Posted on 06/08/2002 7:06:31 AM PDT by Korth
The Cato Institute has published an article by its adjunct scholar Tibor R. Machan: "Lincoln, Secession and Slavery." Machan is a distinguished philosopher and a pioneer of the modern libertarian revival. I assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that his views mirror Cato’s on the subject of his essay.
Machan argues, in essence, that, while secession is a right consistent with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that right does not extend to cases in which the seceding parties takes slaves with them when they leave. Thus, against the grain of much recent libertarian thought, he defends Lincoln and his Civil War.
Machan writes:
"More important is whether one group may leave a larger group that it had been part of – and in the process take along unwilling third parties. The seceding group definitely does not have that right. Putting it in straightforward terms, yes, a divorce (or, more broadly, the right of peaceful exit from a partnership) may not be denied to anyone unless – and this is a very big "unless" – those wanting to leave intend to take along hostages. . . . So, when one considers that the citizens of the union who intended to go their own way were, in effect, kidnapping millions of people – most of whom would rather have stayed with the union that held out some hope for their eventual liberation – the idea of secession no longer seems so innocent. And regardless of Lincoln's motives – however tyrannical his aspirations or ambitious – when slavery is factored in, it is doubtful that one can justify secession by the southern states. . . . secession cannot be justified if it is combined with the evil of imposing the act on unwilling third parties, no matter what its ultimate motivation. Thus, however flawed Lincoln was, he was a good American."
The Cato Institute recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. Interviewed for the occasion by the Washington Times, Cato President Edward Crane described Cato as "the embodiment of the philosophy of the founders of this country." The Washington Times wrote that Cato "is named after ‘Cato's Letters,’ a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution, says its Web site."
It is therefore surprising that the Cato Institute would publish an article that implicitly repudiates the American Revolution as an immoral kidnapping of 500,000 slaves! Great Britain sought support from slaves if they opposed the rebellion. The first emancipation proclamation was Lord Dunmore’s, the Royal Governor of Virginia, in 1775. That his proclamation applied only to slaves "appertaining to Rebels" has a familiar ring. Professor Thomas DiLorenzo in his new book The Real Lincoln, informs us that there was an abolition movement in England as early as 1774. Do Machan/Cato wish to make King George III and Lord Cornwallis our new national heroes, replacing Washington, Jefferson, and Adams?
Not only did the Founding Fathers "kidnap" slaves from Great Britain’s more anti-slavery auspices, but they seceded against the wishes of numerous Loyalists, many of whom fled or were forced to flee, or stayed and were subjected to harsh treatment. (Women were not consulted at all.) In fact, any secession done pursuant to a vote by the majority, will involve a "kidnapping" of sorts of those who voted against secession. This is akin to the coercion of minorities that is a necessary feature of democracy per se. Lincoln and his admirers can hardly complain about such coercion since he was one of modernity’s foremost proponents of majority rule. In fact, he started a war over it, so he said. Of course, it is better to allow a majority in a region to secede than to allow a minority to force them to stay. At least in that event the unhappy minority can have further resort to the principle and precedent of secession and so on until political boundaries are in accord with community sentiment to the fullest extent possible in this world.
It could be argued that the American Revolution did not involve the "kidnapping" of slaves since slavery was not banned in Colonial America. That point does nothing to advance the Machan/Cato position as neither was slavery nationally banned in the United States in 1861. Yes, but the vibes were bad for slavery at that time. Likewise for Colonial slavery. Great Britain banned the slave trade in 1807. The similarities between the Revolution and the War for Southern Independence vis-vis slavery outweigh the differences, which is a problem for those who favor the first and oppose the second. This is no problem, however, for Rothbardians who view them as America’s two just wars. See, Murray Rothbard’s sublime essay, "America’s Two Just Wars: 1775 and 1861," in The Costs of War, John V. Denson, ed.
Merely because Cato’s implied repudiation of the American Revolution is monumentally shocking does not of course prove that it is wrong, so let us deal more directly with the argument on the merits. First, as Lincoln critic extraordinaire DiLorenzo has observed, the Lincoln did not profess to fight the war to end slavery. This is a gloss that has been retroactively superimposed on the four-year long bloodbath. At most, then, Machan/Cato lend Lincoln a moral cover that Lincoln himself eschewed. The moral cover Lincoln himself cited was majoritarianism, which endorses coercion and the "kidnapping" of the minority. The Union itself kidnapped men to fight in its army. They labored in fields under the hot sun like slaves but endured an additional burden: a breeze of bullets.
It is counter-productive and ahistorical to provide a moral justification for a war, after the fact, that is different from that which animated the combatants. Isn’t it obvious that the victors would pursue, not Machan/Cato values and virtues, but the means and ends the actual historical combatants preferred. This is why Professor DiLorenzo’s book, which carefully delineates the philosophy and values of Lincoln, is so valuable. History shows that DiLorenzo is right. Lincoln and the Republican Party believed in big government – the American System: national bank (inflation); high tariffs (protectionism) and internal improvement (corporate welfare). They believed in the majority imposing its will on the minority. They believed in martial force to achieve their goals.
