The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1345: The Road to Civil War Pt. 3 - John Taylor and the Agrarian Republic - w/ George Bagby

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

96 MinutesSafe for WorkGeorge Bagby is a content creator and publisher of long-forgotten books. George joins Pete to continue a series detailing the long lead up to America's Civil War.George's Twitter AccountGeorge's Pinned Tweet w/ Links George's YouTube ChannelPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

If you want to get the show early and ad-free, head on over to the piquinones show.com. There, you can choose from where you wish to support me. Now listen very carefully. I've had some people ask me about this, even though I think on the last ad, I stated it pretty clearly. If you want an RSS feed, you're going to have to subscribe through substack or through Patreon. You can also subscribe on my website, which is right there, gumro. and what's the other one? Subscribe star.

And if you do that, you will get access to the audio file. So head on over to the Pekignano Show.com. You'll see all the ways that you can support me there. And I just want to thank everyone. It's because of you that I can put out the amount of material that I do. I can do what I'm doing with Dr. Johnson on 200 years together and everything else. The things that Thomas and I are doing together on Continental Philoiloges.

It's all because of you. And, yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough. So thank you. The Pekignana Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekinae Show. George Bagby is back for part three. How are you doing tonight, George?

I'm doing well. I've had some productive days lately, working really hard on a bunch of projects. Very nice to be with you tonight. Good to be with you. Good to hear that you're doing a lot of work there. We appreciate it. And the feedback on the first two episodes has been excellent. So I'm excited for this one, especially since it's about an individual that I have actually read a lot on.

So take it away. Well, that's good to know. I'm looking forward to interacting with you on him. I prepared material on John Randolph or John Taylor of Caroline. I'll mention John Randolph in passing as we progress here. John Taylor of Caroline is a major American Jeffersonian thinker. And we've talked in our previous two episodes about the Federalist Party and their vision for America, especially in the person of Hamilton.

We've also talked about Jefferson's construction of the Constitution and how Hamilton's victory does an awful lot to build American economic institutions and ultimately the way that the federal government comes to operate. But the Jeffersonian vision is extremely important in understanding the sectional conflict that develops in our early history. At the time of Washington's administration, the vast majority of Americans are involved in agriculture. Even the artisans, the shipbuilders, merchants,

lawyers, and other professionals, they are still operating farms and gardens on the side. They're still tending animals. That is just a mainstay of American existence at the time. And our cities remain very small. We have a very small urban population that's very closely adjacent to the agricultural countryside. And so Hamilton's vision for the Republic really is far-fetched for the people of his day. His vision of an industrial financialized America, it only speaks to a relatively small minority of the population,

and they're more in the northeast than they are anywhere else at this stage. Jefferson's appeal is much more broad because of his agrarian focus and his more laissez-faire kinds of policies, Jefferson certainly favors the state level organization and the idea that the states could actually be very significantly different from one another in the predominant way of life, that it would correspond more with the regions of the country. John Taylor, his great achievement is in his consistent pushing back on the centralized model that Hamilton is proposing in Washington's administration. Another figure that comes in and develops constitutional law in a really big way is the Hamiltonian

disciple Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court. Though Marshall was a Virginian, Marshall was also a high federalist, a follower of Hamilton's ideas, and actually does more to promulgate Hamilton's vision of this broad construction of the Constitution, this very broad reading of the necessary and proper clause and the general welfare clause. He does more to advance that reading than Hamilton could have possibly done with his mere opinions as cabinet minister. So the agrarian, well, I mentioned Marshall.

John Taylor actually systematically pushes back on Marshall's interpretation. Of course, he is not a Supreme Court justice. He's a statesman, an elected official frequently from Virginia, but he doesn't have the role of pushing it back in constitutional law, writing opinions on Supreme Court cases, but he does write a lot of literature, very learned and well-argued literature, pushing back on this and is a very philosophical kind of voice in the Jeffersonian school. So John Randolph comes to speak in a very philosophical way, ultimately, of the southern agrarian position, which is extremely important for us to understand as we're approaching the sectional conflict between the north and the south.

So just to introduce the issue, I wanted to jump back into classical history because these are very long gestating ideas when it's comes to government. And we find this kind of argument brewing in the Roman Republic, for example. The Roman Republic was founded by Lucius Junius Brutus and his comrades who overthrew the Tarquin and established a representative government. Now, the old Roman idea of citizenship was that Roman citizens had property, Roman citizens paid taxes, Roman citizens bore arms and knew how to use them. There was a kind of militia organization in Roman society

from the early Republican times, and this was the basis of, of the very successful Roman army, up until the time of the Punic Wars against Carthage, Roman citizens with their own arms made up the Roman army. And there was a prohibition on army service for those who did not own land. You actually had to have a stake in your society

in order to be eligible to fight for it. And as Rome, has great success, they conquer Carthage in the Punic Wars, they have a tremendous boon of land and booty and slaves from their conquest. The population becomes more urbanized and this creates the problems of empire that eventually result in the consolidation of imperial power in Rome. And that's its own story. But you have in the example of the Roman Republic, this honorable aristocracy, the famous Roman virtues like magnanimity and discipline and such.

