The common sympathies of our nature
Moral Sentiments, Emotional Economies, and Imprisonment for Debt in Upper Canada
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6066479 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeffrey L Mcnairn (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 98 |
| Pages | 49-71 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Histoire sociale (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2257 • E-ISSN: 1918-6576 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/his.2016.0032 |
| OpenAlex | W2464250728 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 12 |
The campaign against imprisonment for debt in Upper Canada, at its peak in the 1820s and 1830s, gave new prominence to public expressions of emotion as part of a process of moral reflection. The feelings of ordinary colonists became more politically salient, as did friendship as a metaphor for the bonds created by such human sensibility. Legal reformers condemned imprisonment for debt for distorting moral reasoning and thus disrupting reciprocal social relations. This article traces how sensibility was mobilized by legal reformers and their critics in public debate, acts of charity, and narratives of suicide and death and by debtors in their own petitions. Sensibility delegitimized the principle of the law and fuelled a number of reforms, but its malleability ensured that its prescriptions were multiple, that particular emotional performances aroused suspicion of being perverse, and that existing hierarchies might be affirmed as well as challenged
Criminology · Debt · Economics · Friendship · Imprisonment · Narrative · Political science · Sensibility · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Canadian Identity and History · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy
Gendered Pasts
Liberalism and Hegemony
Toward a Synthesis of Morality in America
Preconditions of the Canadian State
The Sacred Rights of the Weak
Shipwrecked; or, Masculinity Imperiled
The Enlightenment of Sympathy
Suicide, Coroner’s Inquests, and the Parameters of Compassion in Ontario, 1830-1900
What Is the History of Sensibilities? On Cultural Histories, Old and New
Sympathetic Liberalism
AHR Conversation
He is the master of his house
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2019 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |