Arbitrary Rule : Slavery, Tyranny, and the Power of Life and Death

Slavery appears as a figurative construct during the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, and again in the American and French revolutions, when radicals represent their treatment as a form of political slavery. What, if anything, does figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? In Arbitrary Rule, Mary Nyquist explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny. She argues that as powerful rhetorical and conceptual constructs, Greco-Roman political liberty and slavery reemerge at the time of early modern Eurocolonial expansion; they help to create racialized “free” national identities and their “unfree” counterparts in non-European nations represented as inhabiting an earlier, privative age. Arbitrary Rule is the first book to tackle political slavery’s discursive complexity, engaging Eurocolonialism, political philosophy, and literary studies, areas of study too often kept apart. Nyquist proceeds through analyses not only of texts that are canonical in political thought—by Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, and Locke—but also of literary works by Euripides, Buchanan, Vondel, Montaigne, and Milton, together with a variety of colonialist and political writings, with special emphasis on tracts written during the English revolution. She illustrates how “antityranny discourse,” which originated in democratic Athens, was adopted by republican Rome, and revived in early modern Western Europe, provided members of a “free” community with a means of protesting a threatened reduction of privileges or of consolidating a collective, political identity. Its semantic complexity, however, also enabled it to legitimize racialized enslavement and imperial expansion. Throughout, Nyquist demonstrates how principles relating to political slavery and tyranny are bound up with a Roman jurisprudential doctrine that sanctions the power of life and death held by the slaveholder over slaves and, by extension, the state, its representatives, or its laws over its citizenry. CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS CITATIONS INTRODUCTION Ancient Greek and Roman Slaveries POLITICAL SLAVERY AND BARBARISM TYRANNY, SLAVERY, AND THE DESPOTES THE TYRANT AS CONQUEROR AND ANTITYRANNY TYRANNY, DESPOTICAL RULE, AND NATURAL SLAVERY IN ARISTOTLE'S POLITICS ROMAN ANTITYRANNY APPROPRIATION AND DISAVOWAL OF SLAVERY Sixteenth-Century French and English Resistance Theory SERVILITY AND TYRANNY IN MONTAIGNE AND LA BOÉTIE, GOODMAN AND PONET SPANISH TYRANNY, ENGLISH RESISTANCE COLLECTIVE ENSLAVEMENT AND FREEDOM IN VINDICIAE SLAVERY IN SMITH'S DE REPUBLICA ANGLORUM AND BODIN'S RÉPUBLIQUE RESISTANCE Human Sacrifice, Barbarism, and Buchanan's Jephtha BARBARISM, SACRIFICE, AND CIVIC VIRTUE CALVIN, CICERO, AND WRONGFUL VOWS DOES JEPHTHA HOLD THE SWORD? BLOOD(LESS) SACRIFICE Antityranny, Slavery, and Revolution GENESIS, DOMINION, AND NATURAL SLAVERY SERVILITY, TYRANNY, AND ASIATIC MONARCHY IN I SAMUEL 8 GENESIS, DOMINION, AND SERVITUDE IN PARADISE LOST EARS BORED WITH AN AWL IN REVOLUTIONARY ENGLAND REVOLUTION AND LIBERTY CAP Freeborn Sons or Slaves? DEBATING ANALOGICALLY FREEBORN CITIZENS AND CONTRACT FATHERS AND RESISTANCE ANTISLAVERY AND BODIN'S PREEMPTION OF ANTITYRANNY PARKER'S ANTITYRANNY AND ANTISLAVERY The Power of Life and Death BRUTUS AND HIS SONS: LAWFUL PUNISHMENT OR PATERNAL POWER? DEBATING THE FAMILIAL ORIGINS OF THE POWER OF LIFE AND DEATH DEBATING DIVINE SANCTION FOR THE POWER AND LIFE AND DEATH POWER, NO-POWER, AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION ETYMOLOGY AS IDEOLOGY: SERVIRE FROM SERVARE, OR ENSLAVING AS SAVING Nakedness, History, and Bare Life NAKEDNESS NATIONALIZATION OF NATURAL SLAVERY AND ORIGINAL SIN DE BRY'S EUROPEANIZED ADAM AND EVE PRIVATIVE COMPARISON IN PARADISE LOST Hobbes's State of Nature and "Hard" Privativism THE GOLDEN-EDENIC PRIVATIVE AGE CICERO'S SAVAGE AGE SAVAGERY AND THE EURO-COLONIAL PRIVATIVE AGE ANCESTRAL LIBERTIES, INHERITED FREEDOM HOBBES'S STATE OF NATURE AND LIBERTAS FRONTISPIECES Hobbes, Slavery, and Despotical Rule LIBERTY, SLAVERY, AND TYRANNY DISCOMFITED PRESERVATION OF LIFE, CIVILITY, AND SERVITUDE HOBBES'S FEMALE-FREE FAMILY SERVANTS AND SLAVES Locke's 'Of Slavery," Despotical Power, and Tyranny ANTITYRANNY, NOT ANTIDESPOTISM HOBBES, LOCKE, AND THE POWER OF LIFE AND DEATH READING "OF SLAVERY" READING LOCKE REWRITING POWER/NO-POWER HEBREW AND CHATTEL SLAVERY SLAVES AND TYRANTS EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN EPILOGUE INDEX Slavery appears as a figurative construct during the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, and again in the American and French revolutions, when radicals represent their treatment as a form of political slavery. What, if anything, does figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? In __Arbitrary Rule__, Mary Nyquist explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny. She argues that as powerful rhetorical and conceptual constructs, Greco-Roman political liberty and slavery reemerge at the time of early modern Eurocolonial expansion; they help to create racialized “free” national identities and their “unfree” counterparts in non-European nations represented as inhabiting an earlier, privative age.