What did we get from 1861–2002? Exactly what Lincoln wanted, and Machan opposes, and in huge quantities. Historian Arthur Ekirch observed that the Civil War led to "a decline in [classical] liberalism on all questions save that of slavery. . . " Robert E. Lee, with all his intelligence and insight, could not in 1866 have accurately predicted the long-range consequences of the Civil War unless those consequences were inherent in the philosophy of the victorious party from the beginning: "the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it."
Machan uses metaphors in describing the Confederacy’s actions regarding slavery, metaphors which are not entirely apt. He variously describes them as being "kidnapped" or held "hostage" by the process of secession. This implies a change in status or change of location that simply did not occur with secession. They were slaves before and after. Perhaps slavery would have withered away under subtle Union pressures. However, the North was making money from slavery and Lincoln promised not "to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists." Perhaps slavery would have withered away under the Confederacy as it did in numerous other countries. The metaphors are inapt for another reason. We need not worry about using force against a kidnapper since the victim doesn’t have to live with him afterwards. The slaves, however, unless they were sent back to Africa as Lincoln wanted, or deported to the North as no one apparently suggested, did have to live with white Southerners afterwards the vast majority of whom did not own slaves. That is why in those circumstances there was a real value to pursuing a peaceful (albeit rapid) solution to the problem of slavery.
Machan/Cato argue that the existence of slavery in the Confederacy justified a war to stop secession. It will be interesting to see how far, spacially and temporally, we can extend that principle. I take it that, in 1859, Machan/Cato would have favored a war of revolution to overthrow the slave federation known as the United States, whose constitution institutionalized slavery (three-fifths clause; importing slaves allowed until 1808, return of slaves required) and authorized its central government to protect slave states against "insurrection." Slavery existed in fifteen states and the District of Columbia and non-slave states indirectly benefited from slavery by means of a tariff which disproportionately funded the federal government out of taxes collected in the South. I take it that during the first years of the Civil War, while slavery persisted in several Union states, was undisturbed by Union troops in conquered Southern territory, and was not yet constitutionally banned, Machan/Cato would have supported an uprising against the Union to free the slaves. That is a real mind-blower as they used to say in the Sixties.
Even if there is a moral right to use force to free slaves, that right must be exercised carefully and proportionately to the goal that is sought. Force should be threatened prior to being used. Anyone who is aware of an ultimatum to the South of the following form – "You may leave but you must free your slaves and allow them to leave or stay in freedom." – please let me know. Anyone who can demonstrate that after Union troops seized control of slave-holding areas of the South, they thereafter molested former slaveholders not at all, is a better historian than I am.
What ultimately can a natural rights libertarian say about Lincoln, secession and slavery? The South had the right to leave in peace; slavery is and was morally wrong; though force may be rightly used to end slavery – after all other means for ending slavery have failed – such force must be strictly limited to accomplishing that end and must not violate the rights of third parties by means of taxation, conscription or mass murder; the Union’s invasion of the South, involving as it did taxation, inflation, conscription, confiscation, destruction and the mass killing of non-slave holders, and not having been initiated for any libertarian purpose widely understood at the time, must be condemned as a moral outrage; had an effort been made at the time to free slaves throughout the United States (including the District of Columbia, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland) that did not purport to violate the rights of innocent third parties, or accomplish any evil goals such as expanding the power of the central state, libertarians at the time should have supported it; alas, no such movement existed; thus, any attempt to pretend that the Union’s invasion of the South was a moral cause to end slavery and did not have numerous other and evil goals, the accomplishment of which plagues us today, is an absurd exercise involving the libertarian endorsement of illibertarian means and ends then and continuing.
Well, there are things wrong with it, but it is the best deal available. The devil is in the details. What does "within reason" mean? Who decides? Guess who. The majority. There are good and bad examples of majoritarianism. The Kansas Nebraska Act, IMO, is an example of the evil side of the coin. To have a small group of people decide by vote whether or not someone else may be free is sick. But it happened here in the USA.
Then again, the doctrine that any one state can withdraw from the united government whenever it chooses is minority power run amok. Why have nine states ratify the Constitution, why require 3/4's to ratify an amendment, if 1/50th may withdraw whenever it chooses? The doctrine flies in the face of republicanism, which is not majority rule. It is representative government by compact, which uses different majoritarian requirements to meet particular circumstances.
Which is why the premise for the piece being analyzed here is bogus. If secession was for the purpose of keeping southern slaves in bondage then perhaps there is a slim rationale for the argument. Otherwise it's simply historical revisionism with a new twist. It's meant to justify actions which were not otherwise justifiable.
So you would have agreed with Lincoln that the Kansas Nebraska Act was wrong. And you would have agreed with the abolitionists that the Congress should exercise its constitutional power to abolish slavery in the Federal district? And if certain southern politicos walked out on the job in response to these sensible, morally correct measures, you would have advocated their being sanctioned. Right?
