WEBVTT NOTE Secession and the Moral Compact 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.700 It's very much of a pleasure to be here from the Citadel of the North and I want to thank 2 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:13.400 Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute for giving me the invitation to come and I also want 3 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:19.560 to recognize my father Walter Riddle for making the drive up from Florida to attend the conference 4 00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:20.560 with us. 5 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:27.600 I also want to say before I get into the paper that having met so many of you from all parts 6 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:43.640 The idea of secession and the related doctrine of nullification or state interposition are 7 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:49.480 part of the historical and theoretical dispute about original intent. 8 00:00:49.480 --> 00:00:55.000 They constitute serious questions, whether secession or interposition are included some 9 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:01.000 in some way, in the constitutional compact, whether they are part of the intent of the founders, 10 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:08.000 whether they are part of the constitution in spirit, if not in letter, even whether secession may become legitimate 11 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:15.000 in the context of a constitution that is no longer constitutional, if judged by original intent. 12 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:22.000 Central, of course, is the concept of American federalism, the division of authority and function between 13 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:30.000 between and amongst the national government and the various state governments is at the very heart of our most pressing constitutional concerns. 14 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:44.000 Moreover, American federalism is the conceptual framework secessionist and interpositionist doctrines must employ if we are to consider them part of the constitutional legal or moral compact. 15 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:53.000 Historically speaking, the locus of power vis-à-vis the states and federal government has shifted in practical and juridical terms. 16 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:59.000 In general, the locus of power has shifted over time from the states to the federal government. 17 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:06.000 In light of this, nullification and secession may become constitutionally legal at one point, 18 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:13.000 or may have been constitutionally legal at one point, say before the Civil War, even if they might no longer be. 19 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:23.000 A plausible argument could have it the other way, since the Constitution's own amendment process, as well as revolution or civil war, can change the nature of the Compact itself. 20 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:33.000 It is generally conceded that changes to the Constitution since the Civil War have not enlarged the legal basis for nullification or secession, at least from what it was already. 21 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:40.000 Independently, however, revolution, secession or interposition could be morally just. 22 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:45.800 For if we admit of the higher law, which I do here, at least for the sake of argument, 23 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:51.000 the higher law which justified risking the Union as it was in order to contain slavery, 24 00:02:51.000 --> 00:03:01.000 then we must admit of the higher law which may again justify risking the Union as it is or may become in order to resist enslavement. 25 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:08.000 Now, as in 1850, the words of William Henry Seward are appropriate. 26 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.700 There are laws of various sorts which regulate the conduct of men. 27 00:03:11.700 --> 00:03:15.700 There are constitutions and statutes, codes mercantile and codes civil. 28 00:03:15.700 --> 00:03:21.300 But when we are legislating for states, all these laws must be brought to the standard of the laws of God 29 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:25.900 and must be tried by that standard and must stand or fall by it. 30 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:31.900 Hence, one may argue the merits of secession from a legal standpoint or from an absolute moral standpoint. 31 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:36.900 The two standpoints might not be identical now, even if they once had been. 32 00:03:36.900 --> 00:03:43.660 In terms of the moral standpoint, secession is always a considered alternative for the thinking freeman, 33 00:03:43.660 --> 00:03:49.540 at least as a last resort, assuming he would maintain his freedom. 34 00:03:49.540 --> 00:03:55.620 Even if the so-called right wing controls Leviathan, it is of small consolation, 35 00:03:55.620 --> 00:04:00.500 little comfort whether the boot on one's back is red or true blue in color. 