The majesty of the people : popular sovereignty and the role of the writer in the 1790s

257 Pages·2014·1.1 MB·English

by  Green, Georgina Laura

The MajesTy of The PeoPle
oXfoRD eNGlIsh MoNoGRaP hs
General Editors
helen barr david bradshaw paulina kewes
hermione lee laura marcus david norbrook
fiona stafford
The Majesty of the
People
Popular Sovereignty and the Role of the
Writer in the 1790s
GeoRGINa GReeN
1
1
Great Clarendon street, oxford, oX2 6DP,
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first edition published in 2014
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In memory of Ralph Philpin Powell and
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Acknowledgements
This book has been a long time in the making, and there are many people
I would like to thank. Most of them not only made the whole thing pos-
sible, but also made it a rewarding experience that I am already feeling
nostalgic about, and wondering if I’ll ever be able to repeat. I gratefully
acknowledge the support of the arts and humanities Research Council
who supported the doctoral research with which this book began. I owe
so much to the encouragement, intellectual engagement, time and gen-
erosity of jon Mee, who seemed to see the potential of this project right
from its beginnings as a thesis proposal. Though I have often enjoyed the
solitude of writing this thesis, in reality I would not have been able to
enjoy that independence if I hadn’t had a strong sense of an academic
community around me, whether at oxford, Carleton, or Warwick uni-
versities. special thanks to some people who have given me invaluable
advice at various points in this process as well as inspiring me with their
example: Mary fairclough, Ben Brice, fiona stafford, lucy Newlyn, Paul
Keen, and judith Thompson. The examiners’ report of john Barrell and
Mark Philp, and the anonymous reader’s reports from oUP improved the
book almost beyond recognition, beyond what I could have understood
as possible at the time. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the
teachers and tutors who encouraged me earlier on in my education: john
Dixon, Matthew scott, Charlotte Brewer, and emma smith. Thank you,
too, to the librarians at hertford, at the oxford english faculty, and in the
Bodleian Upper Reading Room, for feeding me with books over the last
decade. The books that I couldn’t resist buying for myself are grateful to
my husband for moving them from house to house several times over the
years––a feat of endurance if ever there was one.
My family have supported this project in so many ways. My mum, sarah
(another feeder of books) has borne much of the burden of my hopes and
doubts about this project from the very beginning. I want to thank my
dad, jim, a true philosopher, for always giving a full answer to my endless
‘whys’ (with one notable exception regarding a ladybird). Thank you to
my grandparents Ralph and lilian, for many things, but in particular for
a generous gift at a crucial moment in 2004. Thanks to aunty Deb, my
brother Tom, and all the Perrys for always being in my corner. Thanks also
to my family in yorkshire and sunderland, I think of you often. There are
many people who should be thanked in this book mainly for helping me
viii Acknowledgements
to get away from it; amongst them are scoop, Walton, jake, the Bushley
lot, the hertford lot, emily, Mary, and Isabelle.
finally, to Mike, you’ve always smiled at my many wonderings; well I’ve
been wondering how I can possibly thank you, and wondering how you
will feel when I do. Maybe it will be enough to say, with love, that our part-
nership is everything to me, and I could never have done it without you.
Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Introduction 1
I. The PolITICal eXIsTeNCe
of The PeoPle
1. The Right of Resistance and the People out of Doors 17
1.1 The Tradition of Resistance 24
1.2 john Wilkes and the Right of Resistance 27
1.3 Burke and second Nature 32
1.4 Natural and Constitutional Rights 37
2. assembling the People: john Thelwall and the
london Corresponding society 41
2.1 Visions of the People 42
2.2 john Thelwall and the spectre of Popular opinion 49
2.3 The Role of the Intellectual 56
II. The so VeReIGNT y of jUsTICe
3. an american in Paris: Thomas Paine and the Politics of the
outsider 65
3.1 The Politics and ethics of language 70
3.2 Rights of Man, Part Two 76
3.3 Paine at the Trial of louis XVI and the ethics of
Imperfect Representation 81
4. ‘I am the People, Myself’: embodying the People and
the letters of helen Maria Williams 89
4.1 Two Versions of the People, Two Versions of Truth 92
4.2 Identifying with the People 97
4.3 The Disintegrating Mass 100
4.4 The Tyranny of Narrating the People 106
5. William Godwin and the Passive Multitude 115
5.1 Private judgement and Political justice 121
5.2 ‘a Commerce of Good Words and Works’ 125