Kinsella: Geek, what exactly is your position? Are you saying that one criterion of being “one of the greatest libertarian theorists” is that you can’t espouse any nonlibertarian views? I.e., that you can’t be wrong about anything

I think that there are two basic points being made about Calhoun vis-a-vis the tradition of libertarian thought.

1. The absolute point: to describe Calhoun as a great libertarian thinker (or even a principled advocate of secession) when he vigorously defended slavery as a positive good on the floor of the Senate, and did more than perhaps any other single man to preserve and perpetuate Southern race slavery during the middle decades of the 19th century, is problematic, to say the least. (If you found someone who had eloquently and vigorously defended libertarian views, except that he supported the Holocaust on the grounds that Jews have no human rights, would you call him a great libertarian thinker? If you would, Christ, why?)

2. The relative point: you might respond to the absolute point by claiming that, in spite of Calhoun having played a really rotten role in the defense of Southern race slavery, and taking truly despicable positions on it, he was still a leading light in the context of his time, compared to the other folks who were doing political theory at the time. But that, too, is false. Indeed, it’s ridiculous. To go around celebrating slaver Calhoun’s contribution to the thought of his time, when men such as Lysander Spooner and William Lloyd Garrison were writing political theory—often theory diametrically opposed to Calhoun’s, on libertarian grounds—seems to me to be simply ludicrous.

I think the relative point is obvious. As for the absolute point, I think that you can only bypass it by ignoring how despicable American race slavery really was, and passing it off as if it were simply some niggling error on some minor point is just evasion. What Calhoun supported was an institutionalized assault on human liberty and dignity more systematic, more massive, more prolonged, and more awful, than almost anything else in human history, with the exception of atrocities committed with the explicit purpose of genocide. Saying “Oh, well, he’s a great libertarian except for his defense of Southern slavery” seems to me to be an awful lot like saying “Oh, well, he’s a great Catholic theologian, except that he argues in favor of worshipping the Devil.” Oh well, I guess nobody’s perfect.

Dare I return to the subject? Why, yes, I do!

“DiLorenzo’s claim was not simply that Calhoun put forth a few libertarian-sounding arguments, judged independently of his other beliefs. Rather, it was that Calhoun was one of the greatest libertarian philosophers of his time. Now, I could understand this claim if Calhoun lived at a time where everyone else was a rabid statist who supported slavery. Then it might make sense to say that Calhoun was one of the greatest — i.e. greater than others — libertarians of his time. But there were certainly other people who lived at the same time and did not support slavery.”

Indeed. In fact, here’s some quick dates:

John C. Calhoun: lived 1782 – 1850. Vice President 1824-1832. Served in Senate 1830-1850. Defended slavery as “a positive good” on the floor of the Senate in 1837. Spent his last days fighting for the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850.

Lysander Spooner: lived 1808 – 1887. Published [url=http://www.lysanderspooner.org/UnconstitutionalityOfSlaveryContents.htm]The Unconstitutionality of Slavery[/url] in 1845 and [url=http://www.lysanderspooner.org/DefenseOfFugitiveSlaves.htm]A Defence for Fugitive Slaves Against the Acts of Congress[/url] in 1850, in addition to numerous other libertarian writings.

William Lloyd Garrison: lived 1805-1879. Published The Liberator 1831-1865. Defended the Declaration of Independence and denounced the Constitution as “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell”. Began to argue for peaceful Northern secession by 1844.

To describe Calhoun as one of the greatest libertarian theorists of his time is, quite frankly, a historical obscenity.

“I do, even though I vehemently oppose such a policy in the U.S. The difference being, of course, that there have been no organized attempts by Mexicans to blow themselves up in heavily populated civilian centers. To my knowledge.”

No, but there have been organized attempts by Mexicans to pick fruits and vegetables, mow lawns, take care of children, and do other important work completely under the table and tax-free. Also to encourage some Americans to learn Spanish. Or at least not actively discourage them and fail them for speaking it better than they speak English. Or something.

I gather that in Paleo Bizarro World, these crimes may not be quite as bad as blowing up civilians, but it’s got to be pretty damn close.

“Most Southerners, even ones who felt nationalistic toward the Confederacy, were not slaveowners.”

Of course they weren’t. In some parts of the Deep South, “most Southerners” were Black slaves.

But this misses the point. The question is about who the driving forces behind “the Southern cause” were, what they took the nature of their cause to be, and the reasons they gave for fighting for it.

And when you set out to answer that question, even a cursory glance at the public statements of men such as Jefferson Davis, Alexander “Cornerstone” Stephens, Robert E. Lee, and other members of the slaver aristocracy (who overwhelmingly dominated the secessionist conventions, the state governments, and the Confederate government)—not to mention at the Confederate constitution and other key sources—reveals that the prime motive of the people who were driving the process was the preservation of white supremacy and race slavery.

Certainly some whites who neither owned slaves nor were family members of anyone who did, still went out to fight for the Confederacy. But it’s essential to keep in perspective just how little sway they had in the reasoning or the decision-making that led into the hostilities that they later joined. And also that a lot of non-slaveholders weren’t interested in fighting for the Confederacy at all—which is why they were targeted by the “Twenty-Nigger” draft law, and why they led anti-Confederate uprisings across the large swaths of Virginia, Tennessee, etc. where the slaver population was very low.

