Two months ago is not "a few weeks ago." That accounts for my difficulty in figuring out what you were talking about. Read carefully what I wrote. I made no claim as to Gerrit Smith's importance. You wrote:
Aside from maybe Garrison, Spooner was perhaps the best known and most prominent of the abolitionists of his day.
A manifestly untrue statement to anyone who knows anything about the history of the period. I responded:
It takes a rare and massive ignorance to pass over Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elijah P. Lovejoy, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Dwight Weld, the Grimkes, James Birney, Moncure Conway, Gerrit Smith, Lewis Tappan, John Brown, John Greenleaf Whittier, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Horace Greeley, Martin Delaney, Henry Ward Beecher and others and single out the obscure Spooner as one of the "best known and most prominent" of the abolitionists. Spooner isn't even mentioned in most short accounts of abolitionism. It's only because libertarians have rediscovered his works and put them on the Internet that he is remembered at all. But such ignorance is a fertile field for Rockwellism.
I didn't have to know all about Gerrit Smith's or Lucretia Mott's or Martin Delaney's or Lewis Tappan's activities to know that their names appeared in more books and articles on the subject than Lysander Spooner's. In looking for other information, one notices these things, and it's easy to go back and check them. I did not "declare" that Smith or any other person on that list was important, merely that a person who was honest and knew about the abolitionist movement wouldn't pass over a long list of names, including his, and baldly state that Lysander Spooner was second only to Garrison in the movement. Your original statement was untrue. I didn't have to be or claim to be an expert on the period to know that. And I called you on it.
For all of your accusations of my supposed backtracking, you don't seem to express your original conviction with as much force. Could it be that you no longer think that Spooner was one of the two or three most prominent abolitionists? Or do you persist in your original statement, in spite of evidence to the contrary because it's too hard emotionally for you to back down?
We live and we learn. It's all a part of life and if we weren't led to modify or rethink our positions sometimes, these discussions would be of little use. Unfortunately the charges and countercharges, quibbles and accusations get one away from the original point. Since you've offered so little reliable evidence in defense of your original statement, I will presume that you have been convinced that you were wrong. If you have been unwilling to consult major written accounts of the abolitionist movement up until now, I don't think anything I say will convince you.
For what it's worth, Spooner did have an influence on Frederick Douglass. I have learned that, and you can count it as a point in your favor. You seem to like that sort of thing. But having adopted the idea of the unconstitutionality of slavery Douglass was disposed to talk up those associated with that idea. He paid homage to Spooner, also to Smith and Goodell and the three as a group. There's no sign that he a made a special cult of Spooner, and you haven't said anything about what he thought of other abolitionist spokesmen. He may well have been effusive in his regard for them as well -- or excessively critical, because they didn't share his views. It's hard to evaluate Douglass's comments statements without knowing the context.
And Douglass was far from the only abolitionist. Others in the movement weren't so enthusiastic about Spooner. They praised his intelligence, for he was good with words and argument. And, in the larger scheme of things he was on the same side, and those fighting for an unpopular cause graciously extended courtesy to those struggling for the same end. One can't expect that they'd rake him over the coals and risk alienating his faction. It's neither necessary nor justifiable nor useful to savage everyone with whom one has a disagreement.
But Garrison and Phillips were very critical of Spooner. They regarded his view on slavery and the constitution as wrong, as going against the meaning of words and what they understood of the world. There was something backhanded in their compliments. In the view of Phillips and Garrison, Spooner was too apt to split hairs, too clever for his own good, "merely logical" rather than truly wise. Given that they thought him wrong and misguided it's hard to see why they would submit to his influence or defer to him more than any other abolitionist writer.
Reviews and obituaries always exaggerate the importance of their subject. That's why we have to turn to reviews or obituaries of other figures, or better still, to more extensive works that deal with a topic in more exhaustive fashion or articles that scrutinize a smaller topic but don't loose sight of the bigger picture. When someone only has to write about Lysander Spooner they will speak differently than when they survey his whole period and many of his contemporaries. And the old rule about not speaking ill of the dead means that obituaries should be treated with caution. I'd imagine that you'd find the same effusiveness from the Boston Globe or New York Times in eulogizing at half-dozen or dozen abolitionists.
