War and Liberty in American History; W. A. Riddle

James Madison, the Father of the Con stitution, said those words in 1795.1 Today, renewed interest in the topic of war follows renewed interest in the subject of liberty. Indeed, a critical component of the repub lican ideology that gave birth to this country deals with war and comes to us from clas sical antiquity through the filter of the lib ertarian English Whig tradition. Mr. Riddle teaches American History at the u.s. Military Academy, West Point. This essay is based on excerpts from remarks presented at a FEE summer seminar in Irvington-on-Hudson, August 14, 1995. Clearly, the effects of war described by Madison are contrary to the interest of liberty, unless a country fights to free itself or defend its freedom from an aggressor. War typically endangers liberty-at least the way it was understood by our philosoph ical forebears. For as Thomas Gordon wrote in Cato's Letters (No. 62, January 20, 1721), liberty is "the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruit of his labour, art, and industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any members of it, by taking from any member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. "

It is precisely because war suspends nor mal, peaceful, voluntary interactions that it is a usurpation of liberty. Moreover, war is likely to infringe liberty at all levels of exchange and development-individual, so cietal, and international. Conscription; command economic policies; government propaganda; restricted rights of speech and assembly; surveillance of private citizens; curfews and blackouts-these are all com mon forms of usurpation, along with debts and taxes. Indeed, it is partly because this nation has been continuously at war for so long that we have 'come so close to losing all our most precious freedoms. ("No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare~ ") But the Founders were cognizant of the dangers posed by war to liberty and to a liberal republic, and they 102 designed the Constitution with them in mind. ConstitutionalAbandonment It is partly because this nation has so flagrantly abandoned the Constitution of originalintent that we face the current crisis.