Northeastern Political Science Association

Between Consensus and Conflict: Habermas, Post-Modern Agonism and the Early American
Public Sphere
Author(s): Robert W. T. Martin
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Polity, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 365-388
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
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Polity e Volume 37, Number 3 e July 2005

( 2005 NortheasternPolitical Science Association 0032-3497/05 $30.00
www.palgrave-journals.com/polity

Between Consensus
and
Conflict: Habermas, PostModern Agonism and the
Early American Public
Sphere*
Robert W.T. Martin
Hamilton College
Effortsthus far to bridge the distance between Habermasian public sphere theory
and post-modernism have failed, and recent studies only reifythe bifurcation.Some
theorists trace this problem to misreadings of Habermas's recent works that
overemphasize the weight he places on consensus. I argue instead that Habermas's
stress on consensus is genuine and firstemerged in his early historical work on the
public sphere, wherein he focused on an absolutist theory of consensus and
relegated dissent to a marginal ancillary position from which he has never really
recovered it. Had Habermas turned from Europe to early America, he could have
found early public sphere theorists that were much more alive to the irreducible
centralityof dissent. More importantly,if currenttheorists will returnto this history
they will be betterable to understand a model of the dissentient public sphere (and
its counterpublics) that lies between Habermasian consensus and post-modern
agonism.

Polity(2005) 37, 365-388.doi:10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300018

Keywords public sphere;deliberativedemocracy;Habermas;dissent;
post-modernism;agonism
Robert W.T Martin is Associate Professorof Governmentat Hamilton College.

He is author of The Free and Open Press: The Foundingof the American
DemocraticPressLibertyand co-editorof The ManyFacesof AlexanderHamilton
(forthcoming). He is currentlyworking on a book project entitled Government by

Dissent:Dissent,Democracy,and the EarlyAmericanPublicSphere.He can be

reached at rmartin@hamilton.edu.

*This article was first presented at the 2003 meeting of the Association for Political Theory, and I
thank the participants at the "AmericanRoots" panel and especially Simona Goi, Russell Hanson, and
Darren Walhof. I also gratefully acknowledge a Research Fellowship at the New-YorkHistory Society.

366 BETWEENCONSENSUSAND CONFLICT

Introduction
The title of Chantal Mouffe's recent essay captures precisely-if inadvertently-the state of the debate over democratic theory: "DeliberativeDemocracy
or Agonistic Pluralism?"I have taken the liberty of adding emphasis to the word
"or"to highlight the binary assumption that typifies much of this debate. Mouffe
examines the Habermasian approach to discursive democracy as the "most
theoretically sophisticated" version, but immediately applies an "either/or"
analysis, juxtaposing Habermas'sdiscursive democracy to her more agonistic and
plural politics.' And she is hardly alone. A similarly reductionist bifurcation is
evident in the exchange between Dana Villa and James Johnson over the
relationship (or lack thereof) between public sphere theory and postmodern
agonism. Although Villa'soriginal essay attempted to break down the "polemical
opposition" between public sphere theory and postmodernism,2 Johnson reads
Villa'sessay as polemical as well. Johnson tries to suggest ways of closing this gap
and moving beyond the "present impasse',"but it is clear from Villa's "Response"
that the theoretical chasm has only deepened.3
Aspects of this divide are reflected in recent debates over the sort of
democratic discourse that belongs in the public sphere. For example, one of the
main concerns of Mouffe and Villa is the way certain norms of discourse can be
used to exclude difference. Many theorists have analyzed the contemporary
public sphere for ways in which difference is excluded by certain definitions of
"rationality"or various deployments of authority. In turn, these debates over the
nature of democratic discourse relate back to the ongoing dispute over whether
Habermasian public sphere theory undermines difference and forces consensus.
Mouffe's essay, for instance, defends an agonistic pluralism and fears the
"consensus without exclusion" that she sees Habermas "[pretending] to
achieve.'5 She criticizes Habermas's legitimating proceduralism, which is based
on free and open rational discourse, as non-neutral because it is always unable to
exclude-since it always already presupposes-some fundamental background.
1. Chantal Mouffe, "DeliberativeDemocracy or Agonistic Pluralism?"Social Research 66 (1999): 746.
2. Dana R. Villa, "Postmodernism and the Public Sphere:' American Political Science Review 86
(1992): 717.
3. James Johnson, "Comment: Public Sphere, Postmodernism, and Polemic:' American Political
Science Review 88 (1994): 428; more generally 427-30, 432-33; and Dana R. Villa, "Response:'American
Political Science Review 88 (1994): 430-32.
4. E.g., Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy" in
Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed., Seyla Benhabib (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996), 131-32; Young, "Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy,"
Political Theory 29 (2001): 670-90; Lynn M. Sanders, 'Against Deliberation',"Political Theory 25 (1997):
370-73; and Jane Mansbridge, "EverydayTalk in the Deliberative System,' in Deliberative Politics:Essays
on Democracy and Disagreement, ed. Stephen Macedo (New York:Oxford University Press, 1999).
5. Mouffe, "Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?:'755.

Robert W.T. Martin

367

This background may be seen as an ethical form of life, following Wittgenstein, or

an authoritarian discursive structure, following Lacan.6 In either case, some form
of precondition structures human action in a non-neutral, non-rational manner.
Rejecting this preconditioned consensus, Mouffe turns to its reductionist mirror
opposite, a politics of "antagonism"and "hostility.'7
Dana Villa's attempt to bridge the chasm between public sphere theory and
postmodernism sets out to avoid the either/or analysis of Mouffe, attempting
to create a sort of theoretical middle ground between a Habermasian consensual
intersubjectivity and postmodern agonistic subjectivity. Villa fills that middle
ground with a particular reading of Hannah Arendt, one that stresses her
"Foucauldian/Lyotardianconcern with the preservation of agonistic subjectivity.8
Rightly rejecting contemporary agonists whose interest-based politics is "merely
fighting"and "simplyconflict',"Villa has recently fleshed out his earlier arguments
and conceptualized an Arendtian politics that lies between all-consuming
conflict and anticipated agreement.9 What lies between is a politics of detached
judgment, of "disinterestedness."This certainly seems to point us away from
a politics constrained by interests and identities. However, as Villa concedes,
this theoretical effort will strike some theorists as "still too aristocratic (or selfdeluded)." Yet Villa does nothing to address this concern; he only holds fast
to the Arendtian hope that a "public-spiritedness"will emerge from "debate and
deliberation."'1
Early American radicals shared that hope, but they could not afford to be as
sanguine as Arendt and Villa about a middle ground populated by the
"disinterested,"those who were capable of "detached judgment" due to their
freedom from "material want "" The radicals I discuss and their Antifederalist
predecessors were successfully portrayed as (self-) "interested"cranks or traitors
by self-appointed paragons of "disinterestedness." Thus, the language of
6. Mouffe, "Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?',"
749-52.
7. Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London: Verso, 2000), 101. See also, Chantal Mouffe,
"Which Public Sphere for a Democratic Society?" Theoria 99 (2002): 57. Because of her binary
framework, however, Mouffe is unable to travel the divided landscape she creates. By the end of 1999
essay it is Mouffe-to her credit-who is conceding a presupposed background consensus: "Tobe sure,
pluralist democracy demands a certain amount of consensus, but such a consensus concerns only some
ethico-political principles" (Mouffe, "Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?,"756, emphasis
added). Or even more recently: "I agree with those who affirm that a pluralist democracy demands a
certain amount of consensus,' but "such a consensus is bound to be a 'conflictual consensus"' (Mouffe,
The Democratic Paradox, 103; see also Mouffe, "Which Public Sphere,"58). Thus, just as I will argue that
dissent is a belated and under-theorized concession for Habermas, so a background consensus is never
fully integrated into Mouffe's theory.
8. Villa, "Postmodernism and the Public Sphere,"719.
9. Dana Villa, Politics,
Terror:Essays on the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Princeton:
Philosophy,
Princeton University Press, 1999), 126, 127, emphasis original).
10. Villa, Politics, Philosophy, Terror,125.
11. Villa, Politics, Philosophy, Terror,124, 118; I owe this reference to Simona Goi.

