The Fair Sex: White Women and Racial Patriarchy in the Early American Republic

4. The Philosopher Queen and the U.S. Constitution: Mercy Otis Warren as a Reluctant Signatory

The Philosopher Queen and the U.S. Constitution Mercy Otis Warren as a Reluctant Signatory When we think about American founders, we think about famous men, like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison , John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, who were active in the movement for independence, the framing of the Constitution, and as executives in early administrations. Although most American government textbooks include a section on the Antifederalists, most Americans do not recognize the names Robert Yates, John Lansing, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, Luther Martin, Richard Henry Lee, and Mercy Warren. And yet, the opponents of the proposed Constitution raised objections that led to the drafting of the Bill of Rights, without which ratification in several states would not have occurred. That is why they too must be considered founders. Mercy Warren was the most sophisticated of the Antifederalist American founders. Her objections to the proposed Constitution were backed up by an original theory of republican politics that drew its inspiration from the entire Western tradition of politics and political philosophy. As a woman, Mercy Warren did not have access to a Harvard education, like her brother James Otis, her husband, James Warren , or her friend, John Adams. During the battles of the War of Independence , however, the rules of gender were loosened, and women could more easily discuss politics without being chastised for leaving their proper sphere. Mercy Warren was extremely well read. She was also a prolific writer. Warren’s political thought shows its roots in her correspondence as early as 1774, but her mature political theorizing came to fruition late 4 83 in her life, after all her five sons were grown. Born in 1728, she was 50 years old when her Antifederalist essay came out, and she was 77 when her masterpiece, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution (1805), was published. Taken as a whole, her corpus of writings display a system of politics which makes reference to the ancient Greek and Roman republics; the Roman Empire and its demise; the virtues and principle beliefs of Christianity, Machiavellian thought, and the idea of the state of nature and the social compact so characteristic of modern political thought. Textbooks rarely mention Mercy Warren, and very few teachers of American history or government are aware of her contributions to American political thought. Reasons behind Warren’s marginality today no doubt relate to the exclusions she experienced in her own day. Few women were educated in political philosophy or history, so it would have been easy to dismiss her views as the inexperienced opinions of a woman with too much time on her hands. John Adams suggested the same when, after he read her history, was disappointed with the way she characterized him. Warren was a dissenter who wrote on the “losing” side of history. She stepped out of favor much earlier, when she and her husband began to sympathize with the Shays’ rebels in 1786; things did not improve after Mercy Warren published her anonymous essay criticizing the Federalists. The principal reason for Warren’s continuing obscurity is that her writings demand much of the reader. They make references to figures and events from earlier historical periods including Socrates and Athenian politics, the Roman republic and its decline, Machiavelli, and the Exclusion crisis leading to the Glorious Revolution in England. Warren’s analyses of the political events in her own day were framed in terms of this history of Western civilization. An understanding of that history is required to understand Warren’s own republican theory, which itself is required to understand why she couldn’t “sign on” to federalism and the proposed constitution. In this chapter, we will examine Mercy Warren as an unwilling signatory to the U.S. Constitution . In particular, we will consider whether her rejection of the Constitution was in any way related to a rejection of the sexual and racial contracts of racial patriarchy that were embedded in it. Warren’s self-conception far exceeded the boundaries of fair sex ideology , but she heeded fair sex norms or at least carefully negotiated 84 | The Philosopher Queen and the U.S. Constitution them in her communications with others. She was aware of her exceptional breeding and education, and considered herself intellectually superior to most women and most men. She became embroiled in revolutionary political debates and was perfectly comfortable asserting herself as an interlocutor, at least with her...