In addition to Honest Abe’s 200th birthday, it’s also Darwin Day, the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth.
Some libertarians may view Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant or a criminal (even a litmus test for whether or not someone is libertarian!), but I can’t agree. Maybe it’s because I’m from Illinois. At the same time, libertarians might get excited over the ideas of Darwin, and what that might mean for liberty.
I’ll probably save more Lincoln-related libertarian arguments for another day, but I’m shocked when I hear some people talking about Lincoln and drinking this “Lincoln was a tyrant” Kool-Aid. Let’s say that George W. Bush becomes governor of Texas again. The Texas government then decides that it wants to, say, attack Iran. The federal government says they can’t. Texas then announces that it is seceding from the United States effective immediately. Is Bush a hero for states’ rights or libertarian causes, or is he the tyrant?
I believe that the Southern states should have been able to secede if they had wanted to, but only if the matter was put to their citizens by referendum and won by a vast majority. That was not done in the South– and needless to say, they didn’t give the slaves a vote on the matter, either. Some might say that as elected representatives, the Southern legislatures had the right to do what they pleased in representing the people. Again, the slaves hadn’t gotten a vote on those representatives, had they? They seceded as soon as Lincoln became President, not for some liberty-related principle, but because they wanted to continue the system of slavery. That’s nothing for a libertarian to exalt, in any manner, but I see it done continually.
Sure, Lincoln expanded government powers to an unprecedented degree– but almost every President has done that, so why single out Lincoln (compared to, say, Teddy Roosevelt) when Lincoln was obviously well-meaning, freed the slaves, and was assassinated in office (so he certainly was punished for any mistakes he might have committed while in office)? Why disparage Lincoln while exalting those who would have kept slavery in existence, something that is the antithesis of libertarianism and freedom in general?
I don’t believe that the federal government has the right to interfere in state matters unless perhaps when rights under the Bill of Rights are being severely breached. Others may disagree. Who is going to enforce freedom of speech, or the press, or the other rights? Did the slaves have any of these rights? At that time, there wasn’t really a court system to deal with these matters, even for non-slaves. Do I think the DEA should be raiding terminally ill cancer patients, or anyone for that matter in no-knock drug raids? Of course not. Do I think that the federal government should be coming in when an essential freedom such as whether one is kept as a slave or allowed to be free is being breached? Perhaps. As one example of how far the federal government has come from defending these rights, take a look at Heller v. DC last year, when the federal government came down on the side of the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, which was clearly a violation of the Second Amendment.
Lincoln can’t be responsible for what people did after him; he, like all the presidents of the 1800s, would be astonished at the powers the federal government has now claimed for itself. There was no income tax in Lincoln’s day, few federal agencies, and of course, the president just went to the theatre with one security guard, imagine that.
Now, the problem with this is that it can be a slippery slope. Once the federal government got rid of slavery, then it wanted to get rid of other things. Now it wants to get rid of drugs (and even drugs in other countries!), interferes in neighborhood disputes (ex. a local group went to the Department of Housing and Urban Development when it thought the city should provide water services to its neighborhood), gets involved in every aspect of business and almost every aspect of personal life, and I could go on. It has exceeded things that are black and white such as, should people be owned by other people, and has greatly expanded its power beyond almost any comprehension.
I don’t think that Lincoln started that. He may have begun the framework, sure, but he had help– those expanded government powers could have been stopped by the Southerners who insisted on keeping slaves. I’ve even heard otherwise intelligent people refer to Lincoln as a murderer. Sure, maybe there could have been an alternative to the Civil War. Those most in charge of that were the leaders of the South, who seceded as soon as Lincoln came to office.
Anyway, let’s move on to the less controversial subject of Charles Darwin! (“The Great Disturber”??) First of all, local schools should be allowed to teach what they want. Involving entire states in what should be local education leads to problems like those seen in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Texas, where evolution is put on a level with, let’s say, time travel rather than with gravity. Teaching intelligent design in school, by the way, is the same as the governor of a state sending public school kids home with flyers about a kids’ health program (as Rod Blagojevich did in Illinois), teaching that taxes are good because they build roads (as I recently encountered when teaching a public-school approved curriculum to a student I tutor), etc. As Radley Balko once said,
“Intelligent design is to evolutionary biology what socialism is to free-market economics.”