36 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:05.860 Federal power simply cannot properly address or acknowledge the disparities that make us human, 37 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:08.140 the distinctions that let us live. 38 00:04:08.140 --> 00:04:13.660 Only the acknowledgement of a dual federal and state sovereignty produces a situation 39 00:04:13.660 --> 00:04:17.860 in which liberal and conservative changes compete with each other on equal footing 40 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:21.740 and do not subvert the whole edifice of constitutional government. 41 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:28.660 So-called cooperative federalism is fine, so long as it is voluntary and non-coercive. 42 00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:31.700 Cooperation does not mean co-option, however, 43 00:04:31.700 --> 00:04:36.640 Nor may existential cooperation between federal and state levels of government 44 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:41.380 change the constitutional basis of dual sovereignty. 45 00:04:41.380 --> 00:04:46.140 The founders believed in a minimalist state and the ultimate sovereignty of the people. 46 00:04:46.140 --> 00:04:49.020 They conceived of government as a necessary evil. 47 00:04:49.020 --> 00:04:52.780 The founders did not value government per se, they valued freedom. 48 00:04:52.780 --> 00:04:55.500 They did not value what government could do for them, 49 00:04:55.500 --> 00:05:00.820 but what they could do for themselves in an environment characterized by ordered liberty. 50 00:05:00.820 --> 00:05:06.500 Government was simply needed to protect the maximum possible extent of what they valued most, 51 00:05:06.500 --> 00:05:13.380 their liberty, liberty to pray and to praise, to minister and to enjoy fellowship, to tithe and to serve, 52 00:05:13.380 --> 00:05:16.900 liberty to work out one's own salvation with fear and trembling, 53 00:05:16.900 --> 00:05:20.660 and to fulfill the purpose of life as if there were one, 54 00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:27.060 liberty to love, to wed, to raise children in safety, to nurture and to pass on a goodly inheritance, 55 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:31.620 Liberty to Work, to Build, to Produce, to Achieve and to Succeed. 56 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:36.260 The word Federalism comes from a Latin root meaning Covenant. 57 00:05:36.260 --> 00:05:40.460 The Founding Fathers recognized the way people think and relate to one another 58 00:05:40.460 --> 00:05:45.500 is the most fundamental feature in the whole process of actual governance. 59 00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:49.700 Hence, Federalism was and is more than just a form. 60 00:05:49.700 --> 00:05:54.700 It evidences the Founder's most basic assumption concerning human affairs, 61 00:05:54.700 --> 00:05:57.940 namely, its grassroots nature. 62 00:05:57.940 --> 00:06:02.980 Localities create covenantal relationships with God and with each other, 63 00:06:02.980 --> 00:06:06.980 which preclude all but a limited role for governments. 64 00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:10.380 Moreover, Tocqueville reached the same conclusion 65 00:06:10.380 --> 00:06:12.500 and said that covenantal relationships 66 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:17.100 comprise the strength of American-style democracy. 67 00:06:17.100 --> 00:06:19.900 While the Civil War may have altered the Federal-State relationship, 68 00:06:19.900 --> 00:06:23.500 it did not justify social revolution beyond the terms of peace 69 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:25.980 or Actual Constitutional Amendment. 70 00:06:25.980 --> 00:06:29.540 For instance, the Civil War did not change natural law, 71 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:33.700 common American Republican heritage, including the right to revolution, 72 00:06:33.700 --> 00:06:37.460 founders' intent, nor most of the original compact. 73 00:06:37.460 --> 00:06:41.700 As regards Federalism, the most basic mechanism for vertical check and balance, 74 00:06:41.700 --> 00:06:47.780 it is absolutely crucial to the operation of the Constitution itself as a moral compact. 75 00:06:47.780 --> 00:06:52.860 American Federalism may not be said to have undergone fundamental change on every issue. 76 00:06:52.860 --> 00:06:58.780 If anything, the existential fact that the 30 years following Reconstruction were laissez-faire 77 00:06:58.780 --> 00:07:05.140 indicates that the Federal Government gained no superordinate role over the states by virtue of the war alone. 78 00:07:05.140 --> 00:07:10.580 The existential fact that the courts did not apply the Bill of Rights to states until the 1930s 79 00:07:10.580 --> 00:07:14.540 and then only selectively through the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause 80 00:07:14.540 --> 00:07:19.580 indicates the application is of much more recent origin than the Civil War. 81 00:07:19.580 --> 00:07:26.620 Courts did not even start to apply the 14th Amendment to activities by private companies and individuals until the 1950s. 82 00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:35.100 Indeed, liberal historians used the Civil War to exaggerate constitutional change and an associated social revolution 83 00:07:35.100 --> 00:07:43.260 in order to validate subsequent changes they approved and avoid defense of the measures on substantive constitutional grounds. 