These are where the great strengths of the Roman state originally came from. And naturally, it was a place where American patriots looked for inspiration in their own story. They were classically educated. They were looking back on the history of Greece and Rome and seeing examples that they wanted to imitate examples of success. So Brutus, and this is not, this isn't Caesar's assassin in this case, though the founding father is also related to him. And Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Republican movement that overthrows the king, Tarkwin the Proud, he is an inspiration for them. And the participatory republic with the responsible property-owning citizens, they saw as a model

for America. In our successful independence move against King George, we establish an agrarian republic, and it's overwhelmingly agrarian at its start. Yet we also have figures like Hamilton, who are dreaming of a more centralized and economically focused empire. So these tensions, they do seem unlikely, given the overwhelming predominance of agriculture in the 1780s, but they create this great battle of schools of philosophy, visions of what America could be. The classical philosophers from ancient Greece give John Taylor his main talking points. Aristotle and Plato are both the original sources for our ideas of economics. They both wrote about it.

Both of them recommended strictures on merchants and those that dealt chiefly with money, which is very interesting. They recognize a tension between the producers of commodities, which are plants and animals, also things like material you dig out of the earth in a mine. They recognized the tension between those that produce commodities and those that dealt with money and only commodities for trade. They distinguish between natural wealth getting, which is related to natural processes. like the reproduction of cattle, the tilling of the earth and the raising of crops out of the earth,

and the unnatural means of getting wealth, which means that you buy the corn at a certain price in one place, you sell it for a higher price in another place. Or even more unnatural, you lend out money and make money on the interest. They both recognized these crafts. And both Plato and Aristotle, they criticized it as an unnatural kind of process. This is an unnatural wealth getting. In book one of Aristotle's politics, he actually uses the Greek word oikonomiya to describe the operations of the basic unit of society, the household, which he tells us this is the basic unit

of because of the essential human relationships that you find there. The man and wife is their relations to their children, also their relations to their slaves and animals. These are political societies in miniature. but also because the household generates wealth naturally. In Aristotle's conception, the household is a small business, or more properly, a farm. It's generating natural commodities. He says that the wealth that the household creates has a natural use value. And the focus of the basic unit, the household for Aristotle, is for the enjoyment of living.

So the small farmer, he is growing the food he likes to eat. He's tending animals according to his own preference and such. It's not primarily about making money. It's primarily about living. Now, that sounds kind of idealistic, but that is more or less what lives of farmers were like, especially away from trade routes in America at the time of the founding. They're all interested in having cash crops and refining the goods that they bring out of the earth, taking them to market and trading and such.

but their primary concern is actually bringing these natural goods out of the earth or out of the animals and refining them and enjoying them in an isolated farm, you know, far from the rivers or roads. This is the natural course of how people live. So it actually corresponds very well with what Aristotle is describing. And Aristotle contrast that with the merchant who is interested in moving the goods and his object is money. That's what his goal is, is to accumulate this artifice that represents value, exchange value, and not the commodities themselves. So in the oeconomia or the household economy that Aristotle uses this word to describe, it's about money as a means, or money as a means to an end, not money as an end.

And he distinguishes between the two motivations there. So here is Aristotle from the politics. Natural riches and the natural art of wealth getting are a different thing. In their true form, they are part of the management of a household, whereas retail trade is the art of producing wealth by exchange. For then man would go on without limit, and so the desire would be unsatisfied and fruitless. So the merchant, who is after money as an end in itself, is never satisfied with what he is produced,

whereas the farmer who brings wheat out of the ground, turns it into flour and makes bread with it for his family, this has a great satisfaction involved. It's not about stockpiling bread without end. It is the satisfaction of living and enjoying the commodity that has been produced. Now, obviously, that's not the whole of what's going on in early America. People are producing crops to sell them, but the point of their activity is actually a lifestyle. The small farmer is living a lifestyle that supports a family.

And he does make money off of it, but that is not the point. Right. The independence of the homestead is highly valuable to them. Economic independence, like political independence, is a self-satisfying kind of activity. So Aristotle, he distinguishes between oikonamia, as I've described, And Kapaliki, which is what he calls the retail trade, Aristotle goes on to say, the state arises, and by state, he does not mean a modern bureaucratic government, translate this as the community, the polis, if you will. the translators usually turn the Greek word polis into state.

And this is probably an example of that. But he says the community arises out of the needs of mankind. No one is self-sufficing that the individual cannot, he cannot provide for himself. The Aristotle ultimately says this is, a biological limitation. Man cannot divide himself and reproduce by himself. He must form a family. And then a family cannot survive on its own.

It needs neighbors. It needs people to trade with, needs people to cooperate with people to help defend itself. And so they organize into a community. And they have specializations. You know, there's one that makes bread and one that makes bread. and one that makes shoes and one that builds houses and so on. He says, all of us have many wants, and they exchange with one another, and one gives and another receives, until the idea that the exchange will be for their good.

So this is the origin of community life. The merchant's duty is to be in the market and to give money in exchange for goods. So he sees this as the effect of large communities. They develop a merchant class. Aristotle doesn't say they should be proscribed, forbidden. He sees this as a natural element in human history, like Plato does as well. But Aristotle, like Plato, they're both suspicious of the artificial, unnatural, characteristics and goals of such a class, to the point that Plato in his laws, which is one of

his later works, and a bit more involved than the famous dialogues, he proposes political strictures on the merchant class to keep them out of lawmaking to various degrees. Here is Plato in the laws. By filling the markets of the city with foreign merchandise and retail trading and breaking in men's souls knavish and tricky ways, it renders the city faithless and loveless. It's very interesting Plato is focused on the spiritual character. what a predominance in merchant activities in what Aristotle calls the retail trade, what that does to a man's soul.