Very compelling post on Lincoln. I wonder how the Civil War would have been handled had slavery not existed. By the late 1880s, slavery was essentially banned by the world over so it probably would have been in the US as well.
If the southern states had seceded and been slave free, would the Civil War have been justified. Contrary to what most think, the war was not about slavery. It was about economics – mostly taxation and tariffs.
In fact, Lincoln stated that he would allow slavery if he could keep the union in tact. He only created the Emancipation Proclamation to justify the war in the eyes of a European continent that was starting to side with the South.
But, we will never get to have this argument. We can never really look at Lincoln’s actions under a true microscope because for anyone to argue against Lincoln’s abuses of power looks as if they endorse slavery. And, slavery is clearly a horrible sin and against any libertarian belief.
Kirk
February 16th, 2009
It appears that you have drunk the “South seceded to preserve slavery” Kool Aid. Slavery was never as safe in the US as it was in 1860. The Supreme Court upheld the Fugtive Slave law of 1850. Lincoln and his Secretary of State Seward drafted a Constitutional Amendment which would have prohibited the Federal government from ever interfering with slavery. It read as follows:
“No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
Lincoln referred to in in his inaugural address. It had passed the House and Senate and would have been ratified if the South did not secede. Moreover, some States in the South voted to stay in the Union after the States in the deeper South voted to remain in the Union. Those States seceded after Lincoln’s invasion, believing that such action was a gross violation of the Constitution.
The South seceded because there were being robbed blind by the Northern States use of the tariff. Lincoln even threatened an invasion in his inaugural address if the tariff was not paid:
“In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.”
Lincoln destroyed the Union based on voluntary association and established a State based on conquest and violence. He began an unconstitutional war; he implemented an income tax; instituted a draft; committed war crimes against the Southern people; issued an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice; arrested Northern dissenters and people who criticized him; interfered in elections; engineered the unconstitutional creation of West Virginia; arrested and intimidate justices who issued writs of habeus corpus; and unconstitutionally suspended the writ of habeus corpus. No one who truly loves liberty can look at the actions of this man and not call him a tyrant. He was the progenitor of the Leviathan State we live under and deserves all the opprobrium he receives. It was his war which ended the only checks the people had to fight a growing, oppressive central government: nullifcation and secession. The individual States are now vassals to the Federal Government. Our situation was predicted by all the anti-Federalists and had the Constitution never been ratified, our situation would have been different.
For the record, I am an Black American radical greatly influenced by Thomas Paine, Albert Nock, Frank Chodorov, Murray Rothbard, Robert Higgs, and Hans Hermann Hoppe. I hate the State and hold particular odium for the democratic State. So if you wonder why I approach this subject with the fire that I do, that’s why. I have no tolerance for slavery of any kind, private or public, no matter how well disguised.
Brutus
March 19th, 2009
Brutus. the south seceded because of Lincolns stated intention of forbiding slavery outside of the states it already existed in. There may have been other arguments put forward but slavery and fear of its restriction was the driving force. if we are going to talk about “kool aid” theres a lot of it going around in the revisionist “neo confederate” camp. What is the libertarian position on American slavery? Libertarianism,and communism are the flip sides of the same extremist coin. What would a libertarian society look like? Libertarians love to talk about “natural rights” some say “god given”, they dont believe in responsibilities so much, but no matter i guess.They seem to put far too much faith thier simple concept of in rights, which are as arbitrary as any other concept of rights as far as i can tell.Hobbes ( and 6000 years of recorded history) taught us that I have right to whatever i can take and keep. In a libertarian society i have the “right” to aquire property, as long as i dont “harm” anyone else physically getting it. In all the history of the human species such a society has never existed. As long as people have needs for food, shelter, etc. and for toys like furniture, jewlry, music, etc., they will seek to aquire them. Any system which ignores inequity of wealth, encourages more inequity. People with needs will seek a remedy for thier condition.Inevitably that remedy is force. So this would seem to suggest the need for some government. When a libertarian admits the need for some government then they are moving away from libertarianism. Who will pay for the government? I believe applied libertariansm leads to anarchy, and then the aboslute principle of libertarianism is either abandonded, or you wind up with feudalism, looking a lot like medieval Europe with doges, merchant barons ruling large cities and warlords ruling small rural fifedoms.I cant imagine why anyone would choose to live in such a society. Government are not hypothetical constructs. They have evolved over thousands of years to cope with real conflicts. Personaly i favor a system much like ours. One that places a high value on individual worth and liberty, but aknowleges a fundamental responsibility to the welfare of the group. this dosent require any deep moral philosophy, we can see it in action. I may be edcucated and well fed. I may not want to contribute to feeding and educating those who are less sucessful than me! let them fend for themselves! but my selfishness(even if justifiable) creates the unacceptable risk that one day, perhaps years from now, my ancestors will face being destroyed by people who are starving and desparate.even the tyranical and iron handed armed politics of the middle ages could not prevent this from happening and we Americans are the proof today.
