Liberal Universalism, Colonial Difference, and the Prosecution of “Sedition” across the British Empire

Abstract

Throughout its history, the British imperial project was justified through the expansion of English law across the world. This justification led the colonial publics to investigate and compare the application of Britain’s law and governance across the Empire and to critique disparities between the imperial metropole and its colonies. Supporters of the British Empire, on the other hand, pointed to supposed characteristics of “native” societies that required legislation which differed from that applied in Great Britain. This notion of “colonial difference” came to define colonial jurisprudence. This paper investigates charges of sedition, meaning the incitement to resistance against the established colonial order across the British Empire. I find that in interpreting sedition laws, colonial courtrooms placed great emphasis on the supposed “state” of the population and were unwilling to allow colonized subjects the right to criticize British rule as they would have in Britain. Instead, colonial courts came to meticulously examine supposed differences and tied their rulings closely to their assessments of the nature of colonized populations and their lands.