Catharine Macaulay’s Republican Conception of Social and Political Liberty
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321716686991 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
686991PSX0010.1177/0032321716686991Political StudiesCoffee
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Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(4) 844 –859
Catharine Macaulay’s
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Social and Political Liberty
Alan MSJ Coffee
Abstract
Catharine Macaulay was one of the most significant republican writers of her generation. Although
there has been a revival of interest in Macaulay among feminists and intellectual historians, neo-
republican writers have yet to examine the theoretical content of her work in any depth. Since
she anticipates and addresses a number of themes that still preoccupy republicans, this neglect
represents a serious loss to the discipline. I examine Macaulay’s conception of freedom, showing
how she uses the often misunderstood notion of virtue to reconcile the individual and collective
elements inherent in the republican model. In her own analysis of the deep-rooted social obstacles
that stand in the way of women becoming free, Macaulay identifies a serious problem that confronts
all republicans, namely how to secure freedom in the face of entrenched structural imbalances that
systematically disadvantage certain classes of person. In the end, I conclude that Macaulay herself
cannot overcome the issues she raises. This in no way diminishes the importance of her work
since her diagnosis is as relevant today as in her own time.
Keywords
Catharine Macaulay, republicanism, freedom, non-domination, feminism
Accepted: 26 October 2016
In her time, Catharine Macaulay had a deserved reputation as one of England’s leading
intellectuals. As a republican writer, in particular, her contemporary influence was
immense. She corresponded with leading figures in the American Revolution, such as
James Otis, George Washington and John Adams, and can plausibly be identified as hav-
ing first used the phrase ‘the equal rights of men’ (Green, 2016: 39–40). Her two most
celebrated works, The History of England (1763–1783) and Letters on Education (1790),
stand out as exemplary texts within the republican tradition. In spite of this, until recently
to modern readers Macaulay remained an obscure figure within intellectual history. Even
now there are no widely available critical scholarly editions of her key works. As interest
in the overlooked contribution of women philosophers has burgeoned in the last two
The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Alan MSJ Coffee, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
Email: alan.coffee@kcl.ac.uk
Coffee
845
decades, so there has been a renewed academic focus on Macaulay’s thought.1 Somewhat
surprisingly, however, republican philosophers themselves have yet to examine the theo-
retical content of her work in any depth. The scope and richness of her work stand favour-
ably in comparison with any of the acknowledged historical republican sources, including
her contemporaries Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and Thomas Paine, so this neglect
both does Macaulay a disservice and represents a loss to the discipline.
My focus will be on just one aspect of Macaulay’s republicanism, namely her under-
standing of freedom articulated as independence from arbitrary power. In the republican
tradition, freedom and independence are synonymous, and Macaulay often uses them
interchangeably. Independence is, however, a complex and broad term that encompasses
more than merely the freedom to make choices. In the republican context, independence
represents a condition in which a person is protected from being subject to any arbitrary,
or unconstrained, power.2 This protection must be robust and not subject to the vagaries
and uncertainties of any particular person’s, or group of people’s, will. For republicans
such protection comes in the form of the law. Individuals are independent under a prop-
erly constructed law that upholds their interests as freemen while preventing others from
violating those interests. This law has, of course, to be created and then supported, which
requires the support of others in the community. Republicans have long considered the
motivation for individuals to provide this support to lie in an idea of virtue, which was
traditionally considered to be integrally tied to the notion of freedom as independence
itself. This appeal to virtue has given rise to a longstanding difficulty for republicans
about how a free society can be established from within an existing unfree one in which
the requisite virtue is lacking.
Macaulay’s solution is structured around the twin goals of educating the population to
think critically and introducing institutional reforms that constrain the actions of those in
government and so enabling the now-educated population to hold their political leaders to
account. In her later work, however, Macaulay also identifies an important line of criti-
cism which not only challenges her own position but also remains a serious issue for
republicans today. This concerns the threat to people’s independence that comes from
biased social attitudes and structural imbalances in the organisation of society which
inhibit both critical thinking and the impartial functioning of republican institutions,
thereby stifling minority voices and systematically favouring the established interests of
the dominant classes. Macaulay develops her arguments in the context of women’s con-
tinuing social and political disempowerment, analysing the issue subtly and in detail. This
was something no male republican would do until well into our own century.
While I argue that Macaulay develops an impressive systematic republican model of
freedom as independence, in the end, I conclude that her own internal critique is stronger
than the solutions she has at her disposal. While this may be slightly disappointing, it
should not detract from her importance as a pioneer of republican theory. Her analysis of
structural domination and gender remains very potent and represents one of the defining
moments in feminist republican writing.3 This analysis was to have a major influence on
Mary Wollstonecraft who explicitly adapted and extended Macaulay’s insights develop-
ing them into, as I have argued elsewhere, an important republican contribution to the
general problem of systematic social and structural domination (Coffee, 2013, 2014).4
The structure of this article is as follows. In the next section, I articulate Macaulay’s
republican framework, discussing the integral roles that virtue, reason and the common
good have in her notion of political freedom. In the following section, I examine her
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Political Studies 65 (4)
argument that education, institutional design and public policy can deal with the threats
to our collective virtue, thereby protecting social freedom. In the section on social and
cultural domination, I show how Macaulay’s analysis of gendered social relations – which
is given in republican terms – represents a challenge to her own overall republican frame-
work by exposing a tension between the reliance on reason and virtue as the foundation
of freedom and the undermining effect that social structures and culture have on these.
In the concluding section, I briefly outline the direction in which Wollstonecraft takes
Macaulay’s work in responding to this challenge.
Independence, Virtue and the Common Good
In the introduction to her History of England, Macaulay sets out her republican frame-
work. She follows the lead of the classical accounts that ‘exhibit liberty in its most
exalted state’ (Macaulay, 1783 [1763]: v). Her principal motive for writing is to ‘meas-
ure the virtue of those who have influenced the nation’s public liberty’ which is another
way of saying that she will judge them according to republican standards (Macaulay,
1783 [1763]: vii). In addition to identifying freedom as the primary republican value,
she immediately establishes the link between freedom and virtue. There is, she says, a
‘natural love of freedom which lies latent in the breast of every rational being, till it is
nipped by the frost of prejudice, or blasted by the influence of vice’ (Macaulay, 1783
[1763]: v). Virtue is given as having two particular opposites: prejudice and vice.5
These correspond to two distinct but related senses of virtue, both of which are required
for a free way of life.6
At root, republicans are committed to an ideal of self-government. This is both an
individual and a collective concept, although it is grounded in the concern that individuals
should govern their behaviour according to their own wills rather than being controlled
externally by the wills of others. Crucially, republicans understand this idea of control in
terms of relationships of power rather than of actual coercion. To be truly self-governing,
which is to be free, it cannot be mere chance that we do not experience any unwanted
interference. Rather, we must be beyond its reach. In republican terms, this means that we
must be independent of the discretionary (or arbitrary) power that others might wield over
us. Freedom of this kind is understood to be only possible in community with others for
the simple reason that outside of society we would be exposed to the potential of unre-
strained power from anyone that happened to cross our path....
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