What’s Wrong with the World

I tend to follow M.E. Bradford on this -- I've read Dr. DiLorenzo's books on Lincoln, and I think they're well worth reading, if a tad on the strident side. Still, when I have ventured to offer Bradford-type criticisms of Lincoln on other conservative blogs, I have been jumped on with both feet, even to the point of being called a "slaver apologist," which I most decidedly am not.

I say this to demonstrate the fact that emotions run very high on this issue; those that have difficulties with the Lincoln presidency and such things as the way the North fought the War, the traditionally-taught reasons for it, etc., must be prepared to take some heat, and not just from liberals and neo-cons.

Yeah, but emotions run high on the other side, too. As Maximos rightly implies, Lincoln did not wear a tail and horns. Frankly, I rather get the impression that some M.E. Bradford types think he did. Not only is this rather tiresome, it's not good history.

Emotions run high on all sides. This is the reason I generally eschew the debates, as I eschew those surrounding Darwinism and ID. I've never found Bradford to be intemperate, while I do regard the efforts of neoconservatives to scotch Reagan's nomination of Bradford to the NEH as both political and uncouth. This is a fight which, in recent times, the neocons have initiated, by demonizing scholarly skeptics of Lincoln's administration and war policies, and by erecting a ludicrous democratist mythology on Lincoln's tomb. I don't exactly fault paleocons for responding as vociferously as they have been denounced, almost as though in show trials, though I take Havers' point that there exist subtler, more nuanced, historically-grounded approaches to the refutation of Jaffa-ite insanity.

Geesh, talk about intemperate: "Jaffa-ite insanity."

Come on. Jaffa's views, and those of his advocates, might be many things, but insanity is not one of them. The Crisis of the House Divided, is a beautifully articulated, compelling argued, and memorably insightful book, even if one dissents from some parts of it, as I do. It is not the home of political, historical, or Constitutional insanity.

I happen to be reading Crisis of the House Divided right now. As is frequently the case in this sort of emotional dispute, it bears little resemblance, so far at least, to the depiction of it drawn by its enemies.

One factor here is the fact that Jaffa himself, by all accounts, in addition to being a scholar of high caliber (which even many of his opponents acknowledge), is also a polemicist of considerable vigor, not to say intransigence.

When Willmoore Kendall came to review Crisis, in the early years of NR, he stated plainly his admiration for Jaffa's scholarly work, announcing something to the effect that he now agrees with Jaffa in including Lincoln among the great masters of English rhetoric. He also stated plainly, IIRC, that he accepts the basic picture drawn by Jaffa of the character of Lincoln's political philosophy on the main point at issue in his life, namely, human equality. The Jaffa position is summarized rather effectively I think in, of all places, a passage in Buckley's The Unmaking of a Mayor: Lincoln was a statesman of high quality, a rhetorician of nearly unmatched genius (Shelby Foote often referred to "that Lincoln music"), and perhaps the greatest American exponent of Natural Law; but he was also quite wrong about a lot of other things.

One area where I am firm disagreement with paleocons is on the question of Lincoln's wartime repressive measures, which I regard as basically mild and legitimate. In historical context -- that is, the context of a brutal civil war -- these measures were extraordinarily mild. Just exactly what would Lincoln's detractors expect him to do with Copperhead seditionists? How should he have reacted to the New York Draft Riots? Come on, people.

"I've never found Bradford to be intemperate..."

Me neither, although some of his 'followers' are. As you say, however, intemperateness on one side tends to breed it on the other, and it is one of those debates that usually generates more heat than light. This is unfortunate, as there really are things pertaining to the matter that could stand some discussing among conservatives.

I read an article some years ago, I thought by Bradford, that did seem to me _historically_ intemperate in implying that Lincoln was very bad for not, basically, marching all the Union soldiers out of Sumter. It was the old stuff one hears, I'm afraid, from paleos in other contexts about his "provoking" the war. In this case, the act of "provocation" was that (gasp!) he sent food to the soldiers in Sumter. I thought and still think that it is ridiculous to regard something like that as an act of war. And, yes, there is a letter where he apparently talks about how the South will look bad if it "fires upon bread." So what? Big deal. It would have been better to stick to discussing calmly the proposition, "Lincoln was constitutionally obligated to give up Fort Sumter when the Southern state seceded," and defend that proposition, rather than imply that one has discovered some "dirt" on him because he reprovisioned Sumter.

That article drove me farther than ever from the paleo position on the Civil War. Again, I"m not sure if it was by Bradford, and I don't recall where I've filed it, but I think it was. It was sent me by a paleo friend.

I don't have any references at hand, so I'm working from memory here, but my understanding of the events at Ft. Sumter is not so much than Lincoln 'provoked' the South into opening fire, but rather knowing that the conflict was inevitable, he maneuvered the South into starting it. The argument seems to run that even if Lincoln couldn't know for sure that the South would fire first, he assumed that they would, and proceeded on that assumption. I guess one could describe that as a provocation, but maybe that's a little too strong a word.

Yeah, that sort of "provocation" just doesn't bother me. If he wasn't going to back down and march out the troops, then indeed a confrontation was inevitable, and the fort had to be kept provisioned. So the prior question was whether he was obligated to give up the fort unilaterally, and that's the point to be discussed.

