Liberty Chronicles

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Ep. 105: The Last Liberty Chronicles

Tue, 07 May 2019 04:15:00 GMT

Today Anthony Comegna (@DrLocoFoco) leaves us with one final message as we end chronicling liberty: “I certainly will continue my own end of the deal we have struck here—you couldn’t drag me away from my Locofocos, my Spiritualists, my Free Love anarchists, or my radical English Dissenters, to name just a few—but I’ll close with one final plea to each of you: History is not an instruction manual; it is a cautionary tale. No intellectual tradition, no set of good or just ideas, no heroes nor villains are ever remembered unless we do the labor of memory. Our tradition, our ideas, our tales of heroes and our villains all deserve to be remembered, and we deserve to learn from their examples.”

Be sure to check back with libertarianism.org to learn about our new history adventures in the coming months.

Our Most Memorable Episodes:

Eggnog Riot!!

The Possession of Frances Whipple

Reasonable Crimes: Humanizing Pirates

There’s No Excuse for Slavery (Updated)

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Ep. 104: The United States as a Young Foreign Power, Part Two, with Christopher A. Preble

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 04:15:00 GMT

Last week we left off with selections from William Graham Sumner and we pick up right there today with Christopher Preble. Preble’s new book was released today on our site and it not only explores America imperialist tendency in the past, but also recognizes our foreign policy blunders of today.

Does the U.S. think they are in a perfect position to solve the problems of other countries? How did the war against Spain turn out? Does the American imperial empire exist today? When did the U.S. start to get influenced by the imperial mindset of Europe? What is corporatism? Was it honorable to be a soldier in the 1900s? What was the anti-war movement and what happened to it after World War II?

Ep. 103: The United States as a Young Foreign Power, with Christopher A. Preble

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 04:15:00 GMT

Christopher A. Preble joins us for the first episode of a 2-part discussion about early America’s role in the world. Comegna and Preble focus their conversation around two historical documents that are cited in Preble’s new book Peace, War, and Liberty. The first document is John Quincy Adam’s “Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee for Arrangements for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence”. The second document is, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”. Be sure to tune in next week to hear part 2 of this discussion and to download a free copy of the Preble’s book!

What is realpolitik? Why weren’t Native Americans seen as sovereign peoples by the United States? What did Americans think of their place in the world by 1820? Did Americans still fear the British in 1820? How did we use the Navy to expand markets in the early and late 1800s?

Ep. 102: What it Takes to be a Bankster

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 04:15:00 GMT

Can you imagine people getting themselves all worked up over banks and money today? Having that intensely boring issue so thoroughly dominate political life that presidents and parties rise and fall on this one subject alone? No one today knows anything about the Fed and no one wants to know about the Fed. People back in the 1830s and ‘40s, were in a constant state of agitation about it. It seemed to Jacksonian Americans that the individual pursuit of self interest was natural and inevitable.

What was important about Adam Smiths’ Wealth of Nations? Were banks corrupt? Have banks always been corrupt? How did views of banks and the Fed change since Jacksonian America?

Ep. 101: Edgar Allan Poe on Mushrooms and Men

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 04:15:00 GMT

Edgar Allen Poe was far from being defined as a Locofoco. He was no lover of democracy. He idolized the “devoted loyalty” of old Virginia gentry. As a dark romanticist poet, he believed the America’s Old World aristocracy was fighting the noble cause of attempted to preserve the elevated cultures of the past.

What did Edgar Allen Poe think of the class struggle? Did Edgar Allen Poe think that Americans were spoiled? How did Poe think America erected an aristocracy? Was Edgar Allen Poe a conservative?

Ep. 100: Quakertarianism, with Caleb Brown

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 04:15:00 GMT

For our 100th episode we interviewed Caleb Brown to gain a better understanding of how Quakerism aligns with libertarianism. He discusses his own experience as a Quaker, but he also makes larger claims about how Quakerism can foster a sense of community to the life of an average libertarian.

What is attractive about Quakerism? What is a ‘true-believer’ Christian? How does Quakerism mesh with libertarianism? Are there a lot of communitarian elements to Quakerism? How do Quaker meetings take place? What role does Quakerism play in your life?

Ep. 99: Mushrooms & Men

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 04:16:00 GMT

For classical liberals and libertarians, class is a social phenomenon marked by largely artificial distinctions between people based mainly on their access (or lack of access) to raw physical force and a willingness to use force against other people. Classes do not form in society simply because some people have more material wealth racked up than others, nor because some people are better at drawing or sewing or rollerblading than others. Even ideological content of the mind is not really the stuff of class. Sure, plenty of societies have divvied up rights and privileges based on religious or political adherence to one kind of orthodoxy or another, but even in those cases, the ideas do not create the classes.

Who is the ruling class? How were they viewed in Jacksonian America? What is a tyrant? Who are the parasites of the class system? How would you define the class struggle?

Ep. 98: The Civil War as Corporatist Conquest

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 04:15:00 GMT

It is a mistake to think of the Civil War a just a conflict between slavery and freedom. Planters and industrialists were interrelated groups that were dependent on the output of one another. The Civil War was not a clear contest between two groups as many academics make it out to be.

What was at stake during the Civil War? What impact did the Civil War have on America in the years following? Did the Civil War make the Federal Government to powerful? How did the Union use the Constitution throughout the Civil War to their advantage?

Ep. 97: Resisting Leviathan, with Nicholas Mosvick

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 04:15:00 GMT

Anthony interviews Nicholas Mosvick to discuss the issue of conscription during the Civil War and its’ lasting impact. During the time of the Civil War, conscription was certainly a strain on constitutional authority. Originally a state power to force citizens into fighting, but by the summer of 1862 the Union was growing desperate for manpower & volunteerism was on the decline.

What is conscription? Did it change the outcome of the Civil War? Is conscription an abuse of federal power? What is habeas corpus? Who were the War Democrats during the Civil War? Could there be a military draft at any time? Is the all-male draft style constitutional?

Ep. 96: Seward's "Little Bell”

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 05:15:00 GMT

On the one hand, Seward’s “little bell” was a wonderful encapsulation of Republican excess and the wartime erosion of liberties which Democrats prided themselves on vigilantly protecting. On the other hand, it was a fabrication, an example of the Democrats’ own penchant for excess and the dramatization of their sufferings during Lincoln’s war—but even if Seward never actually said it, he well could have.

What was Seward’s “little bell”? How was Seward a poor Secretary of State? Why was Steward allowed to approve arbitrary arrests? What is the writ of habeas corpus? What did Fort Lafayette represent during the Civil War?

Ep. 95: The Politics of the Confederacy

Tue, 26 Feb 2019 05:15:00 GMT

The Confederacy, being far less developed industrial-wise than the Union, had to revolutionize their approach to the war before they could ever hope to win it. Therefore, they had to create the conditions that allowed for the expedition of war-effort necessities. For example, some southern railroads companies existed almost entirely to service the government’s military efforts.

During the Civil War, what was the difference between a ‘conservative’ and a ‘revolutionary’? Were the confederates conservatives or revolutionaries? Did the Confederacy exhibit a type of wartime socialism?

Ep. 94: Was the Civil War a Libertarian Moment?

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 05:15:00 GMT

We have a tendency to treat the past as some sort of ideal world where historical actors played out their ideal scenarios under ideal conditions. We grant Lincoln the superhuman powers of creating the war all by himself and being responsible for everything done in the Union’s name. We go to some wild efforts to place historical agency in the hands of particular people or groups to avoid blaming the historical actors with whom we identify personally. There was a time when historians found it both easy and convenient to present the Confederacy as an exercise in Jeffersonian liberalism.

