities in meaning and allow it to function as an "instrument of political discipline and control" (5). Not only would such a language obviate the discursive problems associated with a rapidly expanding administrative and commercial empire, it also would satisfy the juridico-political desire for a language of politics that was "simple and clear, exact in its meaning and capable of regulating human behavior, and [existing] as an autonomous system of communication independent of its immediate historical context" (38). "Normalized" English thus would solidify the political gains of the Whig-dominated Parliament following a century of conflict with the Crown by rendering sacrosanct and self evident the meaning of Magua Charta, the Revolutionary Settlement of 1688, and the English common law. However, the attribution of a self-evident meaning to political language failed to provide the political stability its proponents promised. Instead, ironically enough, this conception functioned as an important form of empowerment to American discontents and enabled the growing radicalization of American politics. Colonial opponents to British policies were quick to employ this conception of language to charge the imperial Government with violating the "clear and unambiguous" meaning of its own laws. The idea of "universal" laws embodied in a univocal political language that existed apart from the constantly changing expediencies of practical politics served a vital argumentative ground for colonial rhetors in the years leading up to the outbreak of hostilities. Yet, while both sides assented to the idea of a language of universal truth freed from the vagaries of shifting historical contexts, the deepening conflict between America and Britain served to undermine this confidence in the self-evident meaning of political terms. It soon became apparent to both the Americans and British that the meaning of such terms as "rights" and "liberty" was unstable and subject to contradictory interpretations. And while both sides employed the same terms to justify their respective positions, each invested these terms with widely divergent meanings. Two additional factors accelerated this erosion of confidence in the autonomy of political language. The first was the widespread reliance by both sides on metaphor. Howe argues that the major metaphors employed in the conflict engendered confusion among audiences due to their unsuitability. A case in point was the widely used metaphor of the polity as a family: "Grounded in the centuries-old mutually reinforcing ideologies of patriarchy and monarchy, the analogy offered eighteenth-century commentators a readily understandable metaphor for political relationships, especially those existing between England and the colonies" (111-12). …
Citations
More filters
Dissertation•
27 Jan 2014
57 citations
01 Jan 2015
22 citations
TL;DR: Willam Bollan, a colonial agent in London for 30 years, personified that tendency to argue selectively, both in the petitions he submitted to crown and parliament, and in the pamphlets that he had published in the London press.
Abstract: Colonial Americans defending their rights in the empire did so carefully, often saying only as much as they thought necessary to carry their point, while avoiding needlessly offending Whitehall and Westminster. They may all have believed that their fundamental rights came from God, through nature, as reinforced under positive law, but their arguments did not necessarily include all those component parts. Willam Bollan, a colonial agent in London for 30 years, personified that tendency to argue selectively, both in the petitions he submitted to crown and parliament, and in the pamphlets that he had published in the London press.
10 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the two-stage model of constitutional creation undertaken in 1787-88 created a need for the textual authority of the author (the convention) in the stage before ratification, and challenged recent scholarship that has emphasized the role of popular interpretative authority during the founding period.
Abstract: Contemporary constitutional theory has placed emphasis on the concept that, through ratification, the people provided authority for the constitutional document. This article suggests that the 1787–88 debates over constitutional ratification evince a more complex account of the manner in which constitutional authority is created. Despite a rhetorical commitment to the idea that the framers were merely “writers” acting under the people’s constitutional authority, some Federalists—in particular James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Contee Hanson—looked to the authorial authority of the Philadelphia convention in order to halt attempts at prior amendment. Arguing that the two-stage model of constitutional creation undertaken in 1787–88 created a need for the textual authority of the author (the convention) in the stage before ratification, this essay challenges recent scholarship that has emphasized the role of popular interpretative authority during the founding period.
7 citations
Cites background from "Language and Political Meaning in R..."
...As Howe has documented, Anti-Federalists were highly concerned by the Federalist attitude toward the flexibility of language (Howe 2004, 202–3)....
[...]
TL;DR: The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (DHT) project as discussed by the authors is an ongoing, multivolume project based at the University of Wisconsin that makes available to scholars nearly everything published or written, publicly or privately, pertaining to ratification.
