Customer Reviews

Secession, State, and Liberty

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As editor David Gordon notes in his introduction, secession may be the most under-theorized concept in political science. Although the few Americans who bother to defend the idea are usually smeared as "neo-Confederates" or worse (is there anything worse?), a simple look at the last decade's headlines shows that secession is not only an idea, but an event, all over the world. From Quebec to Yugoslavia, the Baltic States to Chechnya, Scotland to Los Angeles, people are willing to defy the holy memory of St. Abraham Lincoln and "dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another." Gordon and his contributors have rediscovered, dusted off, and re-articulated for a new century one of the most basic political rights of all, the right of self-determination.

A large portion of this collection of essays, as you might expect, examines the pre-eminent example of secession in American history, the Confederacy. The three essays dealing with this period -- Joseph Stromberg's "Republicanism, Federalism, and Secession in the South, 1790-1865;" Thomas DiLorenzo's "Yankee Confederates: New England Secession Movements Prior to the War Between the States;" and James Ostrowski's "Was the Union Army's Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act? An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession" -- form the core of the book. However, this title is more than just an apologetic for the South. Philosophical, legal, and political analyses by other contributors provide a solid framework for secession as a political theory in our era as well.

The last essay, Bruce Benson's look at arbitration as an alternative to state-run judicial systems in commerce and trade, provides a true-life example of a type of modern individual "secession," and recalls Mises' suggestion (quoted by several contributors) that the right to secession can ultimately be carried down to the community, home, and even individual level. Murray Rothbard reinforces this idea in "Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation State."

This is a very important and valuable book, challenging as it does the accepted, post-1865 wisdom of Constitutional interpretation. Secession didn't die at Appomattox, either as a political theory or as a right inherent to each state in the American union. As several of the contributors note, secession (and the threat of it) is the single most powerful check on the expansion of federal power -- which, of course, explains why, from Lincoln on down, so many people have worked so feverishly to discredit it. But truth is just truth, and no matter how hard the "enlightened" classes try to deny it, analyses like the ones in this collection show that a true idea cannot be silenced forever.

I read in threes and fours on any given topic, and in some ways I regret getting to this book last, but on the other hand, having read the other books below first, it makes me appreciate, and be willing to certify, that this one book is the one to buy if you only want to read one book on the topic.

See my reviews of the following for additional background:
Is Secession Treason?
One Nation, Indivisible? A Study of Secession and the Constitution
Constitutional History of Secession
The Vermont Manifesto
Secession: How Vermont and All the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire
Blood Money, The Civil War and the Federal Reserve
The Nine Nations of North America
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny

Ron Paul is on record as stating the government is broken, and I agree. The two-party tyranny and the predatory immoral tyranny of Wall Street and its front, the Federal Reserve (neither Federal nor Reserve) must be abolished, and the sovereignty of the people restored.

It is in the context of the above books that I appreciate this one, edited by David Gordon, so very much.

Despite the urgency and substance of this book, it is not one of those Amazon considers worthy of scanning and providing inside the book, and the publisher has failed to use all the tools that Amazon provides including the ability to upload the table of contents and a free chapter, so below are the contents and a one line appreciation.

0. Introduction (David Gordon). Great overview, snippets on each author's work and its relevance. BOTTOM LINE: Declaration of Independence is the foundation for secession whenever a government "becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

1. The Secession Tradition in America (Donald Livingston). Great prefatory stuff on church secessions. Key sentence: "It [Declaration of Independence] is not primarily an argument for individual rights, but rather an argument for the corporate rights of distinct moral and political societies." Superb itemization of the many falsehoods that Lincoln put forth, and notes that after the war of Independence the British recognized EACH state as its own sovereign state, not the "bundle" of states.

2. When is Political Divorce Justified? (Steven Yates). This chapter hinges on consent of the governed and the right to withdraw when the government either ignores its levitate functions and/or undertakes tasks it should not perform and is not authorized to perform. Anticipates tyranny in the USA, and points out that Lincoln's bloodshed while not quite equal to that of Hitler's or Stalin's, was easily unjustified and clearly associated with an attempt to impose a tyranny on the South that the North had no right to impose.

3. The Ethics of Secession (Scott Boykin). This is a philosophical argument with structure and conclusions, very elegant, concluding that any group that wishes to define itself as a political unit, irrespective of ethnic or other blood issues, is free to do so by natural law.

