A Total Eclipse of Liberty (1755) and Appendix to A Total Eclipse (1756)

Summary

Apart from the trial of John Peter Zenger for libel in New York in 1734, Daniel Fowle in Boston represents the most notable pre-Revolution defense of the freedom of the press, and the only one founded in the expression of fundamental principles of natural rights. Fowle’s work is perhaps the first comprehensive discussion, written and published by an American, of the principles of government, in the tradition of the literature of the Revolution. A Total Eclipse of Liberty bridges the old and new worlds; aimed at exposing abuses of power in Massachusetts, it celebrates the English constitution and English liberties. At the same time, however, Fowle explicitly introduces reason and the “poor dim light of nature” as the standards of political judgment, notably quoting Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748) at length. His short essay contains the essential forms and objectives of Revolutionary rhetoric, including version of the consent of the governed and an express assertion of the right of revolution.

Fowle, a printer-publisher in Boston, was summoned before the Lower House of Assembly on October 24, 1754, to answer questions concerning a publication entitled “Monster of Monsters.” The House considered the anonymous piece a libel on itself and wished to find and punish those responsible. Fowle denied that he either authored or printed the piece. He admitted that he had handled it, receiving some ten copies which he offered for sale. In the end, the House remanded him to the common jail. There was no finding of guilt and no formal presentation of charges. But Fowle was jailed, and there began A Total Eclipse of Liberty. He succeeded in writing only a few pages before pen and paper were removed from him. He spent forty-eight hours confined in the stone jail, and another three days in the jailer’s quarter. After forty-eight hours Fowle was removed to the jailer’s quarters, where an order was received commanding that he be released privately. Upon this news he responded, “I now desire that the same Authority that put me in, would by virtue of that same Power take me out, and not thrust me out privily,” echoing Apostle Paul from Acts 16:37.

Fowle complained bitterly of this “unheard of attack upon the Liberty of an Englishman, than which scarcely anything is dearer, if he has but the spirit of a Man.”

Selected by

William B. Allen

Emeritus Dean of James Madison College and Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University

Jonathan Gienapp

Associate Professor of History at Stanford University

Document Excerpt

I had no bed to lodge on, but a pillow and one blanket. I walked about, and when tired sat down, and heard the Clock strike every Time from 12 till eight. There is but one Window, and that without anything to keep off the Weather, as there is only several iron Bars, no Winder-shut, which the Murderer was favour’d with. The Place stunk prodigiously, which oblig’d me to tye my Handkerchief over my Mouth and Nose, for fear of being suffocated: worse than the Smell of Brimstone. I heard no Noise for some considerable Time; All Nature seem’d to be dead; the first stiring of any Thing I could hear, was the Noise of Rats, which seem’d to be of a prodigious size...  [On October 28th he inserted this lengthy extract from “that approved piece,” Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws:]. “The [political] Liberty of the Subject is a Tranquility of Mind, arising from the Opinion each Person hath of his safety. In order to have this Liberty, it is requisite the Government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another. …

When the Legislative and Executive Powers are united in the same Person, or in the same Body of Magistrates, there can be no Liberty; because Apprehensions may arise least the same Monarch or Senate should enact tyrannical Laws, to execute them in a tyrannical Manner.

Again, There is no Liberty, if the Power of Judging be not separated from the Legislative, the Life and Liberty of the Subject would be exposed to arbitrary Controul; for the Judge would be the Legislature. Were it joined to the Executive Power, the Judge might behave with all the Violence of an Oppressor [violence and oppression].

There would be an End of every Thing, were the same Man, or the same Body, whether of the Nobles or of the People, to exercise these three Powers, that of enacting Laws, that of executing the Publick Resolutions, and that of judging the Crimes or Differences of Individuals [trying the causes of individuals].”

[In his Appendix, “The Original of Civil Government, the Rights of the People, etc.”,] he added:

            “against the Invaders of our Liberties and Privileges….No Governors are the natural Parents or Progenitors of their People,—Nor has God by any Revelation nominated Magistrates, shewed the Nature, or Extent of their Power, or given a Plan of Civil Polity for Mankind….‘Tis also allow’d, to constitute a State or Civil Polity in a regular Manner, these three deeds are necessary: First, a Contract of each one for all, that they should unite in one Society to be governed by one Counsel. And next a Decree or Ordinance of the People concerning the Plan of Government; and the Nomination of the Governors. And lastly, another Covenant or Contract between these governors and the People, binding the Rulers to a faithful Administration.’”