The Myth of Confederate Minarchism and the Fugitive Slave Act

[Stardust]

What should concern Massachusetts is not the Nebraska Bill, nor the Fugitive Slave Bill, but her own slaveholding and servility. Let the State dissolve her union with the slaveholder.... Let each inhabitant of the State dissolve his union with her, as long as she delays to do her duty.
- Henry David Thoreau

Quite often one in the libertarian circles I frequent one hears about a long-ago glorious rebellion fought for the principles of limited government and personal liberty.

And it's not the American Revolution these would-be historians discuss.

This romanticized view of the Confederate States of America is all out of proportion to what it actually was. From first to last, the Confederacy was devoted to a national ideal - not of limited government, but of State-subsidized tyranny; not of freedom, but of human bondage. The time has come to demolish this ideal of the Confederacy, not from the perspective of a mistrusted liberalism, but from the perspective of an application of the very principles the revanchists claim to hue to.

In the era immediately before the War began, the nucleic States of the South had engaged in economic behavior which would make modern liberals blush. The issue in question arose during the debate surrounding the Compromise of 1850, and, in particular, the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act around which so much of the controversy focused on. The most acrimonious portion of that text was paragraph six, which bound the law enforcement officials of each State to actively engage in pursuit of escaped slaves and to return them to their masters. The full text of the relevant passage is posted in whole here, with the aspects on which my argument hinges highlighted in bold:

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In essence, the text of this law rendered all "courts, judges, or commissioners" of any territory suspected of being the destination of an escaped slave powerless before the merest request of a slave-owner to issue a warrant. Moreover, by providing for the wholesale abduction of escapees "without process" - that is, without the due process of law provided for in the Constitution which many modern neo-Confederates loudly lay claim to as the product of like-minds - the Act effectively neutered the legal integrity of the States to which the slaveholder had ventured to retrieve his 'property'. Not only did the Federal government mandate that local courts issue warrants for the reclamation of the escaped slave, but it expressly prohibited those same local courts from "molesting" the slaveholder via "process". This, in effect, created a vestigal regulatory framework far in excess of anything approached by liberals in the 20th century, and without even the peculiar reading of the Interstate Commerce Clause liberals so often rely on to justify it.

[Rooney]

This is a very good post. It is always interesting to read what actually was included in the six different bills signed by President Fillmore in September 1850. 

It is quite true that minarchism was not a tenant of the antebellum South or the Confederacy as a nation. The CSA as an independent entity did not engage in libertarianism to any meaningful degree. The Confederate government, for example, nationalized munitions/iron production in a way that only President Truman would try to do in the 1950s. The Confederate government also used the Conscription Acts of 1862 and 1863 to coerce private companies into fulfilling unwanted government contracts. The Confederacy was not a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist paradise, but a nationalized state which dealt with the issue of war in a terse and totalitarian way.       

[Stardust]

This is a very good post. It is always interesting to read what actually was included in the six different bills signed by President Fillmore in September 1850. 

It is quite true that minarchism was not a tenant of the antebellum South or the Confederacy as a nation. The CSA as an independent entity did not engage in libertarianism to any meaningful degree. The Confederate government, for example, nationalized munitions/iron production in a way that only President Truman would try to do in the 1950s. The Confederate government also used the Conscription Acts of 1862 and 1863 to coerce private companies into fulfilling unwanted government contracts. The Confederacy was not a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist paradise, but a nationalized state which dealt with the issue of war in a terse and totalitarian way.       

I was about to mention the Conscription Acts, which were more far-reaching than anything passed in the Union under Lincoln. The government of Texas famously disputed with Jefferson Davis on the issue of not wanting their militia drafted into the Confederate Army, putting to the lie the notion that the old Confederacy "died of state's rights", except in the sense that it tried to override them and died anyway.

[tpfkaw]

Hi Einzige.

While your loquacious and scopious usance of the thesaurus is copacetic, I fail to see many instances of anyone claiming that the Confederacy was a minarchist or libertarian state.  The era of the men of silver may be over, but the men of bronze have not yet given way to the men of straw.  Some would say that the idea of secession or rebellion is libertarian, which is hard to argue against.  Rather, the main argument among libertarian observers of the Civil War is that Lincoln was an extremely authoritarian leader who used extremely violent and aggressive methods to establish an unlimited government over the territory of these US.