The way I see it, Lincoln wanted, indeed needed, a military confrontation of some sort with the Confederacy in order to gather and unify Northern support, but did not want to initiate the confrontation himself. Hence, Fort Sumter. This bothers me because I find it rather cynical and smacking of realpolitik.

It doesn't bother me so long as the specific thing he actually did was the kind of thing he was going to have to do anyway. That is to say, the fort was going to have to be supplied. I think the paleos try to put a sinister, cynical spin on it that sounds unpleasant until one says to oneself, "What, precisely, was the alternative to this supposedly cynical move? Was it not simply to give up the fort altogether?

The 'cynical spin' is simply that Lincoln wanted a conflict, but did not want to start it himself. The conflict was started under the guise of trying to avoid it. "All we were doing was trying to get food to our hungry troops!" Yeah, right.

I wouldn't necessarily attribute the wilder neoconservative democratist fantasies to Jaffa in The Crisis of the House Divided; and Jaffa is scholarly, if genuinely misguided on certain points pertaining to the nature of American institutions and ideals. He has, however, lent credibility to those fantasies elsewhere, and his acolytes are quite content to associate those views with his interpretations of the Civil War.

When Willmoore Kendall came to review Crisis, in the early years of NR, he stated plainly his admiration for Jaffa's scholarly work, announcing something to the effect that he now agrees with Jaffa in including Lincoln among the great masters of English rhetoric. He also stated plainly, IIRC, that he accepts the basic picture drawn by Jaffa of the character of Lincoln's political philosophy on the main point at issue in his life, namely, human equality. The Jaffa position is summarized rather effectively I think in, of all places, a passage in Buckley's The Unmaking of a Mayor: Lincoln was a statesman of high quality, a rhetorician of nearly unmatched genius (Shelby Foote often referred to "that Lincoln music"), and perhaps the greatest American exponent of Natural Law; but he was also quite wrong about a lot of other things.

...the question of Lincoln's wartime repressive measures, which I regard as basically mild and legitimate. In historical context -- that is, the context of a brutal civil war -- these measures were extraordinarily mild. Just exactly what would Lincoln's detractors expect him to do with Copperhead seditionists? How should he have reacted to the New York Draft Riots? Come on, people.

It would have been better to stick to discussing calmly the proposition, "Lincoln was constitutionally obligated to give up Fort Sumter when the Southern state seceded," and defend that proposition, rather than imply that one has discovered some "dirt" on him because he reprovisioned Sumter.

Once again, I agree with this formulation of the questions implicated in the unpleasantness at Fort Sumter. Answering them, however, would entail wading into the seemingly interminable dispute over competing constitutional doctrines. On the Southern view, presumably the Fort could no longer stand as a Federal outpost, as this would amount to a garrison in a free state outside the Union. On the Northern view, not so much. Furthermore, answering such questions entails reckoning, not merely with what respective parties believed about the American system, but with the assignment of degrees of culpability to those who erred in their interpretations and judgments. Assuming that the paleo view is correct, and given the widespread disagreement on the proper interpretation of the Federal system, how culpable were those in the North who were mistaken in their assessments?

I agree with you, Maximos, on how the debate wd. go. And I don't believe I'm qualified to say whether the Constitution allowed secession. I've seen decent arguments both pro and con. But at least it's a scholarly debate. There is the additional and also interesting historical debate over the probable results of widespread secession. From a prudential point of view, it may indeed have been a very dangerous thing for the remainder of the Union, with other enemies interested in taking advantage of the creation of new free states right around the diminished United States.

Rob G., "Yeah, right." But to my mind, it _isn't_ "yeah, right," given that they _did_ have to get food to the troops sooner or later. If it precipitated the inevitable crisis, then, well, it was an inevitable crisis. Nothing to be cynical about.

As for the idea that the slave states had a better Constitutional argument, I dissent, especially from their claim that this was about states' rights all along and not slavery. They themselves put the lie to their own claim. They did not object to federal intervention regarding slavery when the government passed the Fugitive Slave act in 1850. In other words, they didn't complain that this was a states' rights issue when the feds intervened to send the slaves back. They only complained when the feds tried to end slavery. The state's rights complaint was a ruse in order to keep them in the business of owning people, as if any government has the right to turn persons into a commodity, into property, to be bought and sold at will. That is not the right of any state.

Besides, it's highly debatable that states have rights. Rights attach to persons, not to states.

Conversely, the many in the North were content to invoke the rights of states in order to justify opposition to the Fugitive Slave Acts. Plenty of hypocrisy to go around.

Certainly collectivities have rights; this is foundation of much legislation: individuals may not perform action X, since action X is destructive of the community, and the community cannot licitly be required to enforce its own dissolution. Moreover, governments, and sometimes certain officers thereof, possess immunity from specified legal actions, which presupposes that collectivities possess rights.

'But to my mind, it _isn't_ "yeah, right," given that they _did_ have to get food to the troops sooner or later. If it precipitated the inevitable crisis, then, well, it was an inevitable crisis. Nothing to be cynical about.'

My 'yeah, right' doesn't pertain to the act, but to the way it was spun. Lincoln was nothing if not a politician. But I don't see a point in continuing to debate this. As you say, there are bigger fish to fry.

