Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom (31 page)

This is sometimes the fate of crucial issues such as slavery. Discussion of them is banned. Those who spoke out strongly against slavery were frowned upon and suffered for it socially and politically. But they persisted in any case. Though there were some who resorted to violence to force release of slaves, many others helped protect runaway slaves to keep them from being forced to return to their owners as mandated by federal fugitive slave laws.

Still, the fundamental issue did not go away. You can
silence debate but you can’t sweep fundamental moral issues such as slavery under the carpet. And what is slavery? It is the presumption that one human being can literally own and control another human being, such that the slave can be worked, bought, and sold without the free exercise of individual volition. Extrapolating that idea in the macro sense, isn’t that also the case with a whole society ruled by a vast leviathan state? We got rid of the individual form of slavery and replaced it with a growing problem of another kind of slavery. Think of the draft, confiscatory taxation, laws and mandates against home schooling, speech controls, or any number of impositions of life and property, and regulations designed to control our social and business associations. There is a sense in which these can all be considered forms of slavery.

The issue of government ownership and control of society is also a moral issue. And no matter how much the elites try to shut down debate, the issue is not going away.

William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips stand out as champion opponents of no compromise on slavery, part of the more radical abolitionist movement. Their efforts were heroic examples of perseverance as they pursued their convictions for decades.

Wendell Phillips became known as the voice of the abolitionist movement while Garrison was known as the backbone. Phillips’s efforts consumed him for twenty-five years. He eventually achieved his victory, but tragically it was accomplished only with a ghastly and probably needless Civil War that took greater than six hundred thousand American lives. It was tragic that the abolishment of slavery was not achieved
as it had been in all other Western nations, peacefully. More attention should have been paid to John Quincy Adams’s tenacity to do it with a change in the Constitution.

Generally speaking, the abolitionists were supporters of secession. They wanted to separate themselves in the northeast from the slave owners of the South and let them deal with the issue. As Garrison said:

By the dissolution of the Union we shall give the finishing blow to the slave system; and then God will make it possible for us to form a true, vital, enduring, all-embracing Union, from the Atlantic to the Pacific—one God to be worshipped, one Savior to be revered, one policy to be carried out—freedom everywhere to all the people, without regard to complexion or race—and the blessing of God resting upon us all! I want to see that glorious day!

In this effort, the question was never raised that the states didn’t have a right to secede. Many people who favored secession also believed, and rightly, that the modern industrial state would eventually work to eliminate slavery.

Phillips paid a high price for his long effort to rid the country of the scourge of slavery. Throughout all of early America he was scorned and ridiculed. He never wavered in his convictions and saw himself as an agitator and reformer whose goal was to force the American people to face the issue of slavery as a moral imperative.

Though others supported this cause, Wendell Phillips
demonstrated how one individual with determination and truth on his side can influence an entire nation. His unyielding efforts based on strong beliefs in pursuing justice are an example of character rarely found in today’s society.

Wendell Phillips, though not frequently recognized as an important figure in our history, should inspire anyone who seeks the plain truth about a proper political system. Garrison is much better known for his antislave efforts than is Wendell Phillips, and he served a great role, but Phillips delivered the message and inspired the masses.

Most importantly, Wendell Phillips knew the importance of the agitator. The agitator proselytizes; he does not write the laws. The purpose of the agitator is to change people’s opinion so that great and significant social change can be achieved. Elimination of slavery from this continent, after more than 200 years, was a goal he clearly understood and sought.

The role of the strategic planner for change in the social order is completely different from the chicanery of the politician forced to accommodate both sides, speak in double-talk, and move ever so slowly in one direction or another. The politician tinkers around the edges while the revolutionaries—either good or evil—work to change the fundamentals of the political structure once the agitators have prepared the way.

Those who agitate for change deal with precise ideas, not fuzzy compromise. This appeals to common sense, personal conscience, and fairness. This approach is ignored when conditions seem to be stable, but when a crisis hits, the views of those who argued for change are suddenly listened to. Quiescent
years can go by, requiring great patience and determination and education.

Phillips, interestingly enough, in talking about this subject, used as an example reformer and agitator Richard Cobden, who sought free trade as a tool of peace and worked a long time for the repeal of the corn laws and the promotion of free trade. Success came when Prime Minister Robert Peel succeeded in passing the laws necessary to do exactly this.

Ludwig von Mises qualifies for similar praise. He never yielded to the establishment that scorned him and punished him for his views. Yet today, he is a hero to millions for his willingness to stand firm on his principled defense of the free market and explain how it benefits the masses.

We now live in an age where the current system is being challenged for philosophic and practical reasons. Its failure is becoming more evident every day. There have been plenty of agitators and reformers for decades expecting and warning of lowering living standards brought on by regimentation of the social and economic order. They have offered the practical alternative of freedom. Fortunately, their voices are growing louder and there’s reason to be hopeful that our times will prompt a sea change in Americans’ understanding of what the role of government ought to be.

I certainly agree that every so often, after long periods of apathy, when the people, driven by the architects of fear, have plunged into dependency, agitators have their day. That which had been ignored and scorned bursts forward with sudden credibility and offers an alternative to the failed ideas that bred and nourished tyrannical government.