Was Lincoln both the Great Emancipator and the shredder of the Magna Carta? How did the Civil War have libertarian underpinnings? How did Frances Whipple use poetry to describe the Civil War as a movement?

Ep. 93: Freeborn John, with Michael Braddick

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 05:15:00 GMT

Michael Braddick joins us to discuss John Lilburne’s legacy of political activism. Lilburne did not want to be considered a martyr. He fought for what we now understand as the English legal tradition, which is really the backbone of American democracy. He defended political freedom when very few mechanisms existed to mobilize support.

Who is John Lilburne? What influence did Lilburne have on the English legal tradition? What is Christian Egalitarianism? How did mobilization work during the English Civil Wars? Is John Lilburne a martyr? Were the Levellers the first modern political party?

Ep. 92: Profiles in Locodom: William Cullen Bryant

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 05:15:00 GMT

In today’s episode, we shift to the radical end of the spectrum to investigate the life of another Locofoco archetype: William Cullen Bryant, who played the role of venerable, wise, old sage, whose ancient knowledge and cool demeanor kindled radical flames for generations. We explore his early life that led him to write for the Evening Post. Also, we explain how he formed a mentor relationship with William Leggett, which inspired the Evening Post to turn to radical views of politics.

Who was William Cullen Bryant and what inspired him to start writing? How did Bryant change the Evening Post? How was he able to be a mentor to William Leggett? What were the political views of William Leggett and William Cullen Bryant and how did they portray them through the Evening Post?

Ep. 91: Lincoln the Colonizationist Part 2, with Phil Magness

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 05:15:00 GMT

Lincoln was a proponent of gradual compensated emancipation. He hoped that between 1860 and 1900 that slavery would be eliminated. However, he wanted the the dissolving of slavery to be tied to colonization abroad. He believed that slaves who would willingly move to the Caribbean and Central America would not only give the former slaves a place to go, but would also strengthen America’s present abroad.

Did Lincoln view slavery as the the irritant that culminated in the Civil War? Why did the Emancipation Proclamation not include anything about colonization? How did Lincoln’s view of colonization get taken advantage of by other political actors? What did Frederick Douglass think of colonization? Should we continue to put Lincoln up on a pedestal, when in reality, he was a proponent of relocating freed slaves to the Caribbean and Central America?

Ep. 90: Lincoln the Colonizationist Part 1, with Phil Magness

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 05:15:00 GMT

Colonization was the process to actually remove the freed slaves and settle them elsewhere, other parts of the world that whites thought were more suited for the African-American race. Lincoln was a supporter of the Colonization Society and it is debated whether or not he helped start a chapter in Illinois. Lincoln was first and foremost a Whig who viewed Henry Clay as a hero. However, going into the 1860 election Lincoln was viewed as an underdog candidate.

What was the “Whig formula”? Why was Pennsylvania integral to the 1860 Presidential election? What was Lincoln’s tariff strategy for Pennsylvania? How did Lincoln address all the coalitions of the Republican Party? Who is Henry Charles Carey?

Ep. 89: What did the Civil War Smell Like? with Mark Smith

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 05:15:00 GMT

All history is a string of sense perceptions linked together by individual minds in meaningful patterns we call moments, minutes, hours, days, months, years, wars, eras, periods, ages, and so on. History is sensation, and all sensation is done by the fundamental units of the human species; the individual. In this episode, we explore the Civil War through sensor history in order to fully understand what it was actually like on the battlefield and at home from the perspective of all 5 senses.

What is sensory history? Is sensory history important to understand the depth of the human experience? Should history be hyper individualized? How can sensory history help us learn more about what we believe we already know? Can sound be revolutionary?

Ep. 88: The Secession Conventions

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 05:15:00 GMT

We dive into the secession winter of 1860-1861 when politicians sacrificed unity and stability for personal power. The story of secession cannot be defined as simply an abolitionist versus slaveholders story. There were many factions of people in between the two extremes who were anti-slavery, deportationists, and everywhere in between. It was not as cut and dry as many historians tend to argue.

Who were the “fire-eaters”? What were the differences between the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the Confederate States of America? Was the election of 1860 the reason that secession conventions were held?

Ep. 87: Profiles in Locodom: Fernando Wood

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 05:15:00 GMT

Nicholas Mosvick joins us to detail the life of Fernando Wood and how he was the mayor of New York who wished the state would have seceded during the Civil War. Wood was best known for being an ideologue rather than a political agitator.

Was Fernando Wood a Van Buren man or a Calhoun man? Did Fernando Wood represent a glorious American future? Was Wood sympathetic to the South?

Ep. 86: Eggnog Riot!!!!

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Every family has Christmas traditions, some are more conventional than others. On Christmas Eve in 1826, the cadets at the West Point Military Academy decided they would create a little tradition of their own with some holiday spirits, in both senses of the word. Unfortunately, what started out as some Christmas cheer with a young Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, ended as a full on riot against the bureaucracy.

What is the history of Christmas? Who was Jonathan Pintard and what research did he do about Christmas?

Ep. 85: America Was Founded by Runaways and Renegades, Part 2

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Part two of our discussion with Joseph Kelly is about how the whole first three years of Jamestown was basically the struggle of common laborers who discovered what the reality on the ground was and who tried to escape. Many of them did, by melting into the Native American population, others got caught, tortured, and made examples of for their fellows who didn’t make it out.

How did the Virginia Company interact with the Native Americans? Who was John Smith? Was he a pirate king? Was Jamestown a slave-labor camp? Do we view the founding of America as truly a pilgrimage story?

Ep. 84: America was Founded by Runaways & Renegades, with Joseph Kelly, Part 1

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Professor Joseph Kelly joins us today to talk about his book Marooned and how much of our understanding about the beginning of the New World is simply names of people and approximately when they died. Stephen Hopkins, a passenger on the Sea Venture which shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609, is an exception to that trend.

Who is America’s real founding father? What did the Virginia Company do in 1608-1609? Was Jamestown a utopia or a dystopia? Did the Virginia Company have any leadership to guide it? Did they have any real power? What was the difference between colonial Virginia and colonial Bermuda? What is a doctrine of mutual consent?

Ep. 83: Who Killed Jefferson(ianism)?

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Southerners strived to protect slavery as thoroughly as possible. In order to do that, they embraced a pragmatic ideology tailored to fight their Northern opposition. To many Southerners, slavery represented comfort, but others embraced slavery as their Christian duty to save Africans from the drudgeries of freedom and supposedly meek lives of Northern industrial workers.

What is methodological individualism? Was there a monolithic south? What is enlightenment liberalism? Who was Nathaniel Beverly Tucker?

Ep. 82: The Constitution & Castle Walls

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Southerners did not support Jeffersonianism as a matter of principle, but as a strategy that would ensure the survival of slavery and institutionalized racism. This support of Jeffersonian liberalism was ill-founded and tainted the philosophical tradition for many years after.

What is the relationship between libertarians and the southerners who were proponents of limited government? How did slavery make the phrase “states’ rights” dirty? How did southerners use the Jeffersonian philosophy to their advantage? Why did southerners fear the health of the republic without slavery? Did southerners actually support a small and limited government or was that just a facade?

Ep. 81: Spooner & The Secret Six, with Phil Magness

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Phil Magness joins us this week to teach the radical nature of Lysander Spooner. Spooner’s legal career started in an apprenticeship under 2 lawyers and he was best known for his support for the Abolitionist movement. His philosophy of liberty heavily influenced his law practice as well as his activist lifestyle.