"As for the idea that the slave states had a better Constitutional argument, I dissent, especially from their claim that this was about states' rights all along and not slavery."

These are two different things, that while related, need to be considered separately. While I firmly believe the South had the right constitutionally to secede, they chose to secede to protect what we now consider an immoral practice. Very few paleocons, if any, will argue that secession was over states' rights alone. But this does not mean that states' rights arguments are simply a ruse for protection of slavery. An unbiased reading of the arguments shows that it's a both/and, not an either/or.

"States' rights" can simply be shorthand for something like "leaving such-and-such to the states" or "constitutional limitation of federal power," "taking the tenth amendment seriously," or whatever. It isn't necessary to make a metaphysical claim that states can have rights, not even to argue that secession was permitted by the constitution.

I think that RobG's "both/and" point gets missed as much on the paleo side as on the "mainstream conservative" side, though. At least, that's true in my experience. You try to talk to a committed pro-southern paleoconservative about slavery and at least at first you have a very hard time getting the conversation 'round to that. It's _all_ treated as being about secession, state sovereignty, northern aggression, and so forth. The fact that there was an Issue (very much with a capital I) that catalyzed all these otherwise rather abstract-sounding constitutional questions, and ultimately led to a constitutional crisis, just isn't in the picture. And I'm sorry to say that if one continues pushing, one often does run into outright defenses of slavery and a refusal to agree that it is wrong.

So there are what I can only call historical elisions and crudities on both sides, not to mention a very serious problem with slavery defense on the pro-southern side.

I imagine that there are some 'Lost Cause' type Southern paleocons of the sort of which you're speaking, but among paleo- and trad-cons in general, I can't say I've seen any of that. It certainly doesn't show up in Chronicles or Modern Age, for instance, and amongst the Northern paleos and trads that I know personally, while there are quite a few defenders of the South, there are no slavery apologists among them.

I had a good paleocon friend tell me that the only reason he had come to believe slavery to be wrong was because he had become Roman Catholic, and the church teaches that the chattel slavery that was practiced in the south is morally wrong. Otherwise, he said he'd be an "Aristotelian" on the subject.

One up for the Catholic church (say I, the Protestant).

Lydia,

I would say that before Vatican II the Church was much closer to the Aristotelian position than the abolitionist. The Protestants were far out in front of the Catholics on this issue, since the Church was always loath to undermine established authority.

BTW, I happen to know that some Catholics are still Aristotelians. But I'm not going to name names.

An excellent recent book on the theological issues surrounding the Civil War is Mark Noll's The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. And Harry Stout's Upon the Altar of the Nation contains some very good stuff on this subject as well.

I would say that before Vatican II the Church was much closer to the Aristotelian position than the abolitionist. The Protestants were far out in front of the Catholics on this issue, since the Church was always loath to undermine established authority.

You say that like it's a bad thing. And this wouldn't make the Church "Aristotelian" on the subject, would it? The Catholic Church, of course, takes the long term view on most things. And it strikes me that the formation of Christian conscience that led to the abolitionist movement was a thing that didn't exactly happen overnight, or in a vaccum. St. Paul, after all, wasn't so much the abolitionist either. "Slaves obey your masters," and all of that. Chesterton works this thesis rather well, that in the Catholic west, slavery wasn't abolished but it just gradually and steadily disappeared over the course of about a thousand years. The gospel is a slow leaven, not a tidal wave.

Slavery rearing it's ugly head again with the colonization of the New World, the Church, again, took the long view. She would rather have Christian slaves than heathen freemen, if the choice had to be made between the two. If you take another hot social issue today, "religious plurality and tolerance," the RCC seems to be a bit behind the times on that one as well. But I would think this view to be mistaken, if someone were to take it. I wonder if the abolitionist movement wasn't a precursor to the modern "social justice" Christianity that we see so much of today. As the Church is not Utopian, she doesn't go in for political revolutions, but rather the transformation of society and culture through inner conversion of the individual. And this takes time.

It's a question of speaking truth about what's wrong and right. The view that one can literally own another person as an item of chattel property is false. It isn't being revolutionary and un-conservative to teach the truth on that matter any more than it is being revolutionary and un-conservative to teach that a woman may not legitimately kill her unborn child. Slow leaven or not as far as means, the truth must be spoken as it relates to ends. And the abolitionist end as regards slavery, like the pro-life abolitionist end ("every child protected in law") is correct.

"in the Catholic west, slavery wasn't abolished but it just gradually and steadily disappeared over the course of about a thousand years."

Wilberforce would be surprised to hear it.

No question about that, speaking the truth. And I've no wish to try and take anything away from those who demonstrated a proper Christian conscience, and courage in the face of social opposition. But that, even, came in it's time, and it took a long time. I think the way George characterized the issue, as if the Catholic Church was somehow behind the trend and late to make a moral realization, or "Aristotelian" on the matter of slavery (as if the RCC would have been "closer" to endorsing the following, "the slave is a living tool in the same way that a tool is an inanimate slave (N.E. 1161b)," is misleading.

Wilberforce would be surprised to hear it.

