Yeah, cause it's a legal argument. Spooner was an attorney, you know.
Unbiased observers may see that by reading the attack on "the North" at the beginning of the excerpt in De Bow's.
Why dig through DeBow's when you can see the entire essay here? http://www.lysanderspooner.org/notreason.htm
Spooner's support for the "right to secession" was precisely what unregenerate Confederates wanted, as is the reference to United States citizenship as "political slavery" and the United States government as a "tyranny."
That was his argument, x, regardless of whether the south or north liked it. If you would take a moment to read "No Treason" in itself you will find a reasoned argument by Spooner as to why he thought the post-war government was an abusive coercion-based institution. You may not agree with it, but you cannot question the fact that he formulated an intelligent argument and backed his case through the development of that essay.
The anarchist sentiments and doctrines that Spooner passionately expresses in "No Treason" differentiate it from a sober, scholarly study of what treason is.
Legal arguments are made for the courtroom, x. They are, or at least the good ones are, by their very nature passionate in nature, heavily logical in the way they procede, and conclusive in stating their intended result.
Heavy on rhetoric and abstract theory, "No Treason #1" is light on serious constitutional analysis.
That is because No Treason #1 lays out his theory of governmental concepts of treason. The constitutional analysis begins in No Treason #2, subtitled "The Constitution." You would know that if you were familiar with the work, but you have already evidenced that you are not.
I also doubt legal scholars are usually so free with exclamation points.
You must not be too familiar with courtroom speeches, and especially 19th century ones.
"No Treason #2" makes more mention of the Constitution, but it too is heavy on anarchist theories and light on documentation.
If that is your analysis of it, you missed the point of the document entirely. No Treason #2 starts from a basic premise that the Constitution says x, y, and z. Its purpose is then to take those concepts of what the Constitution says, logically develop the implications of them in a certain direction, and offer arguments to support the conclusions that are then arrived at. Spooner had little use for appealing to the authority of other lawyers as his argument was an exercise in logic, not quotations, and as such, it must be read accordingly, which you apparently did not do.
Spooner's ideas were present at the creation of the neo-Confederate apologia.
So now it's "neo-Confederate apologia," whatever that means. What happened to plain ole "confederate apologia," or its first replacement, "neo-confederatism," x? Could it be that you are playing a game of labels and associations rather than offering an honest examination of what Spooner said and did?
If you had read my post carefully, you would see that I readily admitted that Jaffa was a distinguished Lincoln scholar
Yes, but you then commented as if those who have attacked DiLorenzo's book, which includes the Jaffa crowd, were "laymen" rather than these ever-anonymous pros you keep predicting.
but other historians who aren't closely identified with ideological camps haven't yet weighed in on Di Lorenzo's book.
Tell me then - exactly who might those be? To date, you have offered nothing but the two things you apparently do best: equivocate and appeal to anonymous authorities. Neither of those devices is sufficient as proof of much of anything.
When I say that "No Treason" is not a scholarly argument, I mean that it is not an argument that a legal scholar or scholarly lawyer would make to convince either a scholarly or a judicial audience. It is particularly devoid of legal precedents. A judge would laugh it out of court and a scholar would regard it as an impassioned sermon or a satire, rather than a serious treatise. Try reading an opinion of Marshall's or Story's after reading "No Treason" and you'll see the difference.
That doesn't necessarily mean Spooner's argument is wrong on its face. He is capable of thinking or sounding like a lawyer, but he's doesn't engage legal precedents and realities. He's building sand castles in the sky and taking them for realities, rather like Tax Nut Irwin Schiff or Professor Irwin Corey. The shifts in tone from abstract reasoner to rabble rouser also vitiate the document's value as a legal brief. You may be able to separate out some highly logical argument from Spooner's wild rhetoric and vilification. Many laymen may not be able to do so, and I suspect some experts may find Spooner's leaps in logic even wilder than his more emotional invective and abuse.
Spooner's discussion of treason narrowly understood is only the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of Spooner's treatise is an attack on the very idea of government authority. It may be fine rhetoric or philosophy or anarchist theory, but it isn't much of a legal treatise. "No Treason #2" is less emotional and more substantive than "No Treason #1" but I doubt it would convince or impress many lawyers or legal scholars. I'd be interested in seeing a distinguished jurist or legal thinker's response to Spooner's writings, but haven't seen any such assessment.
Once again, it's clear that I won't convince you. But those who approach the matter in an unprejudiced manner and pay close attention to the meaning of words may think differently than you do.
I use the word "neo-confederate" to refer to postbellum attempts to argue for the Confederacy in sanitized, more politically correct terms. Such a movement began quite soon after the war. If I haven't used the right phrase, I'll stick with your "Confederate apologist." De Bow's publication of Spooner was a landmark in the movement, whatever one chooses to call it.
Surely you and other readers are aware of the difference between specialized academic journals and popular controversial ones, even if we don't read the former. The last time I checked, reviews of DiLorenzo's book hadn't appeared in such serious academic journals -- and with good reason, since it's not a serious work of history. There has been much popular and polemical writing about his book, but more dispassionate scholars haven't dealt with it to any appreciable extent. Daniel Farber's "Lincoln's Constitution" will appear this year and may refocus academic attention on such questions.
Experts and specialists certainly aren't infallible guides. One has to be sceptical of them. But after encountering DiLorenzo, who is so manifestly ill-informed about the background of what he's writing about, I would like to hear from specialists who have mastered the subject. Anyone can set himself or herself up as an ideologue overnight, but real expertise is rare and should be respected.