368 BETWEENCONSENSUS AND CONFLICT

"disinterest"privileged the status-quo and undermined dissent in a way that was

unmistakable to early American radicals, as we shall see.
Patchen Markellhas recently taken Villa to task not for his use of Arendt, but
for his characterization of Habermas as "the thinker of consensus," and thus the
other peak in the ruptured scholarly landscape.12 Markell recognizes that this
view of Habermas is shared by many and he therefore spends considerable time
arguing that this is a misinterpretation of Habermas's work. Drawing primarilyon
Habermas's theoretical work from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, Markelltraces
much of the confusion to the various ways one can read-and translateHabermas's central claim that communicative action, by its very nature, is
oriented toward understanding, agreement or consensus.13 When he speaks of an
"orientationtoward agreement,' according to Markell,Habermas is not forcing us
to aim for consensus, he "simply means a foreswearing of the mechanisms of
coercion and influence...in the pursuit of one's goals and a corresponding
commitment to provide reasons for one's claims if they are challenged."'14
This, however, misses what I shall argue is the more salient point. Even if
Habermas'stheory of communicative action does not formally compel consensus,
there is still the related question of whether his model of discursive democracy
"make[s] room for dissent" in the way Mouffe rightly demands.15 In his more
recent writing, Habermas has belatedly sought to suggest that it does.16 Closing
the "Postscript"to Between Facts and Norms, for example, Habermas maintains
that "law takes advantage of a permanent risk of dissensus to spur on legally
institutionalized public discourses."'7 Elsewhere, however, even reasonable
dissensus is equated with "something resembling Carl Schmitt's understanding
of politics."'8 Thus, even now, dissent is a risk tantamount to conflict, and
consensus is, by implication, the unproblematic norm.
Indeed, I contend that Habermas's acute focus on consensus and failure to
value dissent has deeper, long-standing and enduring roots in his very first effort
to theorize the public sphere. In this essay, I pursue a lingering and under12. Patchen Markell, "Contesting Consensus: Rereading Habermas on the Public Sphere,
Constellations 3 (1997): 377-400.
13. For the difficulties of translation as a source of some of this confusion, see Markell,"Contesting
Consensus,' 389-90; and Thomas McCarthy, "Legitimacy and Diversity: Dialectical Reflections on
Analytical Distinctions,' in Habermas on Law and Democracy: CriticalExchanges, ed. Michel Rosenfeld
and Andrew Arato (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 129 n44.
14. Markell, "Contesting Consensus:' 390.
15. Mouffe, "Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?,"756.
16. See, e.g., Jirgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory
of Law and Democracy trans. William Rehg (Cambridge: MITPress, 1996 [1992]); Jirgen Habermas,
The Inclusion of the Other:Studies in Political Theory,ed. Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff (Cambridge:
MITPress, 1998 [1996]); and Markell, "Contesting Consensus,' 391-95.
17. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 462.
18. Jiirgen Habermas, "Reply to Symposium Participants:'Cardozo Law Review 17 (1996): 1493.

Robert W.T. Martin 369

analyzed weakness in Structural Transformationof the Public Sphere. I do not

mean the obvious and much discussed weakness of a public sphere in which the
norm of inclusion was a fiction.19Habermas conceded as much at the time.20 The
enduring problem that I have in mind is Habermas's turn to France, and
especially Rousseau and then the Physiocrats, for his first effort to theorize the
concept of public opinion that would emerge from the discourse of the public
sphere. Here we find the earliest evidence of Habermas's pre-occupation with
consensus and marginalization of dissent. Turning instead to early America, we
are able to recover a formulation of the public sphere that appreciates the
centrality of dissent even as it works from a shared background.21
Habermas's distorted formulation of the French public sphere has been
exacerbated by a second mistake that Habermas and other theorists have made:
avoiding historical analysis. It is perhaps understandable that Habermas himself
would move away from historical study after StructuralTransformation,given the
problems he admits to have encountered trying to separate an ideal form from its
historical context and imperfect realization.22Nevertheless, I want to suggest that
to bridge this important and continuing scholarly lacuna we need to take
recourse to history its difficulties (and possibilities for error) notwithstanding.
Historians have taken Habermas's concept of the public sphere in myriad
directions.23 Yet Habermasians and post-modernists-indeed, political theorists
19. See, e.g., Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution
(Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press, 1988); Nancy Fraser,"Rethinkingthe Public Sphere: A Contribution
to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,"in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992); and Pauline Johnson, "Habermas's Search for the Public Sphere"
European Journal of Social Theory 4 (2001): 215-36.
20. Jiirgen Habermas, TheStructuralTransformationof the Public Sphere:An Inquiryinto a Categoryof
Bourgeois Society trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: MITPress, 1989 [1962]),
55-56. Subsequent citations to this work will be made parenthetically in the text, indicating the relevant
page numbers.
21. Arendt, of course, does indeed turn to early America, but ignores the sources and views I explore
here. Accordingly, she contends the "Founding Fathers" (apparently presuming they can be grouped
together meaningfully) abhorred democracy as a kind of "rule of a unanimously held 'public opinion"'
(Hannah Arendt, On Revolution [New York:Viking, 1963], 228). I seek to recover and defend a different
and more historically accurate interpretation of certain theorists of the early Republic, including the later
Madison.
22. JOrgenHabermas, "Concluding Remarks",in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. CraigCalhoun
(Cambridge: MITPress,1992), 463.
23. See, e.g., Michael Warner, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in
Eighteenth-CenturyAmerica (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990); Charles E. Clark, The Public
Prints: The Newspaper in Anglo-AmericanCulture,1665-1740 (New York:Oxford University Press, 1994);
John L. Brooke, "AncientLodges and Self-CreatedSocieties: VoluntaryAssociation and the Public Sphere
in the EarlyRepublic,"in Launching the "ExtendedRepublic":The FederalistEra, ed. Ronald Hoffman and
Peter J. Albert (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996); David S. Shields, Civil Tongues and
Polite Letters in British America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); David
Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press,1997); Simon P Newman, Parades and Politics of the Streets: Festive

370 BETWEENCONSENSUSAND CONFLICT

generally-have done little to incorporate this work. I seek to demonstrate that

we would do well even now to return to historically informed reflections of the
strengths and weaknesses, potentials and limitations of the public sphere, both to
clear up lingering confusions and to understand better continuing challenges. By
turning to certain early American radicals, current theorists can learn from a
nascent public sphere theory that made dissent and counterpublicity central,
thus carving out a genuine space between consensus and conflict.

English Institutions But French Theory?