__Arbitrary Rule__ is the first book to tackle political slavery’s discursive complexity, engaging Eurocolonialism, political philosophy, and literary studies, areas of study too often kept apart. Nyquist proceeds through analyses not only of texts that are canonical in political thought—by Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, and Locke—but also of literary works by Euripides, Buchanan, Vondel, Montaigne, and Milton, together with a variety of colonialist and political writings, with special emphasis on tracts written during the English revolution. She illustrates how “antityranny discourse,” which originated in democratic Athens, was adopted by republican Rome, and revived in early modern Western Europe, provided members of a “free” community with a means of protesting a threatened reduction of privileges or of consolidating a collective, political identity. Its semantic complexity, however, also enabled it to legitimize racialized enslavement and imperial expansion. Throughout, Nyquist demonstrates how principles relating to political slavery and tyranny are bound up with a Roman jurisprudential doctrine that sanctions the power of life and death held by the slaveholder over slaves and, by extension, the state, its representatives, or its laws over its citizenry. "Slavery appears as a figurative construct during the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, and again in the American and French revolutions, when radicals represent their treatment as a form of political slavery. What, if anything, does figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? In Arbitrary Rule, Mary Nyquist explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny. She argues that as powerful rhetorical and conceptual constructs, Greco-Roman political liberty and slavery reemerge at the time of early modern Eurocolonial expansion; they help to create racialized "free" national identities and their "unfree" counterparts in non-European nations represented as inhabiting an earlier, privative age. Arbitrary Rule is the first book to tackle political slavery's discursive complexity, engaging Eurocolonialism, political philosophy, and literary studies, areas of study too often kept apart. Nyquist proceeds through analyses not only of texts that are canonical in political thought--by Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, and Locke--but also of literary works by Euripides, Buchanan, Vondel, Montaigne, and Milton, together with a variety of colonialist and political writings, with special emphasis on tracts written during the English revolution. She illustrates how "antityranny discourse," which originated in democratic Athens, was adopted by republican Rome, and revived in early modern Western Europe, provided members of a "free" community with a means of protesting a threatened reduction of privileges or of consolidating a collective, political identity. Its semantic complexity, however, also enabled it to legitimize racialized enslavement and imperial expansion." -- Publisher's description. Slavery appears as a figurative construct in countless cultural and historical contexts, especially during the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, and again in the American and French revolutions, when radical pamphleteers and theorists repeatedly represented their treatment as a form of political slavery. What, if anything, does this figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? This book explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny. Political slavery, whether civil or national, is, it shows, frequently paired with its antagonist, political tyranny. The book tackles political slavery's discursive complexity, engaging Eurocolonialism, political philosophy, and literary studies, areas of study too often kept apart. The author proceeds through analyses not only of texts that are canonical in political thought—by Aristotle, Cicero, Hobbes, and Locke—but also of literary works by Buchanan, Montaigne, and Milton, together with a variety of colonialist and political writings. She argues that “antityranny discourse”—originating in democratic Athens, adopted by republican Rome, and revived in early modern Western Europe—provided members of a “free” community with a means of protesting a threatened reduction of privileges, or of consolidating a collective, political identity. Its semantic complexity, however, also enabled it to legitimize racialized enslavement and imperial expansion. Throughout the book, the author demonstrates how principles relating to political slavery and tyranny are bound up with a Roman jurisprudential doctrine that sanctions the power of life and death held by the slaveholder What, if anything, does this figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? This title explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny. What, if anything, does figurative, political slavery have to do with transatlantic slavery? The author explores connections between political and chattel slavery by excavating the tradition of Western political thought that justifies actively opposing tyranny.