No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2020
Political theorists often interrogate the constitution of “the people” as a formal theoretical problem. They have paid less attention, however, to how this problem confronts actors directly engaged in political crises, not as a problem of formal theory, but as an urgent problem of practice. Between 1771 and 1783, prominent Bostonians delivered passionate orations to memorialize the Boston Massacre on the annual observance of “Massacre Day.” Rather than focusing abstractly on the people as a formal problem, I turn to this neglected political holiday, examining it through the lenses of affect, performance, and narrative, to demonstrate how orators confronted the pressing problem of making a people. Using public rituals and speech to promote an identity that united powerful emotions with political principles, orators negotiated the paradoxical nature of the people by constructing a model of subjectivity, the patriotic zealot, that intensified political differences and motivated extreme political action.
The author thanks Andrew Murphy, Jason Frank, Robert Martin, Michael Richards, Amy McCready, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Burke Hendrix, Samuel Chambers, Andrew Valls, Julen Etxabe, Lindsey Mazurek, and the University of Oregon Political Theory Workshop, as well as the editor and reviewers at the Review of Politics for their helpful comments.
1 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, On the Social Contract, in The Basic Political Writings, ed. Cress, Donald A. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2011), 153–252Google Scholar.
2 Mouffe, Chantal, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2009)Google Scholar; Frank, Jason, Constituent Moments (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Näsström, Sofia, “The Legitimacy of the People,” Political Theory 35, no. 5 (2007): 624–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Connolly, William, The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Honig, Bonnie, “Between Decision and Deliberation: Political Paradox in Democratic Theory,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 1 (2007): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ricoeur, Paul, “The Political Paradox,” in Legitimacy and the State, ed. E., W. Connolly (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 250–72Google Scholar.
4 For similar approaches, see Frank, Constituent Moments; Espejo, Paulina Ochoa, “Paradoxes of Popular Sovereignty: A View from Spanish America,” Journal of Politics 74, no. 4 (2012): 1053–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dahl, Adam, “Nullifying Settler Democracy: William Apess and the Paradox of Settler Sovereignty,” Polity 48, no. 2 (2016): 279–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Cf. Frank, Constituent Moments, 33–34.
6 Though scholars have discussed individual Massacre orations, the orations as a complete body of texts and the annual rite itself have received little extended attention. For a rare exception, see Gustafson, Sandra M., Eloquence Is Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 171–99Google Scholar.
7 Stow, Simon, “Pericles at Gettysburg and Ground Zero: Tragedy, Patriotism, and Public Mourning,” American Political Science Review 101, no. 2 (May 2007): 202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Hancock, John, An Oration; Delivered March 5, 1774 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1774)Google Scholar.
9 Warren, Joseph, An Oration Delivered March Sixth, 1775 (Boston: Edes & Gill and Joseph Greenleaf, 1775)Google Scholar.
10 Thacher, Peter, An Oration Delivered at Watertown, March 5, 1776 (Watertown: Benjamin Edes, 1776)Google Scholar. Though I pay special attention to these three orations, my analysis focuses on all orations performed until 1778, after which the orations began to move away from the affective, performative, and narrative approach of those performed during the years of increasing tensions and violent hostilities in Boston.
11 On the concept of interpellation, see Althusser, Louis, On the Reproduction of Capitalism (London: Verso, 2014), 190–97Google Scholar, 261–70.
12 Rousseau, Social Contract, 181–83.
13 Ibid., 182.
14 Connolly, Ethos of Pluralization, 138.
15 Honig, “Between Decision and Deliberation,” 3.
16 Connolly, Ethos of Pluralization, 139. Ricoeur, “Political Paradox.”
17 Connolly, Ethos of Pluralization, 139; Honig, “Between Decision and Deliberation,” 2.
18 Ochoa Espejo, “Paradoxes of Popular Sovereignty,” 1053.
19 Whelan, Frederick G., “Prologue: Democratic Theory and the Boundary Problem,” in Liberal Democracy, ed. Roland, J. Penncock and John W. Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1983), 13–48Google Scholar; Miller, David, “Democracy's Domain,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 37, no. 3 (2009): 201–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Habermas, Jürgen, “Constitutional Democracy: A Paradoxical Union of Contradictory Principles?,” trans. Rehg, William, Political Theory 29, no. 6 (2001): 766–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Mouffe, Democratic Paradox.
