In the days of the American Civil War, Americans were not exactly known for their ideological consistency. Many who sang the praises of the American secession in 1776 suddenly decided that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence—where it states that it’s perfectly fine “for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another”—changed their minds and decided allegiance to the government is the most important thing in the world.
Others suddenly discovered their love for self-determination in spite of having invaded and conquered other countries—thus robbing others of their own rights to self-determination. Robert E. Lee for example, willingly invaded Mexico to impose American imperialist rule during the Mexican War. But by 1861, he was waxing philosophical about the right to self-government. (For his part, Stonewall Jackson fired cannons into a crowd of Mexican civilians to “encourage” them to surrender to the American conquerors.)
Abraham Lincoln reversed himself in the opposite direction. Lincoln had apparently been a supporter of secession when, in a January 1848 speech in Congress, he explained that the Texans and other opponents of the Mexican regime had a right to secede. Specifically, he stated:
The extent of our territory in that region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it) but on revolution. Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,—most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own revolution.[9] It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.
Lincoln was specifically speaking of the right of the people of Texas and northern Mexico to declare themselves independent from the Mexican state, and to form a new government “that suits them better.” This, of course, is what the Americans did in the 1770s. The fact that Lincoln speaks of secession here as a type of revolution is fitting, as well, since, as Rothbard notes in Conceived in Liberty, acts of secession are, by their nature, acts of political revolution. That is, secession is revolutionary by nature because it ultimately requires the removal of whatever political apparatus has been imposed by the old, reigning, incumbent power. Secession is, as Rothbard puts its, “deposing the old oligarchy.”1
Lincoln goes on to make two key points. The first is that acts of secession are open to anyone. They are not limited to legal agreements as John C. Calhoun insisted when claiming that secession was a matter strictly for state governments under a constitutional compact. No, secession is—as Lincoln correctly notes here—open to “Any people anywhere...”
Secondly, Lincoln makes the point that secession is not rendered inacceptable simply because a minority within the seceding jurisdiction doesn’t support it. He correctly notes that “Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own revolution.” Indeed, if it were true that every secession movement must receive unanimous consent, then the American revolution was clearly unacceptable. After all, there were thousands of loyalists who opposed the American Revolution. Many were forced into exile.
Of course, as we all know, Lincoln completely reversed himself on this issue once he was a wartime president, and lusted for all that sweet, sweet tax money that the seceding confederates were taking out of the hands of Washington’s Treasury. Suddenly, Lincoln decided that no, the right to secession and revolution were not a “most sacred right” after all.
Many Americans noticed Lincoln’s reversal at the time. Under the headline “LINCOLN A SECESSIONIST,” the Lancaster [Pennsylvania] Intelligencer reprinted Lincoln’s remarks on secession from his 1848 speech, even adding emphasis to show the relevance. That is, the Intelligencer added all caps in this way
“Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. ANY PORTION of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”
This was not done to support the secessionist cause, it seems. In this case, it appears that the editors were unionist and disapproving of this obvious ideological inconsistency, with a mind toward warning the reader to not trust Lincoln, lest his past positions make Lincoln insufficiently bellicose toward the Confederacy. On this, Lincoln certainly proved them wrong. The editors write:
Is not this [i.e., Lincoln’s 1848 position] carrying the doctrine of secession as far as can be done by any rebel of South Carolina? Is not this acknowledging the right of Secession? the [sic] right of any portion of the people, or any State to revolutionize and make war upon the government, and if they possess the physical power, to overthrow the government and set up a system of their own? Yes, it goes further, it disavows the right of the government to use its physical force in attempting to coerce any state or PORTION of the people, who may rebel against the government of the United States. This idea of Secession advanced by Lincoln when a member of Congress is as wild as any held by the veriest [sic] Southern Secessionist at this day. Many in the South may have learned their Secession doctrines from the Presidential incumbent.—Mr. Lincoln ought to be watched.
Nonetheless, now long forgotten is the fact that countless Americans at the time were reconciled to seeing the Confederacy leave the United States. Many anti-slavery activists were happy to be free of the baggage of slavery. This was True of the great northern Jeffersonian William Leggett, for example, who had already advocated dissolving the United States if hardline pro-slavery advocates managed to impose new pro-slavery policies in northern states. Or, as stated by New York lawyer George Templeton Strong at the time: “the self-amputated members were diseased beyond immediate cure, and their virus will infect our system no longer.”
Had Lincoln had half the sense of these northerners, who preferred secession to war, America would have been spared 700,000 war dead.2
Image credit, 1847 portrait of Lincoln, Via Wikipedia, “Attributed to Nicholas H. Shepherd, based on the recollections of Gibson W. Harris, a law student in Lincoln’s office from 1845 to 1847. - Library of Congress“