Your claims about Gerrit Smith are a mess. The endorsement by the Liberty Party of Spooner's ideas was the reward of a shriveled and dying party for a loyal follower and carried little significance outside a small rump faction. Smith won his election on the Free Soil ticket which you have condemned as not being truly abolitionist. His election to Congress or what he did there didn't mean much alongside Garrison's thirty plus years of effort culminating in the abolition of slavery. Smith was as much of a compromiser in Congress as his fellow Free Soilers, and this diminished his standing among radical abolitionists. And Smith resigned in mid-term, not valuing his seat enough to keep it. Being elected to Congress apparently didn't mean as much to him as a career as an outside agitator. Louis Filler (The Crusade Against Slavery) pays tribute to Smith and his faction, but leaves one wondering if he really had the right stuff in him to leave much in the way of real accomplishments behind.
The point you were trying to make about Gerrit Smith and Lysander Spooner doesn't seem to stand up. But that's okay. We can't all be right about everything all the time, and it's foolish to think that anyone can. Surely such discussions as these are intended to reach understanding and truth and not to rack up points for oneself.
I have no problem giving Spooner his due. If I ever said that he had no influence or virtually no influence I was wrong. Clearly he did have some influence, but he still wasn't one of the most important figures in the movement. Manifestly untrue statements, like your February comment about Spooner being second only to Garrison as the "best known and most prominent" abolitionist of the day are provocative -- and not in the good sense of the word. Make such exaggerated and manifestly untrue claims and you ought to expect harsh and unequivocal responses. Promote someone beyond his deserts and his flaws will become more noticeable than his virtues.
Judging from some of your earlier posts on anti-slavery activists and your many condemnations of New England my belief that you single out Spooner for praise only because of his support for the idea of a "right to secession" is more than "blind speculation." Had the federal government or the North adopted Spooner's plan for slave insurrections and a war of liberation and circulated his manifestoes, I don't think you'd applaud Spooner so loudly. I don't suppose either of us thinks much of John Brown, why do you make an exception for one who shared Brown's views about armed slave insurrection? You're certainly free to disagree, but if people care to think about it they will have to make up their own minds about whether I'm right, and I stand by my opinion.
If Spooner were just an abolitionist, we wouldn't have been having this conversation about him. We don't passionately discuss William Bowditch or William Goodell. If Spooner weren't an anarchist he wouldn't have the Internet presence that he has today. And it's clear to me that he wouldn't have been singled out for praise by Confederate apologists if he'd only been an abolitionist or anarchist, and hadn't supported secession.
Would I be so hard on Spooner if he hadn't attacked Lincoln? The more anarchist Spooner was the more I'd criticize him. Someone who so strongly condemned virtually all governments as "tyrants, robbers and murderers" isn't really to be taken seriously. Spooner's excessive and intemperate rhetoric would make him pretty low in my book regardless of what he thought of Lincoln. If he'd made a more nuanced and responsible critique of the Unionist cause, my reaction would be different. I wouldn't object as strongly to an anti-Lincoln or anti-union argument that wasn't so extreme, one-sided, anarchistic or ill-tempered.
This discussion has gone on too long and taken up too much time. I don't really think there's anything more to say at this point.
Walt
I am indeed scoring points against you, x, but it is not over my assertion of Spooner's importance but rather your repeated attempts to belittle, downplay, and dismiss his role as an abolitionist.
Two months ago is not "a few weeks ago." That accounts for my difficulty in figuring out what you were talking about.
Not really. You claimed yesterday that you knew nothing of Gerrit Smith beyond his name as recent as a few weeks ago. Therefore you could not have known anymore a month or two prior to two weeks ago.
Read carefully what I wrote. I made no claim as to Gerrit Smith's importance.