"The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of
private people come together as a public" (27). This public, as Habermas defined
it in StructuralTransformation,would in turn claim to steer public authorities and
policies. "Themedium of this political confrontation" with existing authority "was
peculiar and without precedent: people's public use of their reason" (28). At its
core, then, the bourgeois public sphere presented the new claim that legitimate
power emerged from rational-critical public debate. Equal in their lack of formal
state authority,these private persons claimed there was "no authority beside that
of the better argument" (41). It was thus central to the very logic of this claim that
the public sphere is, in principle, open to all. The public sphere was "in truth a
small minority,"as Habermas readily concedes (84). Nevertheless, "the public
sphere of civil society stood or fell with the principle of universal access. A public
sphere from which specific groups would be eo ipso excluded was less than
merely incomplete; it was not a public sphere at all" (85).
As the political public sphere emerged out of, and separated from, the literary
public sphere and the world of the salon, the failure to realize this norm was
made more apparent, since "women and dependents were factually and legally
excluded from the political public sphere."Still, the broader reach of the literary
public sphere helped the public sphere writ large maintain its claim to be ideally
open to all. Habermas emphasizes this point: "The fully developed bourgeois
public sphere was based on the fictitious identity of the two roles assumed by the
privatized individuals who came together to form a public: the role of property
owners & the role of human beings pure and simple."This fictitious identity was
easy to maintain because the bourgeois private persons at the center of the
public sphere usually were both educated and propertied. "The acceptance of
the fiction of one public, however, was facilitated above all by the fact that it
Culturein the EarlyRepublic (Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press, 1997); MaryRyan, Civil Wars:
Democracy and Public Life in the American City during the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1997); and Hannah Barkerand Simon Burrows, "Introduction"in Press, Politics, and the
Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760-1820, ed. Hannah Barker and Simon Burrows
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Robert W.T. Martin 371

actually had positive functions in the context of the political emancipation of

civil society from mercantilist rule and from absolutistic regimentation in
general" (56).
With his definition in hand, Habermas turns to his "model case:' Britain (57).
After the expiration of the press Licensing Act in 1695, the political public sphere
emerging in London coffeehouses gave way to a genuinely critical press by the
1720s. In 1709, Richard Steele's Tatler,for example, addressed itself to "the worthy
citizens who live more in a coffeehouse than in their shop" (260 n36). But
Habermas's claim about the public sphere was never simply an empirical
observation; it is essentially a claim about the role of public debate in legitimating
public authority, about "an opinion purified through critical discussion in the
public sphere to constitute a true opinion" (95). And it is here that the key
lingering paradox of Habermas'sstudy emerges. For although his "model case" of
England provides a full picture of the emerging institutions of the public sphere, it
is to France he turns for the theory of public opinion that provides the public
sphere's rationale.24
England, it is often said, is the original source of ideas of "public opinion" as
the foundation of all government.25However, as Habermas earlier observed, this
English view of public opinion is really just an observation about the ostensible
sovereign power of the people's "reliable common sense" (93). As J.A.W Gunn
rightly explains, the theories of virtual representation and parliamentary
sovereignty made popular opinion "out of doors" an intrusion.26 These
institutions and theories made public contest, not consensus, the norm, but
they also left the concept of public opinion with little significance and left public
debate with no power to "purify"and thereby "constitute"true opinions.
Since England's dynamic eighteenth-century public sphere lacks the
theoretical underpinnings he is looking for, Habermas turns to France. That
Habermas claims to find the theory of public opinion befitting an empowered
public sphere in absolutist France gives us good reason to be skeptical. And
indeed, it is here that Habermas runs into trouble-but not for the reasons often
claimed. Although Dana Villa and MargaretCanovan read Habermas as an heir
to Rousseau-a theorist of democratic consensus if ever there was one-this
24. Keith Michael Baker, "Defining the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-CenturyFrance: Variations on a
Theme by Habermas,"in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge: MITPress,
1992), 189-90.
25. Sir William Temple famously argued in 1680 that all governments rest upon opinion. Hume
would pick up on this view, declaring that it is "on opinion only that government is founded"; David
Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary ed. Eugene F Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), 32.
Actually, however, Montaigne uses the expression first;see J.A.W Gunn, Queen of the World:Opinion in
the Public Life of France from the Renaissance to the Revolution (Oxford:Voltaire Foundation, 1995), 1 n2;
see also, 45-46.
26. Gunn, Queen of the World,3.

372

BETWEENCONSENSUSAND CONFLICT

interpretation is flawed.27 Habermas explicitly opposes Rousseau's notion of

opinion publique to his own idealization of a public opinion purified in rationalcritical public debate: "Thevolontebgeneralewas more a consensus of hearts than
of arguments" (99, 98).28
Habermas's real problem at this point in the StructuralTransformationis that
the theory he is looking for is nowhere to be found in Europe. He tries to get
around this difficulty by attempting to reconcile two antithetical discourses: the
Physiocrats' absolutist version of political debate and Rousseau's dream of
democracy without debate (99).29 However, in so doing, Habermas altogether
misreads the Physiocrats in two fundamental respects, which in turn demonstrate
the foundational priority in his approach of rationality as consensus over
democratic dissent.

Misreading the Physiocrats

"The Physiocrats spoke out in favor of an absolutism complemented by a
public sphere that was a place of critical activity; Rousseau wanted democracy
without public debate. Both sides lay claim to the same title: opinion publique"
(99). Here, Habermas is no more suggesting that the modern public sphere
should be patterned on the Physiocrats' absolutism than on Rousseau's unitary
democracy But he is suggesting that a genuinely democratic notion of the public
sphere emerges from the combination of these conceptions in the crucible of the
French Revolution (99). The end result is meant to be a conception of public
opinion that refers to "the critical reflections of a public competent to form its
own judgments" (90).
Habermas firstturns to the Physiocrats for their place in the conceptual history
of "public opinion." He rightly sees them as among the first theorists to
conceptualize public opinion as more than mere "common opinion:' which was
at best common sense, at worst simply widespread prejudice (89-96). Unlike
Rousseau, Hume, and many others, the Physiocrats, on Habermas's reading, gave
public opinion "the strict meaning of an opinion purified through critical
discussion in the public sphere to constitute a true opinion" (95). And it is here
that Habermas's cursory conceptual history of the Physiocrats' opinion publique
leads us astray regarding both of the pivotal aspects of this claim: the nature
of truth and the critical quality of public debate. The nature and extent of
27. Dana R. Villa, Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1996), 71; and MargaretCanovan, "Arendt,Rousseau, and Human Pluralityin Politics,' Journal of
Politics 45 (1983): 297.
28. Markell, "Contesting Consensus:' 380-86.
29. Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), 192-93.

Robert W.T. Martin 373

Habermas's misreading in turn demonstrates the fundamental expectation of

consensus in his approach and the concomitant devaluing of genuine dissent
and acceptance of token dissent.
For Physiocrats such as Quesnay, Turgotand even Condorcet, the truth did not
emerge from a purifying critical debate. Rather,they saw truth as part of a natural
order in which reason was pre-determined and unitary, much like an absolutist
monarch.30 Public opinion had "the self-evidence of the geometrical truths that
the Physiocrats, in their contempt for diversity,celebrated as the one authority."It
maintained an appeal to a "transcendent authority,""unifyingand coercive."31The
Physiocrats, Mona Ozouf observes, made public opinion simply "another name
for the self-evident."32Indeed, "insistence on certainty . .became the hallmark of
the Physiocrats."33
The Physiocrats simply could not accept a public opinion that was "a pure
aggregate of individual wills, a compromise of varying origins and results struck
between dissidences and divergences."34ForQuesnay and other Physiocrats, "true
from the centre outwards and was something
public opinion...emanated
different from the meeting point of all individual opinions."35Nor is this only true
of the Physiocrats, for "to a great extent, public opinion was debated in France
within a religion of unity"36
However, if Reason and Truth are pre-determined, self-evident and unitary,
then there is little need for critical debate, the aspect of the public sphere that
Rousseau lacked and Habermas saw the Physiocrats providing. Here again,
Habermas's Habilitationsschriftwas wide of the mark, seeing in the Physiocrats'
views of scholarly debates some grand theory of public dissent (95-96). To the
contrary, for Physiocrats theorizing about public opinion, the "problem"was to
avoid conflicts and the instabilities of a politics of contestation.37The Physiocrats'
ideology was thus "hostile to disagreement and conflict...and wary too of
fomenting popular unrest." In France generally, contestation was not seen as
"illustratingthe workings of public opinion." There was simply "no disposition to
attach any dignity to the process of disagreement itself."38

30. Baker,Inventing the French Revolution, 196.

31. Mona Ozouf, "'Public Opinion' at the End of the Old Regime',"Journal of Modern History 60
(1988): S13.
32. Ozouf, "Public Opinion:' S14.
33. Gunn, Queen of the World,253. See also, e.g., Francois Quesnay, "Evidence"'in Encyclopedie, vol.
6, ed. Denis Diderot, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, et al. (Paris: Briasson, 1756).
34. Ozouf, "Public Opinion,"S15.
35. Gunn, Queen of the World,254.
36. Ozouf, "'PublicOpinion," S5.
37. Baker,Inventing the French Revolution, 186.
38. Gunn, Queen of the World,249, 9.

