Lincoln, Secession and Slavery

Lincoln, Secession and Slavery
by Tibor Machan
This article appeared on cato.org on June 1, 2002.

Over the last few years I have become obsessed with two questions: Was Abraham Lincoln a good American? And was he conducting his political life and, especially his presidency, in line with the principles of the Declaration of Independence?
When considering Lincoln, there are many statements from him that suggest that he believed what the Declaration of Independence says. But there are also quite a few policies he initiated that suggest that he was all too willing to compromise certain principles. Consider the following pro-Declaration statement from Lincoln: "The expression of that principle [political freedom], in our Declaration of Independence was most happy and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity."

Yet Lincoln has a blemished record of following the ideal of free government in his political life, as when he issued on May 18, 1864, the following order: "You will take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce ... and prohibit any further publication thereof.... You are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison ... the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforementioned newspapers."
Granted, during a war one might believe that there is little a president can do but lay aside certain principles, such as the writ of habeas corpus, even the rights of the First Amendment of the Constitution. But perhaps those principles are so basic that they should never be compromised, even during war.
On another point, it looks like Lincoln's belief in the union went against the Declaration's view about when people have the right to dissolve their government, a view he himself seems to have held at one time in his political career. In January 1848 he said: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better."
So, what then is so sacred about the American union? Why can't a substantial segment of the citizenry separate from the country and go its own way? These are important questions when we consider that Lincoln supported secession on flimsier grounds than does the Declaration of Independence. It requires "a long train of abuses and usurpations," which reduce a government to "absolute despotism," before secession is justified.
But then there is that undeniable evil of slavery, associated with the Southern rebels, an evil that would appear to make a great deal of difference to whether secession is something justified. And many of the leaders of those rebels made no secret of their support for slavery. They endorsed numerous out-and-out racist ideas, including the idea that blacks were less than human and that whites had not just the authority but even the responsibility to hold them as slaves.
Lincoln, oddly enough, apparently shared some of these views. In his 1860 inaugural address, he said: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Two years later, President Lincoln wrote: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union (Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862)." And in 1858 Lincoln had written: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
Still, when it comes to endorsing southern secession it is not enough to point out Lincoln's failures in his position on slavery. More important is whether one group may leave a larger group that it had been part of -- and in the process take along unwilling third parties. The seceding group definitely does not have that right. Putting it in straightforward terms, yes, a divorce (or, more broadly, the right of peaceful exit from a partnership) may not be denied to anyone unless -- and this is a very big "unless" -- those wanting to leave intend to take along hostages.
Seceding from the American union could perhaps be morally unobjectionable. It isn't that significant whether it is legally objectionable because, after all, slavery itself was legally unobjectionable, yet something had to be done about it. And to ask the slaves to wait until the rest of the people slowly undertook to change the Constitution seems obscene.
So, when one considers that the citizens of the union who intended to go their own way were, in effect, kidnapping millions of people -- most of whom would rather have stayed with the union that held out some hope for their eventual liberation -- the idea of secession no longer seems so innocent. And regardless of Lincoln's motives -- however tyrannical his aspirations or ambitious -- when slavery is factored in, it is doubtful that one can justify secession by the southern states.
Indeed, by the terms of the Declaration of Independence, secession is justified because everyone has the right to his or her life and liberty. Leaving a country with all of what belongs to one cannot be deemed in any way morally objectionable. Secession can be a sound idea; it comes under the principle of freedom of association, taken into the sphere of politics. It is a special case of the broader principle of individual sovereignty.
But secession cannot be justified if it is combined with the evil of imposing the act on unwilling third parties, no matter what its ultimate motivation. Thus, however flawed Lincoln was, he was a good American.
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Response to Tibor R. Machan’s “Lincoln, Secession and Slavery”
by Joshua Holmes
As a caveat before this response begins, I have the utmost respect for Dr. Tibor Machan. He is a scholar of unparalleled ability and has done much to slake the human thirst for liberty with research and work on freedom. As a refugee from occupied Hungary during the Communist regime, he is one of the “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free” who has made America a far better place for his presence, and his home a far worse place by his absence. Dr. Machan has recently joined the staff of the CATO Institute as an adjunct scholar (I invite correction if he has worked for them for a longer period of time). Enjoying his work as part of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, I expect to enjoy his work at CATO, as well.
Recently, he authored one of CATO’s Daily Updates on the subject of “Lincoln, Secession, and Slavery.” CATO has always been somewhat ambivalent on the subject of Lincoln: he is attacked on various occasions for starting the War Between the States, but he is upheld as a model of liberty and freedom for freeing the slaves. Dr. Machan’s article continues this schizophrenic analysis of Lincoln, which asks the question, “Was Lincoln a good American?” On the pro side, Lincoln’s war brought about the freeing of the slaves (which every libertarian would applaud). On the other hand, Lincoln overstepped the boundaries of the Constitution and started a war which led to the deaths of 620,000 Americans.