22 Frank, Constituent Moments, 19.
23 Dienstag, Joshua Foa, “A Storied Shooting: Liberty Valance and the Paradox of Sovereignty,” Political Theory 40, no. 3 (2012): 290–318CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Näsström, “Legitimacy of the People,” 641.
25 Though the zealous patriot may be understood as a precursor to a collective American identity, it is distinct and predates the popularization of national notions of “Americanness.” On the significance of performance in the production of a later American national identity, see Waldstreicher, David, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, This Violent Empire: The Birth of an American National Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 For scholarly histories of the massacre, see Hinderaker, Eric, Boston's Massacre (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zobel, Hiller B., The Boston Massacre (New York: Norton, 1996)Google Scholar; Kidder, Frederic, History of the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770 (Albany, NY: Joel Munsell, 1870)Google Scholar.
27 John Adams to Mrs. Maccaulay, December 31, 1772, John Adams Diary 19, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams.
28 Adams, Samuel, “Article Signed ‘Valerius Poplicola,’” in The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Cushing, Harry Alonzo, vol. 2 (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1907), 336–37Google Scholar. Samuel Adams's argument is consistent with John Adams's reasoning in A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law. There, John argued that subordination of the people to canon and feudal law kept them ignorant of the rights they held by divine grace. Adams, John, A Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, in The Portable John Adams, ed. Diggins, John Patrick (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 209–32Google Scholar.
29 Samuel Adams to Elbridge Gerry, October 29, 1775, in The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing, vol. 3 (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1907), 231.
30 Tudor, William, An Oration, Delivered March 5th, 1779 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1779), 7Google Scholar.
31 Ibid., emphasis in the original.
32 Ibid., 8.
33 The collective identity of New Englanders, which associated New England with homeland, had long been present in the region and conspicuously divided them from other colonial British Americans. See Murrin, John M., “A Roof without Walls: The Dilemma of American National Identity,” in Beyond Confederation, ed. Beeman, Richard, Botein, Stephen, and Carter, Edward C. II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 341–44Google Scholar.
34 Catherine Albanese, Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976), 73.
35 Gustafson, Eloquence Is Power, 189.
36 In his Letter to D'Alembert on the Theatre, Rousseau distinguished the capacity of political rituals to cultivate the republican virtue of patriotism from the corrupting effects of theater as spectacle. Theatrical performances could not improve the sentiments or morals of audiences because they relied on false emotionality to satisfy the preexisting passions and tastes of passive spectators. Theater differed from civic festivals because while the former subjected a passive audience to a corrupt emotional conditioning, civic ceremonies could produce an affective response of love for one's country and one's fellow citizens, and required citizens to be engaged and autonomous participants. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theatre, in Politics and the Arts, trans. Bloom, Allan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960), 18–21, 150–51Google Scholar; Gallagher, Megan, “Moving Hearts: Cultivating Patriotic Affect in Rousseau's Considerations on the Government of Poland,” Law, Culture and the Humanities 15, no. 2 (2019): 514, 506–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Eustace, Nicole, Passion Is the Gale (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 289, 293Google Scholar.
38 Ibid., 286–87.
39 Ibid., 287.
40 Austin, Jonathan Williams, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1778 (Boston: B. Edes and T. & J. Fleet, 1778), 5.Google Scholar Austin's involvement with the Massacre trial is discussed in Zobel, Boston Massacre, 186, 253, 271, 283.
41 Austin, Oration, 10.
42 Hichborn, Benjamin, An Oration, Delivered March 5th, 1777 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1777), 11Google Scholar.
43 Austin, Oration, 10.
44 Ibid.
45 Hichborn, Oration, 10.
46 Austin, Oration, 10.
47 Nietzsche, Friedrich, “Nietzsche's ‘Lecture Notes on Rhetoric’: A Translation,” trans. Blair, Carole, Philosophy & Rhetoric 16, no. 2 (1983): 107Google Scholar.
48 Commenting on their rhetoric, Albanese described the orators as a “history-making people” who required “as vivid and dramatic telling of the story as could be contrived.” Vividly expressing sensation was the orator's “way of establishing a truth: the biggest splash was the sign of the most authentic tale and the means by which one kept the ‘real’ world in view” (Albanese, Sons, 74).
49 Jürgen Habermas's discourse theory of democracy is a notable example of this tendency. See Habermas, Jürgen, Between Facts and Norms, trans. Rehg, William (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998)Google Scholar. Sharon Krause critiques this tendency in normative theories of democratic decision making, particularly those of Habermas and John Rawls, in Krause, Sharon R., Civil Passions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 1–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Likewise, Cheryl Hall critically engages the “trouble with passion in liberal political theory” in Hall, Cheryl, The Trouble with Passion (New York: Routledge, 2013), 21–38Google Scholar.
