Socialist origins in the United States: American forerunners of Marx, 1817-1832

156 Pages·1966·3.619 MB·English

by  David Anthony Harris

SOCIALIST ORIGINS IN THE UNITED STATES
AMERICAN FORERUNNERS OF MARX, I 8 I 7-I 8 32
PUBLICATIONS ON SOCIAL HISTORY
ISSUED BY THE
INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS
AMSTERDAM
Director: Prof. Dr. Fr. de Jong Edz.
DR. J.M. MEIJER
KNOWLEDGE AND REVOLUTION
II
DR. B. W. SCHAPER
ALBERT THOMAS
TRENTE ANS DE REFORMISME SOCIAL
UI
SOUS LA REDACTION DE MME DENISE FAUVEL-RO UIF
MOUVEMENTS OUVRIERS
ET DEPRESSION ECONOMIQUE DE I 9 29 A I 9 3 9
IV
DR. DAVID HARRIS
SOCIALIST ORIGINS IN THE UNITED STATES
AMERICAN FORERUNNERS OF MARX, I 817-I 8 3 2
VAN GORCUM & COMP. N. V. - ASSEN - THE NETHERLANDS
SOCIALIST ORIGINS
~'
IN THE UNITED ST A TES
AMERICAN FORERUNNERS OF MARX
BY
DR. DAVID HARRIS
ASSEN MCMLXVI
VAN GORCUM & COMP. N.V. - DR. H.J.PRAKKE & H.M.G.PRAKKE
Printed in the Netherlands by Royal VanCorcum Ltd.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS VII
PREFACE •• IX
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION , , , , , , , , , , . , , . , .. , . , , ,
The rise of industrial capitalism in the us, European influences, the
agrarian democratic environment. The birth of the labor movement,
the creation of workingmen's political parties and the forerunners in
the us.
CHAPTER 2. CORNELIUS BLATCHLY, . , ........ , , • , . , . , IO
Mixed elements in Blatchly's socialism. 'Some Causes of Popular
Poverty' (I8I7). 'An Essay on Common Wealths' (I822).
CHAPTER 3• DANIEL RAYMOND. • • . • • . • • • . . • • • . . • • . . 20
Raymond compared with European counterparts. A radical political
economy. The cause of unemployment. Hesitant reform proposals.
CHAPTER 4. LANGDON BYLLESBY ..••..•••.•....... · • 34
Utopianism of Robert Owen and William Thompson criticised.
Equal rights in theory and practice. The effect of unequal wealth on
the state of society, class and the law, class and war, a 'withering away
of the state' theory. Causes of unequal distribution of wealth. The
competitive system and the introduction of labor saving devices.
Reform proposals.
CHAPTER 5• WILLIAM MACLURE• ..•...•••.•........ · 54
Maclure and Robert Owen. Property, Knowledge and Power, and the
means by which the rich maintain their domination. 'Knowledge is
Power'. Independent political action by the working classes, the
growing power of the monied aristocracy, steps against the cor
ruption of the representatives of the working classes. The New
Social System, Internationalism, War and property.
CHAPTER 6. WILLIAM HEIGHTON. , .. , , ...... , . . . . . . . 82
William Heighton and the founding of the Labor Movement. Work
ingmen unite 'like a band of brothers', political action by the working
classes and the creation of their own organs of opinion. The Power
of Invention.
CHAPTER 7· THOMAS SKIDMORE. • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • • . • • • 91
Thomas Skidmore: 1790-1832. The right to life, liberty and proper-
ty. For the expropriation and division of property so that each person
holds an equal share and the abolition of wills. Children 'equal but
young fellow-citizens', family allowances, full state support of old and
ill. 'Rip all up', against 'political dreamers', Robert Owen. The vast
majority to win political power, increasing concentration of wealth,
inventions, remaking of political system with new distribution of
economic power, counterrevolutionary action to be expected from
rich, force to achieve new system but 'withering away of the state'.
A NOTE ON JOHN BRAY. 140
INDEX I43
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted for helpful criticism of my manuscript to Mr. Stuart
Hall. Similarly I am indebted to Mr. John Saville. Dr. David Herres
hoff of Wayne State University has made a number of valuable
suggestions for which I am very grateful. My thanks go to Mr.
Norman Mackenzie for his help. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to
Professor Richard H. Pear. Professor S.Sydney Ulmer of the Universi
ty of Kentucky, a sharp critic, contributed much in a general way.
The general encouragement of Professor F. T. de Vyver of Duke
University has meant a great deal to me. In Berlin I am very grateful
to Professor Dr. Dr. Ossip K. Flechtheim for his help. I am especially
grateful to Mrs. Sheila M. Blackburn not only for criticism of my
manuscript but for the general help she has given me over a period of
years. All the encouragement Professor W. ]. M. Mackenzie has
generously given me has indirectly but indispensably contributed to
this work and calls forth my deep gratitude. My parents have given
me full and invaluable assistance throughout, and my debt to them is
very great indeed.
The substance of this book was originally successfully submitted as a
doctorate thesis at London University (the London School of Eco
nomics). I was enabled to carry out indispensable research in the
United States through the award of a Graduate Assistantship at Duke
University, North Carolina.