84 00:07:43.260 --> 00:07:50.620 The orbits of respective sovereignty between state and federal levels remain inviolable. 85 00:07:50.620 --> 00:07:56.460 Outside the particulars of revolutionary change, at least in terms of constitutionality, 86 00:07:56.460 --> 00:07:59.620 nothing new may contradict anything old. 87 00:07:59.620 --> 00:08:03.900 Certainly, it is possible for the moors of a people to evolve, 88 00:08:03.900 --> 00:08:09.860 and a society may voluntarily change the laws under which it lives to reflect the changing norms. 89 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:15.140 The original position of norms and range of acceptable conduct, however, 90 00:08:15.140 --> 00:08:20.500 may not become unconstitutional per se within the orbit of state sovereignty, 91 00:08:20.500 --> 00:08:25.300 unless there is a change to the Constitution through revolution or bona fide amendment. 92 00:08:25.300 --> 00:08:29.540 This must be so, given that scheme of American federalism 93 00:08:29.540 --> 00:08:33.700 in which states represent separate societies of people. 94 00:08:33.700 --> 00:08:38.260 Indeed, the Constitution institutionalizes the co-equal status of states 95 00:08:38.260 --> 00:08:43.260 states as separate societal units and polities without regard to population. 96 00:08:43.260 --> 00:08:47.260 For instance, representation of the Senate is equal for big and small states alike. 97 00:08:47.260 --> 00:08:53.260 The fact that the original constitutional compact conceived of states as possessing power 98 00:08:53.260 --> 00:08:57.260 to determine socio-economic issues as fundamental as slavery 99 00:08:57.260 --> 00:09:03.260 testifies to the competency and legitimacy of state action on practically every matter 100 00:09:03.260 --> 00:09:07.260 not since removed by war or amendment from state purview. 101 00:09:07.260 --> 00:09:24.260 The 13 original states represented 13 different societies, Republican in form, but disparate in terms of the degree to which various rights were protected, in terms of crimes and punishments, in terms of how government impacted the everyday lives of the people. 102 00:09:24.260 --> 00:09:33.260 The societies held different values, and Congress and the courts recognized that different values required different sets of laws in every state. 103 00:09:33.260 --> 00:09:39.780 Moreover, the states joined the Union to better ensure their viability and self-determination, 104 00:09:39.780 --> 00:09:43.900 meaning the ability to engage in voluntary social evolution. 105 00:09:43.900 --> 00:09:49.140 No state ever voluntarily joined the Union to destroy what was unique about itself. 106 00:09:49.140 --> 00:09:52.820 States joined to enhance or secure their uniqueness 107 00:09:52.820 --> 00:09:56.340 and to improve social conditions voluntarily over time. 108 00:09:56.340 --> 00:10:01.740 If anything, joining the National Political Union was meant to ensure societal independence. 109 00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:04.540 States were supposed to govern themselves differently 110 00:10:04.540 --> 00:10:07.940 because their people and their circumstances differed. 111 00:10:07.940 --> 00:10:11.140 This was also true as the nation expanded westward. 112 00:10:11.140 --> 00:10:15.440 Only in the 20th century has existential disparity of laws 113 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.640 and some values been challenged by the federal government 114 00:10:18.640 --> 00:10:22.640 through a reinterpretation of the Constitution. 115 00:10:22.640 --> 00:10:28.540 It stands to reason that difference is the stuff of Madisonian federalism. 116 00:10:28.540 --> 00:10:30.540 Without it, there is no federalism. 117 00:10:30.540 --> 00:10:35.820 and every difference of opinion ought not be regarded as a difference of Republican principle. 118 00:10:35.820 --> 00:10:40.220 Remember, the states had to ratify the Constitution and it was the Bill of Rights 119 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:45.940 that had been the most important Federalist concession to gain anti-Federalist support. 120 00:10:45.940 --> 00:10:49.940 The people wanted the benefits of a stronger central government. 121 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:55.020 They were skeptical, however, lest that new Federal government grow too powerful 122 00:10:55.020 --> 00:10:58.780 and threaten the liberty they already enjoyed in the states. 123 00:10:58.780 --> 00:11:05.780 On this basis, if it were ever constitutional in states for children to pray in public schools, 124 00:11:05.780 --> 00:11:10.780 then it remains constitutional, borrowing a change to the Constitution itself. 125 00:11:10.780 --> 00:11:16.380 This is true even if all 50 states change their laws to make it illegal to do so. 126 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:23.180 Likewise, if it were ever constitutional for separate state societies to make laws regulating abortion, 127 00:11:23.180 --> 00:11:28.180 then it is ever constitutional for them to do so unless the Constitution is amended 128 00:11:28.180 --> 00:11:31.140 or a revolution ensues for that purpose. 