Uday S. Mehta, “Liberal Strategies of Exclusion,” and Francois Furstenberg, “Beyond Freedom and Slavery: Autonomy, Virtue, and Resistance in Early American Political Discourse,”
Uday S. Mehta explores the inherent exclusionary tendencies in liberal thought in his work, Liberal Strategies of Exclusion, and he divides his essay into two parts. First, he examines liberal exclusion in Europe largely using the writings of John Locke. On the surface, Locke seems to advocate inclusion or enfranchisement in a pure form, a perfect freedom. However, Locke restricts that inclusion based on a “Law of Nature.” (p. 64) This means that there are certain individuals and groups that are inherently excluded from the freedom that others, who do meet certain qualifications, enjoy. One qualification that Locke uses to “naturally” include or exclude certain individuals is the ability to consent to government. Children, for example, are incapable of consenting to the government and are therefore excluded from the process, according to Locke. Further, the laws of a particular state must be understood in order to be included, similarly excluding those incapable of understanding the law (p. 68). Cultural norms and accepted terms of classification, such as “English gentry,” “breeding,” and “servant,” also may limit participation in the government. All these things have historically left “an exclusionary imprint” in liberalism. The second half of Mehta’s essay deals with the exclusion of India, as well as other non-European areas, from the liberal process. Predominantly using the writings of John Stuart Mill, Mehta illuminates how India was systematically excluded by liberal thought. Mill considered India, as a non-Western entity, as inherently “insufficient” to participate in the government; he even argued that Britain had to politically compensate for Indian insufficiencies (p. 74). Mill’s utilitarianism contended that representative government was only appropriate for white states and colonies, effectively excluding many of Britain’s colonies. Hence, liberal exclusion was not limited to Lockean thought concerning European societies.
Francois Furstenberg begins his essay, Beyond Freedom and Slavery: Autonomy, Virtue, and Resistance in Early American Political Discourse, with an example of the contradiction between the political beliefs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the actual document. Rather than ensure equal rights for all, the signers believed that nations should only be as free as they deserve to be, indicating that some do not deserve to be free. Furstenberg’s essay examines how the American Revolution combined liberalism, republicanism, and religion to create a freedom based on autonomy or the ability to act according to one’s will insofar as it did not violate the same freedom of another (p. 1296). This naturally excluded those incapable of acting accordingly; slaves are, of course, the obvious group excluded from politics and society. While the author does not want to minimize the importance of racism or the racial ideology of early nineteenth century America for the justification of slavery, he argues that slaves were consciously excluded based on a perceived inherent inferiority. Because they were slaves, they were therefore inferior, in other words. On this point, Furstenberg and Mehta highlight a similar rationale for exclusion: race. What is dissimilar, however, is the discussion of freedom and autonomy. The distinction between freedom and autonomy is key for Furstenberg, for autonomy is defined in the article as the human ability to act apart from influence whereas freedom is the possibility of that ability. Unlike Mehta’s article, Furstenberg includes religion, most notably Protestantism, to help explain the development of autonomy and exclusion in the young United States. While the two authors’ essays resemble each other in their discussion of exclusions based on race or perceived inherent characteristics, they diverge in their discussions of religion, freedom, liberty, and autonomy.