PREFACE
Criticising the view that socialism would have first to be imported
from abroad, Marx and Engels wrote (in The German Ideolo;g, written
1845 /46) thatin fact, 'they [the North Americans] have had, since 1829,
their own socialistic democratic school, against which their political
economist Cooper was fighting as long ago as 1830.' This school is
comparable with that of the precursors and founders of socialism in
Europe, forerunners of Marx and Engels. The role of the Europeans
is well-known. This, however, is not the case with a number of the
Americans. With two of these forerunners prime movers in the birth
of the American Labor Movement and creation of workingmen's
political parties that occurred during the second part of the 82o's,
l
and the others articulate in the preceding decade, more than a century
and a quarter later although interest in them is growing their role has
not yet been adequately and properly recognised.
In his History of Socialism in the United States (New York: Funk and
Wagnalls Co., 1903), Hillquit, one of the principal leaders and theo
reticians of the Socialist Party from the time of its foundation at the
beginning of this century until his death in 9 33 , makes no mention
l
whatever of most of the forerunners in the United States. The record
presented by another prominent member of the Socialist Party, who
was on the National Executive Committee of the party during the
first decade of this century, A. M. Simons, in his Social Forces in
American History (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911), is
only slightly less barren in this respect than that of Hillquit although
Langdon Byllesby and Thomas Skidmore are mentioned.
A number of special studies of the radicalism and socialism in these
formative years have indeed thrown new light on this period; those,
for instance, by Arthur Eugene Bestor, Jr. Of particular signifi
cance is a short study by Louis H. Arky. And recently Byllesby's
Observations on the Sources and Effects of Unequal Wealth has been
reprinted. Moreover there are quite a few works which make a brief
reference to the American forerunners. Several works in particular
are noteworthy for their sympathetic recognition, though only very
J.
briefly given, of one or more of them: Harold Laski in his The
American Democrary (New York: The Viking Press, 1948) of Thomas
Skidmore, and, in an earlier period, Charles Sotheran in Horace
Greeley and Other Pioneers of American Socialism (New York: The
Humboldt Publishing Co., 1892) of Cornelius Blatchly, Langdon
Byllesby and Thomas Skidmore. And in his introduction to the
English translation of Anton Menger's The Right to the Whole Produce
of Labour (London: Macmillan & Co., 1899) H. S. Foxwell drew
attention to what he called the 'New York school of socialists' in
which he included Langdon Byllesby and Thomas Skidmore, com
mented favourably on William Maclure and referred to William
Heighton's Address to the Members of Trade Societies (although not
mentioning Heighton's authorship) which he accurately described as
'one of the earliest of American socialist utterances'.
The theorists and activists who are the subject of this work are not
then wholly unknown. The references to them, however, are either
brief, scattered, deal with a limited side of their activities or fail to
bring out their historical significance.
This work aims at correcting this deficiency in the historical record.