374 BETWEENCONSENSUSAND CONFLICT

The Physiocratic opinion publique was a pre-ordained, unitary and certain

Truthrevealing itself to a cohesive elite. The Physiocrats, then, are not a source for
thinking about the critical activity of the public sphere, pace Habermas, but rather
a font for precisely the kind of unitary,coercively consensual "rationality"Mouffe,
Villa and others rightly criticize. Nor did the French Revolution create the sort of
critical and legislative public sphere Habermas supposes (99).39 Rather,following
Rousseau, "most French revolutionaries seem tragically to have believed" in
public opinion as "an essentially unitary consensual force."40 In fact, the
Revolution carried out the French "dream of perfect unity" by abandoning
opinion publique "in favor of the [even] more unifying and coercive concept of
esprit public. 41
Habermas's extreme misreading of the Physiocrats is an early sign of his
predisposition to valorize consensus as rationality and his pointed inattention to
genuine democratic dissent. Indeed, when Habermas turns to German followers
of the Physiocrats, such as Kant, the elitism, exclusion and unity of the public
sphere and its "public opinion" is noted but never truly problematized. German
institutions, Habermas rightly notes, were even less developed than those of the
French, and German theorists would do no more than borrow their notion of
"public opinion" from the French for decades into the nineteenth century, when
the concept, and the public sphere more generally, would change dramatically
(101-02). Even Kant, who developed a highly rationalized notion of the public
sphere, would follow the French view of "the public use of reason, at first as a
matter for scholars, especially those concerned with the principles of pure
reason" (104). To be sure, Habermas is a much more careful reader of Kant than
of the Physiocrats. Habermas duly notes the way Kant excludes all but an elite
from citizenship and a role in the scholarly discourse he commends (109-11,
105). Habermas also concedes that Kant'sphilosophy led him to see society as a
nascent "moral whole" and to believe the public sphere would bring about an
"intelligible unity" (114, 115). However, just as Habermas's focus on consensus
leads him to ignore similar themes in his reading of the Physiocrats, it leads him
to accept ratherthan question the rationalized consensus and trivialdissent in his
own rendering of Kant.
Of course, critics like Mouffe and Villa are not arguing with Habermas's
historiography. Habermas's acute misreading of the Physiocrats' conception of
39. See also Jirgen Habermas, Theory and Practice, trans. John Viertel (Boston: Beacon, 1973
[1971]), 82-120.
40. Hannah Barker and Simon Burrows, "Introduction,"in Press, Politics, and the Public Sphere in
Europe and NorthAmerica, 1760-1820, ed. Hannah Barkerand Simon Burrows (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 10.
41. Ozouf, "Public Opinion,' S21. See also Benjamin Nathans, "Habermas's'Public Sphere' in the Era
of the French Revolution,' French HistoricalStudies 16 (1990): 620-44.

Robert W.T. Martin

375

"public opinion" does not of itself undermine his theory of the public sphere; nor
does his failure to address Kant'sinattention to significant dissent and the unitary
nature of rationality as scholarly consensus. However, they are both symptoms of
a problematic focus on consensus in Structural Transformationthat aggravates
rather than mitigates the divide between Habermasian and post-modern
renderings of the public sphere. What's worse, Habermas's examples deepen
the divide unnecessarily, since there is a historical example that points us to a
conception of the public sphere that envisions a genuinely sovereign and
authentically dissentient42public opinion.

The Early American Public Sphere

If Habermas's first effort to elaborate an ideal model of the public sphere and
isolate a conception of public opinion "purifiedthrough critical discussion in the
public sphere to constitute a true opinion" actually gives rise to the consensualist,
plurality-denying notion common in pre-RevolutionaryFrance, where else might
he have turned? Eighteenth-century America. In this section, I argue that early
America had not only the general institutions of the public sphere, but actually
surpassed England in its openness to dissent and difference. More importantly,in
the subsequent section I recover and analyze in the works of James Madison and
especially the New York Jeffersonian Tunis Wortman a much more nuanced
conception of public opinion. This "public opinion" was centered on genuine
dissent and predicated not on rationalized consensus but on plurality,reflexivity,
and fallibility. Moreover, as we shall see in the final section, the theory of one
plebeian radical of the early Republic went further to embrace quasiinstitutionalized counterpublics in order to be true to an ongoing contest of
publics, discourses, and "public opinions."
With the talents of Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Daniel Defoe spurring
the London public sphere in the early eighteenth century, it is no wonder that
Habermas did not cast his gaze to Britain's colonies, despite the broader
distribution of literacy, education, and property ownership in America. However,
in 1717, an obscure 20 year old named James Franklin returned to his native
Boston after learning the printer'scraft in London, the home of Habermas's model
public sphere. Following a short stint handling the printing of one of Boston's two,
equally staid newspapers-and a longer stint looking for steady work-Franklin
started his own newspaper with the help of a few others with recent exposure to
42. I use the term "dissentient,"borrowing the term from the early Americans themselves (see, e.g.,
Philip S. Foner, ed., The Democratic-RepublicanSocieties, 1790-1800: A Documentary Sourcebook of
Constitutions, Declarations, Addresses, Resolutions, and Toasts [Westport, CT:Greenwood Press, 1976],
444, 445), to stress both the centrality of dissent, and to distance this theory from more modern images of
the (often Soviet) dissident.

376 BETWEENCONSENSUS AND CONFLICT

the incipient public sphere of the mother country. The New-England Courant
immediately established itself as an heir to the London newspapers, opening its
pages from the very first issue to those who would criticize the reasoning of the
established authorities.43In fact, the Courant went beyond the Tatlermodel to
embrace its opposition status.44
At its emergence, Habermas long ago noted, the public sphere generally
develops an "awareness of itself as the [state authorities'] opponent" (23). This
was certainly true for the Courant. In the context of early eighteenth-century
Massachusetts, the Courant'sinsistence that it was open to all sides meant it was
primarilyto be open to opposition voices, as elites already had sufficient outlets
in the pulpits and in those newspapers "printed by authority."And it was this
critical, oppositional character that was essential to the success of the nascent
public sphere. It was not only that the "Couranteers"were making government
policy an issue for ongoing public debate but that they were implicitly criticizing
the exclusivity of the public sphere. Thus, whereas London forebears The Tatler
(Steele) and The Spectator (Addison) presented themselves to their readers from
a social position beyond reproach, happy to provide the particulars of their
backgrounds, the New-England Courant is introduced with a voice that
aggressively criticizes the readers' desire to know anything about the social rank
of the author:
It's an Hard Case, that a Man can't appear in Print now a Days, unless he'll
undergo the Mortification of Answering to ten thousand senseless and
Impertinent Questions like these, Pray Sir, from whence came you? And what
Age may you be of, may I be so bold? Was you bred at Colledge Sir?45
Thus, the Courant'svery first words in the emergent public sphere of Puritan
Boston maintain that it is "senseless and impertinent" to inquire after the
breeding of the author. The author's age is soon disclosed, with the hopes that "no
One will hereafter object against my soaring now and then with the grave Wits of
the Age." However, all other questions are postponed until the next issue and in
fact no such answers ever appeared. And since most locals would have had a
43. Clark, The Public Prints, 131; see also, 126-28.
44. Similarly,when in 1752 William Livingstonsought to copy the single-essay format of Steele's Tatler
and Addison's Spectator,his Independent Reflector "differedsingularly"from them, in that it "purposed to
expose, attack, and reform"(Milton M. Klein, "Introduction,'in William Livingstonet al., TheIndependent
Reflector,ed. Milton M. Klein [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963], 3). Furthermore, the most
recent research argues that these London newspapers were really efforts to "close off and restrain, rather
than to open up" political debate (Brian Cowan, "Mr.Spectator and the Coffeehouse Public Sphere'
Eighteenth-CenturyStudies 37 [2004]: 346).
45. New-England Courant, 7 August 1721. See also, Warner,Lettersof the Republic, 7; and Clark, The
Public Prints, 130-31.