solerso
April 5th, 2009
Solerso– Rights and responsibilities are similar in that they both need to be taken care of and protected, and that wouldn’t be any different in a libertarian society.
The libertarian position on American slavery is that it was an affront to all human liberties and was completely wrong. Slavery is anathema to any libertarian society. There are other forms of slavery, too, though, that exist in modern society without many people commenting on them. Slavery can be, for instance, if you work hard at a business and then have to fork most of that over to the government, or if you have to work two jobs and can never spend time with your kids because the government has been devaluing the dollar.
The system that ignored inequity of wealth is the current one we have (which is by no means libertarian in nature), in which the government is in bed with corporations and ignores the “common” people. That would not happen in a libertarian society (the government wouldn’t have unlimited powers to grant favors to certain corporations over others).
“When a libertarian admits the need for some government then they are moving away from libertarianism.” How is that so? Libertarianism simply means a small government that protects rights. The government will still have to resolve some conflicts. Who will pay for the government? Who pays for the government now? How would that be any different? The difference is that now, we’re all paying out of our teeth and our children’s teeth and grandchildren’s teeth. Being born with $40,000 in debt to pay off is a form of slavery, isn’t it?
I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that a libertarian society would lead to feudalism. If you think that our current government places a “high value on individual worth and liberty,” why don’t you just plan your next vacation to the closest foreign island to the United States, Cuba? You’ll quickly realize that your freedom to travel where you like or go where you want in this world has been taken over by someone who thinks they know what’s best for you. That’s just one example.
Libertarianism DOES acknowledge a “fundamental responsibility to the welfare of the group,” but that is done by you not impinging on anyone else’s rights and helping those you wish to help. You’re not forced to “care” about anyone else like you are in the current system. Using other people’s money to give to the homeless does not mean that you care about the homeless, it probably means you care about getting re-elected.
Aren’t there starving and desperate people under our current system, even with all our supposed safeguards in place? Imagine all the money that goes to huge monied interests in our current society. That money would be put back in the hands of the “commoners” under a libertarian society, which would certainly keep people from being “starving and desperate.”
libertariangirl
April 21st, 2009
Some states did hold a vote. The citizens of TN voted to secede.
Allan
April 29th, 2009
They all should have held a vote to be democratic about it. Although legislatures are elected, I don’t think they have the unilateral right to just decide to leave the country without a direct vote of the people.
libertariangirl
April 30th, 2009
So let’s get this straight. The South hates Lincoln – not for anything he has done. If fact, they started to seceed before he ever took office.
But Lincoln wins the election. If the other guy wins – the South is fine. But they don’t get their guy in. So they see red.
Why is that?
Nor was Lincoln threatening to end slavery. He even stated he was sworn to uphold the laws of the land — including slavery laws. Including Dred Scott. Lincoln stated repeatedly he hoped to stop the SPREAD of slavery in a constitutional way if he could.
So why did the South secede?
Well they said why – in their own Declarations of Secession.
Opening paragraph, Mississippi Declaration of Secession:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
Opening paragraph, Georgia Declaration of Secession:
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.
From the Texas Declaration of Secession:
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union…She was received into the confederacy…as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.
In all the non-slave-holding States…the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party…based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color– a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States
…all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…
From the South Carolina Declaration of Secession:
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
Mark
September 14th, 2009
The south did secede for slavery you lunatics. Read the official Declarations of Causes by the Southern States. Havent seen them?
Gee I wonder why? Because they all are about SLAVERY. Let me give you a few examples.
Texas Official Declaration of Causes of Secession .February 2, 1861
“We hold as undeniable truths…the African race is inferior – that the servitude of the African race is the revealed will of the Almighty Creator,
“[the North has] proclaimed the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, –a doctrine in violation of Divine Law.
