John Payne (Dolley Madison's Father): A PARRHESIASTES Who Helped Start the Abolition of Slavery Movement

No Image for John Payne, Dolley Madison's  Father

History has given us Dolley Madison with her bravery in the White House as it was pillaged and burned by the British in the 1812 War. She saved Stuart's painting of George Washington.

COURAGE LIGHT as Zizek might say.

But what her father did has been lost in the folds of history.

 He was a Parrhesiastes like Edward Snowden.

And like Snowden, he with others began a national debate.

ON SLAVERY
William Penn was given Pennsylvania as a land grant. As a Quaker Penn forbid the trafficking of slaves in Pennsylvania and fair purchase prices for Native American land. Philadelphia was already established when he got it and Pennsylvania was to be a haven for Quakers to practice their religion with freedom from persecution.

A number of Quakers left Pennsylvania for the Carolinas (liberal Constitution) and Virginia where land was cheap, the weather milder, and slave ownership possible. But the slavery debate continued in the Quaker meetings.

Anyone who was involved in the Viet Nam war protests in the 60's and 70's in Philadelphia was aware of the leadership of the Quakers in the Resistance Movement. No longer in any kind of political control the Quakers were a moral force at that time and a center for attracting revolutionary minded dissidents and draft resisters.

In  other words THEY WERE DANGEROUS!
And they were dangerous in the time of the colonies also. So much so in Virginia that in 1760 Virginia passed this law on slavery:

In 1760 in Virginia the Law as passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses read "that it was illegal to emancipate a slave in Virginia except by Government act. Virginia Quakers and their meetings could oppose slaveholding and support emancipation, but they were prohibited by law from freeing their slaves. If a slave was freed, by a Quaker or anyone else, he or she could be captured and sold as a runaway."

The Law reads what you can't do. You can't free your slave. Assuming you are a decent person if you want to free your slave, what are the consequences if you do this. Capturing/kidnapping and being resold to the highest bidder, and very likely a far worse situation from which you are freed. 

You can beat, maim, kill, rape, torture, breed, set dogs on, force fights to the death, well just about anything the perverse imagination can come up with, you can do. 

The only thing you can't do is FREE  this slave. And if you do this slave will never really be free. This slave will always be looking over her/his shoulder as there are stories of abductions and disappearances. 

This Law also has an emptiness. The only thing you are not allowed to do is FREE your slave. 

Dolley Madison's  father was disturbed by the fact that he owned slaves to work his plantation in Virginia. About 50 of them. A large holding. He had converted to the Society of Friends after he married Mary Coles who had been disowned by the Quakers for marrying him, an Anglican. He becomes more Quaker than a Quaker as converts often are wont to do. And his conscience is troubled by the fact that he owns slaves. 

It is a colonial law of the colony of Virginia. There are certainly similar laws in Alabama,Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, etc. But this is Virginia, the place where Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe all have family plantations with enslaved workers. And these men are 4 of our first 5 presidents. I am stunned.

At the base of our legal system by 1760 is pure sophistry. A Law by Pharisees. It contains a poison pill. It puts the person of integrity in a CATCH-22 situation. Unable to keep a slave or free the slave. It forces hypocrisy. 

Now who is responsible for this law? Does anyone think that the largest plantation owners in Virginia, the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, and Monroes were innocent of this law? We know James Madison's grandfather served in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1761-1769. He would have had to have known of this law. Who formulated it like this? And why? 

And why this law at this time? Foucault teaches to look at what else is going on. To look at the intersections of different "comings to be" and in this case it is the influx of Quakers from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas (liberal Constitution) and Virginia to farm large tracts of cheap land through the use of slave labor. Quaker meetings are not about listening to someone give a sermon. They involve silence and the necessity someone feels to speak to the group. So one can expect there were many raised discussions about slavery, and surely the well known founding fathers of the Anglican persuasion knew about these dissenting discussions, as these meeting books were impounded during the Revolution as they looked for traitors. The Quakers refused to bear arms. Most of them anyway. They were found innocent.

Virginia was a bastion of slaveholding.  In 1765, the Quaker minister John Griffith wrote that "the life of religion is almost lost where slaves are numerous....the practice being as contrary to the spirit of Christianity as light is to darkness." (p. 64) By 1769 the Paynes had come to believe that slaveholding was morally indefensible.  Three months after the Declaration of Independence was signed, John Payne, Dolley's father freed one of his slaves in a formal declaration leaving no doubt as to his intent. Then he freed the rest of them. In defiance of Virginia Law. 