Really? When did the importation of African slaves to Europe begin? I have been under the impression that slavery slowly but surely declined in Europe as the the Roman slave culture gradually gave way to feudalism and serfdom.

Ah, but Michael, England wasn't the Catholic West. It was the Anglican West. :-) Actually, there's a rather interesting point there: Wilberforce helped to abolish slavery not in the island of England itself but in the English empire abroad, and the slave trade carried out by Englishmen and English ships to, e.g., the sugar plantations in the English holdings in the West Indies. Slavery in England itself was abolished in the late 1700's (I can get the exact date) by a court ruling holding that English common law did not recognize the existence of slavery or ownership in slaves and that therefore whenever a man breathed the air of England (or some such phrase) he was free. Most of the slaves traded by the English at that time, however, never breathed the air of England, being purchased in Africa and traded directly to their destinations.

Ah, but Michael, England wasn't the Catholic West. It was the Anglican West.

Ah, you can't put one past Lydia. And she also surely knows that Wilberforce was Protestant as touching his sectarianism, and Catholic as touching his Christian conscience, natch.

Well, as far as that goes and for what it's worth, I believe the Portuguese were still major African slave traders long into the 19th century, as they had been for some centuries past. Interestingly, in the early 18th century, England won the "asiento" from Spain as part of the settlement at the end of the War of the Spanish succession (early 18th century). The asiento was a monopoly on the slave trade from Africa to the Spanish Colonies in South America. So neither the Protestants nor the Catholics were innocent there, but it appears that the English got going a bit before the Catholic Portuguese on stopping their involvement with the slave trade abroad.

I'm not really sure the Catholic-Protestant distinction made much of a difference in this bit of history, causally speaking.

Well, you've got the Catholic Church, and then you've got Catholics. In order to apologize for the otherwise abominable behavior of Catholic imperialists in S.A., I'd have to bring up the Jesuit Reductions. I think we have to realize that the Catholic/Marxist Liberation Theology movement in S.A. was a reaction to the perceived historic Church ambivalence to the bad imperialist goings-on down there for centuries, a perception that is not without historical warrant. When the imperialists came, the Church came with them. And it was, I suppose, difficult to smack the hand that gave you a ride across the ocean to Christianize the heathens. But the Jesuit Reductions were a bright spot amid a rotten period in European colonial history.

Yes, I know that Wilberforce was English and Protestant.

That resolute and courageous man did more to end slavery in his country and others in the course of one lifetime than did the RCC over the course of two or three hundred years in the places where it held sway. By changing Great Britain, arguably the world's most prominent nation at that time, Wilberforce turned the tide in various places around the world. So also, to an impressive but lesser extent, did Lincoln and the soldiers of the North in but 4 years.

Assigning credit for ending slavery to the RCC and the influence of its shamefully muted opposition to this colossal evil, and insisting that slavery just faded away inside the church's orbit, is tendentious and revisionistic in the extreme. In other words, I'm not simply saying that it's false to give such an explanation, I'm saying it's wicked -- and extremely angrifying.

With that kind of historiography at work, I suppose that in a few decades we'll credit the church and its influence for child abuse just fading away.

Dr. Bauman:

First off, if I've said anything to leave the impression that I'm interested in taking anything away from Wilberforce and his unquestionable moral heroism, it was unintentional. I take it that your field of historical expertise does not include the Middle Ages. Fair enough.

And she also surely knows that Wilberforce was Protestant as touching his sectarianism, and Catholic as touching his Christian conscience, natch.

You do realize that my tongue was deeply in my cheek with that one, yes?

I know almost nothing about the history of slavery in, e.g., Spain, Portugal, Austria, Poland, themselves in the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact, very close to nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if they, like the English prior to Wilberforce, kept slavery at a minimum _in_ the European country, or perhaps even (like England after that late 18th c. court decision) stopped it in the country itself, while continuing slavery and the slave trade in colonies abroad. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. Open slave markets in one's own country might be an unpleasant sight. But again, I really have no idea what the status of a slave was who breathed the air of Spain in the year 1800. It's an area of historical ignorance on my part. Nor do I know how slavery eventually became illegal in South America.

We shd. remember that such markets continued to our shame in America a goodly while after they were gone in the English colonies.

All Christians can say this much: Whatever dilatoriness there has been in the Christian West about recognizing the evil of slavery, it's nothing compared to the non-Christian non-West, where slavery continues to this day.

Lydia I thank you for your remarks, and they are in the spirit of what I am getting at. It is a matter of looking at the general character of medieval Europe as opposed to the Greco-Roman era. It's not only a matter of the general diminution of slavery during the Middle Ages. It's also a matter of the developing conscience, a Christian conscience mind you, that slavery was a moral evil, and unbecoming of a Christian society--which was precisely what was being built during that time, slowly, surely--the leaven of the gospel working its way into the hearts of men. It was a new idea, and it was a Christian idea. One can see the progress if one steps back and takes a long view. Since that age of Europe was filled with the Catholic sort of Christian, I feel justified in calling it a Catholic idea. Dr. Bauman has called the Catholic Church's opposition to slavery "muted," and while that word is prejudicial, it's not so far off the mark in general. It's just a reading from the wrong perspective, in my view. What impresses me is that there was indeed opposition. No, there was no sustained vigorous campaign to abolish slavery in the middle ages by the RCC. But I never said that there was. I said the opposite. But suddenly, as if from out of nowhere, a hero like Wilberforce rises to the occasion? Yes, he rose to the occasion, and yes he was a hero. But not out of a moral vacuum. A European Christian conscience, prepared for a thousand years by Catholic tilling of the soil, suddenly bursts forth in full bloom. It detracts not one iota from the abolitionist heroism to say so. But it does reveal a general fact of European history that is, if I may say add, shamefully unnoticed at this late date among the general public. Not unnoticed here on W4, of course. But elsewhere, to be sure.