Who was Lysander Spooner? Is there a connection between his post office activism and his abolition activism? What radical politics did Spooner practice? What is the secret six? How does natural law relate to slavery?

Ep. 80: Libertypublicans

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 05:15:00 GMT

The Democrats and Republicans in the House were doing everything they could think of to force the hands of their opponents into appointing the House Speaker. However, no one could secure the majority number of votes to take over the position. The crisis reached a breaking point when a congressman actually suggested that everyone from the House resign in order eliminate the issue entirely. With every passing day, party lines became clearer and our Loco-Focos were at the core of the anti-slavery Republican movement.

Why was there a speakership crisis? How did the House overcome the crisis? What happened to the Loco-Focos in the 1850’s? Did the speakership crisis just serve as a foreshadowing of the trouble to come for the U.S.?

Ep. 79: Compromising Compromisers, with Stephen Maizlish

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Stephen Maizlish sifted through 1700-1800 different documents and speeches from the 19th century in order to recreate an accurate depiction of the discourse that was occurring in Congress prior to the Civil War. His book, A Strife of Tongues: The Compromise of 1850 and the Ideological Foundations of the American Civil War (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era), is the product of his outstanding work. He found that many speeches and documents of lesser-known congressman of the time were the most profound and the least read by historians today.

What exactly caused the Civil War? What is the importance of intellectual history? What are the power of words when reconstructing a reality? How different really were the Northern and Southern Congressmen during the Compromise of 1850? How was the division between the North and the South created? How prevalent were the concepts of masculinity in discourse during the time of the Compromise of 1850?

Ep. 78: Hinton Help Us!

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Prior to 1857, no one had ever heard of Hinton Helper. To be clear, Helper was not a libertarian, he was a vehement racist who made it quite clear that he did not believe that people of color belonged in North America at all. Helper had one great contribution to history and that was his book The Impending Crisis of the South. However, if you read his work closely, his racist remarks were class-oriented to appeal to poor whites. He urged them to revolutionize society. Helper detested the rich white planter elite which was the result of excessive slavery.

Who was Hinton Helper? Was his book, The Impending Crisis of the South, more influential than Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Was Helper an abolitionist? Did Helper see slavery as having any value? What was Helper’s version of manifest destiny?

Ep. 77: Cannibals All!, with Phil Magness

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Phil Magness best describes George Fitzhugh as an “eccentric character” because that frames the intellectual direction of his life. Fitzhugh had an obsession with reading about the medieval world and throughout his life he had contempt for philosophers. He is famous for viewing free society as a failure and he also claimed that “all government is slavery”.

Who is George Fitzhugh? Was he ever a southern planter? What influence did Thomas Carlyle have on Fitzhugh? What were Fitzhugh’s religious views? How did Fitzhugh critique feminism? What did Fitzhugh find valuable about the feudal relationship?

Ep. 76: Libertarian Anti-Capitalism, with Kevin Carson

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 04:15:00 GMT

One of the biggest drawbacks of thinking in “vulgar libertarian” fashion is that you forget that there were ever alternatives available to people, that the way that we live now or the way we’re used to living is the only way that was ever reasonable or good. The rise of the modern state marks a time in history when authorities began to and continue to control more about people’s lives. The modern state also intrudes on people’s lives in a fashion that is so much greater than before. With that being said, we are still hesitant to look at other society organizational possibilities even though the modern state continues to control us more than most would prefer. Kevin Carson joins us to discuss the depths of capitalism and if the possibility for a post-capitalism world exists.

What is the definition of capitalism? What is the history of the word “capitalism”? Who were the Boston Anarchists? What is “vulgar libertarianism”? Are there alternative social structures that we do not acknowledge because we are stubborn and stuck in our ways? Is post-capitalism occurring?

Ep. 75: The Cords of Union: Slavery vs The Telegraph

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Historians usually mark off the years, about 1815 to 1845 as the Jacksonian era and for Americans, and many other people across the planet, these were years of singularity. This period of time is remembered for many inventions and innovations. Most notably was Samuel Morse’s magnetic telegraph. His magnetic telegraph “eliminated the greatest problem plagued by all republics since the ancient days of Rome” because it was able to connect the states through rapid communication. Originally, Congress thought that the telegraph would be used as an extension of the Postal Service, but they could find no way for it to be profitable, so they left it up to the private sector to decide how to best utilize the service.

When was the Jacksonian era? How did the way Americans travelled change through the Jacksonian era? What was the most impressive innovation of that era? How did the magnetic telegraph affect the way Americans communicated?

Ep. 74: The Greatest of Nullifiers

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Abram Smith caught political fire as a radical Locofoco Democrat, a friend of working people and outsiders. Smith was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1852 after he spent some time as a notable defense attorney. Let’s not forget that in 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act was revamped in order to ensure that Northerners were not a hinderance in the capture of slaves who had escaped their southern masters. In fact, Northerners were now required to return any slaves whom they knew to be fugitives. Smith, as a judge, was in utter disagreement with this act and he made that quite apparent when he nullified the Fugitive Slave Act for his state after a slave by the name of Joshua Glover was thrown into the city jail. Sherman Booth had been helping Glover maintain his freedom. Smith decided that Glover should be liberated and Booth should be cleared of any wrongdoing.

Who was Abram Smith? What was the Fugitive Slave Act and did it change during the Compromise of 1850? What did Abram Smith decide about the Fugitive Slave Act?

Ep. 73: The First Republicans

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 04:15:00 GMT

All the way from the 1770s to the 1850s, Americans had plenty of political disagreements, but nothing ever seriously disrupted the machinery of state until abolitionists and planters began forcing the slavery issue. Prior to the election of 1856, some much-needed rearrangement occurred in politics. In 1856, the newly-minted Republican Party lost on the back of John C. Frémont, but they gained crucial insight out of the election. The Republicans realized that they could take over the White House without a single vote from the Southern states. In 1860, along came an ambitious Republican from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, who used the trail blazed by early libertarians.

How did the Republican Party arise? What happened to the Free Soilers and Whigs in response to the birth of the Republican party? Who was the New American Party? Who were the “Know-Nothings”? Was there a Loco-Foco Party?

Ep. 72: There's No Excuse for Slavery (Updated)

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 04:15:00 GMT

This is a updated version of “There’s No Excuse for Slavery” which was released on July 3rd, 2018. Enjoy!

The planters of the South believed that slavery had grown up with American society and its’ institutions. John C. Calhoun argued that slavery was a “positive good” because he believed that no well-off society existed in which “one portion of the community did not in point of fact, live on the labor of the other”. How did beliefs like these and those of Calhoun’s followers further split the Union?

How could a man like Jefferson at once declare all humanity’s equal, natural rights and yet hold hundreds of people in bondage? What was state-made racism? Who were the beneficiaries of slavery? Who were the Quakers and how did they influence the anti-slavery movement? What is the argument of slavery as a “positive good”? Who really was John C. Calhoun?

Ep. 71: Kansas Changes Everything

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In the mid-20th century, it was fashionable for historians to speak of a “Blundering Generation” of pre-Civil War politicians, people who—well intended or not—made a long series of foolish and short-sighted mistakes. They made blunders that make for wonderfully detailed political histories “from below,” as it were, but what appear to be mistakes were often intentional, and what appear to be great men were often just the schemers whose plans succeeded in the end.

Who is the worst politician to come out of Illinois? Who were the “F Street Mess”? What happened to the Whig party between 1852 and 1856? Who were the first Republicans? Was the Civil War avoidable?