He says, it does this not to itself only, but to the rest of the world as well. So Plato is very suspicious of this tendency, this kind of professional obsession. Similarly, we see among the agrarian statesmen, such as Jefferson, this clear preference for the farmer as a political class, and a great suspicion of schemes, imperial ambitions, as we see with Hamilton, to patronize the merchant class. to link them up in constructive ways with the political class, to make them dependent on one another, the financiers giving greater powers to federal bureaus, lines of credit and such, and that this kind of relationship is very dangerous. Yes, it does increase political power. Yes, it may increase the means by which we might do great and powerful and wealth-getting kinds of things.

But Jefferson and his agrarian school, best exemplified by John Taylor and also the likes of John Randolph of Roanoke, they are very averse to this. They're very critical of this, and they have a solid ancient tradition to draw on, which is why I say that John Taylor of Caroline, it ultimately has a major contribution in philosophy, though we'll find he offers an awful lot for us to consider. Jefferson famously said on this point, which is certainly a classical allusion to the politics, he said, the cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and its liberty and interests. Jefferson, like the other agrarian writers, is like Plato, like Aristotle, very dismissive of the value of large cities and urban populations, consumer populations,

populations very dependent on finance. And of course, I know I'm describing my own lifestyle, because the independence of the small business, the cultivator of the earth, their political and economic independence is increasingly scarce in our lives. It's not available to us. We do not have any ready opportunities to go and be self-sufficient farmers or deal primarily in producing commodities in natural ways as opposed to these artificial ways. That is the predominant way of life in our world now, certainly in the Western world. Jefferson says of cities, just generally, he says, I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man. The useful arts can thrive elsewhere and less perfection in the others with more health, virtue, and freedom. That would be my choice. So he says, yes, we may not have such excellent

production of luxuries as you might find in European cities. That seems a small price to pay for the independence, the economic and political independence, and the virtues cultivated by the agrarian life, predominating. This is a very long-lived tradition in the South, particularly, where the agricultural lifestyle predominated until modern times. even in the early 20th century, it was still the main means of living through large areas of the South, where we don't see the growth of the great southern cities, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte. We don't see the growth of these areas until very recently, the latter half of the 20th century. Jefferson goes on to say, when we get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. So that frames the talking points of this school of thought and gives us a more philosophical insight given Plato and Aristotle and their explanation. of these issues, so that we can dive deeper into John Taylor of Caroline and better understand

just what he was getting at. So Taylor, he was, he saw service in the War for Independence. He ends up a colonel of the Virginia militia. He is from the Tidewater of Virginia. He's from Caroline County, which is just east of Fredericksburg, Virginia. So it's up on what's called the Northern Neck adjacent to Westmoreland County and the seat of the Lee family, who were his neighbors. He is very interested in this question of real versus artificial wealth. And this is a major theme of his writings. He wrote a compelling volume.

It's more of a practical volume meant for farmers called The Errator. This is a series of essays. I think there are 16 chapters in this volume. And it was the most popular thing he ever wrote because on his practical side, he was a farmer his entire life, in spite of his public prominence in spite of his output in philosophy and law, in spite of his service in Congress, and then the state legislature in Virginia, he was, at the end, always a farmer. In Eritre, half of the book concerns agricultural reforms to restore barren land in Virginia that had been overfarmed. The other half of the book concerns the philosophy, the political economy of farmers predominating in a community, and why, in his view, the production of real wealth out of commodities is politically vital,

that it forms a certain kind of society, one that is a one that is, is more rooted, one that is more disciplined, one that is more aware of natural limits, and with more of a cheerful dismissal of the ambitions of these abstract economic powers, business combinations, banks and such, because they're actually independent of them in a serious way. And he believed that this was the root of American political institutions, the fact that most Americans were farmers, the vast majority, in fact. So he was a great critic of Hamilton's protective tariff system. Back at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and such, he was a anti-federalist. So he's a unique individual in that he had great prominence

in national politics after the ratification of the Constitution in spite of his outspoken anti-federalism. He was in fact elected to Congress in the first Congress as an anti-federalist critic of the Constitution. So even though he lost that fight in Virginia, very, narrowly lost it. He went and served as a statesman. He was so respected in Virginia. He was a great critic of Hamilton's protective tariffs. So he is a great proponent of a free trade model for the economy. He said that the tariffs amount to a wealth transfer from one portion of the economy to the other. Because farmers are in need of manufactured goods, they pay a higher price for them with these protective tariffs, and this moves their capital, their wealth, from the agricultural

sector to the cities, which he sees as the special sites of government patronage through that protective tariff system Hamilton proposed. This becomes a really big issue later in our history. It is of minimal practical importance in the fact that it wasn't much happening. It was happening to a degree. There were certain protective tariffs in Washington's administration, but it gets expanded over time. It gets increased. And this is a very serious issue by the time. time of the Andrew Jackson administration. Taylor says the bounties, and this is the, this is the particular word Hamilton uses in his report on manufacturers in the Washington administration, bounties are these protective tariffs, the fund or the revenue from which are to be used for

internal improvements for the building of roads, the improvement of waterways, the building of canals, the building of port cities or port facilities. Taylor says the bounties are partly, but never completely reimbursed to agriculture. So he notes that agriculture will benefit from the internal improvements to some degree, but on balance it benefits industry more because it was meant to benefit