Robert W.T. Martin 377

these claims are primarilyintended

good idea of the names of the "Couranteers',"
to send the message that the authority of the author is unimportant. Fromthis first
issue on, the Courantwould repeatedly accuse the local elite of asserting its own
view solely on the basis of its authority,"on the Meritsof their Characters,and for
no other reason."46
For 5 years, the Courantprovided an open forum for public debate, repeatedly
earning Franklin the ire of colonial authorities and generally eluding their
circuitous attempts at punishment. Finally,having forced Franklinto sign a bond
promising not to print anything further,the ruling elite was dismayed to find the
Courant kept appearing, now officially published by James' 17-year-oldbrother,
Benjamin. After 7 months, Benjamin ran away to Philadelphia, beginning the
Courant's decline but spreading this tradition of newspapers open to public
debate. Soon public spheres would emerge throughout the colonies, building on
the broad print culture of increasing literacy and a print medium that provided
for anonymous authorship and a seemingly unlimited audience.47 From 1720 to
1760, colonial America, which had long had more newspaper towns than
England, increased its number of master printers from 9 to 42, and its number of
newspapers from 3 to 22, far outstripping even the burgeoning population.48
"Never had the oral culture been able to provide a stimulus to discussion and
creativity in the community comparable to this emerging function of print,"the
historian Charles Clark concludes. "The public sphere was being profoundly
transformed."49

Opening up an effectively exclusive, nascent public sphere was no quick and

easy business, of course, but by mid-century the colonies would see a dramatic
increase in the number of "free" (i.e., opposition) presses. These opposition
newspapers were used as a forum for common shopkeepers and artisans, among
others, to challenge the often silent but never subtle class-based exclusivity of the
early public sphere. These challenges pushed for a further opening, effectively
expanding the public sphere to include more "midling" (though still predominantly white male) participants. For example, one essay began by exalting the
press and then baldly maintained that it is "highly commendable" for "every
member of the Community" to study subjects of public concern, such as
government and religion.50The fact that this "community"of citizens and readers
was expanding had already been suggested in the IndependentAdvertiser'svery
first issue. The colophon hinted at this new audience in its simple note that "all
46. New-England Courant, 7 August 1721.
47. Warner,Letters of the Republic, 14, 41-42.
48. Stephen Botein, "'MeerMechanics' and an Open Press: The Business and Political Strategies of
Colonial American Printers,'Perspectives in American History 9 (1975): 150.
49. Clark, The Public Prints, 170.
50. New-YorkMercury 27 January 1755.

378 BETWEENCONSENSUS AND CONFLICT

Gentlemen and others may be supplied with this Paper"at the printing shop. That
these "others"were not limited to the educated, propertied classes was clear from
the introductory preface. The editors promised that, "forthe Benefit of those who
are unacquainted with the Geography of foreign Parts, we may insert such
Descriptions as may enlighten them therein."'51
By the end of the century, it was
lower
orders made up a significant
understood
that
of
the
members
generally
that his proposed
of
to
demonstrate
the
in
order
part
public sphere; indeed,
Dennie
would have to
was
not
solicitous
of
commoners, Joseph
newspaper
submit the prospectus to men of "affluence" and "letters:'complete with myriad
footnotes, classical quotations, and references to the "motley vulgar" lower
classes.52

Madison, Wortman, and the Sovereignty of Public Opinion

Early America, then, even more than eighteenth-century Britain, had the
institutions and practices of a dissentient public sphere. And unlike subjects of
the Britishmonarchy,American citizens of the early Republic had every reason to
theorize a genuinely contested yet effectively sovereign public opinion that
would emerge from a reflexive, fallibilistic and increasingly inclusive public
sphere. Living in a world where democratic theory had very recently seemed
altogether utopian, and in which the practical meaning of American democracy
was very much up for grabs, American radicals of the 1790s instinctively knew
both that they shared some broad if vague and debatable consensus with their
compatriots and that they had to see to it that the argument did not end. There
had to be some way between valorizing consensus and validating boundless
conflict.
Not surprisingly, it was James Madison who first perceptively analyzed the
place and nature of public opinion in a modern republic and in so doing laid the
groundwork for the more extensive work that would follow. A careful student of
British thinkers, Madison sometimes-particularly early on-followed the tepid
British view of public opinion as the general common sense of the people. 'All
power has been traced up to opinion:' Madison observed in his "Charters"
newspaper essay of 1792. "Thedespot of Constantinople dares not lay a new tax,
because every slave thinks he ought not."However, even as he uses this standard
language, Madison reminds us that everything is different in republican
51. Independent Advertiser (Boston), 4 January 1748. Newspapers also took to translating Latin
phrases; see, e.g., Freeman's Journal (Philadelphia), 10 April 1782. For the earlier, elitist view of the
newspaper audience, c.f., American WeeklyMercury(Philadelphia), 6 November 1740.
52. [Joseph Dennie], "Prospectus of a New Weekly Paper, Submitted to Men of Affluence, Men of
Liberality,and Men of Letters,"[Philadelphia: Joseph Dennie and Asbury Dickins, 1800], 1-2, Dated
Pamphlets Collection, American Antiquarian Society

Robert W.T. Martin

379

government. "InEurope, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America

has set the example and France has followed it, of charters of power granted by
liberty.53Even before these statements Madison had begun to explore the new
quality of a contested and sovereign public opinion. In a 1791 essay entitled
"PUBLICOPINION,"he started out traditionally, but then immediately began to
explore the connection between public opinion and republican government.
"Public Opinion sets the bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in
every free one." Noting the difficulty of ascertaining a republic's "realopinion:' he
commended "whatever facilitates a general intercourse of sentiments:' such as "a
free press, and particularlya circulation of newspapers through the entire body of
the people."54
We should not pass this over as "mere"rhetoric. Madison's view here is both
sweeping and literal. As the political theorist Colleen Sheehan has noted, "he
uses the term public opinion to mean an actual or real sovereignty, not one that is
disembodied or abstract."55Madison was concerned with explaining the active
control of a republican people, in stark contrast to Alexander Hamilton and other
Federalists, who expected citizens to have enough "confidence" in their chosen
leaders to let them govern undisturbed until the next election.56 Accordingly
when the Sedition Act crisis (1798-1800) forced Madison to defend a contested,
even raucous, public sphere, he drew a distinction between Britainand America,
where "the people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty."Thus,
"it is the duty as well as right of intelligent and faithful citizens to promulge
[improper governmental proceedings] freely . .to control them by the censorship
of the public opinion"'57
Madison here leads the way in examining the nature of the public opinion
in a contested yet sovereign public sphere. He is familiar with the work
of the Physiocrats,58but does not draw from them, since he is speaking of
effective sovereignty and broad, effectual dissent. However, he can philosophize
this way during the 1790s only in the context of his political (and partisan)
duties. By 1800, these duties would engulf all of his time. Thus it fell to another
Jeffersonian-Republican, Tunis Wortman, to theorize a public opinion
53. James Madison, Papers of James Madison, ed. Robert Rutland, William T Hutchinson and
William M.E. Rachal (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1962-87), 14: 192, 191.
54. Madison, Papers, 14: 170 (emphasis original).
55. Colleen A. Sheehan, "The Politics of Public Opinion: James Madison's 'Notes on Government."
Williamand Mary Quarterly3d Series, 49 (1992): 619.
56. Colleeen A. Sheehan "Madisonvs. Hamilton: The Battle Over Republicanism" in The Many Faces
of Alexander Hamilton: The Life and Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father, ed. Douglas
Ambrose and Robert WT Martin (New York:New YorkUniversity Press, forthcoming); and Robert W T
Martin, "'ReformingRepublicanism: Alexander Hamilton's Theory of Republican Citizenship and Press
Liberty",in Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Ambrose and Martin.
57. Madison, "Reportof 1800,"in Madison, Papers, 17: 336-37, 342.
58. Sheehan, "Politics of Public Opinion, " 939-40, 954-55.