Working backwards, Dr. Machan answers the question “Was Lincoln a good American?” by concluding that the South’s secession was indefensible because it was kidnapping millions of slaves from a chance at freedom--remaining in the Union--and keeping them in slavery in the Confederacy for what would certainly be a longer period of time. On some level, I sympathize with the argument. Paleolibertarians such as Lew Rockwell romanticize the antebellum South and paint slavery as being not nearly as bad as suggested. But slavery is the ultimate violation of rights: the right to hold property in one’s own self.
My critique of his argument is twofold: One, his argument against Southern secession is also an argument against American secession from Great Britain and an argument against political secession in total; two, though Dr. Machan admits Lincoln is flawed, he calls him a great American even though Lincoln was a serial abuser of what makes America a better place than almost anywhere else in the history of humanity.
Dr. Machan’s argument is as follows:
So, when one considers that the citizens of the union who intended to go their own way were, in effect, kidnapping millions of people--most of whom would rather have stayed with the union that held out some hope for their eventual liberation--the idea of secession no longer seems so innocent. And regardless of Lincoln's motives--however tyrannical his aspirations or ambitious--when slavery is factored in, it is doubtful that one can justify secession by the southern states.
Dr. Machan is arguing that secession is no longer innocent because it takes along the slaves, most of who would rather remain within the Union, which held out greater hopes for liberty. This argument is problematic for him because it negates the morality of the American secession. Great Britain, from which these United States seceded in 1776, had abolished slavery within the confines of Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) in 1772 with the Somerset decision, which states unequivocally that a slave is free the moment he breathes the air of England. Great Britain would go on to abolish the slave trade within her empire in 1807 and to abolish slavery entirely within her empire in 1833, a full 32 years before slavery ended in these United States.
Many of the colonists considered themselves British subjects as deserving of representation as the Englishman within Britain’s Parliament. However, they were disobedient to the Crown in this matter. While they crowed about “taxation without representation” (i.e., they wanted American Parliament members in Britain), they were equally unwilling to submit to the authority of the Crown in matters eminently moral as they were in the eminently immoral. When these United States seceded in 1776, slavery had already been dead for four years within Great Britain, the model to which many of the colonists aspired.
This, of course, throws a negative light on American secession. When these United States seceded, they were kidnapping millions of slaves who held a much greater hope of the abolition of slavery within the British Empire than they did within these United States. On the same grounds as Dr. Machan’s analysis, this makes the American secession from Great Britain as equally indefensible as the Confederacy’s secession from these United States. In a more general implication, the whole doctrine of secession is diminished. The reasoning is fairly simple: In almost every secession, there will be people who wish to remain as part of the original political entity for some reason. Secession is a kidnapping of sorts for everyone who wishes to remain in the old political entity.
What Dr. Machan’s argument has inadvertently done is made a fine argument for the abolition of states themselves. Every action of the state is an action with supporters and detractors, with the detractors being forced to submit to the action. As libertarians, we boldly proclaim that aggressive force against life, liberty, and property is absolutely immoral and unjustified, as these rights belong to us as individual sentient beings. The actions of states impose on those of us who disagree with them, which actions are then backed with aggression against our natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Secession is a problem like any other state action, because it aggresses against some in order to appease others. In either case, there’s little difference to the slaves. Would you rather be a slave in these United States of America or the Confederate States of America? It’s like asking you whether you’d prefer to be run over with a Ford or a Chevy.
Secondly, Dr. Machan comes to the tortured conclusion that Lincoln is a good American despite his flaws. The larger question is, however, “What constitutes a good American?” Although America has been uniquely blessed with relative liberty even until now, there is nothing specific or special about an American that his goodness is of any different character than any other nationality. A good American is a good Englishman is a good Iraqi is a good South African is a good person. While I will not make a comic attempt at defining what makes a person good or not, as libertarians it is fairly safe to conclude that a good person would at least follow the Non-Aggression Principle. However, as Dr. Machan himself would admit, Lincoln did no such thing by initiating the War Between the States, a war that would lead to the deaths of 620,000 Americans and the destruction of the agriculture of the South. From my earlier argument, his argument about the immorality of Southern secession was dubious, Southern secession being no better or no worse than American secession or, indeed, any other unilateral action states impose on their people.
My conclusion is that Lincoln is not a good American, violating individual liberties, the Constitution--the highest law of these United States, and the Non-Aggression Principle. In Dr. Machan’s defense of the Union, he inadvertently indicts the American secession itself, since both America in 1776 and the Confederacy in 1861 were on the wrong side of the slavery question against their previous political entities, and illustrates the immorality of the actions of states no matter what. Rather than argue endlessly about the War Between the States, we should be pressing forward on strategies to bring liberty to us now. May the Union and the Confederacy alike become relics of history.