Why would a defender of liberty defend the Confederate cause? This question is important in a time when many libertarians insist that the cause of the Confederacy was to defend slavery. If the Confederate cause was slavery, why would a libertarian defend it? A descendant of Confederate veterans may have an obvious reason to defend the Confederate cause as that for which his father fought and his mother wept. Any Southerner may also have an obvious reason to defend that cause from loyalty to his Southern heritage. But why would a libertarian whose only cause is that of liberty defend the Confederate cause?
Lord Acton
In a review essay titled “Lord Acton on Slavery and the War between the States” the distinguished libertarian philosopher David Gordon observes that Lord Acton’s friendship and support for Robert E. Lee “has in some circles occasioned dismay”. Gordon is referring to the liberal or libertarian circles in which Acton is regarded as a great champion of liberty, while Lee is regarded as a wicked man who fought to defend slavery. It is no surprise that these theorists are befuddled. For example, a libertarian article titled “Why did the Southern States Secede” argues that based on the secession declarations of South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, it must be concluded that the Confederate States “stood for slavery”. Undaunted by their failure to find any defense of slavery in Virginia’s secession declaration, they nevertheless conclude that we must also read Virginia’s secession as a defense of slavery:
“fretful worrying about slavery’s future turned to fearful reaction after Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for volunteers to invade the Confederacy. By then, what appeared to many Virginians as yet another deeply divisive, but eminently compromisable political problem transmogrified into a consolidationist-abolitionist invasion of the South … Even when the Old Dominion slowly rose to the occasion, she did so to defend slavery from the constant stream of abolitionist threats to southern social order.”
Similarly, Chris Calton depicts the war as primarily an attempt by the South to protect slavery, arguing that slavery was a dying institution and shoring up “the dying institution was one of the reasons the South wanted to secede; southerners were trying to hold on to their peculiar institution [of slavery].”
“… the dying out of slavery was explicitly a motivation for southern action to protect the waning institution. Leading up to the Civil War, southern “filibusters” were trying to re-establish slavery in areas of the world in which it had already died, such as Nicaragua, where southern slaveholders attempted to set up a new government in which slavery was re-legalized. Southerners also advocated the annexation of Cuba in order to add a new slave state to the union.”
That being the strength of their determination to depict the Southern cause as a defense of slavery, the word “dismay” hardly suffices to convey the profound depths of their confusion, consternation, and indeed complete discombobulation, at the thought that any libertarian would defend the Southern cause. Gordon frames the question of the dismayed liberals as follows: “If slavery is evil, how could Acton defend the cause of the Confederacy as the cause of freedom?” Giving further context to this question, Gordon writes:
“For example, the political theorist Jacob Levy, who admires Acton’s pluralism, says that Acton’s insights “led him to analyses of the U.S. Civil War that were not merely wrong, but carefully and thoughtfully wickedly wrong. He identified the cause of the Confederacy as the cause of freedom, even knowing slavery to be evil, and he thought this with firm commitment, for many years.”
Acton’s defense of the Southern cause has for that reason deeply concerned many libertarians, who are in equal measure perplexed and mortified by the notion that defending liberty could possibly entail defending slavery. Bondage being the very antithesis of freedom, how could a great defender of liberty such as Acton defend a war that many libertarians believe to be a war “about” slavery? Gordon quotes the offending words that appear in a letter from Acton to Lee:
“I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.”
To those who conflate slavery with the war, and take slavery to be – at least in significant or noteworthy part – the cause of the Confederacy, it seems obvious that Acton was wrong to describe that cause as “the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization.” If slavery was the cause of the Confederacy, it cannot at the same time be said that the cause of Confederacy was liberty, and as Acton would not have made such a basic error from mere carelessness of thought, it seems inescapable to his bewildered admirers that on this point he must have been “carefully and thoughtfully wickedly wrong”. Here Gordon observes that “wickedly wrong” is a pun on Acton’s reference to slavery being “wickedly defended” and “wickedly removed”.
Murray Rothbard
The same consternation could equally well arise in relation to the great economist and self-described Old Right libertarian “extremist”, Murray Rothbard. By “extremist” the ever-irrepressible Rothbard meant “an ardent ‘extreme right-wing Republican,’ in the days of course when this term meant isolationist and at least partial devotion to the liberty of the individual, and not a racist or enthusiast for the obliteration of any peasant whose ideology might differ from ours.”