[Stardust]

I fail to see many instances of anyone claiming that the Confederacy was a minarchist or libertarian state.

Really? Your eyes must be losing their sharpness.  

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Considering that the Confederacy initiated force when it seized Sumter, it's actually extremely easy to argue against.  

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Those 'observers' commit the sin of omission (actually of willful selectivity) when they focus exclusively on the authoritarianism of one side, neglecting to mention Confederate conscription, seizures of silver and cotton, and so forth.

[tpfkaw]

I fail to see many instances of anyone claiming that the Confederacy was a minarchist or libertarian state.

Really? Your eyes must be losing their sharpness.

I'm not going to read through six pages but I don't see anyone claiming the CSA was libertarian or minarchist on the first page.

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Considering that the Confederacy initiated force when it seized Sumter, it's actually extremely easy to argue against.[/quote]

No, Lincoln initiated force by maintaining an armed military occupation on South Carolina's territory, then further attempting to trespass and resupply said armed military occupation through neutral, private territory.  By your logic anyone resisting an armed military occupation is "initiating force," which is laughable.  By virtue of being a state, the CSA of course initiated force against millions, but in the world of state-on-state conflict Lincoln most certainly initiated the force.

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Those 'observers' commit the sin of omission (actually of willful selectivity) when they focus exclusively on the authoritarianism of one side, neglecting to mention Confederate conscription, seizures of silver and cotton, and so forth.
[/quote]

Your arguments are not dissimilar to the periodical Polish nationalist trolls on a history forum I frequent, who believe that anyone who criticizes the policies of the interwar Polish government (military dictatorship, oppression of Jews and Ukrainians, etc.) is defending the Nazis.  The crimes of one party do not excuse those of another, especially in the case where popular history not only excuses the crimes of one side but actively pretends they never even happened.

[Stardust]

I'm not going to read through six pages but I don't see anyone claiming the CSA was libertarian or minarchist on the first page.

I'd expect no more from you.

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When you make a pretzel, you generally need a hot iron to twist the dough around into shape. In your case, I see that you've managed well enough on your own.

The notion that Fort Sumter represented an "armed military occupation" is absolutely tortured (and torturous) logic, considering the fact that South Carolina had welcomed it, and had in fact lobbied for its expansion during the Pierce Presidency. A military occupation requires the State so occupied to active consider it such.

Moreover, Fort Sumter existed as a Federal garrison long before Lincoln even was a blip on the national radar. The South Carolinians welcomed it then, particularly as a bulwark against Indian excursions. At what point did it become an "armed military occupation", praytell? Did it become one post facto, as soon as the South Carolinians said it did?

But someone on that link said it far better than I ever could:

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No, you see, that's exactly what I'm accusing you paleoconservatives of; you're really the only ones with enough of a vested emotional stake in the Civil War to want to whitewash either side - in this case, the government of Jefferson Davis.

[tpfkaw]

I'm not going to read through six pages but I don't see anyone claiming the CSA was libertarian or minarchist on the first page.

I'd expect no more from you.

You still have provided no examples of any self-professed libertarian (certainly no well-known figures) claiming that the CSA was libertarian or minarchist.  If someone does in that thread, then quote them.  Of course, that person would be mistaken.

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When you make a pretzel, you generally need a hot iron to twist the dough around into shape. In your case, I see that you've managed well enough on your own.

The notion that Fort Sumter represented an "armed military occupation" is absolutely tortured (and torturous) logic, considering the fact that South Carolina had welcomed it, and had in fact lobbied for its expansion during the Pierce Presidency. A military occupation requires the State so occupied to active consider it such.

Moreover, Fort Sumter existed as a Federal garrison long before Lincoln even was a blip on the national radar. The South Carolinians welcomed it then, particularly as a bulwark against Indian excursions. At what point did it become an "armed military occupation", praytell? Did it become one post facto, as soon as the South Carolinians said it did?[/quote]

It became one as soon as it started, what with actually as a matter of fact being an armed military occupation and all.  It became an unwelcome armed military occupation when the South Carolinians said it did (indeed, under libertarian philosophy, when any peaceful South Carolinian said it did, since it represented an imposition of force).  Even if the Hungarian parliament welcomes the Soviet bases on their territory and lobbies for their expansion, that does not give the Soviets license to maintain said bases indefinitely in any circumstance.  Of course, even Lincoln himself admitted that he was the initiator of force, as he recounted to his friend Orville Browning:  "He himself conceived the idea, and proposed sending supplies, without an attempt to reinforce giving notice of the fact to Gov Pickens of S. C. The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter-- it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could."

