Sometimes in libertarian or conservatives circles you run into supporters of the confederacy — someone commenting on a Youtube video advocating freedom whose picture is a confederate battle flag, or someone tracing all overreach of the federal government to Lincoln.
And there is a logic to it. If we believe that consent of the governed is essential, and that local control is better than the control of a distant national government, wouldn’t we side with the local government of a state fighting for its right to steer its own course?
I have to admit that based on such principles I generally support separatist movements — be it current movements such as Catalonia in Spain and Biafra in Nigeria, or historical, such as the American Revolution. But my argument against supporting the confederacy rests on a very simple idea:
You don’t have to support every local uprising.
If, for example, my state of Oregon decided to secede tomorrow, I doubt I’d support it. Has the Federal Government done bad things in Oregon? Yes. (I think just in itself that it’s ghastly that 53% of Oregon’s total land is federally owned) But if the majority of Oregonian citizens wanted to split off, how could I trust that it wasn’t to have the liberty to practice more tyranny? In the case of an Oregonian revolution, I’d be looking (strange as it may sound) to D.C. to protect my freedoms, not to the local authority of my Portland neighbours. I fear they would install a more tyrannous body than what the whole country comes up with.
But the question arises: did the southern states revolt for bad reasons, to practice the tyranny of slavery within their states?
This is one of those questions of history that shouldn’t really be considered a question. The first wave of secession was sparked by the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln. What was it that southern states feared about Lincoln and the Republican party taking over the executive? Unequivocally that they were a threat to the practice of slavery. In The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union they give as reason for reclaiming sovereignty the northern states ganging up on them to effect: “… the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
Georgia began their explanation:
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
Mississippi:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world.
If you want to dress the writers’ of these declarations with different motivations than they themselves state, that’s not real history. They felt that the victory of Abraham Lincoln and the anti-slavery Republican party was a threat to their ‘institution’ slavery, and that is why they seceded. (Lincoln had said that he as President would not, under the constitution, have the authority to go into southern states and abolish slavery, but he was publicly opposed to slavery, and supported measures that he thought he could constitutionally enforce against it. And that was enough for the southern states.)
Is that a good ground for revolution? No, it is not. I’m not saying there are no good grounds for breaking up political unions, but that you want to enslave people within your local jurisdiction without interference, isn’t one.
Libertarians most famous catch phrase after “Taxation is theft,” is “Am I being detained?”. And I think it is a great phrase to remember, keeping us in mind of the ancient rights of the common law which totalitarians always want us to forget — someone can’t just hold you without due process of law.
The slaves in the south were absolutely being detained without due process of law, and their possessions (the fruits of their labour) were being seized without due process of law.
This revolution did not follow in the spirit of the common law.
I know all true liberty lovers already abominate slavery, but the one who thinks he should support the confederacy needs to better feel how absolutely antithetical it is to his cause. Sometimes, though, I think oppression so complete is hard to appreciate, like how hearing the story of some giant cataclysm moves us less than a story of a tiny inconvenience we’re familiar with.
So here’s an example from Frederick Douglass’s autobiography of something less than absolute slavery, that maybe we could almost imagine happening to us, and would make every liberty lover’s blood boil. He was working in a shipyard and was the victim of a violent attack by white co-workers:
They, however, at length combined, and came upon me, armed with sticks, stones, and heavy handspikes. One came in front with a half brick. There was one at each side of me, and one behind me. While I was attending to those in front, and on either side, the one behind ran up with the handspike, and struck me a heavy blow upon the head. It stunned me. I fell, and with this they all ran upon me, and fell to beating me with their fists. I let them lay on for a while, gathering strength. In an instant, I gave a sudden surge, and rose to my hands and knees. Just as I did that, one of their number gave me, with his heavy boot, a powerful kick in the left eye. My eyeball seemed to have burst. When they saw my eye closed, and badly swollen, they left me. With this I seized the handspike, and for a time pursued them. But here the carpenters interfered, and I thought I might as well give it up. It was impossible to stand my hand against so many. All this took place in sight of not less than fifty white ship-carpenters, and not one interposed a friendly word; but some cried, “Kill the damned nigger! Kill him! kill him! He struck a white person.” I found my only chance for life was in flight. I succeeded in getting away without an additional blow, and barely so; for to strike a white man is death by Lynch law,—and that was the law in Mr. Gardner’s ship-yard; nor is there much of any other.