In his article “Just War” Rothbard argued that the War for Southern Independence was a just war. Even if we were to regard it as only “partly” a war to defend slavery, would Rothbard describe the Southern cause as “unquestionably proper and just” if any part of that cause was to defend slavery? The same question posed in relation to Acton arises here – how can a war be just, if slavery is evil? Rothbard defines a “just war” as follows:
“My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people try to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing coercive rule over them.”
Like Acton, it is not conceivable that Rothbard somehow failed to notice that this war was “about” slavery when, as the overwrought libertarians constantly remind us, it says so right there in the first paragraph of Mississippi’s secession declaration! And yet, far from Rothbard’s verdict on the war being qualified, hesitant, or guarded, he describes the Southern armies as fighting for their “sacred honor.” He states categorically that the Southern cause was “assuredly and unquestionably proper and just”, and that Lincoln’s war was “clearly and notably unjust”. He denounces the Total War tactics of General Sherman as “great war crimes, and crimes against humanity” which “paved the way for the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20th century”.
Some libertarians are anxious that this language may be read to imply that neither secession nor the war had anything to do with slavery. That would lend credence to the accusations of “social justice warriors” that defending the Southern cause amounts to denying that slavery existed. “Slavery existed!” they cry. “So, what you’re saying is that you want to be a slave-owner?” they lob as a final desperate but damp squib “gotcha”. But reiterating that slavery existed and reminding everyone that the Southern states were slave states does not address the issue in contention. The simple-minded reader of the New York Times, especially one who knows little about the historical facts, appears to believe that if the war is said to be “about freedom” this amounts to a claim that the war “did not have anything to do with slavery” or that slavery was of no relevance in understanding the war and should therefore be “erased” from history. They being great erasers of history themselves, they imagine that anyone who takes a different view of the war from their own is also trying to erase history. That is why they are ever at pains to insist that we don’t talk about slavery enough, we need to talk more about slavery, all history lessons should be about slavery, and the like. By “you cannot erase slavery” they mean that no other factors should be discussed as that would amount to erasing slavery. This is simplistic and wrong.
When people ask what a war was “about” they are not asking for a list of everything that happened at the time, or everything that had anything to do with the war. Such a list, in addition to conveying no helpful lesson, would be endless. From a historical perspective, asking what a war is “about” is necessarily fraught with difficulty. And as the great historian Clyde Wilson has argued, attempts to argue that the war was “about slavery” are no more than political sloganeering:
“Conventional wisdom of the moment tells us that the great war of 1861-1865 was “about” slavery or was “caused by” slavery. I submit that this is not a historical judgment but a political slogan. What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who come after.”
Wilson’s point that “what a war is about has many answers” was memorably expressed by Shelby Foote, when he recounted that many soldiers did not own any slaves, so they were patently not fighting to defend slavery. If asked why they were fighting they also would not say it was for “states’ rights” or for “the Constitution”. They would simply say “’I’m fighting because you’re down here.” Their families would say they fought against the North because the North invaded their homeland. Therefore, it is facile merely to ask what a historical event is “about”; rather, it behooves the student of history to understand the event as comprehensively as possible.
Ideological Debate
For the libertarian theorist, a different set of challenges arises. The question whether secession is morally justified, or whether a war is a “just war”, inevitably entails an attempt to distil historical events into what the theorist may regard as the essence of the event, for purposes of evaluating the event from a moral or ethical standpoint. This is why so many libertarians claim that it was a war “about slavery” – by this they mean to convey their opinion that while the war may indeed have been about many different things from a historical perspective, nevertheless it is the fact that it was “about slavery” that they consider the most important aspect of the war from a moral or ideological perspective. With that in mind, it is significant that neither Acton nor Rothbard regarded this as a war “about slavery”. The significance of their opinion cannot be countered merely by observing that the war was about many things – there is, on the contrary, much of value to be gained by asking why these great defenders of liberty defended the Southern cause.
Even without going into the details of Rothbard’s reasoning, the very terminology he uses – War for Southern Independence – encapsulates his view of the Southern cause. He saw the Southern cause in the same light as the American Revolutionary war, of which he said that: “The central grievance of the American rebels was the taxing power: the systematic plunder of their property by the British government.” He robustly defends the right of any nation to secede, as a natural right inherent in free people, concluding that:
“If the American Revolutionary War was just, then it follows as the night the day that the Southern cause, the War for Southern Independence, was just, and for the same reason: casting off the ‘political bonds’ that connected the two peoples. In neither case was this decision made for ‘light or transient causes.’ And in both cases, the courageous seceders pledged to each other ‘their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.’”