In Full:

I, John Payne of Hanover County, Virginia, from mature, deliberate Consideration, and the Conviction of my Own mind, being fully persuaded that Freedom is the A Natural Condition of all mankind, and that no law, moral or Divine, has given me a right Or property in the persons of my fellow Creatures; and being desirous to fulfill the Injunction of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by doing unto Others as I would be done by; do therefore declare that having Under my care a Negro man Named Cuffe, aged about Twenty-four years, I do, for myself, my heirs, Executors and Administrators, hereby release Unto him the said Cuffe all my right, Interest and Claim Or pretension of Claim  whatsoever, as to his person, or to any Estate he may hereafter Acquire, without any Interruption from me, or any person Claiming for, by, or under me. In Witness whereof I have Hereunto set my hand and Seal this third day of the Twelfth month in the year of our Lord One thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Six. (p. 65)

This is both a statement and an act of PARRHESIA, following from the time of Socrates in the Western World - and only in the Western World. It is our heritage and our tradition. 

Frankness:The word parrhesia, then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words and forms of expression he can find. …in parrhesia, the parrhesiastes acts on other people’s minds by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes.

…..To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is true because it is really true. The parrhesiastes is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. He says what he knows to be true. The second characteristic of parrhesia, then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth.

If there is a kind of “proof” of the sincerity of the parrhesiastes, it is his courage. The fact that a speaker says something dangerous — different from what the majority believes — is a strong indication that he is a parrhesiastes.

Danger: Someone is said to use parrhesia and merits consideration as aparrhesiastes only if there is a risk or danger for him in telling the truth. …when a philosopher addresses himself to a sovereign, to a tyrant, and tells him that his tyranny is disturbing and unpleasant because tyranny is incompatible with justice, then the philosopher speaks the truth, believes he is speaking the truth, and, more than that, also takes a risk (since the tyrant may become angry, may punish him, may exile him, may kill him.) And that was exactly Plato’s situation with Dionysius in Syracuse….

So you see, the parrhesiastes is someone who takes a risk….Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of danger; it demands the courage to speak the truth in spite of some danger. And in its extreme form, telling the truth takes place in the “game” of life or death.

Quotes from Foucault

It is because the parrhesiastes must take a risk in speaking the truth that the king or tyrant generally cannot use parrhesia; for he risks nothing.

When you accept the parrhesiastic game in which your own life is exposed, you are taking up a specific relationship to yourself; you risk death to tell the truth instead of reposing in the security of a life where the truth goes unspoken. Of course, the threat of death comes from the Other, and thereby requires a relationship to the Other. But the parrhesiastes primarily chooses a specific relationship to himself: he prefers himself as a truth-teller rather than as a living being who is false to himself.

I am saying that John Payne is a PARRHESIASTES of his time.

His risk was great as he defied the law. It began the beginning of financial ruin for him. He would never recover from the loss of about $45,000 and in 1776 that was a huge sum. And yet history does not record his courage. Only the online internet has been able to protect Edward Snowden and keep him safe and known throughout the world due to Assange's work with wikileaks. Snowden will not be forgotten as John Payne was. He is buried in the Free Quaker Cemetery in Philadelphia. I cannot find a gravestone image. Perhaps someone will send it to me or post it in a comment. He was a great man who is only known as the father of Dolley Madison.

For more on this reading through 12 Years A Slave LINK because the capture and reselling continued for almost 100 years afterwards as the law had no teeth. New York Law got Northup back to his family and it was a complicated legal process to free him.

PARRHESIA: Reading Snowden Through Foucault; Part 2

Edward Snowden - A Parrhesiastes

Parrhesia - Fearless Speech - Truth-Telling

 The Parrhesiastes is the one who uses parrhesia, i.e., the one who speaks the truth.

The Meaning of the Word

• Frankness
• Truth
• Danger
• Criticism
• Duty    

Frankness:The word parrhesia, then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words and forms of expression he can find. ...in parrhesia, the parrhesiastes acts on other people's minds by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes. 

For, as we shall see, the commitment involved in parrhesia is linked to a certain social situation, to a difference of status between the speaker and his audience, to the fact that the parrhesiastes says something which is dangerous to himself and thus involves a risk, and so on. 

Truth: There are two types of parrhesia which we must distinguish. First, there is a pejorative sense of the word not very far from "chattering," ....This pejorative sense occurs in Plato, for example, as a characterization of the bad democratic constitution where everyone has the right to address his fellow citizens and to tell them anything - even the most stupid or dangerous things for the city. In Christian literature the emphasis will change as it is an obstacle to the contemplation of God.

Most of the time, however, parrhesia does not have this pejorative meaning in the classical texts, but rather a positive one. .....To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is true because it is really true. The parrhesiastes is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. He says what he knows to be true.  The second characteristic of parrhesia, then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth.  

It would be interesting to compare Greek parrhesia with the modern Cartesian conception of evidence....It appears that parrhesia, in this Greek sense, can no longer occur in our modern epistemological framework.

