Politics, Society

Libertarians And The Civil War

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Jonathan Blanks, a research assistant at Cato Institute, has written an essay about the incoherent position of those libertarians who defend the Confederacy and claim that the Confederacy was within its rights to secede from the Union. Banks writes: “there is no legal or moral justification for supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War, it is impossible that there could be a libertarian one.”Slavery, as practiced in the Confederacy, would seem to be wholly inconsistent with libertarian principles. However, libertarianism is divided into economic libertarianism and personal libertarianism and these two views come into conflict regarding the Civil War.

In an ingenious observation, Jason Kuznicki noted that “Secession is the decision to step out of an existing political order, so it’s a category error to try to justify it legally.”

Some claim that the Confederacy represents a legitimate act of rebellion and point to the principles in the Declaration of Independence for support. But the Declaration of Independence places conditions on the right of the people to overthrow their government. “Prudence … will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes,” and the overthrow must come after “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” If the new government that is instituted violates individual rights instead of securing them, then the new government is not legitimate by Declaration of Independence standards.

Current justification of the rebellion via the Declaration of Independence would have been met with derision in 1861. John C. Calhoun, a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina, denounced the principle of that all men are created equal saying it was “inserted into our Declaration of Independence without any necessity. It made no necessary part of our justification for separating from the parent country, and declaring ourselves independent.”

The rationale for secession can be discerned by searching these four Declaration of Causes. Contrary to revisionist claims, economic policy factors (except as it applies to slavery) are nowhere mentioned. As Blanks states, “it is clear that the South’s actions—the catalyst for war—were explicitly motivated by freedom’s suppression.”

The “states’ rights” argument in also incoherent. As Clint Bolick puts it: “The very notion of states’ rights is oxymoronic. States don’t have rights, States have powers. People have rights. And the primary purpose of federalism is to protect those rights.”

H/T: Jonathan Blanks, Ilya Somin, Jonathan Blanks, Timothy Sandefur (pdf).

191 thoughts on “Libertarians And The Civil War”

  1. “Slavery, as practiced in the Confederacy, would seem to be wholly inconsistent with libertarian principles.”

    Nal, there were slaves in the NORTH too.

    “In an ingenious observation, Jason Kuznicki noted that “Secession is the decision to step out of an existing political order, so it’s a category error to try to justify it legally.””

    Actually they were following Thomas Jefferson’s words that if a government becomes corrupt, it is our DUTY to throw off that government and form a new one.

    “Some claim that the Confederacy represents a legitimate act of rebellion and point to the principles in the Declaration of Independence for support.”

    The South actually seceded PEACEFULLY until they were invaded in South Carolina at Fort Sumter and they defended themselves from invasion. No one died at Fort Sumter, so despite the invasion by Lincoln’s troops, the South was not guilty of murder at the preset of the war. Lincoln did not PEACEFUL secession happen. Most Northern newspapers SUPPORTED the South’s secession, that is why Lincoln had the papers shut down and their editors imprisoned. This is all documented, but Lincoln-cultists like Nal just keep repeating the “Lincoln was a saint” crapola.

  4. I want to know who rubbed the magic lamp and made 2T reappear? And how will we now get the cork back in the bottle?

  5. Tootie,
    It is easy to make up your own facts, but your Rep. Paul has proven himself to be a racist with years of racist writings under his name and in his publication.

  6. Tootie – you can’t expect the government to be moral. Being lawful is hard enough.

    1. [By that I mean, conforming to your idea of moral. The government must do or allow tons of things that you think are immoral, but spending money would have to be among the least of them, wouldn’t it? Unless your highest value, the thing most dear, is money.] I would have to think that it is the improper program that is the key problem, not spending money on the improper program.

    2. You imply, but I doubt that you mean, that the Republicans are not pigs, using your definition, although possibly not Marxist pigs, although they do vote for Social Security, so maybe.

  7. Blouise,

    True :mrgreen: but it would also be nice to have a sane traditional conservative voice to offset the lunatic fringe.

  8. rafflaw

    It would seem to me the racists are the Democrats who have destroyed the black family with welfare handouts and dooming black children to bad public schools.

    Ron Paul, of course, is and was opposed to all of that. Democrats never were.

    So if you are worried about racists, you ought to be worried that there are so many Democrats.

  9. martin

    By Marxist pigs (the Democrats) I mean unlawful (immoral) takings by our government for the purposes of redistribution. Taxation for that which is lawful/necessary is not socialism in almost exactly the same way that there is a difference between murder and justifiable killing, and consensual sex and rape.

    For example, Jeffery Dahmer’s murders and a cop shooting a man in self defense. In one situation the killing act is completely unjustified. In the other it is not. Yet in both cases a life has been taken.

    Same goes for sex. In the one case (sex between husband and wife for example) if the sex act is consensual it is not rape. If the sex act is not consensual, it is. In both cases it still is a sex act.

    It is the players in these examples and their intent which changes the same real acts into different moral outcomes.

    Same goes for taxation. That which is done for the sake of the purposes to which a state should exist (to protect life, liberty, etc) is not socialism even though money was taken by gunpoint through taxation. I part with libertarians at this point. I don’t not believe that all taxation is theft.

    That which is done for the sake of anything beyond what ought to be the purpose of the state (and in this I speak particularly of our Federal government which is supposed to have excruciatingly limited powers) is socialism or just outright theft.

    In both cases, though, money is taken. In one case it is justifiable, in the other it isn’t. In one case it is socialism/theft, in the other it is just plain old taxation.

  10. martin

    I know of him through Tom Wood’s website. I follow the Mises “think tank” as well. I’m always interested in their guests and scholarship.

  15. The point quoted by Somin also seems weak to me
    “[I]f the law allows secession, then no more justification is required”.
    The example about selling a car could be, it is legal to sell a car, but of course, with conditions. It has to be your car, and possibly it can’t have been totaled, even if “you fixed it up”.

  18. Tootie – By Marxism do you mean taxation? Or … Socialism? And by Socialism, do you mean welfare, or bailing out Goldman Sachs? I did not follow; I missed the reference.

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