“Salutary Collisions” and Multiple Discourses
“Salutary Collisions” and Multiple Discourses
A Farmer, a Lawyer, and Two Unknown Democrats
This chapter examines the views of four lesser-known theorists about the theory of dissentient democracy, all of whom emphasized the positive contribution of any and all dissent: John Thomson, William Manning, Tunis Wortman, and a newspaper essayist with the pseudonym “Numa.” The chapter begins by focusing on the protests against the United States' Jay Treaty with Great Britain, proposed by Chief Justice John Jay, along with the renewed culture of deference and the Sedition Act it fostered. It then considers George James Warner's 1797 Fourth of July Oration delivered to a host of Jeffersonian New York clubs, including the Tammany Society. Finally, it explores Numa's theory of dissent, Thomson's free speech absolutism, Wortman's arguments about the role of government in shaping public opinion, and Manning's model of dissentient democracy.
Keywords: dissentient democracy, dissent, John Thomson, William Manning, Tunis Wortman, protests, Jay Treaty, Sedition Act, free speech, public opinion
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