industry. That's the purpose of protective tariffs, is to benefit manufacturers, to reduce their competition. Taylor, like Jefferson, makes many overtures to the political virtue of the agrarian element. He says, the yoke fellow of the earth must thrive or starve together. if the nation pursues a system of lessening the food of the earth, the earth in justice or revenge will starve the nation. So rather like Jefferson famously saying the farmers are the chosen people of God, Jefferson famously said that in his notes on the state of Virginia. Taylor likewise points to the health of the commodity-producing element of the nation as the essential element of any nation. That this is the place where people are connected to the rhythms of nature. This is the place where they acquire natural virtues, a sense of limits, a sense of tragedy,

an awareness of death, an awareness of God, ultimately. This is something later on, the Vanderbilt Agrarians at Nashville, Donald Davidson, Alan Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and others, they write about this enduring theme in Southern literature and in our political history that the connection to natural forces that the farmer is immersed in, in his lifestyle, makes for a religious and artistic people, makes for a people who are very much aware

that they are not ultimately in control, that there are limits to man's actions. Whereas, of course, the city dweller in an overwhelmingly artificial environment is far less aware of these natural forces. He wants light, he flips a switch. He's too hot, he flips a switch. He wants food. He calls for some. Pays for some.

He is so separated as obviously, that's not. norm for us, it's the norm for me. They're so separated from the harsh realities of life that they grow distant from the traditional virtues, from ties to particular places. We realize this when we live in these artificial environments. You might drive a thousand miles and it's the same coffee shop. It's the exact same design. The cup of coffee comes from the exact same factory. It has been tooled so that it tastes precisely the same as it does a thousand miles away. And we no longer appreciate the differences between place and place. The rootedness, the sense of place, these are important distinctions that are all too obvious.

in a traditional society, in a Negrarian society. Now, I say all of this in preparation to approach a very interesting point with Taylor, and this is one that I must say I have very complicated feelings concerning. This point was very fruitful. There is a lot of correspondence between the There's a lot of correspondence between Taylor, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson himself, on this point, which I have mined now for years and found tremendous inspiration in. It's all concerning the subject of equality, which is that very fruitful phrase, whatever

else we might say about it from Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal. Now, this is troublesome, certainly, given that it is historically a leftist talking point. John Adams, who I have a genuine admiration for, took issue with this and said it's a preposterous statement. And late in life, after the passions of political debate had died down, Adams renewed his friendship with Jefferson, and they had a very fruitful correspondence about this precise thing. But John Taylor enters in to this discussion. Taylor is a great critic of Adams' defense of the Constance. of the constitutions of America, which is one of Adams' major works. Adams really is worth our time, by the way, he's not the focus of this series. Obviously, we're focused on the sectional conflict, and Adams kind of falls out of the

picture, sadly. The Federalist, we'll talk more about the Federalist Party later, but Adams's thought is not so important in this context. The Federalist Party dies and a lot of these ideas are ushered out. Adams does have so much to contribute, though. If you're interested in Adams, who ought to be treated very seriously, and we can learn so much from him, Russell Kirk edited some bits of Adams in his conservative reader and also in his very good book, The Conservative Mind, where he treats Adams very seriously, as he does, actually, people like John Randolph, who Russell Kirk really liked. But Taylor, John Taylor, was insistent on political equality

and democratic institutions. That being said, he is also a southern landowner, a minorial figure, who has many slaves. He has several dozen. When he's talking of equality, he's talking of it in a qualified way. We can just take this for granted. But he is insistent on this overwhelming property. property-owning element in America being politically equal. John Adams retorts on this.

Taylor actually writes a book against John Adams' defense of the constitutions of America. Something that Adams had spent 20 years writing. Taylor, with steam coming out of his ears, presumably, writes something like 500 pages in rebuttal of John Adams' magnum opus and puts it to press. And he even anonymously sent John Adams his book in the mail. It didn't even tell him who had written it. He didn't include a letter or anything. He just sent this substantial volume to John Adams.

John Adams recollects this in private correspondence. He may have been writing Jefferson, in fact, where he said, I received this tome in the mail, and I think it might have been John Taylor's book. It sounded very like his speeches in Congress. So he may have, in fact, known who had written it when he received it. But Taylor criticizes Adams because Adams disparages the masses of the people. At least that's what John Taylor says. Adams insists that there are organized elites that determine the fate of societies.

This should sound very familiar to us. And this one of the reasons why I believe Adams really deserves our serious attention. Taylor is an egalitarian agrarian. And this is a very important point to understand the sectional conflict. Because for, and I've been wanting to give Adams his due here, I think that Adams is correct. I think that Taylor is going too far in his criticism of Adams, where he's alleging Adams, he is characterizing most American citizens as subservient slaves, slaves in a political sense, not illegal. And that Adams is elitist. Adams certainly is elitist,

because Adams believes in elites. Just to give you a taste of what Adams has to say, here's an example. This is Adams on the subject of equality to Jefferson. I think that you will find Adams' point very valuable. This is 1813, a letter to Jefferson. Has science or morals or philosophy or criticism or Christianity advanced or improved or enlightened mankind upon this subject,

and shown them that the idea of the well-born is a prejudice, a phantom, a point-no-point, a cape fly-away, a dream? I say it is the ordinance of God Almighty in the constitution of human nature and wrought into the fabric of the universe, philosophers and politicians may nibble and quibble, but they will never get rid of it. So the idea you can raise a child around books, teach him discipline, right, orient his mind towards high things, teach him the scripture, take him to church, you're going to get a very different result from the child that watches HBO night and day is never taught to do anything

for himself. Just take that as an example. The idea of being well-born, well-bred, that this makes substantial differences in people. Adams says this is the constitution of human nature. This is a law of God Almighty. This does make a difference. Adams is saying that there really are substantial differences between people that everyone knows you cannot dismiss it as mere prejudice.