380

BETWEENCONSENSUS AND CONFLICT

purified and made "true" through critical discussion in a dissentient public

sphere. Wortman, a New York lawyer, spent much of his Treatise concerning
Political Enquiry,and the Libertyof the Press (1800) attacking the law of seditious
libel established in the Federalists' Sedition Act (1798).59 However, in the
course of 296 pages, he is repeatedly brought around to the nature of public
opinion in a republic.
Heir to a host of British and French thinkers before him, Wortman-like
Madison-would occasionally conceptualize "public opinion" in the now
traditional way.

With relation to government, public opinion is omnipotent. It is the general

will or acquiescence that supports every species of political institution, or
rather, to speak more correctly, it is impossible that any government should
exist in direct contravention of the general will. Considered in this light, the
position is universal in its extent. It is true at Petersburghand Constantinople,
as well as at Philadelphia. (24)
"Withrespect to government, therefore, every thing is dependent upon the
public will" (25). Yet as soon as he begins explaining his view of public opinion at
length, it quickly becomes apparent that Wortman is elucidating something
different than what his European forebears imagined. "The formation of general
opinion upon correct and salutary principles requires the unbiased exercise
of individual intellect; neither prejudice, authority,or terror,should be suffered
to impede the liberty of discussion." Wortman insists that "all should be
permitted to communicate their ideas with the energy and ingenuousness of
truth.""Exposed to the incessant attack of Argument, the existence of Errorwould
be fleeting" (121).
More importantly,Wortmanemphasizes that a genuine public opinion requires
a diversity of views, drawn from a much wider pool than American Federalists,
much less French Physiocrats, could fathom. "Society does not constitute an
intellectual unity; it cannot resolve itself into one single organized percipient, in
which the rays of Intelligence are concentrated and personified: each of its
members necessarily retains his personal identity and his individual understanding. By Public Opinion we are, therefore, to imply an aggregation of
individual sentiment" (118-19). The public opinion, Wortmancontinues, can thus
be seen as "that general determination of private understandings which is most
extensively predominant" (119). However, this predominance cannot be used to
59. Tunis Wortman,A TreatiseConcerning Political Enquiry,and the Libertyof the Press (New York:
George Forman, 1800). Subsequent citations to this work will be made parenthetically in the text,
indicating the relevant page numbers.

Robert W.T. Martin 381

silence non-conforming voices. Indeed, recognizing that citizens of an extensive

country like the United States cannot be expected to meet all together, Wortman
advocates the use of town meetings so that all voices might be heard. As a result,
dissent in these town meetings is to be expected: "Itis probable, that upon most
subjects some dissenting voices would be found. Perfect unanimity is seldom to
be expected" (120).
More than expecting dissent, Wortmanmakes it central. He asks, will there be
"diversityof sentiment," a "contrarietyof judgment" (121)? Absolutely On many
issues, views will be "dissonant and diversified" but "as investigation continues
free and unrestricted, the mass of error will be subject to continual diminution,
and the determinations of distinct understandings will gradually harmonize"
(122). Yet public reason alone is the way to this agreement. "Itis the province of
Reason to deliberate and determine." "No ideas of terror or restraint should be
associated into the discussion; no foreign consideration should enfeeble or
perplex the judgment" (122). "Introduce the incessant habit of independent
reflection, and the establishment of Public Opinion upon a rational and salutary
basis will follow as a necessary consequence" (122-23).
Ultimately for Wortman, dissent is not simply expected or incorporated; it is
required for a genuine, reflective, and fallible but sovereign public opinion to
emerge. "Diversityof sentiment in the earlier stages of enquiry, is far from being
unfavorable to the eventual reception of Truth.It produces Collision, engenders
Argument, and affords exercise, and energy to the intellectual powers." What's
more, dissent provides for reflexivity and fallibility: "it corrects our errors,
removes our prejudices, and strengthens our perceptions; it compels us to seek
for the evidences of our knowledge, and habituates us to a frequent revisal of our
sentiments" (123).
Wortman'suse of "Truth"with a capital T-frequently repeated throughout his
Treatise-is fairly typical of a time when the unity of the One Truth(God's Truth)
was still taken for granted by many However, the references to "Truth"are not as
ominous as they may sound. In Wortman'shands they do not hold the insistence
on consensus that the Physiocrats demanded, but that Villa, Mouffe and others
correctly reject. Wortman's time was one when Democratic-Republicans were
forced to reconceptualize the nature of truth while French and British thinkers
were under no such pressure. His Treatisewas published when the Sedition Act's
provisions still criminalized "false"publications that brought the president or the
government "into contempt or disrepute" In response to this assault on press
liberty, Wortman and his Republican colleagues took to arguing, inter alia, that
opinions unlike facts could not be true or false. More importantly,they argued
that if there were any universal verities of politics they would be of a factual
nature and of little practical import; rather,on important issues, the only "truths"
were a matter of opinion, and where political issues were concerned, "there can

382 BETWEENCONSENSUS AND CONFLICT

be no standard, besides that of the public opinion."60 "Truth,as an abstract term,

is altogether insusceptible of definition,"Wortman maintained (48). However, on
public issues, the people could arrive at a "tolerablycorrect opinion" (60).
Finally, the public debate that Wortman sees purifying public opinion into
"true" opinions is not meant to have the sterilizing, exclusionary stress on
formalized "rationality"that many critics of Habermas's model condemn and the
Physiocrats endorsed. To be sure, Wortman,like Habermas, envisions "the empire
of judgment" displacing the "pernicious dominion of the passions" through the
"salutarydiscipline of moral discussion" (43, 42). However, Wortman is clear that
he would only exclude tyrannical, "uncontroulable" passions (40-41) and that
public discourse must not exclude the Otherness of diverse selves: "Truevirtue
cannot require that men should become totally detached from themselves"
(104). Ultimately,for Wortman, public opinion wields the sovereignty that British
conceptions lacked and the diversity that the French feared. It is, with him,
contested ratherthan consensual, at once sovereign and diverse, empowered and
dissentient, reflexive and fallible.

