As a libertarian, I often have people ask me where I stand on the subject of secession. As you all well know, this is like being asked about the idea of suspension of habeas corpus during a time of war–this isn’t just an abstract philosophical question.  There are obvious real world implications and clear historic precedent.  The history of secession on the North American continent contains a value judgment that people make independent of simple political theory–what is “good” is defined more so by morality of motivation than by the judgment of an impartial observer.  Similarly, we may agree or disagree with the overall policies of a President and that influences our decision to agree or disagree with the suspension of habeas corpus.  Today, on the day of celebration for the original act of secession on the North American continent, I want to take a look back at the secession crisis of the 1860s in the context of the original Declaration of Independence.

It is clear from any reading of the Declaration of Independence or other writings of the American Founding Fathers that they believed firmly that American colonists already had an inalienable claim to certain rights, among them the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  The American Revolution, essentially a secessionist movement against the British Empire, was an armed revolution to secure these rights and liberties in the face of a British Empire that, in the view of the colonialists, was attempting to seize these ancient rights and liberties.  <a href=”http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html”>I’ve seen interesting counterarguments that the Founding Fathers were fundamentally wrong in their estimation of the threat posed by King George the Third and Parliament, that England was hardly on the edge of subjigating and enslaving the American colonists as mere serfs</a>.  We can cast doubt objectively on the situation that sparked the American Revolution, but we have to believe the Founding Fathers when they claim why they originally seceded.

Compare this to the secession crisis of the 1860s.  The Founding Fathers had taken up arms against British only when they felt like it was a last resort after attempts at peaceful negotiation had failed.   Similarly, the decades before the establishment of the Federation of American States saw a breakdown in the two-party political system that had held the North and South together within the United States of America, the undemocratic institution of the Supreme Court had handed down pro-slavery decision after pro-slavery decision, a Democratic Party beholden to slave-owners continued to push legislation that trampled on states’ rights and federalism, and the White House was in the hands of a man who had no popular or electoral vote majority, simply the support of the House of Representatives through an archaic selection process that had been implemented in the time of Jefferson.  It is too easy to look back on the era and act as if the northern states should have just swallowed their protests and waited for the political pendulum to swing back to them.

Without making a gross generalization, it seems that most libertarians hold little to no nationalist tendencies.  Governments are institutions of men to secure liberties, and as such they may be discarded when they fail to secure those liberties.  In the face of the Fugitive Slave Act, most anti-slavery activists did take a wait and see approach.  They did the same after Dred Scott.  The northern states only took up arms after the “election” of President Breckinridge in 1860 by the House of Representatives and the nationalization of slavery into the formerly free states by the Supreme Court in the Lemmon case.  As Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire said, “If this Union, with all its advantages, has no other cement than the blood of human slavery, let it perish.”  Doing more to preserve slavery than to preserve the inalienable rights set down by the Declaration of Independence, the Union no longer served a purpose for the free states of the north.

Now there is a counter-counter argument floating around as well.  Far from arguing that northern secession was too quick, some militant activists in support of civil liberties argue that it was incumbent upon the north to take up arms not only for their own freedom, but the freedom of the slaves in the southern states.  This argument, which has shades of the argument in support of the French Revolution and its expansion to the rest of the European continent, objects to the failure of the newly established FSA to take the fight to the United States and force an end to slavery through military means.  However, to be morally consistent would require these same activists to argue that it was a moral failure of the United States to not take the fight for freedom and independence from the British Empire elsewhere by liberating Canada or Jamaica or other British colonies.  In fact, we tried that (twice), and it failed pretty miserably–in fact it sparked an earlier secession crisis that nearly had the northern states leave the Union fifty years earlier than what actually happened.

When I first started typing this I had no idea that former United States President Jesse Helms had passed away, ironically following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.   I can’t say that he will be missed, he is in many ways the key piece of evidence in the argument by those who support a world revolution for freedom and liberty through the use of military arms.  Can we hold the FSA morally responsible for its failure to fight to end slavery during the secession crisis of the 1860s?  Are the Founding Fathers of the FSA morally responsible for the plight of slaves and their descendants, a group that has continued to face racism and legal oppression up to modern times?  These are questions well worth considering on today, the day of our (regardless of your nation of origin on the North American continent) independence.