Now, Adams is so compelling in this correspondence, which he does have with Taylor, though he can't get concessions from Taylor. Taylor is more intractable. He gets concessions from Jefferson. Adams finally concludes, I think that we more or less agree that there is natural aristocracy, which is quite remarkable. He got that out of Jefferson. But that's an aside, ultimately.

Let's go back to Taylor. Taylor, in an agrarian context, is insisting property owners are basically responsible by definition. And a citizenry, which is predominantly property owners, particularly farmers rather than businessman, manufacturers, merchants. It produces a certain kind of citizenry that has a real political equality. And Taylor is very apprehensive about a falling away of a property-owning citizenry into a citizenry of the employed,

what he calls the paper system to emphasize the artificiality of the oeconomia, that we are not now involved in our regular lives, in our lifestyles, in fact, in producing real wealth, which are commodities. but in acquiring media for exchange, which he says is de-rassinating, alienating.

This is such an interesting point. We have other great Southern Agrarians writers. People like John C. Calhoun, we occasionally, in academia, in scholarship, you'll find people speaking of John C. Calhoun as an American Marx, not in the least because he had the same goals as Marx. He recognized some of the same things that Marx talked about, had a very different take on them. The artificiality of modern economy was for Taylor as for Calhoun, a recognized factor in their politics that they opposed. Ironically, we find Marx opposing the same thing, yet saying it's inevitable and the revolution

will destroy it all. So it's an interesting factor we talk about in the Marxist context, you know, the alienation of labor and things like that. These are things that Taylor also appreciated. But Taylor didn't think it was at all necessary that we transition from that agrarian property-owning society to that alienated manufacturer consumer society. He didn't want that kind of system. He called it the paper system, emphasizing the artificiality of it. So Taylor, he warned that the paper and patronage aristocracy was being advocated by the likes of Adams. Adams, for his benefit, Adams

disavows this entirely. One of the things Adams writes in response to Taylor is that he has always been an opponent of banks. Adams even says, I don't believe that banks have ever contributed substantial good to any place where they've been established. that they demoralize the populace, in fact. That's what Adams says about banks.

In that, Taylor and Adams are in complete agreement. But Taylor is convinced that these northern federalists, unfortunately, Taylor did not have this long, drawn-out argument with Hamilton, who was a much more worthy opponent on this field. So it's very interesting what resulted with the debate with Adams. Taylor is convinced there is a conspiracy, a power-hungry conspiracy to centralize wealth and to create a patronized artificial aristocracy using the Philadelphia Constitution. Now, there are plausible arguments against this, and I would point to Forrest McDonald's work in particular. McDonald does not admit of any paper aristocracy, conspiracy, but that was certainly the effect of the federalist movement, the establishment of the Philadelphia Constitution.

Hamilton and John Marshall affected. And Marshall is one of Taylor's other great combatants in his career. Taylor is convinced that this Hamiltonian faction in what is then the Federalist party, they are going to set up aristocracy. Taylor is constantly charging that this is ultimately a monarchist conspiracy to set up these titles, these special patronage and status in the economy, to centralize wealth in the cities and the like, and that that's what it's all ultimately meant to do, which is why Taylor is the great advocate

of the states organizing to resist it in their own jurisdictions. I couldn't find my notes on Calhoun, but I found some notes on Taylor. And actually, this is what I had, that he advocated for an excited, citizenry that they must always be willing to take effective political action that any new subsidized class of capitalists needed to be uprooted and he talked about suffering the same fate of England a Whig olig oligarchy class conflict economic fluctuations high taxation standing army, inflation war, ruin of the productive classes, and he warned against the mercantilism of London and Washington, causing men to confound artificial, politically created property with the justly acquired property earned in the marketplace.

He actually made a distinction between saying that he was actually free market laissez-faire and not capitalist. Yes, indeed. And his model is very important because he's got a real political community in early Virginia where most everyone is involved in the production of everything they need to live. And they're very successful with this and they're exporting a lot and developing their communities. In addition to that, you were talking about how the property holders need to organize to resist the paper aristocracy getting patronized in the cities that they have to reform the institutions and stop this from happening. This is a major element in Taylor's thought he was the great proponent of the citizen militia, as opposed to a professional. army, which he saw as yet another special political interest, a source of patronage and corruption in our Republican institutions. So he was, for all of this, a great advocate of the state is the stated federalist policy of isolation or neutrality. And this is a common point. He would be in

agreement with Washington's farewell address on these points. He was a great critic, as I said before, a anti-federalist critic of the Philadelphia Constitution on the grounds that it was not representative enough, that it was in fact designed to be more aristocratic. He was a, he was very fearful and justly so of the power of the power. of the courts, the federal judiciary, and was proposing a great many checks on the state level for the development of the judiciary power. And of course, we've seen in recent times, anyone that's been paying attention to it, the unelected federal judges are checking congressional legislation,

executive actions all over the place. And this is an unprecedented kind of situation just in the last couple of years, but nevertheless it highlights Taylor's concerns way back then. He saw the possibility of that power, which he said was a patronized aristocracy with its own special interests, totally unaccountable to the citizens. So he was in Jefferson's administration proposing all sorts of checks on the judiciary. Now, this actually created some very interesting actions. In 1804, Taylor got something that he had proposed.