4. Nations By Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State. Key point here is that nations are not states, and the artificiality of nation-states as imposed by the Treaty of Westphalia (see The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State, is actually a crime against humanity (my interpretation) and therefore all those who are tribes of nations apart from the artificial states have every right to secede, and indeed we have seen just that in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Africa is next, in my opinion.

5. Secession: The Last, Best Bulwark of Our Liberties (Clyde N. Wilson). Republics have free citizens, Empires have subjects.

6. Republicanism, Federalism, and Secession in the South, 1790 to 1865 (Joseph R. Stromberg). Great history focused on the STATES, each entering into a COMPACT and each RETAINING sovereignty.

7. Yankee Confederates: New England Secession Movements Prior to the War Between the States (Thomas DiLorenzo). New England validated the right first.

8. Was the Union Army's Invasion of the Confederate States a Lawful Act? An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession (James Ostrowski). Lincoln will lose his luster in time--he confused four separate aspects, and however laudable his intentions, he murdered over 600,000 of his countrymen, destroyed the South, and OCCUPIED the South for 12 years. History will not be kind once history is written by proper Truth & Reconciliation Commissions.

9. The Economic and Political Rationale for European Secessionism (Hana-Hermann Hoppe). This is a deep piece, very current (break-up of USSR) and it touches on the mutual interests of Western empire states and post-communist dictatorships.

10. A Secessonist's View of Quebec's Options (Pierre Desrochers and Eric Duhaine). Since this was written, Canada' Supreme Court has ruled that Quebec has every right to secede any time it wishes.

11. How to Secede in Business Without Really Leaving: Evidence of the Substitution of Arbitration for Litigation (Bruce L. Benson. This one troubles me--the author favors arbitration as a way of avoiding state control, but I for one fear arbitration because it negates the right to a jury trial , and while few know this, juries can not only find one innocent, they can overturn the law within which one is being charged.

Appendices include the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Constitution of the United States (note that it is the STATES that united), and the Constitution of the Confederate States. The Index is fairly well done, best on proper names, not quite as thorough as I would have liked on secession and slavery and the role of the banks in causing the war.

Overall, a phenomenal book, very timely, and the one book to buy if you get only one (read my reviews of the others, I do summative reviews).

This book is the best discussion on the subject of Secession I have ever seen. This topic is so important and yet so ignored. No one can understand the "Civil War" with out understanding this important topic. The Right of succession is a crucial element of protecting liberty and this book Provides the best possible understanding of it available.

This is an absolutely masterful book that deserves a great deal more attention than I fear it will ever receive. It deals with one of the most overlooked issues in political theory, secession. Although most people think that the American Civil War settled the issue for all time, the authors of this book beg to differ. From a variety of different vantage points and ideologies, secession is given the support that it so deserves. Secession is rooted in individual liberty and any opposition ultimately requires an outright act of force. It is this crucial fact that much of this book is based upon. Issues of secession, past, present, and future are all dealt with accordingly. This book should be on the bookshelf of every individual with a serious interest in libertarian political philosophy.

Today's growth of federal government has given rise to an idea that some would have rejected outright only a few years ago-the right to secession. This tome is collection of writings from various advocates of the idea of smaller, more localized government.

Topics ranged from the founding fathers ideas of secession to the discussion of modern day examples of secession found in the balkans and the baltic states as well as the proposed separation of Quebec from Canada. As this was written in the mid 1990s, some of the material is dated. Hans-Hermann Hoppe's prediction that the EU would not be sucessful in creating a unified currency has been proven wrong.

Some of the material, especially the last essay "How to Secede in Business Without Really Leaving: Evidence of the Substitution of Arbitration for Litigation." was dry and hard to understand. Nevertheless, I found the book to be fascinating and covers a timely subject, thus it earns a five-star rating.

Radical political decentralization worldwide is inevitable because of technology, demographics and the continual threat of nuclear destruction of large nation states, it is useful to have a scholarly investigation of the issue like Mr. Gordons.

This book deals with the issue of secession from a mostly normative, America-centric position. The authors adequately defend the necessity of secession & decentralization for the advance of liberty, but the analysis does not go much beyond that. There is altogether too much material on the War between the States, an event that happened 150 years ago and has little relevance for the philosophical, political, economic, and even legal issues facing secessionists today. There is very little empirical content, very little attempt to explain why secessionist movements arise and how they can succeed.

I am very glad this book was made: it serves a certain purpose. However, we need sophisticated social scientists studying secessionism from a sympathetic perspective. See my other reviews of books on secessionism that deal with the issue from an empirical, comparative perspective.