William Manning and the Contest of Discourses

Wortman's theory goes beyond Madison's deliberative public reason to
elaborate a conception of public opinion "purifiedthrough critical discussion in
the public sphere to constitute a true opinion,' and it does so on a basis of
plurality, reflexivity and acknowledged fallibility. Indeed, encouraging genuine
dissent is so central to Wortman'stheory precisely because he sees that reflective
criticism and opposition from a plurality of perspectives is the only democratically tenable response to our individual and collective fallibility Nevertheless,
his vision maintains a lingering element of unitary rather than plural thinking in
his evocation of one public opinion and one public sphere of truth. Wortman's
contemporary, the radical democrat William Manning, instead saw that any
genuine middle ground between consensus and conflict required multiple
publics and ongoing contest.
Manning, an obscure Massachusetts farmer and sometime tavern keeper,
began to see "public opinion" not as a unitary phenomenon, but as a more fluid,
multifaceted aggregation of competing discourses. Public opinion, for Manning,
was less a matter of deliberative reason and more the temporary product of the
never-ending and irreducible clash of opposing political visions and viewpoints.
His radical tract of 1798, "The Key of Liberty"demonstrates that Manning was
more alive than his contemporaries to the ways that discursive power could be
60. 'An Impartial Citizen" [James Sullivan], A Dissertation Upon the ConstitutionalFreedom of the
Press (Boston: Joseph Nancrede, 1801), 35.

Robert W.T. Martin 383

used.6' Accordingly he saw more clearly than others the need for multiple

publics, including even roughly institutionalized "counterpublics,7 as means of

encouraging dissent and thus combatting the natural bias of an elite-dominated
public sphere.
Manning came to his views in part due to his reflections on the Democratic
Societies of the early 1790s. Following the example of the revolutionaryJacobin
Societies in France, plebian critics of the conservative, Federalist Washington
administrationformed "DemocraticSocieties,"political clubs thatsought to invigorate
the public sphere and make room especially for their opposition views. They thus
operated in part as a counterpublic, a forum for marginalized, similarly-situated
people to formulateand articulatetheir critique of prevailingopinion.62Althoughhis
ruraltown of Billerica,Massachusetts,had no Democratic Society Manningthought
well of the Societies. And he shared their faith in certain elements of a deliberative
democracy maintainingthat "howeverconfident [one] may be that his own opinion
is right,he cannot enforce it on others in any better way than by timely and friendly
arguments, counsels, and admonitions" (130). Accordingly,democracy involved a
"dutyto listen"just as much as a "dutyof everyone to speak their minds freelyon all
laws and measures of government, and all men in office" (134).
The Democratic Societies had been helpful in encouraging such discourse,
but as the 1790s progressed, Manning observed them fighting the existing power
structure and losing. As his most recent biographers put it, he "found little
encouragement in the prevailing forms of dissent."63The violence of such
activities as the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 was immoral and self-defeating, he
insisted, but the Democratic Societies had no media of their own, leaving them
dependent on an established press that was increasingly dominated by
governmental and elite power. "The Few,"as Manning often called them, sought
to use their financial power to "monopolize the creation and diffusion of
knowledge, and to discourage popular enlightenment."64The economy was being
used to neutralize the people politically, numbing and dazzling them with
luxuries in order to create a type of passive servility.And it worked: The prosperity
of the '1790s, in Manning's analysis, "saw even more of the citizenry simply
withdrawing from politics, mainly out of self-satisfied ignorance."65
61. William Manning, "The Key of
in The Key of Liberty:The Life and Democratic Writingsof
Liberty,"
WilliamManning, 'A Laborer,"1747-1814, ed. Michael Merrilland Sean Wilentz (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1993). Subsequent citations to this work will be made parenthetically in the text,
indicating the relevant page numbers.
62. Nancy Fraser,"Rethinkingthe Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing
Democracy,"in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge: MITPress, 1992), 123.
63. Michael Merrilland Sean Wilenz, "Introduction,'in Key of Libertyed. Michael Merrilland Sean
Wilentz (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 39.
64. Merrilland Wilenz, "Introduction,'61.
65. Merrilland Wilenz, "Introduction,'63, 64; see also Manning, "Key,"140.

384 BETWEENCONSENSUS
AND CONFLICT

In the face of these circumstances, Manning felt that something had to be

done to restore real democratic discourse and thus America's democratic
promise.66However, the Democratic Societies were defunct by the later 1790s and
their press organs either run down or ruined by "all the arts of the Few" (155).
Rather than eschew institutionalized counterpublics as some current theorists
seem to,67 Manning proposed a new, national organization, which he called the
"LaboringSociety,"or the "Society of the Many,"whose primary purpose would be
to establish "a constitutional, cheap, easy, and sure method of conveying
necessary knowledge among the Many" (159). Such knowledge included basic
political information as well as knowledge of ongoing debates, the sentiments
and circumstances of other citizens, and the theories of free government and
human nature. The Society would have its own printing press and publish its own
magazine. The Society would consist of a national network of local clubs, called
"classes',"that would be directed from the bottom-up but linked by a pyramid of
annual town, county, state and national meetings. At the town, county, and
state level, the meetings would chose officers, but "the main business of all
these officers and meetings is to invent the cheapest and most expeditious
method of conveying all the knowledge" necessary for democracy to the
local meetings (169). There would be "no established, self-appointed hierarchy"
and the publications would serve only as "touchstones for political discussions
in the classes,7 which might well proceed in the freewheeling spirit of many a
tavern debate.68
Such a Society would need some funding, though its costs would be restricted
almost exclusively to the printing operation. Manning expected dues from the
members if necessary, but was willing to contemplate private, charitable
contributions to an endowment, the interest from which would be sufficient to
cover the Society's operating expenses. Even private charity would be
unnecessary if the government funded the endowment; such government
spending was warranted, Manning felt, since it would cost less than was spent
dealing with the Whiskey Rebellion and would discourage such violent forms of
dissent (161). However, one way or another, such a Society had to be funded.
"Withoutsuch an organization, magazines and newspapers cannot be read with
confidence, nor the necessary knowledge obtained in elections" (123). And it
was imperative that the people have a source of public information and discourse
they could trust. Therefore, no matter how the Society was funded, its printer/
editor had to be an employee of the Society, so that his self-interest was
consonant with the Society's (162). "Everyfreeman ought to have all [necessary]
66. Merrilland Wilenz, "Introduction,"65.
67. Sheldon Wolin, "FugitiveDemocracy,"in Democracy and Difference:Contesting the Boundaries of
the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
68. Merrilland Wilenz, "Introduction:'65.

Robert W.T. Martin

385

knowledge independent of any orders of men or individuals who may be

interested to mislead or deceive them" (159).
Manning's "Society of the Many" was designed to provide grassroots yet
systematic dissent, thus expanding the existing range of public discussion. To be
sure, it was not without its limits. For one thing, Manning's purpose was hardly
non-partisan; he was an avowed opponent of the Federalists, especially
Alexander Hamilton. On the other hand, given the context of the 1790s-the
moment when Americans were working out how democratic government should
operate-Manning's opposition to the generally less populist Federalists was an
integral part of that debate and the effort to establish a more inclusive democracy
Most importantly,Manning'sproposal may have been limited by his own vision of
the "Many"which was ambiguous as to whether it included women and enslaved
men. His proposed constitution defined the membership as all adult laboring free
men (167), and Manning presumably meant to include free black men as well as
the poorest white men.69 He also proposed to admit "all persons of any other
denominations" who wanted to join (167). Such an invitation, even if broadly
intended, would not, by fiat, erase the prejudiced expectations placed on women
and slaves, any more than an institutionalized counterpublic of dissent would
erase the influence of socio-economic power. However, it might just provide a
counterpublic venue in which a competing discourse of radical democracy
might be elaborated and advanced.
Manning went further than the democratic societies not only in explicitly
advocating an established counterpublic, but also in emphasizing the need for
public education and legal reform, as the lack of these contributed to elite
advantage in the discursive contests of democracy "The sole foundation on
which the Few build all their schemes to destroy free government is the ignorance
and superstition of, or the want of knowledge among, the Many" (138). To
combat this problem, Manning advocated mandatory, free public schooling-for
girls as well as boys (182). Similarly, he stressed the need for reform in the
"intricacyof our laws"'which allowed elite lawyers to hold so much sway in the
public realm (180). However, for Manning, talking about the needed reforms was
one thing; bringing them about was another, and was not going to happen while
the "Few"controlled the discursive terrain.
Members of the Democratic Societies-like Habermas, Madison and Wortman-might well have sought a proper deliberation in which reason would
prevail, convincing free men of the genuine need for law reform. But not
Manning. Manning simply did not expect "reason" or one "truth"to prevail, but
frameworks of thought to temporarily win the democratic contest. Thus, unlike
the theorists of the Democratic Societies or even Wortman, Manning does not
69. Merrilland Wilenz, "Introduction:'68.