He had been advocating for the impeachment of Supreme Court judges. justices. And Justice Samuel Chase is brought before the Senate in 1804 to face an impeachment trial. Now, this is in Jefferson's first administration, we have Vice President Aaron Burr, who is presiding over this. This is an unusual coincidence. Burr had just killed Hamilton. and had actually just come back to the Capitol after his fateful duel with Hamilton in New Jersey to preside over the trial of Justice Chase. Samuel Chase was a federalist justice appointed either in the Washington or Adams administration, I forget which he came from.

He was known to be very partisan. He was known to be very outspoken. He was also known to be unfair to Jeffersonian Republicans in his work, not necessarily in the capacity of a Supreme Court justice, but in those days, the Supreme Court justices actually traveled to appellate jurisdictions. They had regions that they served, and they went to hear federal cases in. in various areas in addition to being a justice on the Supreme Court. And he was known to be, he was known to get up on the bench and make political speeches in favor of the federalist position on controversial issues, which is a very improper thing for a judge to do.

A judge is supposed to be impartial. And so he was, he was kind of an outstanding example. was very provocative and the Jefferson administration was trying to hold into account. So he did get his trial. John Randolph of Roanoke was the major advocate for this, another one of these agrarian statesmen of the time. And Randolph is making speeches in Congress demanding this trial and he actually does get it. But Chase is acquitted. This is the only time a Supreme Court justice has ever been held for. for impeachment where articles of impeachment presented against him a trial is convened

that's the only time in our history that happens and it's never attempted again Marbury versus Madison which is the Marshall case the first great case of justice John Marshall the great Hamiltonian jurist It's a very interesting story. President Adams had appointed a great many judges on midnight of his last day in office. So they go to post and Jefferson is sworn in the very next day. his Secretary of State, James Madison, who is party to this case, doesn't send out the mail. He just holds the mail from the executive at Post, and these judges do not get their appointments in the mail from Adams.

And this is part of Jefferson's policy where he's trying to reform the judiciary on more Jeffersonian lines, obviously. This is the first transfer of power between parties in American history. Well, Justice Marshall, here's the case of Mr. Marbury, who is supposed to receive an appointment, who sues James Madison, Secretary of State, for not sending out the mail. And Justice Marshall determines the Supreme Court determines what is in its purview. The Supreme Court ultimately decides what its own powers are. It's the only unchecked branch of the federal government. This is an expansion, a radical expansion of the judiciary power as understood in the time, and it was a controversial move.

This is precisely what Taylor had been warning would happen and alleging it's part of a bigger conspiracy to consolidate power. So Taylor is adamant. There must be more done to check the power of the judiciary. We need to make various reforms. He is a great advocate of an amendment to the Constitution directify this. Now that you have a Supreme Court case, Marbury v. Madison, that is one potential remedy. And so he spends an awful lot of effort contending for this but does not actually get it. Do you have anything to add on this?

No, not at this time. So the Marshall matter. Marshall, in addition to Marbury v. Madison, he gives us the Dartmouth College case soon after. Taylor is writing books against Marshall at this time. One of his books is called Constitutions Construed. which in the title, in the title itself we see, it matters tremendously how we are going to interpret this Constitution. And he is the great enemy of Marshall.

He actually gives us very detailed arguments against Marshall's jurisprudence and this expansive reading of the Constitution. The Dartmouth College case is a very interesting one. the corporation of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire is being challenged by the state government of New Hampshire, which had incorporated the college. Marshall hears arguments from the great Daniel Webster, very early in Webster's career. He actually argues the case in favor of the college before the Supreme Court. Later, has very long career in the Senate, and we will re-encounter him later on. Webster memorably says in his speech to the court, it is a small college, but there are those who love it. And that's just a line from Webster

that everyone remembered. Marshall decides in favor of the college against the state of New Hampshire, saying that the articles of incorporation are a contract that states cannot. interfere with even though the state had made the corporation it's an artificial institution created by law it's immortal of the state actually wanted to make it a public institution they they were objecting to various things the board of the college was doing and Marshall determines in the Dartmouth College case that the colleges inviolate that the state cannot change the nature of a corporation.

Now, this greatly increases the power of these business combinations as well as other kinds of corporations like universities and is another major step towards this vision of Hamilton of business enterprises, these immorical. corporate institutions that the various states that chartered the institutions cannot regulate anymore. And this is alarming for Taylor who has a vision of the small property owner, personal property, which is a very different form of property. It's far removed from the owner of a share of stock, who has never seen necessarily any of the enterprise that he is invested in, does not have any special knowledge of it necessarily.

It's a very abstract kind of ownership. It's the most common kind of ownership. Now it was novel then. It's the vision of Hamilton to make that the mainstay of American economic life. It is quite antagonistic to Taylor's very concrete vision of property, that this is something related to a person. This is something that they know all about because it's their lifestyle, that they have thorough knowledge of the property, of how to make it productive, and even to use it for the enjoyment

of their lives and to raise their families and the rest. It's a very interesting contrast, and we see the development of that jurisprudence has major effects. Another Marshall case, and this will be my final point on Taylor for tonight, it's Maca versus Maryland. So this was our major point. in our last conversation, the argument concerning the Bank of the United States. We were going over Hamilton's arguments, Pro and Conn and Jefferson's, his strict construction

of the Constitution, that the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to make this bank. We remember that Washington endorses the scheme after receiving arguments from Hamilton and Jefferson, in spite of Jefferson's more concise and plausible argument, Hamilton's interpretation of the necessary and proper clause as effectively meaning convenience. Whatever the federal government might find convenient to do, they may do that. And using that for his own special purposes, his own special economic vision, for the country and the patronage of manufacturers in particular. In McCullough versus Maryland, this fascinating case involves Taylor's primary focus in his career

to rally the authority on a state level to check the expansion of the federal government and its power grab. The state of Maryland had passed a law outlawing the Bank of the United States, saying that it had no right to operate in the state of Maryland. Mr. McCullough was a clerk at the Bank of the United States Branch in Baltimore. The Maryland authorities sent tax collectors to the Bank of the United States branch in Baltimore. after the passage of this law outlawing the branch. Remember, this is a private institution.