Tendentious and revisionistic--by all means, yes.

that is, the context of a brutal civil war

Technically, not a civil war, since the South was not aiming for control over the Union.

The Catholic church was not responsible for the destruction of the financial, political, military, or social institutions of the ancient Roman Empire. That was done for them by others. Nor does it get credit for William Wilberforce, who had to overcome the centuries-long adverse effect of its moral lethargy regarding slavery.

Let me guess: Without the influence of the Catholic church and its endorsement of the hard sciences, we wouldn't have been able to land a man on the moon. And without the influence of JP2's Theology of the Body, Kobe Bryant wouldn't be able to jump a car.

PS:
Yes, I know Kobe didn't really do it. But since we're talking about imaginary events, like the Catholic church ridding Europe of slavery, it seems like an appropriate choice.

"I suppose that in a few decades we'll credit the church and its influence for child abuse just fading away"

Good to see one doesn't have to go to an Ivy League school to find this kind of sneering contempt for our spiritual patrimony.

"The Catholic church was not responsible for the destruction of the financial, political, military, or social institutions of the ancient Roman Empire."

So, the Church did not transform Roman culture, it's civic customs, or legal and political institutions? Love to audit that history course.

Technically, not a civil war, since the South was not aiming for control over the Union.

But they were aiming for the dissolution of the Union, which is certainly an act of belligerence. The notion that Lincoln, who was duty-bound to maintain the constitutional order, was the aggressor is, I believe, untenable.

Look, I just tend to think that both the rise and fall of the European slave trade between Africa and the New World was a blame to all parties concerned. Really, there doesn't seem to have been much of _any_ conscience on the part of _anybody_ for, oh, a couple hundred years, from the age of exploration through the beginning of the 18th century. Europeans picked up slaves (captured, enslaved, and offered for sale by their fellow Africans, I hasten to add) and traded them lucratively to plantations across the world. Everybody had hands bloodied in it. Neither a Catholic nor a Protestant conscience prevented the asiento in the early 1700's from being considered merely a prize of war. "Okay, we're negotiating the end of this war. We get the Spanish crown. You get the asiento on trading slaves to our colonies. Deal?" "Deal." The Methodists probably have more to brag about in all of this than any of us; the low-Protestant evangelicals probably have more of a claim on Wilberforce even than the Anglicans. But there were Methodists in America, too, and it took a lot longer in America for it to be ended. Myself, I don't see this as a Catholic-Protestant issue, either way.

But they were aiming for the dissolution of the Union, which is certainly an act of belligerence. The notion that Lincoln, who was duty-bound to maintain the constitutional order, was the aggressor is, I believe, untenable.

No, the Union would have remained, it just would have had less members. Lincoln was not duty-bound to keep states that were not willing to stay in the Union. That is what the right of secession is about. The office of the president is much more limited than that.

The Catholic church was not responsible for the destruction of the financial, political, military, or social institutions of the ancient Roman Empire. That was done for them by others.

Agreed. But the last thing in the world the Catholic Church would have wanted was to destroy those institutions. Rather, she wanted to transform them. She saved what she could, built them back, and transform them she did, and there became a thing called Christendom, and it was a Catholic thing.

And take it easy on Kobe--I'm a Laker fan.

Without the influence of the Catholic church and its endorsement of the hard sciences, we wouldn't have been able to land a man on the moon.

Oh yeah, I'll sign on for that one, sure.

Sorry for the consecutive posts. As for Lydia's recent characterization. I won't quibble with it.

"...since we're talking about imaginary events"

Let it rip Michael Bauman, since the discussion of imaginary events seems to be, along with a decidedly graceless lack of gratitude, your stock in trade. Wilberforce's achievement is celebrated here by Catholics. We have in previous threads acknowledged our debt for the many wonders secured by this Protestant nation to which we owe strong allegiance. Yet, you in an apparent bid to chill ecumenical warmth, show no such gratitude to the Church which sired the very civilization you claim to defend. In fact, you distort the historical record on everything from the sacrament of the Eucharist (transubstantion is a late medieval concept, in your words)to the role the early Church played in supplanting it's pagan predecessor.

It is not has if we can't have different viewpoints and argue strenuously over certain points. But, do we have to resort to revisionism and cheap shots about abuse to do so? You've managed to seize upon a thread regarding Lincoln and turn it into the kind o screed heard in Belfast, circa 1970. Honestly, I don't get it.

"No, the Union would have remained, it just would have had less members."