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[/quote]

Alright, so they did exactly the same things that Lincoln did.  They are, of course, a state and an unpleasant one at that.  It still does not excuse Lincoln's hyper-authoritarian regime.

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No, you see, that's exactly what I'm accusing you paleoconservatives of; you're really the only ones with enough of a vested emotional stake in the Civil War to want to whitewash either side - in this case, the government of Jefferson Davis.
[/quote]

Actually, the one who seems to be getting very emotional is you.  Nobody is claiming that the government of Jefferson Davis was admirable except in the general sense of support for secession or rebellion, nor does anyone claim it to be minarchist or libertarian.  You are literally arguing against a strawman that, for all intents and purposes, does not exist.

[Stardust]

You still have provided no examples of any self-professed libertarian (certainly no well-known figures) claiming that the CSA was libertarian or minarchist.  If someone does in that thread, then quote them.  Of course, that person would be mistaken.

No less eminent a figure on the libertarian Right than Thomas DiLorenzo has repeatedly endorsed the southern Confederacy as a model for future libertarian societies to emulate. Of course, DiLorenzo is also an absolutely orthodox Austrian, and we all know how intellectual consistent that milieu is.

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Negative. You are literally arguing for an ex post facto interpretation of events - a form of extreme moral, and even ontological, relativism that says "this is true when I say it is, and no more".

No, I fear that's not the way this works. And I fear you know it. The South Carolinians were perfectly happy inviting the Federal government to build Sumter in their State, with Federal tax dollars paying for its construction and stocking. Sumter was the State's property (and, yes, States can own property, and it can even be legitimate within the framework of a Statist system).

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Negative. A "peaceful South Carolinian" saying it does not make it true for anyone save himself. Otherwise it becomes an imposition of force on his fellow State citizens.

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But what it does do is absolutely undercut any claims of righteousness on the part of the Hungarians if the Hungarians ask for the Soviets to garrison their nation in the first place and then launch a sneak attack on the garrison.

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I defended Lincoln where, praytell?

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Where did I say they didn't?

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And neither does Lincoln's hyper-authoritarianism excuse that of the Davis government.

Understand? I'm not simply trying to defend Lincoln. Just asking for intellectual integrity and honesty, which is much in wanting among paleoconservatives.

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Sort of like when you accuse me of defending Lincoln, non?

[tpfkaw]

You still have provided no examples of any self-professed libertarian (certainly no well-known figures) claiming that the CSA was libertarian or minarchist.  If someone does in that thread, then quote them.  Of course, that person would be mistaken.

No less eminent a figure on the libertarian Right than Thomas DiLorenzo has repeatedly endorsed the southern Confederacy as a model for future libertarian societies to emulate. Of course, DiLorenzo is also an absolutely orthodox Austrian, and we all know how intellectual consistent that milieu is.

Well, please enlighten us by providing us an example of one of his repeated endorsements.  Shouldn't be too difficult, given how repeated they are.

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Negative. You are literally arguing for an ex post facto interpretation of events - a form of extreme moral, and even ontological, relativism that says "this is true when I say it is, and no more".

No, I fear that's not the way this works. And I fear you know it. The South Carolinians were perfectly happy inviting the Federal government to build Sumter in their State, with Federal tax dollars paying for its construction and stocking. Sumter was the State's property (and, yes, States can own property, and it can even be legitimate within the framework of a Statist system).[/quote]

It is an armed military occupation.  An armed military occupation is never legitimate no matter the circumstances under libertarian philosophy.  There are no ifs, ands, or buts involved.  States cannot own property since anything they "own" is stolen at gunpoint - theoretically they could own property voluntarily donated to them by private entities but even then it ought to be divided and provided as partial compensation to those they stole from.

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Negative. A "peaceful South Carolinian" saying it does not make it true for anyone save himself. Otherwise it becomes an imposition of force on his fellow State citizens.[/quote]

An armed military occupation is an initiation of force by definition, and therefore must receive the consent of everyone it effects, (including the "Indians" you referenced in one of your earlier posts, by the way.  Not that they actually count as "people").  Libertarianism is not the tyranny of the majority, it is the protection of the individual.