Though great agitators for liberty in past centuries have struggled to keep the spirit alive, the climate looks quite healthy for significant and fruitful social and political changes to come out of hibernation. We all need to become agitators for liberty, else we end up in a permanent state of slavery.

T
echnically, states don’t have “rights”—only individuals do. But states are legal entities that are very important in the governmental structure of the United States, of course. They serve as a kind of bulwark against an overweening federal government. The Constitution was written with an intent to protect the independence of each state by establishing for the states a very limited relationship to the federal government. States do have a “right” under the Tenth Amendment to retain all powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government by the Constitution. Systematically over the years, this understanding has been destroyed.

A defense of a “states’ rights” today generally elicits the charge that this is nothing more than a plot to restore some kind of ancient servitude. This claim really is preposterous. Jefferson believed in states’ rights. Even Hamilton had to pay lip service to the idea. An attack on the very notion of states’ rights is ultimately an attack on the form of government that the Founders established.

Though the Constitution made an effort to protect the
sovereignty of the states with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, its effort obviously failed. This is more a reflection of the stewards of liberty’s efforts over the course of our history than because of a poorly written Constitution. No words on paper can prevent a despot from displacing freedom.

Even today and with the imperfections of the Constitution, if we had only individuals of high character who showed the wisdom of the Founders, our liberties, our security, and our prosperity would not be under serious attack. Of course, looking back, a few clarifications placed in the Constitution (clarity, for example, that the government may never extend beyond its enumerated powers) might have diminished today’s nitpicking over what the original intent was. But when the prevailing attitude of a current generation is to promote centralization of government, not even improved wording in the Constitution can make a difference.

A growing number of Americans are disgusted and frightened by current conditions, both economic and political. Talk is now frequently heard about interposition, nullification, a new Constitutional Convention, and even secession. Believers in a strong central government are quick to discredit any such talk as preposterous, kooky, and driven by dangerous motivations. As the economy continues to deteriorate and our freedoms are further undermined, there will be a lot more talk about getting out from under the heavy hand of the central government and its failures.

Those who charge the defenders of state sovereignty as being un-American and unpatriotic reflect an ignorance of history and the Constitution. Those same individuals did not condemn the breakup of the Soviet Union, nor do they
ridicule the principle of self-determination. But as soon as it’s argued that the states deserve the right to reject unconstitutional federal mandates through nullification or interposition, mayhem breaks out.

These principles have been used throughout our history to some degree. Fugitive slave laws were frequently ignored by law enforcement officials in some nonslave states, and rightly so. Juries were known to find innocent, regardless of the evidence, those charged with protecting slaves who had fled slave states.

Refusing to enforce bad laws against American citizens by “oath keepers” would have been helpful and moral during the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and ’60s. The beatings and arrests couldn’t have occurred if law enforcement officials refused to comply. If the military personnel involved in the Kent State killings on May 4, 1970, had refused to participate in the shooting, a much better outcome might have resulted.

Most of the Founders were supportive of nullification and interposition to protect the independent nature of the states. Many believed that if the state legislatures knew that the option of nullification, interposition, and even secession would be met with a civil war killing more than six hundred thousand Americans, the Constitution would have never been ratified.

Both Jefferson and Madison obviously assumed that nullification was permitted under the Constitution. Jefferson’s defense of nullification in the Kentucky Resolution of 1799 was similar to but stronger than Madison’s view expressed in the Virginia Resolution of 1798. Even with these early confirmations that this was a legitimate process for limiting federal government’s abuse of power, it never became a generally accepted doctrine.

Nullification was used by the South Carolina legislature in 1832 in strong objection to the viciously unfair Tariff Act of 1828. If the ordinance had been entirely successful in nullifying the act that became known as the Tariff of Abominations, the odds of avoiding the bloody Civil War would have been enhanced. The tariff caused prices of manufacturing goods to soar and imports from Britain to disappear. This, in turn, made it more difficult for the British and others to buy Southern cotton. These were good reasons for the South to be furious, and thus the conflict between North and South escalated.

The Founders and the doctrine of common law provided the ultimate obstacle to unconstitutional laws passed by the House and the Senate, signed by the President, and permitted by the courts. That is the principle of jury nullification. This too has unfortunately been undermined. No longer are juries notified that they have a right to judge both the facts and the laws in rendering a verdict. Judges now can remove jurors if they believe in this right, or a person can be prohibited from serving if it becomes known that a potential juror believes in the principle.

Why is there such serious talk about these issues dealing with state sovereignty? It’s not just an academic discussion; it’s a serious practical debate on how we got ourselves into such a mess and whether or not the federal government is about to implode with an unbearable debt burden. People no longer believe promises of a free lunch. A refreshing review of our history and the original intent of the Constitution regarding a monstrous central government is occurring. Citizens are now questioning our government’s authority to make war at will, tax and borrow endlessly, and print money when it’s needed.
The debate is healthy and it’s not just a “Southern” thing. Even some Vermonters, as they did early in our history, are participating in the discussion of state sovereignty.

The odds are near zero that legislation will be passed to clarify and endorse the state’s authority to reject laws passed by the federal government that are unconstitutional and that injure state sovereignty. No constitutional amendment will be passed to explicitly permit nullification or secession. The Civil War was fought to keep all states under the thumb of a powerful central government. Yet through a new relationship evolving out of current political and economic chaos, something approaching this goal is about to come.