In historical terms, that may be a naive statement. America was relatively speaking a fledgeling nation. What would have become of the rest of the Union if a European power had gotten a foothold--either with cooperation or by piece-by-piece conquest--of a former state right on the borders, in our own hemisphere? America's sheer size, and the absence of belligerants on this continent, has always been, and continues to be, one of her most important defenses. I imagine Lincoln was thinking of the old proverb about hanging together or hanging separately.

Not that this answers the constitutional questions. But the idea that we can limit our historical gaze purely to the question of secession seems to me one of the errors on the pro-South side.

But the idea that we can limit our historical gaze purely to the question of secession seems to me one of the errors on the pro-South side.

The consequences of disregarding or violating fundamental law, on the grounds of meeting some hypothesized exigency, are usually grave, at least in the long-term. Surely, moreover, such arguments are the stock-in-trade of connivers, conspirators, ne'er-do-wells, and adversaries of the rule of law generally. There is a moral in there for contemporary times, too....

Perhaps, then, a constitutional amendment to clarify the matter could and should have been considered. The exigencies don't go away just because we are afraid someone will make wrong use of them. In any event, I meant to counter a shallow and naive paleolibertarianism that at least casually implies that there are no negative consequences to secession, even if the entire original country is torn into tiny pieces which can then be devoured by her enemies one by one. One moral for modern times that does not always get considered in just exactly this light is that not every secessionist movement is a good one. Should we support Quebec's secession? What about the secession of Muslim South Thailand? How about Kosovo's "secession"? I already know how you feel about the latter, but that shallow, "We're just asking to be allowed to go away in peace" libertarian omni-secessionism would force us to support any movement whatsoever that could bill itself as secessionist.

America was relatively speaking a fledgeling nation. What would have become of the rest of the Union if a European power had gotten a foothold.

1. The states that seceded had their own union.
2. What foreign threat was there in 1860?

England at least. Probably also Spain, with whom we had a subsequent war. It's an odd thought, but the English had burned Washington just in 1812.

A couple of things that I might introduce. First the British Abolition of Slavery was in 1833, the same year Wilberforce died I believe.

Second, Lincoln almost found himself in a war with England during the Civil War over British nationals held as spies. We were still in an uncomfortable relationship with Spain at the time as well. That makes at least two nations that were not our allies at the time.

I understand that Zachary Taylor was so angry over earlier threats of secession and Southern independence that he offered to bring an army down to the south and settle the matter immediately. Were it not for some bad food he may have started the whole mess earlier. All that to say that the obvious tension over the issue of slavery was percolating from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. How ever much Libertarians may hate the methods Lincoln used, the Southern States of that time were not a gentlemenly group of politicians that thought they could extract themselves from the Union through pleasant discourse for purely poltical or idealogical motivations. This fight had been building since 1776.

"Probably also Spain, with whom we had a subsequent war."

Yes, 40 years later we managed to "liberate" Cuba and annex the Phillipines, Guam and Puerto Rico at the Treaty of Paris. Pretty good haul and perhaps a template for a recent episode that is not likely to end in the same manner.

Oh look a Catholic/Protestant debate at W4...shocking :)

Actually this doesn't really seem count as one.

Mike d, I am endeavouring valiantly to prevent it from becoming one. I imagine Maximos wd. appreciate that, too.

Jay Watts--great minds think alike. :-) Europe was still the center of power at that time and still had imperial visions, and no Monroe Doctrine would have made much of an impact coming from a much-reduced United States of America.

Constitutionally speaking the southern states had a far better case in claiming the right to maintain the institution of slavery in perpetuity than they had to claim the right to secede. For if the Constitution had any intrinsic authority whatsoever, there certainly could be no constitutional grounds not to remain subject to its authority. Hence, Lincoln offered to the South to guarantee them their slaves but refused to allow secession. This seems to have been the proper course.

Lydia,

Absolutely.

Additionally, Van Buren was so concerned about relations with Spain that he tried to push the Mendes from La Amistad back into Spanish possession with only a nod toward due process. The Spanish sense that property of Spain was unlawfully taken was a real part of the Amistad diplomatic incident. That was 1839 - 1841.

In reply to thebyronicman at 8:16 PM, April 24

When did the importation of African slaves to Europe begin? I have been under the impression that slavery slowly but surely declined in Europe as the the Roman slave culture gradually gave way to feudalism and serfdom.

The truly large-scale importation of sub-Saharan African slaves into Europe had to wait until the Portuguese expeditions of the early and middle-15th century which enabled Europeans to cut out the Arab middlemen by going directly to the source of the gold, ivory, and slaves they had long purchased on the shores of the Mediterranean. The real impetus to the slave trade, though, was the exploitation of the New World, whose native people died off rapidly from the diseases and demands of European colonists, and who were replaced with Africans from Portugal's dominions. All the more so when Spain and Portugal merged in 1580 under Philip II. In one of history's ironies, Las Casas, advocate for the rights and welfare of the Indians, suggested helpfully that African slaves should be used instead. Throughout this process, the Church failed to speak with one voice, though, given the realities of the time, it's unclear that to do so would have made much difference. The adventurers who established the Spanish empire were a long way from Madrid, and couldn't really be made to do anything. The later Protestant powers of England and the Netherlands were equally, or even more, amoral when it came to trading in human flesh, though it is ultimately to English evangelicalism and English naval guns that the end of the Atlantic slave trade is owed.

