Untold 19th Century Abolitionists ~ Joseph Dejacque & Josiah Warren

We don’t learn about historic figures who were considered “non-governmentist,” do we? We don’t learn about the 19th century American abolitionists who opposed political action, who opposed war and who built several towns, do we? One man is known as the “practical anarchist” with the “first anarchist paradoxical,” also an orchestral leader and inventor of one of the first rotary presses; his name is Josiah Warren. Perhaps you are aware of him due to his efforts, or because his inventions may have been stolen or he had experimental towns that went on with great success for many years and they nearly had a zero crime rate with it’s own monetary system as well. Thus, let us observe his quotes, among another lesser-known abolitionist named Joseph Dejacque. Without further or due, may we let their words speak for themselves and you can make up your own mind, as you should:

Josiah Warren:

“I hardly know which of the two classes is most enslaved, or most to be pitied, slaves or masters.”

“Liberty defined and limited by others is slavery.”

“Public influence is the real government of the world.”

“Children are principally the creatures of example. Whatever surrounding adults will do, they will do... Where parents are obliged to bear the consequences of the child’s acts, the parent must have deciding power. But in things in which the child can alone assume the cost of his acts, he may safely be intrusted to the natural government of consequences.”

Upon realizing his town experiments need individuality rather than collectivism: “it seemed that the difference of opinion, tastes and purposes increased just in proportion to the demand for conformity... it appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us... our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation.”

“Government, and its function is to use force, to prevent him from using force against me and mine; it interferes, with my consent, to prevent interference with my sovereign right to control my own. Its mission is ‘intervention for the sake of non-intervention.’”

“Theorists have told us that laws and governments are made for the security of person and property; but it must be evident to most minds, that they never have, never will accomplish this professed object; although they have had the world at their control for thousands of years, they have brought it to a worse condition than that in which they found it, in spite of immense improvements in mechanism, division of labor, and other elements of civilization to aid them. On the contrary, under the plausible pretext of securing person and property, they have spread wholesale destruction, famine, and wretchedness in every frightful form over all parts of the earth, where peace and security might otherwise have prevailed. They have shed more blood, committed more murders, tortures, and other frightful crimes in the struggles against each other for the privilege of governing, than society ever would or could have suffered in the total absence of all governments whatever. It is impossible for any one who can read the history of governments, and the operations of laws, to feel secure in person and property under any form of government or any code of laws whatever. They invade the private household, they impertinently meddle with, and in their blind and besotted wantonness, presume to regulate the most sacred individual feelings. No feelings of security, no happiness can exist under such circumstances.”

“The more business there is thus committed to governmental management, the more must each of the governed surrender his liberty or control over his own, and the greater must be the amount of power delegated to the government.” (How government is a jack-of-all-trades in destroying freedom and productivity is detailed in “The Thirty-Six Trades of the State” by Ausene Alexandre)

“Experience has proved, that power cannot be delegated to rulers of states and nations, in sufficient quantities for the management of business, without its becoming an indefinite quantity, and in this indefiniteness have mankind been cheated out of their legitimate liberty.”

“Government, strictly and scientifically speaking, is a coercive force; a man, while governed with his own consent, is not governed at all. Deliberative bodies, such as legislatures, congresses, conventions, courts, etc., scientifically speaking, are not government, which is simply coercive force.”

“The right of secession or self-sovereignty... The right of secession being included in, and settled by, the admission of this great universal right, political slavery of all colors is logically at an end.”

“There is nothing in voluntary subordination that violates the natural liberty of the individual, and the fear that natural liberty would uproot all order is as groundless and as futile as the idea that coercive subordination has benefited mankind.”

“Governments commit more crimes upon persons and property and contribute more to their insecurity than all criminals put together.”

“If the human race is destined to any true civilization, the means of attaining it have yet to be learned by old and young. The problem rests in education. The knowledge of the philosophy of governments, of laws, of money, being no part of general education, the masses become mere dupes and helpless victims of ignorant and unprincipled politicians, speculators, and impostors of all kinds, who, from deficiency of education are tempted into such modes of preserving their worthless existence.”

“When one’s person, his labor, his responsibilities, the soil he rests on, his food, his property, and all his interests are so disconnected, disunited from others, that he can control or dispose of these at all times, according to his own views and feelings, without controlling or disturbing others; and when his premises are sacred to himself, and his person is not approached, nor his time and attention taken up against his inclination, then the individual may be said to be practically sovereign of himself and all that constitutes or pertains to his individuality.”

“A ‘Union’ not only on paper, but rooted in the heart, whose members, trained in the constant reverence for the inalienable right of sovereignty in every person, would be habituated to forbearance towards even wrong opinions and different educations and tastes, to patient endurance of irremediable injuries, and a self-governing deportment and gentleness of manner, and a prompt but careful resistance to wanton aggression wherever found, which would meet with a ready and an affectionate welcome in any part of the world.”

Joseph Dejacque:

“Who has been moralised by a slave has slave thoughts in the brain. Who is betrothed to a slave, who is the owner of a slave, is betrothed to slavery, is possessed of slavery. If we want for man new destinies, let us engrave the right, this morality of nature, in the heart of his companion; let's make the oak crown for the girl instead of the orange crown, let's give, let's give a new mold to the human embryo.”

“If the sword of the soldier makes the multitude physical slaves, the catechism of the priest,—a weapon far more dangerous,—makes them moral slaves.”

“Will the activity of my nature be developed all the more by being restrained? It is absurd to assert such a thing. The so-called free workman even in the present state of society, produces more and does his work better than the negro slave. How would it be if he were really and universally free? His productive power would increase onehundred fold.”

“We are an original work and not a copy. The slave models himself upon the master, he imitates. The free man does not produce his type, he creates... They don't want to be slaves, nor would they be masters. Being free, they have the cult of Liberty and practice it from their infancy and confess it at all moments to the ends of their lives.”

“To dare manifest an abolitionist opinion, it's prison, it's affronting the power, it's the dagger, the revolver, being tarred and feathered, atrocities and barbarous punishments, Lynch Law inflicted by bands of loafers on the side of the planters and of their mob of lackey politicians, the legislative bodies, and state executives... All compromise with slavery is a crime.”

“No more government, and thus no more of these destructive ambitions that only use the shoulders of the people, ignorant and credulous, to make of them a stepstool for its covetousness. No more of these candidates acrobats dancing on the rope of the professions of faith, with the right foot for this one and the left foot for that. No more of these political prestidigitators juggling the three words of the republican motto, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity... No more government, and then no more army to oppress the people by the people. No more University to level the young intelligences under the yoke of cretinism, manipulating their brains and hearts, and knead and mold them in the image of an obsolete society. No more magistrate-inquisitors to torture on the rack of examination and to condemn to the stifling of prison or exile the voice of the press and the clubs, the manifestations of conscience and thought. No more executioners, no more jailers, no more gendarmes, no more city constables, no more snitches to track, seize, detain and put to death all who are not devoted to the authorities. No more directing centralization, no more prefects, no ordinary or extraordinary envoys to spread the state of siege through all the departments. No more budgets to recruit, arm, equip, to fatten with potatoes or truffles, to intoxicate with schnick or champagne that uniformed domestic staff from the soldier to the general, from the prefect to the policeman and from the executioner to the judge.”