Ep. 70: Whiggery’s Last Gasp

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In 1850, American politics was nearing its breaking point. The Senate as well as the Administration was doing much in order to keep the peace between the Southern and Northern politicians. For example, Henry Clay was pulling out all the stops to pass a combination of compromise measures that would finally resolve the territorial crisis. However, his bill kept failing on partisan lines. No Southerners wanted to vote for restricting slavery, even if it meant getting a souped-up fugitive slave law in return. And no self-respecting or self-interested Northerner, wanted to vote for that fugitive slave bill, even if it meant abolishing the slave trade in Washington.

What did the Compromise of 1850 solve? Did it just put off an inevitable split in our nation over the slavery issue? What happened in the Presidential Election of 1852? Did nationalism take over in this period defined by great stress and division?

Ep. 69: Van Buren - Friend or Foe? with Jeff Hummel

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Jeff Hummel joins our lengthy debate about who Van Buren really was as a person and as a President. Hummel argues that Van Buren took a small “r” republican position for most of his career, both in the law and in politics. Hummel also argues that Van Buren was more consistent as President than those who came before him.

Why would Jeff Hummel categorize Van Buren as the “least bad” President? Why is Van Buren considered the first “ethnic President”? Was Van Buren consistently classically liberal? How does Van Buren compare to Calhoun? What did Van Buren think was the purpose of political parties?

Ep. 68: Free Soil After Van Buren

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 04:23:00 GMT

Whigs were happy to have the White House, but many of them, at least, could still see the trouble lying head at the inevitable contest of 1852. On the strength of surprisingly large margins, the Free Soilers actually had a serious seat at the table. The Loco-Focos were the ones out there leading the young America cultural movement, they were the ones integrating Whigish abolitionism, with Jacksonian anti-monopoly, even when Van Buren had left them behind.

What happened to the Free Soil Movement after Van Buren was elected? What was the Speakership Crisis of 1849? Were the Whigs more reliable allies than the Democrats? What were the Loco-Focos doing during this time of upheaval in Congress? What role did the Wilmot Proviso play in this time defined by factions?

Ep. 67: More Creative Historical Thinking

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Our conversation about how all history is revisionist and open to creativity with Michael Douma continues this week. Douma believes that a history classroom should not be about memorizing facts that a professor believes matter. It is more important to train people to think critically and creatively. Douma believes that history is always written from the perspective of the historian, describing it as, “a discussion without end”, meaning history is never completely solid or solved.

What is the definition of creativity? How is history like a pencil? Is history all conspiracy? What is a history buff? What is a crack-pot?

Ep. 66: Creative Historical Thinking, with Michael Douma, Part One

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Michael Douma joins us for the first part of a two-part series to discuss how we see the past as as an interpretative history. He argues that history is a creative discipline because we choose to arrange facts in a certain way.

Douma goes through his new book, Creative Historical Thinking, and how he typically asks his students to draw a timeline of their lives or a timeline of American history. Quite often, each students’ timeline forms differently. Relating that to the study of the past, Douma argues that every timeline a historian draws, is a different interpretation of the past, creating history. Everyone has a different mental model or “timeline” in which they view their lives and that allows history to be a creative endeavor.

Is the past simply what happened? With that in mind, is history our interpretation of the past? Is history how we give meaning to the past? What is the difference between an error in conception and an error in fact? If you had to drawl the timeline of your life how would you drawl it?

Ep. 65: Was Frederick Douglass a Libertarian?

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Timothy Sandefur joins us this week to discuss how Frederick Douglass and his beliefs do not align perfectly to today’s political factions. He is often mischaracterized due to his legendary status. Has Douglass been purposefully distorted over time? Does the omission of facts about what he did and how he acted play a large role in that distortion?

Frederick Douglass is defined as an individualist, which is best exemplified by his speeches and attitudes toward serving in the military. In his speeches and writings, he believed that slaves should join the army, not to serve their country, but rather, to give themselves a sense of pride. This, he believed, was a crucial way for the slaves to feel empowered because they earned their freedom in a way that ensured that it would never be taken away.

Ep. 64: 1848 and Its Aftermath

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 04:00:00 GMT

1848 was a wild ride. That year the Free Soil Party tried to force Whigs and Democrats to take a stand on the issue of slavery in the territories. Once and for all, politicians would have to openly declare themselves either in favor of Free Soil for free society or Slave Territory, for the planters’ personal dominion.

Ep. 63: Van Buren’s Dirty Game

Tue, 24 Jul 2018 04:15:00 GMT

The average Free Soiler was a radical Loco-Foco, probably from New York, touched by more than a decade of early libertarianism. But always and everywhere there were also the opportunists, the schemers, the self-advancing office seekers, desperate to leverage free soil into greater personal power, and right there at the top of this magnificent new party was the schemer in chief, the little magician, the Red Fox of Kinderhook, the architect of the Second Party System itself, and now the perpetrator of one of the dirtiest double games in all of politics, Martin Van Buren.

Ep. 62: Revolution in Utica and Buffalo

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 04:15:00 GMT

The Polk Administration was a strange time in the early history of American Libertarianism called Locofocoism. In many ways, it was the time of ultimate triumph. Polk was as committed to their economic program as anyone else on the national stage, including their champion, Martin Van Buren. He was a Republican nationalist and an expansionist, and so were many of the more hopeful and naive Locofocos. By 1844, Locofocoism was all over the country, from the shores of New England, through the mountains of New York, and out to the plains of Ohio and Wisconsin, right the way down, even in the South, to places like Montgomery, Alabama, and for at least a brief period, Polk was their man. Everything looked bright, but the peace within the democracy was uneasy at best. Then along came Polk’s war on Mexico, an unforgivable tragedy to some, and an insurmountable political disaster to most others. To set things aright, to protect the power and interests of the North’s free citizens, to expand the zone of liberty and Republicanism, in the face of both British and slave-holding aggression, Northern radicals rose up in political revolution.

Ep. 61: The Vile Mexican War

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In the end, a few thousand early libertarians in New York made the Mexican War a possibility. And almost right away, Polk began betraying Van Buren defectors. He ignored Van Buren’s cabinet suggestions and supported the conservative faction in New York.

Ep. 60: Middle Easterners Invented Entrepreneurship (with Nima Sanandaji)

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Dr. Nima Sanandaji has a PhD in Engineering from Stockholm’s Royal Institute, and he has written over 20 books on policy, philosophy, current affairs and history. He joins me now to talk about his latest, “The Birthplace of Capitalism,” which explains how and why ancient Middle Easterners invented capitalism and entrepreneurship.

Ep. 59: The Corporation Problem (with Gary Chartier)

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Corporations are so commonplace, so ubiquitous, and considered so necessary that we barely stop to ask whether it’s ever been justifiable in the first place. Here to help us tackle one of the great, relatively forgotten questions in Libertarian history is Gary Chartier.

Ep. 58: Polk - What a Horrible President!

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In the grand catalog of 19th century America, there are few villains so worthy of a Libertarian’s scorn, as James K Polk. The Jacksonian period was one flush with eager upstarts, middling men who hit it big with cunning and peculiar talents. Polk, too, was one of these eager, young, upstart Americans.

Ep. 57: The World Wide Revolution

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 04:15:00 GMT

We often learn that Manifest Destiny was the invention of racists and conquest-hungry imperialists, and there is some truth to that, but much as historians have ignored it and much as we might like to do the same, America’s first libertarian movement was also responsible. Jacksonian radicals called Locofocos provided the ideology that helped transform the United States from a limited republic into a continental empire. Uncomfortable as it might be, we will find that their early libertarianism was a jumping-off point for what only later became a much more typical racist imperialism.

Ep. 56: DOWN WITH RENT!