Micha: “Uh, oh, Rad, you’re coming dangerously close to defining me back into the libertarian movement. When should I expect my Welcome Back party? ;)”

Hee hee. Well, I was on the “family resemblence” side of the definitional debate with you, so you won’t get any complaints from me here. I don’t think that you have to hold a rigorous natural rights theory of justice to count as a libertarian. You have to hold it to keep from counting as grossly mistaken, but that’s another issue entirely…

Stefan: “On the other hand, maybe Rand is afraid that if we let Micha into the fold of libertarians as a consequentialist …”

Ah, but remember that Rand and the ARIans think that Micha and others are already in the fold of libertarians; that’s much of why they object to “libertarianism” as such. The basic idea (as expressed, e.g., by Peikoff in “Fact and Value”) is that libertarianism involves not only specific claims about political outcomes but also a certain attitude towards those claims (i.e., that your primary political alliances are with anyone and everyone who agree with those claims, regardless of the reason for their agreement), and that the lack of “quality control” involved is pernicious, or unprincipled, or something.

Also, of course, ARIans have very strong disagreements with specific groups of libertarians over issues such as the legitimacy of an enforced monopoly government, legal protections of “intellectual property”, the advisability of annihilating Tehran in a nuclear massacre, etc.

Oh, a more substantive difference that I neglected: orthodox Objectivists hold that libertarianism, as a political movement, is premature. The official line from Rand and from the ARI has been that philosophical and cultural change needs to precede any serious or lasting political shift towards a free society, and that therefore libertarian political organizing amounts to time wasted pushing on a string.

“While we’re on the topic, could someone explain why Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff hate libertarianism? I remember reading an essay by Peikoff on the subject a few years ago, but most of it sounded like objecto-babble.”

The official orthodox reason for refusing to identify with “libertarianism” is, roughly, that “libertarianism” is claimed to involve an uncritical alliance with anyone who happens to share your views about political outcomes, without concern for why they hold those views. I.E., “libertarianism” can encompass not only an Objectivist theory of politics founded on an Objectivist theory of morality founded on Objectivist theories of knowledge, reality, and human nature; but also consequentialists, anarchists, Rothbardians, constitutionalists, pot-smoking hippies, and other ne’er-do-wells that Miss Rand wouldn’t want to be caught dead associating with. Peter Schwartz has a ridiculous essay (“Libertarianism: the perversion of liberty” or somesuch) in which he expounds the theory in much more polemical terms than even Rand ever mustered, which goes on at length about how libertarians broadly, and Murray Rothbard especially, are a bunch of whim-worshipping nihilists held together by nothing but the urge to destroy.

I think the real reasons have more to do with the antagonism between Rand and Rothbard, and with Objectivists’ revulsions at the aforementioned post-smoking hippies.

Kennedy: “No, it’s a contract for specific performance.”

Let’s say I sign a contract with you, selling myself into bondage as a farm worker for the rest of my life (in return, say, for an annuity given to my children). After a few weeks I realize that this really sucks, refuse to work, and when you threaten to whip me, I run away.

If human rights are inalienable (and they are), there’s no legitimate basis for you to send out the hounds and force me to come back. Most people would say that what you are doing is using force to keep me in slavery—even though I signed a contract for specific performance.

Is this relevantly different from the situation of a soldier being forced not to “desert” if he decides that he’s not going to fight anymore, such that one is slavery and the other is not? If it is, then how?

Kinsella: “it seems simply to express the view that political units have a right to secede; which of course was also Calhoun’s view.” Except for the “political units” that happen to be made up of Black people, of course. Oops!

Fulwiler: ‘Re: Calhoun’s views. Well, he obviously did not consider the master /slave relationship to be a “political” association.’ False. Here’s Calhoun, defending the freedom to beat, whip, or kill Negroes if they don’t do what you tell them to in “Slavery a Positive Good”: “But I will not dwell on this aspect of the question; I turn to the political; and here I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions. It is useless to disguise the fact. There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North.” (Bonus points for endorsing the Marxist theory of class when it comes to the Yankees!)

Fulwiler: ‘Do you? I don’t see that it is.’ Of course it was; slavery was a creature of the law—defended and enforced by agents of the government. Slavery as a political institution in the South was based on the claim that Black slaves were not citizens of the several states, and so not entitled to self-defense or help from the government in defending against abduction, assault, robbery, rape, murder, etc. The subordinate political status was the essential part of Southern slavery; without it, there could be no legal basis whatever for holding others in bondage.

(In fact there was no legal basis whatever, since there is no such thing as legitimate authority to make a law that enslaves other human beings. But it should be quite clear that Southern slavers claimed a political basis for their ability to keep black Southerners enslaved.)

… although Tom DiLorenzo and I would say the Southerners were right to defend themselves …

Throughout the Civil War, the Confederates were actually fighting a two-front war: about 1/3 of all Confederate military forces were continually held behind the lines in order to capture fugitive slaves and suppress slave revolts (which had been escalating for decades, and erupted across the South during the war).

I agree that Southerners had a right to defend themselves against aggression. Including the Black ones. Describing the Confederate war effort (1/3 of which was directed against Black Southerners seceding from their slave pens) as self-defense seems dubious at best.