Abstract: This is a propitious time to be studying the U.S. Constitution and its ratification. The invaluable Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, an ongoing, multivolume project based at the University of Wisconsin, makes available to scholars nearly everything published or written, publicly or privately, pertaining to ratification. Pauline Maier’s impressive study, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution (2010), which draws heavily on the Documentary History, provides a solid analytical narrative of the process of ratification focusing on the state conventions. Still other works—some recently published, others in progress—address related constitutional matters and offer additional perspectives. And now comes this book, originally published in German in 1988, its content only partially available until now, and its publication long anticipated by students of the Founding.1 These newer works are welcome because the ratification debate, despite its significance, has had a spotty and frustrating historiographical record. Robert Rutland’s The Ordeal of the Constitution (1966; rev. ed. 1983) was uneven, extremely quirky and impressionistic, largely undocumented, and it focused mostly on the anti-Federalists. Some of the best work came in a pair of edited collections on ratification in the individual states that appeared around the time of the bicentennial of the Constitution. Both collections contained able treatments but neither offered a larger interpretive overview of ratification. Various articles and dissertations, the fugitive chapter or two in random collections, and some review essays all made contributions here and there, but there was still no comprehensive treatment of ratification until the fortuitous appearance of Maier’s book and of this volume.2 The story of this book’s publication history is marked by both persistence and tragedy. The original work was published in German in 1988 after the author had spent considerable time in Madison in regular contact with the
3 citations
References
More filters
Dissertation•
27 Jan 2014
57 citations
01 Jan 2015
22 citations
TL;DR: Willam Bollan, a colonial agent in London for 30 years, personified that tendency to argue selectively, both in the petitions he submitted to crown and parliament, and in the pamphlets that he had published in the London press.
Abstract: Colonial Americans defending their rights in the empire did so carefully, often saying only as much as they thought necessary to carry their point, while avoiding needlessly offending Whitehall and Westminster. They may all have believed that their fundamental rights came from God, through nature, as reinforced under positive law, but their arguments did not necessarily include all those component parts. Willam Bollan, a colonial agent in London for 30 years, personified that tendency to argue selectively, both in the petitions he submitted to crown and parliament, and in the pamphlets that he had published in the London press.
10 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the two-stage model of constitutional creation undertaken in 1787-88 created a need for the textual authority of the author (the convention) in the stage before ratification, and challenged recent scholarship that has emphasized the role of popular interpretative authority during the founding period.
Abstract: Contemporary constitutional theory has placed emphasis on the concept that, through ratification, the people provided authority for the constitutional document. This article suggests that the 1787–88 debates over constitutional ratification evince a more complex account of the manner in which constitutional authority is created. Despite a rhetorical commitment to the idea that the framers were merely “writers” acting under the people’s constitutional authority, some Federalists—in particular James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Contee Hanson—looked to the authorial authority of the Philadelphia convention in order to halt attempts at prior amendment. Arguing that the two-stage model of constitutional creation undertaken in 1787–88 created a need for the textual authority of the author (the convention) in the stage before ratification, this essay challenges recent scholarship that has emphasized the role of popular interpretative authority during the founding period.
7 citations
TL;DR: The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (DHT) project as discussed by the authors is an ongoing, multivolume project based at the University of Wisconsin that makes available to scholars nearly everything published or written, publicly or privately, pertaining to ratification.
Abstract: This is a propitious time to be studying the U.S. Constitution and its ratification. The invaluable Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, an ongoing, multivolume project based at the University of Wisconsin, makes available to scholars nearly everything published or written, publicly or privately, pertaining to ratification. Pauline Maier’s impressive study, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution (2010), which draws heavily on the Documentary History, provides a solid analytical narrative of the process of ratification focusing on the state conventions. Still other works—some recently published, others in progress—address related constitutional matters and offer additional perspectives. And now comes this book, originally published in German in 1988, its content only partially available until now, and its publication long anticipated by students of the Founding.1 These newer works are welcome because the ratification debate, despite its significance, has had a spotty and frustrating historiographical record. Robert Rutland’s The Ordeal of the Constitution (1966; rev. ed. 1983) was uneven, extremely quirky and impressionistic, largely undocumented, and it focused mostly on the anti-Federalists. Some of the best work came in a pair of edited collections on ratification in the individual states that appeared around the time of the bicentennial of the Constitution. Both collections contained able treatments but neither offered a larger interpretive overview of ratification. Various articles and dissertations, the fugitive chapter or two in random collections, and some review essays all made contributions here and there, but there was still no comprehensive treatment of ratification until the fortuitous appearance of Maier’s book and of this volume.2 The story of this book’s publication history is marked by both persistence and tragedy. The original work was published in German in 1988 after the author had spent considerable time in Madison in regular contact with the
3 citations