Tue, 29 May 2018 04:15:00 GMT

As we have seen over the last several months on this show, America’s first libertarian movement called Locofocoism was, but one among many reform movements dotting the Jacksonian period. For a century and a half, historians have diligently detailed the stories of abolitionists, working people, feminists, land reformers, prohibitionists, suffragists, and suffragettes, free lovers, communists, industrialists, progressivists, free thinkers, transcendentalists, socialists, and the Young America Artistic Movement that lent credibility to the broad cause of reform. This week, we turn to an example of yet more mixed success in which radical Locofocoism was both implemented and watered down at the same time. New York’s Anti-Rent War and the Revolutionary Constitution of 1846.

Ep. 55: The Possession of Frances Whipple

Tue, 22 May 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Frances Whipple was born into the quintessential American aristocratic family. On her father’s side, the Whipple line included Rhode Island heroes like Abraham, who led the burning of the British ship Gaspee in 1772, and some of the earliest settlers of the colony. On Frances’ mother’s side, the Scotts included some of Roger Williams’ earliest and closest associates in the foundation of the Rhode Island colony. In 1815, though, nature leveled the Whipple clan. A storm called the Great Gale ravaged Providence, flooding wharves and destroying crops within a 40-mile radius of the city. It was also the year without a summer, thanks to the Tambora volcano in Indonesia, which erupted so violently that the ash clouds actually cooled the planet. With a future of nothing but drought, sooty clouds and gloom, her father sold the family farm in 1816 and Whipple was destitute. Frances supported herself through odd jobs and self-education. She became a very different sort of Whipple, and over her lifetime, she helped make America a very different sort of place.

Ep. 54: The Witch of Medbury Grove

Tue, 15 May 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Little is known about the personal life of Ann Parlin, the woman who came up with the idea for clam bakes to raise relief money for the families of imprisoned suffragists. She married Dr. Louis Parlin on July 7th, 1839, in Maine before moving to Providence. In 1841, they appear in the city’s business records through Dr. Parlin’s homeopathy clinic. He’s considered the founder of homeopathy in Rhode Island, and he practiced there for two to three years while participating in the city’s bubbling radical politics. The Parlins were fairly well off and Louis was a landholder or a freeman allowed to vote, but both of them believed fully in the people’s sovereign power to reform their governments at will.

Ep. 53: Here Lies Republicanism, R.I.P. (with Trevor Burrus)

Tue, 08 May 2018 04:15:00 GMT

We are celebrating Liberty Chronicles’ one year anniversary with a special Free Thoughts/Liberty Chronicles crossover episode featuring Free Thoughts Podcast host Trevor Burrus. We’ll discuss the Dorr War and its Supreme Court Case Luther v. Borden.

Ep. 52: The Dismal Science (with Steve Horwitz)

Tue, 01 May 2018 13:30:00 GMT

Steve Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in Ball State University’s economics department. He has a PhD in economics from George Mason University, and his most recent book is Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions. In the interest of more clearly identifying the relationship between his highly theoretical discipline and our evolving set of humane histories here on Liberty Chronicles, Professor Horwitz joins us now.

Ep. 51: What is Classical Liberal History? (with Michael Douma and Phil Magness)

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In this episode of Liberty Chronicles, we are joined by Mike Douma and Phil Magness to discuss their new book “What is Classical Liberal History?” Mike Douma is an Assistant Research Professor at Georgetown University and the Director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics. Phil Magness is a professor at Berry College’s Campbell School of Business and author of Colonization after Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement.

Ep. 50: Social Class and State Power (with David M. Hart)

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 04:15:00 GMT

David M. Hart is the Director of Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty. His latest book, Social Class and State Power, is a reader in libertarian class theory including documents from Richard Overton in the English Civil Wars all the way down to Libertarianism.org contributor Roderick Long.

Ep. 49: The Clambakarians

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In July 1842, Rhode Island had two state governments divided into armed camps. The rest of New England watched, wondering if what they called “The Rhode Island Question” would spill into a widespread civil war. The fight was over which of the state’s two dueling authorities was legitimate—the Charter government established in 1663 by King Charles II, or the People’s Constitution which bypassed the legislature with a popular convention and vote.

Ep. 48: Civil War in New England!

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Last week on Liberty Chronicles, we left off with May 19, 1842, when Thomas W. Dorr—The People’s Governor of Rhode Island, dressed up like Napoleon and carrying a sword—ordered his makeshift little army to storm the Providence state arsenal.. Most of Dorr’s warriors, though, were young men trying to impress girls in their neighborhoods. It was the furthest thing imaginable from a professional, committed army, and when met with even slight resistance, Dorr’s lines broke and his army scattered.

Ep. 47: The People’s Governor

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In Rhode Island, 1842, politician Thomas W. Dorr (calling himself “The People’s Governor”) threatened civil war throughout New England. His main target was the famous colonial Charter issued by King Charles II in 1663. In the 19th century the document of world historical importance—the planet’s oldest existing written constitution at the time, and surely the most liberal in its own day. Radical Jacksonian and America’s first professional historian, George Bancroft, declared, “Nowhere in the world have life, LIBERTY, and property been safer than in Rhode Island.”

Ep. 46: The Most Important Election Ever

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 04:15:00 GMT

In the Winter of 1837-1838, New York’s “Locofoco” or Equal Rights Party tidily collapsed back into Martin Van Buren’s Democratic Party. It was the first libertarian movement in American history, and they’d fought a two-year political war against Tammany Hall to control the state and national party. In most ways, they were successful. But actually, 1840 was their year—their chance to permanently change America. It might just be the most important election year ever, and 178 years later, I’d say it still is.

Ep. 45: The Canada Conspiracy

Tue, 13 Mar 2018 04:15:00 GMT

Abram D. Smith is a forgotten figure in American history. Smith was born in either Lowville or Cambridge, upstate New York, in 1811, just before the post-war boom years of rapid social and economic change. As a young man, he experienced and contributed to a wave of nationalistic romanticism, enraptured with the wonders of American republicanism and democracy. He was in these regards fairly unremarkable, and yet in September 1838, probably in some Ohio forest, surrounded by blazing torchlight, a circle of revolutionary conspirators called the Brother Hunters elected Abram D. Smith—Mr. Average American—to be President of the Republic of Canada.

Ep. 44: Make America Young Again

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 05:15:00 GMT

The Young Americans were New York’s next generation of artists, intellectuals, and activists, and reformers, many of whom were inspired by the Loco-Foco movement, which challenged Tammany Hall for supremacy in the Democratic Party from 1835 to 1837. Their philosophies generally came from the great classical liberals, radicals like Tom Paine and William Leggett, equal in stature to most Young Americans, and they shared a deep faith in America’s world historical destiny. A Young American might have been in either party, but their philosophy [00:03:00] was almost always some strain of Loco-Focoism.

Ep. 43: Rumps and Buffaloes

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 05:15:00 GMT

During the painful Panic Winter of 1837, America’s first identifiably libertarian political party neared the end of its short life. After the February flour riots and facing nothing but dire circumstances, movement faithful gradually peeled away from the party.

Ep. 42: Candlelight Conspiracy

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 05:15:00 GMT

On 11 and 20 of January, 1836, the Equal Rights Democrats renounced all connections with Tammany and passed resolutions calling for ward me tings and delegate elections to a county convention. Delegates assembled on 9 February in the Eighth Ward. Moses Jacques served as President and wrote the “Declaration of principles.” He was history embodied. Moses’ father was a colonel in the New Jersey militia during the Revolution.

Ep. 41: What's a Loco-Foco?