Like Rothbard, the great economist Walter E. Williams also highlights the similarities to the Revolutionary War. Williams argues that:
“Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who label Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals as traitors might also label George Washington a traitor. Great Britain’s King George III and the British parliament would have agreed.”
Williams of course regarded slavery itself as wicked, and the same is true of the other libertarian defenders of the Southern cause, Acton and Rothbard. Gordon concludes his essay by quoting Acton’s view of the slavery question: “Slavery was not the cause of secession, but the reason for its failure.” Hence Gordon argues that: “Acton’s case for [defending the cause of the Confederacy] is well argued and does not at all depend on doubting the badness of slavery.” Rather, Acton’s case was founded on the principle of states’ rights and the principles set out by the man he described as “the philosopher of the South, Mr. Calhoun.”
In drawing a parallel with the Revolutionary War, Rothbard also highlights the importance of the long running dispute over tariffs: “The first great constitutional crisis with the South came when South Carolina battled against the well named Tariff of Abomination of 1828. As a result of South Carolina’s resistance, the North was forced to reduce the tariff, and finally, the Polk administration adopted a two-decade long policy of virtual free trade.” He sees John C. Calhoun’s view of the tariff question in that light, focusing not simply on how strongly Calhoun opposed paying the tariffs, but more importantly on the fact that the tariffs were regarded as fundamentally unjust:
“John C. Calhoun, the great intellectual leader of South Carolina, and indeed of the entire South, pointed out the importance of a very low level of taxation. All taxes, by their very nature, are paid, on net, by one set of people, the ‘taxpayers,’ and the proceeds go to another set of people, what Calhoun justly called the “tax-consumers.” Among the net tax-consumers, of course, are the politicians and bureaucrats who live full-time off the proceeds. The higher the level of taxation, the higher the percentage which the country’s producers have to give the parasitic ruling class that enforces and lives off of taxes. In zeroing in on the tariff, Calhoun pointed out that ‘the North has adopted a system of revenue and disbursements, in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion appropriated to the North, and for the monopolization of Northern industry.’”
Rothbard, who regarded taxation as theft, therefore does not treat the tariff issue in so dismissive a manner as the libertarians who insist that the tariff dispute was inconsequential and the war was really “about slavery”.
Are we to suppose that these men, following Calhoun, somehow overlooked the importance of slavery because they exaggerated the importance of the tariff question, wrongly assuming that Americans would revolt to throw off the yoke of unfair tariffs? The answer should be obvious – once the significance of taxation is understood it becomes plain that Americans would indeed revolt against unfair taxes. There is no need to hunt through historic letters and documents seeking “other reasons” to explain South Carolina’s revolt, and the revolt of the original six other Southern states who forthwith followed her out of the Union. Americans revolted against King George III at a time when slavery was an institution in the British Empire and the American colonies, yet it is never seriously suggested that the American Revolution was “about slavery”. Confederate leaders from the cotton states, for example Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, were sons of men who fought in the American Revolution. They were no less likely to revolt over unfair tariffs than were their fathers.
Yes, slavery is wrong
One reason for the endless rumination over the Confederate cause that persists among libertarians arises from their suspicions as to whether anyone who defends the Southern cause genuinely regards slavery as wrong. The reasoning here follows a reverse pattern from that discussed so far: rather than asking whether the war was “about slavery”, they reason that regardless of whether that is what the war was really “about”, nevertheless the Confederate states were slave states and therefore anyone who supports their cause must by the same token be defending slavery or at least be morally indifferent to it.
That argument too must be rejected as entirely misconceived. There is no doubt whatsoever that libertarians who defend the Southern cause – Walter Williams, Murray Rothbard, Lysander Spooner, Lord Acton – all regarded slavery as immoral and wrong. Acton uses the words “wicked” and “selfish” to describe slave-owners. In the Ethics of Liberty Rothbard sets out his reasons for supporting the abolitionist movement. Not only was Rothbard whole heartedly and vehemently in favor of abolition, but he also regarded slavery as so morally abhorrent that he went so far as to suggest that the plantations of slaveowners should be turned over to the freed slaves as compensation for slavery. Like Spooner, he supported the immediate abolition of slavery and was unconcerned about any potentially harmful economic consequences. Their view was that no man should be kept captive merely to avoid economic harm to his jailor. Robert Higgs, writing in the same abolitionist tradition as Spooner and Rothbard, treated any suggestion that it was not economically or socially convenient to end slavery with derision.
