Comments on: Ten Score and One Year Ago

By: Neverfox

Neverfox — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:55:54 +0000

By: Scalia Against Secession at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:03:43 +0000

[...] grateful hat tip to Jon Shea, who called my attention to this remarkable story in a comment to an earlier post. Share/Save Print « Beauty’s [...]

By: ryan yin

ryan yin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:44:14 +0000

Larks,
That’s a good point. It’s also one that Lincoln himself made when he made precisely that offer, so …

By: Jon Shea

Jon Shea — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:09:04 +0000

http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2010/02/scalia-there-is-no-right-to-secede.html

This is only tangentially related, but amazing enough to demand inclusion in the discussion. A man is working on a screenplay for a comedy in which Maine secedes. Part of the plot involved a showdown in the Supreme Court. The author of the screen play writes to each of the Supreme Court justices asking for advice.

Only Justice Scalia replies:

I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one Nation, indivisible.”) Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit.

I am sure that poetic license can overcome all that — but you do not need legal advice for that. Good luck with your screenplay.

By: Larks

Larks — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:04:53 +0000

I think if you multiply the market price of a slave by the number of slaves, it comes out at less than the cost of the war; it would have been cheaper to simply buy the Slave’s freedom, and saved much bloodshed and illiberality.

By: Owinok

Owinok — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:58:39 +0000

That slavery was centuries old and colored with racism means it was not going to end in many places with a party. So just because the US and Haiti ended it with wars does not mean that the leadership in other places was superior. That is unbelievably bad reasoning.

By: ScottN

ScottN — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:20:55 +0000

@A.L: It is historically established that Lincoln manipulated the Fort Sumter interaction to incite the South into firing first. He knew the strategic advantage of taking the first shot.

Regarding the accusation that the Lincoln quote about freeing the slaves was taken out of context, I don’t see it. That is a pretty self-contained quotation. How can you read it any other way?

After reading quite a bit about Lincoln and the Civil War, the fact that sticks with me is this: Of all the slave-holding nations, only the USA and Haiti ended slavery by war. Why? I say bad leadership on both parts.

For further reading, see:

http://www.amazon.com/Emancipating-Slaves-Enslaving-Free-Men/dp/0812693124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266333617&sr=1-1

By: ryan yin

ryan yin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:22:49 +0000

Sorry I accidentally hit “return” before I finished my attempt at a clever “rational truthseekers can’t agree to disagree” reference. But it wasn’t that clever, so shorter was probably better. Anyway, thanks for the argument.

By: ryan yin

ryan yin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:20:53 +0000

Fair enough. I don’t completely agree, but that seems reasonable. (Yeah, yeah, SL

By: Neverfox

Neverfox — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:18:37 +0000

It's not moving the goalposts to say that a) I don't know if that would really happen (whose to say how disruptive putting down revolts would be to the South's ability to form an organized front) and b) even if it's likely, it doesn't alter the correct moral move. If the South retaliated, then you defend yourself but it's a big stretch of the imagination (especially given the actual words of Lincoln and the political situation) to imagine that charging in was a massive slave-freeing operation, busting open cages and shooting anyone who resisted. If I'm forced to assume the legitimacy of the state for the sake of argument (and Lincoln's right to be commander-in-chief) then I might be persuaded that an offensive move could be legitimate if it had a very different nature, politically and militarily. In fact, Stephan Kinsella (from before) made the argument that war for the sake of the slaves, and carried out in a manner consistent with that end tactically, would be the right thing, even though he rejects the legitimacy of the state and the way such a force would be funded. As far as I can tell, he thinks that it resembles the likely libertarian voluntary response in enough facets to be good enough for us.