Tue, 13 Feb 2018 14:55:00 GMT

The conspirators fully expected Tammany regulars would play whatever dirty tricks necessary to maintain control over the convention. Each conspirator attended the meeting with pockets full of “Loco Foco” matches and candles. They were a new invention, friction candles ignited by striking the match tip against a surface. Locofoco supposedly entered the American lexicon as a bastardization of the Italian words for moving fire. And these people were definitely fireballs set into motion.

Ep. 40: The Age of William Leggett Part 2

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Last week we explored the life and ideas of William Leggett—the founding father of America’s first identifiably libertarian movement. This week we begin with his attack on censorship as a gross abuse of government power, a sure sign that freedom was dying.

Ep. 39: The Age of William Leggett Part 1

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Somewhere during the course of his tour—somewhere in the Mediterranean—William Leggett developed a “life-long hatred of authority,” a libertarian spirit within him that revolted against power wherever it existed, wherever people attempted to constrict the liberty of others. Historians tell us the 1820s, 30s, and 40s was the Jacksonian Era, but this week and next we will follow Walt Whitman in declaring this “The Age of Leggett.”

Ep. 38: Everything is Freemasons!

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Nine Masons signed the Declaration of Independence, 13 helped draft and ratify the Constitution, George Washington and James Monroe were Masons, and for that matter so was Andrew Jackson. So was Henry Clay! Even the South American Washington, Simon Bolivar, was a Mason. All four of Napoleon’s brothers joined Edmund Burke, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Voltaire, Ben Franklin, and innumerable other important artists, philosophers, and scientists in the fraternity.

Ep. 37: The Whigs

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 05:15:00 GMT

While the two parties gripped one another in mock mortal combat, struggling for votes more than for principles, some precious few Americans remained unimpressed. In corners all over the country, people saw through the myth making and the gamesmanship. Put frankly, American democracy was a sham and the evolving two parties were vast conspiracies against the public’s liberty, security, and well-being.

Ep. 36: The Jacksonians

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 05:15:00 GMT

We should not fool ourselves into thinking democracy was some benevolent aristocrat’s generous gift. Nor should we believe democracy was something average people heroically fought for and won. The truth is, ballots have never translated to real political power and influence—they never have. The near-universal patterns in these democratizing state legislatures and constitutional conventions were political pragmatism and opportunism.

Ep. 35: Enlightenment and Revolution

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 05:15:00 GMT

Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of economic history at Northwestern University. He has a PhD from Yale, he has taught and studied all over the world, and has supervised many dozens of doctoral students in pursuit of the past. He joins us today to talk about his latest book, A Culture of Growth, and the creeping revolution that enriched the world.

Ep. 34: The Era of Nasty Dealings

Tue, 26 Dec 2017 05:15:00 GMT

We have to remember that American democracy was not something won courageously over time so much as it was a long, drawn out process of corrupt bargaining between politicians and the voting public, Conspiracy- and coalition-building between current voters and potential voters, and Nasty, Nasty Deals.

George Kremer to Andrew Jackson, 8 March 1825

Andrew Jackson to Henry Lee, 7 October 1825

Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 20 April 1820

Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1957.

Hummel, Jeffrey Rogers. Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War. Chicago: Open Court. 1996.

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Ep. 33: The Christmas Conspiracy

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 05:15:00 GMT

What if I told you that Christmas—the holiday we know and love so well—was a capitalist Conspiracy to indoctrinate the working class into bourgeois culture and values? At one end of the Conspiracy was the very real circle of New York City antiquarians and aristocrats trying to snuff out earlier forms of the holiday, replacing these folk practices with the distinctly quiet, calm, peaceful, productive, contemplative, bourgeois form of the holiday we know today. At the other end stands their greatest creation—the defrocked bishop Santa Claus and his apparently vast, never-ceasing workshops fed by partially enslaved elf labor.

Clement Clarke Moore, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (1823)

Pintard, Letters, Vol. II: 1821-1827; Vol. II: 1828-1831

Clark, Christopher. Social Change in America: From the Revolution Through the Civil War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. 2006.

Penne Restad, Christmas in America: A History, Oxford University Press. 1996.

Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday, Vintage. 1997.

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Ep. 32: Individualism vs The Market Revolution

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 05:15:00 GMT

Between 1815 and 1845, the world changed more dramatically than in any other previous 30-year period. Humanity began to break the food trap which had kept hundreds of generations barely producing enough to feed the living, keeping almost nothing to provide for the future.

Ep. 31: The Jefferson Years and Mr. Madison’s War, with Kevin Gutzman

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 05:15:00 GMT

Shownotes:

Kevin Gutzman is a New York Times best-selling author and professor of history at Western Connecticut State University. He has a PhD from the University of Virginia and much of his research has focused on precisely that state. Three of his books—Virginia’s American Revolution, James Madison and the Making of America, and Thomas Jefferson: Revolutionary—flesh out what Gutzman takes to be a radical, revolutionary time and place in American history. We would be remiss if we did not try to understand the world from above just as we try to understand it from below.

Ep. 30: Anarchiad! - Politics in the Early Republic

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 05:00:00 GMT

Reformist minded and very far from the Hartford Wits, to be sure, but the Jeffersonians were still fundamentally the agents of a different sort of American elite. While these white male mechanics and yeoman farmers made for a more democratic ruling elite than the great colonial landholders and office-mongers, they remained relatively content with driving slaves, dominating women and children, and using the power of government to support their own interests—local and relatively liberal as they may have been.

“Anarchiad, a New England Poem” (1786-7)

“The Design of Anarchy: ‘The Anarchiad,’ 1786-1787” by J. K. Van Dover, Early American Literature 24, No. 3 (1989): 237-247.

Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1978.

Parrington, Vernon Louis. Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920, Vols. 1-3. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 1958 (Original Printing: 1927).

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Ep. 29: Benjamin Lay: Social Justice Warrior, with Marcus Rediker

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 05:15:00 GMT

Benjamin Lay was a fearless firework of “isms.” Part Quaker, part philosopher, part sailor, abolitionist, and commoner, Lay was also “The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist.” Joining us this week is Marcus Rediker, one of the most important living historians and Lay’s most recent biographer.

Ep. 28: The Haitian Revolution, with Jason Kuznicki

Tue, 14 Nov 2017 05:15:00 GMT

Few concepts or examples in history have a total sample size of exactly one. With history-making resolve, the slaves in Haiti seized their freedom, which revolutionary Paris only begrudgingly recognized. When the planters, the British, the Spanish, and finally Napoleon himself tried to re-enslave them, they simply refused and resolved themselves to fight to the death for the liberties they’d won.

Ep. 27: Comparative Revolutions, with Jason Kuznicki

Tue, 07 Nov 2017 05:15:00 GMT

Who are the actual revolutionists?—the radicals or extremists who end up overpowering the moderates and installing the new regime?

Bonus: Cannibals or Saints? A Liberty Chronicles Halloween

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 04:15:00 GMT

It is Reformation Day, and a particularly special one at that. 500 years ago today—as goes the legend—Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. In Luther’s day, Halloween was All Saint’s Eve—part of Allhallowsmas or Hallowstide, a three-day, ritual-packed observance of Christianity’s early martyrs and first saints dating to the eighth century. The unconverted Romans looked at the first saints and saw a small clique of radical, fanatical, cannibalistic zombie/death-cultists, but by Luther’s time Christians were no longer hiding out in catacombs. They ran some of the world’s most powerful institutions. With power came the ability to transform folk beliefs and theology into political weapons, tools for statecrafting.

Further Reading

Godwin’s Lives of the Necromancers [insert PDF link when made available]

Marshall, Peter. William Godwin: Philosopher, Novelist, Revolutionary. PM Press. 2017.

