The Trial Transcript as Political Theory: Penn-Mead in Anglo-American Political Thought

Abstract

One of the most exciting developments in the field of political theory in recent years has been the increasing attention to issues of form and genre. No longer content to analyze abstract principles of justice, political theorists have embraced an interdisciplinary approach that is increasingly sensitive to the ways in which political texts “work” not only in narrowly political but in broader cultural, social, and rhetorical ways. This paper draws on such an expanded view of political theory, exploring an important text in the legal tradition and its consequences for Anglo-American political theory and practice. The People’s Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted (1670), a purported transcript of the trial of young William Penn and his colleague William Mead for unlawful preaching, not only gave rise to important principles of jury nullification (despite repeated threats and punishments from the judge, the jury refused to convict the defendants); it also spawned a contentious public and polemical exchange about the principles of common law, popular liberties, and the rights of conscience. Although Penn denied authorship of the article, he did endorse its basic account of his trial and defended the work against those who denounced it. The Penn-Mead trial entered the mythos of the maturing Quaker movement and Penn’s own political career, which led to his insistence on the right of jury trial for his colony’s inhabitants.But such legacies do not always remain neatly within the mythic boxes that political actors attempt to construct for them. Ten years after the founding of Pennsylvania, a schism rocked the colony, and dissident Quakers were brought before civil courts on charges of sedition. One result of those trials (aside from the convictions) was a publication entitled New England’s Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsylvania, purporting to present a transcript of the trials. The work, written by George Keith, one of the defendants, was self-consciously modeled on the early transcript of the Penn-Mead trial, and thus sought to cast Keith in the role of Penn, and to associate the colonial authorities with English persecutors. This paper explores the ways in which these trial transcripts represent serious works of political theory: they present a vision of social order and an argument about the nature of liberty and authority, and engage in a spirited engagement with rival views of the good. Considering both the rhetorical and performative strategies on the one hand, and the substantive arguments on the other – and, perhaps most importantly, the interconnections between the two – gives political theorists new tools in the attempt to understand the many ways in which political ideas are shaped, articulated, and communicated.