 I am soon to disagree with Foucault here, as I think the "proof" produced by Snowden satisfies Cartesian evidence while demonstrating classical parrhesia attributes in addressing the "sovereign." I think Snowden has executed a Foucauldian CUT in the genealogy of parrhesia.
The discontinuity is that all requirements of classical parrhesia have been met by Snowden accompanied by Cartesian evidence. By inverting the paradigm, the searchlight is thrown on the Other, the more powerful entity, and we see that the parrhesiastes using parrhesia discloses the character and "truth" of the "sovereign" to the people. In that respect parrhesia lifts the mask of the "sovereign."

As Bane says in The Dark Knight Rises, "When all is lies, the truth is a weapon."

If there is a kind of "proof" of the sincerity of the parrhesiastes, it is his courage. The fact that a speaker says something dangerous - different from what the majority believes - is a strong indication that he is a parrhesiastes. 

Danger: Someone is said to use parrhesia and merits consideration as a parrhesiastes only if there is a risk or danger for him in telling the truth. ...when a philosopher addresses himself to a sovereign, to a tyrant, and tells him that his tyranny is disturbing and unpleasant because tyranny is incompatible with justice, then the philosopher speaks the truth, believes he is speaking the truth, and, more than that, also takes a risk (since the tyrant may become angry, may punish him, may exile him, may kill him.) And that was exactly Plato's situation with Dionysius in Syracuse....

And of course this is Edward Snowden's situation with the US Empire's government.

 So you see, the parrhesiastes is someone who takes a risk....Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of danger; it demands the courage to speak the truth in spite of some danger. And in its extreme form, telling the truth takes place in the "game" of life or death.

It is because the parrhesiastes must take a risk in speaking the truth that the king or tyrant generally cannot use parrhesia; for he risks nothing. 

When you accept the parrhesiastic game in which your own life is exposed, you are taking up a specific relationship to yourself; you risk death to tell the truth instead of reposing in the security of a life where the truth goes unspoken. Of course, the threat of death comes from the Other, and thereby requires a relationship to the Other. But the parrhesiastes primarily chooses a specific relationship to himself: he prefers himself as a truth-teller rather than as a living being who is false to himself. 

Hamlet anyone? 

 Criticism: For in parrhesia the danger always comes from the fact that the said truth is capable  of hurting or angering the interlocutor. Parrhesia is thus always a "game" between the one who speaks the truth and the interlocutor. The parrhesia involved, for example, may be the advice that the interlocutor should behave in a certain way, or that he is wrong in what he thinks, or in the way he acts, and so on. ...So, you see, the function of parrhesia is not to demonstrate the truth to someone else, but has the function of criticism: criticism of the interlocutor....Parrhesia is a form of criticism either toward another or towards oneself, but always in a situation where the speaker or confessor is in a position of inferiority with respect to the interlocutor. The parrhesiastes is always less powerful than the one with whom he speaks. The parrhesia comes from "below," as it were, and is directed towards "above."...But when a philosopher criticizes a tyrant, when a citizen criticizes the majority, when a pupil criticizes his teacher, then such speakers may be using parrhesia.

This is not to imply, however, that anyone can use parrhesia. ....most of the time the use of parrhesia requires that the parrhesiastes know his own genealogy, his own status;...In "democratic parrhesia" - where one speaks to the assembly, ....one must be a citizen; in fact, one must be one of the best among the citizens, possessing those specific personal, moral, and social qualities which grant one the privilege to speak. 

However, the parrhesiastes risks his privilege to speak freely when he discloses a truth which threatens the majority. For it was a well-known juridical situation that Athenian leaders were exiled only because they proposed something which was opposed by the majority, or even because the assembly thought that the strong influence of certain leaders limited its own freedom. And so the assembly was, in this manner, "protected" against the truth. That, then, is the institutional background of "democratic parrhesia" - which must be distinguished from that "monarchic parrhesia" where an advisor gives the sovereign honest and helpful advice. 

And it is here that the boundaries of democratic parrhesia and monarchic parrhesia begin to get blurry for me. Snowden's situation seems not only to be an example of "democratic parrhesia, but also one of "monarchic parrhesia," speaking truth to the tyrant. Although in this case it is a team of tyrants, a multitude of tyrants that includes the rulers and citizens combined. And this is something very new in the US. Solzhenitsyn in Soviet USSR was gulagged and when he survived was exiled. Snowden faced something swifter and something worse. This is where I see the Foucauldian CUT in the genealogy of parrhesia:

1. A merging of proof and classic parrhesia
2. An automatic and threatened sentence of endless torture and captivity proposed in advance of the supposed "criminal trial" of truth-telling, to silence all future truth-tellers

Duty: The last characteristic of parrhesia is this: in parrhesia, telling the truth is regarded as a duty. The orator who speaks the truth to those who cannot accept his truth, for instance, and who may be exiled, or punished in some way, is free to keep silent. No one forces him to speak, but he feels that it is his duty to do so. ...Parrhesia is thus related to freedom and duty.