That being the strength of the libertarian opposition to slavery, it is inconceivable that Rothbard would at the same time defend as “assuredly and unquestionably proper and just” a war whose purpose was in way – even partly – to defend slavery. In “Just War” he does not cast even the slightest sliver of doubt on his contention that the South fought for independence, a view which was also held by Spooner. Rothbard asks “Why, in the famous words of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, at least early in the struggle, didn’t the North “let their erring sisters go in peace?” In discussing this question Rothbard highlights the hypocrisy and moral fervor of the Northern zealots who claimed to be concerned about slavery and the moral iniquity of the Southern heart:
“The North, in particular the North’s driving force, the “Yankees” — that ethnocultural group who either lived in New England or migrated from there to upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois — had been swept by a new form of Protestantism. This was a fanatical and emotional neo-Puritanism driven by a fervent “postmillenialism” which held that as a precondition for the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, man must set up a thousand-year Kingdom of God on Earth.”
Rothbard depicts the moralistic fulmination of the Northern zealots over slavery as, in that sense, in no way connected to Lincoln’s launching war against the South. It was nothing more than moral cover belatedly and hurriedly ramped up by Neo-Puritans in hopes of justifying their increasingly deadly war: the fabrication of a “righteous cause” that provided them with moral justification for their invasion and conquest of the South. Rothbard was scathing about the Northern conduct of the war, “armed with gun in one hand and hymn book in the other.” He adds:
“The Northern war against slavery partook of fanatical millennialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle and the birth of a perfect world. The Yankee fanatics were veritable Patersonian humanitarians with the guillotine: the Anabaptists, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era. This fanatical spirit of Northern aggression for an allegedly redeeming cause is summed up in the pseudo-Biblical and truly blasphemous verses of that quintessential Yankee Julia Ward Howe, in her so-called “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
We could ask for no clearer statement of Rothbard’s view of this war. In his view, the Southern cause fell squarely within the parameters set by his mentor Ludwig von Mises for a defensive war – Mises reminds us that in a war to defend hearth and home, “He who wants to remain free, must fight unto death those who are intent upon depriving him of his freedom.”
Slavery was wrong.? How?
Libertarians believe no man can own another. The principle of self-ownership.
Great article, Ms. Njoya. It’s already printed and in the stack for future reference.
Of course slavery is wrong. With admitted exceptions, at no time since enlightenment have most people thought slavery was morally defensible. Anecdotal as is my observation, anyone is free to prove to me, and themselves, that I am wrong. The problem, among many, is what to do after slavery was inherited through generations, Jefferson’s “wolf by the ears”, etc. Was it moral to free millions of people without the social, life and professional skills into prevailing society, South and North? Was it responsible to the free and freedman, white and black? Would summary freedom in, say, 1860 have improved the lives of the millions through the next many generations more than it did in 1865?
I’ve found it controversial to insist there was something at risk greater than “slavery” in 1860. Wrecking state and the people’s sovereignty brought little improvement to the condition of freed people and inflicted poverty on subsequent generations of all. Any person’s sovereignty – self-ownership – is God given and right but it demands ability and self-responsibility to improve and maintain themself.
Another anecdote: I’ve never read through reams of published memoirs, diaries and letters, nor heard from near descendants of veterans and their families, anyone to say, “I wish we still owned people”. As tragic as the thing was, it was rather a relief that slavery had ended…. and now, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “root hog or die”.
Thank you, and yes, the debate in the South was not whether to end slavery, but how and when to end it. There were 4 million slaves, it was not as easy as libertarian philosophers from the North or from England may have thought, for the South to just immediately free them all with no plan for where they would go or how they would fend for themselves. Alexander Stephens, Confederate Vice President, felt that education would be key to preparation for emancipation. It’s also worth noting that slavery in New England and elsewhere in the North was ended gradually. New Jersey, for example, enacted a law for “Gradual Abolition of Slavery” which was still not fully ended until 1866 after the war.
Slavery (as traditionally called) has two aspects (at least Biblically) : 1. The crime initially of “man stealing” and 2. the secondary aspect of “owning.” The ownership is not owning as in owning a mule etc (chattel) but in a responsibility for (at least Biblically). Once slaves were brought here by Yankees and European slave traders they mostly ended up as a labor force down South.