Miller, Perry. The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Boston: Beacon Press. 1954

Trevor-Roper, H. R. The European Witch-Craze of the 16th and 17th Centuries. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1969.

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Ep. 26: The Constitution as Counter-Revolution, with Sheldon Richman

Tue, 24 Oct 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Sheldon Richman can be found on Twitter @Sheldon Richman, readers can find his articles at the Libertarian Institute, and his books at Amazon.

Beard, Charles. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, 1913.

Hyneman & Lutz (eds.) American Political Writing during the Founding Era, 1760-1805, Two Volumes. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. 1983.

Morgan, Edmund. The Birth of the Republic, 1763-1789. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1956.

Richman, Sheldon. America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited. Griffin & Lash, 2016.

Wood, Gordon. The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States. New York: The Penguin Press. 2011.

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Ep. 25: The First Patriot Coalition

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 04:15:00 GMT

In 1741, African slaves, Spanish sailors, Irish servants and soldiers, and antinomian Dissenters conspired to burn New York’s Fort George and murder the city’s wealthy and powerful inhabitants. They hatched their plot at John Hughson’s tavern and spread word to the surrounding countryside and down Long Island. At the sight of flames from the city, country slaves and servants should rise up, kill their masters, and move on the city where they would welcome a Spanish flotilla of conquerors and personal freedom.

Brown. Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791, Second Edition. Houghton-Mifflin.

Middlekauf, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789, Revised Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005.

Nellis, Eric. The Long Road to Change: America’s Revolution, 1750-1820. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2012.

Paine, “Common Sense”

Rediker & Linebaugh. Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press. 2000.

Wood, Gordon. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf. 1992.

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Ep. 24: Court & Country in the First British Empire

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 04:15:00 GMT

The colonists governed themselves and had little need for imperial management; colonists all over disparaged the idea of monarchy and Tom Paine smashed it to pieces; the world’s most powerful state lost its most vigorous appendages, and the settlers expanded all sorts of civil rights to new cohorts. We remember the triumphant victory of a new nation-state, and the gains made by some toward exercising a greater control over that state; but revolution bred counter-revolution.

“The Indictment and Trial of Sir Richard Rum”

Bushman, Richard. From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1967.

Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1979.

Smith, Barbara Clark. The Freedoms We Lost: Consent and Resistance in Revolutionary America. New York: The New Press. 2010.

Young, Alfred, ed. Beyond the American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. 1993.

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Ep. 23: The Isle of Rats: Colonial Mauritius

Tue, 03 Oct 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Mauritius is a rare example of a Creole culture from the start. There really aren’t many of these in world history. The island had no indigenous human beings and the first human visitors to the island were Muslims from East Africa and Arabia in the medieval era. There were no permanent settlements there until the 17th century when the Dutch arrived.

Bernardin de St. Pierre, Paul and Virginia, 1788.

Gordon, Daniel, ed. Postmodernism and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth-Century French Intellectual History. New York: Routledge. 2001.

Vaughn, Megan. Creating the Creole Island: Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Mauritius. Durham: Duke University Press. 2003.

Vink, Markus. “The World’s Oldest Trade: Dutch Slavery and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of World History 14, No. 2 (June 2003): 131-177.

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Ep. 22: Creoleness and Cruelty in Colonial Louisiana

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 04:15:00 GMT

For two decades, New Orleans was a town with about 400 riotous, irreligious, desperate individuals. Jean-Baptiste, Sieur de Bienville always hoped the French Empire would take more interest in the area—it was the gateway to wider America, the key to the continent’s greatest river, its richest soils, and a highway for the Indian trade. If only it actually had people in it!

Ep. 21: The Illusion of Empire: Spanish Texas

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Spanish Missionaries intended to project power, but the Indians held the balance of power and Spanish authorities proved unable to control either mission culture or powerful native groups across the countryside.

Ep. 20: The Middle Passage: Igboland to America

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Along with Frederick Douglass, the most famous slave in history was probably Olaudah Equiano. On Equiano’s Middle Passage, he shared space belowdecks with other Africans from possibly dozens of ethnic groups, speaking different languages. Once loaded into the ship’s hold, they were all outsiders.

Music by Kai Engel

Ep. 19: Reasonable Crimes: Humanizing Pirates

Tue, 05 Sep 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Peter Leeson is the Duncan Black Professor of Economics and Law at George Mason University. His work often reads as forays into high weirdness, voyages to strange unknown countries penetrated only by the light of economic reasoning.

Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. Princeton University Press. 2011.

WTF?! An Economic Tour of the Weird. Stanford University Press. 2017.

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Ep. 18: Hanging John Gow, Conquering Madagascar

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 04:15:00 GMT

The Golden Age of Piracy raises the question: Who among you would turn down the opportunity to play Master to a small continent? Would you submit passively to be dominated by the world? Would we respect the lives and liberties of those weaker than ourselves, or would we, too, given the right opportunities, proclaim ourselves King?

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press. 2004.

“The Saga of Pirate Captain John Gow”

“From Pirate to Tyrant: John Plantain, King of Madagascar”

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Ep. 17: A Libertarian Paradise in the Golden Age of Piracy

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 04:15:00 GMT

In 1716, pirates regularly declared war on all nation-states, they tested the extreme limits of life and death, and quite literally challenged God to dare pass judgment over an angry pirate. If the Lord knew what was good for him, he would mind his own damned business and move along. A true pirate had no home but Hell.

Ep. 16: Cycles, Generations, and History: An Interview with Neil Howe

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Each new generation has the ability to dramatically improve upon their world. Neil Howe challenges us to think generationally. Neil Howe wondered why Boomers were so different from their GI elders. In the late 1980s, he developed an intricate yet broad theory of generational change. His model has been very influential, inspiring figures from Al Gore to Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon. Neil Howe joins us on Liberty Chronicles to talk cycles, generations, and the myth-making business of history.

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Ep. 15: The Best Poor Man's Country in the World

Tue, 08 Aug 2017 04:15:00 GMT

In his 1743 memoir, “The Infortunate,” Moraley detailed his sad circumstances and vague notions of bettering them in the Americas. In what appeared to him a chance encounter, an unknown man encouraged this flight of fancy and signaled that he would join William in Pennsylvania. After plying young Moraley with pints and sweet stories about American abundance, the two prepared and signed William’s indenture contract of five years. Once aboard ship, the recruiter disappeared to lull another fool into the trap.

Klepp & Smith, eds. The Infortunate: The Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley, an Indentured Servant. Penn State University Press. 1992.

Reid-Maroney, Nina. Philadelphia’s Enlightenment, 1740-1800: Kingdom of Christ, Empire of Reason. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. 2001.

Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin Books. 2001.

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Ep. 14: "Lives of the Necromancers," and the Salem Trials

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 04:15:00 GMT

The Salem trials were largely the result of a combination of personal animus, avarice, and cruelty within a deeply occultist culture. New England courts executed nineteen witches and subjected many repented convicts to purifying torture. One thing only ended the feverish trials: accusers gradually turned on the affluent and influential after using up the easier targets of marginalized and poor women.

Ep. 13: When Massachusetts Nearly Destroyed Itself

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 04:15:00 GMT

By the mid-1630s, the English and Native populations were roughly equal in number and power. Parity meant all sides had a practical interest in peaceful coexistence, at least in the real experiences of daily life. The first generation of settlers could show little more force than occasional raids on Indian villages, burning the cornfield here and there, and other small-scale acts of violence. Waves of new settlers throughout the 1630s tipped the frontier balance of power toward the Puritans. John Oldham, a wealthy local fur merchant, patiently traded while the New English settled the frontier and hedged in the natives. He did not share the Puritan missionary mentality, but his death helped inaugurate the Pequot War and consolidate Puritan control of the coast.