80% of the shares are in private hands. The other 20% being owned by the federal government, and it's given a special deposit to get it off the ground and start it. Nevertheless, it's constitutionally controversial, as we saw with Jefferson's opinion. So half the country thinks this is illegitimate, or more, perhaps. The state of Maryland sends tax collectors to the branch, and they demand the tax from McCullough. When McCullough refuses, they take the money out of the branch and close it down.

So this is a confiscatory tax to put the bank branch completely out of business. it's not a reasonable tax the bank could be profitable and continue to operate with the tax. It was meant to close the bank down. So McCullough sues Maryland, and it's a federal case. The matter of the case is, does this bank, is this bank to be regulated by the state in which it operates, or is this federal policy? is this conflict ultimately between the state and the federal government. And Marshall reads Hamilton's opinion,

Hamilton's interpretation of the broad powers of the Constitution into his opinion. So this becomes the official opinion of the Supreme Court, thanks to John Marshall. And Marshall says the federal government must prevail on any point of conflict with the states. and that these broad powers of the Constitution are what the Constitution means. Now, in response to this, Taylor writes a complete book, and it's a point-by-point criticism of the McCullough v. Maryland case.

So we see in Taylor's various works, he writes a famous work on tariffs in particular. It's called tyranny unmasked. He writes another work that is an analysis of the constitutional convention in which Taylor is alleging the federalist plan to centralize power and to oppress the states. And it's called New Views on the Constitution. He writes a variety of works. And we see in Taylor the classical philosophical background of the preference of commodity producers, their effect on the political economy, the participation, investment, and virtue associated with the producers of commodities.

And this is Taylor's, as it was Jefferson's preference for, the economic order of the United States, that we should be a nation of the broadest possible property ownership. And they were the great enemies of this consolidation. Taylor, in particular, we might at times characterize him as paranoid about the intentions of the Federalists. I don't think he was paranoid in relation to Hamilton. I think that he may have been more paranoid in relation to Adams, who I find very reasonable on the subject. But those were Taylor's enemies,

and Taylor is the great spokesman of the agrarian, future southern sectional political economy in its tradition. And so that is my conclusion for John Taylor's agrarian vision. Did you have anything to add tonight, Pete? You hit most of anything that I had in my notes on Taylor. The one historians have used this term to describe him. and it's one of the most odd terms I've ever heard. Radical Whigism.

What do you think of that term? He is certainly an enlightenment figure. He is, we must associate Taylor with a certain radical left, bent. And I know that that is a very alarming way to put it. I would like to have a different way of describing it. Taylor, in his service in the Virginia legislature at the end of Our War of Independence, he is very involved in disestablishing the church in Virginia, in distributing the lands and resources of the vestries of the churches, liberalizing policy on religion, basically turning Virginia into from an established religious organization.

organization into a liberal vision of freedom of religion. So he is a liberal reformer. And in that aspect, he is related to the Whig position across the sea in England. Weig has a rather different association later in American history, where we have a major political party, the Whig party, which is related to Henry Clay. which has to do with liberal economic patronage. Taylor would have none of that. But he is a free trader, which in his time is related to the Whigs. Also, he has the Enlightenment talking points.

And this is very important to remember. Jefferson has a lot of, let's frame it in this way, Jefferson is very sympathetic with the French Revolution. James Monroe, future president associated with Taylor and Jefferson, is very enthusiastic about the French Revolution, a personal friend of Thomas Payne, the great atheist propagandist. author of common sense, man known to publicly disparage the Virgin Mary, really distasteful figure Thomas Payne. And I would rather think the best about these kinds of associations such as with James Monroe. So Thomas Jefferson, to his credit, is rapidly disgusted with the progress of the French Revolution. So we have that to remember.

It doesn't want the same thing to happen here, though he says many things to suggest. The Tree of Liberty should be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants. The earth belongs to the living. The dead should have their control curtailed. Things like that, which are very radical statement. But this is the kind of Republican tradition that these men represent. They are talking about major breaks with their colonial tradition. Jefferson and Taylor do not want to end up like the way that Europe has developed.

They are great reformers. And Taylor is using a lot of John Locke's talking points when it comes to his opposition to monarchy and to aristocracy. Remember that Taylor has this huge beef with John Adams, where he says that John Adams is characterizing the regular farmer as a spiritual slave, a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water. And Taylor is rather demagogic on this attack with Adams. This is not actually what Adams is talking about.

Adams has a much more considered position than that. Elite theory, in fact. But nevertheless, Taylor's points about aristocracy and monarchy. He reduces to certain familiar talking points, dismissing them as superstitious prejudice, which is very interesting. I would identify John Adams as more of a figure of the thought of the right on this front than Taylor who is

not as reasonable in his responses about the subject of equality but that said Taylor's position is in the equality of property owners in a republic not the

equality of the proletariat not in an abstract equality of all men He does not believe that. In fact, he is very outspoken about the dangers of emancipation, fearing, in fact, that the story of emancipation in the South will mirror that of the emancipation on Santa Domingo in Haiti, racial conflict and genocide.

