Hampsher-Monk's Levellers
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1977.tb00467.x |
| Date | 01 December 1977 |
| Author | C. B. Macpherson |
| Published date | 01 December 1977 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
HAMPSHER-MONK’S LEVELLERS
C.
B.
MACPHERSON
Universify
of
Toronto
I
WELCOME
the new attention to the political theory of the Levellers
in
lain
Hampsher-Monk’s substantial and closely-argued paper. ’ He proposes an
alternative interpretation to the one
I
offered fifteen years ago,’ which as he
says has won a grudging acceptance. An interpretation which has become near-
orthodox
in
fifteen years is certainly due for a fresh look, and he has
set
about
this
with
great care and attention to detail.
1
am not persuaded that his reading
of the documents should replace mine, but
1
do
think
that the issue is important
enough to deserve a statement
of
my reasons
for
rejecting his view (if only to
save him from the fate of becoming the new orthodoxy fifteen years hence), even
though this requires something of the same attention to detail that he has given.
His case is
in
three parts: the first and longest disputing my view that the
Levellers were never advocates of manhood suffrage; the second rejecting my
reading of the Levellers’ concept of property as a reading back into the !7th
century of a 20th century concept; and the third offering a reconstruction of
the earlier traditional view of the Levellers’ political theory as preferable to
mine. Let me comment on these
in
turn.
I
Hampsher-Monk’s challenge to my reading of the Levellers’ position on the
franchise rests on eight grounds.
(a) That Ireton,
in
opening the debate at Putney on the franchise clause of the
First
Agreement
(which called for a distribution of electors between counties,
cities and boroughs, more proportional to the number of the inhabitants) said
that its wording made
hini
think that
it
intended a vote for every inhabitant:
this, Hampsher-Monk takes (p.
398)
to be ‘a strong indication’ that that was the
meaning commonly given up
till
then to the Levellers’ references to the franchise.
But it is no such indication, for Ireton gives that as only one of two possible
meanings, saying
in
the same sentence
‘if
that be the meaning, then
I
have some-
thing to say against it’ and
in
the next sentence
‘But if
it be only .
.
.
those people
[who have
it
now by the civil constitution]. . .
I
have no more
to
say against
it’. (Woodhouse
:
Puritanism and Liberty
(hereafter abbreviated as
W),
p. 52).
Thus Ireton is asking, which does the clause mean? The answer, which he gets a
moment later from Petty, is, neither: the answer is ‘We judge that all inhabitants
that have not lost their birthright should have an equal voice
in
the elections’
(
W., p.
53).
This answer of course leaves open the question, who did the Levellers
think had lost their birthright?
I
have argued
(Political Theory
of
Possessive
1
‘The Political Theory of the Levellers: Putney, Property and Professor Macpherson’,
2
C.
B.
Macpherson,
The Political Theory
of
Possessive Individualism
(Oxford,
Clarendon
Political Studies,
XXIV,
(1976),
397422.
Press,
1962).
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XXV,
No.
4
671-576).
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