Cyrus:

You clearly have a good grasp on the historical situation. With what I know of that period, I can say your exposition comports just fine with my own understanding, and what I've laid out in my previous posts. My main point of address was the so-called Middle Ages, not the modern colonial period. The Holy Roman Empire was Christendom, but there was much of the barbarian still in it. In fact you might say that it was a barbarian-thing-being-Christianized. Slowly, surely. To say that Europe was Christian is not to say that most Europeans (including Churchmen) were all good Catholics. But if we can't see a positive trend over this thousand-year period, we're just missing the obvious, in my view.

"...though it is ultimately to English evangelicalism and English naval guns that the end of the Atlantic slave trade is owed."

I'd be interested to hear more about where the English guns came in. Were they fighting the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the pirates, somebody else...?

I was interested to notice in reading up a bit on this recently that the English abolition laws evidently made it illegal for Englishmen to trade in slaves even when they were not on English-controlled soil at all. In that regard, it was sort of like present-day laws against foreign sex tourism and embodies the interesting (and I suppose a bit legally questionable) view that the laws of a country or even an empire can properly constrain the actions of that country's subjects abroad. But it worked out exceedingly well in this case, that's for sure.

Lydia, Wikipedia has an article on the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron which will point you in the right direction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act_1807 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron
I don't think the RN came into conflict with the navies of states so much as with independent merchants and slave-trading African princes.

My main point of address was the so-called Middle Ages, not the modern colonial period. The Holy Roman Empire was Christendom, but there was much of the barbarian still in it. In fact you might say that it was a barbarian-thing-being-Christianized. Slowly, surely. To say that Europe was Christian is not to say that most Europeans (including Churchmen) were all good Catholics. But if we can't see a positive trend over this thousand-year period, we're just missing the obvious, in my view.

On that subject, I don't feel on very firm ground. The War Between the States was a revolution in the American constitutional order, whether Lincoln intended it to be so or not. It was not a revolution for the most part favorable to the things paleoconservatives value. Even so, I have a very difficult time crediting much of the Southern apologia. At the base of Southern grievances, despite what the South's defenders say, is always slavery, and the Confederate self-image of an aristocratic society fundamentally different from the capitalism of the North is mere pretense. The South was as capitalist as the North, a thoroughly modern (for the time) society based on free exchange, a node in a globalized economy, and not incidentally dependent on the use of millions of people as machines with fewer rights than the lowliest medieval serf. As bad as the wage slavery of Northern factory workers was, at least they could leave, and even a serf had access to courts and had some rights that the seigneur was bound at least in theory to respect. The South as a whole was also as expansionist and aggressive as the North, or the United States as a whole. So I side provisionally with those who view the War as a tragedy and a divine punishment.

England at least. Probably also Spain, with whom we had a subsequent war. It's an odd thought, but the English had burned Washington just in 1812.

Half a century earlier. And Lincoln almost started a war with Great Britain by being at war with the Confederacy. So, if the status quo had been maintained, would the British have mounted another invasion of U.S. soil? I find it unlikely.

As for the Spanish-American War, should we talk about American jingoism being at cause?

For if the Constitution had any intrinsic authority whatsoever, there certainly could be no constitutional grounds not to remain subject to its authority.

Explain what you mean by intrinsic authority, because based on a surface reading of what you are saying, I'm inclined to say that it doesn't--any authority it has was given by sovereign states.

"So, if the status quo had been maintained..."

Nope. I don't view secession as, at all, a maintenance of the status quo. That, indeed, is a major part of my and Jay Watts's point. And if it happened more as time went on, the less of a status quo would be left.

By status quo I meant if no secession had taken place.

The Southern secession could have altered the status quo ante if and only if that status quo was an eternal Constitutional order, a national state ordained to exist in perpetuity, as in Lincoln's theory of the mere existence of national institutions entailing their permanence. The extra-Constitutionality of the theory is manifest, as it cannot refer to the actual, positive text, but must instead appeal to an antebellum edition of the theory of penumbras and emanations. At least the Southern theory could appeal to the historical conditions surrounding the ratification (ie., the Constitution was ratified in state conventions, each state projecting upon the Constitution and nascent union its own understandings and objectives, etc.), not to mention the prominence of overt nullificationism in the early decades of the Republic, by way of vindicating the legitimacy of withdrawal from the union.

I profess to be largely unmoved by protestations that a sundered union would be more vulnerable to foreign machinations. True, but immaterial to the interpretation of the nature of the Constitutional compact; in any constitutional order, it is insufficient to assert raison d'etat as warrant for any action, whether in prospect or retrospect, as the constitutional order itself is the matrix of legitimacy. In that light, if the constitutional order should create vulnerabilities, the proper course is to rectify them by the mechanisms specified in that fundamental law, rather than to create new tensions, lacunae, and centers of power outside the architecture of the system (for example, many of the powers asserted by the executive, which are indeterminate and almost undefinable). If circumstances should preclude that? Well, suffice it for my present point that we have had nearly a century and a half of that sort of governance, and most conservatives profess to be discontented with the results; the problems such governance strives to avoid are always largely hypothetical, while its consequences are all too tangible. For this reason, my preference is to deal with the concrete consequences of a specific manner of approaching statecraft, rather than the speculative consequences of hewing to the Constitution. In any event, I'd surmise that, both North and South being expansionist and jealous of their privileges, neither would succumb easily to foreign aggression. Spain was a declining power, Mexico has never been other than weak, and Britain's imperial gaze was largely focused elsewhere in the world. However, rather than pursue these hypotheticals down their rabbit-holes, let me simply emphasize that what did transpire was both tragedy and Divine chastisement. Lincoln said as much, and while I do not think it for parties to such conflicts to say so, he was correct.

