Category: Today

On January 23, 1783, journalist and novelist Marie-​Henri Beyle, known by his pen name Stendhal (pictured below), was born. Stendhal was a follower of Destutt de Tracy and an attendant at the count’s salons. His most famous works include the novel The Red and the Black and a treatise on romantic love.

Stendhal died March 22, 1842.

On January 23, 1860, the Cobden-​Chevalier Treaty was signed between France and Great Britain. The treaty was named after the two main proponents of the agreement, Richard Cobden (in England) and economist Michel Chevalier (in France). The treaty had been suggested the year earlier, in British Parliament, by Cobden’s colleague John Bright, who looked upon the policy as a peace measure, an alternate to a military build-up.

On January 22, 1920, American neoconservative pundit and author Irving Kristol was born. He died in 2009, survived by his wife, the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, and two children, one of them well known today. His most famous book is undoubtedly 1978’s Two Cheers for Capitalism: A Penetrating Assessment of Free Enterprise and the Corporate System.

On January 21, 1950, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, with Whittaker Chambers being the main witness in Hiss’s prosecution. Chambers confessed to having been a Soviet spy, and accused Hiss as an accomplice, which Hiss denied to his dying day. Chambers gave a fascinating account of all this in his bestselling 1952 memoir, Witness.

On January 20, 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union was founded.

On January 19, 1808, Lysander Spooner was born. 

Spooner’s achievements in American life, law, and political philosophy are among the most colorful of the 19th century. Studying law privately, he sued to practice without joining the bar, and won the suit. He set up a postal service that directly competed with the United States Postal Service, delivering mail at a fraction of the cost. He wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, and convinced noted Garrisonian abolitionist Frederick Douglass of his argument. (The book became the centerpiece of intellectual ammunition for the Free Soil Party.) Later in life Spooner turned against constitutionalism itself, and penned some of the most radical political works of his day, including Vices Are Not Crimes and The Constitution of No Authority. Spooner also clearly articulated a “jury nullification” position in his classic treatise Trial by Jury.

He died in 1887.

On January 18, 1689, Charles-​Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, French satirist and philosopher, was born.

His treatise The Spirit of the Laws was a major influence upon America’s founding generation. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He did more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon.

In 1811, former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson translated and published Destutt de Tracy’s Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s ‘Spirit of Laws,’ a very popular review of republican principles — which helps demonstrate how important these French writers were to the American form of government.

Montesquieu died on February 10, 1755.