This is a single page from the Labadie Collection. It is evidently directed at the periodical of the Oneida community, the Circular , in which John Humphrey Noyes had criticized Modern Times and Warren (as well as Andrews) by name. That would date this published letter from the 1850s, though it could be later. I have so far not located the exact passage that Warren is replying to, but Noyes was quite hostile to and acerbic about the notion of individual sovereignty. It strikes me that the type is Warren’s, so I don’t think it is from theCircular itself. It’s a lively little statement, however. Warren gives a version of one of his favorite arguments: that to deny individual sovereignty is to assert it, so that the negation ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In the late 1820s, Warren published a number of short pieces in the Owenite New Harmony Gazette; they are his earliest extant writings. These texts were discovered and attributed to Warren by Shawn Wilbur. The piece below, from Sep 10, 1828 (vol. 2, Iss. 46, p. 365), shows the direct influence of Owen on Warren, and gives a basic statement of the derivation of political freedom from metaphysical determinism.
The acquisition of any new fact, always produces in my mind a feeling of pleasure, especially when I perceive that it will in any manner promote my future happiness; and the more does it increase my happiness if I can make it subservient to the happiness of others. This will be sufficient apology to the reader for my observations, whe... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Nothing is more common than the remark that “no two persons are alike,” that “circumstances alter cases,” that “we must agree to disagree,” etc., and yet we are constantly forming institutions that require us to be alike, which make no allowance for the Individuality of persons or circumstances, and which render it necessary for us to agree, and leave us no liberty to differ from each other, nor to modify our conduct according to circumstances.
“To every thing there is a season, and time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Responsibility must be Individual, or there is no responsibility at all.
The directing power, or the lead of every movement must be individual, or there is no lead, no order, nothing but confusion. The lead may be a person or a thing—an idea or a principle; but it must be an Individuality, or it cannot lead; and those who are led must have an individual or similar impulse, and both that and the lead must coincide or harmonize, to insure order and progress.
The masses in a city, when meeting each other upon the side-walk, without any thing to lead to one Individual understanding, may turn out in divers ways to avoid collision.
One turns to the right, the other to the left, and they both counteract each other; and both stop, both cha... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
This is essentially an advertising brochure for a school — the Mechanical College — at Modern Times, no doubt printed by Warren, dated December 1861. It’s a vision of education for self-reliance and community building. If Thoreau had written an essay on teaching, he would have said much the same, and he did much the same as a schoolmaster. Warren’s is a quintessentially American statement, connecting Ben Franklin and John Dewey. One feature of Warren’s critique of the apprenticeship system was that specialized knowledge should not be held in secret by craftsmen or guilds. The almost incredible range of practical and impractical knowledge that Warren evokes in this rather fantastical curriculum is almost certain... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
This is a letter in Warren’s bold, flowing hand, dated “Thompson’s Station, Long Island, New York [i.e. Modern Times]. March 12, /53. It is addressed to a person in England, whom one might speculate is A.C. Cuddon. (At the end of True Civilization, Warren suggests that people responding in England address their correspondence to Cuddon). A surprising moment comes at the end, when Warren says of the spiritualist movement then sweeping his circle “it is no delusion.” A few of Warren’s letters are preserved at the University of Michigan. All but this one are, in the copies I obtained, illegible due to bleed-through.
With much pleasure I received your interesting letter of the 15th Feb.
There is no danger ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I. New Harmony and the Time Store Idea
This is a passage from The Quarterly Letter: Devoted to Showing the Practical Applications and Progress of Equity, a Subject of Serious to All Classes, but Most Immediately To the Men and Women of Labor and Sorrow! Vol 1, No. 1 (dated October, 1867).
(Text obtained from the Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.)
The Quarterly Letter, like the Periodical Letter, and The Peaceful Revolutionist, was one-off or extremely occasional periodical, entirely written, set, and printed by Warren. The typesetting and printing is notable: extremely elaborate and relatively free of errors; the esthetic is clunky but somehow sweet. This, of which I obtained the text from the Labadie Collection at Michigan, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Introduction
It is evident that Warren kept a journal throughout his life. Entries rarely reveal details of his family or intimate life, but rather meticulously document his social experiments. He drew upon these notebooks in many of his published works, especially Practical Details and Practical Applications. Apparently he had a pretty odd system, retaining notebooks over decades. The one surviving document of this type that we have is labeled “D” and contains entries from 1840, 1860, and 1873. It is in the collection of the Working Men’s Institute in New Harmony, and was redacted by Ann Caldwell Butler for an MA thesis at Ball State in 1968. Martin says (though how he knows this is a bit of a mystery) that there were ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
This remarkable letter, published in the Boston Investigator (XXXIII, 41 (Feb. 17, 1864)), was located by Shawn Wilbur. For Kossuth, see the note to the previous selection. Kossuth had gone from resistance fighter to ruler, a success that Warren regarded as no less a danger than complete failure. He adduces the great revolutionaries of France, and history has since provided many examples of noble fighters of oppression who mutated into oppressors: Mao and Lenin, of course, come particularly to mind.
For the Boston Investigator.
A Letter to Louis Kossuth
Governor of Hungary
Boston, Feb. 1, 1864
Beloved and Honored Man:
When you visited this country years ago, and put forth those heart-stirring appeal in behalf of your blee... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Josiah Warren’s claim — or others’ claim on his behalf — that he was the first American anarchist, rests largely on the now extremely rare periodical The Peaceful Revolutionist, of 1833, which Warren wrote and printed. That date indeed, for what it’s worth, places Warren’s expression of anarchism before Thoreau’s, or the radical abolitionist Henry Wright’s, though I daresay it was fairly commonplace in radical Protestant religious movements of two centuries before. We could say, however, that The Peaceful Revolutionist was a very early expression of secular anarchism, preceding Proudhon, for example. But how ever we may adjudicate priority, The Peaceful Revolutionist contains some of Warren&rs... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Explanation of the design and arrangements of the Cooperative Magazine, which has recently been commenced in Cincinnati. Whoever can for a moment, so far abstract his thoughts from his pecuniary concerns, as to Look around him, and observe the evils which the established laws and. customs, with respect to the administration of property, are daily producing in what is called Civilized Society, must, if he is possessed of the least degree of sensibility, feel a strong desire, to remove these evils.
That the inevitable tendency of these Laws and Customs is to produce Ignorance, Want, and Wretchedness, to the majority of mankind, to the Laboring and useful members of Society, we have only to refer to their condition, in those countries where t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Natural liberty or individual sovereignty calls for freedom of choice in all cases, under all circumstances, and at all times. By freedom of choice I mean exemption from the control of other persons in distinction from the natural and irresistible control of circumstances.
All social arrangements should admit of this freedom of choice of every individual and all subordination should be voluntary. For instance, in the performance of a piece of music at a private party each one who takes a part subordinates himself voluntarily to the lead of one person. The necessity of this is so obvious that it controls choice, but it is not persons that compel this subordination. It is between the control or force of circumstances or necessity, each perso... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
These are the “preliminary remarks” to Warren’s Written Music Remodeled and Invested with the Simplicity of an Exact Science. The elements of expression recognized and rendered definite, thereby securing the great object of musical performance everywhere, and abolishing multitudes of ambiguous words adopted in vain to secure that end. The unnecessary transposition of keys in vocal music dispensed with, and the principal use, and the bewildering study of flats and sharps thereby abolished. The confusion of cleffs abolished. A system of short hand accompaniment introduced. No unnecessary innovations made; but the easy transitions from, and to, the common notation made an object of special care. The booklet was published in B... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)