Frederick Douglass had resolved always to fight back, but there’s only so much you can do against a mob. This is what legal protection is for.
To the credit of the humanity of the man who claimed ownership of Frederick, he tried to take it to the law.
Master Hugh was very much enraged. He gave expression to his feelings by pouring out curses upon the heads of those who did the deed. As soon as I got a little the better of my bruises, he took me with him to Esquire Watson’s, on Bond Street, to see what could be done about the matter. Mr. Watson inquired who saw the assault committed. Master Hugh told him it was done in Mr. Gardner’s ship-yard at midday, where there were a large company of men at work. “As to that,” he said, “the deed was done, and there was no question as to who did it.” His answer was, he could do nothing in the case, unless some white man would come forward and testify. He could issue no warrant on my word. If I had been killed in the presence of a thousand colored people, their testimony combined would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers. Master Hugh, for once, was compelled to say this state of things was too bad. Of course, it was impossible to get any white man to volunteer his testimony in my behalf, and against the white young men. Even those who may have sympathized with me were not prepared to do this. It required a degree of courage unknown to them to do so; for just at that time, the slightest manifestation of humanity toward a colored person was denounced as abolitionism, and that name subjected its bearer to frightful liabilities. The watchwords of the bloody-minded in that region, and in those days, were, “Damn the abolitionists!” and “Damn the niggers!”
The law was open, but the witness of a whole group of humans was not considered admissible in court. If we can’t imagine what total oppression would feel like, maybe we can envision ourselves in some sort of situation like that: You have the right to your day in court, but your witnesses are arbitrarily inadmissible.
What true liberty lover would take up arms to defend laws like these? No liberty lover would rise up to defend these kinds of laws.
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But to pivot: Can the liberty lover say no to his neighbours when they as a majority claim the right to self determination and rise up to defend these laws? I mean, if you believe in consent of the governed, don’t you have to let your neigbours do what they want? Well, this comes back to the question Jesus was asked: “Who is my neighbour?” It could appear at first glance that the people of the localities overwhelmingly supported secession, but there was a huge population of adults being illegally detained within these locales. How can southern states even claim to have formed legitimate jurisdictions at all by the principal of consent of the governed?
Sure, someone can be imprisoned (or even executed) for crimes against his fellow men, and so lose his vote or any share of authority in the commonwealth, but the slaves were not convicted of any crimes. Could we think of them as immigrants who consented to the authority of others by entering their commonwealth? No, they were kidnapped. At no point did they consent at all to being detained, stolen from, and disenfranchised. Were they at war with America that we could be justified in enslaving them? No.
This is particularly important because, unlike some theoretical formation of a government in which we move from a state of nature to living under a government, the formation of an American government had just happened based on the idea of “We the people” of the United States having the right to govern ourselves. Who are the people then who have the right to form government? If we were just thinking about it as from a state of nature, wouldn’t it be the people of the locale? But if it’s not from the locale, how do you form a government in which some people automatically have no rights from the beginning?
Does your tribe have the right to form a government over a locale where other people live, and just declare that automatically they are slaves? Or are they slaves merely because British law (though not the true spirit of the common law) had recognized them as slaves before? With the formation of a new government wouldn’t you have to reiterate their slavery under U.S. law? But on what grounds?
If you find that you have founded your government ignoring the natural rights of some of the people, what’s the best thing to do? Well, the first step would be to immediately free them. If they all want to leave, let them leave of course, but if they stay, to legitimize your government, you must give them the vote. If they didn’t get a voice in how the government of their locale was originally formed, for the authority of your government, they must have a voice now.
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Following this line of argument I’m almost convinced that rather than southern states having a right to secede to protect slavery, anyone (with a freedom agenda) had a right to invade the south or rebel to destroy its illegitimate governments!
Now, I know that many liberty lovers already know everything I said about slavery and abominate it, but some of them still think that they need to support this local uprising on the basis of consent of the governed and local control. I hope that any of you who read this will recognize the arguments of another liberty/common law lover, and even if you don’t come around to the idea that just any righteous crusader had a right to come topple the southern state governments, at least acknowledge that those governments had no good grounds for revolution and that their cause was tyranny, not liberty.
The Telescope 