The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Did You Say Abe Lincoln?

7.23.08 @ 12:01AM

CIVIL DISAGREEMENT
Re: Christopher Orlet's King Abe at 199:

Lincoln surely knew succession was constitutional and that the document never would have been signed with any other understanding. It was mostly Northern states that made that clear at the very signing.

But he also knew the Federalist Papers. And those papers convinced, barely, a majority of Americans to risk the new State because they were convinced by the Papers that, separated, it was natural for men to eventually become enemies as Europe constantly illuminated.

So a separation would not have resulted in peace; anything but. And by no means only North and South. Snap out of it, people.
-- James Wilson

In his review of T. L. Krannawitter's book Vindicating Lincoln, Orlet says, "The issue, then, was the natural right of a people to withdraw from a voluntary union versus the importance of keeping the great democratic experiment alive. Lincoln chose the latter, thereby preserving the union and ending the peculiar institution of slavery."

In fact, this was not the issue. A "voluntary" union no longer existed once the States ratified the Constitution. Orlet and neo-confederates may deny this, but it is nonetheless true. Long before Southern secessionists raised the issue, a group called the "anti-Federalists" complained that the Constitution failed to preserve the "federal" form of government, in which the Union is regarded as a confederation of sovereign states. Instead, these anti-Federalists argued, the Convention created a "national" government where the Union is regarded as a consolidation of the states. If the Constitution were a confederation of sovereign States, as neo-confederates claim, what were the anti-Federalists complaining about? As against the anti-Federalists, Madison said, "The proposed Constitution, therefore, even when tested by the rules laid down by its antagonists, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both."

Thus, Orlet does not understand the nature of American government (I mean as it existed before the Supreme Court began its usurpations under the incorporation fantasy).

It's true that the States ratified the Constitution as independent sovereign states, but in ratifying it they gave up some of their sovereignty. What remained was a mixed sovereignty. This is seen in the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Judges are bound by the authority of the Constitution, "anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." The States entered into the compact with full knowledge of this supremacy clause, and were presumably familiar with anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution and to the national government that would be formed under its auspices. The supremacy clause, however, did not take away all sovereignty in the States; just those powers having to do with national matters. The States were still sovereign on domestic matters. This is entirely in keeping with the views of Locke, who said: "Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature united into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they united into society, to the majority of the community."

Madison rejected the "indiscreet zeal of the adversaries to the Constitution" who wanted the States to retain supremacy vis-a-vis the central government. Thus Madison had to contend with an early version of the state rights philosophy. The supremacy clause was necessary because, "[T]he world would have seen, for the first time, a system of government founded on an inversion of the fundamental principle of all government; it would have seen the authority of the whole society everywhere subordinate to the authority of the parts; it would have been a monster, in which the head was under the direction of the members."

Contrary to Orlet and neo-confederates, neither the framers nor their anti-Federalist opponents contemplated any right of secession under the Constitution. A right of secession under the Constitution would have defeated the whole purpose of the Constitution vis-a-vis the Articles of Confederation. In addition, a right to secession is not the same as a right of revolution. The former is constitutionally illegal, while the latter is a natural right, an extra-constitutional right. However, the right of revolution has to be exercised with extreme caution, for as Locke said, there must be a long train of abuses, not a mere mismanagement of public affairs, to justify it.

Orlet doesn't realize that Southern leaders such as Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens rejected the Lockean right of revolution. Davis said: "[T]he sovereign States here represented proceeded to form this Confederacy, and it is by abuse of language that their act has been denominated a revolution." Stephens argued that the seceding States were attempting to preserve the Constitution, not to overthrow it. "I do maintain there was no rebellion, no resistance to lawful authority in the action of the Confederates in what occurred at Fort Sumter..." Stephens even admitted that there was no basis for revolution: "What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied?"

The key characteristic of true revolution is that the cause must be just. There is simply nothing in the Southern argument for secession that can be counted as a just cause for revolution, for the purpose of southern secession was not the preservation of freedom, but rather the continuation of slavery. As against Orlet's claim, the evidence is clear that Lincoln was acting in a manner that was entirely consistent with the natural rights tradition of the framers.
-- Vern Crisler
Gilbert, Arizona

While I don't worship Lincoln as many Republicans do, I do give him his due. There was probably no other President in our history willing to sustain the killing that his cause brought about to end an institution that had been in existence since the beginning of time and would have died a natural death due to the industrial revolution. Another 20 years would have fundamentally changed the economic reality of slavery to the point that reasonable people could have sat down and resolved it without 600,000 dead. It gets lost in all the save the Union hype that 600,000 dead by 1865 would be 5.8 million dead if the Civil war were fought today. The entire population of the United States in 1860 was less than California today. The Democrat Party was and is still the party of slavery by whatever means.

I take it as a matter of faith that most of the people involved in the anti-slavery movement had no interest or appreciation for the economic changes coming down the pike. Predicting the future is always a risky business but the fundamentals for the mechanization of farming were already in the works and massed slave labor was going to become more trouble than it was worth in a relatively short time. Even a bigot understands the value of money.

My main beef with Lincoln the President, not the man, is that he took it upon himself to amend the Constitution by force of arms therefore destroying the value of and respect for the Constitution. The Supreme Court amends it all the time without consequence because there is no respect for it any more. The trials and tribulations to bring the recent 2nd Amendment case outcome and that DC is not honoring even the spirit of the ruling demonstrate this pretty well. The resultant 14th amendment is even today used to justify the expansion of the Federal Government into more and more private dealings between people. Equal protection under the law is the main driving force behind entitlements and outcome based government programs including Public Schools. There was some balance then but no longer. States are just pimps for the Federal Government now. These are just some of the downsides to Federalism winning out over States Rights. Lincoln set this in motion. No one knows what Lincoln's long term plans for a reunited Union was but I suspect given the latitude he gave Grant with Lee's surrender things would have turned out better had Booth failed. I'm not suggesting that there weren't positives in all this but does anyone really think 5.8 million dead Americans would be worth the price to end Slavery if it still existed today? We've lost just 4100 in over 5 years or about what we lost on D-Day 1944 in a conflict that is often framed as "lost," "unwinnable," "unaffordable." Can you imagine Barack Obama as Lincoln in 1860? The Civil war would have ended after the first Battle of Bull Run. The South would have won and in 20 years or less abolished slavery on it's own and rejoined the Union because it was unviable in the developing industrialized world without the North. I suspect things would pretty much be the same to day if the Civil War had not happened with one exception. Several decades of hatred toward the North and racial strife would have been reduced to manageable levels. In some ways the downsides of Lincoln's war are still with us.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, John McCain, Barack Obama, Business, Entitlements, Religion, Islam, Environment, Books, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, NATO, Conservatism, Energy, Unions