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Secession, State, and Liberty
Edited and introduced by David Gordon
New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998, with acknowledgment to the Mises Institute.
Read It
Excerpt
"Grant defeated Lee, the Confederacy crumbled, and the idea of secession disappeared forever, or at least that's what the conventional wisdom says. However, as readers of this work will soon discover, secession is of no historical relevance. Quite contrary, the topic is integral to classical liberalism. Indeed, the right of secession follows at once from the basic rights defended by classical liberalism. As even Macaulay's schoolboy knows, classical liberalism begins with the principle of self-ownership: each person is the rightful owner of his or her own body. Together with this right, according to classical liberals from Locke to Rothbard, goes the right to appropriate unowned property.
"In this view, government occupies a strictly ancillary role. It exists to protect the rights that individuals possess independently–it is not the source of these rights. As the Declaration of Independence puts it, "to secure these rights [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from consent of the governed.
"But what has all this to do with secession? The connection, I suggest, is obvious: if government does not protect the rights of individuals, then individuals may end their allegiance to it. And one form this renunciation may take is secession–a group may renounce its allegiance to its government and form a new government."
Table of Contents
| Introduction | ix |
| The Secession Tradition in America By Donald W. Livingston |
1 |
| When Is Political Divorce Justified? By Steven Yates |
35 |
| The Ethics of Secession By Scott Boykin |
65 |
| Nations By Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State By Murray N. Rothbard |
79 |
| Secession: The Last, Best Bulwark of Our Liberties By Clyde N. Wilson |
89 |
| Republicanism, Federalism, and Secession in the South, 1790 to 1865 By Joseph R. Stromberg |
99 |
| Yankee Confederates: New England Secession Movements Prior to the War Between the States By Thomas DiLorenzo |
135 |
| Was the Union Army's Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act? An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession By James Ostrowski |
155 |
| The Economic and Political Rationale for European Secessionism By Hans-Hermann Hoppe |
191 |
| A Secessionist's View of Quebec's Options By Pierre Desrochers and Eric Duhaime |
225 |
| How to Secede in Business Without Really Leaving: Evidence of the Substitution of Arbitration for Litigation By Bruce L. Benson |
243 |
| APPENDICES | |
| A. The Declaration of Independence | 287 |
| B. The Articles of Confederation | 291 |
| C. The Constitution of the United States | 299 |
| D. The Constitution of the Confederate States | 317 |
| About the Authors | 331 |
| Index | 333 |
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Related Books
Essays on Liberty: Volume 1
Foundation for Economic Education, 1952
Essays on Liberty: Volume 2
Foundation for Economic Education, 1954
Other Articles, Papers, Studies, etc.
The Constitutional Right of Secession in Political Theory and History
Andrei Kreptul, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 17, Issue 4, Fall 2003
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