129 00:11:31.140 --> 00:11:35.780 Punishment that was neither cruel nor unusual under the original constitution 130 00:11:35.780 --> 00:11:38.020 may not become unconstitutional 131 00:11:38.020 --> 00:11:40.340 simply because the mores of the people change 132 00:11:40.340 --> 00:11:43.700 and local laws regulating punishments change. 133 00:11:43.700 --> 00:11:50.820 In other words, people must be constitutionally able to change their mores back again. 134 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:56.980 A state must be able to constitutionally revert to a previously constitutional position. 135 00:11:56.980 --> 00:12:00.480 It is absurd to think that if George Washington were here today, 136 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:04.580 he would be unable to constitutionally do half the things he could have done 137 00:12:04.580 --> 00:12:07.540 when the Constitution read exactly the same. 138 00:12:07.540 --> 00:12:12.680 Mind you, I am not suggesting that laws might not or should not be different, 139 00:12:12.680 --> 00:12:15.180 but laws should not have to be different 140 00:12:15.180 --> 00:12:19.180 if constitutional amendment does not follow the law. 141 00:12:19.180 --> 00:12:23.580 The Civil War did not change our inherently conservative system of government 142 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:26.180 based on a written Constitution. 143 00:12:26.180 --> 00:12:33.700 The Tribunal of Arms settled two questions that had plagued the country from its inception, slavery and secession. 144 00:12:33.700 --> 00:12:37.180 Northern victory meant that slavery was abolished. 145 00:12:37.180 --> 00:12:45.340 In addition, secession as a legal, peaceful alternative was denied within the organic framework of the Constitution. 146 00:12:45.340 --> 00:12:49.780 Emancipation was quickly validated by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. 147 00:12:49.780 --> 00:12:56.900 Ironically, no similar constitutional validation exists concerning secession one way or another. 148 00:12:56.900 --> 00:13:02.420 For that matter, no constitutional mention exists regarding the closely related concept of nullification, 149 00:13:02.420 --> 00:13:04.700 also known as state interposition. 150 00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:09.900 In addition, the Tribunal of Arms, of course, always hears an appeal. 151 00:13:09.900 --> 00:13:17.060 Ironically, the Constitution and Federal Government have recognized legal secession under certain circumstances 152 00:13:17.060 --> 00:13:22.340 by recognition of the sovereign state of West Virginia formed out of Virginia. 153 00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:27.460 Vermont was formed by the inhabitants out of land claimed by New York and New Hampshire, 154 00:13:27.460 --> 00:13:31.900 again in revolutionary circumstance during the American Revolution. 155 00:13:31.900 --> 00:13:35.900 The Joint Resolution annexing Texas to the United States authorized Texans 156 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:39.580 to form an additional four states out of her territory, 157 00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:43.900 something I understand they're not going to do. 158 00:13:43.900 --> 00:13:50.600 The nearly complete decline of American federal-republican system of government is not a product of the Civil War. 159 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:57.660 Except for discrete changes, the relationship of restored states to the federal government remain exactly as always had been. 160 00:13:57.660 --> 00:14:04.000 The decline of federalism is a product of the 20th century of plebeian democracy, judicial activism, 161 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.600 the decline of cultural values, and government income taxing authority. 162 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:12.200 Many of these disintegrators were established in the progressive era. 163 00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:15.960 War and welfare have propelled them to corrosive heights. 164 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:19.560 Moreover, the great ideological struggle with communism this century 165 00:14:19.560 --> 00:14:23.200 has affected us more than we may reckon. 166 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.400 For Madisonian federalism to return, 167 00:14:25.400 --> 00:14:28.280 the factors causing its decline must be addressed. 168 00:14:28.280 --> 00:14:30.840 The most helpful rediscovery we could make 169 00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:34.000 is to learn that limited government is good government, 170 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:37.080 and what a government need not do, it should not do. 171 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:39.480 Dual sovereignty in the Constitution has it 172 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:43.480 says it that the Federal Government guarantees a Republican form of government, 173 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:50.480 whereas the advance or retreat of particular policies are subject only to the will of the people in the respective states, 174 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:54.480 except as constitutionally prescribed or proscribed. 175 00:14:54.480 --> 00:15:00.480 Moreover, the wording and historical context of the Constitution is mostly proscriptive in nature, 176 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:03.480 in terms of its effect on the people in several states. 