Doctrines
The societies preached equal justice and a general diffusion of knowledge as essential "pillars supporting the sacred temple of liberty." A primary purpose of the societies was to disseminate political information, as members believed ignorance was the greatest threat to democracy. They worked closely with republican newspaper editors, publishing numerous letters, editorials and essays.
"To support and perpetuate the EQUAL RIGHTS OF MAN" was the New York society's "great object," and toward that end they would "constantly express our sentiments." The "Equal Rights of Man" meant to them the right to freedoms of speech, press, and assembly; the right to criticize governmental representatives and to demand an explanation of their public acts; and the right to publish their reactions in a free press.
Born from the grassroots organization of the Sons of Liberty, the societies challenged existing notions of the social and political hierarchy. The societies united disparate groups of people from different classes. Usually lower and middle classes, made up of farmers, artisans, mechanics, and common laborers were led by richer merchants, local politicians, militia captains, naval officers, doctors, lawyers, and printers. Their persistence of egalitarian and republican thought revolutionized ideas about liberty through the Jacksonian era and beyond.
The members often included dissenting teachers and theologians striving to create a more progressive, humanitarian, and enlightened society. Their ideas were also influenced by classical and modern republicanism, particularly the works of Aristotle and Machiavelli, and by the 'Common Sense' philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. This philosophy led the societies to oppose many of the Federalist Party policies. The societies advocated both a system of publicly funded and locally controlled education for all classes and a broadening of the franchise. Standing to Jefferson's ideological left, they advocated a much more democratic political agenda than he supported, including attempts to create a permanent organization of popular dissent directed against the federal government and an educational philosophy based on a dialectical and democratic approach to learning.
Read more about this topic: Democratic-Republican Societies
Famous quotes containing the word doctrines:
“Talent alone can not make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which by birth and quality is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise; holding things because they are things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“It is a most curious experience for a man of seventy-two to be confronted with the greenhorn enthusiasms of his youth. Young people think they are so smart. Alas the doctrines they spout with such fervor turn out to be mostly parroted from their elders.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)