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“Keep the Public Rich and the Citizens Poor”: Economic Inequality and Political Corruption in the Discourses

John P. McCormick

in Reading Machiavelli

This chapter indicates how, when one realizes that Machiavelli presents the Gracchi's career in the Discourses in such a way that he may be read as both endorsing and criticizing the ill-fated Roman ... More

This chapter indicates how, when one realizes that Machiavelli presents the Gracchi's career in the Discourses in such a way that he may be read as both endorsing and criticizing the ill-fated Roman tribunes' redistributive agenda, the reader is compelled to doggedly pursue what Machiavelli actually means when he repeatedly declares that republics must keep the public rich but the citizens poor. At the end of this interpretive expedition, one discovers a radical answer to perhaps the most controversial question within the Roman-Florentine republican tradition: political liberty requires genuine economic equality. The chapter then asserts that the people of republics ought to relate to each other as free and equal citizens—not only politically equal but socioeconomically as well.Less

A Constitutional Convention

Hannah Rosen

in Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South

This chapter focuses on the momentous task put upon the shoulders of the delegates to Arkansas's constitutional convention who met in Little Rock in January 1868. They were to design a new state ... More

This chapter focuses on the momentous task put upon the shoulders of the delegates to Arkansas's constitutional convention who met in Little Rock in January 1868. They were to design a new state constitution establishing for the first time in Arkansas a democracy without regard to race and thereby incorporating former slaves into the political community as equal citizens. This would be Arkansas's first postemancipation constitution, and it had to meet the requirements of the federal Reconstruction Acts. Above all, it had to establish universal male suffrage and thus extend previously denied voting rights to African American men. On the eighteenth day of the gathering, however, John Bradley, a white southern delegate representing white-majority Bradley County, took the floor and argued that the revolutionary potential of Reconstruction—which he intended to resist—lay elsewhere.Less

Equal Citizens

in Turf Wars: Territory and Citizenship in the Contemporary State

This chapter is concerned with the process of claiming various territories in Buenos Aires. It is argued that this claiming process also sets into motion the cementing of political decentralization ... More

This chapter is concerned with the process of claiming various territories in Buenos Aires. It is argued that this claiming process also sets into motion the cementing of political decentralization and giving the locals a better understanding of their rights. It shows how the process of claiming helped create fresh ways of thinking about politics and the municipality and led to a new imagining of the state. Next, it explains how this process establishes new institutions at the national, community, and local government levels and how claims to citizenship can be maintained. The politics of equal citizens is discussed in the latter part of the chapter.Less

. Foreigners: São Paulo, 1900–1925

Paulina L. Alberto

in Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil

This chapter explains why a small group of men of color in the city and state of Sao Paulo had cause to be optimistic about their future at the opening of the twentieth century. Slavery was no more, ... More

This chapter explains why a small group of men of color in the city and state of Sao Paulo had cause to be optimistic about their future at the opening of the twentieth century. Slavery was no more, and the laws of the new Republic formally declared all literate adult men full and equal citizens of the nation. As a relatively privileged group within Sao Paulo's small black and brown population, a select “class of color” in one of the nation's wealthiest and most rapidly modernizing states, these men far exceeded those basic requirements for citizenship. They were literate, cultured, and modestly well employed. In their social clubs and newsletters, they initially expressed hopes that displays of respectability, learning, and patriotism would help them overcome the lingering racial prejudice that still barred even middle-class men of color from certain jobs and public spaces.Less