177 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:08.480 That is to say, everything not specifically prohibited is constitutional per se. 178 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:13.480 The Founder's intent was to leave intact the maximum possible sphere of liberty. 179 00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:16.480 That is very different from prescriptive government, 180 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:20.480 which defines the extent of liberty by defining what you can do. 181 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.480 Anything not prescribed then requires permission. 182 00:15:23.480 --> 00:15:28.480 The Federal Government of the United States now acts in a prescriptive manner. 183 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:34.480 If some do not recognize their impending slavery, it is because the tyrant who steals our freedoms is subtle, 184 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:40.840 multi-faceted, sometimes benevolent and wears the mask of a smiling bureaucrat and a government social worker 185 00:15:40.840 --> 00:15:44.400 who has your supposed best interests in mind. 186 00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:52.120 Even if some of the laws we live under are good, the issue is where these laws should originate and by whom they should be administered. 187 00:15:52.120 --> 00:15:59.480 The situation has actually grown markedly worse since 1965 when the federal government began using preemption statutes. 188 00:15:59.480 --> 00:16:03.840 Augmented already by the power to raise huge sums of money through income tax, 189 00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:12.440 The government now preempts entire functional areas from state government purview and sets national standards to be enforced. 190 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:20.540 Vast accretion of power to the federal government has occurred through this method, which represents a revolution in nation-state relations. 191 00:16:20.540 --> 00:16:29.240 There are now 14 distinctive types of total preemption statutes enacted by Congress, as well as eight categories of partial preemption. 192 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:35.680 It amounts to nullification on a grand scale by the federal government of state and local laws. 193 00:16:35.680 --> 00:16:41.400 When the federal government determines whom you may hire, whom you may fire, and under what circumstances. 194 00:16:41.400 --> 00:16:44.520 When the federal government tells you what you can purchase and what you can sell, 195 00:16:44.520 --> 00:16:48.600 where you can use an item and what advertisements are acceptable to market it. 196 00:16:48.600 --> 00:16:52.400 When the federal government tells you who to rent to and what you may charge, 197 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:58.200 who you may hire as a babysitter and how much social security taxes you'll have to put up for the privilege. 198 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:04.200 When the federal government tells you what fuel to put in your car, who to consult for medical advice, and what advice you must take, 199 00:17:04.200 --> 00:17:09.040 then the federal government has reduced us all to its children and become our nanny state. 200 00:17:09.040 --> 00:17:13.360 All these things for our benefit are very nicely intended. 201 00:17:13.360 --> 00:17:18.760 It reminds me of the paternalistic rationale for the antebellum-south peculiar institution. 202 00:17:18.760 --> 00:17:25.480 Slavery is a positive good because it regulates the slaves much better than they could regulate themselves. 203 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:29.800 Slavery is good because the masters care for his slaves better than private property. 204 00:17:29.800 --> 00:17:33.720 He cares for them as if they were their own children. 205 00:17:33.720 --> 00:17:38.400 Slavery is good because labor is rewarded by what the laborer needs, 206 00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:44.880 a roof, some food, a set of clothing, a pair of shoes, even conjugal visitations. 207 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:50.040 Well, it is my contention that children such as there are belong to parents and not to the state. 208 00:17:50.040 --> 00:17:55.200 The vast majority of us, however, are no longer children and resent being treated as such. 209 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:58.600 We may indeed not regulate ourselves as well as Big Brother. 210 00:17:58.600 --> 00:18:01.560 On the other hand, it will be the bed we make that we sleep in, 211 00:18:01.560 --> 00:18:04.720 and there is inherent satisfaction in that. 212 00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:09.880 The risk of failure is worth the success we truly call our own. 213 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:12.920 Moreover, slavery is an unacceptable condition. 214 00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:16.840 Political slavery every bit as much as chattel slavery. 