Ep. 12: Bacon's Rebellion & the Invention of Race

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 04:05:00 GMT

Few contemporary or historical accounts of Bacon’s rebellion agree in every particular about the movement’s motivations and outcomes. For the Jacksonian Democrat, George Bancroft, Virginians had enjoyed free government for three generations on the edge of the wilderness. For Bancroft and nationalist historians, this was the prelude to the American Revolution—it was the people seizing their government, its policy-making apparatus, and its legitimacy so that the popular interest might once again govern Virginia. However, Twentieth-century historians with a more global perspective on British imperial activity recognized Bacon’s Rebellion as a racialized conflict against the Indians which transformed into a vehicle for the expression of popular discontent.

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Ep. 11: The Dissenters' Revolution

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 04:15:00 GMT

The Antinomians did not just push for religious and political freedoms in the American colonies. Their ideas traversed the Atlantic and influenced groups in Britain, as well. During the upheaval of the English Civil War, the British Antinomians seized the opportunity to shape their world, creating a slew of new religious denominations and fighting for their liberty.

Rediker & Linebaugh. Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press. 2000.

Woodhouse, ed. Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9), University of Chicago Press. 1938.

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Ep. 10: The Antinomians

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 04:15:00 GMT

True radicals who would actually live and let live have been in short supply since Bradford destroyed Morton’s maypole and the Puritan divines banished Anne Hutchinson.

The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637), Transcript

Thomas Morton’s Observations of the Puritans

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Ep. 09: Peter Linebaugh on May Day

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Peter Linebaugh received a PhD in Early Modern British history from the University of Warwick in 1974, where he studied under EP Thompson, one of the most important and influential historians of the 20th century.

Linebaugh is the author of a good many hugely important articles and books, among which are The London Hanged, Magna Carta Manifesto, and Stop Thief! Linebaugh is also the co-author of The Many-Headed Hydra.

Ep. 08: The Horrifying Lives of Early Virginians

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 04:15:00 GMT

On July 25, 1609, aboard the Virginia Company’s slowing sinking ship the Sea Venture, a company of colonial gentlemen-adventurers, indentured servants, and sailors, all struggled for their lives. The crew plugged holes and splits with every available means and everyone —even the genteel and lordly—took turns carrying water for a time. Aboard the Sea Venture, circumstances forced rich and poor alike to join their labors in common cause and solidarity. The aqueous environment—agitated by catastrophe—dissolved class boundaries.

Richard’s Frethorne’s Letters to Mother and Father

Sir Thomas Dale, “Articles, Law, and orders, Divine, Politic and Martial for the Colony in Virginia” (22 June 1611)

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Ep. 07: The Disastrous Consequences of Empire and Monopoly

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 04:15:00 GMT

We have the ability to readily appreciate this transition and its impact on overall economic productivity. We live in a vastly richer world than has ever existed before and every one of us above the bare level of subsistence lives incomparably better than kings, emperors, and the wealthiest elites even just a century ago. But in many ways, medieval life was stolen from people during the fledgling days of Early Modernity, and libertarians—rather than wholesale ignoring or rejecting this legacy—should learn to reconcile with it, that we might avoid similar calamities.

Ep. 06: The Road from Serfdom...to Corporatism

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 04:15:00 GMT

When you change your perspective on past events by changing the sources of information, the facts of your narrative change as well. We have some decent tools to guide our exploration of the past, so let’s start digging.

Ep. 05: Revisiting "The Conspiracy Theory of History Revisited"

Tue, 30 May 2017 11:00:00 GMT

History is the grand catalog of human action in the past. At its broadest, it encompasses everything that everyone everywhere has ever done.If all history is about individual actions, and all individual actions are based on some sort of perceived self-interest on the part of the actor, one may conclude that chronicles of an historical actor’s life would reveal patterns about how they expected to fulfill those interests.

Further Readings/References:
Rothbard, “The Conspiracy Theory of History, Revisited,” Reason (April 1977).

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Ep. 04: Methodological Individualism and the Study of History

Tue, 23 May 2017 04:15:00 GMT

Methodological individualism is the principle that only individuals act—only individuals consciously apply means toward the fulfilment of ends. whenever we investigate society we must do so through the experiences and actions of the individuals which compose it.

Ep. 03: The Liberal and Marxist Theories of History

Tue, 16 May 2017 04:25:00 GMT

We overview Marxism and classical liberalism so we can get a very full picture of what produces, change over time.

Ep. 02: History from Above and Below

Tue, 09 May 2017 12:00:00 GMT

By studying history, though, we empower ourselves to challenge received wisdom and create knowledge of our own. Sometimes doing history from below (rather than above) is as simple as broadening the scope of your evidence beyond the relatively controllable published record. It might mean deep dives into personal diaries, letters, newspapers, pop and material culture, archeological evidence, or the introduction of a variety of methodological approaches to oft-studied subjects.

Ep. 01: A Neglected Anniversary

Tue, 02 May 2017 16:13:00 GMT

Welcome to the first installment of Liberty Chronicles!

Everything you were taught about why the world is the way it is was planted in your mind. What does the development of the bathtub have to do with how we think about history? On first glance, it might seem to contribute very little. It is, after all, only a mundane and humble tub.

Welcome to Liberty Chronicles

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:05:00 GMT

Join host Dr. Anthony Comegna on a series of libertarian explorations into the past. Liberty Chronicles combines innovative libertarian thinking about history with specialist interviews, primary and secondary sources, and answers to listener questions. At its most useful, studying history is a sort of purgative process through which we can better understand past actors’ motivations and mistakes; we then use this wisdom to refine our own behavior as individuals. By approaching humanity’s past ‘from below’ and treating subjects as individuals and historical agents, Liberty Chronicles will help you navigate the present and future.

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Liberty Chronicles

Coming Soon: The Liberty Exchange

Ep. 105: The Last Liberty Chronicles

Our Most Memorable Episodes:

Ep. 104: The United States as a Young Foreign Power, Part Two, with Christopher A. Preble

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Ep. 103: The United States as a Young Foreign Power, with Christopher A. Preble

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Ep. 102: What it Takes to be a Bankster

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Ep. 101: Edgar Allan Poe on Mushrooms and Men

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Ep. 100: Quakertarianism, with Caleb Brown

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Ep. 99: Mushrooms & Men

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Ep. 98: The Civil War as Corporatist Conquest

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Ep. 97: Resisting Leviathan, with Nicholas Mosvick

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Ep. 96: Seward's "Little Bell”

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Ep. 95: The Politics of the Confederacy

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Ep. 94: Was the Civil War a Libertarian Moment?

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Ep. 93: Freeborn John, with Michael Braddick

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Ep. 92: Profiles in Locodom: William Cullen Bryant

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Ep. 91: Lincoln the Colonizationist Part 2, with Phil Magness

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Ep. 90: Lincoln the Colonizationist Part 1, with Phil Magness

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Ep. 89: What did the Civil War Smell Like? with Mark Smith

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Ep. 88: The Secession Conventions

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Ep. 87: Profiles in Locodom: Fernando Wood

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Ep. 86: Eggnog Riot!!!!

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Ep. 84: America was Founded by Runaways & Renegades, with Joseph Kelly, Part 1

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Ep. 83: Who Killed Jefferson(ianism)?

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Ep. 81: Spooner & The Secret Six, with Phil Magness

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Ep. 80: Libertypublicans

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Ep. 79: Compromising Compromisers, with Stephen Maizlish