I have read it carefully, and yes you did claim his importance. Note the bolded portions:
It takes a rare and massive ignorance to pass over Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elijah P. Lovejoy, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Dwight Weld, the Grimkes, James Birney, Moncure Conway, Gerrit Smith, Lewis Tappan, John Brown, John Greenleaf Whittier, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Horace Greeley, Martin Delaney, Henry Ward Beecher and others and single out the obscure Spooner as one of the "best known and most prominent" of the abolitionists.
Now what does that mean, x? Your assertion was that I had "passed over" all the people on that list, which included Smith, and chosen the "obscure" Lysander Spooner as one of the most prominent abolitionists. Such a statement necessarily implies that you considered all of the people on that list, which included Smith, to posess a prominence that you also asserted the "obscure" Spooner not to have. And as I have demonstrated, you did not know a thing about Gerrit Smith at the time you included him on that list beyond his name. I further suspect that you have not a clue about half of the other names on that list either, and simply threw them in their after conducting a brief internet search in order to pad the ranks of abolitionists who were supposedly prominent compared to the "obscure" Spooner. But of course, despite your own ignorance of the matter, you're the one accusing me of a "rare and massive ignorance" of abolitionism, right?
didn't have to know all about Gerrit Smith's or Lucretia Mott's or Martin Delaney's or Lewis Tappan's activities to know that their names appeared in more books and articles on the subject than Lysander Spooner's.
By your own admission, you did not know a thing about Smith other than his name. Now you say you knew his prominence because that name appeared in a number of anonymous "books and artices" on abolitionism, even though by your own admission you knew nothing more about him than that name itself.
Curious.
You know, Calhoun's name appears fairly regularly in books on abolitionism, often in reference to the "opposition" and what not. Now, supposing you knew nothing of Calhoun, who he was, or what he said, but simply saw his name appearing a lot in abolitionist books, and saw lots of references to his name in the index, would you conclude similarly that he must have been an abolitionist of great prominence? Such an exercise would be no less scientific, if one can even call it that, than your current method of evaluating abolitionist credentials, x. That method, by your own indications, ammounts to little more than counting the number of references in the indexes or passages in the pages of a select few modern day historical works, many of them anonymous, and declaring it as conclusive proof that "person A was prominent" while "person B was not" and so forth. Nowhere have you offered so much as even a passage stating that Lysander Spooner's role was what you believe it to be, be it a modern or historical source. Nowhere have you offered anything from Spooner's fellow abolitionists discounting his relevance as you do.
I, on the other hand, have provided an extensive list of statements from Spooner's contemporaries, articles about Spooner from newspapers, and endorsements of his theories from other prominent abolitionists, all of which conflict with your initial contentions that Spooner was "obscure" and "minor" as a member of that movement.
Your case is weak, x, and you have yet to offer much of anything supportive of it beyond your usual flood of senseless bloviation and distraction-laced equivocation.
I did not "declare" that Smith or any other person on that list was important
By including those names in that list, you necessarily implied that each and every one of them had been passed over by me as candidates for the description of "best known and most prominent" abolitionists that I had provided for Spooner. If you do not believe the implications you made for your list to be accurate, you should not have included within it several names about which you knew absolutely nothing at the time. You have only yourself to blame for that one, x.
merely that a person who was honest and knew about the abolitionist movement wouldn't pass over a long list of names, including his, and baldly state that Lysander Spooner was second only to Garrison in the movement.
For one who whines as much as you do over the portrayal of your previous words, even when accurate, you sure don't pay much attention to accuracy yourself when referring to others! Read what I stated again, x:
"Aside from maybe Garrison, Spooner was perhaps, the best known and most prominent of the abolitionists of his day."