How so? The seceding state is not in any way asserting power over the other states. That would be like claiming anyone who refuses to vote excercising "minority power run amok."
LOL. States' rights is just what you describe, as anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of history knows. The South seceded because their leaders wanted out. They had wanted out for a long time. Some of them never really wanted in. They never liked the Constitution. Patrick Henry was a typical slaver. He acknowledged early on that the Constituion spelled doom for slavery. He professed to hate slavery, but he practiced it, and thought it "imprudent" that it ever--ever--be abolished. It was men like him who seized whatever excuse was handy to try and destroy our government.
However should the groups holding the plurality in this nation wish to protest or curtail the smaller more active groups often working to undermine the will of the plurality or even at times the majority then we hear about the pitfalls of majority will like it's some kind of demon.
I disagree.
That is why the war was not strictly about slavery. It was just another incorporation of a region of the country into the Federalized Union. Sort of a rock rolling down a hill...the momentum carried the day....and the foolishness of many.
Majority rule is unavoidable under representative government -- though on important questions one could demand a 3/5ths, 2/3rds or 3/4ths vote, or a series of majority votes in consecutive years. Southern radicals made much of Calhoun's "concurrent majority" theory as a defense of Southern interests in the union, but did not offer similar measures to defend the interests of those who did not want to secede.
So if majority view and violence were used by both sides, why only blame one? Why does Ostrowski make majority rule a dirty word when used against him and expect it to prevail when it works for him?
If you want to secede to escape from the results of majority rule decisions, by what right can you compel others to live under your rule? What would prevent them from forming their own state, or remaining with the rest of the old country. In the Southern and Border states of the 1860s, the India and Palestine of the 1940s and in the Balkans and the Caucausus of our own time, secession and partition bring messiness, violence and war.
Secessionists absolutize state's rights in their arguments. States can leave any time they like for any reason or none, but any revolt against a state itself is illegitmate. Unfortunately, the text of the Constitution doesn't support such a reading.
Does that mean that political unions like ours are indissoluble? No, but breaking up countries and separating people who have grown together has to be done patiently over time with much effort, or it will bring war. This was recognized by Henry Clay and others in the second generation of the Republic: "The dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable; they are convertible terms."
We'll never know. What we do know is that Jeff Davis and others in America were attempting as late as the 1850s to expand slavery not only across the rest of the North American continent, but also south into Cuba.
The United States Constitution is not a mere treaty, and the states are not sovereign nations.
But don't take my word for it. Maybe you have seen this before, but in case you haven't:
James Madison to Daniel Webster15 Mar. 1833Writings 9:604--5
I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former[Huck's note--this is secession he is speaking of now] answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. . The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance recd from certain quarters, is giving it a popular currency here which may influence the approaching elections both for Congress & for the State Legislature. It has gained some advantage also, by mixing itself with the question whether the Constitution of the U.S. was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partizans.
It is fortunate when disputed theories, can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the same authority & by the same process have converted the Confederacy into a mere league or treaty;[Huck's note:--which is to say, they did NOT make a mere league or treaty] or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have imbodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation or sovereignty; or as they did by a mixed form make them one people, nation, or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for others.
He goes on....
The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons.But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.
Obviously, the highlighting and comments are added by me. Madison's writing isn't as hard to understand as Shakespeare or Chaucer, but sometimes it is close.
But look at this again:
a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.
The confederates are always going on about what a despot Lincoln was, are they not? And other folks argue he was the perfect magistrate. Let's split the difference and say he was sometimes despotic, just for the sake of argument. How did that come to pass? If you look at what Mr. Madison says here, he says that a revolt against the principle of the compact--that is, the obligations of the parties to the compact to exist within its forms and provisions--leaves but two choices: anarchy and despotism. Lincoln himself warned of the same thing in his first innaugural address:
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinins and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
Anyway, I consider Madison a competent authority on the subject. This letter, while occurring during the early days of the southern hothead movement, does touch on the major issues involved, constitutionally speaking. Naturally, I go with Madison on this one. On what authority is your understanding based?
Of course other forms of far worse slavery was practiced by the state in various totalitarian states in the 20th century and is even now practiced in chattel form on the very continent from which the trade in question originated. The book is not yet closed. I feel for sure that we have not seen the last of state slavery in totalitarian regimes for a long time to come.
In the case of benevolence...it could be said that is a strength. In the case of guilt, I have no doubt it is a spiritual weakness sprung forth collectively from a sense of self indulgence or gratification.
Sad but true. It's been many years since I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich , just to name one example among many. I should re-read it. I've been meaning to. Of course, all around the world, as we are all too aware these days, things are a damned mess.
Ick.
Pennsylvania also had abolution societies in 1774 and in 1780, once free from British domination, they ended slavery in that state. One must wonder, if the United States had not won its independence, would the Whigs have gained control over Parliment and brought on the reforms that ended slavery?
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