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But what it does do is absolutely undercut any claims of righteousness on the part of the Hungarians if the Hungarians ask for the Soviets to garrison their nation in the first place and then launch a sneak attack on the garrison.[/quote]

I am always amused by your statist impulse to conflate groups of individuals and states.  If any Hungarian individual is opposed to a Soviet garrison they are perfectly justified in "sneak attacking" the garrison, since they have had force imposed on them.  It does not matter at all what the prior actions of the Hungarian state were.

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I defended Lincoln where, praytell?[/quote]

If I were to say that the Bolsheviks were correct in starting the Russian Civil War, stated that the Bolsheviks ought to have won the Russian Civil War, state that I would have supported the Bolshevik war effort in the Russian Civil War, and recount all the crimes of the Whites as arguments for my positions, it would not be unreasonable to assume that I am defending the Bolsheviks.  Given your inevitable response, I will most certainly take the position that I believe the real-life outcome of the Civil War was the worst of all possible worlds, at least in the Northern states.  The best of all possible worlds would be if the whole murder-festival at the altar of statism could be avoided entirely, while the second-best would be a swift and relatively victory at the hands of the rebels, before Lincoln was able to install the present totalitarian regime.

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Where did I say they didn't?[/quote]

Alright, so you agree that Lincoln was a hyper-authoritarian who no libertarian should ever have supported?

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And neither does Lincoln's hyper-authoritarianism excuse that of the Davis government.

Understand? I'm not simply trying to defend Lincoln. Just asking for intellectual integrity and honesty, which is much in wanting among paleoconservatives.
[/quote]

You are arguing against nothing.  You are applying a belief that nobody believes to people you dislike and then claiming that makes them wrong.

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Sort of like when you accuse me of defending Lincoln, non?[/quote]

If you aren't defending Lincoln then what, exactly, are you defending?  I am defending peace.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Even if the Hungarian parliament welcomes the Soviet bases on their territory and lobbies for their expansion, that does not give the Soviets license to maintain said bases indefinitely in any circumstance.

But what it does do is absolutely undercut any claims of righteousness on the part of the Hungarians if the Hungarians ask for the Soviets to garrison their nation in the first place and then launch a sneak attack on the garrison.

I am always amused by your statist impulse to conflate groups of individuals and states.  If any Hungarian individual is opposed to a Soviet garrison they are perfectly justified in "sneak attacking" the garrison, since they have had force imposed on them.  It does not matter at all what the prior actions of the Hungarian state were.

If I understand your position, the most libertarian prominent person of the ACW era was John Brown.

Still disparaging Lincoln for his role in the Civil War is an odd position for any libertarian to take.  No matter his flaws, he didn't start a revolt for the purpose of preserving and extending the institution of human slavery.

[Stardust]

If I understand your position, the most libertarian prominent person of the ACW era was John Brown.

You have saved me a half-hour of typing, by capturing in a sentence what I was trying to get at in four paragraphs. If we accept that the initiation of physical violence is justifiable without the use of physical provocation, then we must accept that John Brown's revolt is permissible as a defiance against the Fugitive Slave Acts.

An even better example might be the 'Jerry Rescue', which would be not only perfectly libertarian under wormguy's rubric but also rather radically communist if we tolerate for a moment the notion that slaves were, in fact, property.

[tpfkaw]

If I understand your position,

You don't.

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Hmm, Harper's Ferry qualifies as libertarian since it was an attack on a state entity for the purpose of extending freedom.  Killing five people in Kansas most certainly is not.

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No, only the worst of tyrants would gleefully lead a state towards war.  Any libertarian understands that.

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No, he only devoted his entire political career to that effect.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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No, he only devoted his entire political career to that effect.

....

Please Elaborate.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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No, only the worst of tyrants would gleefully lead a state towards war.  Any libertarian understands that.

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No, he only devoted his entire political career to that effect.

If you seriously believe that, then clearly you never heard of the Spot Resolutions.  A major reason Lincoln was a one-term Representative was his repeated demands that Polk describe the exact spot on which blood was spilt on American soil, as Polk had claimed in 1846 when asking Congress to declare war on Mexico. (The Thornton Affair used by Polk to justify declaring war happened in disputed territory south of the Nueces River that had never been part of Texas when Texas was a Mexican state.)