Living in Public and Private Paideía in Seneca’s Epistulae morales adLucilium”. It is difficult to conceive both moral life and communitarian life withoutthe tension between the Others and the self. On the one hand, due to the cohesionof society and the individual’s search for its communitarian dimension, a sort oftransparent life, without secrets, as long as it is honest, is needed. However, onthe other hand, when the social surrounding is morally reproachable, a privatepaideía, which allows the moral orientation of the individual, is indispensable,even if this produces in him solitude and brings the incomprehension from hisfellow citizens, resulting in the construction of a private space. / Es difícil pensar tanto la vida moral como la vida comunitaria fuera dela tensión entre los Otros y el sí-mismo. Por una parte, de cara a la cohesión dela sociedad y a que la persona singular encuentre su dimensión comunitaria, sehace necesaria una suerte de vida transparente, sin secretos, a fuer de honesta.Sin embargo, por otra parte, cuando el entorno social es moralmente cuestionable,se hace imprescindible una paideía privada que permita la orientación moral delsujeto personal, por más que ello le reporte soledad e incomprensión por parte desus conciudadanos, debiendo, entonces, construir un espacio de privacidad.

In 1833, enraged vigilantes expelled 1,200 Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri, setting a precedent for a later expulsion of Mormons from the state, changing the course of Mormon history, and enacting in microcosm a battle over the ultimate source of authority in America’s early democratic society. The purpose of this study is two-fold: first, to reexamine the motives that induced Missourians to expel Mormons from Jackson County in 1833; and second, to explore how government authorities responded to that conflict. Past studies of the Mormon expulsion from Jackson County have argued that Mormon communalism collided with the Jacksonian individualism of Missouri residents, causing hostility and violence. However, in recent years, studies have questioned many of the conventional notions of law and governance in the antebellum era, in particular the argument that Jacksonian society was dominated by an individualistic, egalitarian, laissez-faire creed. Although Jacksonian America was a society in transition, communities continued to emphasize a tradition of localized self government, communal regulation, and distrust of outside interference. Therefore, this study explored how the local orientation of law, regulation, and government in antebellum Missouri contributed to the setting of violence and to the ways local, state, and federal authorities responded to the Mormon expulsion. An analysis of the Jackson County conflict through the lens of American localism reveals the extent to which Mormonism challenged customary notions of local sovereignty, authority, and control.