The idea that at some point they could just be “freed” would have been and injustice to the slaves (as it turned out to be).
I was born and reared in Mississippi. As young men and women, at home and in public schools we were often taught of how Jefferson Davis’s Plantation in Mississippi (at the direction of Davis) was designed around the work ethic and how slaves needed to function when one day they would be free. It was designed to school them in working as free men.
However, to this day as I write this, Yankee liars try and force the evil concept that Southerners forced slaves (blacks) into harsh labor at the end of a whip. And these same Southerners love to be cruel.
Two points, to close: 1. Yankees will never change. Lying is in their DNA and 2. I very much enjoy your articles Ms Nojia. Any student of Walter Williams is OK in my book!
Glad you liked the articles! And thank you for sharing about the Davis plantation, that is true. Also worth noting that Jefferson Davis was very much loved by his slaves. This is a fact that people today find very hard to understand, as they only learned about slavery by watching Hollywood films and therefore have completely the wrong idea about it.
Chattel slavery was an artefact of ancient pagan society. We never had chattel slavery in the South, or anywhere in the West for that matter after it died out following the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the reform of its laws in the 4th and 5th centuries.
The form of slavery we had in the South is properly called domestic slavery – the slave is recognized and respected as a human being, with a soul and moral conscience, rights of protection of life of limb and a duty of care between slave and master. This form of slavery was explicitly ordained by God in the Law of Moses (Lev 25:44 – 46). The Church Fathers, the Medieval Church the Reformers and most orthodox protestants into the 19th century upheld the biblical view that slavery was a consequence of a sinful world, but had its place in society and was compatible with Christianity.
When someone says “slavery is wrong”, that is a precept based on Enlightenment humanism, not biblical Christianity. You may agree or disagree, but there is no objective moral basis for saying slavery is wrong per se and it is contradictory to the Word of God.
“Moses legalized domestic slavery for God’s chosen people, in the very act of setting them aside to holiness.
Christ, the great Reformer, lived and moved amidst it, teaching, healing, applauding slaveholders; and while He assailed every abuse, uttered no word against this lawful relation.
His apostles admit slaveholders to the church, exacting no repentance nor renunciation. They leave, by inspiration, general precepts for the manner in which the duties of the relation are to be maintained. They command Christian slaves to obey and honor Christian masters. They remand the runaway to his injured owner, and recognize his property in his labor as a right which they had no power to infringe.
If slavery is in itself a sinful thing, then the Bible is a sinful book.” – Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney, Life of Lt Gen Thomas J Jackson
Slavery was a wrong as driving a internal combustion engine.
BT Washington said blacks who went through the US slave system were the most fortunate blacks in the world.
Few were ever enslaved in the New World. They were enslaved in Africa and carried their legal status with them. Had they remained in Africa, they would have been killed or eaten.
Blacks were not welcome in the north. In 1860, a free black man could own slaves and businesses in Mississippi…the same man could not move to Illinois or even consider living in Whites-Only Oregon.
The Corwin Amendment was passed to protect slavery forever in the non-Cotton States…the north cared more about subsidized cotton than black rights.
Slavery was so horrible…Fred Douglass complained about having too much whisky to drink at holidays…when he wasn’t beating up his master and failing to be punished for the assault.
Slavery was so horrible…Millions of yankees came down and died by the hundreds of thousands…left tens of thousands of weapons on battlefields policed by slaves…and despite yankees urging slaves to rise up and kill their masters’ wives and children, there were ZERO slave uprisings. That’s how horrible slavery was in the Southern States.
There was slavery in Ancient Greece and Rome and throughout the British Empire. So, when libertarians discuss slavery being a violation of self-ownership it’s not specifically the American South they have in mind. In principle – and libertarian philosophy is based on principle – slavery is either wrong or it’s not. For example, there were black slaveowners in the American South, and if slavery is wrong then it was wrong for them to do it too. Needless to say, on that basis it was also wrong when it was done by the pious Puritan slaveowners of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut – all of whom had plantations worked by slaves and were the greatest slave traders in America. Rhode Island alone, as you know, brought in about 90% of slaves.
Anyone going on about the so-called ‘evils’ of slavery in the South is either willfully ignorant or too stupid to seek truth.
An excellent book, “A Southside View of Slavery”, was written by a Yankee pastor, Nehemiah Adams, born 1806 in Massachusetts. He visited the South in 1854 and later wrote this book detailing his impressions of the ‘peculiar institution’.