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speak of "truth"or of a single, overarching "public opinion." He does speak of the

"truesense" of the Constitution and of the Few spreading "falsehoods" (154), but
for him there was no sense that there is only one Truthand no faith that public
opinion would come to it, even theoretically.
Rather,for Manning, democracy was seen in the ability of certain discourses to
outweigh competing discourses. Much of the power of the Few owed, Manning
clearly perceived, to their creating powerful, dominant discourses. They gained
advantage by "explaining and constructing away the true sense and meaning of
the constitutions and laws" (141; see also 146). The problem was not so much the
laws, but how debates about them were framed. "The Federal Constitution"was
"a good one principally"-"by a fair construction."However, it was intended to be
"inexplicit"so the "rulingmajority"may put any construction "they please upon
it" (148).
Nor did Manning expect reasoned deliberation to bring consensus around a
fair construction of the laws, or of any other political issue, for that matter.Rather,
the democratic contest would inherently be ongoing. As his biographers
perceptively point out, Manning expected "organized conflict."70In fact, his
theology held that all people were self-interested in a way that meant conflicts
between the few and the many were to be expected. Manning thus attacked the
familiar claim that statesmen-unlike mere common folk-could be "disinterested.' Natural human "selfishness may be discerned in every person, let their
conditions in life be what they will" (129). This explains Manning'sinsistence that
the printer/editor of the Society's publications be paid by the Society, not by any
other source. (This at a time when many printers were selflessly devoted to
creating forums for dissenting voices, even to their own economic ruin.71)And
unlike Dana Villa, who insists on a "disinterestedness"that seems to exclude the
poor, Manning was not sanguine that human interests could ever be reconciled,
even
The difference between the few and the many was largely a
theoretically.72
matter of money, and "there always was and always will be a very unequal
distribution of property in the world" (136). Manning was not pleased with this
reality but he would not advocate the closing down of any association, even an
elite one, to manipulate it: "I would not be understood to be against the
associations of any orders of men" (182). Rather, William Manning was
envisioning a democratic practice between consensus and conflict: a neverending, inclusive, multifaceted contest of discourses-of publics, counterpublics,
and public opinions-producing both generally irreducible differences and
particular shared discourses.
70. Merrilland Wilenz, "Introduction,"70.
71. Jeffrey L. Pasley, The Tyrannyof Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001), especially 153-75.
72. Villa, Politics, Philosophy, Terror,118.

Robert W.T. Martin 387

Conclusion
Only part of my purpose here has been to show that Habermas's own first
example of "public opinion" reveals his much criticized tendency to focus on
consent to the exclusion of dissent, thus setting the trajectory of his later work.
More importantly,we need to see that this was a missed opportunity to set the
record straight about the philosophical possibilities of the dissentient public
sphere. To be sure, the early American public sphere still excluded women and
blacks, enslaved or free. And the "reason" of public opinion envisioned by
Wortman and especially Madison is insufficiently multifaceted. However, the
StructuralTransformationrepresents a missed opportunity to demonstrate that the
public sphere, even at its moment of emergence, was genuinely envisioned by
some as diverse and dissentient rather than unitary and consensual.
It is also important to note that the public sphere can be analyzed historically
without broadening the very real separation between Habermasian consensualism and post-modern agonism. Often, theory makes it easy to see distinctions as
divides; historical excursions into the real world are usually both messier and
more nuanced, resulting in greater insight into overlaps and similarities that can
span the gulf between theoretical positions. To put it simply bridges are best built
with concrete, not ether. Thus, we see in the early American public sphere, and in
Manning especially, a rudimentary appreciation of diversity, difference and
contestation that undermines the consensus/agonism divide that much recent
theory essentializes. The lacuna between Habermas and postmodern critics such
as Mouffe is not falsely filled in but genuinely bridged.
Take, for example, the ongoing disputes over the type of discourse appropriate
to democracy Proponents of deliberative democracy have argued for the power
of rational deliberation to counter self-interested claims and demagogic appeals,
thus underwriting the normative legitimacy of the reasoned agreement that
emerges from such dialogue.73Critics fear the exclusions-the marginalization of
plurality and difference-that come with a norm of rational deliberation.
Accordingly, some critics argue for an alternative set of communicative norms,
including rhetoric and story-telling,that has been used by marginalized groups to
make their voices heard.74
Exchanges like these, however, overlook the centrality of dissent to
democratic dialogue of all kinds. To be sure, rhetoric and stories can encourage
us-especially in group decisions-to make choices we later come to realize
were misguided, unfair, or irrational. However, then again, so can specious
73. E.g., Seyla Benhabib, "Towarda Deliberative Model,"in Democracy and Difference:Contesting the
Boundaries of the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 83.
74. E.g., Young, "Communication and the Other,"131-32.

388 BETWEENCONSENSUS
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rational argument, when it is not chastened by informed, thoroughgoing dissent.

We do need rhetoric, story-telling, and appeals to authority in democratic
discourse, even though they are sometimes ways of "lying"in discourse. As Mark
Twain reminds us, there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Even the most
rationalized statistical approach can distort, intentionally or unintentionally,
public debate. What matters is the robust dissent that provides multiple
perspectives and thus can ferret out ignored aspects, outright manipulations
and spurious conclusions. And early American radicals, from the New-England
Couranteers to William Manning, understood this: They effortlessly blended
rhetoric, narrative and reasoned argument, all in the service of dissent.75
Historically informed theorizing, then, is more than solely a matter of
distinguishing between real and perceived divergences. Where theory allows
ambiguities to float freely real historical examples ground our analysis and point
to insights we might otherwise miss, or misunderstand. Contra Villa, Manning
demonstrates that democratic publics must make room for the discourse of
"interests"To exclude them is to exclude those economically disadvantaged who
can be condemned as being blinded by (material) interests-to the undemocratic advantage of those claiming "disinterestedness"Similarly,Manning'stheory
of a dissentient democracy that is ongoing and partially institutionalized argues
against conceptions, like Sheldon Wolin's"fugitivedemocracy,"that seem to make
a virtue of fragility and ephemerality.76 Finally, appreciating the Democratic
Societies and Manning'svision demonstrates vividly that the "subalterncounterpublics" theorized by Nancy Fraserdo not emerge with the late twentieth-century
feminist movement but were an integral part of initial efforts to make dissentient
the early democratic public sphere.77
Habermas's historical study unintentionally laid the groundwork for some later
weaknesses in his theory, weaknesses he is still trying to overcome. Nevertheless,
we should not follow him-as most theorists have-in abandoning historical
analysis altogether. If we do, we risk missing opportunities to argue with one
another rather than past one another.

75. See also, e.g., George Keith, New-England's spirit of persecution transmittedto Pennsylvania and
the pretended Quaker found persecuting the true Christian-Quaker(New York:William Bradford, 1693);
Benjamin Franklin Bache, Truthwill out! The foul charges of the Toriesagainst the editor of the Aurora
repelled by positive proof and plain truth, and his base calumniators put to shame (Philadelphia: B.E
Bache, 1798).
76. Wolin, "FugitiveDemocracy,"31, 43.
77. Fraser,"Rethinkingthe Public Sphere:' 123.