That is his outspoken fear about that. So it doesn't believe in the equality of races. Doesn't believe in the equality of cultures. Does not believe in the equality of classes. He is speaking of the equality of property owners. Well, I think Taylor can definitely be sound like a liberal. And even Calhoun in his disquisition on government can sound very liberal, but that's only because their assumption is a white European populace and pretty much an agrarian populace.

And once outsiders from that tradition are introduced, then that can quickly fall apart. and it's also very dangerous for outsiders from that tradition to be introduced because they will, the guard will, the guard of the white European will be down, and the small minority can definitely, especially in a system of Gibbs, for lack of a better term, can gain power rather quickly because they can organize quickly. under the nose of the white European living a liberal lifestyle among his own people. Indeed. And obviously that's outside of the purview of these people.

They could scarcely imagine such a thing. But they're taking for granted the composition of their political community. which is why they don't talk about it much. The differences with Taylor and Adams, Adams, we might say, and I would follow Herbert Agar on this point, who I think is very insightful on this. If you want some more information about that,

look for Agar's Land of the Free, and he himself is an agrarian by conviction, though not from the south. Agar thinks that John Adams had a more realistic vision for America, that Adams knew there would be a level of manufacturing. He did not want it to dominate our culture or our political system.

Adams wanted a policy that allowed for the maximum number of responsible people, which he believed was limited to some degree to own property and be responsible and be active citizens. And he distinguished them from the irresponsible. So there was a real difference that must be acknowledged between the two. And that had political implications. I think that is fascinating. And obviously, a topic of separate investigation, though I've mentioned it several times in this show. But Taylor is coming from a more, let's say, idealistic and Jeffersonian agrarian position where the people in Taylor's community, and these, obviously, these are the Anglo-Americans,

They have a enterprise, cohesive culture, a drive what Taylor and Jefferson, Randolph, Calhoun, are going to describe as the aspects of an agrarian culture, where they are a more responsible people. These men do not live in cities. They don't have any cities. there were like 35,000 people in Charleston in 1860 when the Civil War begins. There aren't any cities in this whole region. The people that they know, these are agrarian people. These are people that are all, more or less, engaged in agriculture, virtually everyone. They're responsible people. They're taking that for granted.

And that's why they're so offended with Adams saying, not everyone is responsible, you know, and there must be some political account for that. They say, oh, well, he wants to set up the artificial aristocracy with government patronage. He's a monarchist. Because they associate that with the British Empire, which they want to separate.

themselves from with their various reforms, with their independence, in fact, with the republic. And they're shocked to encounter these northern ideas. In Adams' case, I think a realistic idea. And it doesn't correspond to what they see in their own political environment. I'm hoping that makes sense. Makes sense to me. All right, Mr. Bagby.

I'm sorry. I thought of something to share in relation to Taylor. It was several years ago. I went out to the northern neck, and I saw Stafford House, which is where Robert E. Lee was born. That's the old home of the Lee family. And it's very beautiful there. That's old tobacco country in the time.

tidewater along the Potomac, looking over at Maryland. And the land is no longer agriculturally productive. It had long been exhausted by the over-cultivation of tobacco. It's still very beautiful. John Taylor was very interested in that in the exhaustion of the land and was an important agricultural scientist, among other things, advancing innovative ways to restore the productivity of exhausted soil. Because Taylor did not, he was not so favorable about expanding American territory.

He had questions about that. Republican questions. Because the more territory you have, the more people you have, the more difficult to it is to have representative institutions. And that was another factor that Taylor appreciated in his work. So Taylor wanted to restore the productivity of the Eastern Seaboard, and that was one of his major accomplishments. That was actually his most popular work, his errator.

But when I went to Westmoreland County, I went down to Caroline County while I was over there. I was traveling with some friends. We went to Port Royal, which was Taylor's town. He was the head of a private school there on the board. And I sought out his plantation. And I found it. There was nothing to market there. But I studied before we went.

and we went out into a field down a dirt road and there was corn planted and I knocked on doors there were several houses on the property I knocked on doors and I found an ancient man who was who had a nurse with him he was in a wheelchair he couldn't speak

he was so weak and I asked him, where is John Taylor? I want to see John Taylor. And he pointed out to the middle of this cornfield. And there was a clump of trees there. And I said, is John Taylor out there? And he said, yes. He nods.

And I said, may I go and see him? And he nods again. So I walked. with my friends across this man's cornfield to this clump of trees, and I found John Taylor's grave. And it was all overgrown with these hardwood trees, and the trees had grown up in between the tombstones and knocked them over and punctured the caskets and such. And it looked like there were animals living down beneath these tombstones and in the remains of the family cemetery. But that's when I found John Taylor of Carolina on a summer's day in old Virginia.

I am glad that I didn't end this early and you got to share that that adventure with us. Thank you. You're welcome. Pleasure to join you tonight. Thank you. Always great to have you remind people where they can find your work and your research and the books, which are most of the work. Absolutely. Yeah, I've got a website. That's www. tallmenbooks.com where I republish histories,

memoirs. I've created a few volumes unique to my collection. I've edited scholarly papers by Walter Fleming, a Southern historian, Charles Francis Adams Jr., the great-grandson of President John Adams and others. I've got memoirs from Reconstruction. I've got new biographies of famous American Indians and outlaws and gunfighters from the Old West, all there on my website. So do check that out. you. Thank you, Mr. Bagby. Until the next episode.