The South was as capitalist as the North, a thoroughly modern (for the time) society based on free exchange, a node in a globalized economy...

This cannot be stressed with excessive frequency. The ferment of destructive creation was active in the South, as it was in the North; and if it worked more rapidly in the North, that is no cause for dismissing its action in the South. Neither an internal improver, on the Northern, Hamiltonian model, nor an economic globalizer be, say I.

The Southern secession could have altered the status quo ante if and only if that status quo was an eternal Constitutional order, a national state ordained to exist in perpetuity, as in Lincoln's theory of the mere existence of national institutions entailing their permanence.

And conversely, Southern secession would not have altered the status quo if and only if the Constitution was considered temporary and non-binding -- a highly debatable proposition.

At least the Southern theory could appeal to the historical conditions surrounding the ratification (ie., the Constitution was ratified in state conventions, each state projecting upon the Constitution and nascent union its own understandings and objectives, etc.)

Let me ask you this. Do you find anyone in those state conventions ever saying something like this: "Heck, let's just ratify the damn thing. If we don't like it, we can leave."

The federal government under the Constitution was never some a kind of league of nations. But the secessionists always seem to argue as if it were.

In my opinion, they would have a better case if they argued for Dred Scott and The Kansas-Nebraska Act. On second thought, that might be dangerous.

And conversely, Southern secession would not have altered the status quo if and only if the Constitution was considered temporary and non-binding -- a highly debatable proposition.

Temporary and non-binding are probably not the best terms in this context. Better would be conditional.

Let me ask you this. Do you find anyone in those state conventions ever saying something like this: "Heck, let's just ratify the damn thing. If we don't like it, we can leave."

Neither do you find anyone saying that the Constitution was intended to be eternal and indissoluble, which is one reason some of us still debate the question.

The federal government under the Constitution was never some a kind of league of nations.

No, as evidenced by the delegated powers of the Federal government. Neither, however, was the Constitution a charter for a sort of European Union-style national superstate, albeit some interpreters seem to argue as though it was.

"At the base of Southern grievances, despite what the South's defenders say, is always slavery, and the Confederate self-image of an aristocratic society fundamentally different from the capitalism of the North is mere pretense."

Part A of this sentence is correct. Part B is not, whether it was supposed to follow logically upon Part A or not. There is a tendency among Northern/liberal historians to discount everything the South says in defense of itself because of its fudging on the slavery issue. Slavery was no doubt the central issue, but this doesn't mean that unchecked industrialism, the tariff, the perceived imposition of Northern culture on the South, etc., were fabrications or "pretense." Hell, the Vanderbilt Agrarians were fighting against the same things in the 20s and 30s, long after slavery was gone.

It is tiresome to see so many conservatives buy into the arguments of our philosophical adversaries.

"States Rights" arguments have always been used by Southerners selectively. In slavery days, they could be dispensed with in the interests of slaveholders. In post-Civil War days, federal intervention was fine unless it touched on their beloved social system (aka "Jim Crow"), as witnessed by Southern support for the New Deal. All you hankerers out there for an agrarian economy have never actually worked on a traditional farm. The work is back-breaking and onerous. It became less so with the industrial revolution and labor-saving machinery. The South had no problem with industrialism for other people; in fact, they hoped to resurrect the colonial economic relationship with Britain (cotton for cheap British manufactures produced by child labor).

'"States Rights" arguments have always been used by Southerners selectively.'

As were 'abolitionist' arguments by the North -- as Maximos said above, there was plenty of hypocrisy on both sides.

"All you hankerers out there for an agrarian economy have never actually worked on a traditional farm. The work is back-breaking and onerous. It became less so with the industrial revolution and labor-saving machinery."

Really, a return to pre-industrial farming is not what agrarianism is all about. If you read the Southern Agrarians, or their contemporary heirs, you'll see this right away.

After reading every one of these comments, and contemplating the whole of the arguments presented here, the various philosophies and memories of the human race, I have become thoroughly depressed. I see now that peace is impossible. Moreover, the dream that every human being would seek out and love the Truth is equally absurd and untenable without some kind of a miracle. I think that's why man was made last, so that there would be a blessed silence over this beautiful world - kind of a quiet time before the storm of human history. I'm too tired for all of this. I don't have a strong enough constitution. I guess that means I should give up my studies in political philosophy. Law is certainly out of the question. I basically hate the world. But I thank you from the bottom of my heart for waking me up.

Good day.

C. Colella, there is certainly plenty of reason to be pessimistic, but not to despair. We can all work with some measure of hope at strengthening what remains.