215 00:18:16.840 --> 00:18:21.240 Indeed, when one looks to the debates concerning the Fifteenth Amendment, 216 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:24.760 the adoption of which, I admit, is highly dubious, 217 00:18:24.760 --> 00:18:31.440 The most persuasive rationale for extending suffrage to the freedman was that actual political representation, 218 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:39.240 including the right to vote for one's own representative, was tantamount to staving off abject slavery by some other name. 219 00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:47.240 Point being, political slavery is necessary, albeit insufficient, to affect absolute subjugation of a people. 220 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:54.880 Political slavery precurses serfdom, confinement to the pale or sale at the auction block. 221 00:18:54.880 --> 00:19:02.960 It was this sure knowledge that led the revolutionary generation to take extreme measures before such action became impossible. 222 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:07.800 In hindsight, the revolution constituted secession from the mother country. 223 00:19:07.800 --> 00:19:13.520 Thirteen colonies revolted against the tyranny of their central government. 224 00:19:13.520 --> 00:19:21.220 If truth were relative, then subjective community standards are far the better way to go than a one-size-fits-all Federal version of truth. 225 00:19:21.220 --> 00:19:29.580 If the law should be living, meaning that it should change to address changing social needs, then it should be living where the people live. 226 00:19:29.580 --> 00:19:37.820 In effect, that is the function of state orbits to experiment, even to compete with each other in the open marketplace of ideas, 227 00:19:37.820 --> 00:19:42.580 so that the good will out to let people decide the way they should live. 228 00:19:42.580 --> 00:19:49.180 It would be useless to contend that anyone should be able to live anywhere and find everything to his or her liking. 229 00:19:49.180 --> 00:19:53.540 A place where everyone is happy is literally a place where no one is happy. 230 00:19:53.540 --> 00:19:56.980 At some point, people must be able to legislate their environment. 231 00:19:56.980 --> 00:20:03.420 That is your Jacksonian democracy and that is your populism, but it must be operative at the local level. 232 00:20:03.420 --> 00:20:08.540 People must be able to determine the nature of their schools and towns and to secure their property. 233 00:20:08.540 --> 00:20:13.820 For these are the vehicles through which they pursue happiness and derive a meaning to life. 234 00:20:13.820 --> 00:20:19.700 The liberal statist alternative is not the best solution for everyone, which elitists would like to think. 235 00:20:19.700 --> 00:20:28.380 Empirically, the statist solution devolves into tribalism and radicalizes factions that might otherwise constructively participate. 236 00:20:28.380 --> 00:20:37.820 What the federal government has done is to take a creative and dynamic process and create instead the divisiveness so apparently rife in this country. 237 00:20:37.820 --> 00:20:40.900 Under American Federalism, you may not get it right everywhere. 238 00:20:40.900 --> 00:20:47.140 Communities and whole states might prescribe or proscribe too much or too little, 239 00:20:47.140 --> 00:20:49.660 but you would get it right in many areas. 240 00:20:49.660 --> 00:20:54.700 Moreover, you would be assured of finding a place that catered to one's priority preferences. 241 00:20:54.700 --> 00:21:01.340 Today, it's wrong everywhere, and there is no place left at all for traditionalists. 242 00:21:01.340 --> 00:21:08.200 American federalism envisions disparities between the states, even on the most important matters. 243 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:13.840 Oregonians should be able to decide the so-called right-to-die referendum. 244 00:21:13.840 --> 00:21:18.240 Californians should be able to deny state benefits to illegal residents. 245 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:22.440 Coloradans should be able to determine state policy towards homosexuality 246 00:21:22.440 --> 00:21:26.280 or deny special legal protections for gay people and so on. 247 00:21:26.280 --> 00:21:31.440 Know that I have refrained from indicating my preference as to how the vote should go. 248 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:35.840 Rather, I believe strongly that these and other matters belong to the states 249 00:21:35.840 --> 00:21:40.600 and are matters for each separate society to determine for itself. 250 00:21:40.600 --> 00:21:44.680 In the meantime, the Constitution of the United States should not be whipped about 251 00:21:44.680 --> 00:21:47.800 by the vigorous nature of each debate. 252 00:21:47.800 --> 00:21:52.000 National political mobilization of those with vested interest or vested concern 253 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.440 need not occur every time someone somewhere challenges a norm 254 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:58.600 or claims some new right. 255 00:21:58.600 --> 00:22:02.560 State boundaries were the fire breaks envisioned and explained by the founders 256 00:22:02.560 --> 00:22:05.600 to keep factions from ever spreading beyond them, 257 00:22:05.600 --> 00:22:08.040 to remove the political boundaries, so to speak, 258 00:22:08.040 --> 00:22:11.360 by imposing centrally planned and executed standards 259 00:22:11.360 --> 00:22:15.280 or by interfering with another state's prerogatives from outside, 260 00:22:15.280 --> 00:22:18.320 creates instability or tyranny or both. 261 00:22:18.320 --> 00:22:21.920 The American Republic thus falls prey to all the ancient ills 262 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:25.080 that plagued other republics, especially large republics. 