Now tell me. Does that sound like a "baldly state(d)" proclamation of absoluteness that Spooner "was second only to Garrison"? I venture to say that it does not, due to the intentionally included words that appear in bold from the excerpt above. When one says "perhaps," it is indicative of a possibility - namely, that an argument can be made to the end that is directed to by that same word. I have said it previously, and will say it again that not only an argument, but a STRONG argument can be made that Lysander Spooner was indeed among the very top of the most prominent abolitionists. Does a declaration that he was perhaps in the top ranks necessarily make him "#1 all time" or "#2 all time," or even say as an absolute statement of fact that he was either of these things? No, nor can it as such rank ordering is INHERENTLY a subjective exercise. It does however indicate that one believes a strong argument may be made for his inclusion at the top of the list and, as I have shown, evidence abounds in the abolitionist movement to support the conclusion that he was among the most prominent and influential in their ranks.
For all of your accusations of my supposed backtracking, you don't seem to express your original conviction with as much force.
In what way, x, has my position changed? I stated that Spooner was perhaps the abolitionist movement's most prominent and influential thinker, with a only few others that could arguably be the same (i.e Garrison), and that Spooner also ranks among the top level of important abolitionists. I continue to maintain and argue for his high level prominence in that movement, which included a strong influence on other well known abolitionists (i.e. Smith and Douglass) and national fame due to his book's wide circulation. You, on the other hand, have indeed backpeddled, at least enough to escape the implications of your earlier attempts to cast a role for Smith and others, in face of the facts I have presented here. You do not readily admit it, but it has been evident in your recent posts. As I noted previously, you set your criteria for prominence among abolitionists and I have presented a strong case of why Spooner meets each of them. Yet every time a fact is posted that contradicts your attempt to characterize Spooner as "minor" and "obscure," you offer not a rebuttal of that fact nor a concession of your error but rather an excuse that you hope will somehow get you around it.
We live and we learn.
Some of us do. Your behavior here, however, has been indicative of blatant stubbornness in the face of truths that contradict your root contention about Spooner. That stubbornness is so pervasive in your posts that you will even backpeddle on your earlier "supporting" statements when it is shown that, rather than help you, they support a contention exactly opposite of the one to which you cling regarding Spooner.
Since you've offered so little reliable evidence in defense of your original statement
It takes an unusual degree of arrogance for someone who has based his entire argument on vague platitudes and appeals to anonymous authorities to accuse another, who has made an argument upon historical facts and documentation, of failing to evidence something.
The evidence I have offered is sufficient to both refute your claim that Spooner was "obscure" among the abolitionist movement, and to support mine that he rightfully belongs in a place among the highest levels of prominence within that same movement. Among it is conclusive proof that other abolitionists and leading abolitionist publications took notice of, praised, and, in many cases, fully embraced Spooner's abolitionist theories. Among those who took major notice of it, while disagreeing, were Garrison and Phillips. Among those who took notice of it and embraced it were Smith and Douglass. My case is further supported by the fact that Spooner's theories became a subject of discussion in the highest of government circles during the 1850's, namely Congress, and by powerful politicians such as William Seward. Add to all of that the fact that major mainstream newspapers such as the Boston Globe and New York Times, which called his book a "remarkable" anti-slavery treatise and "an epoch" in abolitionism, respectively. All of these facts are direct proof that your claims of Spooner's obscurity and unimportance are little more than frauds, lies, and expressions of ignorance. Each of them further supports my argument that Spooner's abolitionist prominence was at the top of the top. If you dispute either of these, make you case, x.
Just note that appealing to anonymous authorities, equivocating around facts that directly contradict your claims, excuse-making when directly confronted about this same set of evasion, offering as serious evidence the childlike game of counting page numbers from the index as an indicator of importance, and, as always, posting lengthy tracts of largely irrelevant bloviation on a subject about which you know very little will not suffice as making a case for anything beyond your own unwillingness to engage in honest factual debate over the materials you contend.
If that is your position now, that is about all I can hope to ask for from you. That was my original complaint with your portrayal of him. Obviously, you do not consider him as significant as I do. I believe, and think that a strong case can be made, that Spooner ranks among the highest levels of abolitionists in prominence. As this is ultimately a matter of subjectivity, you may disagree if you desire. At this point I only ask that credit be given, and up until very recently, you were not giving him due credit. That being said, I too am content to leave this debate as it stands.