John Taylor of Caroline and republican criticism of state capitalism

Abstract

John Taylor of Caroline is undoubtedly one of the most important members
of the circle of influential thinkers, politicians and lawyers of the Old
South. He was Jefferson’s ideological companion and a politician who created
a new political platform for the Democratic-Republican Party fighting
against the federalists’ centralistic ambitions. Under the leadership of Taylor
and Randolph, they joined anti-federalism, the legal tradition of the Old
Dominion and the Principles of ’98 together in order to oppose the federalists’
centralistic ideas. By their opposition to treating law as an instrument
of social engineering and the development of an imperialistic state and by
their love of pluralism and decentralisation, they created foundations of the
Virginia doctrine joining the conservative perception of the society to a radical
freedom-related approach to the issue of power and economy. Taylor’s
political activities and reflection accompanying them are its fullest expression.
It also represents its author’s social position: a plantation and slaves owner,
a lawyer, a soldier, and a politician, one of the last apologists of Arcadian
values in the era of irresistible capitalistic transformations. What constitutes
a bridge between epochs in his thought and is decisive for its acuteness is
a linkage between economic and political issues, derivation of the latter from
circumstances created by the former. Thus, it is in fact a lecture on political
economy explaining many historical processes with the use of changes and
circumstances that are economic in character.