263 00:22:25.080 --> 00:22:33.680 Ills which Monsesquieu wrote about, and which the Founding Fathers erected the Federalist mechanism to preclude. 264 00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:40.780 Jefferson said we would probably need a revolution every 20 years or so, and by my math, we apparently are long overdue. 265 00:22:40.780 --> 00:22:44.280 Secession is one form of conservative revolution. 266 00:22:44.280 --> 00:22:52.180 The threat of it is a powerful incentive to the Federal Government to maintain its limited scope and to refrain from constitutional overreach. 267 00:22:52.180 --> 00:23:00.480 Secession is always, morally speaking, legitimate by the same rationale Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence. 268 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:06.880 Secession or revolution must obviously meet certain criteria, but its right in the abstract cannot be denied. 269 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:12.580 Moreover, the founders themselves provided criteria by which to judge the proper occasion for action, 270 00:23:12.580 --> 00:23:20.080 both in terms of empirical precedent during the American Revolution, as well as in terms of written theoretical discourse. 271 00:23:20.080 --> 00:23:24.240 The Virginia and Kentucky Results were written by Madison and Jefferson in 1798. 272 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:27.880 They are explicit in their delineation of dual sovereignty, 273 00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:33.600 by which state sovereignty is as inviolable as the federal government's. 274 00:23:33.600 --> 00:23:35.720 Notwithstanding questions of particulars, 275 00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:41.120 interposition is not only conceivable, it may be a duty incumbent. 276 00:23:41.120 --> 00:23:46.160 The threat of secession itself may be enough to cause the federal government to return to its proper role 277 00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:50.160 and thus reinstate the desired vertical balance within the federal system. 278 00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:56.160 Historically, secessionist movements have tended to perform this positive latent function. 279 00:23:56.160 --> 00:24:00.160 In 1785, for instance, while still under the Articles of Confederation, 280 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:04.160 the United States abandoned the disastrous Jay Gardoke Treaty 281 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.160 because of western secessionist threats. 282 00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:11.160 When the federalists exceeded constitutional authority by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, 283 00:24:11.160 --> 00:24:15.160 similar threats were made, this time while the nation operated 284 00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:17.160 under the rubric of the Constitution. 285 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:19.160 The issue was finally solved 286 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:22.160 through the Jeffersonian political revolution of 1800. 287 00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:25.660 The election was an overwhelming repudiation 288 00:24:25.660 --> 00:24:30.160 of the extreme federalist party position of unitary federal sovereignty. 289 00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:34.660 Americans were gratified that secession or civil war were unnecessary, 290 00:24:34.660 --> 00:24:37.660 but the backdrop of revolutionary political commitment 291 00:24:37.660 --> 00:24:41.660 was essential to producing the first peacetime transition of power 292 00:24:41.660 --> 00:24:44.160 between parties in American history. 293 00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:54.160 In terms of a positive, latent, if not manifest function, secession may very well be a necessary and proper means of reacting to Federal encroachments. 294 00:24:54.160 --> 00:25:00.160 The Constitution has evolved this century without the aid of secessionist counterbalance. 295 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:06.160 Hence, the Constitution has not evolved explicitly through amendment, civil war, or clear political mandate. 296 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:12.160 Rather, it has evolved through force and threat of force by every single branch of the Federal Government, 297 00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:18.480 by activist presidents, by micromanaging congressmen and bureaucrats, by activist judges with social agendas. 298 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:27.800 The people are now reduced to having to overcome the burden of constitutional amendment just to restore original intent. 299 00:25:27.800 --> 00:25:31.640 The liberty we have gotten is not the ordered sort the founders intended. 300 00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:34.960 It serves no purpose nor ends but our own destruction. 