[A Defense of Virginia and the South by Robert L. Dabney, (1867; Annotated Edition 2020.)]
Murray Rothbard considers the cause of the South in the War between the States as one of two just wars in American history, the other being the Revolutionary War. As he puts it:
There have been only two wars in American history that were, in my view, assuredly and unquestionably proper and just; not only that, the opposing side waged a war that was clearly and notably unjust. Why? Because we did not have to question whether a threat against our liberty and property was clear or present; in both of these wars, Americans were trying to rid themselves of an unwanted domination by another people. And in both cases, the other side ferociously tried to maintain their coercive rule over Americans. In each case, one side – “our side” if you will – was notably just, the other side – “their side” – unjust. To be specific, the two just wars in American history were the American Revolution, and the War for Southern Independence.
That being so, it behooves us to examine the defense of the South offered by one of its most able advocates, the theologian Robert L. Dabney. He asks an important question: What was the nature of the American Union at its founding? His answer is that it consisted of independent commonwealths joined together for certain common purposes. It was not a centralized state. As Dabney says, in his colorful style (he would write “colourful”):
But my purpose in the following pages is, first and chiefly, to lay this pious and filial defence upon the tomb of my murdered mother, Virginia. Her detractors, after committing the crime of destroying a sovereign and coequal commonwealth, seek also to bury her memory under a load of obloquy and falsehood. The last and only office that remains to her sons is to leave their testimony for her righteous fame—feeble it may be now, amidst the din of passion and material power, yet inextinguishable as Truth’s own torch. History will someday bring present events before her impartial bar; and then her ministers will recall my obscure little book, and will recognize in it the words of truth and righteousness, attested by the signatures of time and events.
He deplores the barbarity of the campaign that was waged against the South:
Finally: the means by which this defence has been overpowered were as iniquitous as the attack. A war was waged, precipitated by treachery, aggravated by every measure of barbarity condemned by the laws of nations, by the agency of multitudinous hordes of foreign mercenaries, and semi-civilized slaves seduced from their owners; against captives, women, children, and private property; with the attempt to let loose upon our little community (which they found otherwise unconquerable) a servile insurrection and all the horrors of domestic assassination—an attempt disappointed only by the good feeling and good character which the servants themselves had learned from the humanity of their masters. The impartial and magnanimous mind which weighs these facts cannot but feel itself swelling with an unutterable sense of indignation.
In one respect, Dabney poses an interesting challenge to Rothbardians. Unlike Rothbard, who thinks that the Declaration of Independence was based on the thought of John Locke, Dabney rejects Locke, holding that equal natural rights are inconsistent with the necessary hierarchical basis of society:
The popular theory of man’s natural rights, of the origin of governments, and of the moral obligation of allegiance, is that which traces them to a social contract. The true origin of this theory may be found with Hobbes of Malmesbury. It owes its respectability among Englishmen, chiefly to the pious John Locke, a sort of baptized image of that atheistic philosopher; and it was ardently held by the infidel democrats of the first French revolution. According to this scheme, each person is by nature an independent integer, wholly sui juris, absolutely equal to every other man, and naturally entitled, as a “Lord of Creation,” to exercise his whole will. Man’s natural liberty was accordingly defined as privilege to do whatever he wished. True, Locke attempts to limit this monstrous postulate by defining man’s native liberty as privilege to do whatever he wished within the limits of the law of nature. But this virtually returns to the same; because he teaches that man is by nature absolutely independent, so that he must be himself the supreme, original judge, what this law of nature is. According to the doctrine of the social contract, man’s natural rights are confounded with this so-called natural liberty. Each man’s natural right is to protect his own existence, and to possess himself of whatever will render it happier, (Locke again adds, within the limits of natural law.) And this scheme most essentially ignored the originality of moral distinctions.
Dabney opposes the deduction of the principles of morality from first principles. Morality has an inductive basis:
This scheme is thoroughly unphilosophical, in that whereas the science of government should be an inductive one, this theory is, and in its nature must be, purely hypothetical. No body, no history pretends to relate in a single instance, any such facts as it professes to rest upon. This Locke admits, and even claims, absurdly seeking in this mode to evade this vital objection. Hence, we assert that it has no claims to be entertained in foro scientiæ, [before the tribunal of reason] even for discussion.
He poses some penetrating objections to contract theories of government:
If man at first possessed that natural liberty, and passed from it under the obligation of constitutions and laws by a social contract, then sundry most inconvenient and preposterous consequences must logically follow. One of these is, that when once men had established their constitution (in other words, their compact) so long as its terms were observed by the magistrates and the minority, the majority could never righteously change it, no matter how inconvenient, or even ruinous, new circumstances might have made it, against the will of the minority or of the rulers. For when one has made a voluntary bargain, subsequent inconveniences of it do not justify its breach. The just man is one who changeth not, though he “sweareth to his own hurt.” Another consequence would be, that it could never be settled what were the terms agreed upon in the original compact, and what part of existing laws were the accretions of unwarranted power, except in the case of written constitutions. Few nations have such. But a far worse consequence would be, that if the duty of allegiance originated in such compact, then any one unconstitutional act of the rulers or majority would dissolve it. For it is a covenant; but a covenant broken by one party is broken for both.
Rothbard could reply to this that he, too, rejects social contract theories of government. Indeed, some of Dabney’s criticisms of these theories resemble those made by the libertarian anarchist Lysander Spooner.
I urge Rothbardians to study Dabney and to work out how best to respond to him.