Here is the synopsis of this important book:
“Few who agitated against Southern slavery in the Nineteenth Century had ever seen it with their own eyes. Himself an Abolitionist, Nehemiah Adams journeyed from Boston to the South to witness the “horrors” of slavery for himself. Instead of the expected scenes of cruel bondage, what he found was a well-ordered society in which the Negroes were mainly content, well-cared for by their masters, and even evangelized. The author warns his Northern brethren that a continued assault upon the South’s “peculiar institution” would lead to a destruction of the Union and the ultimate ruin of the Black population. Of particular interest is the chapter written in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s fictional romance, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” -amazon website
Stowe stole the book from a black author. Just as Alex Haley stole his book. Thank you for your comment.
They are libertarians. They are philosophers and theorists. They’re not talking about slavery in the South but the principle of self-ownership. What they consider wrong is the idea that one man can own another. This is the same principle in Ancient Greece and Rome as anywhere else, it is not specifically the American South they have in mind. Just clarifying that because slavery was a universal institute governed by both Roman Law and Common Law. When Lord Acton said slave ownership is “wicked” he wasn’t referring specifically to the American South but to all humanity.
Alexander Stephens, and many other Southern leaders, did not condone slavery in the abstract and said it was “wicked” (or other interesting adjectives). Thomas Jefferson included his disdain for it in the original DoI. A search through the documents here on the Abbeville Institute will provide sundry evidence of multiple Southern leaders and secessionists who abhorred the practice in the abstract. They understood, however, that they were stuck with this institution and it was UP TO THE SOUTH TO END IT. Yes, it would have ended. That was the whole point. It wasn’t the business of the Yankees to come forth, take ownership of slavery, and decide how to end (propagate) it. It must be remembered that the Yankees wanted to control the continent.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/lincolns-new-deal
Libertarianism is a political theory and political philosophy that adheres to natural law and virtue ethics, with the foundational Non Aggression Principle. Libertarianism adheres to the axiom of property in one’s self, that is, the energy of the mind and intellect that causes the body to release and exert energy (force) on the material world, mixing labor with raw materials, and owning the result. This is not inconsistent with Southern thought.
So, unless one wants to argue that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property) can still be attained through slavery, then maybe one should call himself a Yankee.
Domestic plantation servitude was a great civilizing influence. The libertarians don’t know what they’re talking about.
Does coerced and involuntary servitude justify civilizizing influence? That is, do the ends justify the means.
Yankees would say yes.
Libertarians say that the means justify the ends.
*civilizing
Domestic plantation servitude was not a crime. That is a fact not a theory.
This is true. It is a fact that slavery was not a crime. But, it is also a fact that the legality of slavery is a theory.
The creation of laws is based off of political theory and political philosophy. Was the legality of slavery God’s Law, Natural Law, Man’s Law?
The question is, was TJ right when he said life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (property)? That is, were these rights inalienable and self evident for all human beings? And if this is true, can these rights be realized secured through the theoretical legality of the institution of slavery? If they can, then TJ was not in harmony with God, Nature, nor Man.
Libertarianism, a political theory, says that it cannot be done. Libertarianism at its core, is based on what Thomas Jefferson said.
Years ago the Mises institute had a disqus comment section. I participated on a regular basis and I would include links to articles from the Abbeville institute to defend the Confederacy on logical grounds. But these links would be flagged and my posts would be put under review, never to be approved.
So, to by pass the quarantine, I would include the name of the Abbeville article, author, etc. so the readers could look it up if they were so inclined.
Point being, the Mises moderators would not permit direct links to the Abbeville institute.
The comment section is now gone.
However, now that Thomas DiLorenzo is president of the Mises Institute, Lincolnism is on full display. Wanjiru Njoya is one of several authors at the MI. Along with others, she has provided great articles that defend the ‘Lost Cause’ as Noble and Just.
She is doing a magnificent job.
im just curious, with respect to the US, weren’t the midwestern and northern and far western territories/states involved in a rather vocal (R)epublican attempt to basically keep slaves and free blacks out of those areas…in a sense corral blacks into the south and keep them there? and is assume in lock-speech on some level demand that the south free black slaves for some strange reason? how would that have helped the northern economy or conscience considering how blacks were treated by union troops post-invasion. so if the above is true….why are there such libertarian issues on this? my black ancestors entered the slave trade once freed circa 1720.