50 Locke, John, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Fraser, Alexander Campbell, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1959)Google Scholar.
51 Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature (New York: Dover, 2003)Google Scholar.
52 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
53 Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Hanley, Ryan Patrick (New York: Penguin Books, 2009)Google Scholar.
54 Trenchard, John and Gordon, Thomas, Cato's Letters, Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects, ed. Hamowy, Ronald, 2 vols. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1995)Google Scholar.
55 Rush, Benjamin, “The Influence of Physical Causes upon the Moral Faculty,” in The Selected Writings of Benjamin Rush, ed. Runes, Dagobert D. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), 181–211Google Scholar.
56 This fitting description is indebted to Nicole Eustace's aptly titled Passion Is The Gale. Pope, Alexander, “An Essay on Man in Four Epistles,” in The Major Works, ed. Rogers, Pat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 270–308Google Scholar.
57 Mandeville, Bernard, The Fable of the Bees and Other Writings, ed. Hundert, E. J. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997)Google Scholar.
58 Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John, The Federalist, ed. Ball, Terrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 35–46Google Scholar.
59 The social and political climate of Boston during and immediately after the siege by British regulars is detailed in Jacqueline Barbara Carr, After the Siege (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2005).
60 Judith Butler noted that the presupposition of a subject prior to the subject's formation presents the study of processes of subject formation with a “paradox of referentiality” in which “we must refer to what does not yet exist. Through a figure that marks the suspension of our ontological commitments, we seek to account for how the subject comes to be.” Butler, Judith, The Psychic Life of Power (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 4Google Scholar.
61 John Adams, diary entry, March 5, 1774, John Adams Diary 20, Adams Family Papers, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
62 Hancock, Oration, 6.
63 Ibid., 9.
64 Ibid., 9–10.
65 Historians have speculated that Hancock may not have been the author, or the sole author, of the oration he performed. One biographer has suggested that the oration was a collaborative work with Samuel Cooper and Samuel Adams (Fowler, William M., The Baron of Beacon Hill [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980], 165Google Scholar). It has also been suggested that the speech was entirely written by Joseph Warren and Benjamin Church (Kiracofe, David James, “Dr. Benjamin Church and the Dilemma of Treason in Revolutionary Massachusetts,” New England Quarterly 70, no. 3 [1997]: 449CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
66 Warren, Oration, 14–15.
67 Ibid., 15.
68 Ibid.
69 Warren, Oration, 16.
70 Ibid.
71 Gustafson similarly noted the “incarnational logic” of the orations in which the audience “became identified with the orator's body, their voice with his voice” (Gustafson, Eloquence Is Power, 187).
72 Warren, Oration, 16.
73 Ibid., 16–17.
74 Ibid., 22.
75 Ibid.
76 Thacher, Oration, 9.
77 Ibid., 10.
78 Ibid., 11.
79 Ibid., 12.
80 E.g., Austin, Oration, 5; Hancock, Oration, 9.
81 Austin, Oration, 11, my emphasis.
82 Thacher, Oration, 15.
83 Näsström, “Legitimacy of the People,” 641.
84 J. G. A. Pocock noted the prevalence of this trend in civic humanist thought, which was “overmasteringly concerned with the ideal of civic virtue as an attribute of the personality.” Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 316Google Scholar.
85 That republican theorists conceptualized citizenship and civic virtue partly in terms of affect, passion, and sentiment is clear from Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws. In the author's foreword, Montesquieu informed his reader that “virtue in a republic is love of the homeland, that is, love of equality. It is not a moral virtue or a Christian virtue; it is political virtue, and this is the spring that makes republican government move. . . . Therefore, I have called love of the homeland and of equality, political virtue.” See Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, xli. Trenchard and Gordon so strongly believed passions to be determinative of people's political behavior that they understood “knowledge of politicks” as the “knowledge of the passions,” and governing as “chiefly the art of applying to the passions” (Cato's Letters, 276).
86 Acknowledging the difficulty of shaping passions, Trenchard and Gordon celebrated Brutus, Cato, Regulus, Timoleon, Dion, and Epaminondas as models of virtuous public-oriented passions to be emulated. See Trenchard and Gordon, Cato's Letters, 276–77.