(TEXAS — WHAT DO THEY KNOW)
Mississippi Declaration of Secession:January 1861
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. ..Products that slaves produce are peculiar to the [southern] climate and none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, therefore a blow at slavery is a blow at civilization ..
(MISSISSIPPI — – WHAT DO THEY KNOW)
South Carolina Declaration of Secession Jan 1861
We affirm the action Northern States have attempted to decide on the propriety of our domestic institution (slavery). The Northern states have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies to encourage our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
(South Carolina was stupid too – it had nothing to do with slavery!!)
Georgia Declaration of Secession
The people of Georgia present to 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-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
(Georgia ! They should know better, oh well)
Florida Declaration of Causes
Northern States books have been published and circulated amongst us the direct tendency and avowed purpose of which is to excite insurrection by slaves
A President has recently been elected (Lincoln) , an obscure and illiterate man without experience who often proclaims that no more slave States shall be admitted into the union. If no more states are admitted, then the present slaves from their rapid increase in birth will become worthless to their owners. Nothing is more certain than this –and at no distant day.
No more slave states admitted ? What must be the condition of the slaves themselves when their number becomes so large that their labor will be of no value to their owners? The black race has a natural tendency to idleness vagrancy and crime, which will be increased by an inability to procure subsistence, if they become worthless as slaves.
[stopping slavery from expanding] is in so many words saying we will not burn you at the stake but we will torture you to death by a slow fire. It is saying we will not confiscate your property and consign you to a residence and equality with the african, but that destiny certainly awaits your children.
(Florida — silly bastards, didn’t they get the memo? It had nothing to do with slavery)
Alabama Speech just prior to Secession
I feel impelled, Mr. President, to vote for Secession by an overruling necessity. Years ago I was convinced that the Southern States would be compelled either to separate from the North, by dissolving the Federal Government, or they would be compelled to abolish the institution of African Slavery.
The day is now come,[because Lincoln was elected] when Alabama he must submit to a system of policy to abolish African Slavery.
Mr. President, poverty, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race?
To remove them from amongst us is impossible. History gives us no account of the exodus of such a number of persons. We neither have a place to which to remove them, nor the means of such removal.
They therefore must remain with us; and if the relation of master and slave be dissolved, and our slaves turned loose amongst us without restraint, they would either be destroyed by our own hands– the hands to which they look, and look with confidence, for protection– or we ourselves would become demoralized and degraded.
The former result would take place, and we ourselves would become the executioners of our own slaves.
(What a retard! Slavery had nothing to DO with it – he must be reading Northern papers)
SECESSION IN PUTNAM COUNTY, TENN.
BY J. M. MORGAN, GAINESBORO
Preamble
“The antislavery party is the enemy of the Union and the Constitution, advocating the equality of the negro and the white races and the abolition of slavery. To accomplish this the antislavery party has been organized and now constitutes the dominant party in all the free States. And now, having [won the election] it is attempting by conquest and coercion to carry out its damnable heresies [of equality of races] entertained for many vears toward the South and its institutions.
That we will resist Lincolns usurpation unto death; that, we have no compromise with tyranny or with the tyrant who has trampled our Constitution and now seeks to enslave us
(What do they know? Where they there? Oh, that’s right — they were there)
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of Confederate States
March 21, 1861 Savannah, Georgia
Regarding our new Confederate Constitution. It has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution. African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.
Slavery was the immediate cause of present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, The prevailing ideas entertained by most of the Founding Fathers were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.
Our new Confederacy is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
The Confederacy is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Almighty God. . Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law.
Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is designed for slavery. The negro is the substratum of our society. And by experience we know that it is best for the inferior negro race, that it should be so.
Slavery is conformity with the ordinance of the Almighty Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His Holy ordinances, nor should we even question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws of Almighty God.
Source: Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private: With Letters and Speeches, Before, During, and Since the War (Philadelphia, 1886), pp. 717-729.
(Stephens was just the leading spokesman for the Confederacy – what does he know?
DanWalker
October 16th, 2009
I suggest you all take a close look at Thomas DiLorenzo’s _The Real Lincoln_.
Joe Cassara
January 25th, 2010
I hate to offend libertarians, but DiLorenzo’s writings on Lincoln are extremely poor scholarship. If you are genuinely interested in the connection between two great men—on issues of slavery and freedom of thought—read James Lander, “Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Science, Race, and Religion”, published by Southern Illinois University Press.
S J Gould
May 30th, 2010