The Terror of Natural Right
Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution
The Terror of Natural Right
Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution
Natural right—the idea that there is a collection of laws and rights based not on custom or belief but that are “natural” in origin—is typically associated with liberal politics and freedom. In The Terror of Natural Right, Dan Edelstein argues that the revolutionaries used the natural right concept of the “enemy of the human race”—an individual who has transgressed the laws of nature and must be executed without judicial formalities—to authorize three-quarters of the deaths during the Terror. Edelstein further contends that the Jacobins shared a political philosophy that he calls “natural republicanism,” which assumed that the natural state of society was a republic and that natural right provided its only acceptable laws. Ultimately, he proves that what we call the Terror was in fact only one facet of the republican theory that prevailed from Louis’s trial until the fall of Robespierre.
A highly original work of historical analysis, political theory, literary criticism, and intellectual history, The Terror of Natural Right challenges prevailing assumptions of the Terror to offer a new perspective on the Revolutionary period.
350 pages | 6 halftones, 2 line drawings | 6 x 9 | © 2009
History: European History
Literature and Literary Criticism: Romance Languages
Philosophy: General Philosophy
Reviews
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction TO LIVE AND DIE BY NATURE’S LAWS
Natural Right and Republicanism in France
Natural Republicanism and the Golden Age
Enemies of the Human Race”: Transgressing the Laws of Nature
Natural Right and Terror Laws in the French Revolution
Restoring the Republic of Nature: The Jacobin Project
Prologue HOSTIS HUMANI GENERIS
Natural Man and Natural Right: New World Controversies
The “True Ancient Enemy of the Human Race”: Theology and the Devil
Killing No Murder: Tyranny and Natural Right
Pirates and the Law of the Land
The Law of Nations and the Law of Nature
Conclusion: Enlightenment and Hostility
PART I A SECRET HISTORY OF NATURAL REPUBLICANISM IN FRANCE (1699–1791)
Chapter 1 IMAGINARY REPUBLICS
The State of Nature and the Golden Age: From Montaigne to Fénelon
Troglodytes and Romans: Montesquieu’s Two Republicanisms
Classical Republicanism and Natural Right: Mably and Rousseau
Chapter 2 FINDING NATURE
Republican Orientalism (Voltaire)
Ethnography of the Golden Age: Diderot and Tahiti
Physiocracy: Conceiving the Natural Republic
The Politics of Sensibilité: Sylvain Maréchal, Natural Republican
The Coming of the French Republic
PART II THE REPUBLIC OF NATURE (1792–94)
Chapter 3 OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: DEATH AND THE TERROR
Power to the People? Popular Violence and State Manipulation
Terror by Committee: The Practice of Violence
The Revolutionary Dialectic: The Counterrevolution and Cycles of Violence
To Kill a King: Judging by Nature
Outlawing the Nation: Natural Right and Terror Laws
Only “Natural”: Becoming a Terrorist
Chapter 4 THE CASE OF THE MISSING CONSTITUTION: OF POWER AND POLICY
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: A Jacobin “Conspiracy”
The “Festival of Nature”: Performing Natural Authority
Conventions, Constitutions, and the Declaration of Rights
Republican by Nature: Saint-Just versus the Girondins
What’s Left of the General Will?
Chapter 5 THE DESPOTISM OF NATURE: JUSTICE AND THE REPUBLIC-TO-COME
Waiting for the Republic: The Revolutionary Government
“Let Justice Be the Order of the Day”: Ending “the Terror”
One Republic under the Supreme Being: The Metaphysical Panopticon
And Justice for All: The Law of 22 Prairial
“System of Terror” or Natural Republic?
Conclusion LEGACIES OF THE TERROR
From a Natural Republic to a World Revolution
Terror and Totalitarianism
Two Concepts of Exceptionality
Bibliography
Index