301 00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:41.360 We witness now the onset of social chaos sanctioned by government without the consent of the people to do it. 302 00:25:41.360 --> 00:25:45.720 The New Deal and Great Society transformed the entire country into one big political machine 303 00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:50.040 in which politicians parceled favors from the Federal Port Barrel or through regulatory 304 00:25:50.040 --> 00:25:54.960 agencies to the various special interest groups, which then scratched politicians' backs at 305 00:25:54.960 --> 00:26:01.400 election time. The point being, that power may not now be exercised by democratic majorities 306 00:26:01.400 --> 00:26:07.360 at all, consolidated, concurrent or otherwise. James Q. Wilson of UCLA and past president 307 00:26:07.360 --> 00:26:11.600 of the American Political Science Association, argues that elections have become less important 308 00:26:11.600 --> 00:26:16.160 because the real policy making is now done by courts, bureaucracies and legislatures 309 00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:22.380 operated by an ambitious political class with very little orientation towards public preferences. 310 00:26:22.380 --> 00:26:27.500 This equates to the development of a kind of American court party, so inimical to Republican 311 00:26:27.500 --> 00:26:33.700 institutions. If we are no longer actually represented, then we are taxed at average 312 00:26:33.700 --> 00:26:52.700 The two most discernible trends this century have been the growth of the federal government and the decline of what is known as Victorian values, industriousness, sobriety, self-control and modesty. 313 00:26:52.700 --> 00:27:01.700 The two trends are linked in that the concentration of power at the central level of government has debilitated state and local government's ability to foster healthy social climates 314 00:27:01.700 --> 00:27:08.700 or to maintain the institutional supports, family, church, school or neighborhood necessary to maintain and transmit the culture. 315 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:16.700 Federal government action impedes the institutions of family and church, which have made communal life heretofore possible in America. 316 00:27:16.700 --> 00:27:26.700 The result has been crisis in American families and schools and dramatic increase in the incidence of social pathologies reaching epidemic proportions over the past 30 years. 317 00:27:26.700 --> 00:27:41.700 When we realize that counterculture communes of the 1960s were actually destroyed by internal problems, rampant violence, crime and drug addiction, we may fairly assess the nation's course today to be one of national suicide. 318 00:27:41.700 --> 00:27:48.700 In such an instance, it is the prerogative of state governments to take extraordinary actions for protection. 319 00:27:48.700 --> 00:27:58.700 We have the structural framework for self-government, but Washington has substituted a government of clerks, exactly what Tocqueville called administrative despotism. 320 00:27:58.700 --> 00:28:08.700 The failure to establish local standards results in the natural dispensation of all standards known to civilized man, including the protection of life, liberating the pursuit of happiness. 321 00:28:08.700 --> 00:28:14.700 The destruction of American federalism has resulted in the cultural disintegration we see evidenced around us. 322 00:28:14.700 --> 00:28:20.700 The restoration of federalism is the beginning of cultural renewal and moral regeneration. 323 00:28:20.700 --> 00:28:26.700 My assessment is that the political system is still sufficiently open 324 00:28:26.700 --> 00:28:31.700 and that the election of 1994 has dealt the enemies of freedom a blow. 325 00:28:31.700 --> 00:28:37.700 The strong action by states at this juncture as well as a clear ultimatum of the people 326 00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:42.700 to return power rightfully belonging to the states respectively or to the people 327 00:28:42.700 --> 00:28:49.700 will truly restore the states at last, will reinvigorate American federalism as conceived by the founders, 328 00:28:49.700 --> 00:28:53.700 will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. 329 00:28:53.700 --> 00:28:59.700 Part of the solution is probably the organization of viable secessionist alternatives. 330 00:28:59.700 --> 00:29:06.700 The one certainty is that the Federal Government may not continue its wanton disregard for the Constitution 331 00:29:06.700 --> 00:29:09.700 or for the original intent of the Founding Fathers. 332 00:29:09.700 --> 00:29:14.700 If it does, the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. 333 00:29:14.700 --> 00:29:18.700 An answer as old as America and as true to her purpose, 334 00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:23.700 the purpose of free men living in accord with their God. 335 00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:28.700 And then the words of Julia Ward Howe's fourth stanza to the Battle Hymn of the Republic 336 00:29:28.700 --> 00:29:30.700 take a very different meaning. 337 00:29:30.700 --> 00:29:34.700 He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat. 338 00:29:34.700 --> 00:29:38.700 He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. 339 00:29:38.700 --> 00:29:44.700 Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on.