To summarize the foregoing, parrhesia is a kind of verbal activity where the speaker has a specific relation to truth through frankness, a certain relationship to his own life through danger, a certain type of relation to himself or other people through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other people), and a specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty.  More precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy. (FS pp.11-20) 

Although Foucault is constructing a genealogy of parrhesia within the time period of the Fifth Century B.C. to the Fifth Century A.D. - one thousand years! - It would seem with Solzhenitsyn and Snowden that parrhesia does not stop there but has only rested. Its form has changed but I see no reason to change the name or the concept.

PARRHESIA - Fearless Speech:Reading Snowden Through Foucault

Edward Snowden - A Parrhesiastes

Socratic-Platonic answers to the questions:

1. How can we recognize someone as a parrhesiastes?
2. What is the importance of having a parrhesiastes for the city?
3. What is the training of a good parrhesiastes?

FOUCAULT

And I would say that the problematization of truth which characterizes both the end of Presocratic philosophy and the beginning of the kind of philosophy which is still ours today, this problematization of truth has two sides, two major aspects. One side is concerned with ensuring that the process of reasoning is correct in determining whether a statement is true (or concerns itself  with our ability to gain access to the truth). And the other side is concerned with the question:

What is the importance for the individual and for the society of telling the truth, of knowing the truth, of having people who tell the truth, as well as knowing how to recognize them?

With that side which is concerned with determining how to ensure that a statement is true we have the roots of the great tradition in Western philosophy which I would like to call the "analytics of truth." And on the other side, concerned with the question of the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to tell the truth, and knowing why we should tell the truth, we have the roots of what we could call the "critical" tradition in the West. And here you will recognize one of my targets in this seminar, namely, to construct a genealogy of the critical attitude in Western philosophy. That constituted the general objective of this seminar. (FS pp. 170-71)

My intention was not to deal with the problem of truth, but with the problem of the truth-teller, or of truth-telling as an activity....At issue for me was rather the attempt to consider truth-telling as a specific activity or as a role. ...I could have compared the role and status of truth-tellers in Greek society, Christian societies, non-Christian societies _the role of the prophet as a truth-teller, the role of the oracle as a truth-teller, the role of the poet, of the expert,of the preacher, and so on.  But, in fact, my intention was not to conduct a sociological description of the different possible roles for truth-tellers in different societies. 

What I wanted to analyze was how the truth-teller's role was variously problematized in Greek philosophy. ....this same Greek philosophy has also raised the question of truth from the point of view of truth-telling as an activity. It has raised questions like: 

1. Who is able to tell the truth?
2. What are the moral, the ethical, and the spiritual conditions which entitle someone to present himself as, and to be considered as, a truth-teller?
3. About what topics is it important to tell the truth?(About the world? About nature? About the city? About behavior? About man?)
4. What are its  anticipated positive effects for the city, for the city's rulers, for the individual?,etc.

And finally: What is the relation between the activity of truth-telling and the exercise of power? 

Should truth-telling be brought into coincidence with the exercise of power, or should these activities be completely independent and kept separate?
Are they separable, or do they require one another?

These four questions about truth-telling as an activity:

1. Who is able to tell the truth?
2. About what?
3. With what consequences?
4. With what relation to power?    

These four questions seem to have emerged as philosophical problems towards the end of the Fifth Century around Socrates, especially through his confrontations with the Sophists about politics, rhetorics, and ethics. (FS pp. 169-173)

And we all know what finally happened to Socrates. 

 And what is disturbing to me is that my tweets on Foucault's Panopticon have been picked up concerning Snowden's truth-telling of NSA surveillance (see a google search on Foucault + Snowden) but no one - NO ONE - is discussing Foucault's last works at the end of his life on parrhesia, or as Foucault calls it truth-telling, outlined in a series of talks at Berkeley in the early 1980's collected after his death from transcripts into the Semiotext(e) edition Fearless Speech.

Is this subject too frightening to touch? Are academics too scared? There are careerist academics who have made their career off Foucault's coattails. They have written dissertations on his work, books on his life, gotten tenure, prestigious chairs at universities all over the world and not one goddamn one of them has connected Edward Snowden to Foucault's work on truth-telling or the ancient Greek term parrhesia and the parrhesiastes!  This is 2500 years of critical tradition in the West, and only in the West, and no one is connecting these dots?

SHAME